He turned to look at her. She was naked beneath the furs and in his dream he could feel the warmth emanating from her body. But her handsome features were sad and regretful.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I tried to keep the thieves from your house, Odysseus, but you were gone too long. Now Eupeithes’s son is king in your place.’
‘Antinous?’ Odysseus exclaimed, propping himself up on one elbow.
‘Yes, Antinous,’ Penelope had replied, rolling over so that her back was turned to him. ‘My new husband.’
Odysseus reached out to touch her and woke, his arm half-stretched out from beneath his furs. He pulled it back and took a deep breath, unsettled but relieved to realize it was only a dream. He stroked his beard and closed his eyes, trying to recall Penelope’s face. But she was gone.
And then his senses told him he was not alone in his hut.
He flung aside his furs and leapt from his bed, reaching for the sword that hung in its scabbard from the wall above.
‘That wouldn’t do you any good, if I had a mind to harm you.’
He turned to see Athena, sitting in his own chair by the hearth. She was dressed in her white chiton, her shield, helmet and spear absent, and her large eyes seemed unconscious of his nakedness as they stared at him. Odysseus blinked in surprise for a moment then knelt and bowed his head.
‘Am I still dreaming?’ he asked, looking up slightly.
‘No.’
‘Then things must be coming to a climax. This is the third time you’ve appeared to me in just a few weeks, Mistress.’
‘Come closer, Odysseus,’ she commanded, rising from the chair and reaching out to take his hand. Her touch was cool and smooth, not at all human, and there was a tender, almost pitying concern in her grey eyes. ‘Things are indeed coming to their end and you are likely to see more of me as this war reaches its conclusion. But – strange as it might seem to you – the plans of the gods cannot be fulfilled without human intervention.’
‘Is that what brings you here from Olympus?’
She reached out and stroked his red hair. ‘You haven’t forgotten what I said at the river?’
‘No, Mistress.’
‘Good, because the time is nigh. Tomorrow, Ajax will lay claim to Achilles’s armour. You must challenge him and stop him from winning it.’
Odysseus frowned and let his hand slip from hers.
‘When you spoke before, I thought you meant Ajax would seek the armour by treachery. But now Achilles is dead, Ajax has a blood right to his possessions. What right do I have to make a claim?’
‘Have you already forgotten Achilles’s last words?’
‘But Achilles thought I was the only one who had come to save him. And without Ajax’s great strength his body and armour would never have been saved from the Trojans at all.’
‘And did you not fight off the Trojans while he carried his cousin’s corpse?’ Athena said, her face growing sterner at Odys-seus’s protests.
Odysseus looked down at the flames.
‘I did, and I don’t deny part of me wants the armour, my lady. Ever since I laid eyes on it I felt the pull of its enchantment. And I haven’t forgotten how Palamedes called me a poor king of a poor country, with nothing to speak of my greatness.’
‘The armour would give you that,’ Athena said, softly once more.
‘But it’s not right. The armour should go to Ajax, not me. His pride won’t stand it going to someone else.’
‘Do you think we immortals care what you think is right or wrong, Odysseus?’ Athena warned him, angrily. ‘Ajax will be punished for his constant blasphemies and unless you want yourself and your family to face our fury you will do as we command – and you will do it alone, without telling Eperitus or anyone else. Claim the armour and make it your own, by whatever means you can!’
As she spoke, the hearth blazed up, forcing Odysseus to shield himself from the heat. But a moment later the flames died back down, and as Odysseus took his hand from his face the goddess’s harsh expression had softened again.
‘There’s another thing you should know. If Ajax takes the armour he will keep it to himself. But Zeus has decreed it should go to another, one even more worthy of it than Ajax. Unless that man joins the army and takes Achilles’s place, Troy won’t fall. And unless Troy falls, you will never see Ithaca, or Penelope, or Telemachus again. Human intervention, Odysseus.’
‘But who is this man you speak of?’
Athena shook her head, her form becoming insubstantial. Like smoke in a breeze, she drifted into nothing before Odysseus’s eyes.
That will be revealed in its own time,’ her fading voice replied. ‘But if you want to go home, my dear Odysseus, win the armour.’
The king of Ithaca wetted his finger and held it up in the air. It was all for show, of course: the wind always blew from the northwest and he could tell its direction from the way it fanned the sweat on his naked body, not to mention the fact that the pall of smoke from Achilles’s funeral pyre was trailing away towards the south-east. But the funeral games were as much a spectacle in respect of the dead as they were a competition for rich prizes and the honour they carried with them, so Odysseus went through all the required motions before the eyes of the thousands of soldiers who were crowded along the edge of the beach.
He stretched his arms behind his back, interlacing his fingers and locking his elbows so that the muscles of his back and arms tensed. After a few moments he let his arms fall to his sides and began to roll his shoulders in forward circles, loosening the muscles there while at the same time tipping his head back and closing his eyes against the bright midday sun. Finally, he placed his fists on his hips and, keeping his back straight, bent his knees several times in succession as the crowd clapped or jeered, depending on which of the competitors they supported.
His limbering-up exercises complete, he turned and raised his hand to the line of benches where the Greek leaders sat in expectation, backed by crowds of noisy soldiers. In the centre were Menelaus, Agamemnon and Nestor. Menelaus was leaning forward and chewing on a finger, while Nestor seemed distant and tired, his wise head greyer and even more bent with age since the death of Antilochus. Between them, reclining in his bulky, fur-draped throne, the King of Men’s blue eyes scrutinized Odysseus with cold detachment. Then he gave a curt nod and Odysseus turned to his left.
A few paces from where he stood was a mound of earth that formed a dark circle on the white sand. The palm prints of the men who had patted it into shape were still visible, though the smooth surface had since been broken by the footmarks of the two previous contestants, Sthenelaus and Podarces. Beyond the mound was a long stretch of clear beach marked off by the mass of onlookers to the right and the line of galleys and the sea to the left. At the far end was the barrow Achilles had erected for Patroclus, with the smoking remains of Achilles’s own funeral pyre tumbled and blackened before it. A large altar had been set up a little to the left, where the many animals that had been sacrificed to Achilles’s memory had bathed it red with their gore and darkened the sand in a large circle around it.