The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Do you remember falling in?’ Apheidas asked, fixing his son’s gaze. ‘Your mother and I thought we’d lost you then. I hurried down the ladder and saw you lying on the wooden platform at the bottom, which I used to stand on to keep me safe from the snakes. If you’d landed anywhere else you would have perished in an instant, but Apollo must have been protecting you that day. Then I saw your leg was dangling over the side, waving about above all those angry snakes. Before I could reach you, a viper sprang up and bit you behind your knee. The mark’ll still be there, if you care to look.’

‘If it bit me, then how did I survive?’

‘It was a dry bite. No venom was released. You were lucky.’

The story did not bring back any latent memories, but neither did Eperitus have any reason to think his father was lying. It certainly explained why he despised the creatures so much.

‘But you won’t be so lucky next time,’ Apheidas added with a sudden snarl.

He threw the snake onto Eperitus’s lap, causing him to jerk backwards in fear. The chair toppled over with a crash, but instead of hitting his head against the ground as he had expected Eperitus sensed a void opening up beneath him. The surprise lasted only a moment as he remembered the snake and lifted his head to stare down at its thin, curling body on his chest. A wave of nausea and dread surged through him. Then a gloved hand plucked it up and tossed it away.

His father’s sneering face appeared above him.

‘That’s nothing to what you’ll get if you don’t listen to me.’

Standing now, Apheidas tipped Eperitus on his side. A black void opened up by his left ear, from which the terrible hissing he had heard earlier rose up like a living entity to consume his senses. Not daring to look, but unable to stop himself, he turned his head to see that he was balanced over the edge of a pit, and in the darkness at the bottom he could see daylight glistening on the bodies of hundreds of snakes. His stomach tightened, pushing its contents back up through his body and out into the hole below.

Then his chair was being pulled up again by four of Apheidas’s men, away from the pit and back to safety in the broad sunlight.

‘Now are you ready to listen to my proposal?’ his father demanded.

‘I’ll listen,’ Eperitus gasped, ‘but you already know my answer. In the end you’ll still have to kill me!’

Apheidas sighed and raised himself to his full height. He turned and picked up a leather water-skin.

‘Here,’ he said, holding it to his son’s lips.

For the first time, Eperitus realised how dry his throat was and how much his body craved liquid. He opened his mouth and Apheidas squeezed a splash of cool water into it.

‘You shouldn’t be so hasty to welcome death, Son. You’ve plenty to live for, after all. Astynome, for instance.’

Eperitus was almost taken by surprise, but the hint of uncertainty in Apheidas’s voice gave him away. His father was no fool: he knew Astynome hated him and loved Eperitus, despite all that had happened. He must also have suspected his son had forgiven her for betraying him. For a brief instant Eperitus was tempted to admit as much, if only to show Apheidas that his feelings for Astynome transcended the schemes of his father that had divided them. Then he heard a voice in his head – not unlike Odysseus’s – warning him not to give Apheidas anything to bargain with. His love of the girl could be used against him; by threatening Astynome, Apheidas could force him to agree to whatever he wanted, just as he had used Clymene to bribe Palamedes to treachery.

‘Don’t mock me,’ Eperitus said, narrowing his eyes and trying to sound angered. ‘If all you can offer is that treacherous bitch then save your breath.’

‘So you’ll be glad to know you won’t be seeing her again?’

Eperitus felt sudden anxiety clawing at his chest, but kept his silence.

‘Now she’s nursed you back to health, I’ve assigned her to other duties,’ Apheidas continued. ‘I don’t trust her around you, and the last thing I want is for her to smuggle you a weapon of some sort. Clymene will change your bandage later and after that you’ll not need any more tending to, because you’ll either have agreed to help me or I’ll have thrown you to my pets.’

Eperitus opened his mouth to speak, but Apheidas raised a hand to silence him.

‘Before you tell me to go ahead and kill you, listen to what I have to say. Snakes are a good way to get your attention, but they won’t force you into doing what I want. Neither will threatening you with death, or even, it seems, threatening Astynome. You may still love her and you may not, but I’m not going to send you back to the Greek camp with that uncertainty.’

‘The Greek camp?’

‘As a messenger, of course. My ambitions haven’t changed from when I laid them out before you in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo – I need you to tell Agamemnon I will give him Troy in exchange for Priam’s throne. The King of Men will have his victory, Menelaus his wife, and I will become ruler of all Ilium!’

Eperitus threw his head back and laughed.