“Wait,” Eumaeus called running after the dog. “Don’t let him—”
But within moments Argos had the piglet in his mouth and was thrashing his head back and forth.
“Drop it,” yelled Eumaeus to the dog as he came up to the pair. “Drop it!”
Argos released the piglet, which flopped lifeless to the ground. Panting, the dog’s eyes were bright and he looked at Telemachus as if asking, “Again? Please?”
Telemachus laughed and clapped. “You’re right. Argos just needs to hunt.”
Eumaeus scooped up the dead piglet. His face was flushed. “Boy! He could’ve torn it apart and then what would you have? Nothing to eat, that’s what. Nobody, not even a royal, should be so wasteful with food in these times.”
Telemachus stared up at the man. “You can’t call me boy. I am your prince.”
“My apologies, young prince,” said the pig herder, brushing dirt and small stones off the little pig’s hide. “I can still get some nice chops out of this.”
“Will you take me and Argos hunting with you?”
Eumaeus blinked and looked at Telemachus. “Me? I cannot! I must tend to your father’s pigs. I do not hunt—and I most certainly cannot risk anyone hunting near my herd. I’ve had to get two additional guard dogs to keep hungry villagers from poaching them as it is.”
Telemachus scowled. “Well, then who will take me hunting? I want to hunt a great boar like my father!” he said stabbing with a pretend javelin.
The pig herder opened his mouth and then closed it. He cleared his throat. “I will remind your grandfather of his duties in this regard,” he said, with a tinge of sadness.
The prince frowned. He had no illusions about that. His grandfather never came around anymore.
“Telemachus,” yelled Eurycleia, the prince’s nurse. “Time for your bath.”
The prince stepped behind the pig herder. “Quick, hide me.”
But it was too late. He’d been seen.
“Come!” she yelled, her thin, high voice making both boy and dog chuff in irritation. “Your mother is having guests tonight and she wants you to look princely.”
Guests? Maybe they had news of father?
And then another shattering thought: What if it was father himself?
Would he know him? He’d been a newborn when Odysseus left for Troy and all Telemachus had of him were descriptions—of a barrel chest and a strong back, of a booming voice filled with laughter, of twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin.
He ran toward the palace as fast as Argos had chased the piglet and disappeared inside the palace—hoping, hoping, hoping.
“Why won’t you tell me who is visiting us, Mother?” Telemachus asked in the great hall.
“It’s a surprise.”
“It’s father, isn’t it?” he cried.
His mother’s face paled and she put a hand to the base of her neck. “Oh. No, son. I’m sorry. It is not your father. We’ve talked about this. It’s likely he’s been lost at sea.”
“I don’t think so, Mother. I think he’s just fighting and raiding his way through all the lands between Troy and us to bring home even more riches!”
A small wrinkle appeared between his mother’s brows.
Telemachus ignored his mother’s pessimism. He could hardly wait for the day his father came triumphantly home with all the best men of Ithaca. Every day, he ran to the top of the palace lookout, scanning the horizon for his ships. Others had stopped looking months ago. His mother had forbidden him from going to the lookout points on the cliffs for “safety” reasons. Some people were accusing his father of making off with all the Trojan gold for himself. And they were angry. She was afraid they would take their anger out on him.
But they would never hurt him. He was their prince! Besides, he knew his father was coming home any day now. Deep in his bones, he knew.
In the great hall, Odysseus’s son looked up at his father’s bow and scanned the shields on the wall. When father is back, I will ask for that one, he thought, staring at the oblong shield painted with the face of an open-mouthed gorgon. And he will show me how to crash through someone else’s shield. And how to throw a javelin farther than anyone else. And how to string a bow like his and then shoot someone right between the eyes. And how to—
“Welcome, honored guests,” his mother called.
Telemachus’s mouth dropped open as two boys around his age, wearing his cast-off clothing, entered the hall. The boys’ eyes were wide as they gawped at the high-timbered room.
“Who are they?” Telemachus whispered to his mother.
“They are friend-guests who will be staying a while,” she whispered back, her eyes crinkling as she smiled at him, as if she were offering him a special dish on a golden platter.
Friend-guests! His heart pounded. And they were staying? He would show them his father’s weapons first. No, no. His collection of carved soldiers first. Then the weapons!
Agathon and Kyron nodded at him when introduced. They seemed nervous.
“Now tell me,” his mother said as she bade them sit at the table. “Who put you up to starting a fire?”
Telemachus whipped his head around to his mother. Fire?
“The other boys,” Agathon said.
“There are a lot of them,” Kyron added.
His mother frowned. “There are bands of them?”
Telemachus tried to make sense of the conversation. But then a servant came in with platters of food and his mother handed each boy a plate she herself filled, selecting the largest joints of oxen, fat still sizzling around the charred edges, along with the most succulent bits of pork belly.
That was not right. “Mother!” Telemachus said. “I usually get the best portions! Why are you giving it to them?!”
“Because they are our noble guests,” the queen said matter-of-factly. “And in this way, we honor the gods.”
“But I’m the prince,” he insisted. “I should get the best portions.”
His mother’s brow knitted again as she turned to him, her voice low. “No, son. Honored guests do. I understand that we haven’t had many visitors but you must know the gods demand this of us.”
He watched the boys devour their meals as if they hadn’t eaten in days. Telemachus picked at his portion, fighting the sense that he’d been cheated.
“Since neither of you have homes to go back to,” his mother said when the boys leaned back from their plates, mouths and hands shiny with grease. “How would you like to stay in the palace as companions to the prince of Ithaca?”
Companions to the prince of Ithaca. He loved how that sounded!
The boys exchanged a wide-eyed look and then nodded vigorously.
Telemachus felt a grin splitting his face.
“Good,” the queen said. “You will stay here as my son’s noble companions, but only under two conditions. You must swear allegiance to our house, and to serve and protect your prince.”
Again, the boys nodded enthusiastically. Telemachus’s grin grew even wider. They were there to serve and protect him!
“And, you will tell me all of the details—and all of the people involved—in plans for overthrowing this house.”