The Lost Books of the Odyssey - By Zachary Mason Page 0,3

his eyes. “The second day I smashed my thumb with a hammer.”

“What was I thinking during the rain before last winter’s great sally on Troy?”

“I was watching the young men dress for battle and thinking of my own son Telemachus, who is nearly old enough for arms.”

I lowered my sword. The stranger looked miserable. Absently, he pulled out the water jar I kept under my bed and drank.

“What now?” he asked. “I see that my life is occupied. I made no plan for this. I cannot imagine a plan. In effect, I am exiled from my life. I wish I had not come.”

Self-pity wearies me. “Here is what now. I have my life and you have yours, though it is new to you. I will continue to fight for Agamemnon, the fool, whose vanity has filled a thousand men’s mouths with dust. You do what you want. You do not have my rights and are not bound by my oaths. Go and fight for Troy if you please—you know our counsels, could break our lines and bring the war to a quick conclusion,” I said, hope rising within me.

He shook his head. “I have killed too many Trojans to change sides. And though I could slaughter the Greeks and win fame I would be a traitor in my heart. No. And I cannot join the Greeks and be a nameless turncoat. I take my leave of Troy today. I will find some place where I can carve out a holding with my sword, some baron’s daughter to marry.”

I gave him a sack of food, another of gold, and arms and armor that I had stripped from a dead Trojan hero. He thanked me politely but seemed eager to go. I wished him well and told him that of the two of us I thought that he, freed from necessity, was the happier.

In due course, Troy fell and was sacked and the streets and the altars were strewn with dead. I had much honor and my pick of the spoils. Among other treasures I came away with a pretty slave-girl named Irina who had served in Iapetus’s house. I overheard her talking to the other girls about a time years ago when her then master had lost his mind. He had developed a strange accent and would not look at his wife or children. For several weeks he had forsworn his usual companions and pastimes and spent his days walking the battlements looking out at the Greeks. One day he had come home at first light carrying a sack of gold and some armor that had once belonged to Sarpedon, who had died in battle. That afternoon he had taken a few men and all of his gold and gone away for good. The strangest thing, Irina said, was just before he left when she had walked in on him cutting his own thigh with a dagger—he looked like a sculptor, getting the cut just so. I was preoccupied with preparations for the trip home and spared only a moment to pity the victims of so-called Iapetus’s stratagems.

After many years and travails I came to Ithaca’s shore, full of caution. All my men were drowned, my ships sunk and my treasures scattered on the sea floor. I was ready for any sort of treachery or decay but found the kingdom to all appearances in good order. The roads were mended, the peasants cheerful and many tall ships spread white sails in the harbor. I asked a sailor who was king here and he said that Odysseus was king in Ithaca, of course. I went to my family’s stronghold and introduced myself to the castellan as a wandering soldier and singer, looking for a place but not for too long—I had heard that Ithaca was prosperous and thought I would try my luck. I was courteously led into the great hall and there was Penelope, aged but still beautiful, and sitting next to her on my own seat was Iapetus the Trojan, bearded and sun-browned but still an alien, a foreigner, not a thing like me. Penelope’s hand rested on his. Telemachus sat in the wings, watching me with polite hauteur. The king, the so-called Odysseus, stood and under his short tunic I saw a white scar on his thigh exactly where the boar had gored me. He said, “Welcome, stranger. Though you introduce yourself with humble speech, your bearing impresses me—you are obviously a man of the best blood and have