Arms and the Women (42 page)

Ellie couldn't believe it was a gun. It was something shaped like a gun. Something that might be mistaken for a gun. But no way could it really be a gun.

Novello lunged forward, trying to grasp his arm.

A foot more, a glass of wine less, and she might have made it.

Instead he swayed back out of her reach and the something that couldn't be gun coughed in his hand.

Novello stopped. Turned. Put her right hand to her left shoulder. Looked at Ellie with an expression of intense bafflement, as if here was a problem she didn't understand but was too proud to ask for help in solving. Removed her hand. Looked at the red stain which had blossomed on her palm like a stigma. And fell.

At the same time the terrace was struck by a wind, Pentecostal in its suddenness, and when Ellie, desperate for sight of Rosie, desperate indeed for sight of anything but the slumped body on the terrace floor, stared out across the garden, she saw that, unnoticed by the happy women as they ate and drank and span their fragile cocoon of intimacy, the eastern sky had turned flame-lurid as streptococcal clouds drove their furious infection landwards over a livid and blistering sea.

x

belly or bollocks

Gawain Sempernel sat on Ellie's bed at Nosebleed Cottage and switched her laptop on.

There was only one item under
Existing Documents
and that was called Comfort Blanket. He brought it up and began reading. He read almost as fast as his finger pressed on the
Page Down
key kept the text scrolling, and at only a slightly slower speed he could retain all that he saw. It was a useful talent which had helped persuade most of his Cambridge tutors that here was the next generation's leading classical scholar in the making. But one of them had seen the truth that his scholarship was only memory-deep and that his questing mind was more excited by modern power struggles and the Cold War than ancient feuds and the Fall of Troy. So the probes had been launched, the gentle questions put, and finally the ambiguous invitation given which had led him to where and what he was now.

Without that invitation he might have become the scholar much of academia still thought him to be and have used those other attributes of preemptive decision-making and ruthless opportunism to steer him safe into the comfortable haven of the Master's Lodge at his old college. Well, that was still possible. The present Master was dying and his on-the-spot heir apparent was much hated by most of his colleagues and in any case susceptible to attack on several sexual fronts, details of which Sempernel had in a private dossier. Feelers had been put out some months ago when he dined at the college. In his business there was no official retiring age, but it had become increasingly clear to him that he had risen as far as he was going to go, though not as high as he felt his abilities deserved. This galled him rather, and to some extent his hands-on involvement with this his final operation was meant to demonstrate that though his coevals might be reduced to sending out directives from the depths of comfortable armchairs in their clubs, he, Gaw Sempernel, could still hack it in the field with the best of them, before removing himself voluntarily to one of the most comfortable armchairs in the civilized world. And in addition, though he would never admit it, he who had made a religion out of rationality, there was in the matter of Patrick ‘Popeye' Ducannon and his arms cache a private and personal motive. That fiasco at Liverpool Docks which had resulted in three men dead and hardly enough armoury to furnish a country gent's study had left his chin faintly eggy and, while it can't have been a major factor, it had certainly provided his enemies with a minor factor in their campaign to block his final move from the steps of the throne to the throne itself.

Occasionally as he read, his lips pursed in distaste at some jarring anachronism or sciolistic inaccuracy, but on the whole he was entertained and he laughed out loud at the picture of Achilles disguised as a woman. Just the kind of joke Odysseus might have made about the great hero, he thought, as his eyes scrolled on. And the picture of Aeneas which followed seemed somehow to come from the heart.

Odysseus saw with some relief that he'd got the Prince smiling again. Ever since he'd arrived he'd been running over in his mind what he knew about Aeneas. Ten years of warfare gave a man plenty of opportunity to get to know his enemies. They'd never actually talked directly to each other, but he'd seen the man's pale watchful face at parlays, and he'd taken note of the way he led his troops in battle, and of course he 'd read the reports from the Greek spies in Priam's court. His digest of the Trojan's make-up read: strengths - great courage allied to great caution; completely lacking the foolhardiness of Hector or Achilles; bright and perceptive, not an easy man to fool; tactically very sound, would never throw his men at an unassailable object, but would not hesitate to risk great losses in pursuit of a significant gain; loyal to a fault; which fault was one of his main weaknesses - this loyalty preventing him from opposing the crazy policies of old Priam and yon mad bugger, Hector, who missed every chance of ending the war by simply handing Helen back to her legal husband. Other weaknesses: inflexible on what he saw as matters of principle; not open to bribes or appeals to self-interest; bound by some rigid notion of duty and responsibility which he would not relax, no matter what pain it might cause to himself or those close to him.

So, how did you manoeuvre an awkward customer like this into seeing things your way?

Odysseus said, 'But that's enough about me, Prince. How about you? Tell me about yourself, how you managed to get out of Troy, where you're heading. Just now when I asked why you didn't settle down with Helenus, you said something about being bound elsewhere. Where would that be?'

Aeneas looked at him doubtfully for a moment, then shrugged and said, 'What harm to tell you? There is a land, called Hesperia by you Greeks but Italy by the natives, where the soil is fertile and whence by tradition our Trojan ancestors hailed. There I am directed to journey and establish a new and mightier Dardanian empire.'

'Directed? Like, by the gods, you mean.'

'Yes. By the gods.'

'You poor sod,' said Odysseus feelingly.

'Why do you say that? Are we not all under the command of high Olympus? Even you, my friend, cannot deny the influence of mighty Poseidon in bringing you to this place.'

'Aye, but there's a difference. All I'm trying to do is get back home. Now the gods can help or hinder me as they will, but I'm heading back to Ithaca 'cos that's where I want to be, and whatever I find there, I'll get it sorted, 'cos it'll be my business, not the gods'. And if that's blasphemy, well, hit me with a thunderbolt and turn me into pork scratchings, but gods or no gods, in the end a man's got to look after himself, 'cos no other bugger will.'

Aeneas gave him a curious look in which distaste and envy seemed strangely mixed.

'It must be ... comfortable to live a life without meaning.'

'Meaning? You want to ask Achilles about meaning. All his heroics, and now he'd rather be back on Skyros wearing a frock with all the girls saying, Come and help me with my needlework, Stiffy.'

'He too was in the hands of the gods.'

A whimpering sound, like a puppy in pain, came from the rear of the cave and Aeneas looked anxiously round and half rose. But the attendant came out from behind the curtain, gestured reassuringly, helped herself to a jug of water and returned to the ailing child's bedside.

'Aye, he was,' said Odysseus. 'And I expect that lad lying back there is in the hands of the gods too. Your son, is he?'

'Yes, my boy, Ascanius. He grew sick from the violent motion of the ship as the storm drove us here. I hoped that after our landfall, his health would return, but...'

'Can I take a look at him?'

'Is medicine another of your skills?' said the Prince, half-hopeful, half-mocking.

'No, but I've had plenty practised on me,' said Odysseus, with a glance down at his scarred flesh.

He went into the rear of the cave and by the light of a flaming torch held by the attendant, he studied the boy's flushed and feverish face. Then delicately he took the child's small hand in his huge paw and raised it slightly. The child's eyes opened and fixed on the man's. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, then the boy's eyes closed and Odysseus gently released his hand. He exchanged a few low words with the attendant, then he returned to his place by the fire and helped himself to more wine. Up till now, it had always been the Prince who refilled his goblet.

He said, 'So?'

'So what?' said Aeneas.

'So what're you not telling me?'

'About what?'

'About yon lad. He's got a high fever, but his pulse is so slow it's almost stopped, and his eyes are as bright as a lass's when you show her the family jewels. The nurse says the lad hasn't had any nourishment, not even medicinal herbs and such, for nigh on two days, but he's got no better and no worse. And you...’

'Yes? And me?'

'You 're sitting here, passing the time with me. Like you were almost glad to have your mind taken off something.'

'Would not any man he glad to have his mind taken off worrying about his sick child?'

Odysseus shook his head.

'There's nowt can do that,' he said. 'No, what I've been taking your mind off is another kind of worry, some kind of decision. It probably concerns the lad, but until you make it, nowt's going to change with the lad, that's how you can sit here so calmly, glad of an excuse to let time go by without doing anything. Might as well tell me about it, Prince. How can telling an old Greek soldier make things any worse?'

Aeneas regarded him coldly and said, 'Perhaps sacrificing an old Greek villain to the high gods might make things better?'

'Nay,' said Odysseus, shaking his head vigorously. 'You thought that, you'd have done it half an hour since. Likely there's a god mixed up in it somewhere, there usually is. But this is between the pair of you.'

The Trojan sipped his wine then shrugged.

'Why not? Let us see what the craftiest mind in the civilized world can make of what I say. Two nights ago, keeping watch over my boy and praying for his recovery, I was visited by a vision. Vision! Strange term for an ancient, crook-backed and carbuncled crone, but this is what we must call one who can pass the guards outside this cave, both coming and going, undetected. She told me that this island was called Ogygia, and it was sacred to the nymph Calypso, daughter of Atlas, grandchild of mighty Uranus, most ancient of the gods, and that we had defiled it with our presence. If we left within three days, we would go unpunished. But a condition of our going was that we must leave Ascanius behind. If we lingered longer than three days, we would die. If we tried to take him with us, we would die. My time is up by dusk tomorrow. So now you know why I am glad to sit and talk with you, Odysseus. Who knows? When I first saw you, I wondered whether perhaps you too might have been sent by the gods for my aid, but now..’

'Now what?'

'After hearing you talk, I cannot believe the Olympians would use as their vessel one who holds them in such low regard.'

'You might be surprised,' said the fat Greek. 'You tried to make contact with this, what did you call her? Calypso?'

'Of course. My men have roamed in every direction. They've found nothing, no sign of life or habitation, hardly any vegetation even. This island is little more than a heap of slippery windswept rocks. I shudder to think what a creature must look like who chooses this for her sacred dwelling place. And as for leaving my boy to her mercy. . . but what choice will I have? What choice?'

His voice rose into a cry of anguish.

This poor sod's made for pain, thought Odysseus. Give him a tree nymph, he'd not know whether to climb up her or chop her down.

He said, 'Tell you what, lad. Why don't I get a bit of shut-eye, then in the morning when things are looking a little bit brighter, you and me can take a look around to see what we can see?'

Aeneas looked at him with scorn and suspicion.

'Is that the best the wisest head in the world can offer?' he mocked. 'A bit of shut-eye and a look around? What are you really planning, oh wily one? Get your strength back then work out a way to escape?'

'Nay, lad. I've got plenty of strength for that and if I wanted an escape plan, it's all worked out already,' said Odysseus. 'Oops, sorry.'

He'd reached for his goblet and clumsily knocked it over. Aeneas started back from the rivulet of wine which ran towards him and suddenly felt his head dragged back by the hair and a keen edge of metal was drawing a line of warm blood along his exposed throat. Somehow the fat Greek had moved his bulk behind him in the blink of an eye. As to where a man he'd seen naked could have been concealing a knife, Aeneas didn't care to guess.