King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

He stepped into a narrow passageway. No torches burned there and the only light came from the doorway behind him, but his keen eyes penetrated the shadows with ease, picking out doorways on both sides of the corridor and a flight of stairs to the right. Suddenly he heard the sound of voices from somewhere within the palace and paused to pick up their direction. Straining his heightened hearing against the din of battle – filled with the screams of the wounded and dying – he listened for a particular voice, the voice of Odysseus. Moving slowly, he passed the stairs to the upper level of the palace and followed the passage around to the right. As he moved cautiously through the shadows, his sword gripped tightly in his hand, the voices became clearer. Then he recognized the unmistakable tones of Odysseus.

Within moments the short corridor had led him to the great hall, where he found the prince faced by four Taphian archers and Polytherses. The latter held Penelope to his side, with a gleaming dagger poised at her throat. Eperitus saw her and his heart sank, knowing he had arrived too late. Without any force of men behind him, there was little help he could offer Odysseus now other than to die at his side.

‘So, your army has arrived,’ Polytherses mocked.

Odysseus turned and for a moment the look of concern left his face, to be replaced by relief and even joy.

‘I knew I could rely on you, Eperitus,’ he said. Then his looks grew dark again, though determined, and he turned to Polytherses. ‘Release my wife and I’ll spare your worthless life. But if you harm her I will make your death so terrible you’ll beg me to kill you.’

‘You oaf,’ Polytherses retorted. ‘Don’t you see that your life is in my hands? One word from me and you’d be dead in an instant.’

‘Then why do you wait?’ Odysseus demanded. ‘Kill me now. Unless you fear to kill me.’

‘I fear nothing and no man, least of all you. No – I want you to kneel before your king, and then I will kill you. And if you want Penelope to live, you’ll do as I command.’

‘No, Odysseus,’ Penelope shouted fiercely, struggling against the strong grip that held her. ‘I’d rather die than be this man’s whore.’

Polytherses placed his hand over her mouth and pressed the tip of the dagger into her neck, pricking the soft skin so that a bead of blood rolled down over her chest. Odysseus took a step forward and the archers drew back their bows; the slightest twitch of their fingers would release the arrows.

Eperitus put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. The ungainly prince, with whom he had shared so many hardships, looked at him and there was anger in his eyes. But in that same moment Eperitus handed him Iphitus’s bow and a single arrow he had taken from the quiver. Odysseus snatched them from him and in an instant had fitted the arrow and was aiming it at Polytherses.

Silence fell in the hall. Polytherses’s eyes were wide with terror as he dragged Penelope in front of him to act as a shield against Odysseus’s arrow. The four Taphians strained their bowstrings even further and waited only for a word from their leader. Meanwhile, Odysseus focused his concentration on Penelope and Polytherses. Penelope met his eyes and nodded imperceptibly. Odysseus whispered a prayer to Apollo for the sureness of his aim, then released the arrow from his fingertips.

The darkness in the hall and the shimmering heat from the flames obscured the usurper of his father’s throne and made his aim almost impossible. Indeed, very few could have hit such a mark: Teucer, possibly; Philoctetes also, but only with the magical arrows that Heracles had given him; Apollo, certainly. But with Iphitus’s great horn bow Odysseus was as deadly as any archer in Greece, and the arrow flew from his fingers straight into Poly-therses’s left eye. It passed through his brain and killed him before he could even think to cut his captive’s throat. The Spartan princess stepped free of the dead man’s hold and the corpse collapsed in the dirt behind her.

In the same instant, the Taphian bowstrings shivered the air in the great hall. One of their arrows nicked Odysseus’s forehead, and another his upper arm. The third missed completely, but the fourth thumped into his thigh, making him shout in pain. Eperitus drew his sword and charged towards the enemy archers, but at that moment Mentes burst in through the twin doors, followed by Antiphus and a group of Ithacans. The Taphian held up his hand and ran to the centre of the hall.

‘You are victorious, Odysseus,’ he announced, and then to his countrymen: ‘Lower your weapons, my friends. The battle is over.’

With their leader slain, the archers realized they had nothing more to fight for and threw down their bows. Polytherses’s brief reign as king of Ithaca was over, and fittingly he was the last to die on that fateful day.

Odysseus plucked the arrow from his leg and tossed it into the shadows, then limped across the hall to embrace his wife.