A rope was thrown over the side, and Helikaon climbed down to the beach. Penelope looked with sadness upon the notorious killer who once had been a boy she loved. He was wearing a faded linen kilt, and his black hair was pulled back with a leather thong. He was bronzed dark by the sun and bore a stitched, barely healed scar on one thigh and a recent unhealed one on his chest. He glanced at the hulk of Odysseus’ old ship as he strode up the beach, but his face betrayed no expression.
“Greetings, lady,” he said, bowing his head slightly. She looked into his violent blue eyes and saw tension and tiredness. Why was he there? To kill her and her people? She realized she knew nothing about him now save his reputation as a killer without mercy or restraint.
She avoided looking at the other ships as they sailed toward the beach and forced a welcoming smile.
“Helikaon, greetings! It is too many summers since we last welcomed you here. I will have food and wine brought down. We can talk of happier times.”
He smiled tightly. “Thank you, lady, but my ships are well provisioned. We enjoyed the hospitality of old Nestor and his people on our way here. We have food and water for many days.”
Penelope was shocked, although she would not show it. She had no idea Pylos had been attacked. How many dead? she wondered. She had many friends there and kinsmen.
“But you will break bread with me, the way we used to?” she asked, ruthlessly dismissing from her mind thoughts of the dead of Pylos. She could not help them; she could only save her own people.
He nodded and gazed assessingly at the old fort and the armed men who now lined the stockade walls. “Yes, lady, we will break bread.” He turned to Bias. “I heard you lost that arm at a battle off Kretos. I am glad you survived.”
The black man’s eyes narrowed. “I hope you burn, Helikaon,” he said coldly, “and your death ship with you.”
Penelope gestured for him to move back, and the old man, staring balefully at Helikaon, retreated several steps. The queen turned to him. “I am in no danger now, Bias. Return to the fort.” Bias bowed his head, glared once more at Helikaon, then strode away.
Servants brought a blanket to lay on the sand, and Helikaon and the queen sat down. Though the sun blazed in the sky, Penelope ordered a welcome fire lit, as was the custom when entertaining friends. Wine and bread were laid before them, but they ate and drank little.
“Tell me news, Helikaon. Little reaches us here in far Ithaka.”
Helikaon looked into her face. “The only news is of war, lady, and I’m sure you have no genuine wish to hear of it. Many are dying up and down the Great Green. There are no victors. Your husband lives, I am told. We have not encountered each other. I have no recent news of the Bloodhawk. I came here for one reason, to pay my respects to you.”
“I know the reason you came here,” Penelope said angrily, leaning forward, her voice low. “To show Odysseus that you could. You threaten his people—”
His face tightened. “I have not threatened you, and I will not.”
“Your very presence here is a threat. It is a message to Odysseus that he cannot guard those he loves. Your first words to me were to boast of attacking my kinsmen at Pylos. I am not a fool, Helikaon. I was queen here when you were a babe in arms. I know why you are here.”
“He left you poorly guarded,” he said, gesturing at the small Ithakan force.
They sat in silence for a while. Penelope was furious with herself. Her first priority was to save her people from attack. Antagonizing Helikaon was more than foolish. She could not believe he would set his killers on her people, yet tension etched into the skin around his eyes told of unresolved conflicts in his mind.
Calming herself, she asked pleasantly, “How is your little son? He must be three now.”
Helikaon’s face lightened. “He is a joy. I miss him every day I am away. But he is not my son. I wish that he was.”
“Not your son?”
Helikaon explained that the queen had been raped at the time of a Mykene attack and the boy was the result. “I had hoped it would remain secret—for Halysia’s sake. But such things rarely do. There were servants who knew, and the whispers began.”
“How does Halysia feel about him?” she asked.
Helikaon’s face darkened again. “She cannot look upon him without pain. To see him merely reminds her of the horror of the attack, her own child set ablaze and hurled from the cliffs, her body brutalized, raped, and stabbed. Such are the men your husband is now allied to.” She saw him struggling to contain his anger.
“But you love the boy,” she said swiftly.
He relaxed again. “Yes, I do. He is a fine child, intelligent, warm, and funny. But she cannot see that. She will not even touch him.”
“There is so much sadness in the world,” Penelope said. “So many children unwanted and unloved. And women who would give everything they possess to have a child. You and I, we have both lost those we loved.”
“Yes, we have,” he said sadly.
In that moment of empathy she brought out her strongest weapon. “I am with child, Helikaon,” she said. “After all this time. Seventeen years after little Laertes died. I am pregnant again. I never believed I could give Odysseus another son. Surely the Great Goddess herself is guarding me.” She watched his face carefully, saw it soften, and knew she was close to winning this battle. “Trade from the Seven Hills is growing,” she said. “Odysseus is holding your profits, as he promised he would. And there has been little trouble among the peoples of the settlement. There are walls of stone now to protect it.”
Helikaon pushed himself to his feet. “I must leave,” he said, “but I hope you believe me when I say it was good to see you, Penelope. You once welcomed me into your home, and my memories of Ithaka are fond ones. I pray your child is born safely and can grow in a world that is not at war.”
Walking away from her, he strode to a small thatched hut high on the beach. The Ithakan garrison watched him with suspicion as he reached up and pulled clear a handful of thatch from the roof and then returned to Penelope. Without speaking, he thrust the thatch into the welcome fire until it smoldered, then lit. He held it a few heartbeats, then threw it down on the beach. Drawing his sword, he plunged it through the burning thatch and into the sand. Then, without a word, he walked back down the strand and climbed aboard his warship.
Penelope watched him go with relief and regret. His meaning was clear. It was a message to Odysseus. By sword and flame he could have destoyed Ithaka and butchered her people. He had chosen not to.
This time.
Helikaon stood on the high stern deck of the Xanthos and gazed at the retreating cliffs of Ithaka. He could no longer see the proud figure of Penelope but could still make out the thin plume of smoke rising from the welcome fire on the beach.
He had not lied to her. The moment he had stepped ashore, all thoughts of war had seeped away as memories long forgotten had flowed through his mind: Odysseus, drunk and happy, standing on a table in the megaron, enchanting his listeners with tales of gods and heroes, Penelope smiling fondly at him, Bias shaking his head and chuckling.
I hope you burn, and your death ship with you. The words of Bias, so unexpected and harsh, had cut through his defenses, sharper than any blade.
Yet he and Bias had sailed together, fought pirates together, laughed and joked in each other’s company. To see such hatred in the eyes of a friend was hard to take. In his memories Bias was always good-humored. He had been helpful and supportive when Helikaon had joined the crew of the Penelope. Bias was the man the sailors trusted to settle disputes and arbitrate disagreements. The crew loved him, for his actions were always governed by his genuine affection for the men who served under him.