Telemachus ignored their words as well as their stares. He’d earn their respect well enough when he had grim-faced warriors shaking their spears behind him. Once out of the harbor, he noted with satisfaction, some of the old sea dogs began to nod and smile in his direction. Especially when they passed some of Mentes’s young men heaving helplessly over the side.
Sailing was clearly in his blood. The bracing sea air promised adventure and he was finally ready to seek it out.
In Pylos’s harbor, they came upon a great shore-side celebration. It seemed the entire city had come out for a festival to Poseidon. Decorative flags flapped in the breeze. Altars were being steadied on the sand. The air was thick with the smell of sea-life, smoke, and the dried sweat of men working under the harsh sun. Men sang songs to the father of the seas, accompanied by the lowing bulls unhappily shuffling through sand as they were prepared for sacrifice.
Telemachus spotted the old king—despite the wind-swept white hair and beard, looking as severe as the god of the seas himself—at a table set high on a promontory overseeing the sandy shore. He noted the king’s cloak was real Tyrian purple and suddenly felt like a child wearing pretend-royalty clothes.
Just keep your head up.
A young man wearing a circlet rushed to his side. “I am Peisistratus, son of Nestor,” he said. “Welcome to Pylos. It is an excellent omen to have visitors of your caliber step ashore during our day of honor and sacrifice to Poseidon, the Great Earthshaker and Wavemaker.”
Peisistratus was a few years younger than he was, Telemachus noted, which meant he’d probably been conceived in Troy by one of the king’s slaves. Hadn’t King Nestor’s eldest son, fast-running Antylochos, fallen during the war?
Suddenly, Telemachus wondered if his father had borne other sons in Troy. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? It was possible. That, of course, reminded him of the persistent rumor that Odysseus was actually alive and living on a remote island with a beautiful witch. Perhaps she’d given him strong sons and that’s why he never bothered to return.
No, that is foolish. Focus.
Peisistratus introduced him to his father, King Nestor, and the king bade him sit at the long banqueting table as prayers and sacrifices were made. Soon black smoke from countless altars blackened the sea air as mounds of fat and thick thighbones were offered to Poseidon and the other deathless ones.
Telemachus marveled at the beauty of the Pylos coast. The golden sand, the crystal waters darkening to a brilliant blue—it was so different than stony Ithaca with its craggy hills and mountains of scrub that seemed to fall directly into the ocean.
As crisped skewers of meat were passed, Telemachus noticed a girl on the women’s side of the royal table staring at him. She flushed and looked away when he stared back and Telemachus was charmed by the smatter of freckles across the bridge of her small nose. Her eyes shone brightly, like the bright green of new grass.
“That is my little sister, Polycaste,” Peisistratus whispered in his ear. “She may look sweet,” he continued, laughing, “but she will tear your eyes out if you try to steal her fig cake.”
Telemachus and Polycaste continued to trade glances—his growing bolder with every cup of wine—before the women of the noble house were escorted back to the palace at dusk.
Mentes was right, he thought a little drunkenly. It’s time I found a wife.
As torches flared on poles stuck deep in the sand, Telemachus dreamily imagined a future where he was a well-respected king, with all the men of Ithaca bending knee to him. It was a familiar enough dream, but now, he added sweet Polycaste, princess of Pylos, standing beside him as his bride. How wonderful it would be to be loved by a beauty like her—and to be aligned with such a powerful and respected kingdom. A bubble of hope and optimism warmed his chest. For the first time, he could see a future for himself that didn’t involve powerlessness and humiliation.
Old Nestor, as the night wore on, grew increasingly nostalgic, sharing story after story about the privations and challenges at Troy. Telemachus appreciated the king’s flattery of his father.
“No one there could hope to rival Odysseus,” Nestor said more than once, recounting Troy. “Not for sheer cunning. At every twist of strategy, he excelled us all.”
When the king eventually turned his attention to him, Telemachus made his request. “As a fellow royal, I am in need of a strong force of men to return with me and help me restore order to my father’s house,” he said, trying hard not to slur his words. “I do not need a large force—most of my mother’s suitors would run at the first sight of armed men and—”
Nestor acted like he hadn’t heard. He raised his golden goblet, turned to the center of the table and went on, in colorful detail, about how Agamemnon, King of Mycenae, was murdered in the bath by his own wife. Whenever Telemachus started to make the request again, the old king jumped in with yet another tragic tale of what befell the family of the accursed king.
Which, Telemachus, supposed, was the old king’s way of delivering an answer: No. Admiration for his father notwithstanding, he would not send a force of arms.
Peisistratus, sensing Telemachus’s frustration, jumped in to help. “Father, our guest friend is of royal Spartan blood via Icarius,” he said. “Why don’t we give him an escort to Sparta, where he might ask his own people for assistance? If Sparta chooses to help him, Menelaus might be grateful to Pylos if we too assist in his endeavor to claim his rightful patrimony.”
Telemachus looked from son to father. A wine flush had crept up Nestor’s neck, which made his flowing white hair and beard stand out even more dramatically in the torchlight. The great king nodded his head and then chuckled, holding out his cup to his youngest son. “Well done, boy. That is fairly proposed. We will send the prince of Ithaca to Sparta with men and supplies as a good host should. And depending on what the High King says, we may reconsider our position.”
“Excellent,” Peisistratus said. “And I will accompany the son of Odysseus on his journey to help his case.”
The king laughed again. “You are always ready for adventure. You have my permission,” Nestor said, before turning to speak to another son.
Telemachus turned to Peisistratus. “I don’t understand exactly how you did what you just did, but…” he paused, fighting his first impulse, which was to demand that he explain his manipulation, but forced himself to be gracious. “Thank you,” he managed.
Peisistratus held out his silver wine cup to Telemachus and grinned.
On the trip to Sparta, the prince of Pylos asked the prince of Ithaca if he wanted a turn at driving the horses of their chariot.
Telemachus colored. “No. I’ve…um, I’ve never—”
“You’ve never driven a chariot?” the son of Nestor asked, bushy eyebrows almost touching his hairline.