Odysseus: The Oath

  ‘Father, do you remember seeing the boy at the window?’

  ‘Yes, I saw him. It was Eumelus.’

  ‘He was sending me signals.’

  ‘What? What kind of signals?’

  ‘Like the ones shepherds use to communicate at a distance. We use them on the island too.’

  ‘Of course we do. And what did he say?’

  ‘Two cypresses.’

  My father pulled on the reins and stopped the chariot. Mentor, behind us, and the others of our escort did the same.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘A place, I think, along the road we’re taking. He knows where we are headed. A place marked by two cypress trees.’

  ‘A tomb, perhaps. And something might happen there?’

  ‘I think we’ll understand when we get there.’

  We started up again, at a slow pace. We reached another fork: left to Tiryns and the sea, right to Argus. We looked around: no one was following us, no one was ahead of us.

  The fields were full of farmers already at work, reaping the barley and gathering the hay. The herdsmen and shepherds were taking their animals to pasture. Behind us rose Tiryns, at the top of a rock towering over the tilled fields. I turned to see it better, white and blue in the middle of the green countryside, so beautiful. And I saw the two cypress trees.

  ‘There they are, father! Look!’

  ‘Open land, and we’re not very far from Mycenae . . . what shall we do?’

  ‘I’ll go alone. If all of our chariots turn in that direction, we’ll be visible from a distance. I don’t think anything escapes Eurystheus’ men. If the boy is there, he and I will return together. If he’s not there, I’ll wait until the sun is two spans above the horizon and then I’ll come back alone. You wait for me here, behind those trees, so you won’t be seen; it will look like we’ve stopped for a rest. In the meantime, tell Mentor what I’ve told you.’

  I set off on foot, keeping up a good pace, towards the two cypress trees. A path led through the fields, planted with crops that I didn’t recognize. The cypresses were two big trees, visible at quite a distance, rising alongside an ancient burial mound which perhaps marked the tomb of some ancient hero. I approached warily, looking all around, but the place was deserted. I let some time pass, checking every now and then how far the sun had risen from the horizon. My father and his men were well hidden in the forest and even I couldn’t see them at this distance.

  I found him suddenly at my side, as if he’d appeared from nowhere.

  ‘Where were you?’ I asked.

  The boy pointed to the entrance to the tomb.

  ‘There? Weren’t you afraid the dead would pull you underground?’

  He shook his head. He wasn’t afraid. He knew that he had much more to fear from the living than from the dead.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  He pointed at a path that snaked through the fields in the middle of high rows of elms and poplars. From a distance no one would have been able to pick him out. He must have got out of some window at the back of the palace, dropped down and taken a shortcut to get out to the fields.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I told him. ‘Once they discover you’re missing they’ll be looking for you everywhere.’

  He nodded and let me take his hand and lead him to where my father was waiting.

  The time he’d spent in the palace must have taught him to keep his thoughts to himself, for he avoided talking whenever possible.

  ‘Listen,’ I told him, ‘when we’re with the king my father you’ll have to tell him everything you know: he’s risking a lot to help you and so am I. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I know,’ replied Eumelus. Enough said, in his mind.

  My father emerged from the forest as soon as he saw us crossing the road. ‘We’ll leave immediately,’ he said, ‘but we’ll split up. You and I will go to Argus with the child on a byroad. Mentor and the others will continue along the main road, but they’ll split up again as soon as possible. We’ve already discussed it. We’ll meet up on the isthmus in six days’ time, at dusk. This way we won’t attract undue attention. Now let’s get moving.’

  We said goodbye and separated. Each chariot left a long wake of dust behind it, racing off down the main road. We took a lesser road that wasn’t heavily trafficked. In no time, our route became a mere footpath that climbed up towards the hills. Eumelus seemed to be having a lot of fun, and he wanted to hold the reins and drive the chariot himself.

  ‘This boy is full of spunk,’ said my father, letting him have a go. ‘He’ll have a chariot of his own one day!’

  In the meantime I was thinking: Eurystheus would be more or less certain by now that the boy had somehow managed to join our party. We’d taken this byway, counting on the fact that Eurystheus and his men would see the wake of dust from the other chariots heading north and would decide to follow them in an attempt to catch us. It was also reasonable to assume, however, that Eurystheus would credit us with a bit of cunning, given our family tradition. It would make perfect sense, then, for them to search for us on the less busy and less practicable thoroughfares, which was the way we’d logically choose to go if we were trying to hide the child. Actually, they would most likely decide to go both ways, and then we would truly have no way out. We needed another stratagem.

  The first time we stopped, I asked Eumelus to repeat everything he’d told me about the night of the massacre to my father, leaving nothing out. He agreed. He told the story with a wealth of details, and even told us that the bodies of Hercules’ wife and children had been dumped in a common grave outside the city walls. That’s why he had decided to scrape up the blood that had dried between the cracks in the flooring, so that he could bury the little leather sack in the shade of a pine tree overlooking the sun-drenched valley.

  ‘A better place for them.’

  ‘What were you doing at Mycenae in the first place?’ asked my father.

  ‘The king had asked my parents. Why would they refuse? It’s customary for a prince to spend time as a page in another king’s court.’

  As they were speaking I had wandered off to check the path that climbed up from the valley and I’d spotted Eurystheus’ men. I returned to my father. ‘They’re on their way,’ I said. ‘We could have expected as much, right?’

  ‘Yes. But now what would you do, you who are so clever?’

  ‘We have two choices: try to make them believe that we never came this way at all . . .’

  ‘. . . By wiping away every trace of our passage. Gather the horses’ dung, take apart the chariot, hide the pieces and hide the horses. Find a hiding place ourselves. Until they’ve gone on.’

  ‘Complicated, time-consuming and difficult. Perhaps we don’t have the time. If they’re coming this way it means they’ve seen us and if they find us in hiding, things can only get worse. Easier to hide him,’ I said, turning to Eumelus. ‘Do you see that pine down there, halfway down the hill?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Are you good at climbing?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s all I did when I was little, living on Mount Pelion.’

  ‘Good. Run as fast as you can. By the time they get here, you must already be at the top, and you’ll stay there until I come looking for you.’

  Eumelus disappeared into the woods.

  ‘He’s Thessalian,’ said my father. ‘Their land is covered with forests: they learn to climb trees even before they learn to talk.’

  I opened the bag with our provisions and gave some food to my father. ‘Let them find us here sitting calmly and enjoying a meal, but we’ll be ready for anything. The first thing they’ll be asking themselves is why we separated from the others. So, what shall we say?’ This time it was me soliciting the inventiveness of Laertes’ mind.

  ‘Because we’re going to Arcadia,’ he replied instantly. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of the Sanctuary of the Wolf King? Your grandfather’s name strikes fear into everyone’s heart. Let me do the talking.?
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  THERE WERE a dozen of them, well armed, on five chariots. We’d seen them at the palace and we greeted them.

  ‘Has something happened?’ asked my father.

  ‘We’re searching for a child. A young prince, entrusted to the care of the palace.’

  ‘And you’re looking for him here?’

  ‘That’s right. He disappeared when you left. Why have you separated from the rest of your party?’

  We exchanged a glance, King Laertes and I, and our heart laughed because we’d foreseen everything.

  ‘Why, we’re going to Arcadia. To the Sanctuary of the Wolf King . . .’

  The smiles were wiped off the faces of our pursuers.

  ‘It’s a family matter, I’m sure you understand. My son’s grandfather, my father-in-law, of whom you will have heard speak, has the blood of the wolf mixed with his own, and I want to avoid a similar curse for Odysseus. No one wants to see his own son turning into a wolf once a month, only to surprise and slaughter lonely wayfarers in a deserted place late at night.

  ‘We would happily join forces with you searching for your precious guest but, you see, we’re in a hurry. We have to make it to the sanctuary before the full moon. If we don’t arrive in time the consequences could be very unfortunate indeed; not only for us, but for yourselves as well. Trust me.’

  That was all that was needed. They took a hasty look around and went back to where they’d come from. I waited until I could see them back at the start of the path on the plain before going to Eumelus, but only to tell him to follow us without leaving the forest.

  Until night had fallen.

  10

  WE WENT ON UNTIL THE SUN set and we were completely certain that no one had been following us except for our young prince walking in the woods. Our path had led us high up the mountain-side and the night air was chilly. We came across a fire that some shepherd must have abandoned. My father pulled on the reins and stopped the horses. The embers of the fire were still glowing under the ashes, so it was easy to rekindle the flames with some dry leaves and twigs. I called out to Eumelus to tell him that it was safe to leave the forest. No answer.

  ‘Where are you?’ I called then turned to my father: ‘Where could he have gone? I told him to follow us, without leaving the forest. He can’t have got lost.’

  My father dropped his head and sighed. ‘He’s a strange child,’ he said. ‘Maybe he changed his mind. I thought he trusted us. Maybe he was frightened by what happened.’

  ‘So am I, atta, I’m more than just afraid of that story you came up with! Tell me the truth: what does the Sanctuary of the Wolf King in Arcadia have to do with how grandfather got his name?’

  ‘Nothing, those are just stories that people have made up because your grandfather has such a nasty disposition and he has a name . . . well, he has a name unlike any other. But perhaps I shouldn’t have told Eurystheus’ warriors that story.’

  ‘Of course you should have: it made them turn back.’

  ‘Quiet!’ said my father, laying his hand on his sword. I heard the sound of twigs breaking and Eumelus appeared. His left hand held a rabbit he had captured and killed somehow.

  ‘Do you have a knife?’ he asked.

  I handed him mine. He skinned the rabbit and removed the entrails, separating the heart, liver, spleen and kidneys from the bowels, then skewered it with the knife and set it over the embers to roast. We watched in amazement.

  ‘Where did you learn that?’ I asked him.

  ‘Where I live, they leave you in the forest when you’re little and you have to learn to survive. Some don’t make it back. Most learn.’

  When we had satiated our hunger and wrapped ourselves in our woollen cloaks, the urge to talk came upon us. The sky was full of big, luminous stars, and light puffs of wind rustled the oak leaves. I heard the screeching song of an owl. Athena! She was close, watching over me. I felt her presence in the forest, her green and gold eyes seeking me out.

  ‘Young prince,’ began my father, ‘are you certain that you saw what you told us? Might you not have dreamt it? Sometimes dreams seem truer than reality.’

  ‘What about the blood? Have you forgotten that I brought you their blood?’ said the boy.

  ‘That’s true. The blood,’ admitted my father.

  ‘But why did they do it? Why didn’t they kill him as well?’ I asked.

  ‘Eurystheus is too shrewd to have made such a mistake,’ my father replied. ‘The townspeople would surely have accused him of the misdeed. They would have rebelled against him and brought him down. Hercules has always been close to the people’s hearts; everyone adored him and would certainly have wanted him to take his cousin’s place as king of Mycenae and Tiryns. Eurystheus did this to demolish Hercules’ reputation as a hero whose generosity knew no limits. He had to turn the hero into a bloodthirsty monster who would slaughter his own family. And spread the news everywhere, not only among the people but among the kings.’

  My father turned back to the boy. ‘And afterwards? The morning after? What happened then?’

  A spirit passed in the night, the oak trees shivered. Eumelus took a deep breath and began speaking and both my father and I were astonished. He seemed like someone else: the little boy who had said so few words up to then suddenly began to describe what he had experienced in great detail, like a raging river breaking its banks, like a singer inspired by the gods. I think it was Athena who freed the words that now tumbled from the circle of his teeth. Even the timbre of his voice sounded different.

  ‘Hercules awoke with his sword in hand, surrounded by the slain bodies of his wife and children. He let out a roar of anguish and horror that I will never forget. The entire palace trembled, the horses broke out of their pens, the crows fled the towers, cawing. I crept down the corridor just in time to see the king’s guards taking the sword from Hercules before he could turn it on himself. Eurystheus then appeared out of nowhere and cried loudly: “How could you? How could you have committed such a heinous crime?”

  ‘Hercules looked as if he’d lost his mind: he let himself be bound in chains and dragged underground to a prison chamber. As they were hauling him off, the king shouted after him: “What you have done is too terrible to be judged by any man. Only a god can judge you and inflict the punishment you deserve.”

  ‘There was great despair in the palace. People wept because they could not believe what they had heard. Or because they did believe it, and Hercules was the one man on all the earth they had thought was good and just. I badly wanted to find a way to get into the prison and tell him the truth. I was certain that he would snap his chains and break down the door, and then after chasing Eurystheus through every room of the palace he would crush him like a cockroach. But no one could get close to him.

  ‘Days and nights passed in this way. From the window of my room I saw them carrying the corpses of those innocents out in darkness and tossing them into a nameless hole they’d dug in an unmarked spot in the valley. I saw the monster himself standing on the tower rising over the chasm and watching against a red sky.

  ‘I learned to hide, to escape his sight, to live as if I didn’t exist. If anyone found out that I had seen everything, my life would be worthless. I stopped speaking, sometimes I was even afraid to think, afraid that Eurystheus could read my mind.

  ‘In the end, the verdict that everyone has become familiar with was pronounced. Eurystheus solemnly declared that the Oracle had been consulted and had condemned Hercules to atone for his crime by liberating the world of all the monsters infesting it: wild beasts, evil giants, savage predators that feed on human flesh. “If you do so, and you survive, you will perhaps have expiated your guilt. If you die, as you deserve to, no one will weep for you: you will have paid your debt,” said the king his cousin.

  ‘This was certainly what Eurystheus had hoped for; that his rival would be killed off in one of those impossible labours, his memory and his honour stained for all time. He had Hercules released from his chains.
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  ‘Since that day, Hercules has wandered through the spheres of nightmare, taking on these seemingly impossible tasks. He has given up all his weapons, all his clothing and ornaments, and lives like a wild man. He dons nothing but the pelt of a lion that he killed with his bare hands near Nemea, he brandishes an uprooted tree trunk as his club and he feeds on whatever he finds.’

  My father laid a hand on Eumelus’ shoulder. ‘You acted bravely and wisely, and the most important thing is that you lived to pass on the truth. Eurystheus had us followed because he is tormented by doubts about how much you know, and he’d have no scruples about killing you for that. Now that you’re free, he’ll have no peace until he does away with you; we’ll have to be extremely careful. Remember: on the day that you meet Hercules, it will be your duty to tell him everything you saw.’

  ‘But how will I ever be able to meet him? No one knows where he is.’

  ‘You will surely see him again, when the time comes. Your testimony will lift an unbearable weight from his heart. Try to rest now. Tomorrow a long journey awaits us.’

  They lay down near the fire. I, instead, ventured into the forest, hoping I would meet my goddess. The owl’s song had inspired me, as if Athena herself were calling to me, just like the first night I’d slept in my grandfather’s house in Acarnania. I walked for a short while but it felt as though I had travelled a long distance when, in the moonlight, I saw a nest of leaves at the foot of an enormous ash tree. I felt that she was close, so close that I was a little afraid. Then I was overcome by a sense of deep fatigue and I lay down on the bed of leaves.

  Behind closed eyes, I saw seven armies laying siege to the walls of a city with seven gates. Each army was led by a great warrior. Seven more warriors were on the inside, trying to drive them back. At the fourth gate I saw the goddess, armed, protecting the city. None of the attackers could hope to defeat her. She was dreadful to behold: a crested helmet on her head, a gorgon on her shield and the aegis on her breast.

  My vision was fragmented into a thousand shards, into a frenzy of blood, of neighing and shrieking, of horses dashing at a gallop against the ramparts and walls of the stronghold. Duels of man against man, king against king. I saw one of the skirmishers climbing the wall and hurling himself at his opponent. They plunged their blades into each other’s bodies. The attacker took a blow to his side but sank his own sword into the neck of his adversary, who crashed to the ground lifeless. The victor raised a cry of triumph but suddenly fell to his knees as he saw his own blood flowing copiously from his side onto the ground. I realized that this man was beloved by the goddess and she, springing from one tower to the next like a sparrowhawk, had come to save him from death. Tydeus was his name. Melanippus his enemy.