Oracle's War Read online

  Oracle’s War

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedications

  Part One: The Seeress of Delos

  1 – Family Life

  2 – The Wedding

  3 – Pirates

  4 – The Island Shrine

  5 – Arnacia

  6 – The Pursuit

  7 – The Prophecy

  8 – Returning the Prize

  Part Two: The War of the Epigoni

  9 – Laying Plans

  10 – The Epigoni

  11 – Hephaestus

  12 – Robe and Necklace

  13 – The Springs of Cithairon

  14 – Duels of Wits and Blades

  15 – The Battle of Glisas

  16 – Death and the Seer

  17 – The Pig-keeper’s Girl

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Copyright

  Dedications

  Cath: To my mother, Marjorie, whose love of books and all things Greek has been a continuing inspiration to me. Her wide-ranging curiosity, her penetrating scholarship and ferociously high standards have given me a healthy disrespect for anything second-best.

  David: This is dedicated to my children, Brendan and Melissa, whose journey into adulthood makes me proud. Lots of love and best of fortune, guys.

  Part One: The Seeress of Delos

  1 – Family Life

  ‘Neither will the father agree with his children, nor the children with him, nor a guest with his host, nor friend with friend… Nor will there be any recompense for the oath keeper or for the just man or the righteous; instead they will praise the evil-doer and his violent dealing. Established custom will be moulded by them and respectful deference will cease to exist; and the evildoer will hurt the worthy man, swearing oaths with twisted words. Envy, foul-spoken, foul-natured, rejoicing in evil, will be the companion of mankind, wretches that they are one and all.’

  —Hesiod, Works and Days

  Ithaca

  Fifth year of the reign of Agamemnon of Mycenae (1289 BC)

  Three ragged lines of armed men are strung across the dusty clearing, rocky cliffs crowding in on both sides. The summer sun is beating down, glinting on bronze spearheads and helms. Inside boiled leather breastplates and helmets, two hundred men are sweltering and restless, blinking away rivulets of sweat as they squint at the place where the enemy will appear.

  I’m standing on a rock, sword at the ready, perspiring as heavily as the men below me. We’re in a ravine, the world shrunk to a narrow defile as we face the curved trail, straining our ears for the first signs of attack. The sky is vivid blue, the sun pitiless, and dust clogs the air. Eurybates, the King’s herald, his keryx, is with me, barking reminders down to the men. ‘Straighten those lines! Second rank, close up! Wait for the signal!’

  Resentful eyes turn our way, but I’m the crown prince of Ithaca and the men keep their mouths shut. ‘Not long now,’ I call out, my voice level and calm. ‘Hold your positions!’

  Then Tollus hurtles round the bend before us, hollering. ‘They’re coming! There’s too many of them! Fall back!’

  Immediately the senior men echo his fear. ‘Run! Run, they’re on us!’ they shout, and within a few heartbeats our lines have disintegrated. About a third of the men have hurled away their shields, the ranks have broken, and they’re all pelting down the ravine as fast as they can. Eurybates and I leap from our rock to be swept along with the tail, screaming orders amidst the hurly-burly, straining to look back over our shoulders for signs of our attackers through the dust cloud our flight has churned up.

  ‘Move!’ I roar. ‘Or Ares will stick spears up your arses! Run!’

  And now the pursuit is on us, roaring around the bend in the ravine, darkened outlines in the dust cloud shrieking like harpies, their size and menace magnified by the murk. Our men bellow in response and redouble their efforts to get away as lithe shapes close in on the hindmost.

  Then the first pursuer shrieks triumphantly and leaps onto Tollus’s back, bearing him to earth in a billow of dust. ‘Got you, Daddy! You’re dead!’ yells Tollus’s son, Kemos, his arms around his father’s neck.

  The other leading pursuers – the older sons of my soldiers – catch our hindmost runners, and those men touched, slapped or indeed gang-tackled are compelled to collapse on the ground, while the rest of the mob of boys – and a few girls – pour over them, screaming in delight. A few come after me – my mane of red hair makes me a mark – but I manage to dodge out of reach. I look left and right, assessing, and then…

  ‘Now!’ I yell, and Eurybates echoes my call, his stentorian herald-voice resounding through the ravine.

  This time the lads nail it – and it’s our sixteenth try at this, so they damned well better. The third rank, at the head of the flight, spin and drop, forming a line, spears down, shields up, and the second rank dart between them and fill the gaps, while those at the rear who’ve managed to stay clear of the horde of children – about half of them – hurdle both lines, and the spears come up.

  ‘Stop!’ I holler, because I don’t want any of the children running onto the spears, even though I’ve drilled the lads to ground the points during the drill. Some youngsters listen, others don’t, ploughing into the shield wall amidst gales of laughter, and for a moment the lines are a swirl of madly capering children and sweating, swearing men. I look at Eurybates and he nods.

  ‘I think we’re done,’ he says. ‘And the lads are ready to drop.’

  I call for quiet, and find another rock to stand on so I can see them all, something of a necessity as I’m one of the shortest men here. I’ve been blessed with many gifts, but height isn’t one of them. ‘Right, lads, that’s it for the day! You did it in the end! Well done!’

  They wouldn’t be Ithacans without feeling the need to question me. ‘Why are we even doing this, Prince Odysseus?’ big Nelomon demands. ‘Who in the world practises running away?’

  There’s a murmur of agreement. ‘Yer father never made us do this!’ Tollus adds.

  King Laertes – my father in name at least – has handed the training of the war band over to me. He’s a solid warrior, but he’s ageing, and his interests have turned more to farming than soldiering. I’ve developed my own ideas about tactics, given Ithaca’s diminutive size and steep, rocky terrain, and the men are taking time to warm to them.

  ‘We’re one of the smallest kingdoms in Achaea,’ I remind them. ‘When we fight, we’re always outnumbered – so we have to fight smarter. We have to have tricks up our sleeves, and this is one, like our ambush and archery training. And the camouflage and infiltration work.’

  ‘It’s fighting dirty,’ Nelomon grumbles. ‘Ain’t right.’

  ‘It’s called winning,’ I respond. ‘Imagine doing this in a real battle – where no one can see beyond a few yards, or hear anything in the clamour. If we pretend to break, the foe will think the rout is on. Their guard goes down, all they think they need do is chase and stab – but suddenly the tables are turned and they’re pelting into a wall of men, when they’re strung out and disorganized. We can win, by pretending to lose.’ I look around the crowd, see plenty of frowns, but more than a few nodding.

  But Nelomon isn’t convinced. ‘If you were a real soldier you’d know better,’ he grumbles.

  I turn to face him fully. This has been coming for a while. Nelomon was Father’s favoured field commander and he thinks he should be leading the training, with me in attendance merely as a gilded figurehead. And today’s new ruse will have insulted his code of honour – something every Achaean soldier has been raised with – even more than my other manoeuvres. ‘Oh?’

  ‘If you were full grown you’d not
have these hare-brained ideas,’ he growls. ‘You ain’t fit for the line.’

  This has gone beyond discontent. It’s rebellion. And it’s been answered by a mutter of agreement from some in the ranks. I have to deal with this now, and for good. ‘You think so?’ I reply, my voice loud with confidence, though to anyone watching, I should have every reason to feel nervous: Nelomon is a giant of a man, well beyond my stature. ‘Prove it.’

  He glowers, looking around him at the overheated, dust-coated men and the watching children, wide-eyed at seeing their elders in conflict. I’m the prince, so he’s wary. Like it or not, I’m heir to the kingdom.

  But he’s tired and angry too, and he wants to put me in my place. He thinks Laertes will back him, and he may well be right. With a grunt, he turns to his mate Itanus, hands him his spear and shield, unbuckles his sword belt and goes to remove his helmet.

  ‘Keep it on,’ I advise him. ‘You’ll be grateful.’

  He grunts again, then goes into a fighting crouch, arms spread. ‘I’ll go easy on you, Prince – for your father’s sake,’ he growls, then he blurs into motion, rampaging forward without warning while I’m still handing my gear to Eurybates.

  No warning – but not unexpected. I dart sideways, evade one massive paw and grip the forearm, swing him about while planting one of my thickly muscled legs into his path. He trips, I twist him into a flailing spin and he goes over head first, planting his chest and face in the dust but spared serious damage by his helmet. A moment later I’ve slammed a knee into the small of his back, winding him while wrenching his arm round almost far enough to dislocate it.

  He gasps for air while I press down. ‘Told you you’d be grateful for the helmet,’ I say.

  I feel him tense as I let his arm go and make as if to step away. Instantly his arm sweeps round, battering at my knee while he seeks to rise and bear me down – he’s so obvious. I’m braced, withstand the blow to the knee, let him grab me but twist again, using my burly torso and shorter build to gain superior leverage. I flip him up and over me, pinning him once more and driving my knee into his groin.

  That about settles it.

  ‘You want to try again, Nelly?’ I ask, stepping away from the writhing man.

  He glares up with absolute fury on his face, and I brace for more. Past experience tells me he’s not one for holding grudges, but this has been a major humiliation in front of men who respect and honour him, and we’ve been fighting over something he believes in strongly.

  For a moment he tenses up, ready to try again – then he shakes his head.

  My chest is heaving, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps, but defeating Nelomon has not been as improbable as it might seem. I am one of the theioi: a select and secret group of ‘god-touched’ men and women who are gifted with an additional edge in physical prowess or with various other qualities that, once awakened, set us aside from ordinary people. That awakening comes at the hands of the spirits we call gods. I was awakened by Athena, the Attican Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare, an apt partnership as she and I prize reason, skill and subtlety above all else, though I’m grateful for that extra measure of speed and strength.

  ‘Anyone else?’ I ask pointedly. ‘Or would you rather we all go for a beer?’

  ‘Beer sounds bloody divine,’ the deceptively casual Itanus drawls. There’s scattered laughter and everyone’s face lights up. Itanus helps Nelly to his feet, and everyone waits to see if he can take a fall in good grace.

  ‘You’re supplying the beer,’ Nelomon grunts. Already I can see his anger dissipating, much to my relief. I suspect he’ll be fine after the first tankard. He rubs his groin ruefully. ‘My wife’ll be having a quiet night tonight,’ he grumbles.

  ‘I’ll look after her,’ Itanus smirks, clapping him on the back. ‘I usually do.’

  After that, we all saunter homewards, emerging from the ravine onto a plateau above the cliffs, with the broad strait between Ithaca and the larger island of Cephalonia sprawling below us, gleaming in the afternoon sun. We’re all draining the last of our water skins, the children bouncing among the exhausted men or riding their shoulders, crowing over how many they caught. Those who have been ‘killed’ over-often today are ribbed gently by the other men, and all in all, there’s a sense of growing camaraderie.

  ‘They’re still prone to grumble, but they’re starting to enter the spirit of it,’ Eurybates notes.

  Since taking over the drill, Eurybates and I have worked side by side to make our men into something unique. Achaean men are generally part-time soldiers, and usually only learn the basics of warfare, drilling and formation fighting, so they can follow simple commands well. But I want my men to be different: as I told them earlier, we’re a tiny kingdom, and we need to punch harder to compensate – much like me. A good big man beats a good small one, they say: I’ve spent most of my life trying to turn that damned saying on its head.

  Eury and I pause for a moment, admiring the way the fiery sun sinks behind the mountains of Cephalonia, their shadows creeping across the water towards us. Our island kingdom is a cluster of tiny dots on a vast sea, one that’s circled by lands most of us have never seen. Many of the lads would be happy to never leave our shores, but I’ve visited High King Agamemnon’s palace in Mycenae, the hollow plains of Lacedaemon, Attica rich in olives and silver, the springs of Thermopylae and other places so strange that most mortals never venture there.

  Despite our insignificance, I also know that there are forces out there that can touch us. Emperors, pharaohs, kings and gods. When I look out across the seas I can feel them gazing back, hungry for land, wealth and power.

  We descend the final ridge to Ithaca town, clay-coloured houses and tiled roofs clustered together on the slopes above the harbour, where trading vessels and a few dozen war galleys are drawn up along a finely pebbled strand. We’re not many, just a few barnacles clinging to a seaside boulder, a precarious, ruggedly beautiful place at the edge of civilization.

  Above the town stands my father’s palace with its outer walls and courtyards and huddled outhouses, a big enough place by Ithacan standards but nothing in comparison with the might and luxury displayed by more powerful kings. I take the men into a large courtyard behind the servants’ wing, ensure the beer is flowing, then retreat with Eurybates into the cool of the royal quarters, where I seek the washroom to clean and change. Immersed in cool water, I rest my head and gird myself for the next battle, the sort you can’t win: family strife.

  A year ago, my twentieth, I thought my family the happiest in Achaea. My father Laertes was devoted to my mother Anticleia, my sister Ctimene and I felt secure and loved, and after Father’s victories against the Taphian pirates a decade ago, our kingdom was prospering. I was taken to the oracular shrine of Pytho to be presented to the Pythia, Anticleia’s mother Amphithea, in fulfilment of the rituals of princedom.

  What befell us at Pytho changed everything. I found I wasn’t the child of Laertes at all, but the result of my mother’s hitherto unrevealed seduction by Sisyphus, a cunning and much-loathed king of Corinth. Not long after I was born, Sisyphus was murdered, his body left in a city square to be torn apart by dogs. The revelation about my true father tore apart the harmony of our family and almost led to Mother being cast aside. Though I’ve since concocted a story to persuade Laertes my mother was innocent, the whole ghastly business is still a festering sore.

  ‘Prince Odysseus?’ a voice calls. A young girl’s head peers around the door frame – Hebea, a waif from Phocis we took in last year, now growing into a pretty young thing with a half-wild nature from her rough early life. I’m instantly wary, because she is also occasionally the vessel of a body-jumping spirit I know as Bria – another of Athena’s theioi servants.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, sitting up in the bath, alert for danger, Bria’s stock-in-trade.

  But the shy smile Hebea gives me has none of Bria’s sharp slyness. ‘Your mother’s calling for you,’ she says, running her eyes down my chest and beyon
d – she’s growing up fast.

  I shoo her out – my mother loathes the casual seduction of servants that passes for normal behaviour in most great houses, something Laertes and I have been browbeaten into respecting. Not that I needed much persuading – I can’t speak for Father, but I don’t see there’s any fun to be had with someone who can’t say no.

  With Hebea gone, I clamber out of the bath, dry myself and finger-comb my red tangle of hair into some kind of shape before a polished bronze mirror. There’s plenty to criticize – my face is alert rather than handsome, my hair is unruly at best and I’m certainly on the short side – but I’m not altogether displeased with what I see. Deep, broad chest and shoulders, a lean and muscular belly and strong legs are my good points. Despite my short stature I can outrun, outwrestle and outclimb almost any man on Ithaca even without calling upon my theios gifts, but I’m discreet about how I use my advantages: the god-touched need to stay something of a secret, for ordinary men fear those who are different, and our patron deities are often mutual enemies.

  I dress and, deeming myself as prepared as I’m likely to be, I follow Hebea, expecting to be led to the banqueting hall, the central megaron of the palace, where Father is about to host a gathering of prominent families and foreign guests in celebration of my sister’s upcoming marriage.

  Instead Hebea leads me to my father’s study, where my parents’ raised voices can be heard through the closed door. As has become the new normal, they’re anything but harmonious.

  ‘How dare you reconsider now?’ I hear my mother Anticleia demanding. ‘You’ll break her heart!’

  ‘She’ll get over it,’ Laertes replies in his impatient, dissatisfied burr. ‘I was never happy with her choice, as you know. The wrong type of husband could weaken Ithaca fatally, and we still have time to extract ourselves from this before it becomes binding.’

  Wrong type of husband… I pause outside, while he and Mother rail on. I thought this argument was won.