King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

They made camp away from the road on an outcrop of the eastern mountains. It was similar to their resting place of the previous night, with steep slopes facing the sea and a crown of olive trees upon its summit. They made as large a fire as they dared, which hardly merited the title, and Antiphus sang them an ancient tale from Ithacan legend. It was not a story Eperitus had ever heard in Alybas, as it told of sea gods tormenting shipbound mortals and keeping them from their homes, but it was familiar to Odysseus’s men. They nodded in sad recognition of each element or in anticipation of the next, and the subject of the cursed wanderer struck their mood. But it was also a short song, the sort that can be easily learned and which men will sing to their comrades when they have no bard, and so it was soon the turn of others to sing. They all knew the tales that were shared because they had heard them so many times before and the words had been embroidered into the fabric of their minds. Even Mentor, who was still tired and sore from his wounds, gave them a song in his deep and musical voice.

Then it was the turn of Odysseus. The songs that had come before had gently drawn them away from their self-centred, individual patterns of thought, their insignificant anxieties about food, sleep and tomorrow, and knitted them slowly together into a single entity that fed on words, unconsciously transforming them into a smooth succession of shared emotions which in turn became the heartbeat that unified them. When Odysseus spoke his smooth voice mastered them entirely, reached into their mood and gripped them, leading them, lifting them. He did not sing, but spoke the words of his tale, clearly and rhythmically, mingling their thoughts and emotions into a stream that flowed directly into him and back out again to them. He told them of the gods and the ancient things that preceded them, of battles fought before man’s creation that tore up the mountain tops and burned the oceans, and when, eventually, he stopped telling the tale their minds did not stop hearing it, could not stop, but poured back over it and around it until the night breeze tugged at their cloaks and pinched their skin, slowly clawing them back to the world of the hilltop, encircled by the age-old trees and observed by a raven sky filled with stars.

One by one they turned away into their blankets and tried to sleep, pondering the great world that they were but a small fragment of, not needing to comprehend it or their part in it, simply accepting once again their own mortality. And as he saw his true self, a brittle, finite thing, Eperitus did not sink resigned under a sense of fatalism but felt himself lifted, his spirit rising to claim the infinitesimal spark of life that the gods had granted him. He was such a throwaway thing of no importance, and yet he existed and would make that existence worthwhile.

They were woken before dawn by the smell of smoke and the crackle of fire.

Eperitus lifted his head from his rolled-up cloak and at first thought his dream had taken a bizarre twist. Then he saw Damastor running through the camp and shouting.

‘Fire! The trees have caught light! Wake up!’

Eperitus leapt to his feet and looked about with a horrified realization. Two of the trees that circled the camp were now blazing brightly, forming a raging beacon against the fading darkness. The others stumbled from their blankets, bleary-eyed and dishevelled. Eperitus saw Halitherses amongst them and ran to him.

‘We must find some water,’ he said urgently. ‘If Polybus is anywhere nearby he’s bound to see this.’

‘It’s too late for that, lad,’ Halitherses said, pointing towards the raging inferno. ‘See how the flames are spreading from tree to tree? Even if there was a river here and we had something other than our helmets to fetch the water in, we could never douse these flames. I only pray to the gods that there are no Taphians within sight of this.’

Eperitus remained anxious to do something, but the truth was that the fire would be visible to any watching eyes for miles around, and when dawn came the smoke trail would be obvious to all. So they watched helplessly with the heat drying their eyes and warming their faces, and wondered whether matters could get worse. Then Damastor appeared at his side and seized his arm.

‘Eperitus, where are the mules? They were picketed over there last night.’

He looked at the place where the beasts had been when he fell asleep, but they were not there. They must have broken free, panicked by the flames, and bolted into the night. With them they had taken the last of their provisions and, what was worse, the gifts for Helen.

Odysseus came running towards them. ‘Get some men together and search for the mules, Damastor,’ he ordered, clearly angry with the guardsman. ‘Halitherses, see that the escort is ready to march before sun-up. I want to get away from here as soon as possible and continue to Messene.’