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  “Gallivanting griffins,” said Menelaos. “Talk about sticking your head into the jaws of the lion.”

  “If Alkmaion is a lion, I’m an earthworm,” said Eurybates.

  “I was referring to my hideous uncle,” said Menelaos. “But the Argives must have fed you well. You’ve put on weight.”

  “And we’re about to lose it,” Odysseus said.

  As dawn eased out the night, the shadows ahead solidified into islands – the massive ramparts of Kephallenia to the left, and further north the rounded bulk of southern Ithaka, with Mount Neriton peering over its shoulder. All of an instant the rising sun caught the tip of the mountain, as though a goldsmith had gilded it like a bull’s horn before sacrifice.

  Home. Odysseus leaned on the rail, joy clutching at his heart.

  “Happy to be back?” Menelaos nudged him with his elbow.

  Odysseus nodded, sobered by the twist in his friend’s voice. Home for Menelaos was Mykenai, with its huge fortress walls, its bloody past and its ugly secrets. There his mother had died at his father’s hands; there his father had been hacked to death. Would he – could he – ever feel as heart-light as Odysseus did now?

  By the time they sailed into the harbour, the sun was fully up. The beach below Ithaka town was crowded with ships under repair – the sea battle had obviously taken a heavy toll. Odysseus couldn’t spy his father among the swarm of riggers and carpenters, but their own ship had hardly dug its bow into the shingle when a familiar figure thrust his way through the crowd.

  King Laertes didn’t look like a man who had just won an emphatic victory. The haggard lines of his face and the grey hollows under his eyes spoke of some great internal distress. It took Odysseus a moment to realise what the reason might be – his father must think he and Eury were dead. He tried waving, but the king was too busy calling up to Meges to notice him.

  He clambered over the rail and waded ashore. “Father,” he cried. “We’re back.”

  Laertes stopped in mid-phrase, as though he’d been struck. Then he turned, his arms spread wide and his face transformed with delight. “Olli?” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t believe it. I …” The rest of his sentence was lost as he wrapped Odysseus in a bone-crushing embrace.

  “And we found your gold,” said Odysseus, as soon as he had the chance.

  “Gold?” said Laertes. “Who gives a damn about gold when I have my son safely home?”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Laertes, staff in hand, was striding up and down his office, every inch the statesman. Odysseus exchanged a half-smile with Eurybates. How different the scene was from last night! Then this same room had been filled with laughter and tears, Mother scarcely able to let go of him, Ktimene and Argos dashing helter-skelter between everyone’s legs, Father leaping about, shouting praise, singing snatches of any song that came to mind, toasting them one minute and swinging them into a wild dance the next, splattering wine all over them till Antikleia took the cup from his hands. Then he’d piled the gold into a great tottering heap on his desk and sat them all round it while Odysseus and Eury told of their adventures.

  Today’s meeting was a much more sober affair. The council of elders had covered the political situation in general and the Messenian situation in particular. Now it was time to decide what to do. Laertes was trying to keep everyone calm, but the stolen sheep and the gold, added to the euphoria of their victory at sea, had made the councillors hungry for blood.

  “We cannot fight on two fronts,” Laertes was saying. “The sea battle has damaged most of our ships and Thyestes is sure to regather and attack again as soon as he can. We still need King Nestor’s neutrality.” He slammed his fist on the table, making the gold rattle. “These Kyparissian sheep stealers are pirates, I grant you. But if we fight them, Nestor will see it as an act of aggression against Messenia.”

  “Begging your pardon, sire.” An elderly councillor rose and Laertes grudgingly handed him the speaker’s staff. “Now we have the gold, we can build more ships, hire more men and flog those wretched thieves into the sea.” There was a rumble of approval.

  “Indeed?” inquired Laertes, snatching the staff back. “I want my sheep back, our honour restored and Thyestes kept pinned inside the Gulf just as much as you do, but I don’t think a humiliating defeat at Nestor’s hands will achieve any of these objectives.”

  “So we’re to act like milksops?” said a voice from the far end of the room. “Like unblooded boys? We, the Ithakans, the finest men in Greece?”

  “Aye. Give the Kyparissians a dose of what’s good for them,” said another.

  “A good thumping, that’s the medicine they need,” said a third.

  Odysseus stood up. According to custom, he shouldn’t be allowed to speak at the elders’ council. He had just turned sixteen – somewhere back in the wilds of Arkadia, though he and Eurybates hadn’t realised till a few days after. Even so, he was still technically a child and would be for another couple of years. But with luck, his success in Argos might help bend the rules.

  Laertes passed over the staff before anyone else could seize it. Odysseus paused, eyes half-closed, waiting for the right words to come. He mustn’t make a mess of it, with so much at stake. Argos’s tail banged a rat-tat of encouragement on the floor at his feet as he began to speak.

  The herb garden was quiet. Too quiet, the still silence unable to distract him from his thoughts.

  Skotia. What was she doing now, at this very instant? Fast asleep, perhaps. Or not. Odysseus pictured her arms crossed over her chest as she frowned into the darkness, or stretched above her head as she smiled at some dream. Perhaps she was dreaming of him. He sighed. Probably not.

  “What’s her name?”

  He jumped. Hades. He’d let his mother steal up on him. “Sit down, Mother,” he said. “You know how much I detest being ambushed.”

  Antikleia passed him a brimming mug. “Valerian. To help you sleep. I added some warm milk and honey to ease the taste.” She settled herself comfortably. “What is she like, this girl? Tall? Short? Dark? Fair?”

  He shook his head. “What girl?”

  “If you weren’t thinking of a girl,” said Antikleia, cocking her head, “you certainly weren’t contemplating the state of your boots. That was a very longing sigh.”

  “Well …” He paused, thinking hard. “Did Father tell you I persuaded the council to ask King Nestor for a formal trial? And they want me to present our case?”

  “Of course. He hides nothing from me.”

  “We’ll win, I’m certain of it. Then Nestor must give us the ships they used to steal the sheep as compensation. Imagine what a difference ten or twelve more warships will make to our defence at the Narrows. Better even than the gold, because we’ll have them right now – we won’t have to spend months building them.”

  “Perhaps.” Now it was her turn to sigh. “I long for you to be right, Olli. The ships would be a very great prize. But how can you win?”

  “I saw the thieves, remember? Eury and I are witnesses.”

  “I know. But the Kyparissians will swear you’re lying and who is Nestor to believe? If you ask him to send his soldiers into the mountains for evidence, they’ll find nothing – the sheep will be shifted somewhere else long before they arrive.”

  “That’s right.” He couldn’t help the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile.

  Antikleia cleared her throat. “Olli, I’ve seen that look before.”

  “Yes,” he said, his smile stretching into a grin.

  “Are you going to tell me what you’re really thinking?”

  He bent to whisper in her ear. Not that Nestor could be expected to have spies crouching behind every bush in his own mother’s garden.

  “Ah.” Antikleia sat for a while when he’d finished, her hands resting in her lap. “Your father will wish to act correctly,” she rolled her eyes. “Nestor is an old, dear friend of his. Nonetheless, it’s an excellent idea.”

  Chapter Thi
rty-six

  As the day grew tired, the heat seemed to sour the boy’s temper, making him snarl at the donkey as it laboured up the ridge. His constant complaints would have wearied the patience of any fellow traveller, had there been one. As it was, his words were heard only by a handful of children tending their ragged flocks on the dry hillsides.

  The steepening slope forced him to dismount, cursing his lame foot as he dragged the donkey behind him, his voice harsh with dust. Evening was falling by the time they reached the farmstead high in the mountains, with its rough stone walls topped with brambles.

  The shepherd who’d called off the guard dogs eyed him up and down, presumably taking in the boy’s heaving chest, the tasselled tunic stretched over the overfed belly, the too-soft shoes, the scribe’s leather cap and the oiled black ringlets that hung below it. “I’ll take the donkey,” he said, and pointed towards the nearest doorway. “You’ll find the master, Phylas, in there, for you to state yer business.”

  The boy limped to the door, trying, it might seem, to hide the twist in his right foot by holding himself stiff and straight.

  It didn’t take long to adjust to the gloom inside. A small fire burned in the hearth, filling the air with smoke through which several men could be seen lounging on clay benches around the walls, yarning among themselves. His entry cut their talk off sharp.

  One of them came over, a grim-looking man so tall he had to duck his head under the roof beams. His face with its massive bony nose was so weather-worn it looked as if it had been carved from the mountainside with a broken flint.

  “Who are you? What brings you here?” the man growled.

  “I am Akeon, a scribe of the Hither Province of the municipality of Metapa, servant to Lord Didaion, master of Kyparissia.”

  “A fair mouthful for a fat piglet like you. What proof have you?”

  “Here.” The boy produced a seal stone on a cord around his neck.

  The man peered at it. “So? What business do you have with me?” he said.

  “My business is for Phylas’s ears only.”

  “I am Phylas. And this is as private as you’ll have it.”

  The boy eased the weight off his twisted foot. “There was an accident.” His left cheek twitched. “The tablets were broken.”

  “Broken? How?”

  “Some fool knocked over the drying bench.”

  “You, by any chance?”

  The boy drew himself up, a little too indignant perhaps. “I would scarcely have been entrusted with replacing the records had I been to blame.”

  “The best reason of all.” Phylas gave him a knowing sneer. “And why replace them? You bureaucrats make work for yourselves.”

  The boy lowered his voice. “King Nestor is sending his tax assessors, and if our records don’t match what they find, there’ll be a thousand demons to pay. The Ithakans, lying scoundrels, claim we stole far more than we did – nine hundred sheep and fifty shepherds, they’re claiming. We have denied it of course – as you know, there are only three hundred sheep and ten shepherds – but they have King Nestor’s ear and he demands a share in return for his protection.”

  “What cut’s he after?”

  “Half.”

  Phylas flung his arms in the air. “Half of nine hundred?”

  The boy nodded. “If we can’t prove otherwise.”

  “I suppose he wants twenty-five shepherds as well.”

  “Of course.”

  “When we only have ten. And Lord Didaion? What does he say?”

  “It was he who sent me.”

  “Why you?” Phylas looked him up and down. “You’re not old enough to wipe your own bottom.”

  The boy held himself straighter still. “My father is Lord Didaion’s head scribe. He would have come himself, but the Ithakans have their noses everywhere.”

  “With Thyestes snapping at their scrotums? They’ll all be up at the Narrows, trying to save their precious skins.”

  The boy shook his head. “Kyparissia is full of them, prying into every corner.” The tic jolted his cheek again. “If they spied my father leaving town, they’d follow him. So our gracious Lord Didaion chose me.”

  “What are Didaion’s orders?”

  “You’re to muster the flocks at first light so I may fill in the tablets and have them dried and packed by nightfall. And I need your seal on them.”

  “My seal?” The shepherd’s face twisted in incredulity. “That’s hardly ever done.”

  “It’s so Lord Didaion knows I didn’t find my tallies at the bottom of a tavern wine jug. We must make haste. If I’m not back in Kyparissia when Nestor’s tax inspectors come, your hide will part company with your flesh.”

  In the first grey light of dawn the sheep came winding down the hillsides, the dogs snapping at their heels. The boy had sliced up the blocks of clay he’d taken from the donkey’s panniers, and rolled and flattened the lumps into oval tablets before wrapping them in damp linen to keep them moist.

  Each flock was led by its shepherd, his hands free for his crook but with a rope around his neck and an armed man on either side. The boy asked each his name, writing it with his stylus on the left of the tablet and following it with the man’s home district and the symbol for “sheep”.

  Then, as the animals straggled past, he marked the tally off in short strokes – a dash for a ten, a quick downward slash for the singles – before placing a blob of soft clay at the edge of the tablet for Phylas to press his seal into.

  With the muster over and the tablets laid out to dry, he tallied upon his fingers. “Two hundred and ninety-six,” he said, looking up at Phylas. “You’re four short. Eating well, I assume?”

  Phylas shrugged. “You drive a flock sixty stadia in one night and you’ll leave a few corpses behind.” From the look on his face, another corpse wouldn’t go amiss.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “My dear Odysseus,” King Nestor said. “It is most wonderful to see you, as always. How is your father? It must be seven days or more since he put his fleet in order and returned to the Narrows. Blockading is so tedious.”

  “He does very well, sir, and sends his compliments.” Odysseus suppressed a smile. His father’s actual words had been a little different, last night on the swaying afterdeck, as the Ithakan ships weaved back and forth across the Narrows. They’d finished discussing the first part of Odysseus’s plan, and moved on to the future. “Watch Nestor like a hawk,” Father had said. “He’ll feed you and fool you in the same breath.”

  “Charmed,” said Nestor. “Please return my compliments to him. And how delightful to see Menelaos again. He has grown almost a handspan since I saw him last year. You’ve bathed? Yes, of course, and I see my wife has given you fresh clothes. Excellent.”

  “We are most grateful for your hospitality, sir,” said Odysseus.

  “Yes, yes. Now, sit down and partake of our humble fare. Young lads like you always have healthy appetites.” Nestor eased himself back, stroking the silver-encrusted arm of his chair as though it were a favourite hound.

  Sleek, thought Odysseus, stealing a look between mouthfuls at Nestor’s pomaded hair, the silver diadem, the gold necklaces, and the richly embroidered robes. Sleek and very, very rich.

  But never weak. Father was right. Nestor was a dangerous man to underestimate.

  He pushed his bowl away. Time to come to the point. “My father has sent us to lay a charge of theft against the Kyparissians.” No point in stalling. He could safely leave that to Nestor. “As you know, they have stolen three hundred sheep and ten shepherds from our southernmost island, Zakynthos.”

  “Laertes is a very busy man.” Nestor laced his long, beautifully manicured fingers together. “It is most courteous of him, when he is under such threat of attack, to send his son to see me. And I am sure, despite your youth, this experience will be most useful for you. I remember when I was a boy and my father dispatched me to Knossos. A simple business to do with the wool trade, well within the capabili
ties of a child, though I was particularly precocious for my age. We set sail, as I recall, from …”

  Odysseus settled back, allowing the sea of words to flow on. When at last Nestor paused for breath, he plunged in. “My father believes we have enough hard evidence to win a court case against Didaion. You are the only possible judge, of course.”

  “Dear boy, your enthusiasm is delightful, quite appropriate to your age. Don’t worry. You will find yourself outgrowing the hastiness of youth in time.”

  “We have a list of witnesses–”

  “Pshaw. The babblings of slaves and fishermen.” Nestor gave an indulgent sigh. “Your father has been quite misled. If he had taken a little more time to investigate the matter, he would surely discover the Etruscans are at the bottom of this. Or the Taphians. Did he not have problems with them only last year? Piracy has always been a scourge on this coast. Indeed when I was a lad, not much older than you …”

  “How, by Poseidon’s navel fluff, did you manage that?” whispered Menelaos, as they followed a torchbearer back to the guest quarters. “A court case, and in Kyparissia, and with the witnesses you asked for. Though he did look at you sideways when you mentioned that shepherd–”

  Odysseus gave Menelaos’s ankle bone a swift kick, his eyes darting to the torchbearer. “Father’s concerned about all his shepherds,” he said. “Who knows how they’ve been treated?”

  He suppressed a sigh. Menelaos had grown up in Mykenai surrounded by intrigue, but sometimes he behaved as though he’d just hatched from a pigeon’s egg. If he hadn’t been kicked, who knows what he would have blurted out? Nestor might keep certain details to himself, especially now he’d sworn to do so, but no one else in Pylos would.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The soil yielded easily to the mattock, breaking up into rich red clumps. Skotia paused at the end of the row to admire her work, wiping the sweat from her face with the tail of the headscarf Aunt Danae had given her. A whiff of sage oil caught in her nostrils and for a heartbeat she was wrenched back to the hut outside Tiryns, the glare of this bright morning clouded by darkness and fire.