Free Ithaca by Patrick Dillon Page B

hundred and ten years old—imagine that. For decades I enjoyed how people honored me for my age and wisdom . . . now I sometimes think I understand nothing at all. They still flatter me. I pretend to enjoy it. I’m too tired to explain it means nothing to me. But enough.” He lifts one weary hand. “Now I must tell you what to do next. Listen.” He reaches to a tray, pours a little water into a cup, and sips it.
    â€œWhen Odysseus left Troy he was healthy and had good ships. He was planning to return straight to Ithaca, via Pylos. He would have had to sail around the south of Greece, where two capes jut into the sea, Malea and Tenaros. More ships are wrecked on Malea and Tenaros than anywhere else in the seas. I have sailed around them myself and always been fortunate . . . but if your father was wrecked, it was probably on one of those points. Both lie near Sparta, Menelaus’s kingdom. You must go to Menelaus in Sparta.”
    â€œMenelaus!” Menelaus is the brother of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks. Since Agamemnon died, Menelaus is the richest and most powerful king in Greece. It was Menelaus who began the war after his wife, Helen, ran off with a Trojan prince.When the war ended, he took Helen back to his palace at Sparta. If I go to Sparta, I’ll meet Helen herself.
    â€œThink,” Nestor goes on. “Menelaus and his family, the Atreids, control the whole east coast of Greece. If anything happens in the east of Greece, they know of it. Besides, Menelaus has traveled since he left Troy—to Crete and beyond, to Egypt. He has agents everywhere. News reaches Sparta. If anyone on earth knows Odysseus’s fate, it’s Menelaus.”
    Nestor stops and clears his throat. “My daughter Polycaste will accompany you. I won’t deny I have my own reasons for sending a mission to Sparta.” He smiles wearily. “If you are truly as astute as your father, you’ll guess them soon enough. Pylos is small and peaceful. Sparta is large and hungry for war. Friendship alone prevents the Atreids from gobbling us up. I have not visited Menelaus since the war, and I should have done. I am too old to travel now, but Polycaste can go in my place. She cannot cross the mountains without a companion. There—you will be doing your father’s old friend a favor by going.”
    He blinks like a little white owl. I’ve tired him—it’s time I went. But before I can leave, Nestor lays a soft white hand on my wrist. It seems to weigh nothing. It’s almost a bond to my missing father—these feathery fingers that once clasped Odysseus’s hand.
    â€œOdysseus was my friend, Telemachus.” He sounds oddly husky. “So many battles together. So many arguments in the Greek council. I can hear his voice now . . .” His eyes half close as he remembers the voice I’ve never heard. For a moment I think he’s fallen into a reverie. When Nestor speaks again, his voice is so low I have to lean closer to hear him. “I can’t offer you anything more than advice, Telemachus. But my prayers will be with you. Good luck.”

P olycaste and I set off the next day on two mules, with a third to carry our baggage. The plan is to travel to the edge of Nestor’s realm and pick up a guide to lead us across the mountains to Sparta. Mentor will stay in Pylos with Nestor. All this is decreed by the old chief, who allows no alternatives. I wonder why he is so insistent that we travel alone. Maybe it is a test of some sort—for Polycaste, or me, or both of us.
    On the first day we travel through gentle hills covered with olive groves and little farms. This is Nestor’s country, and everyone knows Polycaste. Children run after us when we ride through villages. A farmer draws us water from his well in anancient leather bucket. When the sun is at its hottest, we shelter for an hour or two in the shadow of an outcrop of rock, but we don’t