As they swept by it, Eperitus reached out and caught hold of the rock. It tore the skin from his palms, but he got a firm grip and pulled on it against the fierce current. Half senseless with exhaustion, he hauled them both to relative safety behind the shelf of smooth stone. At that same moment something reached down and touched his shoulder.
‘Take my hand,’ a voice shouted. ‘Quickly.’
Looking up, he saw Odysseus silhouetted against the bright sky. Eperitus shook his head and indicated Halitherses. ‘Take him first. I can hold on a while longer, but he’s weak.’
With what little strength he had left, Eperitus lifted the old man out of the swirling water and within reach of Odysseus, who caught him under the shoulders and hauled him up as if he was a baby. Moments later Eperitus felt a hand close around his wrist and Odysseus’s immense strength pulling him free of the river. He slumped onto the broad, flat top of the rock and vomited the liquid he had swallowed.
‘No, I didn’t use it,’ Odysseus answered when Eperitus asked him about the clay owl Athena had given him. He glanced about himself to ensure that nobody could hear. ‘It’s safe in my pouch. I’ll only call on her if Ithaca itself is threatened.’
They were drying themselves around a fire by the bank. Miraculously, Halitherses had only been stunned by the kick of the mule, and now sat opposite them eating barley broth from a wooden bowl, seemingly unaffected by his trials. The mule had been dashed to death in the rapids. Despite the fact that its load would now have to be shared between them, the men were all happy to be across the river alive and together.
It was early afternoon already, but they could not afford to waste time recuperating from their ordeals. The urgency of their mission forced them to strike their makeshift camp and march south again towards Messene. The land was becoming hillier as the eastern mountains rose beside them and they found very little sign of human life in the curiously deserted land. By last light they had not seen a single person and decided to find shelter in a small grove of trees on a conical foothill, where they made a fire. As the evening drew in and the men got weary of talk, Halitherses thanked Eperitus for saving his life and promised to return the gift.
‘Until I have that chance, though,’ he continued firmly with a smile, ‘you are still under my orders and will be accorded no special favours. Therefore I have to remind you it’s your turn to take first watch tonight.’
‘Keep an eye out for werewolves,’ Odysseus added unhelpfully, curling up under his cloak and closing his eyes.
Eperitus did not welcome his joke as he picked up his shield and spear and trudged out alone to the edge of the ring of trees. Sitting down at the top of the rock-strewn slope, he looked out at the land before him. To the south rose the mountains that lay between them and Messene. Not far to the west was the coast, and beyond it the sea. The sun had long since sunk behind the horizon, leaving the land between mountains and ocean in a stagnant twilight. Although they had met nobody on their journey to this place, Eperitus now saw that here and there in the quiescent landscape lights were beginning to show. There were not many of them and he was unable to see whether they marked farms, homesteads or whole villages, but at least he knew they were not alone in that strange country.
Suddenly a howl broke the stillness of the evening. Startled, he jumped up and looked about himself. Another call came in answer and he realized they were distant, far away from where he stood guard. Nevertheless, he longed for company and hoped that one of the others might join him.
They did not, and he was left alone in the deepening darkness. The wolves, if that was what they truly were, did not call out again and the unsettled landscape began to reclaim its serenity. Above him the stars shone bright and sharp, as if newly created, and an owl hooted as it hunted in the dales below the hill. Then a sudden noise broke the stillness.
Eperitus seized his spear and stood up, squinting into the darkness. There before him stood a man. Eperitus could make out nothing of him in the darkness, only that he was groaning as if in pain. Suddenly he stumbled forward. Eperitus raised his spear to defend himself, but at the last moment recognized the handsome features of the man’s face. Throwing the weapon aside, Eperitus reached out and caught him.
It was Mentor.
Chapter Ten
THE FALL OF ITHACA
The first of the suitors had arrived. Helen lay on a couch that had been draped in the finest purple cloth. A slave girl was busy trimming and polishing her toenails, ready to be painted. Beside her waited a small jar of plant and berry juices, mixed by the slave earlier that morning to make a thick red pigment.
Her maid raised one foot and started carefully applying the pigment. ‘What do you think of Menelaus, my lady?’
Helen smiled, knowing her answer would be spread rapidly through the servant’s quarters, if not the entire palace. ‘Tell me what you think, Neaera.’
The slave girl blushed. ‘Well, he’s handsome and strong with beautiful auburn hair . . .’
‘Which is thinning on top,’ Helen added.
‘I don’t have your height, my lady, so I can’t tell. But he’s a fine-looking man nonetheless, very wealthy, and he treats everyone as if they were royalty. Even slaves.’
Helen withdrew her foot and sat up, sighing with frustration. ‘Yes, he’s all of those things. Although I’ve only met him once, he also seems a kind-hearted, thoughtful man with good manners and a love of the simple life. And if Agamemnon is to be believed, I won’t find a man amongst his peers who has such fairness of mind, modesty of character, depth of intelligence or courage of spirit.’
‘Oh, my lady,’ exclaimed the slave with excitement. ‘Then you will marry him?’
Helen shook her head. ‘No, I won’t. Menelaus doesn’t inspire the least morsel of desire in me.’
The slave girl looked deflated. ‘Then who will you marry, my lady? Diomedes is coming. And Ajax, they say.’
‘That oaf!’
‘I’ve even heard that Achilles will come,’ Neaera persisted. ‘Surely you can’t turn down someone as handsome as Achilles?’
‘How do you know how handsome Achilles is?’ Helen scoffed. ‘Besides, don’t you know that Achilles is little more than a boy? How can I fall for a boy, whatever his pedigree?’
‘Then who, my lady?’ Neaera implored. With all the bets that were being placed in the palace, the slave who managed to obtain the secret of Helen’s true desire could win enough money to buy their own freedom.
‘Do you really think I’ll be allowed to choose?’ Helen asked bitterly. ‘Tyndareus is only interested in Agamemnon’s favour, and Agamemnon is only interested in a marriage of power. He knows that whoever wins me inherits my father’s throne. That’s why they will choose Menelaus, because Agamemnon’s brother will eventually become King of Sparta and the Atreides will be the most powerful dynasty in Greece.’
The slave girl looked at the princess for a moment. The politics of power meant nothing to her, but she recognized the sadness beneath her mistress’s anger. ‘Then who do you like most?’
‘None of them, Neaera,’ Helen said, throwing herself back onto the couch. ‘Does that win your wager with your friends for you? There isn’t one of those supposed noblemen who inspires any passion within my heart. What would I want with an overdressed, obnoxious, arrogant buffoon, however pretty he is or how nice he smells? I don’t care how many men they’ve killed or how many cities they’ve plundered: I want a man who makes me feel my heart beat in my throat when he enters the room. I couldn’t care less if he’s ugly, or even if he’s poor, within reason, as long as he takes me away from all this . . .’ she swept a white arm through the air, ‘paraphernalia. Find me a real man who doesn’t give a damn for power or the glory of the Greeks, and who can take me from this palace, then I’ll tell you who I really favour.’