And yet we ate with ghosts. The boar had killed four of the hunters. Two more were gravely wounded. The king swore that they were all heroes whose names would live through the songs of the hunt. No one bothered to count or name the servants who’d died that day, even though they’d lost their lives for venturing closer to the boar than many of the “heroes.” Only the master of the royal hunting pack mourned for the slaughtered dogs.
My brothers couldn’t be bothered by phantoms. Tomorrow the dead would be burned, their ashes entombed with honor, the survivors would compete in athletic contests to please their spirits. Tonight Castor and Polydeuces sat near the king and basked in the congratulations of their fellow hunters. Apparently they’d done great deeds during the hunt—there were witnesses!—and had earned the right to be called heroes. If they’d noticed my presence on the mountainside that day, they washed the memory from their minds with cup after cup of wine.
And still the place between the king and queen of Calydon stayed empty.
“Where is he?” I whispered to Polydeuces. “Where’s Meleager? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing.” The wine slurred his speech just a bit. “This is all the king’s idea, keeping us waiting for Meleager just to make us cheer him even louder when he finally shows up.” He hiccuped.
As if in response to Polydeuces’s words, Lord Oeneus rose up from his chair, bawled for silence, then spread his arms wide and called out, “Come forward, Meleager, my son!” If there hadn’t been enough oil lamps to light the great hall that night, his face was radiant enough to do the job. “Come and claim your prize!”
Cheers shook the pillars of the hall as Meleager entered, but my cousin seemed indifferent to the praises thundering in his ears. His face was clouded as he approached his father and the boar. Something dark rode his shoulders, something that touched my heart with foreboding. I wasn’t the only one who felt it: I was seated near enough to his mother, the queen, to see how anxiously she leaned forward.
Meleager ran one hand down the boar’s bristly crest. He touched the bloodstained tusks, closed his eyes, and sighed, then opened them and said, “I can’t accept what isn’t mine. This beast would still be alive, ravaging our land, if not for the hero who truly deserves this trophy. My arrow never would have been enough to kill the monster if her spear hadn’t weakened it. Atalanta! Take your rightful prize!”
He seized the hide, head and all, and slung it over his shoulder. He strode down the hall to where Atalanta still sat among the weapons bearers. He dropped it at her feet and gazed at her with all the worship in his heart.
I don’t know who sprang up first, crying out against him, calling her a hundred vicious names. Several men leaped over the tables like deer in order to grab the skin.
“If you don’t want it, Meleager, it’s mine!” someone shouted. “My spear made the boar bleed; I deserve the prize. You insult us all.”
Atalanta was too wise to try to stop them. I couldn’t hear whether she flung their insults back in their faces, but I could see her laughing at them just as if they were a bunch of rowdy little boys who needed a good spanking. My cousin didn’t share her wisdom. His white face was streaked with feverish color as he drew his sword and attacked the men who tried to take the boar’s hide from Atalanta.
“This is bad,” Polydeuces muttered, suddenly sober. Before I knew what he was going to do, he and Castor grabbed me. As we ran from the hall I heard weapons clashing, Lord Oeneus bawling for his guards, and the queen screaming. My brothers whisked me up the stairs, down the gallery, and into my room, where they barricaded the door with one of my travel chests and spent the night with their swords in hand.
I don’t know whether or not my brothers were able to keep watch all night or whether, like me, they fell into a light doze. I only know that I was startled awake by a loud pounding. As I blinked in the morning sunlight, I saw Polydeuces on guard at the door, demanding to know who was there.
“It’s me, Iolaus! Let me in; it’s safe. I’ve got news.”
Polydeuces admitted him. Iolaus looked terrible: his face haggard, his eyes red with dark circles under them. He moved unsteadily across the floor and sat down heavily at the foot of my bed, head bowed.
“Well, it’s over,” he said. “Artemis has her revenge. Even after death, the boar she sent still had the power to kill. Ah, what a waste! Once the king gave Meleager the hide, it was his property; he could do whatever he liked with it. So what if he gave it to that girl? It was his choice, not an insult to anyone’s honor. Where’s their precious honor now that they’re dead?”
“Who’s dead?” Polydeuces asked.
I bit my lip and prayed that Iolaus wouldn’t say Atalanta.
“Five men that I know of, though I couldn’t tell you who four of them were. You know how many of us were here, and I don’t pretend to have a praise singer’s memory for names. I can’t even figure out who they were by seeing who’s missing this morning. After what happened last night, a lot of the hunters left Calydon at dawn. Some of the ones who stayed are saying that the dead men were Meleager’s uncles.” Iolaus made a disgusted face. “That’s the way to heap filth on a man, calling him a kin-slayer when he can’t defend himself anymore.”
“What are you saying?” Castor asked. “Our cousin’s dead?”
Iolaus nodded. “Those four men…well, Meleager killed them. He slashed the neck of the first man to lay hands on that stinking trophy. That was when the whole room erupted. Half the lamps were knocked over; it’s a marvel that the palace didn’t catch fire and burn to the ground. By the time Lord Oeneus’s braver servants brought fresh light, the floor was red with blood and five bodies lay over the boar. Your cousin was the fifth. He had a few minor wounds, nothing that should have killed him. His skin was scarred with fire too—someone must have flung one of the lamps at him—but again, nothing serious enough to take his life.”
“Then how did he die?” Polydeuces demanded.