“He stood over me. His face was lined and salt-stained. There was a bandage on his arm, with the blood soaking through. He wore a knife at his belt.”
His eyes were distant, as if he knelt on that beach again. I remembered those scarred arms of Odysseus’, marked from a hundred such shallow cuts. He liked fighting at close quarters. Taking blows on your arms, he said, was better than taking them in your guts. His smile in the dark of my room. Those heroes. You should see the look on their faces when I run straight for them.
“He told me to put down my spear. I told him I could not, but he just kept shouting that I must set it down, set it down. Then he grabbed for me.”
The scene bloomed in my mind: Odysseus with his bear shoulders, his corded legs, lunging at my son whose beard was not yet grown. All those stories I had hidden from him leapt into my mind. Of Odysseus beating the mutinous Thersites into unconsciousness. Of all the times contrary Eurylochos bore black eyes and a lumpen nose. Odysseus had endless patience for Agamemnon’s caprice, but with those beneath him he could be harsh as winter storms. It made him weary, all the ignorance in the world. So many stubborn wills that must be harnessed again and again to his purpose, so many foolish hearts that had to be led daily away from their hopes to his. No mouth could carry all that persuasion. There must be shortcuts, and so he found them. It might even have been a pleasure of sorts, to squash some little complaining soul who dared to stand in the way of the Best of the Greeks.
And what would the Best of the Greeks have seen, looking at my son? A sweet temper, without fear. A young man who had never bent to another’s will in his life.
I felt like an overdrawn rope, unbearably tight. “What happened?”
“I ran. For the palace. They could tell him I meant no harm. But he was so fast, Mother.”
Odysseus’ short legs were deceptive. His speed was second only to Achilles’. At Troy, he had won all the footraces. At wrestling once he had tripped up Ajax.
“He grabbed the spear and yanked me back. The leather sheath flew off. I was afraid to let go. I was afraid that…”
Telegonus stood before me living, but I felt the belated wash of panic. How close it had been. If the spear had twisted in his grip, had grazed him…
And then I knew. I knew then. His face like a burnt-out field. His voice, cracked with grief.
“I shouted that he must be careful. I told him, Mother. I said, don’t let it touch you. But he wrenched it away from me. It was just the barest scratch. The tip against his cheek.”
Trygon’s tail. The death I had put into his hand.
“His face just…stopped. He fell. I tried to wipe the poison away, but there was not even a wound. I will take you to my mother, I said, and she will help. His lips were white. I held him. I am your son, Telegonus, born from the goddess Circe. He heard. I think he heard. He looked at me before…he was gone.”
My mouth was empty. All was coming clear at last. Athena’s armored desperation, her stiff face saying we would be sorry if Telegonus lived. She feared he would hurt someone that she loved. And who did Athena love most?
I pressed my hand to my mouth. “Odysseus.”
He shrank from the word like a curse. “I tried to warn him. I tried—” He choked off.
The man I had lain with so many nights, dead from the weapon I had sent, dead in my son’s arms. The Fates were laughing at me, at Athena, at all of us. It was their favorite bitter joke: those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. The shining snare had closed, and my poor son, who had never harmed any man, was caught. He had sailed home all those empty hours with this crushing guilt on his heart.
My hands were numb, but I made them move. I took him by the shoulders. “Listen,” I said. “Listen to me. You cannot blame yourself. It was fated long ago, fated a hundred different ways. Odysseus told me once he was destined to be killed by the sea. I thought it meant shipwreck, I did not even consider anything else. I was blind.”
“You should have let Athena kill me.” His shoulders were fallen, his voice dull.
“No!” I shook him, as if I could throw off that evil thought. “I never would have. Never. Even if I knew then. Are you listening to me?” The desperation scraped in my voice. “You know the stories. Oedipus, Paris. Their parents tried to murder them, yet still they lived to bear their fates. This was always the path you walked. You must take comfort in that.”
“Comfort?” He looked up. “He is dead, Mother. My father is dead.”
My old mistake, running so quickly to help him that I did not stop to think. “Oh, son,” I said. “It is agony. I feel it too.”
He wept. My shoulder grew wet against his face. Beneath the bare branches we grieved together, for the man I had known, and the man he had not. Odysseus’ wide, plowman’s hands. His dry voice, drawing with precision the follies of gods and mortals. His eyes which saw everything and gave away so little. All perished. We had not been easy, but we had been good to each other. He had trusted me, and I him, when there was no one else. He was half of my son.
After a little time, he drew back. His tears had slowed, though I knew they would come again.
“I had hoped…” He trailed off, but the rest was clear. What do children always hope? To make their parents shine with pride. I knew how painful the death of that hope could be.
I put my hand to his cheek. “The shades in the underworld learn the deeds of the living. He will not hold a grudge. He will hear of you. He will be proud.”
Around us, the trees shook. The wind had changed directions. My uncle Boreas, breathing his chill over the world.
“The underworld,” he said. “I did not think of that. He will be there. When I die, I will be able to see him. I will be able to beg forgiveness then. We will have all the rest of time together. Will we not?”
His voice was vivid with hope. I saw the picture of it in his eyes: the great captain walking to him across the fields of asphodel. He would kneel on smoky knees, and Odysseus would gesture him up. They would dwell side by side in the house of the dead. Side by side, where I could never go.
The grief of it was climbing my throat, threatening to swallow me. But I would have touched crippling poison for him. Could I not say those simple words, to give him a crumb of comfort?
“So you will,” I said.
His chest heaved, but he was calming. He rubbed the stains from his cheeks. “You understand why I had to bring them. I could not leave them, after what I did. Not when they asked to come. They are so weary, and mourning too.”
I was weary myself, overwatched, buffeted by wave upon wave. “Who?”
“The queen,” he said. “And Telemachus. They are waiting in the boat.”
The branches tilted around me. “You brought them here?”
He blinked at the sharpness of my voice. “Of course. They asked me to. There was nothing left for them on Ithaca.”
“Nothing left? Telemachus is king now, and Penelope dowager queen. Why would they leave?”
He was frowning. “That is what they said. They said they needed help. How could I question them?”
“How could you not?” My pulse was beating in my throat. I heard Odysseus as if he stood beside me. My son will hunt down those men who laid me low. He will say, “You dared to spill the blood of Odysseus, and now yours is spilled in turn.”
“Telemachus is sworn to kill you!”
He stared at me. All the stories he had heard of avenging sons, and it was still a surprise to him. “No,” he said, slowly. “If he wanted to, he could have done it on the way.”
“That is proof of nothing,” I said. My voice was jagged. “His father had a thousand wiles, and the first of them was to pretend friendship. Perhaps he means to try to harm us both. Perhaps he wants me to watch you fall.”
A moment ago we had held each other. But now he stepped back.
“That is my brother you speak of,” he said.
That word, brother, on his lips. I thought of Ariadne reaching out her hands to the Minotaur, and the scar on her neck.