King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

With her back still turned she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ she said, though it was not clear to whom she was apologizing. Then she looked at Odysseus and added sincerely, ‘I hope I didn’t cause offence.’

Odysseus still smarted from the humiliation, which was made worse by his attraction to the woman.

‘It would take more than your low wit to offend me,’ he replied.

Penelope shot him an angry look before turning on her heel and marching off into the crowd of revellers.

‘You were saying about King Priam,’ Odysseus reminded Agamemnon, his eyes following Icarius’s daughter into the mass of slaves and warriors.

Agamemnon, whose own gaze had also been fixed on Penelope, nodded and placed a finger to his lips. ‘Already I can see we share similar views, Odysseus, so I’ll bring you into my confidence. But these things aren’t for all ears. Not yet.’

Together, he and Diomedes explained in hushed voices how Troy was demanding tribute from all merchants passing through the Aegean. Not only was it an affront to all Greeks, they said, it also threatened to become a stranglehold on the trade that the Greek states depended and thrived on.

Odysseus drained his cup. ‘So what do you propose?’

‘Anything necessary to keep the peace here,’ said Diomedes. ‘We’re considering a combined raid on Ilium, the land around Troy, to sack a couple of Priam’s allied cities. Something to give the Greek states a common purpose. But we need to have all the kings on our side, or else who would take their armies across the Aegean if there were enemies still at home? This gathering is an ideal chance to hold a council of war.’

‘I’m all for an alliance between the Greek states,’ Odysseus began. ‘Especially if it keeps peace between us all. But putting this idea into practice is another matter altogether.’

The others were no longer listening. Instead their eyes were looking past him to the open portals of the great hall, which had fallen suddenly silent. Odysseus turned.

Two women stood at the entrance. One was tall and slim with long black hair, streaked grey at the temples; only a few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes marked her age. She would have dominated the gathered warriors with her powerful beauty, were it not for the presence of her younger companion.

Helen of Sparta had arrived.

Chapter Seventeen

DAUGHTERS OF LACEDAEMON

A hush spread across the hall as Helen stood before the gathered warriors. The words died in their mouths and the drinking cups froze in their hands. It was as if Medusa herself had entered, and with one look turned them all to stone.

She was tall with long black hair and white skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun. Her eyes were like burning ice and as she looked about at the crowded hall they set a cold fire running through the veins of every man. Peisandros was right, Eperitus realized: the words did not exist that could describe her. She was like a mountain that a man sees from afar and wants to climb, so he can tell himself he is better than the mountain. But Helen possessed no fault in which a man could gain a foothold. There was no blemish or imperfection with which the spectators in the great hall could pull her down to their level. She soared above every warrior, every prince, every king, until it was an agony for them to look at her, knowing they had been defeated by a woman’s looks.

And yet, if her beauty cut deep into their souls, she had other weapons that struck at their corporeal natures. Though only a girl of seventeen years, she was fully a woman and had the ruthless confidence to display it. She had come barefoot into the great hall and wore only a white dress of the thinnest material, which hid little of the naked body beneath. No man in that room was left in any doubt of what Helen had to offer her chosen husband.

Eperitus’s sense of honour told him that the mind of a better man would dwell upon her perfect face and not upon her perfect body, and yet he was a slave to his animal nature. By her mere presence she had made pigs of every man in the room, exposing their high ideals and their heroic codes and letting them feed in the troughs of their base natures. Eperitus felt ashamed, but could not avert his eyes.

Then the older woman threw a cloak about Helen’s shoulders and released the assembled warriors from the fierce grip of her spell. Men looked at each other and spoke in hushed voices. More wine doused dry throats and sluggish movements returned to the organism that had taken possession of the great hall. But the noble suitors, the men who had come to claim her, remained in silent thrall as Helen approached the dais where her foster-father sat. The older woman followed, like a tutor presenting her prize pupil.

‘She isn’t interested in any of them, you know.’

Gyrtias sat down next to Eperitus and held out a platter of bread and meat.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, taking a handful of each.