Eperitus could see Odysseus biting back whatever words had sprung to his quick mind. Instead, the king looked questioningly into the goddess’s clear eyes.
‘And how will an ivory shoulder blade help us defeat Priam and conquer his city, Mistress?’
‘Think of what your qualities are, Odysseus. Ask yourself why this mission will fail without you.’
Odysseus frowned and looked away into the storm. Eperitus followed his gaze and saw for the first time how the raindrops seemed to hit an invisible shield around the ship and disappear in small puffs of steam, leaving the vessel surrounded by a thin layer of fog.
‘It’s a riddle!’ Odysseus answered, turning sharply back to the goddess. ‘There’s something about the shoulder bone, or maybe the tomb itself, that will tell us how to defeat Troy. And you think I’m the one who will decipher it.’
Athena answered with a smile. ‘Whatever the reason for sending you, Odysseus, don’t think the tomb will give up its secrets freely. You already know about the maze.’
‘To keep out the ghost of Myrtilus,’ Eperitus said.
‘Or so Agamemnon believes,’ Athena replied, enigmatically. ‘And maybe that was the story its builders put about. Yet the truth is the maze was not built to keep something out, but to keep something in.’
‘Agamemnon said the tomb was cursed –’ Odysseus began.
‘In that he was not wrong,’ Athena said, ‘as some have found out for themselves – robbers, mostly: desperate men who were either ignorant of the curse or too greedy to care. Their bones now litter the dark corridors of the maze. But though you are neither ignorant nor greedy, your need is more desperate than theirs and by the will of the gods you must enter the tomb and face the curse that haunts it. For that reason I am permitted to help you, if only with advice. In a moment I will be gone and the crew will awaken, each of them thinking they were alone in a moment’s lapse of consciousness. The storm will abate and you will be able to anchor your ship by the mouth of the Alpheius. Make camp tonight and in the morning take a small force of warriors with you, while leaving enough men behind to protect the galley in your absence. Follow the banks of the river until you reach a temple of Artemis, within sight of the walls of Pisa. On the opposite side of the water is a low hill. You will know it because it is overgrown with long grass and weeds: no animal would graze on it, even if their herders allowed them to. This is the tomb of Pelops.
‘The entrance is not obvious. It’s on the northern flank, below the trunk of a dead olive tree, and is covered by brambles and a layer of earth. You will have to dig your way into it and knock down the wall you find beneath. Once you’ve done this you will find yourselves in the antechamber to the maze.’
‘And how will we find the tomb?’ Odysseus asked.
‘That I cannot tell you. All mazes are designed to confuse, but this one will dull your senses and have you losing all track of time and place. If you succeed, it’ll most likely be by chance, although you might be able to deduce a way through if you apply your intelligence, Odysseus.’
‘What do you know about the curse, Mistress?’ Eperitus questioned. ‘How can we protect ourselves from it?’
‘Protect yourselves?’ she queried. ‘There’s no protection from what lies within the tomb – not for mortal flesh, at least. But this much I can say, and I say it to you in particular, Eperitus. The only way to overcome the curse of Pelops’s tomb is for Ares’s gift to complete its purpose.’
‘I don’t understand!’
‘You will, when the time comes,’ she answered.
And then she was gone, dissolving into the air as a dense spray of seawater dashed over the side of the galley, dousing Odysseus and Eperitus and waking the crew from their induced slumber.
Chapter Sixteen
PELOP’S TOMB
Eupeithes looked up at the stars glinting and glittering above the broad roof of his house. They were a fierce white, like particles of daylight burning holes in the night, and as he traced the outlines of the constellations he wondered what a man would have to do to have his own image set among them. Then he smiled and shook his head gently: a ridiculous ambition, he mocked himself, for an overweight merchant who was neither king nor warrior.
Antinous, his son, returned from the bushes at the edge of the expansive garden, where he had emptied his bladder. He dropped heavily onto the seat between Polyctor and Oenops and stared across at his father. Eupeithes had ordered chairs to be carried out to the lawn where it was less likely that eavesdropping slaves could overhear their treasonous talk and report it back to Penelope or her supporters.
‘What’s the point in having control of the Kerosia if you’re not going to do anything with it?’ Antinous asked, picking up the argument he had walked away from in anger only a few moments before. ‘Once Odysseus returns he’ll reappoint a new council and leave us back where we started – if he doesn’t execute us all first. I didn’t throw old Phronius to his death for that to happen. We have to act while we still can: appoint a new king then form an army, ready for Odysseus’s return –’
‘The Kerosia can’t just appoint a king,’ Oenops protested, shaking his white head firmly. ‘We haven’t the right or the power, not while the true king still lives.’
Polyctor, a black-haired man with soft grey eyes and a scanty beard, leaned across and patted Antinous on the back.
‘You’ve grown up in a kingdom without a king, used to the idea the Kerosia makes all the decisions. It doesn’t, Antinous. We’re only a council, subordinate in everything to the power of the throne. The only time we get to make any decisions is when the king is absent.’
‘Well, he’s absent now –’
Eupeithes raised his long, feminine hands for silence. There was no light in the garden and his mole-speckled skin looked grey and waxy as he smiled at the others.
‘You’re all correct, of course. Though we control the Kerosia, we remain but a council of advisers with limited authority – and certainly not enough to elect a new king. As Oenops implies, we can only do that if the king dies and leaves no successor. What power we do have will only last until the return of Odysseus. We therefore have to be realistic: if he comes back within the next few weeks or months, accompanied by a veteran army of loyal Ithacans, there is nothing we can do.’
Antinous threw his hands up to the heavens in a despairing gesture.
‘Then why go to such lengths to take control of the Kerosia? Why did we try to have Telemachus murdered? We’ve risked all we have for nothing.’
‘Maybe,’ his father replied, ‘but I don’t think so. I made my wealth as a merchant, not a gambler, by relying on shrewdness rather than luck. This is no different. But before I outline the solutions, let me first delineate the problems. There are three: Odysseus’s return; Telemachus, his heir; and the loyalty of the Ithacan people.’
‘I’d like to hear your solution to Odysseus,’ Oenops sniffed. ‘Didn’t you just say there’s nothing we can do if he comes back now?’
‘I was simply putting the case, my dear Oenops. The fact is he won’t be coming back. I’ve made certain of that.’
‘How?’ Antinous asked, sitting up.
‘I placed two men among the replacements that were sent to Troy in the spring, with instructions to murder Odysseus if the war ends and he survives. Both are more than capable of carrying out the task, and they know they’ll be generously rewarded if they succeed. What’s more, neither knows about the other. That way, they’ll act alone and if one fails the other won’t be implicated. I had to make doubly certain Odysseus doesn’t make it back to his beloved Ithaca. To our beloved Ithaca.’