The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

At this, the hall broke into uproar. Men leapt to their feet, sending shouts of denial up to the rafters. Neoptolemus stood also, while Odysseus advanced to the hearth and pointed at him through the heat haze.

‘You are your father’s heir, Neoptolemus. Will you honour his memory and return to Troy with us, or will you bring shame on him and yourself and stay here?’

‘Guards!’ Deidameia shouted, standing and moving to the edge of the dais. Several armed men emerged from the shadowy corners of the hall and surrounded the visitors. ‘I said I would not stand by and let you rob me of my son, as you did my husband. Neoptolemus will marry Phaedra tomorrow, and in time she will be the mother of his children. He will not follow his father to Troy, but stay here and inherit the throne of his grandfather. Do you understand?’

Her last words were to Neoptolemus, who remained silent, though there was rebellion in his eyes. Then Diomedes moved to Odysseus’s side.

‘Time to let go of your mother’s chiton, lad,’ he said, raising his voice over the commotion. ‘The gods have said Troy cannot fall without you, and so you must decide between hardship and everlasting glory, or comfort and obscurity.’

Deidameia waved the guards forward. Spear points were pressed against Odysseus and Diomedes’s stomachs, while the cold edge of a sword was lifted to Eperitus’s throat.

‘Take them back to their ship,’ she ordered, ‘and if they resist, kill them.’

As they were forced towards the doors of the great hall, pelted by pieces of bread and meat from the surrounding nobles, Lycomedes had to pull Neoptolemus back into his chair.

‘Wait!’ Odysseus cried. ‘Wait! By all means send us back to Troy, but not before Neoptolemus has received the inheritance his father left him.’

Such was the power of his voice that the guards stopped and looked to Deidameia for what to do. She turned to Lycomedes with doubt in her eyes, but it was Neoptolemus who answered.

‘What is this inheritance?’

‘Beware the gifts of Odysseus,’ Lycomedes warned. ‘They snared your father, and they will snare you.’

Neoptolemus ignored the old man and stood.

‘Speak, Odysseus.’

Odysseus pushed the spear point away from his stomach and looked Neoptolemus in the eye.

‘There’s one thing I haven’t told you about, though you may have pondered it already – the fate of Achilles’s splendid armour. After your father’s death, Great Ajax carried his corpse back to the Greek camp, while I fought off the Trojans that pursued us. That gave us both a claim to the armour, though Ajax’s was by far the greater because he was Achilles’s cousin. But Ajax had also angered the gods with his arrogance, and to get their revenge they told me to stake my claim on the armour and deny it to Ajax by whatever means possible.’

Here he paused and looked at Diomedes and Eperitus. Eperitus knew that the guilt of Ajax’s suicide was still upon him and must have realised what was coming next.

‘And so I cheated – I bribed some prisoners to declare that I was the one the Trojans feared the most, and by their false testimony Achilles’s armour was awarded to me. That evening, Ajax lost his mind and killed himself, just as the gods had known he would. Ever since then, even though I was driven to what I did by the command of the immortals, I have known the armour could never be mine. And neither could it ever have belonged to Ajax. It has only one true heir – you, Neoptolemus.’

As he finished, he called to a slave and spoke to him in a low voice. The slave ran to the doors and opened them. A moment later, Polites, Eurybates and Omeros entered, carrying their burdens. Polites laid the large wooden box on the floor and threw open the hinged lid, revealing a flash of gold that caused a stir among the onlookers. At a nod from Odysseus, he pulled out the red-plumed helmet and lifted it in one hand above his head, turning in a half-circle so the whole hall could see it. The mirror-like finish of the gold blazed in the light of the hearth and torches and earned a gasp of disbelief. After sweeping the platters and cups from a table with a crash, he placed it down and plucked out the tin greaves, holding one in each hand as he showed them to the hall in the same fashion. Laying these beside the helmet, Polites returned to the wooden chest and retrieved the bronze cuirass that the smith-god had shaped to exactly mimic the perfect torso of Achilles.

‘By all the gods!’ Lycomedes exclaimed as Polites raised it high above his head.

Neoptolemus brushed past his mother and moved to the edge of the dais, his mouth wide open.

‘Behold, your father’s famed spear,’ Odysseus said, taking the weapon from Omeros’s grasp and raising it in both hands above his head, before leaning it against the table where the rest of the armour sat. ‘This was the spear that killed the great Hector and countless other Trojans of great renown. Yet all these things are as nothing compared to this.’