The Return from Troy. Lindsay Clarke

his wife and her lover had locked the gates of his city against him. Then he was shocked again to learn that Idomeneus had suffered the same humiliating fate on coming home to Crete.

      ‘The last I heard,’ Guneus said, ‘they were in council together at Corinth, hoping to enlist old Nestor’s help in regaining their lost kingdoms. But that would mean civil war right across Argos and, as you can imagine, there’s no appetite for that. Either way,’ he sighed, ‘it looks as though the poor bloody Thessalians can’t expect much help from the south right now.’

      Struck by the cruel irony of it all, Odysseus said, ‘You mean that Agamemnon and the others fought for all those years to bring home another man’s faithless wife, only to find themselves betrayed by their own wives while they were gone?’

      A touch uneasily, Guneus kept his gaze on the place where his crew were gathering eagerly around Eurylochus who was pouring wine into their gourds. ‘That’s about the size of it, I suppose.’

      ‘But that all three of them should have done it …?’ Odysseus puzzled aloud to himself, becoming aware of a dull throbbing at the crown of his head and of pressure building at his temples. ‘Clytaemnestra. Agialeia. Meda. And all around the same time, you say? It couldn’t just have happened by chance. Surely they must have been in conspiracy?’

      ‘The rumour is,’ Guneus muttered, ‘that King Nauplius of Euboea was behind it.’

      ‘Nauplius? But he was one of Agamemnon’s principal backers. He put up a huge amount of capital for the war. Without him …’

      Odysseus faltered there. He caught the knowing glint in the other man’s eyes. A long-suppressed memory broke through the troubled surface of his mind.

      ‘Palamedes!’ he whispered.

      ‘That’s right,’ Guneus nodded and spat into the sand, ‘Palamedes. Old Nauplius never forgave Agamemnon for having his son stoned to death as a traitor. And who can blame him? It always struck me as a dubious business. Palamedes was too popular with the troops for Agamemnon’s liking. Anyway, it must certainly have been Nauplius who ordered the lighting of the false beacons that wrecked the Argive fleet off Euboea. It could never have happened without his consent.’ The Thessalian hesitated, glanced uncertainly at his friend, remembering too late how closely Odysseus had been implicated in the death of Palamedes; then he decided to proceed, though with less of the bluff confidence in his voice. ‘There’s a rumour that Nauplius had been travelling through the kingdoms of Argos long before that, trying to persuade the queens to betray their husbands. He wasn’t strong enough to avenge his son’s death any other way, so he turned himself into a viper pouring poison in their ears. He was definitely seen in Tiryns and Mycenae. It seems fairly clear he was in Knossos too.’

      Sensing now that more was withheld, Odysseus said, ‘And Ithaca?’

      The leathery, scarred face of the Thessalian looked up at him.

      ‘Yes,’ Guneus said, ‘in Ithaca too.’

      ‘Tell me,’ Odysseus said, and tightened his lips.

      ‘It’s all rumour,’ Guneus answered uncomfortably. ‘Ithaca’s a long way off and … I don’t know. We go away to fight a war and while we’re gone, while all our backs are turned …’ He smacked at a fly that was buzzing about his cheek. ‘Anyway, ten years is a long time, I suppose, but … who knows what’s to be believed?’

      ‘Tell me,’ Odysseus said again.

      Guneus studied his friend grimly for a moment. ‘It’s only hearsay,’ he said, twisting the bronze-plated wrist-guard he wore. ‘It’s probably not true at all, but the word is that there’s some young prince out of Dulichion – Amphinomus I think his name was – who’s been … Well, he’s been spending a lot of time on Ithaca …’

      Odysseus gave a small laugh of relief. ‘Amphinomus? I know the boy. I know him well. He’s the youngest son of old King Nisus. We lost his brother in Thrace. Amphinomus is harmless enough. He was too young to come to Troy with us and nearly broke his heart over it.’

      Guneus cleared his throat. ‘That was more than ten years ago, Odysseus.’

      ‘Yes, but …’ Odysseus faltered again. He watched the man’s eyes shift away.

      A burst of coarse laughter rose from where the two crews were drinking together.

      Odysseus narrowed his eyes. ‘What are you saying, Guneus?’

      The Thessalian lifted the palms of his hands. ‘I’m not saying anything … not for certain. But times change and the world changes with them. As I said a minute ago, ten years is a long time … Boys turn into men. Women can get restless … And no one knows what’s happened to you, remember. By the time I left Argos everybody had pretty much given you up for dead.’

      In a voice low with menace, Odysseus declared, ‘Not Penelope.’

      Guneus shrugged. ‘Perhaps not. Perhaps she’s different from the rest.’

      ‘You don’t know her. There’s no perhaps about it.’

      Sensing the heat in the man, Guneus made to withdraw. ‘I’m sure you’re in the right of it. Like I said, it’s only hearsay.’

      ‘Then you shouldn’t go spreading it about.’

      But the voice was so malignant now that Guneus got to his feet, reflexively checking the dagger at his belt.

      ‘This is unjust,’ he said. ‘I spoke only because you forced me to speak. Left to myself I would have said nothing.’

      Odysseus glared at him through hot eyes. ‘You would have done better to keep silent sooner.’

      Guneus grunted as a man will who feels himself badly done by. ‘If my words have troubled you, Lord Odysseus, I’m sorry for it.’ Adjusting the strap of the leather corselet he wore, he looked up, expecting some acknowledgment of his apology. When none came he grunted again, stared out to sea a moment, and then looked back to where Odysseus sat glowering with one fist tightly clenched. A fine trickle of sand was falling from it, down onto the fringes of his mat, as though he had ground a stone to dust in his bare hand.

      ‘Well, I don’t care to leave a man gnawing on his own vitals,’ Guneus said, ‘but I think it best if I withdraw.’

      ‘Do as you like,’ Odysseus snapped back, ‘it makes no difference to me.’

      Guneus looked down at him for a moment with an uneasy mixture of pity and contempt in his scarred face. Deciding to call his crew together and drag his ship back into the surf, he turned away, but he had taken no more than a dozen strides when Odysseus shouted after him, ‘If you value your life, Guneus, you’ll keep this slander to yourself.’

      Guneus stopped in his tracks. When he turned to face Odysseus again there was something closer to mockery in his eyes. ‘I’ll defend my own honour before any man,’ he said quietly, ‘and I’ll keep silent as and when I choose. But for the sake of the respect I once had for you, I’ll say this much: take a look around you, Odysseus. I don’t know what’s been going on here and I don’t want to know; but this camp’s a pigsty and there isn’t one of your crew who’s in a fit condition to stand up against mine. Take a good look at yourself while you’re at it. You’ve got a belly on you like an Aulis tavern-keeper. If I wanted to, I could knock you down as soon as spit at you. You’d better start shaping up and get out of this squalid hole if you’re to stand any chance of winning your wife and island back again.’

      He had turned on his heel and started walking back towards his men when he heard Odysseus running across the sand towards him. With no difficulty at all he dodged the first blow that came at him and merely leaned the other way to avoid the loosely swinging second. Then, being a taller man than Odysseus, with a longer reach, he pushed the palm of his hand into the Ithacan’s chest and stiffened his arm to hold him at bay.

      ‘That’s enough,’ he hissed so that the men watching in dismay down the beach