Odysseus in the Serpent Maze

CHAPTER 18: RITES FOR THE DEAD

WHILE THEY HUDDLED ANKLE-DEEP in water, the rocks outside the tunnel piled up until they were all but blocking the tunnel mouth. The walls vibrated with the impact of stone upon stone.

“We need to get out of here before the roof collapses,” Odysseus said, starting to slog through towards the open end.

Mentor agreed. “Lucky the tide’s going out, or we could have been drowned.”

The girls followed right behind them, though Helen limped slightly because of her missing sandal.

When they emerged out the other side, they all blinked in the sudden light.

“Dry land and daylight,” Helen said, pointing to a shingle of sand. “Things are looking better.” She stumbled towards the sand.

Penelope and Mentor cried out together, “Helen, no!” Odysseus reached for his dagger.

Out of the woods above the beach a dozen armed men suddenly appeared, striding towards them. Four held spears, three mighty bows with the arrows already nocked; the rest had drawn swords.

Odysseus took his hand away from the knife. A boy with a knife, he reasoned with himself, is no match for fully armed men. He brought his hand up weaponless. Better to use my brain.

“We come in peace!” he cried.

One young man, in bright bronze armour and a high-crested helmet, strode ahead of the others. He had a fierce hawk face.

When he got close to them, he laughed and called over his shoulder, “Stand easy, men. These are only children.” He was scarcely older himself.

Odysseus bristled. I’m no child, he thought. I’m a prince of Ithaca, old enough to have already slain a boar, rescued two princesses from pirates, and beaten a bronze hound. But he didn’t say it aloud.

One of the swordsmen, grey-bearded, with corded muscles and a deep scar over his right eye, stepped between them. He held his sword chest-high and pointed right at Odysseus’ throat.

“Idomeneus, my prince,” he said in a gravelly voice, “in this place who knows what form an enemy may take. Remember that young Theseus, who slew the beast in the maze, was but a boy. Remember the trickery of Daedalus and his little son.”

“You worry too much, Bosander,” said the prince. He took off his helmet and wiped his sweating face with the back of his hand.

The older man didn’t lower his sword and, once again, Odysseus’ fingers went to the hilt of his dagger, which he pulled out slowly, insolently.

“Hsst,” Penelope said in his ear, “what are you thinking? One knife against a dozen armed men? You’ll just get us all killed.”

Odysseus knew she was right. But he’d already figured that out on his own. He hated that she didn’t trust him.

Bosander knocked the knife from Odysseus’ unresisting fingers with his sword.

“I was just giving it to you, old man,” Odysseus said. “No need to stand a sword’s length away.”

Bosander moved close and pulled at the thong around Odysseus’ neck with more roughness than was necessary.

A gasp went through the men.

“Look, my lord!” one cried.

Idomeneus stiffened. “Take it, Bosander!”

The grey-bearded soldier sliced the thong with his sword and, dropping the bronze spearhead on the sand, kept the golden key.

“Are you brigands waiting to rob us when we have done you no harm?” Odysseus demanded, his voice hotter than his heart.

Idomeneus glowered at him. “Mind your tongue, stripling!” he warned. “Though you’re an Achaean by your speech, you’re still a stranger here. Be careful how you address the son of Deucalion, king of Crete.”

Glowering in silence, Odysseus knelt and picked up his humble amulet, tying it around his neck once more.

Bosander handed the gold key to Idomeneus. “This is surely the key the man Praxios spoke of, my prince. He didn’t lie.”

“Few men lie when faced with the threat of the Labyrinth,” the prince remarked slowly. His eyes grew hooded, the lids closing halfway down. He took a step closer to Odysseus, looking more like a hawk than ever. “How did you come by this key, boy?”

Odysseus shrugged the insult away, but a deep line grew between his eyes. “It was just lying there in the sea cave. I almost missed it in the dark. But my foot connected with it, and it rang out against the stone wall. Never leave gold lying about, I say.”

“What were you doing in the cave?” Bosander asked.

“We took shelter from a storm and rock slide,” Odysseus replied innocently. “When we emerged, there you were, waiting for us. Not much of a reception for children in this Crete of yours.”

Idomeneus eyed the others. “We had no storm on this side. And whose children are you?”

Ever mindful of his grandfather’s warning that knowledge was a two-edged weapon, Odysseus was about to begin a false story. But Helen stepped in front of him.

“I am Helen, princess of Sparta, captured by pirates and escaped here by the grace of the gods. I demand in the name of my father King Tyndareus that you treat me with the respect proper to my station. And my handmaiden Penelope as well.”

Odysseus cursed silently, but Idomeneus seemed impressed.

Even more than impressed.

Struck down like Mentor, possibly unmanned.

Which may be to our advantage, Odysseus thought. He kept silent and watched the Cretan prince.

Idomeneus bowed. “Despite the dirt and the worn clothes, I can well believe you’re a princess. But alas, Helen of Sparta, at the moment I have little hospitality to offer you.” He turned back to Bosander. “Watch them all while I go into that cave.”

Key in hand, he headed into the sea cave. A moment later he was out again, roaring. He brandished the key in Odysseus’ face. “What’s happened here?”

“I don’t know,” Odysseus said, keeping his voice guileless, though the crease between his eyes deepened. “We took shelter in the cave, and suddenly there was a sound of rocks falling, and the walls began to shake. We ran this way, afraid of being buried alive.”

“And you saw nothing of what lies beyond?” demanded Idomeneus.

Odysseus shook his head.

Idomeneus turned to Helen. “Is this true, princess?” His eyes narrowed. “If you truly are a princess.”

“If I’m a princess?” Helen’s voice rose with her indignation. “When you insult me this way, what reason have I to answer?”

She folded her arms and looked at him from under a fringe of hair. It was the kind of look that could bring strong men to their knees, and Idomeneus was young enough to be smitten. But Odysseus thought he detected a false note in Helen’s voice. Suddenly he realised that Helen was playacting.

Thank you, he whispered under his breath. It would buy them some time. Time, he knew, was always on the side of the prisoner.

“I meant no insult, princess. But I must know everything about this key. See—it’s marked with the name of the traitor, Daedalus. Everything of his interests us. We shall return to the city and see what my father has to say.” He put a hand on Helen’s arm. “You come with me, Helen of Sparta. As for the others …” He turned to Bosander.

“Bring them all along,” Bosander suggested.

Idomeneus nodded. His men jumped to do his bidding, and Odysseus, Penelope, and Mentor were suddenly and ably surrounded and taken in hand.

They marched back into the woods and along a well-worn trail. Helen’s sandalless foot was bound up by Idomeneus with a piece of cloth ripped from his own tunic.

The trail led across rugged foothills to a plain where twenty chariots waited, guarded by armed men. The Cretan horses were small, black, and well muscled, with slim heads and eager legs.

“Back to the city,” Bosander commanded.

The four were not treated roughly, but separated and placed in different chariots. At a signal from the prince, the charioteers slapped their reins against the horses’ rumps, and the little horses began to pull.

Odysseus was impressed with how smoothly the Cretan horses ran, galloping in quick, short bursts of speed. He said so to the charioteer, who glanced briefly over a shoulder at him.

“Specially bred. We keep brothers together. The king is a horse lover. So is his son.” The charioteer spoke in short bursts too.

“My father loves horses. Poseidon, bull roarer, keeper of the horses of the sea, has special shrines on our land,” Odysseus told him. Not a lie exactly. But not all of the truth.

“Ah, the king will like that,” the charioteer said, and turned back to his task.

Odysseus smiled. He’d learned more than he’d told. Always a good thing to do when in the company of enemies.

The sun was beginning to sink when the chariots turned east and travelled along a rough track by the coast. The sea here was a deep green, and the waves rolled in, high-crested, fierce.

They rode past a particularly jagged piece of the coast, where rocks like teeth pointed out at the sea.

Suddenly something in the fading light caught Odysseus’ eye: a ship impaled upon the outer rocks, hull smashed beyond repair. The white and red eye on the side of the ship seemed familiar.

Captain Tros’ ship!

“My lord Idomeneus, wait!” Odysseus cried out.

Hearing him, Helen pulled at the prince’s shoulder. He signalled to his men, and soon they’d all reined in their horses.

Idomeneus got down from the chariot and walked over to Odysseus. “Why have you stopped us, boy?”

“That ship—” Odysseus began.

“Sea raiders,” Idomeneus said. “Come to steal from us.”

“But …” Mentor shut up when he saw the look of Odysseus’ face.

“The very ones who kidnapped Princess Helen, her handmaiden, and us, great prince,” Odysseus said. “Are they all dead?”

Bosander grunted. “Some.” He pointed to five bodies lying several hundred yards away. “The rest we’ve taken to be sold as slaves.”

“Unburied …” Mentor said.

Again Odysseus shut him up with a look. As the dead sailors’ prince, Odysseus knew he was responsible for the men, though he’d had nothing to do with them for many days. Still they needed a proper burial, or else their shades could not cross over and enter the land of the dead. He would have to trick Idomeneus somehow.

He thought quickly, then said, “Great prince, I’m Epicles of Rhodes, and we guard our realm as fiercely as you do yours. But we believe that no matter what a person has done to us, we must show the same respect to the unburied dead as we would to a stranger seeking sanctuary at our door.”

“When a thief comes to my door, I don’t entertain him,” Idomeneus retorted.

“But all who sail the sea are sacred to Poseidon,” Odysseus said. He gestured up the beach where the unburied sailors lay. “To treat them this way dishonours the bull roarer himself.”

Idomeneus’ hawk face turned a deep russet colour. “Do you, a mere boy, a Rhodian, dare speak to me of my duty to the gods?”

Shrugging casually, Odysseus said in placating tones, which still carried to all of the soldiers, “I only speak what I know, great prince. And to spare your land the fate that once befell mine.” The deep line appeared between his eyes.

“What fate?” Bosander asked.

“When my king, Lord Tlepolemos, first came to Rhodes, he found a land ravaged by famine and plague. The dead were piled high in the streets; children wept because of empty bellies. Brave Tlepolemos, son of mighty Hercules, discovered the reason.” He hesitated, waiting for the question to come. As he knew it would.

“What reason?” called out a soldier.

“Yes, tell us,” cried another.

Idomeneus sighed. “Go ahead, boy. Finish your tale.”

“Great Idomeneus, it’s a story carved from history, as true as … as this Rhodian teller.” He gazed wide-eyed at the prince with what he hoped looked like innocence. “Tlepolemos found a hidden bay where many ships had been swept on to the rocks. There, unburied, lay the remains of a hundred sailors. For this sacrilege Poseidon had cursed our island.”

“And …” Prince Idomeneus said, clearly tired of the story.

“And the brave Tlepolemos buried every one of those dead seamen himself in a single night, a feat worthy of his father. From that day till this, Rhodes has been free of Poseidon’s curse and has prospered under Tlepolemos’ wise rule.”

The Cretan soldiers and charioteers were silent for a moment. Then they began to move restlessly, even fearfully.

Finally one man dared the question they all wanted to ask.

“Brave Idomeneus, shouldn’t the dead men be buried?”

Bosander spoke for the prince. “You, Epicles, and your friend—whatever his name is—can bury the dead yourselves. In a single night. Like your noble king.”

The prince smiled slowly. It made his hawk face even fiercer. “Yes—it’s only right that you two invaders work for your suppers.”

As they dug the five graves in the sandy soil, well above the high tide mark, Odysseus was silent, but Mentor complained continually.

“One shovel between us? And the stink? And to do this on an empty belly? I’m not a son of Hercules. Nor are you …”

At last his rote of misery drove their Cretan guards back to the campfires, which left the two boys alone with their awful task.

The minute the guards were gone, Mentor turned to Odysseus. Holding up sandy hands, he said. “What were you thinking—telling all those lies? Epicles of Rhodes!”

“Keep digging,” Odysseus whispered.

Mentor bent down and dug some more with his hands, looking like some sort of hound at work burying a bone. “Why not tell them the truth?” He looked up over his shoulder.

Odysseus smiled slyly. “The truth, Mentor? And what would you have me say? That these were my men? My grandfather’s men? We would be dead on the sand next to them.”

Mentor was silent.

Odysseus continued. “There are three reasons to lie to the Cretans. First, it gives us power over them, for we know what they don’t. Second, it buys us time, the prisoners’ only coin. And third—”

Mentor stood up and, hands on hips, interrupted. “And third, you just like to tell stories.”

Ignoring his friend, Odysseus finished, “And third, it gets these good men buried.” He dug into the fourth grave with pretended gusto. “So shut up and dig, Mentor.”

Mentor returned to his digging. But after a bit he looked up again. “What were they doing here, so far from home?”

“Looking for us. Can you imagine Tros going to Father and saying, ‘By the way, I lost your son overboard, Laertes.’ Not and keep his head.” He thrust the shovel into the sand.

“Was that story—the one about Rhodes—true?”

Leaning on the shovel, Odysseus grinned. “What do you think?”

Mentor shook his head. “I no longer know with you, Odysseus.”

“Penelope does,” Odysseus whispered. But Mentor had turned back to his digging and so he didn’t hear.

Finally, sand-covered and with aching backs, the boys rolled the dead sailors into their graves and covered them over with sand.

Several of the soldiers had wandered over to watch. One gave Odysseus a piece of bread. Another loaned him a wineskin.

“Mighty Poseidon,” Odysseus said, breaking the bread into crumbs, which he tossed into the air, “let these sailors who died on your wine-dark waters go swiftly into the land of the dead.” He poured the wine into the sand as a further offering.

A third soldier grumbled, “Waste of good wine, that.”

Odysseus ignored him and went on. “Father Zeus, hear our prayers.” He raised his eyes to the full moon. “Send swift Hermes to guide these sailors to the distant west.”

Looking around at the soldiers, Mentor added quickly, “And may their families be assured that even in a foreign land, they received a proper burial, one that is pleasing to the gods.”

Bosander joined them. He said in a gruff but not unkind voice, “Wash off in the sea, boys. Then join your womenfolk at the fire. We’ve saved you a bit of food.”