A Sea of Sorrow Read online

  — Odysseus

  1

  Mnemosyne, the Mother of the Muses, is a protean goddess. Her gifts are mercurial; without rhyme or reason she plays with men’s minds, obscuring what was once commonplace behind Time’s curtain while thrusting that which was once obscure onto the orchestra of recollection. I feel her hand on me. Names blur and fade; faces drift away on the tide of years like a skiff left unmoored. I can no longer recall what was said or done yesterday or the day before, but deeds done a thousand yesterdays ago? These memories are as clear and pure to me as the waters of holy Arethusa.

  I was but a child—little older than you are right now, dear Eirene, daughter of my daughter—when the man rhapsodes named the Kyklops came to Aeolia. Eh, what was that? Was he a monster? My dear child, if the Fates grant you a life as long as mine, you will soon understand that while not all men are monsters, all monsters are but men. And this Kyklops was a man, no more and no less. It has been three-score and eight years since that day. And while I can no longer recall my mother’s face, until Atropos cuts the thread of my life I will never forget the ruined visage of the Kyklops…

  I saw him first, standing alone at the end of the stone mole that protected Aeolia’s harbor from the harsh winds that blew off the Tyrrhenian Sea at season’s change: a figure etched against the dawn sky, wreathed in fire; a Titan in silhouette—taller even than my father, who men counted among the tallest of Aeolians. He simply stood there, unmoving, like the harbinger of a doom not yet written.

  “Papa,” I said. Father looked up from his nets, his fingers working across the strands of their own accord, and followed my gaze. A scowl cut deep furrows across his broad forehead.

  “Zeus Savior and Eris,” Father muttered. Your great-grandfather, Eirene, was a pious man, and curses rarely passed his lips; hearing him invoke the Goddess of Discord caused the hairs to stir on the back of my neck. He straightened from his task and stood, shading his eyes with one long, calloused hand. “What is he doing here?”

  “Who is he, Papa?”

  “No one of consequence,” he replied. Our neighbors along the mole, fishermen like my father, also caught sight of the stranger. Murmurs of consternation rippled through them like wavelets caused by a dropped stone. “Stay here, boy.” Father stooped; nimbly, he caught up his bone-handled knife, its curved copper blade honed thin and pitted by the sea air. He sheathed it at his waist and mounted the crude steps to the top of the mole. Like his peers, my father wore nothing but a short kilt of saffron-colored linen, a zoma, supported by a supple girdle of ox hide. I watched him stalk toward the newcomer. “Polyphemus!” he called out.

  You recall, dear child, the many times when your mother says one thing to you, but you hear another? That was what happened, then. Polyphemus was not the name my father had yelled, but it was the name my youthful ears heard. And when the tale went about, spread by that blind teller of tales in far Ionia, the name Polyphemus stuck. In truth, the name my father had bellowed that day was not “Polyphemus”, but “Polloi-phêmê”. Yes, “Many-Words”, it means in the tongue of Aeolia, as it does in the tongue of the Achaeans from whose loins we sprang. But while in Achaean it means “a man who has command of many languages”, in Aeolian it means “a man who does not know when it’s best to remain silent”.

  “I…I do not know you,” the man called Polyphemus replied. He spoke with an odd accent. “I am sorry, friend, but I do not know you.”

  “But I know you, Kyklops! I am the son of Glaukos, called Lykaon, and all of us who make our livelihood upon the breast of Lord Poseidon’s realm know you! Aye! Pirate, we name you! And thief!” There was rancor in my father’s voice that went well beyond this day. His anger fed on the memory of some past transgression. Nor was he alone. Curses and shouts rose from the collected fishermen. Like dusky sharks haunting the shallows off the sandbar, they scented blood. I could not see through their forest of legs; Pandora’s curse gnawed at me, red-handed curiosity. Thus, ignoring my father’s command, I scrambled up the steps and onto the mole. Its stones were wet with salt spray as choppy surf crashed against the mole’s outward face. Clouds boiled along the far horizon, presaging a storm.

  Even over the racket of the clustered fishermen, I could hear the stranger, this Polyphemus, sigh. “I was those things, once, son of Glaukos. And worse. The spear was my trade, and the blood of Pharaoh’s enemies the coin by which I paid my way. But no longer. I come to you in my hour of need.”

  Though young and with little knowledge of the world beyond the familiar nooks and crannies of our harbor and the little town around it, even I could see there was something not quite right about this Polyphemus. He was xénos, a foreigner—neither Aeolian, nor Achaean, nor native Sikelian; likely a son of some distant land whose name was barbarous and uncouth to our civilized tongues. A fringed shawl of faded blue linen shrouded his face; though a giant in truth, he was nevertheless as thin as a manikin, with skin that gleamed beneath the sun like burnished terracotta. His body trembled and shook as though wracked by fever.

  With a quaking hand, he drew down the shawl—I recall to this day how long his face was, his features as sharp as though a sculptor had molded them from a lump of stygian clay. His pate was smooth as an egg; his pointed chin sported a wiry beard the color of old silver. Tattooed cheeks bore the scars of fire and bronze. But his eyes, Eirene. His eyes…one socket was empty, child, the orb of sight long since sacrificed to Ares, and the flesh around it bisected by a brown and puckered scar. And the other…the other had been taken recently, gouged out in what surely must have been an act of wanton cruelty.

  “Have the men of Aeolia no pity?” Blind Polyphemus said.

  Lykaon, who had faced the gods’ wrath with the same forbearance as he had the wrath of his enemies, recoiled.

  Even as a boy, I felt I knew my father. He was solid as bedrock; a staunch traditionalist, though not without some measure of flexibility. He was patient, slow to anger, and disapproved of raising his hand against me, my sisters, or my mother. We were not his possessions, as so many men treat those who live under their roofs, even in this enlightened day. Always he respected the gods and the king, giving each their due portion. Never less than what was proper, and often a good deal more. Knowing all this, I expected my father would put aside whatever grudge he carried against the stranger and offer him xenia.

  What is that, dear Eirene? You do not know this word, xenia? Come, the sun has stolen our shade. Let us shift to that seat, yonder, beneath your father’s stately oak tree. Yes, this is much better. Xenia, child, is the duty one man owes to another: that he offer the hospitality of his oikos, his household, to a stranger in need. You welcome the stranger, offer them food and drink and a bath; you give up your comforts for them—your favorite chair or most comfortable bolster—and make them a gift upon their departure. For the stranger’s part, accepting xenia means they must be respectful of their host’s oikos, be charming and entertain their host as best they may, and not stay longer than needs must. If they have one, the stranger gives a gift to the host, as well. Do these things, child, and do them well. For we do not know when the next stranger we meet, who might be in need of our succor, is almighty Zeus in mortal guise.

  My father taught me these things, which is why I expected him to relent of his anger and offer blind Polyphemus the hospitality of his house. Who’s to say he wasn’t a son of Poseidon—nay, even Lord Poseidon himself, eh?

  “Have the men of Aeolia no pity?” Polyphemus asked. And my father, even as good and kind as I knew him to be, shook himself free of the horror he found in the stranger’s ruined visage, ducked his head, and spat.

  “Did you take pity on our boats, Kyklops?” he said. “Did you offer succor to the men of Aeolia who wrecked upon your shore, these ten years past? Or did you put your heel to their necks and hold them under the water till they drowned, so you might have fair claim to their possessions?”

  Then my father, Lykaon, son of Glaukos, who I thought the best of men, turned
his back on the blind and pitiable stranger. The crowd of fishermen smelled the blood my father had left upon the water. I saw brazen flashes in the hazy morning sun, like the lightning that gathered out over the ocean, as men bared their knives. Polyphemus did not see. He merely stood there, blind and thin and feverish, racking his brain for the words that might assuage the long-simmering anger of the men of Aeolia.

  Can I confide in you, dear child? Can I tell you something about that day that I have told no one else—not even my daughter, your beloved mother? I felt the hand of a god. That feathery touch that draws the essence of a man from this shell of flesh and allows the spirit of the divine to manifest and take control? I felt it, that day, as never before and never since. And though I was but a boy, it filled me with a man’s purpose and guided my steps. I threaded the labyrinth of kinsmen and neighbors, lips set in a thin line, my face a mask of will that showed little of the child beneath. I brushed past my father, who started and scowled. I have no recollection of it, but he told me later I rebuked him in a voice not my own.

  The god, Zeus Xenios, perhaps, spoke through me: “You men of Aeolia are better than this!”

  The crowd stopped, their anger forgotten; my father stopped, too. Their eyes watched in wonder as this small, brown child, naked but for a scrap of cloth about his loins and as precocious as the infant Hermes, marched up to the stranger. Thunder rolled in the distance.

  “I apologize for my father’s rash tongue, Polyphemus,” I said, my words echoing still with the presence of the god. “You are welcome, here. Though I have no oikos of my own, I offer you my friendship, if you will have it.”

  Polyphemus was as taken aback as the folk around us. Hesitantly, he reached down to touch my shoulder. Blood crusted the tattooed cheek below his gouged-out eye. “You,” he stammered. “You are the son of Lykaon?”

  I nodded, but then realized he could not see the gesture. “I am Glaukos, son of Lykaon, son of Glaukos.” I took from around my neck a boy’s gimcrack—a pearlescent shell that hung from a thong of old fishing twine—and placed it in his long-fingered hand. “I make this gift to you, such as it is, so the gods might smile upon our association.”

  He smiled, too, then, his teeth like ivory against dark skin. “You are well-spoken, young Glaukos,” he replied. His voice bore a deep timbre that belied his thin frame, which was knitted together by lean sinew and striated muscle. “I would be honored to be your friend.” He unwrapped the fringed shawl from about his neck and held it out to me. “A gift for a gift, so the gods of my home might know you as a man of honor.” The linen smelled faintly of sweat, of old spices, and of smoke. “I will not impose upon you, young Glaukos. If it is in your power, all I ask is your aid in reaching the palace of your king, good Aeolus. Alas,” Polyphemus said, “I come bearing ill tidings of a man of many twists and lies, and a warning.”

  “I will guide you.” I felt the god’s hand withdraw, leaving my face hot and prickling with embarrassment. The realization of what I’d just done struck me like a physical blow. He had ordered me to stay put, but I had flaunted my father’s will—flaunted it in public, no less. Had I made a fool of myself? Had I brought shame upon our household? Hand of a god or no, I knew when I turned I would see the rage in my father’s gray eyes, so like the storm building off in the distance. I would be lucky to escape with just a beating. But, as I had taken a man’s portion I resolved myself to face the consequences like a man. “Come, my friend,” I said, taking Polyphemus’s hand—his other hand clutched the shell necklace to his breast, as though it were a thing of great importance. I turned…

  The god whose hand had guided me must have left a bit of his strength behind. For without flinching, I raised my eyes to meet my father’s gaze. What I saw nearly robbed me of my resolve. Tears dampened his bearded cheeks. But, they were not tears of rage, or even of disappointment. No, they were the product of another emotion. Something I now realize runs deep in a father’s soul.

  With a start, I realized it was pride.

  * * *

  2

  * * *

  When I was your age, dear Eirene, the city was a different place. There was no broad processional street leading from the harbor to the acropolis, paved with stones taken from the slopes of Mount Aetna on the mainland. There were more trees, fewer statues. Helios and Lord Poseidon were then, as always, our patrons. But my forefathers made do with temples hewn from wood and braced with local sandstone, not raised from the foundation to the roof peak in garish marble, like these our sons have built. And no walls separated the acropolis, with its palace and storehouses, from the rest of the city. We feared neither the Sikelians, nor the war-weary Achaeans, nor the Phoenicians with their red-hulled ships. The Aeolians of my youth traded with all and sundry. We were the children of a long peace, and prosperity was our portion—even if that prosperity wasn’t reflected in street and building.

  From the harbor, in those days, one took a dusty cart track full of ruts and switch-backs into the city proper. It wound past a grove-shaded cemetery, where wind harps caught the breeze and sang a song of sorrow for the remembered dead. There were few houses on those lower slopes; mainly tumbledown shacks made from driftwood and old sailcloth, where the poorer daughters of Aphrodite practiced their trade. That was the way I went with blind Polyphemus. And we did not ascend the track alone.

  “Sounds like quite a cavalcade,” he muttered. I had no notion what a “cavalcade” was, of course, but I imagine he meant the throng that followed us up from the harbor—my father among them. I nodded, and then felt the color rise in my cheeks as I realized, once again, that he could not see such gestures. I glanced back at my father, who gave me a reassuring nod.

  “I think they’re just curious about the news you bear.”

  “Perhaps,” he replied. “But I think they are more curious to see what your king does with me.”

  My eyes widened in sudden panic. I had not thought of that; what penalty might the gods levy against the one who leads a professed friend to harm? Would they turn me into some faithless beast, whose false face brings nothing but woe? “Will…do you think he will do ill by you?”

  Polyphemus must have sensed the trepidation in my voice, for he smiled, then, and patted my hand. “Worry not, my young friend. Your king’s name is a by-word for temperance and justice.”

  I did not know if that were true or just something he said to allay my fears; regardless, I fell silent and tried not to dwell on the fates of god-cursed Medusa, of snake-haired Scylla or fearsome Charybdis, or of the mournful Sirens. What would become of me? You laugh, child, but fear of the gods’ wrath kept my innards in knots, at least until I heard the chimes.

  Oh, the chimes! Dear Eirene, the chimes! Of the things I miss most about the city of my youth, the song of the wind as it played through the Etesian chimes is by far the most profound. You hear them no longer, save for the rare times a breeze can find a chink through the walls and bronze-sheathed gates of the acropolis. And then it is but one or two. But when I was your age, you could hear scores of them, hundreds of them, from all across the city—tubes of hollow bronze and copper, of wood and terracotta, hanging in clusters from the eaves of temples and houses. Even the meanest of hovels had one, at least. And when the wind would pick up the sound was…it was…I have no words, child. What was that? “Like the silver-tongued voice of a goddess”? Oh, my dear Eirene! You have the soul of a poet. Yes, precisely that. A choral ode to Boreas of the North and sky-born Hippotades, keeper of the winds. I heard the heavenly sound made by the chimes, that day, and knew the gods would forgive me.

  The beauty of their discordant song struck even Polyphemus mute. His fingers tightened on my shoulder. Though sightless, he looked around—an old habit, surely—as if by will alone he might catch a glimpse of the goddess whose lips gave birth to such divine music.

  “I have heard the echo of pipe and sistrum in the temples of my far homeland,” he said at length, as the breeze faded and the symphony of the chimes wit
h it. “I have listened to the chants of the daughters of Isis, danced to the drums of the priests of Sobek, and felt my blood stir from the battle horns of the Medjay. But, son of Lykaon, never have I heard a sound to rival this.”

  I wanted to take him by the hand and scurry off to show him the nearest cluster of chimes; let him feel the cool bronze beneath his fingers and hear their flat ringing as he tapped them together. We could then both marvel at how such a dull noise became the divine melody we had heard. I was but a boy, you recall, with all the flightiness and simple-minded aspirations that my age entailed.

  As he spoke, though, we gained the acropolis and suddenly all my daydreams of prowling about the city with my new-found friend in tow drained away like water poured from a cup. I had never been to the high city until that moment, and it struck me, then, that I had no idea where to go. The harbor road opened on the broad square we call, now, the Greater Agora. In those days it wasn’t a well-ordered market like you see it today, but a riotous jumble of stalls and awnings, with poor merchants selling their wares from moth-eaten carpets spread upon the ground, or from wicker panniers still hanging from the flanks of their hobbled donkeys, while their more affluent cousins did business from shaded kiosks. I struggled to breathe through the drifting clouds of incense and excrement, sweat and old leather, the sickening stench of fish sauce left in the sun and the too-sweet smell of slowly rotting fruit.

  I did not know which way to turn. Where was the king’s palace? Was it through this labyrinth of commerce, or must I skirt off to one side or the other? I could not even hazard a guess. And, as with all things in my youth, it was my father who came to my rescue.

  “Make way!” he bellowed. “This man has business with the king!” Others took up the cry, and in short order a path appeared through the bustling square. My father gestured me forward; renewing my grip on Polyphemus’s long-fingered hand, I led him along the route my father’s words had created.