Return to Ithaca

By Glyn Iliffe

The epic story of Odysseus's journey home, the historical fantasy series finale by an author who has been called "a demi-god of the genre" (The Catholic Herald).
Odysseus has been to Hell and back. Deserted by the Gods, and now in bitter conflict with his friend Eperitus, times look bleak. He dreams of returning to his home; to Ithaca.
But back on Ithaca things look little better. His son Telemachus and wife Penelope are besieged by a gang of suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead and looking for her hand in marriage.
Odysseus and Eperitus have survived everything. But now they face a last test, perhaps the most difficult of all . . . Can they reclaim what has been lost?
For readers of David Gemmell, Christian Cameron and Simon Scarrow, Return to Ithaca is the stunning conclusion to the Adventures of Odysseus series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911591788

Glyn Iliffe

Glyn Iliffe studied English and Classics at Reading University, where he developed a passion for the stories of ancient Greek mythology. Well travelled, Glyn has visited nearly forty countries, trekked in the Himalayas, spent six weeks hitchhiking across North America and had his collarbone broken by a bull in Pamplona. He is married with two daughters and lives in Leicestershire.

Book preview

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 flesh.

‘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.

‘Did I say you could go?’

‘You heard Acroneos,’ said another soldier, a short, ugly man with several missing teeth. ‘You owe him an apology, stranger.’

Eperitus took a deep breath and stared hard at the stone floor. Acroneos stepped in front of him and pressed his face close to Eperitus’s.

‘You filthy coward,’ he hissed.

Eperitus sensed the other soldier step up behind him. By now the room had fallen silent. A few looked on with sympathy; others watched in anticipation, enjoying his humiliation.

‘I heard tell you were a deserter from the war,’ Acroneos continued. ‘That you ran away and left your own king to be slain, and that you’ve been hiding here ever since.’

‘A man like him doesn’t know the meaning of honour,’ said the short, ugly soldier. ‘Snivelling worms who always find their way into the rear rank of any fight.’

Eperitus’s hands balled up into fists and he had to force them flat against his thighs again.

‘Leave the stranger alone,’ said a hunchbacked man from among the crowd. ‘You know he won’t fight, Acroneos. That’s why you always pick on him.’

‘Shut up, Pontonous,’ Acroneos replied. ‘Cripple or not, I ain’t above giving you a bit of pain either, if you annoy me.’

‘If you want an apology,’ Eperitus said, ‘then I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry’s not enough any more. You spilled my wine,’ Acroneos said, dropping his cup on the flagstoned floor. It broke into several pieces and splashed Eperitus’s shins. ‘I want you to clean that up.’

Eperitus continued to avoid Acroneos’s stare, knowing that to make eye contact with him would only escalate matters. Slowly, he knelt down and picked up the shards from around the soldier’s feet.

‘Now lap up the wine, like the dog you are.’

The short, ugly soldier and a few others laughed. Eperitus stared at the pool of dark liquid, focusing away from his anger. Acroneos was half his age and wanted to fight him, not realising that if Eperitus chose to, he could kill him with his bare hands right there in front of most of the palace servants. They would not laugh at him then, he thought. But he had sworn to the gods never to kill again, and he would not risk breaking that oath in a fight. Acroneos and his friend could beat him to the edge of death for all he cared. He would not fight.

‘Enough now,’ said an old woman. ‘We’re here to enjoy ourselves, Acroneos. Leave the stranger alone and go back to your drinking.’

Before the soldier could object, she had knelt beside Eperitus and mopped up the wine with a cloth. Catching his eye, she nodded to a corner of the room.

He stood and walked away, followed by the laughter of the two guards.

Pontonous, the king’s chief steward, pushed his way through the crowd towards him and offered him a bowl of hot porridge.

‘Why do you let them treat you like that, Eperitus? It just provokes them. Half the guards in the palace are desperate to get a reaction from you. It’s like bull baiting to them: they know you’re better than them, and at heart they’re terrified of you, but they think it makes them look like real men.’

‘There are no real men in the palace guard.’

‘So rough one or two of them up and buy yourself a bit of respect – and peace.’

Eperitus took a spoonful of porridge, tested the temperature against his lips, then put it in his mouth.

‘I’ve taken a vow…’

‘I know, I know – a vow never to kill. But d’you think the gods would mind if you taught young Acroneos a lesson? Zeus loves to see justice – he wouldn’t hold it against you, even if you killed the little rat.’

Eperitus shook his head and put the empty bowl of porridge on the floor.

‘Yes, he would. And if I knock Acroneos on his backside and humiliate him, he’ll draw his sword and it’ll end in one of us dying. Besides, my fighting days are over. I gained nothing from being a warrior, Pontonous. Nothing. And you can take it from me, those who died at Troy gained nothing either.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Pontonous said, waving to a female slave. She brought two cups of wine and was repaid with a slap on the buttocks from the hunchback. ‘Would Achilles say that if he could hear the tales Demodocus sings about him?’

Eperitus laughed.

‘Achilles most of all.’

Pontonous shook his head.

‘Well, my friend, you take it too far. I’ve spent my whole life being mocked and beaten because of this hump and my twisted spine. What I wouldn’t give for muscles and courage like yours. I’d show the Acroneoses of this world a thing or two.’

‘Courage?’ Eperitus said with a smile. ‘I’m a filthy coward, didn’t you know?’

‘Ah, shut up and drink your wine. I’m just saying there’s a balance to be struck. Sometimes a man has to fight for what is right, and that’s my last word on it. Anyway, how was the beach tonight?’

‘Stormy,’ Eperitus said, looking into his wine cup. ‘I heard the voice again. Clearly this time, though. It wasn’t in my head and it wasn’t the wind.’

‘Still think it was one of the gods?’ Pontonous asked, peering sidelong at him. ‘Maybe there’s a link with the dreams you’ve been having. About Ithaca.’

‘They’re just dreams.’

‘But you have them every night. The same dreams, and always involving Odysseus. Have you ever thought the gods might be calling you back there?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’ Pontonous insisted. ‘You’re tormented about something. I don’t know what happened to you on that voyage back from Troy, and if you haven’t told me by now then I don’t want to know. But you’ll never have peace until you stop running away and confront it. And you can’t do that on Phaeacia. If you want my opinion, I think your past is waiting for you on Ithaca.’

‘The past is in the past, Pontonous. There’s nothing for me on that island any more, not since the king died.’

‘What about the queen?’

‘Penelope? It would be good to see her again,’ Eperitus said with a smile, half-remembering something that he did not share with Pontonous. ‘Though she’ll have remarried by now, if she has any sense. And Penelope always had sense. But you’re right about one thing. If the gods have remembered I’m here, then perhaps it’s time to leave Phaeacia.’

Three more soldiers entered the room, shouting for wine. The chief steward waved a pair of slave girls over to serve them. Others followed in threes and fours, joining the growing crowd about the hearth. Three maids of princess Nausicaa began to sing while a group of the smallest children danced. Others clapped and one of the meat carvers called for a song. Amid the hubbub, Pontonous made his excuses to Eperitus and went to instruct one of the wine stewards to mix more wine. Before long the room was thick with the babbling of alcohol-loosened voices.

A young man with light, curly hair and effeminate good looks pulled down a tortoiseshell lyre from the wall and tested the strings. A group of women mocked his preparations, taking courage from the wine and accusing him of not knowing which end was which – until he struck the first few notes and the room fell into a hush. As he toyed with a melodious tune on the battered instrument, the carver who had requested a song called to him.

‘What will you sing, Ocyalus?’

‘What do you want me to sing?’ he asked. ‘What will the children have?’

A boy, whose father was captain of the guard, demanded the story of Perseus and the gorgon, but Ocyalus apologised and admitted he had not yet learned it all, meaning it was too long and scary for the young ones. Finally he sang the tale of the birth of Aphrodite, which particularly pleased the children and womenfolk.

While he sang, Eperitus felt the last of the seawater leaving his tunic and woollen cloak. The wine moved his thoughts back to the voice on the beach, and he knew that something irreversible had changed in him. There was a quality in that voice that reminded him of Odysseus.

Ocyalus’s song had ended and the men were asking for a story from the Trojan War. Eperitus did not hear them. He was lost in the fog of his own thoughts, increasingly convinced that the voice on the beach was a call to wake him from his slumber.

Pontonous sat down beside him and poured some wine into his cup.

‘Here, cheer up and have a bit of the good stuff. Just for you and me, you understand,’ he added with a wink. ‘Straight from the king’s own store – not the bull’s piss I serve those dull-witted guards.’

Eperitus took a sip and nodded.

‘It’s good. Though not as good as the wine we were given by Maron, after we raided the land of the Cicones.’

Pontonous waved his hand dismissively.

‘Keep your stories for Ocyalus; he might even might make some of them into a song. You can tell me this, though: were you serious about leaving Phaeacia? Do you really think you can hide from the gods?’

‘Hide? No, but I can keep running. The dreams, the voice in the wind – something is about to happen. I can feel it in the air, like the heaviness before a storm breaks. And I don’t want to be here when it does. The gods have brought me nothing but trouble, and if they’re calling me, then it’s time to get as far away from them as possible. Will the king still honour the Phaeacian promise to all foreigners – to take me wherever I want to go?’

‘If that’s what you want, then he will. You must ask him when he returns. But where will you go? The outside world is a violent place. Your vow won’t be as easy to keep as it has been here.’

‘I’ll go to the Peloponnese and find my way northwards to Alybas, the place where I was born. A few might remember me there.’

‘But will they welcome you?’ Pontonous asked. ‘Didn’t you say your father murdered the king? You may not have supported his cause, but…’

‘I’ll tell them my father is dead. They will be grateful for the news.’

‘And Ithaca? Perhaps the people there are still waiting to hear what happened to their menfolk. Your tidings may not be received with joy, but at least they’ll allow them to grieve. And perhaps Penelope hasn’t been as sensible as you suggest. Perhaps she still watches the ocean for her husband’s return.’

‘Perhaps,’ Eperitus said. ‘But that’s not my concern any more.’

‘No, you’re wrong,’ Pontonous said, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘It is your concern, all of it: Penelope, Ithaca, the gods. And this thing you’re running from. Listen to me. You’re one of the few real friends I have here, and I don’t want you to leave. But you must, for your own sake. If the gods are calling you back to Ithaca, then go there and face your past. Unless you do, you’ll never be free of it. You’ll never find the peace you need.’

The hunchback looked him in the eye, then stood and went to find more wine.

‘And so they sat in the wooden belly of the great horse,’ Ocyalus said, ‘each man clutching his bronze-tipped spear and listening to the Trojan revellers celebrating outside. Then, as the warriors waited for night to come and their bloody harvest to begin, they heard voices outside. Helen, beacon to the Greeks and doom-bringer to the Trojans, had come with her maids. Deiphobus was with her, her husband after Paris had been killed. They circled the horse, rapping at its hollow legs and calling up as if they knew what lay inside.

‘By now the townsfolk had returned to their homes, or lay asleep by the fires where they had celebrated their apparent victory over the Greeks. And so the warriors could hear the soft voice of Helen, calling their names as if she knew who was inside, mimicking the voices of their wives…’

Eperitus heard Helen as if it was yesterday. He remembered how, with unnatural skill, she had made herself sound like the women many of the waiting warriors had left behind in Greece, making them yearn for their homes.

‘Menelaus, on hearing Helen’s voice, was determined to fling open the hatch and leap down from the belly of the horse, ready to kill his adulterous wife with a blow from his sword – or embrace her as he had wanted to do for so long. But the wily Odysseus, whose scheme it had been to build the Wooden Horse, held him tight and placed a hand over his mouth…’

That was not true. It had been Eperitus who had stopped Odysseus from crying out when Helen called to him in the voice of Penelope. Of course, Eperitus was used to hearing the inaccuracies, embellishments and outright untruths sung by poets about the events he had witnessed. But tonight he had no appetite for it. He took his wine and removed himself to the back of the room by the ovens. Here the walls were still warm, and with the gentle murmur of the poet’s voice in the background, he leant back and closed his eyes, his thoughts drifting to events of long ago.

Chapter Two

The Gods’ Decree

Odysseus sat naked on the sand, his arms folded about his knees as he looked out at the horizon. The morning sun glimmered on the sea, so bright it forced him to squint. He felt its heat drying his hair and skin and driving the chill from his flesh. The water had been cold as he had waded out into it. As his feet had reached the edge of the shelf of sand and he had slipped beneath the surface, he had sensed its emptiness below him, waiting for him to stop kicking and slip down into oblivion.

But at the surface, the sea had been full of sunlight, the golden glow of life that bore no resemblance to the pale twilight he remembered from the Underworld. He realised then that his life was not so empty yet that he was ready to join the shades of forgotten humanity in their kingdom below. So he had swum back, hating the weakness in him that could not face death, and loathing even more the joyless existence that the gods had made his lot.

He looked down at the sand on his feet and the footprints that led up from the water’s edge. The beach was a wide crescent shape, fringed with trees. It took a whole morning to walk from one horn to the other, and there was not a rock or clump of seaweed to mar its grinning beauty. He gave an ironic laugh as he remembered his first sight of the wide bay, and how he had thought it a paradise. After his galley had been destroyed he had reached Ogygia by chance on a piece of wreckage, pulling himself up on a narrow beach between rocky headlands in the south of the island. It was Calypso who had found him and brought him here, giving him the bay for his very own.

But for all its size and beauty, it was still a prison. And though he had often accused her of keeping him there, his true gaoler was Poseidon, lord of the oceans. Without a ship or a crew to sail it, he was doomed to remain on the island. Indeed, even if he had a ship, he doubted he still had the courage to risk another voyage. When he had left Troy, it had been at the head of a fleet of twelve galleys, crewed by over six hundred men. But the sea had claimed every vessel and every soul but his own. And it was still waiting for him. Patiently. Menacingly.

He sensed a presence and reached for his discarded tunic, slipping it over his head and pulling it down to cover his nakedness. A shadow fell across him and he turned to see Calypso. She wore a grey mantle that shone like silver in the sunlight, and about her waist was a golden belt. Her sandals looked plain on her perfect white feet, and though she wore her hood up against the heat of the sun, Odysseus could see the striking beauty of her immortal face in its shade. But her cheeks were glistening with tears, and the black powder with which she always lined her eyes had smudged and run. Her bottom lip protruded in a pout like a child’s, making her look so pathetic that, for a moment, he felt his resentment of her recede.

‘What is it?’ he asked, rising to his feet.

He had never seen Calypso cry before. Indeed, he thought tears were impossible for any immortal, but as he stood before her she broke down in sobs and fell into his arms, burying her face in his neck.

‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’

‘What do you care?’ she sniffed. ‘You hate me, don’t you? You hate me because I love you so much that I have to force myself upon you. Surely my tears are a joy to you!’

‘What I hate is being held captive on this island, but I can hardly blame you for that. You’re as much a prisoner as I am.’

‘But you’re not a prisoner. Not any more.’

‘What do you mean?’

She thumped his shoulder with the flat of her fist.

‘I mean you’re free to leave Ogygia, you stupid oaf. You’re free to leave me.’

He pulled back her hood and looked into her angry blue eyes. The sight of the proud demigod with shining cheeks and trembling lip made him laugh out loud.

She punched him indignantly in the chest and stamped on his foot, screaming at him in her frustration, but it only made him laugh even harder.

‘How dare you laugh at me? Do you know what I could do to you if I wanted to?’

‘Can it be any worse than what you’ve already done?’ he said, his laughter drying quickly. ‘But don’t be offended, my lady. I’m not laughing at you, but at what you’re saying. Who are you to tell me I’m free to leave? It’s Poseidon who keeps me here, not you. Look out there. I couldn’t even reach the horizon without his permission. And he hates me for what I did to his son, Polyphemus the Cyclops, who would have eaten me if I hadn’t blinded him. Even if you could summon me up a ship and a crew, how far would I get before he turned those gentle waves into ocean walls? How far before he smashed our wooden decks to kindling and pulled me down to the seabed with a sail for a shroud?’

‘You don’t understand…’

‘What don’t I understand?’ he snapped. ‘That even if I could slip past Poseidon unnoticed, I wouldn’t fetch up on another gods-forsaken island and become prey to some flesh-eating monster or find myself trapped like a fly in another immortal’s web? Or perhaps I don’t understand that this is some new trick of yours to make me marry you?’

He was trembling with anger now, a fury he had not felt in a long time. And for a moment he sensed a little of his old self returning. Calypso stepped back, a look of fear on her face. But he had no power to harm her. She was immortal and he was just Odysseus the prisoner, no longer Odysseus the king and favourite of Athena. He unclenched his fists and let his shoulders slump. The moment had passed.

‘What are you talking about?’ he sighed.

She wiped away a tear.

‘Hermes came to me this morning. The instant I saw him in my cavern, I knew something was wrong. He never visits me, so it had to be at the command of Zeus or one of the other Olympians.’

‘So, what did he want?’

Her jaw set and her nostrils twitched, as they always did when she was angry.

‘He came to tell me the gods have made a decision. You are to be set free. It’s time for you to return to your home.’

Odysseus felt his flesh turn to goosebumps. His knees went suddenly weak, as if the bulk of his great torso was too much for them. He reached out and placed a hand on Calypso’s shoulder to steady himself. She misread his intention and placed her own hand on his wrist, bending slightly to kiss the heel of his thumb.

‘I don’t understand. Why would they say that? Why now? I thought they’d forgotten me.’

‘All I know is that Zeus himself has decreed your release. You still have advocates on Mount Olympus, Odysseus.’

Athena, he thought. Athena has forgiven me at last! I’ve served my penance for taking the Palladium, and now I’m free.

He looked about himself in disbelief, staring down at his open palms and the shell-smattered sand as if the proof of what Calypso was saying might lie there. He looked at the lush trees, swaying in the breeze, and behind him at the open ocean. And there the surge of euphoria was checked. He saw the white-capped waves breaking up around the headlands and the hazy horizon in the distance; he imagined the great depth of the water beneath and the creatures that filled it, small and large, gentle and lethal; and he remembered the vastness of the sea, the many days sailing that could lie between one landfall and the next, and the dangers of starvation and storm that haunted every passage. And he knew the gods were laughing at him still.

‘And how am I to sail back to Ithaca? Did you think about that when Hermes told you to release me? Did he bring a ship and a crew with him, or does Zeus intend to transform himself into a whale and carry me home on his back?’

‘You shouldn’t mock…’

‘Why not? You immortals have mocked me since the day I was born. And besides…’ He turned and stared at the ocean for a long moment, before dropping back down to the sand and letting his forehead fall onto his knees. ‘Besides not having a ship, I don’t think I have the courage any more. There was a time when I was stout and brave, when I had the power of a fleet at my command and the strength of loyal friends around me. In those days, I felt I could do anything, even change the fate the gods had decreed for me. But they’ve shown me my foolishness, that really I’m weak. And now that man has gone. He’s gone and what remains can never be free again.’

Calypso knelt beside him and placed an arm around his shoulders.

‘Stop grieving, my love. Father Zeus has given me a command and I must obey it, but the choice to leave is still yours. If you can find the courage to take to the waves again, then I will help you, even though my heart is against your going. I can give you tools to make a sturdy raft – there are more than enough trees on Ogygia – and I can supply you with all the provisions you will need for a long journey. I will even send a following wind to start you on your way, though my control of the elements is limited.

‘But if wisdom convinces you the sea is too perilous, then you still have another choice.’ She laid her hand on his bearded cheek and turned his face to hers. ‘Remember my offer to you. You can stay with me – forever – and become an immortal like myself. I will submit to you as my husband and surrender dominion of Ogygia into your hands. You will be a king again, Odysseus, greater than any mortal ruler; crowned with honour like Heracles, whom the gods made into one of themselves. But so long as Zeus has commanded me to aid your return to Ithaca, the choice to stay has to be yours.’

He looked into her eyes, which had been open to the world almost since it began, and realised the intelligence and power behind them. The power to grant immortality. And yet with the smudges of black powder and the pink flush in her cheeks, she looked like a young girl, vulnerable and naïve, in need of the protection of a man. She was offering herself in place of Penelope, Ogygia in place of Ithaca, and eternal life over the everlasting misery of death. How could he refuse? Though he could barely remember Penelope’s face, he knew his wife’s looks could not compare to the beauty before him. And what was Ithaca but a windswept rock compared to the golden shores and soaring mountains of Ogygia? As for death – he had been to Hades, and had no wish to return.

‘Come back with me to my cavern,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘I will cook you a meal and you will make your decision.’

He followed her into the trees that hemmed the bay and they took the well-trodden path to her home. They soon found the cliff face with the tall, lopsided arch of the cave entrance dominating it. The scent of the surrounding cypress trees mingled with the smell from the fire within, which made Odysseus’s stomach growl at the thought of food. Birds were singing in the treetops, their voices rising above the trickling of the little streams that tumbled down the face of the cliff to form small pools in the meadow below. He stepped over the stones that crossed the marshy grass to the cave’s entrance, plucking a bunch of grapes from the overhanging vines as he passed beneath.

The interior was gloomy after the bright sunshine outside, but the glow of the hearth fought the shadows back into the corners of the lofty cavern. At the back was the bed that Odysseus had shared with Calypso many times, and to the right was a large table with a chair at either end. She turned and kissed him briefly on the lips, then indicated one of the chairs.

He sat eating the grapes and watching her as she took a fish from a basket on the table and began gutting it. She moved skilfully about the kitchen, putting the fish over the fire, tossing a handful of flatbreads into a bowl and filling another with fruit, before sliding the elements of the finished meal towards him. He ate slowly, despite his hunger, conscious of her eyes on his every movement. As usual, she ate nothing. Before he finished, she went to a corner of the cave and fetched a bundle wrapped in cloth, which she laid before him. He pulled away the folds of cloth to reveal an axe and an adze.

‘You’ll need them if you’re to make a raft. Assuming you know how.’

He picked up the axe and weighed it in his hands, feeling its keen edge against his thumb.

‘I know,’ he replied.

But it seemed a very long time since he had handled a tool of any kind, and the axe felt heavier than he remembered. The strength in his arms had faded through lack of use. When he had first arrived on Ogygia, his muscles had been hard and clearly defined, but too much easy food and too little work had made him soft. The thought that he might return to the woods, fell several trees and shape them into something capable of reaching beyond Ogygia’s horizons seemed more preposterous than ever. And even if he could, there was still Poseidon to be reckoned with.

He thought of Ithaca and of his family – distant memories now – and of the dream of returning to them that had kept him alive for so long, and he wondered that he had never seen the reality of it. That was the point of Calypso giving him the axe, he supposed – to challenge whether he still had enough fight left in him. And she must have known he would fail.

‘Shall I come with you to the forest?’ she asked.