The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘Myrtilus was saved by the bush and returned to Pisa with the victorious Pelops and Hippodameia, his prize. In the preparations for the wedding Pelops forgot all about the oath he had taken, but Myrtilus, of course, had not. At the wedding feast, he whispered in Pelops’s ear, reminding him of his promise that he would be the first to sleep with Hippodameia. Pelops looked across at his wife, beautiful in her wedding dress, and nodded, putting on a show of reluctance as he told Myrtilus to wait for Hippodameia by the bridge over the River Alpheius. It was there, after night had fallen, that Pelops found him and threw him into the deep, ice-cold waters. Myrtilus, as he knew, was no swimmer, but with his dying breath he laid a curse on Pelops – a curse he never divulged, but took with him to his grave. After he had married Hippodameia and became king in the place of her father, he began a campaign of conquest that saw him take possession of many of the cities and lands around Pisa. He was so successful the whole of southern Greece – the Peloponnese – was named after him. But he was also a tyrant, displaying time and again the ruthlessness he had inherited from his father and shown against Myrtilus. Those he could not defeat by arms alone, he tricked and betrayed. One such was the king of Arcadia, whom he invited to a feast then killed and cut into pieces – an echo of how his own father had treated him when he tried to trick the gods.

‘And so there you have it,’ Odysseus finished, with a sigh, ‘the legend of Pelops. Whether it has any bearing on our mission, I can’t yet say, but there is something else I should tell you. Before we sailed, Agamemnon came to warn me about his grandfather’s tomb. He says the casket containing his bones lies at the centre of a maze, which Pelops had built to deter not only robbers, but also the ghost of Myrtilus. He said Pelops lived the remainder of his life in fear of the man he had betrayed and murdered, and that fear pursued him into the afterlife. What is more, Agamemnon says the tomb itself is cursed, though he doesn’t know the nature of the curse.’

‘I’m not afraid of curses,’ Eperitus said.

‘You may not be,’ Odysseus replied, ‘but Agamemnon is. I could see it in his face, and that’s the actual reason he wouldn’t allow Menelaus to carry out the mission. He knows the curse is real, and he fears it.’

Chapter Fifteen

THE GOLDEN VINE

Aren’t you concerned, my lord?’ Aeneas asked.

The Dardanian prince leaned over the large table, his hands flat on the smooth wood, and stared at Priam seated in his golden throne. The king held his gaze for a moment, then stood and approached the table.

‘Concerned that I’ve lost another son?’ he said. ‘Or that he might have betrayed his father and run off to the Greeks with the oracle?’

Priam’s vanity and arrogance had all but gone since the deaths of Hector and Paris, and as he faced Aeneas he looked the ghost of his former self. His hair was grey and lank now, and his skin pale and lined; his once tall figure had become sloped and bent, while his eyes were dull and stricken with the pain of his loss. But Aeneas could still see the old disdain in them that Priam had never been able to hide, a contempt that was born out of rivalry with his cousin Anchises, Aeneas’s father. The king of Dardanus had once slept with the incomparable Aphrodite, whereas Priam, who had numerous wives and had always slept with whomever he pleased, had not. But instead of taking his jealousy out on Anchises – whom Zeus had already crippled for boasting about sleeping with Aphrodite – he directed his resentment instead towards Aeneas, the result of Anchises’s union with the goddess. And even though Aeneas was married to one of Priam’s many daughters, as a mere prince he was forced to bear it in silence.

‘I refer to the prophecy that Helenus said would ensure the safety of Troy,’ Aeneas replied. ‘He was furious about losing Helen to Deiphobus, and one of our spies saw him enter the Greek camp under escort three nights ago. If he’s revealed the oracle to them out of spite, then they may know a way to undermine our defences.’

‘You’re speculating,’ said Deiphobus, who was standing next to Aeneas with a silver goblet of wine in his hand. ‘We don’t even know what this prophecy was.’

‘I do,’ Priam said.

He looked at Deiphobus and Aeneas before passing his watery gaze over the others around the table: Apheidas, Antenor and Idaeus, his herald.

‘How do you know?’ Apheidas asked, only belatedly adding, ‘my lord.’

‘One of my daughters, Cassandra, came to me this evening. It was she who had given Helenus these oracles – there were three of them – which he was intending to pass off as his own. And if the Greeks want to believe them, then that’s their foolishness, not ours.’

‘Nevertheless, shouldn’t we take some precautions?’ Deiphobus asked. ‘Just in case there’s a weakness we’ve overlooked.’