“The Achaeans had sported with me for long enough. They were eager to be away. My cave they had ransacked, my lambs they had stolen, my sheep they had slaughtered. What wine I had they’d drunk, and my provender, meant to see me and mine through the wet winter months, was now in their bellies—or in the belly of their ship. They were finished with me. The chief of my tormentors was a man called Eurylochus; he had a knife at my throat and would have sent me willingly to my ka had his captain not came upon us. I do not recall much about this captain, save that he was solidly built, though small in stature, and sported a once-dark beard now shot through with the silver of age, hardship, and worry. His eyes, though…his eyes were the eyes of a lion.
“Do not kill him, he said, and Eurylochus stayed his hand. Even though he refused us the small boon of his hospitality, I would not sink so low as to murder our would-be host. No, my friend. We must instruct him. Do you like riddles, Kyklops? Answer me this, then:
The cost of making only the maker knows,
Valueless if bought, but sometimes traded.
A poor man may give one as easily as a king.
When one is broken pain and deceit are assured.
“I confess I did not even try to discern the answer. At my best, I have little regard for riddles; they are like cracklings of fat pared from the meat of divine wisdom: a man might ingest them, but they do not leave him full. In an hour, he is as hungry as the man who had none. I spat the first thing that came to mind.
“Life, I said. For that is what you thieves and brigands are after, is it not?
“The captain looked askance at me. This whole time, he had kept his hands busy by whittling a point to the end of one of the olive wood stakes I kept for growing beans. He held it up, gauging his handiwork.
“The riddle’s answer is what we were after.
“I shrugged, for I was in no mood for games.
“He tsked. An oath. We sought an oath of friendship from you, and you instead broke one of the most sacred oaths, that between traveler and host. A man with but one eye should not be so quick to judge what he sees, nor so quick to draw a blade against a man whose friends are near. The captain nodded. Before I could react, Eurylochus wrapped his hairy, stinking arms around my head, holding it immobile. And though I struggled and roared, I could no more halt that stake’s descent into my one remaining eye than I could the rising of the sun.
“The pain,” Polyphemus touched the raw socket where his eye had been, “the pain was beyond words, lord. I lost consciousness in a haze of red and woke to eternal darkness. I heard the captain’s voice as he withdrew back to his ship, faint but unmistakable. He said: Kyklops, if any man asks about the shameful blinding of your eye, tell them it was Odysseus, the sacker of cities, who did it; Laertes’s son, who is king in Ithaca. Tell them, when next an Achaean asks for hospitality you will surely offer it.”
Polyphemus sighed. “A neighbor found me. They claimed my cave and my lands as theirs; though I begged them to send me to my ka, they nevertheless bound my wounds and sent me away. A fisherman took pity upon me and brought me here, to the Court of the Winds, where I pray my warning does not fall on deaf ears.
“Beware of the Achaeans, lord! They haunt your waters like the spirits of the restless dead—men who left their souls beneath the walls of Troy, their good and common decency winnowed away by the threshing flails of endless strife! If they come here, lord, do not entreat with them. Let my plight be as a guide for your own wisdom. Can any man who would do this be content to return home and take up the plough?
“Kill them now, lord, while their numbers are small, or face this son of Laertes, this sacker of cities called Odysseus, later, after he has had time to renew the spears of Ithaca!”
By the lights of heaven, child, but I had never heard so many men keep so quiet! Men who had more opinions than a graybeard has chin whiskers, and not a hint of a sound escaped from them. Not even my father, the gods bless his memory. Polyphemus simply sank back in his seat and allowed the king’s physician to see to his injuries. The king’s own eyes remained locked on the man’s blinded visage. You could see the wheels turning, the weights and the measures he used to gauge truth from falsehood being weighed against the freight of Polyphemus’s words.
Finally, King Aeolus stood. He smoothed his robe and motioned for his sons to clear the portico. They went out among the crowd and slowly dispersed them with a quiet word. Men muttered to one another as they withdrew back the way they’d come. Back to the nets and the hull scrapers. The king came close to the still-seated Polyphemus. “Will you accept the hospitality of my household, for as long as you might wish to stay?”
“I will, lord, if you will consider my warning and pledge not to treat with these Achaean dogs.”
“Your warning I will take to heart, good Polyphemus, but I can offer no such pledge.”
Polyphemus’s lips curled in a sneer. “You would welcome these murderers as friends, then? Even after my testimony?”
The exodus from the palace grounds stopped; men turned to listen to this exchange. I was close by, ready to give my arm to the blinded giant. Our king was a mild man, who ruled the lands of the Aeolians less as its tyrant and more as our patriarch. But even he was not accustomed to having his motives questioned. Still, he smiled through his anger and kept the heat from his voice.
“If I had had your testimony a fortnight ago, things would be different,” he said. “Alas, though, I am only hearing of this now, and after the fact.”
“What do you mean?”
“A fortnight gone, as we celebrated the Noumenia—the festival of the New Moon—an Achaean came to my door and demanded xenia for himself and his comrades. He was filthy and disheveled, and I took pity upon him. His captain came after, a man much as you described, and I discovered to my joy that I played host to a hero of Troy and a brother king—Lord Odysseus, Laertes’s son, of Ithaca.”
Polyphemus groaned. His limbs trembled; in truth, dear Eirene, I feared he might die of terror where he sat. Our good king, though, quickly crouched and took his long-fingered hand in his own.
“They are gone from here, friend Polyphemus,” he said. “Do not fret. They partook of my hospitality for a week, replenished their stores even as they ate and drank their fill from my own larder. Odysseus paid for it all with a multitude of stories. He told us of the stratagem of the wooden horse to defeat the walls of Troy, of the death of noble Achilles, and of the storms that blew them into our waters. His tales were as smooth as a fine wine. But always there was a hint of something just under the surface—something sour, but too subtle to the palate to call it a bald-faced lie. Now I know.”
“You need not pander to me, lord,” Polyphemus said. The king straightened.
“I do not pander. Odysseus and his men left at dawn, two days past. I made them many gifts upon their departure, including lending them my own son, Hippotas, who has forgotten more of the navigator’s art than most men will ever know. It is his task to guide them on to Ithaca.” Blind Polyphemus only nodded. “I will pray to my gods for his safe return.”
“And I will pray to mine, lord,” Polyphemus said, a light breeze stirring a slow dirge from the Etesian chimes, a paean to Discord. “I will pray to mine.”
* * *
4
* * *