Penelope glared at the man on her door step, “I told you, Agamemnon, he’s not fit to fight.”
“Balder dash!” Agamemnon stomped his foot, “What’s happened to him? Did Odysseus finally think too hard and sprain something in his brain?”
“He took a fever last winter,” Penelope said, “We nursed him back to health, but the damage was done. There are moments, even whole days where he sounds like himself, but just as often he’s a total invalid. He got up and went to plow the fields this morning.”
“So?” Menelaus asked, “Odysseus may be Ithaca’s king, but he always took pride in doing things himself. I’m sure he sewed the crops as well.”
“That’s the problem,” Penelope said, “He did that last month. The crops are sewn, and now he’s tearing them all up.”
“Take us to him,” Agamemnon said.
“Very well,” Penelope walked them down to the fields, their infant son, Telemachus, suckling at her breast beneath the patterned epiblema she wore over her peplos. In the middle of the field, Odysseus, stripped down to a loin cloth and a broad hat, was whipping two oxen fervently, driving them to plow in a circle that was now three feet deep.
Agamemnon shouted for him to slow down, but Odysseus didn’t respond. He simply rattled off a seemingly random sequence of numbers, sporadically babbling about the ratio of the circle’s perimeter to its width – all nonsense to Agamemnon’s ears.
“Oh Penelope,” Menelaus said, “I’m so sorry. Odysseus was a good man, a good husband and a good king. Lesser men would deserve better than this.”
There was a sudden shift in the air around them and a woman of great stature suddenly stepped into the field with them – she emerged from a blur, like a painted image being washed away, but in reverse. She carried a shield emblazoned with a gorgon’s head and a spear too long for a mortal man to use. An infantry commander’s helmet was perched atop her head, tilted back, and an owl perched on her fur-covered shoulders.
“Mighty Athena!” Menelaus and Agamemnon both exclaimed and fell to their knees.
“Shit.” Penelope muttered simply as she reluctantly joined them, infant still clutched to her chest.
“He’s faking,” Athena said. “You’re not fooling anyone, Odysseus!” she shouted to the babbling man, “Least of all me!”
Odysseus maintained his pointless heading, marching on as if blind to the goddess standing thirty feet away.
Athena rolled her eyes in annoyance. She looked at Penelope and the baby and touched the bracelet tucked behind her shield. With a blur similar to the one that she had emerged from, the mother and child disappeared from the field and quickly reappeared in the path of the oxen.
The owl on Athena’s shoulder hooted in alarm and tried to fly towards them, but Athena stopped the bird with a gesture. Penelope tried to climb out of the rut the oxen were driving in, but she couldn’t scramble out of the mud with a baby in one arm.
Odysseus rounded the circle, bearing down on his wife and youngest child. For a moment, Menelaus and Agamemnon thought Penelope and the babe would be crushed, but Odysseus stopped the oxen abruptly. He threw down the reins and helped Penelope out of the pit he’d created. The owl on Athena’s shoulder let out a hoot that sounded like a sigh of relief.
“Odysseus!” Agamemnon scolded him, “You should be ashamed of yourself. What sort of Achaean man would try to shirk his responsibilities this way?”
“The sort who cares more about his wife, children, and kingdom than he does about murdering men who live hundreds of miles across the sea? No offense, Menelaus, I heard about Helen, and I’m very sorry.”
“None taken,” Menelaus said.
“Do you not remember the agreement we made before their wedding? We agreed that if anyone challenged the result of the draw for Helen’s hand, the rest of us would lay down our lives to defend the legitimate winner’s marriage.”
“First, that was ten years ago. Second, I don’t recall the phrase, ‘lay down our lives’ being used. Third, as I recall, Paris was the legitimate winner of the contest before I had him disqualified in favor of drawing lots, and fourth, the legitimate winner of that contest was decided by me.”
“What?!” Menelaus exclaimed.
“Aggie never told you? Really?” Odysseus was surprised.
“No… I thought it was … luck.”
“Luck? That out of the dozens of men who were there, the man who drew the shortest lot from my hand was the one man who Helen actually wanted to marry?”
“But… how?”
Odysseus snapped his fingers and a coin appeared in his hand. He began rolling it along the back of his fingers, and when it rolled over the back of his index finger it vanished. “I’m just that good,” Odysseus said.
“That is why we need you,” Agamemnon said.
“What, you want me to bankrupt Paris’s family by making their wealth vanish one coin at a time?” Odysseus asked, “My tricks don’t work that way. Ask her to help you,” Odysseus nodded to Athena.
“This is a political fiasco as well as an insult to our family,” Agamemnon said, “If I don’t see to the return of my own brother’s wife, the other Achaean kings will lose all faith in me. Our trade agreements and nonaggression pacts will dissolve, one after another, until Greece is consumed by chaos once again.”
“You really think you’re that vital to the future of Greece, Aggie?”
“Do you really want to test it?” Agamemnon said.
“You’re talking about averting the faint possibility of a Peloponnesian war many years from now, by pursuing a Trojan war now,” Odysseus said, “If it’s to be war either way, pick the one that’s later – procrastination saves lives.”
“If we fight now, it will be you and I going to war in someone else’s homeland,” Menelaus said, “If we do not, and the league breaks, it will be war in our towns, our fields, fought by our sons and daughters.”
Odysseus looked at Menelaus sourly, “Sometimes I think I liked you better when I thought you were an imbecile.”
Agamemnon placed a hand on each man’s shoulder, “I don’t intend to fight an actual war with Troy, anyway. All we have to do is secure the return of my sister-in-law and adequate reparations to compensate us for our troubles. Face-saved, carnage averted, and we all go home after a nice little trip to a beachfront city.”
“You think Troy will just capitulate when they see us?” Odysseus said skeptically.
“Honestly, I’m hoping that Priam’s already sending the woman back,” Agamemnon said, “But even if he’s not, I’m sure he won’t want any bloodshed over one woman. There are thirty of us obligated to uphold the pact; assuming about fifty ships each with about 120 men, that’s about 180,000 Achaeans ready to descend on Troy.”
Odysseus laughed; summing all the people in Greece and the Aegean's eastern coast, there were two million people at most - only a bit more than half of which were Achaeans. Agamamenon was claiming he planned to take a fifth of Greece's population to Troy.
"So, how many of those ships have turned out to fight for you so far?" Odysseus asked
"Well... the other kings have promised that they will send more ships when they know we have you and Achilles with us..."
"They're lying because they're certain one or both of us will refuse the call," Odysseus said bluntly, “Most of us don't have armies comparable to Mycenae and Spartas' military forces, but we all want to look ready to defend ourselves if your league breaks, so we vastly exaggerate the actual number of ships we have in service and the number of men we can field. You're actually looking at an average closer to twenty five ships each. And of course, each of us would need to leave at least half our forces behind to deal with pirates and hold off any opportunistic neighbors. That leaves you with ships to move 45,000 men."
Agamemnon started to speak, but Odysseus continued, "Of course, if this turns into a war, it won't be some sort of quick, in-and-out-again-in-a-day raid. It'll be protracted, and we'll have to make and maintain camps far from home to support our fighting men. That means a tail-to-tooth ratio of about nine camp followers for every one fighting man. Assuming we cover about half of that with locally sourced slave labor, that's still no more than 10,000 fighting men, a significant percentage of which will find a way to avoid showing up. Oh, look, you just lost 170,000 men in one conversation. Not a good start to a war, Aggie.”
Agamemnon scowled at Odysseus, who just smiled back. The king of Ithaca knew that Agamemnon was sharp enough not to have actually believed he could field an army of 180,000 men, but he was also a little insulted that Agamemnon thought he could get away with giving Odysseus the same preposterously inflated numbers he'd doubtlessly given to Ajax the Greater.
“The city of Troy has no more than 20,000 people in its walls, how large do you imagine their army is?" Agamemnon countered.
"Within Troy itself? Or within the boundaries of Troa and its many vassals and neighbors who may come running if Troy is attacked? Odysseus asked, "If the latter, then a lot. If the former, I'd like to know how you plan to get past Troy's famously impregnable walls."
Agamemnon ignored the point, “Old Priam won’t fight; he’ll negotiate, and I want you there to represent us in the negotiations. This is just a quick jaunt across the sea, with a little military parade and a diplomatic summit. We’ll be back in a matter of months."
“And what if Helen doesn’t want to return?” Penelope finally asked, “Hm? Have either of you considered that?”
“Helen wouldn’t leave our daughter of her own free will,” Menelaus said, “I would stake my life on it, and no man will persuade me otherwise, no matter what they whisper behind my back.”
“You’re a sweet man, Menelaus,” Penelope said, “A loving father and husband, but Helen’s sisters…”
“The strife between myself and Clytemnestra has nothing to do with this,” Agamemnon said, “Menelaus and Helen are different.”
“But no one knows how different, do they Menelaus?” Odysseus said.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Menelaus said.
Odysseus shrugged, “Can you honestly tell me that any mortal man could take Helen anywhere against her will? Doesn’t it seem more likely that she’s… Having a middle of life, existential crisis or something? Men her age make plenty of mistakes.”
“But, Paris did choose Aphrodite during that apple affair, remember?” Agamemnon pointed out, “Perhaps favors were promised?”
Odysseus feigned shock, “Agamemnon! Would you suggest that the gods might resort to cheating and bribery to settle such crucial matters of state?”
Athena scowled, and flicked her wrist. Odysseus’s lucky coin appeared in her hand – the same coin Odysseus had been showing off with when he explained his own deception years earlier. She flipped it back to him. “Your sarcasm is not appreciated today,” her voice boomed, “and I grow bored of this debate. I told you years ago that trouble brews when gods entangle themselves with mortals, and now you have it. We’ve made pacts and alliances on both sides of the Aegean, and just as you are being called to honor your word to Menelaus, so too are the gods being called to the war.”
“I’m sure that’s more distressing for some of you than for others,” Odysseus couldn’t quite see how all the pieces fit together, but he saw enough to suspect that the whole war was part of some greater plan Athena was working on.”
“Odysseus, you swore your loyalty to me,” Athena ignored his impertinence, “If you won’t honor your pledge to Menelaus you will at least honor your pledge to me, and I order you to see this through.”
“Well, how long should I pack for?” Odysseus asked bitterly.
“Continue to be disrespectful and you won’t return at all,” Athena scolded him, “Perhaps you should take a moment to consider the fate of your family should you fail me.” The air blurred again and Athena vanished, leaving behind her owl to watch over the rest of the conversation.
“So… you’re definitely going then,” Agamemnon said. He handed Odysseus a sealed scroll, “Our schedule is in there. You’ll have three months to prepare for the trip, to muster men and ships and to settle your affairs.”
“Aye aye, captain,” Odysseus said sourly as the two brothers left. Odysseus took his son from Penelope and cradled him in one arm while embracing his wife with the other. Athena’s owl alighted on a nearby post and looked at them sadly.
“This isn’t going to be a short trip, is it Adresteia?” Odysseus said.
The owl changed into her human form, summoning a simple gray dress in shower of sparkling light. Created as a single piece, it was drastically different from anything the Greeks or the Trojans wore. There were no pins holding it together at the sides, or even any visible seams. Her black hair hung loose – shape shifting into a styled form required more effort than Adresteia ordinarily cared to invest. Often times she didn’t bother with clothes.
Odysseus hadn’t seen Adresteia since the birth of his second child several months ago. Despite circumstances, he found it difficult to not be distracted by her immortal beauty. The goddess looked very much like Helen – more beautiful, actually, in Odysseus’s eyes.
Penelope, never the jealous type, embraced her husband’s former lover, “Come inside and tell us what’s going on. Little Addy will want to see you.”
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