There was a magic to the stories. Odysseus was aware of it, though why the enchantment worked was beyond his understanding. They were fictions, and yet they led to truths. His second in command, Bias, had strutted like a peacock after Odysseus told a crowd that he had hurled the javelin that broke the wing of a demon pursuing their ship. After that Bias spent much of his spare time on land practising with the javelin. He became so proficient that he won a slave woman in the funeral games held for Alektruon.
Last summer, when the Penelope had been attacked by pirates, the crew had fought like heroes in an effort to live up to the stories Odysseus told of them. After the victory they had gathered round him, bragging of their courage, and anxious that he should include this latest adventure in his next performance.
But the magic of what Odysseus called the ‘golden lie’ had worked best with Helikaon. He had joined the Penelope’s crew as a frightened youth. The men, however, reacted to him as the young hero who had dived from a cliff to rescue their leader. They loved him and expected great deeds from him. He in turn supplied those deeds, living up to their expectations. The great fiction became the great truth. The lie of courage became the reality of heroism. Helikaon, the ship’s mascot, became Helikaon the adventurer. The frightened boy became the fearless man.
Odysseus lay back on the sand, staring up at the stars. The gifts he received for storytelling had begun to exceed the amount he earned from trading on the Great Green. Last year, at the court of Agamemnon, in the Lion’s Hall, he had spun a great epic tale of a mysterious island, ruled by a Witch Queen who turned his men into pigs. He had made that story last throughout a full evening, and not one listener had left the hall. Afterwards Agamemnon gave him two golden cups, inset with emeralds and rubies. The same night Agamemnon had stabbed to death a drunken Mykene nobleman who doubted him.
How curious, he thought, that a man who told huge lies would be paid in gold and gems while another who offered the truth would receive a dagger through his eye.
After a performance he was always unable to sleep, despite the heavy weariness that sat upon him like a bear. He rolled to his side, then sat up. Eventually he walked down to the water’s edge, and squatted down to sculpt a face in the wet sand. As always he tried to capture the beauty of his wife, Penelope. As always he failed. He used the flat of his dagger to mould the features, the long, straight nose and the full lips, then the point of the blade to create the impression of hair. Suddenly a long black worm pushed up through the sculpture.
Odysseus leapt back. The lugworm slithered across the face in the sand, then burrowed deep once more.
Odysseus laughed at himself for being so startled by a harmless sea worm.
Then a story began to form in his mind. A woman with snakes for hair, living on a secret isle, shrouded in mist. The Penelope would have stopped at the isle, seeking fresh water. One of the crew would go missing. The others would hunt for him. They would find only his bones… No! I’ve done that too often, he thought. They would discover… He had been turned into a statue. He had gazed upon the face of the snake-haired woman and his flesh had become stone. Odysseus smiled. He glanced up the steep mountain trail. ‘Be lucky, boy!’ he whispered.
ii
When the fight began Andromache had turned swiftly from the violence and walked away through the deserted stalls. Once hidden she had glanced back to see one man dead, the other standing over him, a bloody knife in his hand. She was shocked, though not as shocked as she might have been had she not seen men die before. Father had a habit of killing criminals personally, having them dragged into the royal courtyard and forced to kneel before him. Then he would try out the various weapons in his armoury. The axe was a favourite. Father bragged he could hew the head from a man in a single stroke. He never had while Andromache was forced to watch. Usually two blows were necessary. As a child she had wondered why the victims never struggled when they were brought forward. Some begged, others wept, but she could recall no-one who sought to run.
At least what she had just witnessed here tonight had been a fight. An assassin had tried to commit murder, and had died. Andromache shivered. At first the man with the long dark hair had seemed more of a poet or a bard than a warrior. She could still picture his eyes. They were bright blue and beautiful. Yet he had proved to be as savage as any Mykene reaver, making no attempt to subdue his attacker, merely ripping his life away. But those eyes…
Think of something else, you stupid girl, she chided herself.
She wandered among the stalls. A mangy dog growled at her. Andromache snapped her fingers at it, and it ran away for a few steps, then stared back malevolently. She cut to the right, heading down through the rocks to sit by the sea’s edge. Removing her sandals, she dipped her feet into the water, then stared out over the dark sea. Loneliness closed in on her, and she longed to be able to climb aboard a ship and say to the master: ‘Take me to Thera. Take me home.’
Had she been marrying anyone but Hektor she would have been welcomed back to the temple with open arms. They would have applauded her courage, and made jokes about the stupidity of men. However, Hektor was the son of Hekabe, queen of Troy, the single largest benefactor of the Temple of the Horse. Under no circumstances would the sisterhood do anything to cause offence to such a great power. No, they would greet Andromache warmly, then place her on the next ship for the eastern mainland, probably under guard. She thought then of Kalliope, picturing her not at their tearful farewell, but at the Feast of Demeter the previous autumn. She had danced under the stars, her naked body glistening in the firelight. Tall and strong and fearless. She would not suffer them to send Andromache to a loveless marriage.
Which was another reason Andromache could not go back. Of all the women on Thera Kalliope was the most content there. Her loathing of men meant the island was the one place in all the world where she could be at peace; where her laughter could ring out and her soul soar free. Andromache’s return, and the consequent turmoil, could lead to Kalliope’s expulsion from Thera.
A cool wind blew over the sea, and Andromache gathered her cloak about her. Time drifted by. She knew she should return to Kygones’, the Fat King’s, palace, but she was loth to forsake the freedom the beach offered.
‘You do not belong here,’ said a man’s voice. She glanced round, an angry retort on her lips. Then she saw it was the storyteller. In the moonlight his ugliness seemed almost otherworldly. She could imagine Dionysian horns sprouting from his head.
‘Where do I belong?’ she countered.
‘Why, in one of my tales, of course. My friend was right. You do look like a goddess. You’re not, are you?’ He sat down on a nearby rock. The moon was full now, and she saw that his face, while ugly, had a boyish charm. ‘I am Odysseus,’
he said. ‘And you haven’t answered my question.’
‘Yes, I am a goddess,’ she told him. ‘I’ll leave you to guess which one.’
‘Artemis the Huntress.’
‘Not Aphrodite then? How disappointing.’
‘I don’t know much about how the gods really look,’ he admitted, ‘but I think the Goddess of Love would have bigger tits. And her eyes would be warm and beguiling. No, I think Artemis suits you. Tell me you can shoot a bow.’
Andromache laughed. ‘I can shoot a bow.’
‘I knew it! One of those flimsy Egypteian pieces, or a real Phrygian bow, of horn and wood and leather?’
Andromache smiled. ‘On Thera we had both, and, yes, I preferred the Phrygian.’
‘I have a bow no-one else can string,’ he told her. ‘It makes me laugh to see strong men grow red in the face trying. It is a powerful weapon. I once shot an arrow into the moon. It had a rope attached and I used it to draw my ship from the beach.’
‘That was a long rope,’ she observed.
Odysseus laughed. ‘I like you, lass. Where are you really from, and what are you doing here, walking among whores and sailors?’
‘How do you know I am not a whore?’
