Aeolia had no standing army in those days. We relied on a militia; our fighting men were our fishermen, our shopkeepers, our cheese-makers. Any man hale enough to hold a spear or draw a bow had a place in the ranks. What horsemen we could muster were far-flung, drawn from the landsmen who dwelled round about, and they needed time—time to prepare their mounts and gather their retinues and don their armor. No, if these ships belonged to the lord of Ithaca, in truth, and if he came looking for a fight, we’d have to hold him at bay with what the city itself had to offer: a phalanx of a hundred spears and twice that number of archers and slingers. Three hundred Aeolians against half again as many Achaeans, veterans of the war at Troy.
Luckily, I was but a boy and had no conception of the dire straits our city faced. Our foe had men hardened in the crucible of war? Blooded killers tested on the threshing floor of Ares, and led by a man whose name was a byword for cunning? I snapped my fingers at that! Just so! Aeolia had my father, and the knot-hard men of the harbor-town ready with spear and harpoon, with shield and net; we had a good king with strong sons clad in shining bronze, with tall crests atop their helmets and shields painted with myriad devices; and if it came down to it, I did not doubt even Polyphemus and his trio of dagger-happy maenads might prove useful, if they could be coerced into summoning that lion-headed she-creature, once more.
Looking back across the gulf of years, with the experiences of a lifetime to draw upon, I realize it was the God’s hand that kept us from finding the king ere he left the city. What purpose could we have served? A boy so callow as to think a gaggle of fishermen could best hard-handed warriors in bronze corselets and a blind old man consumed by hate? Would either of us have given King Aeolus even the tiniest measure of wisdom beyond what he possessed innately? It was good that we straggled behind, for we were Strife personified and Death walked gleefully in our shadow.
The dozen black-keeled ships came in short of the harbor, choosing instead the sandy cove where we dried our nets and canted our boats when their hulls needed scraping. The Achaean ships—for it was, indeed, the war-fleet of Odysseus—came in stern first; lean-flanked men in tarnished bronze, bearded and bedraggled, flung themselves ashore. Their shields did not flash in the sun as ours did. They bore dents and scrapes, as from long use, while the heads of their spears gleamed with the same murderous purpose. The Achaeans did not form ranks as though expecting battle; instead, they milled about, stretching cramped limbs and making small offerings to the gods. Some brought out jars and fetched fresh water from a nearby spring. But each man remained armed, spear and shield close at hand. There was a wariness about them that reeked of wolf-cunning.
Soon, an embassy detached itself and made its way inland—a dozen Achaeans led by a short, powerfully-built man with a black and silver beard. Unlike his companions, he wore no armor and carried no weapons. He was simply clad in a tunic of faded blue, as wrinkled and careworn as his broad forehead.
Half way up from the cove stood an open-air shrine to Hippotades, Lord of the Winds. Silver chimes gave voice to the sighing breeze. I’d been there many times, to leave offerings of oat cakes and honey on the low altar so the birds that were the god’s messengers might bear good tidings of me and my father aloft to their mercurial master. Here, Odysseus and his small retinue stopped.
And there, in the shadow of the god who gave birth to his family line, King Aeolus met the king of Ithaca once again. Aeolus brought a larger force of men—his sons in their gleaming panoplies, along with the craftiest of the harbor men, my father included. Archers watched from above, and slingers lurked to either side, ready to launch their lead stones at the first sign of trouble. Odysseus knew they were there, as our king intended.
I did not hear the first of their speech together, as Polyphemus and I came late, but my father told me of it. Aeolus, as was proper, made his obeisance to the god who was also his kinsman, before turning to face the penitent king of Ithaca.
“What cruel fate returns you to my threshold, Odysseus,” Aeolus said. “By what god’s wrath? Did I not feed you and provision you? Did I not lend you one of my canniest navigators, a son of my own loins, to guide you through foreign waters and back to your home?”
“Forgive me, lord, but what you lent me was a bag of wind who could not find his way out of a wine jar. We have returned because your son failed us,” Odysseus said. “He lost us in a gale, and when we finally got our bearings we recognized the Mountain of Fire, once more.” Holy Aetna, child, where the lame smith-god, Hephaestus, forges the thunderbolts of Zeus. And, hearing this from my father, I thought that if the gods were just, one of those thunderbolts would have fallen from heaven at that moment and struck that lying Achaean between his teeth.
“And my son? I do not see him among you.”
Odysseus sighed. “He waits at the shores of the River Styx. I tried to save him, lord, but the wind was too strong. He was swept over the rail and into Poseidon’s keeping.”
My father, who was near enough to read the agony on the king’s face, said that it was then that the spirit of Aeolia died; the king was the soul of the kingdom, and a hateful knife wrought of words and poisoned by spite had found its way into King Aeolus’s heart. “Begone from my land, vile wretch!” the king said. He thrust a trembling finger at Odysseus’s breast. “Black-hearted villain! Breaker of oaths! ‘Sacker of cities’, I’ve heard you called! Such hubris! Do you wonder, son of Laertes, why the blessed gods hate you? Do you wonder why they curse your every step? Look no further than your own impious tongue, boy! Now, return to your ships of woe and never darken the bounds of my land again!”
Eris is a disagreeable goddess, child, hard-hearted and cruel. She takes monstrous delight in mortal bloodshed, provoking it and prolonging it at every opportunity. The blame for what happened next, I place firmly in her gore-slimed lap. Though the shame of it…the shame of it rests squarely on these old shoulders.
By ways known only to the boys of the harbor, I led Polyphemus down to this meeting between kings. We arrived unseen, and in time to hear this last exchange. From the shadows beneath the oaks that were sacred to Hippotades, I laid eyes upon the mighty Odysseus and trembled. And when he spoke, I felt Polyphemus stiffen with rage.
Odysseus looked away, and then returned his gaze to the hard-eyed visage of the king. “I broke no oaths to you, friend Aeolus. I protected your son as I swore to do. Am I to blame if it was he who offended Lord Poseidon? Are we not guest-friends? Did we not break bread and hail the gods as equals, king to king? That I can return in such dire straits and hear only cheap tittle-tattle spill from your lips makes me question the legitimacy of your oaths to me. Who spread such lies? ‘Sacker of cities’, you call me? Such is true, but I do not boast of it! Who told you I have?”