Saturday, May 25, 2019

4.40: Your Weary Widow

1183 BCE - Hector and Andromache's Home in Troy.

Odysseus followed the instructions Neo had given him, and found Hector's quarters within the royal palace. By the time he reached the door, the alarm was sounding. The city would raise arms, but Agamemnon’s troops would likely be through the gates already. Odysseus didn’t knock – he just smashed through the door shoulder first shouting for Andromache.


The woman was already on her feet, on the opposite side of the room holding a knife in one hand and Hector’s child in the other.

“Don’t come near me!”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Odysseus put his sword down carefully and held up his hands.

Andromache looked at him like he’d slipped off his horse and landed in front of it, “You realize this isn’t a bow right? I can’t shoot you with it.”

Odysseus caught his breath, “Do you remember me? I was friends with your husband. I think we met when we came here to negotiate for Helen’s release? Ten years ago?”

“Odysseus?”

“Yes! Oh thank the gods,” Odysseus said, “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, but the short version is this – Troy’s falling but I’m getting you and Astyanax out.”

“But… why?” Andromache hadn’t lowered the knife yet, “We’re your enemy.”

“Andromache, I did everything I could to stop this war. Well, that’s not true, I did everything I thought I could to stop this war. For ten years, I jumped on every faint hope of peace, every compromise that I thought might save your family.”

“You could have just left.”

“Exactly,” Odysseus nodded, “I was so worried about alliances and duties and the greater good, I didn’t attend to the lesser good – the everyday good right in front of me. I was so desperate to spare my children a war in Greece, I chose to inflict one on your child, here in Troy. I’ve let Athena, and Agamemnon, and Achilles drag me from one moral compromise to another. I will always blame myself for what happened to your city, but I can do this one last thing, here at the end. Do something that is my choice, not someone else’s. I can save Hector’s wife and child. Please, please give me the opportunity to do that.”

“My in-laws…” Andromache started.

“Priam’s quarters will be Diomedes’s first destination after he’s secured the barracks. It’s too late for them. You only have a chance because I convinced our tour guide to give everyone else looking for you bad directions.”

Andromache clenched her face, holding back tears as she dropped the knife on the table. She shoved Astyanax into Odysseus’s arms and began stripping, “If anyone sees me in this gown they’ll know right away I’m part of the royal family. Let me put on some of Hector’s work clothes. I can pass for a slave.”

Odysseus nodded and watched the door.

“Shit,” he said, “They’re already on their way here.”

Andromache pulled on Hector’s old cloak – the crappy, nasty one he always wore when he had to work out in the rain. She took Scamandrius and pulled the cloak around him.

“There’s a back door,” Andromache said, “It leads to a garden, and then an alley. Where are we going?”

“The southern gate,” Odysseus said.

“Your men blocked all the gates but the western one.”

“I’ve got a local friend working on that problem,” Odysseus said.



























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