Return to Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus Book 6), page 1
Return to Ithaca
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Book One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Book Two
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Book Three
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Book Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Glossary
Copyright
Return to Ithaca
Glyn Iliffe
For all those who have faithfully followed Odysseus and Eperitus, from the slopes of Mount Parnassus to here, their final adventure
Book One
Prologue
Ogygia
Odysseus sat staring into the darkness. The beach was pale and the starlight gleamed on the black sea. The soothing rush of the breakers encouraged sleep, but he resisted the heaviness in his eyelids and threw another piece of driftwood onto the fire. A puff of orange sparks flew up into the blackness.
She had not come for two nights now. Sometimes she would not come for a whole week, but that was rare. She never left Ogygia – the island of which they were the only occupants – so he did not know where she went on those days. But she would come tonight. He felt the dread of her in his bones.
He ran his hands through his hair and scratched at his bearded cheeks in an effort to keep himself awake. Slumping back onto his elbows, he stared up at the stars and picked out the great constellations: Bootes the ploughman, pushing the Great Plough; the Seven Sisters; and Orion, slain by Artemis for becoming the lover of immortal Dawn.
He seemed to remember that they had been different once, in the world he had come from. But that had been a lifetime ago, and the memory of it faded a little more with each passing day. He fought the closing of his eyelids and tried to sit up again, but dropped back onto the goatskin that served as his bed. Then, as his eyes closed and he began to sink into unconsciousness, he sensed her.
‘Odysseus.’
The fire shrank back like a cowed dog, its heat swept away by a breath of cold air. He sat up and pulled a burning log from the flames, holding it before him like a sword. Calypso stood at the edge of the ring of firelight, the sea breeze blowing strands of her blonde hair across her face and pressing her dress against her body. She was beautiful, even in the darkness, and her laugh was light and deceptively childlike.
‘Odysseus, my love.’
She waved her hand and the flaming brand was extinguished.
He threw it at her with a grunt, but she was gone.
‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted.
‘Why?’ she asked.
He twisted round to see her standing behind him.
‘Why do you resist? Am I not pleasing to look at? Does my lovemaking not satisfy you? I know it does.’
She unslipped the cord from around her waist and shrugged off her garment. It fell around her feet like a shadow and she stepped from it, her naked skin orange in the firelight. Though she was older than the mountains of Ogygia, her body had never known the corruption of old age. Shamelessly she stood before him, savouring the feel of his gaze on her flesh. She held a hand towards him.
‘Come, Odysseus. Sleep with me.’
He looked at her with hate-filled eyes, as a prisoner stares at his gaoler, knowing that her control over him was very nearly absolute. She was a demigoddess, a powerful seductress who had used her sexuality to expunge his memories of home and family, erasing everything he loved and had fought for until only an instinct remained. And she would not be happy until even that was taken from him. He pulled away from her, mutely shaking his head.
‘I command you,’ she insisted, her eyes flashing red. ‘The gods sent you to me. You are mine to do with as I please.’
‘I don’t belong to you!’
Calypso’s eyes narrowed, and with a snap of her fingers she was gone.
Odysseus turned, looking for her in the shadows.
‘I don’t want you,’ he shouted after her, his voice falling flat in the darkness.
‘But I want you.’
The fire leapt up suddenly and went out. Startled, he fell backwards onto the sand. A spectre of grey smoke trailed up from the ashes, but instead of being carried away by the breeze it drifted towards him, thickening into the shape of Calypso. She crouched before his open legs, smiling lustfully.
‘You are mine, Odysseus. You cannot escape Ogygia, and you cannot escape me.’
As quick as a snake, she gripped his knees and forced them apart. He tried to pull away, but her strength was irresistible. She lowered her lips to his right thigh and kissed it gently, before running the tip of her tongue up the long white scar he had been given by a boar when he was a boy. But the woman before him now was more dangerous than any boar. With a playful laugh, she slid her hand down to his genitals.
‘Still don’t want me?’ she asked. ‘Something tells me you’re lying.’
‘You’re not her,’ he hissed, trying to twist away from her hold on his legs. ‘You never will be.’
‘Who, Odysseus? Who? Do you even remember her name?’
Calypso pulled herself on top of him and, holding his wrists to the sand, lowered her face to his. He could feel the weight of her breasts upon his chest and taste her breath on his lips.
‘My wife.’
‘What’s her name? Say it and I’ll let you go. Say it.’
He could not remember. He had been unable to recall her face for a long time, but now even her name refused to come to him.
‘Get out of my head. This is sorcery.’
‘Say your wife’s name and I’ll release you. I’ll even give you the tools to make a boat and sail away from Ogygia.’
Her control over him was almost complete. The slow, rhythmic rubbing of her body against his had made him erect, and now her mouth hovered over his, poised to subdue the last of his resistance.
‘Say it!’
But he could not. Only one name was in his thoughts now, a name both hateful and compelling.
‘Calypso.’
He felt the victorious smile on her lips as she kissed him. Her perfect mouth moulded to his and their tongues met, sparking his treacherous lust. He took her by the waist, intending to throw her off, but instead found his hands had moved to down to cup her buttocks. She slid back onto him with a sigh and sat up, her eyes closed and her face half-hidden by her hair as she moved her body against his. Her terrible beauty consumed him, as it had done so many times before, and his weak defiance surrendered to his desire.
When she had finished with him, she slipped off and lay at his side, breathing deeply.
‘Marry me,’ she said after a while, as if to herself. Then she turned to face him, propping her head on one hand as she ran her fingers over his chest. ‘Marry me, Odysseus, and I will make you immortal.’
‘I don’t want to be immortal.’
‘All men want immortality. Achilles exchanged long life for a name that would endure for eternity. I’m offering you more than that: to live with me here forever, until the gods fall and the world ends.’
‘I saw Achilles’s spirit in the Underworld. He hated the choice he had made.’
‘Because he longed to feel the blood in his veins again,’ she said. ‘Marry me and your spirit will never have to suffer the torture of Hades, as his does.’
‘No. Achilles hated that he had rejected a simple, happy life for something false and unfulfilling. I won’t make the same mistake. I want to go home. That’s where my heart is; that’s where it’s always been.’
Calypso sat up and stared at him with disdain.
‘Why do you still cling to that false hope? You couldn’t find the way to Ithaca before you came here, so why do you expect to find it now?’
‘I would still try. What else is left to me? You’ve imprisoned me on this island of empty beauty; you’ve robbed me of my courage, strength and manhood; and you’ve hidden me away from the world that I knew. I’d rather die than remain your plaything.’
She pushed herself to her feet and stepped away. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes were fierce with anger.
‘Why do you insist on denying me?’
‘Because I don’t love you. I will never love you, Calypso.’
She thrust a hand towards him, and though he was beyond her reach, he felt an unseen force around his throat, lifting him from the sand as it choked the flow of air to his lungs. He clutched at his neck, trying to pull the invisible fingers away but only finding his own
‘You forget I am a goddess,’ she snarled. ‘I could kill you right now if I wanted to. What good are you to me if you refuse to give me your heart? Why should I let you live, Odysseus? No one would know if I ended your worthless life. No one would care!’
‘No one except you,’ he croaked.
Her hand dropped to her side and the hold on his throat was released. He fell back onto the goatskin, gasping for air.
‘You’re pathetic,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘Even if you knew the way, how would you sail to Ithaca? You don’t have a ship. What’s more, you’re terrified of the sea. Do you think I haven’t watched you as you stand on the beach, staring in fear at the waves with your hands trembling at your sides? Or heard you moaning in your sleep about storms and drowning shipmates? You’re half the man you were when you first washed up on this island. How can a creature like you refuse the love of a goddess, and all for the sake of a woman whose name you don’t even remember? Damn you, Odysseus!’
She snatched up her dress from the sand and walked down the beach towards the sea, giving him a last glance over her shoulder before disappearing into the darkness.
Odysseus found his cloak and curled up beneath it. He pondered her words and knew they were true. He was no longer the man who had conquered Troy or outwitted the Cyclops. His muscles had gone to waste and his stomach had seen too many easy meals. He lacked the courage to face the sea’s treachery or brave Poseidon’s anger. He had lost his fleet, his men and his greatest friend, Eperitus. He could not even tell how many months he had been imprisoned on Ogygia for.
But one thing remained. He had remembered her name.
Penelope.
Chapter One
The Stranger
The sea was as black as pitch in the moonless night. Countless stars watched the breakers roll one after another upon the shore, but there was no other light.
Eperitus stood on the lonely beach, the waves breaking up around his sandalled feet before being sucked back with a rush through the shingle. The wind howled around his ears and whipped his cloak ferociously against his thighs, though he remained upright beneath its assault. Out at sea rows of jagged rocks defied the waves with insolent boldness, as they had done for years beyond count. He watched them in silence, thinking of the time when he had first seen this shore from the deck of a Phaeacian galley. It had pulled him from the ocean after his own ship had broken apart in a storm and been sucked down to the depths, taking the crew with it. Sometimes he wished he had died along with them.
But the gods had not allowed it – whether out of benevolence or malice, he could not tell – and the Phaeacians had brought him to their ruler. King Alcinous had asked few questions, and Eperitus had responded with nothing more than his name and that he was returning from the siege of Troy. The king had accepted him as a suppliant and even offered him a place in the palace guard, but he had declined, saying that his fighting days were over. Instead, he served the king as a steward, and from that time on the Phaeacians had accepted him and he had been content to live among them.
But he had not found rest. Every night since setting foot on the island he had come to this beach to question the voices in the wind, to look up at the stars and seek the will of Zeus. And every night for seven years he had returned unanswered. But tonight something was stirring within him. Thoughts of Troy churned through his mind. He pictured the great kings and their beaked ships, the vast armies and the walled city that had kept them from their homes for ten years.
And his mind turned naturally to Odysseus, his king and friend, a man beloved of the gods and, ultimately, cursed by them. His stratagems had led to the fall of Priam’s great city, but his reckless desire to return home had doomed himself and his followers to destruction. Of the six hundred who had sailed to Troy with him, only Eperitus and Omeros, the bard, remained; and Omeros could remember nothing, not even his own name. But Eperitus had not forgotten. He would never forget.
As his thoughts drifted through memories of long ago, the wind changed and a voice came to him across the waves. He ran out into the surf, straining his ears against its roar and squinting through the spray. Faintly he heard it again: a man’s voice calling his name. It cried out again and he shouted back, but the wind stole his breath away. The voice came once more and then was gone, carried into oblivion by the storm.
Waves crashed against the rocks, throwing white flecks of spray high against the black sky. Half-remembered faces drifted before his eyes: Odysseus, Antiphus, Polites and other comrades; his wife, Astynome, and their child. All of them dead, their faces fading with the fall of the spray. He called their names through cupped hands, as if they would hear him in the cold places where they dwelt. As if he could bridge the bitter years and tell them of his anger and regret, and how he longed to be free of it.
But there was no response, so his fury remained, raging inside him like the sea. It was something he could not quench, not here on Phaeacia. If he was ever to find peace from it, he had to face his past. But that was impossible. The past was gone.
Stubbornly Eperitus waited, waist-deep in the waves, listening intently to the lonely howling of the wind. It was some time before he turned and walked back up the beach, wiping the seawater from his eyes and squeezing it from his beard. He passed the river where the Phaeacian women washed clothing, and walked along the road that led to the walled city of King Alcinous. The farmsteads on either side were silent but for the shifting of animals in the darkness and the occasional bark of a dog. As he walked, the night air carried the sound of the sea to him across the fields, crashing and foaming in its unceasing motion. But he heard no more voices in the wind.
It was not long before he saw the city walls. The gate was reached by a causeway between two harbours, where the fishing boats had long since been drawn up for the night. The only people in sight were a pair of guards, who nodded and let him pass.
The dark streets inside were quiet and deserted as Eperitus climbed the gentle slope to the palace. The monolithic structure stood two floors tall, its great size distinguishing it from the single-storey buildings around it. Its brazen walls gleamed in the flickering light of numerous torches set within the surrounding compound, and though he had seen the palace countless times, he still paused to admire its beauty. A guard stood by a gate in the outer wall. He opened the gate without a word as Eperitus passed through into the courtyard beyond.
The enclosure was broad, and even in the deceptive torchlight it was easy to see that Phaeacia’s king was a man of great wealth and importance. The doors to his palace were tall and awe-inspiring, their golden casings glowing red as if on fire. The only guards here were two giant dogs, one of gold and one of silver, set on either side of the great portal; locals claimed they had been made by the smith-god, Hephaistos, to act as tireless sentinels against any who bore ill will to the king. But the island had few visitors, and Alcinous had no enemies that Eperitus knew of.
A side entrance led to a room where twenty hand mills stood vacant. A fine dust of ground barley was being swept up by a young slave, whose quicker friends had already finished their allotment of work and gone to the kitchens for their food. The girl paid him no attention and he continued through to the storage rooms and then into the kitchen. Here a large group of servants had gathered round the blazing hearth to share their evening meal, where they were being joined by their children and some of the off-duty guards. Without thinking, he kissed his fingers and touched the feet of a terracotta statuette of Demeter, which stood in an alcove by the entrance. There was no feast in the palace tonight. The king and his wife were away, so the usual gathering was swelled by a mixture of squires, wine stewards and meat carvers, whose normal duties were not required.
A young, long-haired soldier stood at the edge of the circle. He eyed Eperitus disdainfully, and as he passed caught him forcefully with his shoulder, knocking him into a group of male slaves.
‘Watch where you’re going, stranger.’
The Phaeacians still referred to him as stranger, because few knew his name and he minded nobody’s business but his own. His preference for solitude made many think of him as aloof, and won him few friends. Not that he cared. He had always given his friendship sparingly.
Avoiding the soldier’s gaze, he straightened himself up and turned to leave.
