Odysseus in the Serpent Maze

CHAPTER 1: HUNTING THE BOAR

“ODYSSEUS! ODYSSEUS! WHERE ARE you?” Beads of sweat ran down the boy’s face as he called. His tunic—white when he had started the climb and now a moist grey—clung to his scrawny back. His padded linen leggings were scuffed and torn. He had lost his hat some time back.

Above him loomed the double peaks of Parnassus, a faint glint of snow visible on the heights. Just the glimpse of the snow made him feel cold, and he shivered. In the light of early dawn long, jagged shadows lanced out from rocks and trees. That too, made him tremble.

He was about to call again when he felt a tug at the hem of his tunic, then a yank, and suddenly he was pulled forward, off his feet, his face ground into the grass.

“Mentor,” came a harsh whisper, “if you can’t keep up, at least keep quiet!”

Spitting out a blade of grass, Mentor sat up and glared at Odysseus, who was crouching beside him, a long spear clutched in his hand.

“I tried to keep up, but you were going too fast.” Mentor set down his own javelin and checked himself all over for bruises. “And I still don’t understand why we couldn’t wait till after breakfast. I have no strength for climbing when my belly is empty.”

Odysseus never looked at his friend but kept scanning the bushes and the scruffy ground between trees. “My grandfather says it’s best to track an animal first thing in the morning, while it’s—”

“—sluggish,” Mentor finished for him. “I remember. But I also remember your father warning me: ‘Keep Odysseus out of trouble, because it is as certain as Hades his grandfather will not.’”

Odysseus’ face got as red as his hair. “I’m not in trouble.”

“You will be,” Mentor said smugly, “when your grandfather finds out you took his prize hunting spear!”

Only then did Odysseus turn, his broad face marred with a crease that ran between his eyebrows. Someone else might think that was a worry line. But Mentor had known Odysseus since childhood. That line was a sign that Odysseus was about to come up with an outlandish excuse—lie, fib, wile—for doing something he’d already decided to do. He’d call it a reason, of course, but reason was the one thing it wouldn’t be.

“The spear was just hanging there in Grandfather’s storeroom gathering dust,” Odysseus said. “In the midst of all those old shaggy pelts and mouldy tusks, and piles of copper and gold.” He grinned. “Besides, Grandfather always did admire a nimble bit of thieving. That’s what he’s famous for, after all!”

“Your own javelin would have done as well,” said Mentor, sighing. “That spear is much too big for you.”

In fact the spear was a good two feet longer than Odysseus, and he could barely stretch his fingers around the shaft. But he wasn’t going to admit that to Mentor. Instead he shrugged. The vertical line between his brows got deeper.

“You need a proper weapon to slay a beast like the Boar of Parnassus, not a sewing needle like yours.” Odysseus glanced disdainfully at Mentor’s javelin. “Besides, I don’t plan to throw the spear from any great distance. There’s nothing heroic in that. We’ll make the boar come right up to us.”

Mentor stood and brushed off his clothes. “This is a bad idea, Odysseus.” He looked around at the scrub bushes, perfect hiding places for wild animals. “We should have a whole hunting party with us, with hounds and—”

“So the dogs can do the hunting for us and the real men run ahead, and we don’t even get a glimpse of the quarry till the hunt is all over?” Odysseus stood as well. In perfect imitation of one of his grandfather’s servants, he said in a high, breathy voice, “Oh, Prince Odysseus, it’s too dangerous. You don’t want to stain your fine tunic. You’re too small to handle the great big grown-up spear. You’re only thirteen years old!”

Odysseus said the last with such scorn, Mentor bowed his head, resigned to the fact that he’d already lost this argument an hour ago, when Odysseus had shaken him awake on his sleeping pallet. But he hoped to inject at least a small note of caution into their adventure. Anything to keep Odysseus safe—in spite of himself.

“How are we going to find this boar?” Mentor asked.

“I think we already have.” Odysseus knelt again and yanked Mentor down after him. “Smell that!”

Mentor sniffed but smelled nothing unusual. “I don’t—”

“Shhhhh!” Odysseus’ angry hiss silenced him.

They got down on their bellies and slid through the undergrowth, Odysseus in the lead.

I hope, Mentor thought, that my tunic can be mended. I am not so sure about my knees.

The bushes all seemed to have thorns, and the crawl took a long time. Mentor knew better than to complain again. He didn’t want to face more of Odysseus’ withering scorn. But at last they got through to the other side of the brambles. Odysseus squatted and signalled with his hand for Mentor to do the same.

“There—see that goat trail?”

Mentor squinted. “Yes—so?”

“There in the middle. Boar spoor. A whole pile of it.”

Mentor wrinkled his nose. Now he could smell it.

“Fresh too,” Odysseus said. “Probably his first of the day.”

“You’re certain it’s the right beast?” Mentor asked. Like Odysseus, he’d never actually been on a boar hunt, only heard the boasts of men when they had drunk too much wine at a feast. But he knew a boar was a fast beast and, when angered or even just slightly annoyed, a boar could be deadly.

“Deer keep free of these trails,” Odysseus said with great authority, though there was that deep line between his eyes again. “And the spoor is too big for sheep or goat.” He eased himself back into the bushes. Mentor did the same.

“You can’t be completely sure …” Mentor didn’t want to believe Odysseus. He didn’t want to encounter a real boar. Not now, with only his small javelin. His “sewing needle”. Not on such a lovely summer day. Not—

“There are lots of birds’ nests in these bushes,” Odysseus continued. “Eggs are one of a boar’s favourite treats. And if you will just shut up for a moment, Mentor, we might even be able to hear him coming.”

A hundred objections sprang into Mentor’s mind. But he could tell that Odysseus was in no mood for any of them.

Just then Odysseus’ eyebrows, like two wings of flame, went up, and his fingers tightened on the shaft of the great spear. “Listen!”

Mentor strained to hear something. Except for the breeze teasing the tops of the bushes, except for the faraway whit-whit-whit of a partridge, all he could hear was the dull drumming of his own blood.

And then he too heard the sound. It was a brutish commotion, as if some bulky creature was forcing its way through the bushes, trampling on the scrub; like a long and awful sentence punctuated with grunts.

“How close …?” Mentor managed to get out of his dry mouth.

“Let’s find out,” Odysseus said.

“Let’s not!” Mentor whispered, but it was too late. Odysseus was already crawling forward, already up on one knee, the long spear uplifted in his right hand. His left hand pointed towards the east.

Carefully Mentor poked his head up through the bushes.

The boar—black as a cave’s mouth—was a good bow shot away, ripping up bushes with its enormous tusks.

Suddenly, hiding in the bushes didn’t seem like such a good idea.

Mentor hissed to Odysseus, “It’s as big as a mule.”

“Bigger!” Odysseus smiled, then for a moment looked over his shoulder. “What’s wrong with you, Mentor? We’ve been on hunts before.”

“Hares,” Mentor said frantically. “Wild sheep. Deer. Nothing with tusks!” Mentor could feel his voice rise. “And this boar has already killed three men, has made orphans of nine children.”

“Then our glory will be all the greater when we slay it,” said Odysseus. His eyes were enormous.