‘It might be. Do you not know who I am?’
‘I do not, sir. I have never sailed before.’
Odysseus kept his expression fierce. ‘That is no excuse, boy. Was I not described to you in tales of wonder? Were the legends of my life not told round your cookfires?’
‘I don’t know,’ answered the boy honestly. ‘You haven’t told me your name.’
‘I am the king of Ithaka – the warrior king of Ithaka. The greatest sailor in all the world. Does that offer a clue?’
‘Is this Ithaka?’ asked the lad.
Odysseus shook his head. ‘No, this is not Ithaka. I can see your education has been sadly lacking. Go on, now. Enjoy the delights of Blue Owl Bay.’
The boy swung away, but then turned back. ‘I am Xander,’ he said. ‘I am a sailor too.’
‘And a good one. I can tell. I am Odysseus.’
Xander stood very still, staring at him. ‘Truly?’
‘Indeed.’
‘I have heard of you. Grandfather says you are the greatest liar in all the world, and you tell the best stories. He told me the one about how your ship was lifted by a great storm and left on a mountainside, and how you cut the sail in half and tied it to the oars and flapped them like wings so that the ship flew back to the sea.’
‘For a while, though, we were lost in the clouds,’ said Odysseus, ‘and I had to be lowered on a rope to guide us back to the water.’
The boy laughed. ‘I am sailing with the lord Helikaon,’ he said. ‘We went through a great storm, and I nearly fell over the side.’
‘I sailed with Helikaon once,’ Odysseus told him. ‘He was about your age. I used my magic to teach him how to fly.’
‘He can fly?’
‘Like an eagle. Perhaps I’ll tell you about it later. But for now I need to piss, and I hate to be watched, so be away with you.’
The boy ran off. Odysseus, his good humour returned, strolled along the beach.
He sat down on a jutting rock and looked back to where Helikaon was surrounded by crewmen from the Penelope. They were – he guessed – talking about old times.
Old times.
It was twenty years since Odysseus had first laid eyes on Helikaon. Twenty years! Sometimes it seemed merely a few trading seasons had passed. Odysseus had been young, and at the height of his strength, and he remembered vividly the first time he had trodden the steep path to the hilltop fortress of Dardanos.
The rocky fastness had become the capital of Dardania under Anchises the king, Helikaon’s father. He was said to be wealthy with ill-gotten gains and, more importantly to Odysseus the trader, had a beautiful young wife. Thus he climbed the steep rock-strewn hill accompanied by three crewmen and two donkeys laden with rare perfumes, jewels and gold, rich textiles and trinkets such as might appeal to a woman of taste.
At the fortress gates he had joked with the royal guard while weighing up the defences. The gates were thick, but far too broad, a foolish vanity on the part of the king no doubt. But the walls were high and well made, blocks of limestone fitted cunningly together without mortar. The guards at the gate looked well fed and alert. They eyed him curiously, which was only to be expected. He had already made a name for himself, even in this distant northern domain.
Suddenly an excited young voice behind him cried, ‘Sir, sir, is that your ship?’
He swung round and saw a boy of seven or eight with night-dark hair and brilliant blue eyes. The boy was pointing down to the beach where the Penelope had been drawn up, looming large over the fishing boats around her.
‘What if it is, you ugly little dwarf?’ he growled.
The boy was taken aback but he stood his ground. ‘I’m not a dwarf, sir. I’m a boy. I am Aeneas, the son of Anchises, the king.’
Odysseus glared at him. ‘Expect me to believe that? You don’t look like any boy I’ve ever seen. All the boys I’ve met have had four arms. Don’t try to fool me, lad. You’ll regret it.’ He placed his hand on his dagger and stepped forward menacingly.
The boy was uncertain still – until he saw the wide grins on the faces of the palace guards and laughed.
‘My father told me Odysseus of Ithaka would be our honoured guest and that he is a fine teller of tall stories. Will you tell me about the boys with four arms, sir? How many heads did they have?’
Odysseus gave him a grudging smile. ‘We’ll see, lad,’ he said. ‘We’ll see.’
At that moment a harassed-looking middle-aged woman appeared behind the lad.
‘Aeneas, where have you been? I thought I’d never find you. I’ve been all the way down to the beach looking for you. Come. Come here. Your mother wants you.
You’re a bad boy,’ she added as an afterthought.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him up the path towards the royal apartments.
Aeneas grinned over his shoulder at Odysseus then suffered himself to be dragged up the stone steps to a side balcony where a slender, beautiful, dark-haired woman in blue robes waited. She knelt down to embrace the boy, who, glancing at
Odysseus again, rolled his eyes.
Odysseus met the king in Anchises’ megaron, the great stone hall where he received guests and ordered his daily business. The man was pale-skinned and grey-haired, his ice-blue eyes resting coolly on the trader as if he were no more than a palace servant.
Odysseus was well used to jumped-up brigands like this. He liked to think he was flexible in his dealings and he had an arsenal of weapons to call on, ranging from outrageous flattery through charm to scarce-concealed threats. This king, though, was cool and remote, and the trader found him hard to read. They discussed the state of trade on the local coasts, sipping well-watered wine, and Odysseus told a couple of stories to make Anchises laugh. But his best stories –
even the one about the virgin and the scorpion – scarcely creased the king’s stern features and his eyes remained cold.
Odysseus was almost relieved when Aeneas, barefoot and dressed in a linen tunic, came running into the megaron and skidded to a halt in front of the king.
‘Have I missed everything, father? Am I too late?’
‘Missed what? What are you talking about, Aeneas?’ asked Anchises impatiently, his icy eyes turning to the dark-haired woman who followed the boy into the chamber.
‘The stories, father. Of wild beasts and two-headed boys and adventures on the high sea,’ he said, his face creased into a frown of anxiety. ‘I had to do my lessons,’ he explained to Odysseus, who watched him with amusement.
‘I’m tired, lad, and I’ve run out of stories for the day.’
‘Come, Helikaon, don’t trouble your father and his guest,’ said his mother and she took him gently by the arm. She was a woman of fragile beauty with delicate pale skin and, Odysseus thought, eyes which seemed to gaze on a different horizon. It was a look he had seen before, and he regarded the young queen with renewed interest.
‘I have told you before,’ said the king, harshly, ‘to call him by the name I gave him. Aeneas. It is a proud name.’
The queen looked frightened and began to stammer an apology. Odysseus saw the boy’s expression change, then he pulled away from his mother and said: ‘I’m going to build the biggest ship in the world when I’m older. I am to be a great hero. The gods told mother.’
A pretty frown creased the woman’s brow. She knelt before her son and embraced him again as Odysseus had seen her do on the balcony. She looked into the boy’s eyes as if searching for something there. Odysseus was impressed with the lad.
He was very young, and yet he had sensed his mother’s distress, and had spoken to distract his father’s anger.
