The Bow Read online

  “I have brought gold,” said Eurybates.

  “Gold?” Alkmaion leaned forwards. “How much?”

  Odysseus produced a small heavy bag, which Eurybates waved in the air. “We will pay after the ceremony,” the squire said.

  “Oh. Very well then. I will see what can be done.” Alkmaion’s eyes shifted about. “It may take several days to organise. Meanwhile I will attempt to protect you from Thyestes. I can’t make promises, mind. I did warn Laertes.” He waved his hand in dismissal. The audience was over.

  Eurybates bowed, not so low this time, and he and Odysseus backed their way to the door. “Thank you a thousand times for all you have done,” he murmured to Diomedes.

  “My pleasure, Sir Priest,” Diomedes replied in a low voice. “We cannot talk now, but I am still very much at your service.”

  Odysseus stood by, ready to follow Eurybates at a respectful distance. It didn’t seem as though Diomedes had seen through their disguises. Should he be told?

  No. The fewer people who knew a secret, particularly one as dangerous as this, the better.

  Chapter Five

  For the hundredth time, Eurybates glanced over to the door. Had he heard a board creak? Footsteps? He tiptoed over, sword in hand, and slid the bolt back. That shadow. At the far end of the corridor. Had it moved?

  No. He was imagining things. He bolted the door and sat down on the bed next to a hunched shape under the blankets. It should fool anyone who entered, so long as they didn’t look too closely.

  It unnerved him, this empty, rundown house with its peeling plaster and spider-infested corners. Alkmaion had refused to accommodate them – his steward had couched the refusal in more elegant terms, of course – and instead they’d been put here, near a ruined section of the city wall, where presumably Thyestes’s men could steal into the city and kidnap them at any time.

  Last night they’d taken turns to keep watch. At first light this morning they’d spotted soldiers creeping through the garden and later, several armed men in a building across the road.

  Around midday, Odysseus had taken it into his head to explore – to find his grandfather’s house, he’d said. Why? They were in enough danger as it was. All they needed to do was wait till Alkmaion opened the tomb. Then they could find out if Odysseus’s guess was right, without taking needless risks.

  A scraping noise had Eury on his feet and tugging the window open. Odysseus clambered from the fig tree outside and into the room. “I’m as parched as a dried-up dung beetle,” he said. “Where’s that water jug?”

  “By the bed,” said Eurybates. “Did you find the house?”

  “What’s left of it.” Odysseus filled a mug and drained it. “They’re stripping off the roof tiles.”

  Eurybates laughed in relief. “So they haven’t found the gold yet?”

  “They’re looking in the wrong place, I’m sure.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “Not in the fig tree – the leaves are too thick. But I strolled around the city as though I lived here.”

  “Olli! You promised you’d be careful.”

  “Much safer than sneaking about like a thief. And I was wearing a hat.” Odysseus sighed. “Back into my disguise.” He burrowed under the blanket and pulled out a large leather bag wrapped with straps. “I know this makes a very convincing stomach but it felt so good not wearing it.”

  “So that’s why you went out.”

  “No.” Odysseus assumed an injured air. “I was on an important mission. Have you heard anything from Alkmaion?”

  “Not a word.”

  Odysseus pulled the two cheek pads out of his wallet and inserted them into his mouth, pausing to give Eurybates a fat-faced smile.

  “What is that stench?” the squire asked, holding his nose.

  “What stench?” Odysseus started pushing his arms through the straps and froze. “Toad’s testicles,” he exclaimed. “I think the contents of my stomach have started to rot. I assumed it was your feet and I was too polite to say.” He sniffed inside the bag and recoiled.

  “Silly idea in the first place, using lamb’s bladders.”

  “What else could I have blown up like this? I had to use something I can puncture to make room for the gold. When we find it.” Odysseus touched the wooden floor with a superstitious finger. “I know I should have used cured bladders but there weren’t any, I swear.”

  Eurybates rolled about, convulsed with laughter. “What if they explode? What if we’re with Alkmaion when they do?”

  “They’ll survive another day or so.”

  “You hope.”

  Odysseus had just buckled the straps tight when a rustling noise caught their attention. A folded parchment appeared under the door. Eurybates hurried over but by the time he’d unbolted the door, the corridor was empty. He locked it again and picked up the parchment.

  Odysseus peered round his shoulder. “What does it say?”

  “Diomedes wants me to meet him. At midnight.”

  “Where?”

  “In the old stables next door. I suppose we can trust him.”

  “Of course. He’s given us his word.”

  Climbing down the fig tree in the dark wasn’t easy. Eurybates’s foot slipped, and for a moment he was left dangling by his hands. He hauled himself back to the branch above and paused till his heart stopped thumping.

  Once safely down, he crept across the overgrown garden to a broken-down wall, one hand in front of him and the other on his knife. He started to ease himself through the gap Olli had used earlier, trying not to dislodge any stones.

  A spear butt hit the ground in front of him. “Good evening, sir,” a soft voice said above him. “Going far?”

  A soldier was standing over him, silhouetted against the stars. Eurybates’s hand tightened on the knife. Perhaps he could hamstring the man before he could strike again.

  “Ahtbar, are you, sir? Looking for Lord Diomedes?”

  “Well, I, er …”

  “Waiting for you in the stables.” The soldier shifted his spear to let Eurybates crawl past.

  Inside, the stables were dark as pitch. Eurybates hovered just inside the door. “Diomedes?” he asked, the knife held in front of him.

  “Sir Priest?” a familiar voice murmured in the darkness.

  Relieved, he returned the knife to his belt and tiptoed forwards. A hand gripped his shoulder and another felt his wig. “Very good,” said the voice again. “I apologise for the lack of light, but we can’t be too careful.”

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “Alkmaion has done nothing to open the tomb,” Diomedes replied, “but messengers have been busy between Argos and Mykenai all day. Alkmaion has withdrawn all his men from this section of the walls, so Thyestes could strike at any time.”

  “We saw soldiers in the house across the road.”

  “My own men,” said Diomedes. “You’re as safe as I can make you for now, but there’s no time to waste. I have a work party digging out the passageway into the tomb as we speak. They should have it open by dawn, and I will take you there and guard you while you perform your prayers.”

  “What of Alkmaion and Thyestes?”

  “I said, I’ll be guarding you.”

  Eurybates hesitated, questions squirming on the end of his tongue. What were their options? Sit in that deserted house and wait to be kidnapped?

  “I have provided mourners.”

  “Thank you.” Eurybates cursed silently. For one glorious instant he had thought the change in plan would give them unsupervised access to the tomb. But refusing mourners would look too suspicious. “One more point. If we are attacked, you must ensure my servant is safe, before all else.”

  “The Cypriot?” Diomedes sounded incredulous.

  “For Laertes’s sake. I will explain afterwards.”

  If there was an afterwards.

  Chapter Six

  In the early dawn light, Odysseus could see a great mound of excavated earth and rub
ble. Next to it, torches flickered inside a narrow tunnel that plunged into the hillside.

  Their procession, led by Diomedes and completed by a trail of white-draped women, was greeted by Diomedes’s lieutenanut, Stenelos, a large goat horn bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows at his back. “We’ve opened the tomb,” he said. “The smell is disgusting.”

  “Sulphur.” Eurybates held out a parcel wrapped in oiled linen. “In Egypt it is a most effective means of purification.”

  “Thank you, Sir Priest.”

  “How many chariots did you bring over from Tiryns last night, Stenelos?” Diomedes asked.

  “Twenty, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “Down on the flat.”

  “Bring them as close as you can to the tomb. Someone else can do the fumigating.” Diomedes crammed his helmet more firmly onto his head. “Leave enough men to guard the entrance.”

  The sulphur smoke was chokingly thick as the procession filed into the tomb, the women’s ritual cries punctuated by gagging coughs. Torchlight flickered across the walls of the tomb and over Arkeisios’s corpse, which lay on the rock floor in a dark-edged pool of liquid pocked with white.

  The burial shroud was stretched tight round the corpse’s grotesquely swollen body, leaving only the face exposed. Maggots writhed in and out of its ears and nose and despite the sulphur, the stench of rotting flesh was stomach-wrenching.

  Odysseus made himself stand beside the body. His gut heaved and his throat clenched on bile. This hideous, oozing bundle was his grandfather.

  Eurybates touched his elbow, and Odysseus collected himself enough to place the gifts, a jar of honeyed wine and a drinking cup, in the slimy pool beside the body. His stomach convulsed again – that dark crusted line around the pool was a mass of beetles, clambering over each other to feast on the maggots that had dropped from the shroud. It looked like Eurybates’s ship-board curse but worse, his mind whispered. Much worse.

  For a moment he thought he might faint. Courage, he told himself. Swallowing hard, he forced his way out of the throng of women and stared around the tomb. Off to one side, a great jumble of human bones and broken pots had been thrust into a recess in the wall, like rubbish in a midden. He knew this was the custom; he knew their souls had long since fled down to Hades, but seeing it shocked him to the core.

  He picked up a yellowed thigh bone. Whose might it have been? His great-grandfather’s? His imagination clothed the bone with muscle and skin, sent blood pumping through invisible arteries and watched it stride out of his hand in obedience to the will of a mind long dead …

  The keening of the women brought him to his senses. Eurybates had already begun praying, his voice shrilling over their cries. He’d promised to stretch the ceremony out as long as possible but still there wasn’t much time. This had to be the place. Odysseus glanced over his shoulder. The women had started to howl and sway – more than enough to distract them from what he was doing. And the smoke should hide him from any casual glance.

  He grabbed armfuls of bones – legs, pelvises, ribs, jaws, craniums and spines. The dried sinews snapped, scattering the vertebrae about as he heaved them aside. And there it was underneath, a skull with its jawbone tied in place, grinning back at him. Look beyond the Jaws of Death, Arkeisios had written. Odysseus almost thought he could hear the grate of the old man’s voice. He shivered, even as the sweat ran down his back.

  Placing the skull to one side, he ran his hands over the floor of the recess. It was as smooth as polished bronze. Perhaps he should try around the edges? No, the rock ran from wall to chiselled wall without interruption. His mind froze. He couldn’t – mustn’t – be wrong. The gold had to be here.

  Would rock be this smooth? He scratched at the hard surface and found he could make marks in it with his fingernails. Plaster, not stone. That was why it had such a flat finish.

  Filled with a growing excitement, he pulled out his knife and jabbed it into the surface. In most places the tip went in only a finger breadth. But there were other places where the plaster went much deeper, places that joined into a rectangle as he chipped away. He wedged his knife into one of the lines and levered. Nothing moved.

  Sweat was running into his eyes and he brushed it away. He peered through the sulphur smoke at the clustered women, swaying as they chanted around the body. These Argive women had large feet and their ankles looked decidedly hairy.

  He turned back to the recess, digging at the plaster again till he’d exposed a stone lid. This time it moved a fraction, but the knife was bending dangerously. Time was running out. And he could hear shouting, from somewhere outside the tomb. What was happening?

  Was there something stronger he could use? There – an old sword lying in the dust just past the pile of bones. He wedged the green-tinged blade into the nearest crack. On the first attempt the lid quivered, on the second it jerked, stuck, and sprang open. He dropped the sword and grabbed the lid before it slammed shut.

  His grandfather’s gold lay gleaming in the hole – chains, bracelets, rings, pendants and ingots all tumbled together.

  With shaking hands, he pulled the neck of his tunic open, undid the ties at the top of the leather paunch and prodded his knife inside. The lambs’ bladders had blown up even more as they began to rot, and the stink exploded into his face as he punctured each one.

  The voices outside were getting louder. He had to hurry. Trying not to retch, he forced the gold into the stinking paunch till the leather strained. It was as well he’d decided to be so fat – the paunch took all but the last few pieces. Dropping these back in the hole, he knotted the ties at the top of the paunch as best he could, buttoned the neck of his tunic and heaved the stone lid back into place.

  He’d piled most of the bones back into the recess when the clang of metal on metal reverberated down the passageway.

  “Out!” he heard Diomedes shout. “We’re being attacked!”

  Odysseus lurched to his feet. The gold was far heavier than he’d expected. He took one knee-wobbling step and crashed to the ground. Panic overwhelmed him – he hadn’t thought of this. How was he to escape?

  A sea of feet were stampeding for the door, his pleas for help drowned out by a roar of deep-throated war cries. The mourners had thrown off their white robes to reveal leather corselets and fighting kilts. So Diomedes and his “women” – all these armed soldiers – had left nothing to chance.

  Somehow he levered himself into a sitting position. Eurybates elbowed his way back through the jostle of armed men and dragged him to his feet.

  Exultation thrust his panic aside. “I found it, Eury. It was where I thought it would be. And it’s all here.” He slapped his stomach. “But it weighs so much.”

  “Shall I ask Diomedes’s men to carry you?” yelled Eurybates against the din.

  “No. They’re certain to guess what we’ve found.”

  And they mustn’t. Not here, not under Alkmaion’s nose. Odysseus stood, swaying as he tried to find his balance. Then he lumbered to the tunnel mouth with Eurybates’s shoulder for support, and staggered up the passageway.

  Chapter Seven

  Outside, the sun was rising over chaos. Diomedes ran up the earth mound and crouched behind his shield, peering out at the fight below. The attacking force wasn’t large, twenty-five, thirty men maybe – whatever Thyestes’s patrols had managed to scrape together in a hurry.

  At least Stenelos had lined up the chariots close by. And his “mourners” were emerging from the tomb at last. There at the back was the priest, his wig catching the sunlight, and beside him a blob of black oily curls. Diomedes leaped from the mound and forced his way over.

  “Quick. Come with me,” he said, grabbing Ahtbar by the arm.

  “No, no, the boy, you promised,” the priest cried. “Laertes will kill me if anything happens to him.”

  “Blessed Athena,” muttered Diomedes under his breath, as he hauled the Cypriot along by the scruff of his tunic. “Get a move on, lad.”


  The fighting was fierce around the chariots, but he was able to help the boy, great ungainly lump that he was, into the nearest one. “Stenelos,” he bellowed at his lieutenant. “Sound the retreat. And take the priest with you.” He urged his own horses round the other chariots and galloped down the winding road to the plain.

  A third of the way across the flatland between Argos and Tiryns, the road dropped down a steep bank and disappeared into a brown rush of water.

  “River’s still in flood,” he muttered, as much to himself as to the boy. “Too much rain melting the snow up in the mountains.” But Stenelos and his men had come safely through last night and they’d manage again.

  He edged the horses forwards, the chariot swaying as the water foamed against the wicker sides. The wheels were being forced sideways, towards the jagged waves at the edge of the ford. The horses were straining as the pole of the chariot bent – dear gods, let it not break.

  Then the water shoaled, the horses fetlock deep, and they were across. He urged the team up the rise and into a steady trot as the road levelled out again.

  The boy stank – he must have touched the corpse, or perhaps he never washed. Or both. He’d worked his feet into the leather footstraps but the white-knuckled way he gripped the chariot rail proved him an incompetent fool. With luck the rail would stand the strain.

  Diomedes glanced over his left shoulder. Good. They were all safe over the river, with Stenelos and the priest only a few lengths behind. The rest of the squadron followed, two and three men to a chariot, the mud spraying out from under their horses’ hooves. With luck they’d have a clear run to the port and put these two on a ship for Ithaka without any further trouble.