Andromache saw the man’s head bow down. “I promised to see you safe,” he said. “And I failed you.”
“Don’t say that! You did not fail me, Kalliades. Not once. You gave me my life back. You and Banokles. Your friendship restored me.” Her gaze shifted to Andromache, who leaned in close and kissed her. “It was Melite,” Kalliope said, her voice fading. “She told me wicked men would come for you. I… I had to… be there.”
“And you were,” Andromache whispered.
Kalliope fell silent. The huge blond warrior leaned in close, and Andromache saw there were tears in his eyes.
“You are all so sad,” Kalliope said. “I am not sad. All the people… I love… are with me.” Her eyes fastened on the bright moon above. “And there… is… Artemis…”
Then she was silent.
Andromache stared down at the pale, still face of her lover and heard again the words of Aklides. His vision had been true but misinterpreted. He had seen Helikaon with one sandal and Hektor rising from the ground covered in the filth of pigs.
But he had also seen a figure coming to her in the moonlight with blood and pain. And, seeing the short hair, he had mistaken that vision for a young man. Reaching out, Andromache lifted Kalliope’s hand, kissing the fingers. “You are my moon,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. “Stay with me, Kalliope. Please!”
Banokles laid his hand on her arm. “She has gone, lady. The brave girl has gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE TREACHEROUS HOUND
The sandy shoreline beneath the high gray cliffs of Ithaka lay silent save for the cry of gulls. The group of wooden huts that housed fishermen and their families seemed deserted under the hazy afternoon sun.
The old galley Penelope, her exposed hull heavily barnacled, was pulled up high on the sand. Forgotten and neglected, her once-gleaming timbers were bleached now by the blistering sun, her planks warped and twisted.
From the shaded portico of her palace the queen of Ithaka gazed at her namesake with sadness. For three long years the ship had been abandoned there, forsaken by Odysseus in favor of the war galley Bloodhawk. Though ideal for a cargo vessel, the Penelope was no fighting ship. For one season only she had continued plying her trade for an Ithakan merchant, but the bloody war on the Great Green had made trading by sea increasingly dangerous, and the galley had been discarded in favor of smaller, faster ships that risked the triangular run between Ithaka, Kephallenia, and the mainland or northwest toward the distant settlement of Seven Hills.
Penelope drew her blue shawl around her and peered out to sea. It seemed so calm today, yet far beyond the line of her sight there would be men dying in despair as their ships foundered or their villages burned. In lands all around the Great Green wives and mothers would be weeping for the lost, their dreams impaled on the spears of angry men. The seed of new hatreds would be spread with every raid, planted in the hearts of those who survived, children who would grow into men filled with a desire for vengeance.
Yet even with the knowledge of the evils of war, she had supported Odysseus in his actions. “You could do no less, my husband,” she had said when he had returned to her three years earlier, cursing and fuming still over his insulting treatment in Troy, “for such slights cannot be ignored.”
In her heart she wished they could have been. If the kings of the world were reasonable men, clear-thinking and far-sighted, such wars would never occur. Yet reasonable men rarely ascended to thrones, and when they did, it was even more rare for them to survive for long. Successful kings were brutal and greedy, men of blood and death, warriors who believed in nothing but the power of sword and spear. Penelope sighed. The husband she loved had tried to be a reasonable man. Yet beneath the affable surface there had always lurked the warrior king.
He had spent that first winter with her, nursing his anger through the long nights, then in spring had left to go raiding in the lands of his new enemies. The name Bloodhawk now inspired fear from the coasts of Thraki down the great isles of the eastern mainland to Lykia in the south. She had last seen her king early in the year. After being forced to winter on Kypros while his damaged ship was repaired, Odysseus had hurried back to Ithaka for a brief visit. Penelope smoothed down the front of her dress, remembering the few precious days and nights they had spent together.
Her sadness grew with each passing season, for each time he returned to her, he seemed to be moving backward in time. At first he had entered the war with some regrets, spurred on by anger and pride. But now she knew he was reveling in reexperiencing his youth. Odysseus the bluff genial trader, sliding slowly into comfortable old age, was gone, replaced by Odysseus the reaver, the cool and calculating planner, the strategos. Her heart ached for the man he once had been.
Shading her eyes with her hand, Penelope saw movement on the horizon, and a line of ships appeared there. They were heading straight for the island. Her heart leaped for a moment. Could it be Odysseus? The hope lasted mere heartbeats. She had heard only days before that the Bloodhawk had been seen heading north from the Mykene settlement on Kos.
She could see now that it was a large fleet with one great ship plunging through the waves far ahead of the others.
The Xanthos! A warship that size could be no other.
She heard running feet behind her and turned to see Bias. The old warrior had a sword in his left hand. A round wooden buckler had been clumsily strapped to the stump of his ruined right arm.
“Lady! It is the Xanthos! We must make for the hill fort.”
Behind him fisherfolk were emerging from the huts, and the men of the small garrison of Ithaka, many of them merely boys or ancients, were racing down to the beach, some faces grim, many frightened. Odysseus had left a force of two hundred to guard his fortress and his queen. Penelope studied the fleet. Thirty-one ships she counted. Close to two thousand fighting men.
She said to Bias, raising her voice so that the soldiers could hear, “I am the queen of Ithaka, wife to the great Odysseus. I do not hide like a frightened peasant.”
The Xanthos was heading toward the shore at ramming speed, its great prow carving the waves with the speed of a running horse. Penelope could hear the lusty chant of the rowers and clearly see the bearded face of a sailor looking over the prow.
“Hold!” came the bellowed order from the ship, and the chanting ceased suddenly as oars were raised. There was a moment when the Xanthos seemed suspended above the beach; then she crashed onto the shore, her keel ripping into the sand and spraying gravel on all sides.
As the huge galley lurched to a halt, sluicing water from her planks, the queen turned to her small force. “Go to the fort and prepare to defend it. Now!” For a moment they stood unmoving. “Go!” she repeated. Reluctantly they retreated past the palace and up the hillside to the ephemeral safety of the wooden stockade. Bias did not move.
“Does the queen not have your loyalty?” she asked him.
“She has my love and my life. I’ll not hide behind wooden walls while you risk yours.”
Anger touched her, and she was about to order him back, when the round buckler slid from his shriveled stump and clattered to the sand. She felt his embarrasment and his shame.
“Walk with me, Bias,” she said. “It will be comforting to have your strength by me.”
They strode side by side down the beach. Penelope had never seen the Xanthos before, and she marveled at its size and beauty, though her face remained serene.