20. Οdysseus

20

Οdysseus

I counted seventy-two of our men missing.

Meanwhile, Zeus continued to rage. For nine days and nine nights, the north wind swept us along. No matter how many times the men attempted to regain control of the ships, or change course towards Maleia, it seemed Poseidon and Zeus were in agreement, dragging us onwards at their whims. Nine days and nine nights of relentless waves, relentless crashing and swaying. Relentless, endless ocean.

I almost didn’t believe it when I saw it, but then there it was. Another island.

Fog hung over the island in a foreboding manner, as if I wasn’t supposed to see it. As if we weren’t supposed to be there. The nagging feeling tugged in my gut, but the men were desperate for a break. To turn them away from the island would be to cast them to a watery grave. Better to stop, to rest, to take our chances on another island, even if its people could turn on us again.

I prayed that the men had learnt their lesson from last time.

“We’re here to replenish food and water only!” I barked at them. “We’ll take supper by the ships. There’s to be no pillaging of villages, or livestock – none of any kind.” I frowned at the men who had dragged unsuspecting Ciconian women with them onto the ships when we had left the island.

“We will light the fires and have supper as close as we can to our ships, to show any folk on this island that we mean them NO HARM. We are to pass through ONLY.”

“What if there are men on this island that mean to harm us?” one of the men called out.

“Three of you can go out in search of such men. Who would like to volunteer?”

Nobody volunteered, so I picked out three of my soldiers on the smaller, slighter side. Appearances were important.

“You are to take no weapons. You are to scout and report back what you see. Try to avoid being seen. If you are, do not engage. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” they echoed back to me before they wandered off into the lush forest beyond. A gentle breeze swept over the beach and the hairs along my forearms stood on end. There was something not quite right about this place, something that had me thinking we would not see those men again.

They did not return.

The men, their misery still fresh from our losses, started to become antsy. None of them were saying anything directly to one another, but there were shared looks. I could feel the friction the same way I could sense a storm building in the sky.

“Wait here,” I told Odette. “I am going to find them.”

She threw me an annoyed look.

“What?”

“And what would you have me do in the meantime when the men are spoiling for a fight? Who do you think they are going to take it out on? Each other, or the women?”

The thought of what Matthias and the others had tried before turned my blood molten. I rose to my feet and called out to the men.

“Ready the ships! We leave when I return!”

Grumbles rumbled out from the cloisters of campfires, but I stood steadfast, watching them all until they clambered to their feet and back up. Another night on the ships out at sea wasn’t what I wanted for them, but the thought of sleeping here only to be slaughtered was even less appealing.

Satisfied that they were following orders, I looked down at Odette, pressed a kiss to her forehead as I cupped the back of her head – sweet gestures to keep her sweet – and strode into the bushland.

The tracks were fairly obvious to follow. Even though the three men I had sent were of small stature, they were not used to reconnaissance. Their footprints were stomped onto fallen leaves, their legs having dented the natural flow of the luscious plants around me. It was a strange forest. Fruits I’d never seen before, the purest white, yet velvety to the touch, hung from tall thin trees, a host of white flowers blooming around each of them. Eventually, the tracks led me to a clearing.

There, surrounded by natives, sat my three men. Quickly, my eyes scanned the situation, looking for the ropes that bound them in place, the weapons pointed at their bodies. I found none. In fact, the more I watched the scene in front of me, the more it appeared that the natives were friendly folk, though they did not look like us. Their skin was dark, their hair unoiled. They were naked for the most part, draped only in what looked like ceremonial beads. Savages of some kind. But instead of harming my men, they appeared to keep offering them food.

I crept closer.

Cupped in their hands were those white flowers I had seen earlier. Except this time, they were filled with translucent berries of some kind. My men took them gratefully, greedily slurping the contents before consuming the flowers, too. The natives smiled at them, gesturing to eat up, to eat more, while women prepared the next batch of flowers.

There was nothing else for it. I had to make myself known to the men to figure out what in the gods kept them there. I stepped out into the clearing.

Immediately, there were eyes on me. I expected hostility, but instead all I found were smiles.

“Come and join us!” one of my men cheered.

I looked at the natives, who nodded their agreement and gestured for me to take a seat with my men. Only when I got up close to these foreigners did I see that their teeth were black.

Cautiously taking a seat by my men, I watched as the natives turned to grab the next batch of flowers. Lotuses, I realised. That’s what they were.

While the Lotus-Eaters’ backs were turned, I scolded my men. “Why have you not returned to the ships? Why have you abandoned your task to report back to me?”

The three of them looked at each other, puzzled.

“What ships?” one of them asked me.

Before I had a chance to figure out what he meant, the hosts were back with freshly filled lotuses. The sweet fragrance of the blossoms and whatever they were filled with, what looked more like fish eggs upon closer inspection, was potent. My mouth watered, but I did not take the flower as the others did. Instead, I watched them closely as they ate. I watched their eyes glaze over and a euphoric expression wash over their haggard faces. A worrying suspicion wormed its way into my mind.

Turning to the man closest to me, I asked him, “What is your name?”

He stared at me blankly, smiling, and returned the question. “My name?”

That was it. We had to get out of here. I gently pushed away the flower offered by the native in front of me, who seemed once again to take no offence and continued to smile at me, and stood slowly. Slowly, so as not to spook anyone. So the natives wouldn’t turn on us. I kept a smile on my face as I politely bowed to them before scooping my hands under the armpits of each man until they were all standing.

“Come on, men. It’s time we leave. Thank these … people … for their time. We must leave them in peace and return to the ships.”

I may as well not have spoken. The men did not move. Frustrated, I looked around, but I could find nothing that would help me spur the men. I had to find a way to get them to come back to the ship, by force if necessary. If I returned without them, the rest of my men would remain antsy for the rest of the journey home to Ithaca.

I could think of only one thing.

Taking their belts from around their waists, with no complaints from any of them, I looped each one around their own necks, fastened them through, and then held the ends as if they were leashes.

As if my men were no better than dogs.

Tugging at them, they began to follow, though this time they resisted. Across my shoulder, I held tight to the belt ends and tugged. The men dug their heels in and wept, holding out their arms towards the Lotus-Eaters and their flowers.

The natives simply watched me struggle with them, sad looks adorning their faces. Grunting, I tried a different tactic, shifting the belt ends around until the men were in front of me and I could push them back to camp.

The Lotus-Eaters continued to watch as we left the clearing.

I checked behind me every so often to see if they followed us, but they did not. Not that they needed to track us; the men’s wailing was a clear siren to anyone in the near vicinity. Nothing I could do or say could stop them. They only wanted to return to the clearing.

By the time we made it to the beach, I was exhausted. Their friends approached, joyous at the men’s return. That joy turned to worry as they realised the men were no longer who they thought they were.

“What is wrong with them?”

“They’ve eaten something they shouldn’t have. A drug of some kind, I suspect. Tie them to the rowing benches. Tie them tightly. If we let them go, they’ll escape back into the bush behind us, and we’ll never find them.”

It took three men to load and tie down each drug-addled soldier in the ships. Meanwhile, I went to each ship to make sure its provisions were restocked with what the men had foraged from nearby the camp, and that we were ready to set sail away from this place immediately. I did not tell them about the native Lotus-Eaters or the fruit – what it could do to them. I was afraid that if I did, some of them might volunteer to stay.

War was a thing most men would rather forget.

Eventually, I made it to my own ship, where Odette was waiting for me with my trusted crew. Something flashed across her eyes, but it was not relief. It was something hard, gone before I knew it, her expression replaced by a smile. I shook it off as paranoia after seeing the effects of the plant and called for my men to set sail.

I watched the treeline as we left, half expecting the Lotus-Eaters to finally make an appearance, to offer up a rallying cry as the previous island’s inhabitants did. But, no one appeared. Unease filled me.

Why hadn’t they tried to stop us from leaving?

And why had Odette not been happy to see me return?