Odysseus and Eperitus swapped a knowing glance. Since Athena had brought Eperitus back from death he had hardly developed a wrinkle or grey hair, and Omeros had not been the first to remark on this strange longevity.
‘But can you fight, lad?’ Odysseus asked, looking Omeros up and down and noting his slightly pampered appearance, compared to the lean, hardened figures that populated the rest of the Ithacan army.
‘I’ll fight with as much heart as any of those others,’ Omeros answered, nodding at the mercenaries and Taphians. ‘And what some of them have in training and experience, I’ll match in enthusiasm and loyalty.’
This broadened the smile on Odysseus’s face.
‘I’m glad to hear it, very glad,’ he said, placing his arm across Omeros’s shoulders and steering him in the direction of the sprawling camp, with Eperitus following on Omeros’s other side. ‘Without loyalty every other fighting quality is useless, especially to a king. And that’s what I want to talk to you about. I’ve been told some of the nobles on Ithaca have hired mercenaries to take their places. Is it true?’
The line of tall grass where Omeros had been sitting marked the furthest extent of the sea’s reach, and just behind it were the first tents of the huge Greek army. Most of the Ithacan part of the camp was now empty, though here and there groups of men were preparing food or carrying out other tasks that excused them from the work on the beach.
‘It’s true, my lord,’ Omeros said, ruefully. ‘Some of the nobles threatened rebellion if their sons were called to war. Eupeithes told Penelope he could calm their tempers, but only if the Kerosia allowed men of a fighting age to send substitutes in their place. Which meant that while the poor went to serve their king, the wealthy could stay at home and hire mercenaries instead.’
‘This doesn’t bode well,’ Odysseus mused. ‘Eupeithes is still a snake, even if a reformed one, and it’ll take all of Penelope’s skill to keep him in his place. The sooner we can finish this war and return home, the better.’
‘Forgive me, lord,’ Omeros began, ‘but if an army this size hasn’t defeated the Trojans in ten years, what chance is there of ever defeating them?’
‘He’s beginning to sound like a veteran already,’ Eperitus said with an ironic laugh.
‘It seems to me the men don’t have any appetite for victory,’ Omeros added, hesitantly. ‘And I think I know why.’
Odysseus cocked an eyebrow.
‘Really, Omeros? So what’s the secret of our persistent failure?’
Omeros’s chin dropped a little at the king’s chiding, but he did not back down.
‘Lord, I’ve been watching the army since I arrived and they look more like barbarians than Greeks: their hair and beards are long, their clothing is foreign, and half of them are equipped with Trojan armour and weapons. All the women in the camp are Trojan and the men speak to them in their own language. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? It’s as if this camp, this makeshift colony of tents and huts, has become their new home. And as long as they’ve forgotten who they really are and why they came here in the first place – to rescue Helen and return to Greece – then I don’t think they’ll ever take Troy.’
Odysseus looked at him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked away along the curved line of the beach.
‘You’re right,’ he conceded. ‘The Trojans have checked our every move for ten years and no army can fail to lose heart after so long. But perhaps you’re being a little too hard on us. Some may have given up the hope of victory and a return home, but the rest have just . . . forgotten, as you say. But it’s forgotten, not forsaken. We’ve forgotten what it’s like to stand on our own soil, or to have a solid roof over our heads and be surrounded by our families. All we need is to be reminded of those things and we’d return tomorrow, given the chance.’
‘Ithaca hasn’t changed much, my lord,’ Omeros said.
‘So I hear,’ Odysseus nodded, placing an arm around his shoulder and leading him into the armada of tents. ‘And I wouldn’t want it to. But how are my family, Omeros? Are my parents well? What about Telemachus? Does he look like me or Penelope? And how is my wife?’
Eperitus dropped back and let them walk on alone.
He watched them head in the direction of Odysseus’s hut, then returned to the beach to find Astynome.
Chapter Eight
HOME
Despite his youth, Omeros bore the burden of Odysseus’s desire for news admirably. As he described Anticleia’s sickening for Odysseus and the way she mourned her son’s absence as if he had died, quiet tears fell from the king’s eyes; and when he spoke of how Laertes would climb Mount Neriton every evening to look for the homecoming sails of his son’s ships, Odysseus just nodded his head and smiled.
‘And Telemachus? Is he like me? I mean, can you see anything of me in him?’
‘He’ll be taller than his father,’ Omeros answered, ‘and not so broad.’
‘Like his mother, then.’
‘Yes. Handsome like her, too, but with your eyes. Penelope says she can look at Telemachus and see you looking right back out at her.’
Odysseus laughed with unexpected delight.
‘He has your cunning too, my lord, but it’s kept in place by his mother’s principles. I’d think he could be a very naughty boy if he wasn’t so good.’
‘As long as he can still be naughty when he has to,’ Odysseus said as they reached the entrance to his hut. ‘A future king has to know when to lay aside his morals.’
They stooped as they entered the gloom of Odysseus’s quarters. A small fire burned in the hearth, filling the enclosed space with warmth and the smell of woodsmoke. Odysseus swept off his cloak and unbuckled his armour, before settling down on his haunches before the flames and indicating for Omeros to do the same.
‘What about Penelope?’
Omeros nodded to himself. This was the question that was at the heart of the king’s yearning, the question that would prove whether Penelope’s faith in him had been justified. He glanced at the king, whose eyes were fixed rigidly on the small tongues of orange and yellow flame while he chewed unconsciously at a thumbnail.
‘The queen is well.’
‘Well?’
‘As well as any queen can be without her king.’
Odysseus’s face twitched. A flicker of guilt, Omeros thought.
‘And how does she look now? Has she changed much since I last saw her? It’s been almost ten years, Omeros, and I can barely remember her face – as if she were nothing more than a dream. I sometimes wonder whether she existed at all.’
‘She exists, lord, and she’s hardly changed since you departed.’
‘Describe her, for me. Just as she looked when you last saw her.’
Omeros sucked in his bottom lip and swept his hand through his hair as he recalled the scene.
‘It was night time. No moon, just the starlight. It made her brown hair look black and her skin pale. She stood a little taller than me, dressed in a dark cloak with the hood down.’
‘And her face?’
Omeros, who had been staring at the king as he described Penelope, blinked and looked down at the fire.
‘She’s still beautiful. Not youthful beauty, like Melantho’s, or the powerful beauty I imagine Helen has, but something calm and reassuring instead. The sort of beauty you don’t think would laugh or sneer at you.’