Argos (26 page)

“I saw Menelaus only a few summers ago. What could he tell me that he hasn't told me already?” asked Telemachus.

“He is in possession of some recent news,” said Athena. “There is a prophecy concerning Odysseus that Menelaus knows.
Trust me in this matter. He will help you find your father. When you return and if the suitors are still here, you must destroy them. You are no longer a boy. It is time to act like a man.”

Telemachus nodded slowly, his indecision transforming into certainty. This is what he needed to do. It also meant that Telemachus was leaving again and I had no doubt whatsoever that he wouldn't require the company of an old, useless dog on his quest.

One moment, Athena was sitting opposite Telemachus, the next she was gone.

At the disappearance, Telemachus realized with a start that he had been in the presence of a God. Or a Goddess. Not that it mattered.

T
he next morning, Telemachus took Athena's advice and gathered the suitors together and told them to leave. Predictably, they did not listen.

If he was dispirited by this, he did not let it show. Instead, he immediately gathered some of his best men, equipped his finest ship and set sail for Pylos. Penelope, Eumaeus, and I watched him go. I was tempted not to, sick as I was by the constant desertion of my most beloved companions, but I could not disappoint Telemachus.

Things changed around the palace after Telemachus' departure. None for the better.

Penelope withdrew to her rooms with the excuse that she was weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus' ancient father, Laertes, who was not far from death. Penelope told the suitors that she
would choose a husband when the shroud was complete.

Sometimes, I sat at her feet as she weaved. At the end of each day's work, she simply undid most of what she had accomplished during the day. I thought it would've been easier to just do a tiny bit each day or none at all. But what do I know? I'm just a dog. The suitors must have thought she was a grossly incompetent weaver.

More months passed and Telemachus and Odysseus did not return. Penelope did not venture outside her room at all and let no one in other than myself and some trusted slaves. Penelope was distraught. First, her husband had failed to return, now her beloved son. Her heart was broken and it was only a matter of time before her mind followed. I often found her in her room staring out of the window in her room, obsessively twisting and re-twisting the braids in her hair. She even began to pull her hair out at the roots. Sometimes, she would play with Odysseus' old carving knife, tracing the lines of her veins with the sharp bronze blade. I feared for her sanity and her life.

Evidently, so did Athena.

The Goddess appeared one evening as I lay dozing at Penelope's feet. Penelope made as if to rise but Athena stayed her with a commanding gesture. The Goddess placed the palm of one hand on Penelope's forehead and an electric charge filled the air. The feverish intensity in Penelope's eyes gradually faded, replaced by a calm docility more commonly encountered amongst livestock.

Athena leant forward and whispered something I couldn't catch in Penelope's ear. With a nod in my direction, Athena disappeared as suddenly as she had arrived.

After that, Penelope was hardly aware of her surroundings,
taking no note of the comings and goings of the people around her. She didn't even react when I licked her hand.

Athena had done what she thought was best but it was hard for me to see my mistress like this. The once vibrant woman was reduced to little more than a breathing shell. Penelope continued to weave in earnest.

Some of the servants sought to use Penelope's state to their advantage. One of these was Melantho. I had never liked the woman and I think the feeling was mutual. She was solidly built with a sharp tongue and a nasty streak wider than her hips. Melantho had been taken as a slave a few years earlier and had not adapted well to her new position in life. I always got the impression she was waiting for something, an opportunity perhaps to revenge herself against her captors. I was always careful to keep my distance from her and she was wary of treating me unkindly while Penelope was around.

With Penelope pacified by the gods, Melantho felt free to exact her revenge. Beloved of Odysseus and Telemachus, I was the embodiment of her absent captors.

She removed my bed from outside the door of Penelope and Odysseus' room. I had no choice but to lie on the cold hard marble, unwilling to spend the night in the main hall with the hated suitors. Besides, I had a duty to guard Penelope. One of the suitors was liable to get drunk and try to force their way into her room. Over my dead body.

Even this small comfort was taken from me. One night Melantho passed as I dozed fitfully, stopped, and eyed me critically.

“This will not do,” she snapped. “Not at all.” Her voice lacked
any warmth. I hoped for a moment that she had recognized that letting an old dog lie on a cold floor was mean-spirited after all. Perhaps she would return my bed.

Instead, she had a couple of burly servants carry me to the rear of the palace. “We can't have this old smelly thing near our Queen's chambers,” she said to the two servants. “It is not seemly.”

I had been thrown out into the cold night. I was not strong enough to resist her or the servants and with no one to argue on my behalf, I could do nothing about it.

Making my bed in an abandoned pigsty, I spent a cold, miserable night outside the palace. It was drafty and raining and the decaying roof did little to keep the water off my back. Every time I managed to doze off, I was awakened by uncontrollable shivering. My joints swelled with the cold, making them ache painfully.

Thankfully, dawn came. I waited until the sun was fully up, hoping the doors to the main hall would be open. Sometimes they weren't. The suitors, accustomed to continuing their revels long into the night, woke late. They punished any servant bold enough to disturb their sleep.

I was hoping to slip in and find some scraps of food on the floor. The suitors were like beasts, worse than dogs, discarding bones and other waste onto the floor, expecting servants to clean up after them. At least dogs had the decency to clean up after themselves.

Today the doors were wide open. Before I could slink inside, I heard servants discussing a new suitor who had arrived late to the proceedings.

I wondered for a moment who it could be but the rumblings of my stomach made it hard to concentrate. Two heavily cloaked figures were approaching the palace gates and curiosity got the better of me. One was riding a horse, the other was walking at his side.

I concealed myself in the shadows and settled down to wait, wanting to file their names and faces away for later reference. To mark them for vengeance even though I knew I was no longer capable of such actions.

The horse trotted up to the doors. The rider dismounted and a servant took the reins, leading the horse away. Antinous, a pompous fat fool and self-proclaimed leader of the suitors, took it upon himself to greet the new arrivals in Penelope's absence.

“Welcome to Ithaca,” said Antinous with an oily smile. It was definitely not in his best interests to have yet more suitors arrive, but Antinous was playing a long and cunning game. “Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

The figure who had been riding swept back the hood of his cloak. I knew that face immediately and sprung to my feet, shocked. Sprung is probably an exaggeration but you get the idea.

“I am Elatus, son of Meges, King of Doulikhion. I have come to win the hand of the fair Penelope in marriage.”

I cursed my slow wits. That was the reason Meges was no longer attacking Ithaca. He wanted to forge an alliance with Ithaca through marriage with Elatus. Clearly, Meges hadn't been able to marry him off all this time. Even the most desperate woman would think twice about taking Elatus as her husband.

“Haven't we all,” smiled Antinous. “Come. Inside there is
meat and wine. Refresh yourselves.”

Elatus' companion lowered his hood. If I was surprised at Elatus' appearance, it was nothing compared to this. It was the person I hated and reviled above all others. Amycus had come back into my life.

“Amycus,” commanded Elatus, “fetch my belongings. You will dine outside with the other servants.” Amycus bobbed his head and moved to obey.

As Elatus moved inside accompanied by Antinous, I watched Amycus carefully. He moved awkwardly, stiffly, still suffering from the injury caused by the arrow years earlier. His pain almost made me happy. It would've, however, been better if the arrow had hit him a little higher to put him out of his misery. It's what you would do with an animal—including a dog—when they were in constant pain and next to useless.

It occurred to me that, despite my loathing for him, Amycus and I had much in common.

In the days that followed, I kept my distance from both Elatus and Amycus, careful to avoid their unwanted attention. They were not the only ones; I dreaded the sight of Melantho almost as much.

Whenever that woman found me in the palace, I was quickly ejected. I tried to use my senses to warn me of her approach but
with the onset of years, both my hearing and smell were beginning to fail me. Often she would kick me, forcing a humiliating retreat. Never had I been so badly treated. My memories of the time spent in Meges' arena took on an almost positive aspect.

Several times I tried to return to my bed outside Penelope's room but was swiftly found and ejected. I could not bring myself to give up, however. I had sworn to protect Odysseus and his family and would continue to do so, regardless of my failing health. I thought many times of finding Eumaeus, confident that he would put my world to rights. He had retreated to his home out of disgust but I had been to his modest swineherd hut on many occasions. It was, however, at least an hour's walk away—along steep and sometimes treacherous paths. My old bones were no match for such a journey now. Mostly I could not bear to leave Penelope, especially in the state she was now. Not only that, but if I did leave, who would witness the triumphant return of both Odysseus and his son? Who would welcome them back home?

It goes without saying that I was also banished from the kitchens. I had hoped my trespass would go unnoticed because I was starving. Not eating, or eating very little, is an unparalleled way of losing weight. The extra weight I had accumulated in recent years began to disappear in a way I found most disturbing. Soon, the skin was hanging slackly off my old bones.

Unable to get into the kitchens, I had no choice but to enter by the doors at the front entrance.

This proved to be more successful. The suitors were slovenly. They drank and ate to excess and took no notice of the comings and goings of one old dog. But it also had its attendant risks.
Drunk men can easily turn mean. Even men not normally predisposed to such behavior have that latent ability.

Nevertheless, keeping my distance was not always possible. My continuing survival depended on the scraps of food littering the floor of the main hall. Thoughts of Odysseus' return only intensified my fierce desire to live. I would not die without seeing him one more time. If I was to live, I had to eat.

So I braved the main hall and drunk men. With luck, I could partially fill my belly and then go about my futile effort to lie outside Penelope's chambers. It had become routine. Forage for food, lie down outside Penelope's door, get kicked and ejected by Melantho.

After some experimentation, I found late evening, before the doors were shut, to be the ideal time to enter the main hall. By this time, most suitors were in their beds—makeshift pallets in the hall. The “noble lords” who remained—and I use both words loosely—were usually well into their cups or passed out on the tables. Their servants had to make do huddled around fires outside.

Clinging to the shadows, I picked my targets carefully. Ideally, I would choose an uninhabited table, one that had recently become vacant. Usually, the floor underneath would be rich with pickings. Less ideal was a table with one, two, or even a few occupants. If I was forced by necessity to risk one of these tables, I prayed to the gods that they were all far too addled with drink to notice a dog.