Thrasymedes had little interest in marsh birds and hung back. Before long, I joined him on the sand by the chariots while Enkhelaon continued on with the hunters. “Here, have some wine, Orestes.” Thrasymedes held out his wineskin. “The salt air brings a thirst.”

  I took a swig of good Knossian wine, then handed the skin back to him. “Your son is a fine bowman.”

  “And good with signs and figures,” Thrasymedes replied. “I confess, the language of the tallies has always eluded me.” He shook his head. “I heard your wife has recently given you a daughter. Have you given any thought to finding her a husband?”

  Was he about to broach the topic that I suspected he was? “Astydamia is but a year old,” I cautiously pointed out. “She has only just been weaned.”

  “Yes, but children grow quickly. It might have been only yesterday that Enkhelaon was a newborn at his mother’s breast, but look at him now!” Thrasymedes nodded approvingly toward the hunters beating through the high grass, the dogs racing ahead to retrieve the fallen prey. “In a few more years, he will have his first beard, his first woman, and then it will be time to think about finding him a wife.” A thoughtful pause. Oh, yes, my instincts had been right. I scented an offer of marriage, the possibility of a very profitable alliance with Pylos, and waited for Thrasymedes to continue.

  Thrasymedes waited for the hunters to start backtracking through the reeds to finish his thought. “You have seen how vigorous and personable Enkhelaon is. Astydamia would make him a splendid wife.”

  I stroked my beard. It was an intriguing offer. Enkhelaon as the royal heir’s eldest son stood an excellent chance of one day becoming king of Pylos. “You would betroth them, having never even seen my daughter?” What would he make of that? “You have not even asked how beautiful or clever she is!” Did Thrasymedes want Astydamia for his son on account of her connections, or had he conceived some outrageous notion of what she would look like when grown? Even I could not know whether she would be tall like her mother and father, or diminutive like her Spartan grandmother; whether she would be slender like Hermione, or stolid and buxom like Elektra.

  “A man can grow fond of a plain woman when she is a dutiful wife and competent housekeeper. As for the rest, that’s what concubines are for.” Thrasymedes chuckled over his own observation. “But I have no doubt that your daughter will grow into a very pretty young woman. How can she not, with such beautiful queens in her lineage?”

  Enkhelaon emerged from the marsh, and sprinted toward us with his bow slung across his chest, and a leather bag clutched in his hand. I remarked to Thrasymedes, “Why not come to Mycenae and see Astydamia with your own eyes? My nephews, Strophius and Medon, are Enkhelaon’s age. They would have a marvelous time together.” A reminder to take the boys hunting in the hills upon my return flashed through my mind. Autumn was the season to track fattened deer and wild boar in the pine forests. Yes, a royal deer hunt would be the right encouragement for two young princes who had spent half a year learning to cast javelins.

  “Father, look!” Enkhelaon emptied the bag to reveal a pair of ducks. “I took them myself. Can we have them tonight?”

  Thrasymedes praised the catch along with his son’s prowess. “That was well done. Have you given thanks to Lady Artemis?”

  “Of course!” Enkhelaon exclaimed, turning to me. “Do you like duck, King Orestes?”

  “I do,” I lied.

  Upon returning to the palace, I discovered to my irritation that Nestor and Menelaus had spent the morning drinking wine and trading stories while hurling the javelin in the outer court. So much for Nestor’s insistence that I would be bored while the old men conversed!

  When I encountered Menelaus in the bathhouse, I chastened him over his emphatic objections that he and Nestor really had discussed business. “Business—hah! Is that what you call your sporting and drinking?” I exclaimed. “By Hermes’ lying tongue, have you even mentioned Akelos to Nestor?”

  Menelaus snatched a towel to swat me with. “Now you’re being insolent, young man. Did you imagine Nestor and I were going to huddle around the hearth, wrap ourselves in fleeces, and sip mulled wine like invalids while we talked?” His face flushed bright red, as much from embarrassment, I suspected, as from the steaming air. “Fresh air and exercise are excellent remedies for old—”

  “What did you discuss?” I let an attendant remove my sandals in order to massage and scrub my feet.

  “Matters relevant to your interests,” Menelaus huffed. “Now let me enjoy my massage.”

  He said no more, and Nestor avoided the topic until that night’s feast had concluded, and his family had withdrawn for the evening. Then, on his orders, the servants hastened out carrying the remains of the meal, the sentries shut the megaron doors, and we three kings were left alone beside the crackling fire; our companions assumed their places among the flickering shadows, seeming to meld into the frescoes decorating the walls.

  “Orestes,” Nestor observed, “you share your father’s stubbornness. Always hankering to do business, never able to breathe and enjoy the pleasures of life. Yes, Menelaus and I conversed this morning. Did you think we would lie to you simply to waste time?” He raised a cautionary finger as I started to interject. “I will have you know that in my youth I was much like you, just as hotheaded and impatient. I recall when the Epeians invaded, two years after Herakles slew my brothers, how my father forbade me from entering the battle. Now, do you think I stayed behind like an obedient son?” Nestor chuckled. “Remind me to tell you later how I slew Prince Moulios, King Augeas’s own son-in-law, with sharp bronze straight through his breast, and took over his chariot with his corpse hanging out by his sandal straps—that is, of course, after we placate your restlessness over this matter with Cylarabes and the Argives.”

  “I mean no disrespect, my lord.” I reached for the cup of watered wine I had brought over to the hearth; the duck had been stringy and too heavily seasoned. “But this is not a trivial matter. Cylarabes has some nefarious purpose in mind, and I suspect Akelos has something to do with his plans, but he would be a fool to attack Mycenae. Our defenses are too strong, our men too experienced, and he is no war-leader.” I spread my hands. “Cylarabes has a mind as devious as the great Labyrinth. His intentions are a mystery I cannot fathom.”

  “Because you do not deal with your enemies as others do,” Nestor pointed out. “When you declare a man your enemy, you make no secret of the fact. But had you known your forefathers, or been old enough to accompany your father to Troy, you would have seen firsthand how kings and princes cut each other to pieces through subterfuge and vicious rumor, without declaring open enmity for each other, or even appearing to scheme, all while pretending friendship. Your distant cousin Palamedes, for—”

  Menelaus objected at once, “That’s old history. Done and forgotten, and there’s no reason you ought to be bringing it up now!”

  “I was there.” Nestor sat up straighter, and his twinkling eyes narrowed and became as sharp as obsidian. “Palamedes never took Trojan gold, and we all knew it. His execution was murder, his so-called treachery staged to alleviate Odysseus’s wounded pride, and to eliminate a serious threat to Agamemnon’s leadership. We all knew Palamedes was innocent, but we all stood by, secretly despising how the gods favored him. We were too afraid of Agamemnon and Odysseus, and we said nothing.” Nestor glanced aside at me, and nodded, while my father-in-law stewed over the accusation. “You know the tale?”

  How could I not know? At eight years old, only the year after the execution, I had accompanied a member of the Mycenaean assembly on an official visit to Nauplia, where Palamedes’ aged father and brother had grieved openly and bitterly over his murder. “Yes,” I replied, “but I fail to see what this ancient history has to do with Cylarabes.”

  “Nothing,” Menelaus grumbled, without meeting anyone’s gaze. “It has nothing at all to do with anything.”

  Nestor tsk-tsked him. “Patience. You will see soon enough what this has to do with the Argives. Now, I will not deceive you, Orestes, and pretend I know how Cylarabes intends to attack you, or how he means to involve this Akelos, though your assembly’s suggestion that he might wed Akelos to his granddaughter is entirely feasible. I might consider the very same solution in his position. However, I can tell you with a reasonable amount of certainty that Akelos is not the natural son of Diomedes.”

  “Absolutely not,” Menelaus affirmed. “Had Diomedes sired a son, even a bastard, he would have announced it from here to Ugarit, simply to irritate that insufferable wife of his.”

  “Then the Argive assembly knows Akelos is a fraud,” I said. “He has not endeared himself to anyone, with his upstart and quarrelsome ways, and his crude remarks. Menelaus, have you told Nestor what that insolent pig said about my wife? Whelping a daughter! Wanting to see whether the rumors about her beauty are true! Does he think Hermione will spread her legs for him at his whim, simply because the whores in his patron’s household do the same. I will cut his throat before I let him anywhere near her chamber?”

  Menelaus growled loudly. “Kill him the moment he shows his face anywhere near the Lion Gate! Flay the flesh from his skull, and stake the bloody mess on the ramparts for the flies to devour!”

  I smacked a fist hard against my palm. “I will rip out his eyes and tongue, and feed them to him.”

  “Peace,” Nestor urged. “Thoughts of vengeance warm the blood and stir the heart, but we must keep our heads. Heed an old man’s counsel, Orestes, and stay your hand against Akelos. It seems to me that his remarks were deliberate, chosen and rehearsed to incite your wrath, even to get you to violate your guest-right by attacking him in your host’s house. Cylarabes must have encouraged him beforehand, otherwise, as a proper host, he ought to have scolded him right there for his crass remarks and presumption. I, for one, would have boxed that young man’s ears and made him apologize.”

  Nestor spoke true, though there had never been any doubt in my mind that Cylarabes had orchestrated those insulting gestures and remarks. “Then what do you suggest I do with him? As long as people believe he is the son of Diomedes, he is a threat.”

  “Do to him what your father and Odysseus did to Palamedes. Discredit him through vile rumors, and make him a villain through deceit. Let him become the instrument of his own destruction, so that the Argives will turn on and eliminate him for you, as we eliminated Palamedes for Agamemnon.” Nestor’s sidelong look toward Menelaus warned him not to debate the point any further. “Open their eyes, Orestes. Show them what they already know, that Akelos is a fraud who will bring them no honor.”

  I scratched my beard. “You are right. I prefer to fight my enemies openly, cleanly, not with these falsehoods and tricks. Taking a citadel by stealth is one thing. Waging a war of lies and innuendoes cheapens my good name. That is how Aegisthus fought his battles.” Menelaus grunted his acknowledgement, nodding. “It is dishonorable.”

  “You are still young,” Nestor said. “You have not yet realized that even honorable men must be flexible. Achilles never understood that principle, and it cost him.” He cleared his throat. “Deceive your enemies well enough, and it will not harm your reputation.”

  I reached again for my wine, swallowing a deep draught; the dregs soured my tongue. Father had deceived and eliminated Palamedes with a more expert hand than mine, yet still accrued the shame. “If I could play that game to such effect, then why have my councilors never suggested it?”

  “Why, indeed! Can you name a single councilor who would be so bold or insolent to suggest to Agamemnon’s own son that Agamemnon dishonorably plotted against and murdered his own kinsman?” Nestor shook his head ruefully even as he issued the challenge. “You will find that there are many things that your councilors, servants, vassals, and even kinsmen dare not mention aloud in your presence. If you want the truth, you will have to search long and hard, and find someone who does not fear your wrath.”

  “Now,” Menelaus chided, “an honest man should never be afraid to speak truthfully to his king.”

  Nestor looked askance at him. “And how many times did you openly and honestly speak your mind to Agamemnon when we were at Troy? You opened your mouth only once, and only because he tried to take Helen from you to sacrifice to appease the men’s anger, and his own bitterness over his daughter’s fate.”

  Menelaus’s nostrils flared, and I, too, went rigid, resenting the mention of Iphigenia. “Artemis demanded that sacrifice!” he protested hotly. “What else could we have done?”

  “Someone should have told Agamemnon not to let his hunting prowess go to his head. Where were you to warn him about offending the goddess in her own sacred grove?”

  “Stop,” I said sharply. Someone had to cut through the thick resentment, lest Menelaus and Nestor trade unforgivable insults and anger Zeus Xenios. And I did not want to hear any more about Iphigenia’s death or Father’s foolhardiness. “This plucking and worrying over old wounds accomplishes nothing. We have all done and said things we regret.”

  Nestor’s mouth curled downward. “You are right,” he conceded, sighing. “Menelaus, friend, some malevolent god has made me forget that you are my most honored guest, and that certain ghosts should be left lying. Let the gods judge what we cannot.”

  Menelaus coughed anxiously into his fist, all of a sudden eager to change the subject. “Hmm, I recall you telling me just this morning that you’d had word from Ithaca.” Nestor nodded; he knew what my father-in-law was about. “I heard rumors some weeks ago that Odysseus has been seen among the islands far out west, among the Sikels, but I’ve heard no word about him fulfilling his oath to Poseidon.” Had it ever dawned on Menelaus, I wondered, that there was no sacred mission to appease the god, that Odysseus had given false reasons for leaving Ithaca again so soon simply because he did not want to give up his adventuring to stay at home and govern his insignificant island?

  “No, there was nothing about Odysseus. However, I am a grandfather again,” Nestor answered. “Polycaste bore Telemachus a son, Perses. Not that I have seen the child, because Telemachus will not allow Polycaste to venture anywhere outside the house, never mind visit her family. Gods forbid that she should encounter a squall, or run aground, or face pirates!” He snorted contemptuously. “Hah! Does he think I would permit my daughter and grandson to traverse Poseidon’s domain on an inadequate ship, or without a suitable escort?”

  “Absolutely not,” Menelaus agreed.

  “Not that Telemachus would even notice her absence. Polycaste tells me he spends much of his time on his late grandfather’s farm, tending the goats and swine, and brooding as he’s always done. His mother has given up on him entirely. And why not, when she and Polycaste manage the household much better without him?” Nestor’s grousing would have come across as an excruciating litany of complaints had he not kept a lighthearted and level tone; clearly the situation bemused rather than annoyed him. “Now, it is one thing when a young man leaves his hearth and family to make his way in the world, to learn a trade or win glory, as I did at that age. No, I was even younger! I was eighteen, in the fullness of my youth and strength, when I lifted Itymoneus’s cattle, and slew him when he tried to stop me.” Nestor was starting to reveal his loquacious nature. “Yet Telemachus seeks no glory, takes no interest in anything, and does nothing when the gods have favored his cause and made him king in Ithaca.”

  “Does he wait for Odysseus to return again?” Had Father ventured forth on another campaign, and I owned such authority in his absence, I would have done my utmost to ensure favorable mention at home and abroad, after the example of faithful, diligent Pylades, lest Father hear tales about my indolence and incompetence, and grow bitter with shame over the son he had sired.

  “I doubt that,” Nestor admitted. “Odysseus has been cursed with wanderlust. Jason owned the same restless nature, as did Theseus. Those two were never at ease except on the sea’s foaming lanes, daring the wrath of Poseidon and the vicissitudes of fate. It did them no good in the end. A man has to know when to settle down.” Menelaus’s face fell, and his brows knotted together in troubled contemplation. I wondered whether, deep down, he had always known the truth about Odysseus’s wanderings.

  When we retired, Nestor sent me as a mark of special honor a woman much valued in his household. Hekamede was almost old enough to be my mother, as evidenced by strands of silver fanning through her abundant dark hair, but she was handsome, with breasts as high and tight as a girl’s, and curvaceous white thighs. I treated her solicitously, kissing and caressing her to make her sigh, before rolling her onto her hands and knees and mounting her from behind. She lingered afterward to bathe the signs of exertion and love-play from my body, and to bring me cool barley water flavored with mint. Her eyes were smiling, especially as she measured the instrument that had brought her such pleasure, and it was not long before we enjoyed a second round.

  After she fell asleep beside me, I lay awake for a time, thinking of Hermione lying alone in her bed in Minoa-in-Argolis. Thoughts of her naked voluptuousness stirred passionate memories of midnight ecstasies, then, to my dismay, unwelcome reminders of Akelos’s insults. Minoa-in-Argolis had no defensive walls. Would he know that she was alone, and attempt to ravish her? The mere notion made my blood quicken. For that, I would kill him a thousand times. I would—but, no, no, Hermione was neither alone nor vulnerable. She had more than eighty Mycenaean warriors to defend her and our daughter, and two of my own faithful companions, Phemios and Iobates, to watch over her.

  The breeze cooling my chest felt suddenly sharp, and the air carried with it the disconcertingly familiar scent of saffron mingled with horseflesh and leather. I started, opening my eyes, yet I saw nothing save the shadows playing upon the ceiling. Hekamede, her repose disturbed by my small movements, mumbled beside me. Father’s presence weighed down upon me, thick and leaden. I forgot to breathe. What did he want? How did he come to be here, so far from his tomb? I could not get my voice to work to ask him.

 

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