The smell of cooked meat hung heavy in the air, the dissonant cacophony of laughter and drunken conversation echoed about the walls of what had once been Odysseus’s house. A citadel it was not; it had walls and was many roomed, but the home of the absent Ithacan king was nothing like the mighty structures one imagined of such a “brilliant” king would posses.
But, for all its parochialism, the great hall had still once been a fine place with statuary, scrubbed stone and rich fabrics adorning the walls. Now—with all the suitors in nightly attendance, it had become a grubby shade of its former self—uncared for and unloved. The specter of the missing king was always with them, Amphinomus thought as he eyed the great Bow of Odysseus that hung—unstrung—on the wall. It was massive—perhaps fifteen hands in length; tall as most men. The second most impressive thing in the room.
The first was the queen.
Penelope.
Amphinomus put the cup to his lips, the movement to hide another stolen glance at her over its brazen rim. At thirty-five, Penelope was coveted by these men not for what her loins could bear them: at her age, she could carry no more sons. No—whomsoever she chose would be—before the gods—the replacement for Odysseus. That’s what most men there wanted. To be the king.
And if Amphinomus was honest with himself, that’s what he had wanted too. That had been the ambition—right up until he’d become old enough to learn what it was to want a woman. People still spoke of Helen, her flawless perfection that even Cronos seemed unable to touch, of the seductress Chryseis who had caused Agamemnon to bring down a plague on the Achaeans and of Penthesilea, the Amazon Queen whose beauty had made Achilles weep. Amphinomus had never laid eyes on any of them, but he knew—in his heart—that he would choose Penelope over them all.
He risked another glance and could see distaste in her eyes as she surveyed the debauch in what had once been her husband’s hall. Antinous, all bluff muscle, dark-beard and ill-informed opinion had begun singing. He fancied he had a tune, but the truth was he sounded like a wine-fart in a conch-horn. However, his sword arm and left hook stayed a man’s tongue from advising him of such; drunk or sober, armed or unarmed—the son of Eupeithes was a lethal bastard.
Lethal and loud.
Only handsome Eurymachus, son of Polybus, blonde haired and green-eyed, was stronger. Not physically, of course, but in power, simply because he was the richest of the suitors and likeliest to win the hand of Penelope.
Amphinomus detected the merest shake of Penelope’s head at Antinous’s loud antics, her peerless eyes, delightfully crinkled at the sides, flicked to her son, Telemachus—the lad deep in conversation with an older man who Amphinomus did not recognize. As the queen’s eyes fell on the boy, her face softened, a mother’s love writ large before the stoic mask fell once again.
Amphinomus tipped back his wine and reveled a little in his own melancholy, feeling that purest hopelessness of unrequited love that only the half-drunk could feel. And the bitterness. He hated his fellow suitors, their harsh, manly laughter, their lewdness, their talk of what they would do when they “got hold of her”. Put a smile on that cold face…I’ll make her come around to my way…and of course…I’ll bet she’s desperate for it.
All Amphinomus wanted to do was hold her in his arms, kiss her and tell her that now he was hers, he would make things right for her—for them…until her son was ready to rule. He would never admit out loud, though, that his desire for the queen mattered more to him than the acquisition of territory and power. And it cut him to the core that, unless the foam born Cypriot herself intervened, it was a love he had little chance of winning.
Eventually, Antinous bored of his ear-shattering singing (or rather, bored of the lack of attention it was garnering) took to drinking contests with Eurymachus, the two men like wary boxers both friends and adversaries.
Despite the pettiness of it, Amphinomus envied Eurymachus’s looks and bearing. Unlike that pretty prince, he looked like a farmer—shorter than most, broad shouldered, red-haired and stocky. But his farmer’s look was the will of the gods and there was nothing to be done about it.
Was it, he wondered, hubris to wish that he possessed beauty? After all, look at all the trouble beauty had caused in Troy. Ten Years of War—over a woman. Before Penelope, Amphinomus had scoffed at the foolishness and weakness of such men who would call themselves heroes.
Before Penelope.
Now he understood. He himself would make war for a thousand years for her. He would, he knew, die for her. Ironic then that she probably didn’t even know his name amongst these others who had come to win her hand. He had to compete, he told himself.
But how, Amekhania—the daimon of all men’s doubt—sibilant whisper echoed in his mind. You are not as handsome as Eurymachus—nor as rich. And as skilled with spear and chariot as you are, you are no match for Antinous. There was truth in that; the taste of the thought was as bitter as the wine on his tongue.
Amphinomus heard the delicate tone of the bard’s lyre wind its way through the masculine hubbub as cool and welcome as a woman’s hand on their thighs.
Phemius was a good spinner of tales—a mournful looking man who wore his greying hair long at the sides and back despite his balding pate; he could hold a tune and played well enough to silence even the louts that had made Penelope’s home their own. His song was slow and full of sadness on this night which, truth be told, suited Amphinomus’s melancholy rather well. The bard sang of Agamemnon and of Menelaus and trials they faced on their homeward journeys—he gave it full, gloomy voice but the glittering anger in his eyes told Amphinomus that he’d been put up to this mien against his will.
Phemius’s voice lifted then as he sang of those other heroes, lost on their way home and their wives who waited—in vain—for their return. Wives that pined away and would die in grief, loveless and unwilling to love…
“Bard!” Penelope’s golden voice cut across the song, stilling both the singer’s fingers and his tongue. “By all the gods, sing a song of joy in these, my husband’s halls. Or do you seek to wound me by your allusions?”
You tell him, Amphinomus thought, feeling the grin spread lax across his face. What a woman she was.
But Telemachus spoke then. “By all the gods? Mother, you are queen in Ithaca. By all the gods, act like it. Phemius is telling stories—I would not have my mother shame my father by showing her weakness in front of our…guests.”
He spat the word and, despite himself, Amphinomus sat up—interested and impressed. Not often—no, not ever, had the boy spoken out. And he didn’t sound anywhere near drunk either. He was right too: guest-friendship was sacred and he, along with the rest of the suitors, had pissed all over it by their actions.
Penelope looked taken aback. “Telemachus, it is a wife’s duty to miss her spouse,” she said.