The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

Helenus left on a merchant ship bound for Epirus the next morning, but it was three days before the mission to fetch Pelops’s shoulder bone could begin. Despite Odysseus’s enthusiasm to set sail, the eighty galleys of the Argive fleet had spent too long hauled up on the shores of Ilium to be considered immediately seaworthy. A few had returned to Argos for replacements two years before, but even the best of these needed extensive work before she could be risked on the arduous voyage back to Greece. Every piece of worm-eaten or rotted wood had to be replaced; the hull wanted waterproofing with a fresh coat of tar; the ropes of leather or loosely woven fibre were old and dry and required changing; the cotton and flax sails would not hold a strong wind without repairs; the pine oars needed polishing back to a smooth finish; and the leather loops in which they were slung had to be freshly lubricated with olive oil. It would have been quicker and easier to have used one of the Ithacan galleys that had made the journey home earlier that year, but as Odysseus had been given the choice of making the voyage in an Argive ship or not making the voyage at all, he bit back his frustration and threw himself into helping Diomedes with the preparations.

After the work had been completed, the props were removed and the galley was pushed down into the waiting sea. Now the job of victualling her began. Under the watchful eye of Sthenelaus – Diomedes’s trusted comrade-in-arms – gangplanks were laid against the side and the hand-picked crew of sixty men started loading the hull with sealed jars of wine, sacks of grain for making bread and a few goats for fresh meat. They were assisted by Polites, Eurybates and Omeros, whom Odysseus had chosen to accompany him on the mission to Pelops’s tomb, having left command of the Ithacan army to Antiphus and Eurylochus. Meanwhile, Diomedes and Odysseus, with the help of Eperitus, made sacrifices at the altar of Poseidon, asking him to give them calm seas and a good wind for the Peloponnese.

When the crew finally settled down to their oars and began pulling for the open sea, thousands of soldiers crowded the beach to cheer them on their way. Odysseus watched them from the stern – with Eperitus and Diomedes standing either side of him – wondering how much the army knew of their mission. Naturally, the Ithacans who had heard the oracles spoken by Helenus in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo would have told others, and those others would have sent a wave of rumours racing through the camp. How much those rumours had become distorted and exaggerated with each retelling Odysseus could not guess, and did not much care; the army would know the truth soon enough if they were successful.

It was not long before Odysseus sensed a change in the current beneath the ship and felt a wind coming down from the north. Sthenelaus, standing with a hand on each of the twin rudders, shouted an order that sent groups of sailors scurrying to the ropes. They raised the cross spar and let go the sail, which tumbled downwards and flapped a little before suddenly filling up and bellying out. As they angled the canvas into the strong breeze, a second order saw the oars drawn back into the ship and stowed. Released from the laborious pulling motion of the rowers, the galley quickly took on a life of its own, skimming southward as it adapted to the movement of wave and wind.

With little now to do, Odysseus leaned back against the bow rail and relaxed, enjoying the natural motion of the ship and looking about at the sights of land and sea revealed in glorious detail by the bright sunshine of late morning. Rarely did he feel as much at ease as when he was on the deck of a galley with a good wind in its sail. The huge weight of his kingly responsibilities was lifted from his shoulders and he could fall back into a meditative silence filled by idle thoughts. Soon the camp was behind them, marked only by the thin towers of smoke from its fires. They had slipped past the bulk of Tenedos before Diomedes spoke.

‘It feels good to be on a ship again, with the freedom of the open sea before us. And to know we’re heading back to Greece for the first time in ten years!’

‘Better if we were heading back home for good and didn’t have to return to this accursed part of the world,’ Sthenelaus growled. He had stern features and hard eyes that glared out from a face overrun by curly black hair. ‘I hope this mission of yours is going to bring an end to the war like you promised, Odysseus, and not turn out to be another false hope.’

Eperitus caught Odysseus’s eye and raised a sympathetic eyebrow.

‘I didn’t make any promises, Sthenelaus,’ Odysseus replied, ‘and this isn’t my mission. We’re following the will of the gods, not to mention the command of Agamemnon.’

Sthenelaus’s snort showed what he thought of that.