“When at last I saw blessed Ithaca again,” he said, his powerful voice sinking low, “my very own house was besieged by men who demanded the hand of my Penelope, and behaved as if they already owned my kingdom.”
“I can understand the blood-fury that must have seized you,” said Neoptolemos. “But that does not return my son to me.”
“King of Epeiros,” Odysseus replied, “a blood feud between us will bring down both our households. Your grandson and my son will never live long enough to father sons of their own.”
“Sadly true,” Neoptolemos agreed.
“And the same is true for all of you,” Odysseus said to the others along the wall. “You kinsmen of the men I have slain would slay me and my son. But then my kinsmen will be obliged to slay you. Where will it end?”
“The gods will decide that, Odysseus,” said the old king. “Our fates are not in our own hands.”
I was thinking that if Neoptolemos and his grandson are killed in this pointless blood feud, his line will end here in the Achaian age. There will be no descendants to father Olympias, many generations down the time stream. That is why I have been sent here, I realized. But what am I to do about it?
“Perhaps there is a way for us to learn the wishes of the gods in this matter,” Odysseus was saying.
“What do you mean?”
“A trial by combat. Single champions to face each other, spear against spear. Let the outcome of their battle decide the war between us.”
A murmur arose among the men on the wall. Neoptolemos turned to his right and then to his left. Some of the men up there gathered around him, muttering, gesturing.
“A trial by champions would be a good idea, King of Ithaca,” the old man finally replied. “But who could stand against such an experienced warrior as yourself? It would be an unequal fight.”
None of the dandies up there dared to face Odysseus in single combat.
Odysseus threw up his hands. “But I am the one you seek revenge against.”
Neoptolemos said, “No, no, Odysseus. As you yourself said, you faced mighty Hector and broke through the impenetrable walls of Troy. You have travelled the length and breadth of the world and even visited Hades in his underworld domain. Who among us would dare stand against you?”
Bowing his head in seeming acceptance, Odysseus asked, “Would you have me pick another to stand in my place?”
I saw Telemakos fairly twitching with eagerness, anxious to fight for his family’s honor and his own fame.
“Yes, another!” rose a shout among the men on the wall. “Pick another!”
Odysseus turned around as if casting about for someone to select. Telemakos took half a step forward but froze when his father frowned at him.
Turning back toward the gate, Odysseus called up to Neoptolemos, “Very well. We will let the gods truly decide. I will pick this ungainly oaf here.” He pointed toward me!
I heard snickers and outright laughter up on the wall. I must have looked like a country bumpkin in my leather vest and crude wooden spear. No wonder Odysseus had refused me better clothes and weapons. He had planned this ruse from the night before.
They swiftly agreed, and disappeared from the wall’s top while they selected their own champion.
“Orion,” said Odysseus to me, low and very serious. “You can save us all from a blood feud that will end my line and the old man’s as well.”
“I understand, my lord.”
He gripped my shoulder hard. “Don’t make it look too easy. I don’t want them to know that they’ve been hoodwinked.”
Telemakos, who had looked so disappointed a few moments earlier that I thought he would break into tears, was trying hard now to suppress a grin of elation.
At length the gates of the city opened and the men who had been lining the wall stepped out before us. Most of them wore bronze armor and kept a firm grip on their spears. Neoptolemos was carried out on a wooden chair fitted with handles for slaves to hold. They placed his chair on the ground and he got out of it, slowly, obviously in arthritic pain.