Telemachus didn’t pay any attention to that. His only concern was what games they should play first. Finally, boys his age!
“Do you want to see my collection of leather balls?” he asked, standing. He had all sizes, stuffed with uncarded wool and scraps of cloth collected from the weaving women.
Both Kyron and Agathon nodded. Telemachus signaled for them to follow him.
“Let’s play snatch-ball!” cried Agathon as he stood.
“Fine. But I get the ball first because I’m the prince!” Telemachus announced.
Out of habit he turned to his mother. She was frowning. “Telemachus,” she whispered. “Do not lord your title like that, you must earn their respect—”
But he had no time to listen to her lectures. It was time to play!
* * *
PENELOPE
* * *
A few weeks later, the queen received word that a Spartan warship was docked in the royal harbor. Her heart sang. Finally—finally.
She launched into action. Penelope and Danae sent palace workers out into public spaces to discuss the matter.
“What does it mean,” her cooks asked in the herb stalls of the agora, “that a warship has docked in our port? A Spartan one!”
“Are we under attack?” The butcher cried in response.
As the local fishermen cleaned their catches, servants scuttled from boat to boat, whispering that they’d seen huge armed men in the warship that had suddenly appeared in the royal harbor.
“How will we defend ourselves?” the fishermen asked. “We have no warriors or weapons!”
The two boys Penelope had ensconced in her palace had shared a surprising number of names of individuals and families who had plotted to either storm the palace with spears or poison her and Telemachus. So the queen made sure those families heard the scariest rumors about “enormous Spartan warriors cleaning their very sharp weapons on a giant warship”.
In the meantime, she’d quietly filled her house with loyal guards—old warriors who’d served Odysseus’s father—dressed as grounds-workers and servants. When everything was in place, she called for an assembly.
Frightened people hungered for leadership. So Penelope was not surprised when Ithacans swarmed into the palace, heeding her call. Their voices drifted upstairs to her private chambers as she readied herself.
“It’s a good plan,” Danae, said. “Now, stop pacing and let me finish preparing you.”
“I must look queenly,” Penelope said.
“You cannot look otherwise,” Danae soothed.
The queen smiled, lacing her hands tightly together as her favorite lady twisted her hair and pinned on her diadem. “I appreciate you saying so,” she murmured as Danae fussed over her. But she doubted it.
For all her life, Penelope had bemoaned the fact that—unlike the majestic, knee-weakening beauty of her cousin Helen—her physical form took the shape of a wide-eyed, small-boned, not-especially-memorable-nymph. On the inside, she roiled with a core of molten bronze, but on the outside she appeared as soft and vulnerable as a hare’s tail.
As if reading her mind, Danae said, “Use that to your advantage. They will not be expecting this deviousness from you.”
Penelope laughed. “Right. Trickery is my husband’s area of expertise, is it not?”
Goddess, if only he’d made it home, she wouldn’t have to do any of this.
Danae nodded and gave the queen the once-over. “You are ready. And the hall is almost full.”
The palace was indeed packed. She hadn’t seen her hall this crowded since the days of feasting with her husband when she was still a new bride.
She took a breath before allowing herself to be seen, remembering the first time Odysseus had introduced her to his people in that very hall. He had held her hand and kissed her before everyone—which she’d found both shocking and thrilling.
“This is the woman of my heart,” he’d announced. “Soon she will be the heart of Ithaca too.”
The room had erupted in cheers. How dazzled she’d been by her husband’s charm and unpredictability! How robbed she’d felt when he left her so soon after their son’s birth to fight in Troy.
Never, in all her imaginings, could she have predicted that she would have to face his people without him. To rule without him. She closed her eyes and took a breath.
Be the queen he thought you could be.
Her husband’s high-timbered hall buzzed with nobles from wooded Zacynthus, the isles of Dulichium, the hamlets of Same, and the Ithacan mainland. But unlike the days of old, this time the hall did not ring with the lusty laughs of warriors in their prime, but with the hissing whispers of the old, tired, and afraid.
Penelope’s heart pounded as she stepped up on the platform. Her mouth felt as dry as carded wool. The room began to quiet as everyone turned their faces to her.
“Noble families of Ithaca,” she called, her voice weak and cracking. She swallowed and tried again. “Welcome guests of—”
“Who sent the Spartan ship?” someone yelled.
“Yes, what does it mean?”
“Are we under attack?”
Penelope put her hands up. “Friends, please recall that I am a daughter of Sparta. I am cousin to Sparta’s queen, Helen, and daughter of royal Icarius, who rules in Sparta while King Menelaus and the queen conclude their trading missions.”
Whispers flashed around the room.
Good. She wanted them to remember her connections to the most powerful kingdom in the region.
“The ship has arrived because I beseeched my father for shipments of grain, oxen, oil, and wine—”
“Why is it a warship then?”
“We saw armed soldiers!”
“What is happening?”
Penelope put her hands up again. “Hunger and sickness have hit many of us proud Ithacans hard. I will distribute the food stores that I hope will strengthen your families during the coming months…”
Some of the comments turned to whispers of relief.
“But,” Penelope said, raising her voice over it. “In exchange, I have a request.”
A demand.
Playing on her reputation for mildness, she put on her most loving and imploring expression. “I know it has been difficult during the seasons of drought and sickness after losing a generation of our best men. Let me help you. Send me your fatherless boys. Send to me also the grieving brothers of our lost heroes. I will nourish them from our own larders. I will educate them and bestow honors upon them as they grow, companions to the true prince of Ithaca. It is the least I can do in light of the losses we have all suffered.”
A great murmur of surprise swelled and echoed in the hall, but Penelope soldiered on. “Let the burden of feeding, clothing and educating Ithaca’s suffering children fall unto my shoulders.”
About half of the families looked hopeful and even pleased—as if they welcomed the idea of high honors for their sons, not to mention having fewer mouths to feed. But others grumbled, scowling.