“You have other friends who love you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I value them all.”
“Is Odysseus one of them still?”
He smiled. “Odysseus first and foremost. He is the greatest man I have ever met.”
Andromache sighed. “Then there is something we must speak of.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE BEGGAR AND THE BOW
In the drafty megaron on wind-tossed Ithaka, the pirates were enjoying their nightly revels. Many stood out in the courtyard, seeking the warmth where Odysseus’ sheep roasted on spits, but most of them were in the hall, laughing, quarreling, eating, and drinking. A few already had slumped asleep on the cold stone floor. Occasionally a skirmish would break out, but no one had died yet this night, Penelope thought regretfully. And the numbers who were killed each day in those sudden knife fights were more than made up for by newcomers. More than a hundred of these scum of the seas had arrived in the last few days, drawn across the winter seas by tales of the hospitality on Ithaka. Added to their number were some Siculi tribesmen from the Fire Isle in the west, harsh, savage men with tattooed faces and weapons of curved bronze.
The queen sat chained to the carved wooden throne and tried, as she did each night, to distance herself from events around her. Though exhausted, she raised her shaved head high and held her gaze on the opposite wall, where the huge painted shield of Odysseus’ father hung unregarded. She tried to force her thoughts away from the pain of her broken fingers, the throbbing from her bound wrists, and the incessant itching of the lice-ridden rags she had been forced to wear.
Penelope tried to recall the happy days when she and Odysseus both had been young. She called to mind the face of her son Laertes. In the first years after he died she could see him only as he had been in the immobility of death, but now she found she could remember the precise hue of his eyes, feel the soft down of his cheek against her lips, and recall the exact expression on his face when his father came into the room. No day passed when she did not remember the boy, but thoughts of him now were calming and sweet, rescuing her for a few precious moments from this endless torment.
As always, her mind kept betraying her, raising fruitless hopes of Odysseus striding through the megaron doors, swinging his sword and carving a path to her, releasing her from her bonds, and taking her into the safety of his huge arms. It would be like one of his stories told in this very hall at night when the fire was banked high and she was surrounded by her loved ones. But then cold intelligence would flow across those hopes. Odysseus was older now, almost fifty. The days of great strength and inexhaustible stamina were behind him. His joints ached in the winter, and after a day of labor, he would sink down into a comfortable chair with the heavy, grateful sigh of the ancient.
The thief of time slowly was stealing the vitality from the man she loved. She knew that if he came, his aging body would betray him against these vile young men glorying in the power of their youth.
Then despair would strike, and she would plead: Don’t come, Ugly One! For once in your life do something sensible and stay away. Wait until the spring and bring an army to avenge me. Please don’t come to me now.
But he would come. She knew it with certainty. For all that he was wily, brilliant, and cunning, Odysseus would be blinded to reason by his love for her.
Her thoughts turned bleakly to suicide. If he knew she was dead, Odysseus still would come, but with a clearer mind bent only on vengeance. He would wait until he had raised a fleet and could kill every pirate on Ithaka ten times over. If she could get hold of a knife or a sharp stick, she could pierce her breast in an instant. Even as the thought came, she felt the babe move within her, and her eyes misted with tears. I could kill myself, but I cannot kill you, little one.
“Well, Your Highness, will you do us the honor of eating and drinking with us tonight?” asked the hated voice.
Penelope’s gaze reluctantly focused on the gaunt, cruel features of Antinous, her captor and tormentor, as he bowed elaborately before her. He was young, having hardly more than twenty summers, but he was clever and ruthless. The hint of insanity in his green eyes could be feigned, she thought, but it made the older pirates step around him with care. His hair was dark and long, and a single thin braid decorated with gold wire hung from his right temple.
In the nineteen endless days since the attack—days the queen had marked as carefully as she marked the kicking of the child inside her—Penelope had learned a lot about the pirates and their ways. Most were spiteful, stupid men who believed that cruelty and murder made them strong. They were undisciplined and prone to sudden outbursts of rage and violence. Of the five pirate leaders who had banded together under Antinous’ leadership to attack Ithaka, three were dead at Antinous’ hand. Another had been killed in a fight over a captured woman.
“Well, my lady? Shall I untie your hands and have food brought?” Antinous’ grinning face was inches from hers. She smelled meat on his breath but not wine, for he never drank.
Penelope ignored him. His hand snaked out, slapping her face hard and jarring her teeth. She could taste blood on her tongue. “Or shall I give you to my men tonight?” Antinous inquired softly, gesturing to the drunken rabble. “They will make you squeal.”
The queen focused her gaze on his too-calm eyes, eyes she would see in her dreams as long as she lived.
“Do as you will, pirate,” she said coldly. “I am Penelope, queen of Ithaka. My husband is the great Odysseus, and he is coming here to kill you. Hear the words of your death, Antinous.”
Antinous laughed lightly and stood back. “We are impatient for your husband’s arrival. I hear that he and a few old men like him are coming to rescue you. All across the Great Green I expect they are speaking of it.” He gestured again around the hall. “My fighters are young and strong and fearless. They will relish cutting out the heart of fat Odysseus.” Then he moved alongside her and whispered in her ear. “But first I will make him watch you die. He will see you raped by my men, then watch as I put out your eyes and cut his foul get from your belly.”
Despite the terror in her heart, Penelope forced a smile. “Your words mean nothing, blowhard. You are already dead. This I promise.”
There was movement in the doorway far down the hall, and she saw a new group enter. Eagerly she scanned their faces. There was a muscled giant she first thought was Leukon, but as he turned to her, she saw the violence in his eyes and realized he was just a killer.
Then she saw a face she knew. Sekundos! He was an old rogue Odysseus had had dealings with in happier days but was pirate scum nonetheless. No hope for her there. Others of his crew followed him in, ragged men in threadbare tunics. They looked more like beggars than pirates.
“Looking for rescue, Penelope?” Antinous asked her. “Old Sekundos is not a savior. Soft as puppy shit and close to senile, but he tells me he knows the island well—all the hidden places where your peasants and their women are cowering in fear.”
Penelope closed her eyes, seeking a few heartbeats of release from his presence. But she could not force his face from her mind and saw again the dreadful day he had come to Ithaka.
His eight galleys had sailed through the morning mist, and two hundred warriors had stormed ashore. The small garrison of thirty fighting men had battled valiantly all day, but by twilight all of her soldiers, most of them boys and ancients, had lain dead. The bodies of those brave men had been impaled on spikes on the beach for Odysseus to see when he arrived. The stench of rotting flesh on the breeze was appalling.