The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

The sound shattered the silence that had enclosed her senses and tore through the temple like a blast of wind, rustling the leaves overhead and spilling silver scales of moonlight across the ground. With a rush like water filling a clay jar, she felt the physical sensations of sound, smell, touch and taste pouring back into her, trapping her consciousness once more with the clumsy heaviness of the corporeal world. Her thin, underdeveloped body felt as if it was encased in bronze armour, each small movement suddenly cumbersome and ungainly; her ears were momentarily sharp, filling her head with the sound of the wind and the roar of the sea, and the nerve endings in her skin reported every detail of the flagstoned floor, while screaming at her with the coldness of it. Her mouth was saturated with the taste of blood. The smell of it – mingled with the odour of soil and bark and the different aromas from her own body – was so overpowering she thought she must be covered in it. Then, with a shock that sank straight to the pit of her stomach, she recalled the soldier in the temple and looked down to see that her dress had indeed been ripped open and there was blood over her neck and breasts. She placed a hand between her legs, dreading that she would find more blood, and when she felt nothing remembered, finally, that it had been a dream and the blood belonged to the snake she had beheaded. She relaxed, but only until she recalled that what she had seen had also been a vision of the future. And it was then she sensed she was being watched.

Chapter Six

NISUS OF DULICHIUM

Penelope, queen of Ithaca, paced the earthen floor of the great hall. The flames from the circular hearth cast a crimson glow over the four central pillars and the circle of empty chairs where the Kerosia – the council of Ithacan elders – had sat earlier that day. The warm light pulsed against the lime-plastered walls, where it fought with the dense shadows for possession of the murals. The contest ebbed and flowed, revealing hints of the scenes depicted high up on the walls, of armoured men fighting and dying in battles of their own. Penelope, who had seen the murals almost everyday for the past twenty years, hardly even noticed them any more.

She reached an alcove in one of the walls – where a small effigy of the goddess Athena stood stiffly clutching her spear – then turned on her heel and retraced her steps towards the high-backed throne. The long wait was making her nervous. Though the palace was her home, in view of what she was planning to do she did not want to be noticed out of her own quarters so late at night. She reached the vacant throne, glanced at the double doors that led to the courtyard beyond, then turned again and headed back to the alcove. The nerves that tightened her stomach were a welcome distraction from the hole left by her loneliness. She had felt incomplete ever since Odysseus had sailed to Troy a decade before, but at least her son’s presence had comforted her; now that she had sent Telemachus to safety in Sparta, though, she was completely alone. The heart that had longed so painfully for her husband’s return now yearned to breaking point for her son.

And yet, as she reached the alcove again and looked down at the crudely carved face of Athena, she knew she could not afford to show weakness. She was a queen, and while her husband was away the burden of ruling Ithaca lay firmly upon her shoulders. As a woman, though, she could not rely on the strength of her arms, only the ability of her wits.

She turned and stared at the doors, willing them to open. Nothing happened and she continued pacing. She had other weapons, of course. She was tall and beautiful and could use these assets to her benefit, an art that her cousin Helen had developed to perfection – at terrible cost to the Greek and Trojan worlds. But Penelope had never been adept at playing that game. It went against her nature: as far as she was concerned men should only be flirted with for one reason, and she already had a husband. No, she thought, her needs would have to be dire if she were to resort to so base a method.