House of Odysseus by Claire North

Author:Claire North [NORTH, CLAIRE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2023-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Upstairs, in old Laertes’ room, Orestes lies in a stupor of crushed flowers and herbs. But even in his dreams…

“Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me! Mother! Mother!”

The skies crack, icy rain that thickens to hail, balls of ice the size of an egg, smashing through straw and beating against muddy walls, tearing up the streets and pounding on the helmets of the Spartans who guard the palace gates. “Mother, Mother, Mother!” howl the Furies as the clouds spin wild above the island of Ithaca, and the gods themselves turn their eyes away.

Laertes drinks wine in the temple of Athena. It is a small wooden affair, notable only for some pillaged gold he and his son stole from other kings a long time ago. He tilts his cup to the crude statue of the goddess set above the altar as outside the lightning flashes and the sky empties its wrath into the pounding streets. “Well,” he mutters. “So much for all that.”

Antinous and Eupheithes, Eurymachus and Polybus cower in doorways as the heavens fall about them, darting from cover to cover as they scurry towards their ice-pounded homes.

Autonoe and her maids scrub the floors. Melantho and Phiobe try to calm the animals frightened in their pens. Eos shuts the door behind Penelope as she slips into her room, whispers: “No way back now.”

In the bedroom of Penelope, that most secret, private place, the old spymaster Ourania sits away from the light and says: “Now let me tell you a thing or two about those Spartan maids…”

Lightning cracks across the skies above, but it is not Zeus who thunders now.

Kleitos, the priest of Apollo, presses another cup to Orestes’ lips as Pylades and Iason hold him down, a concoction, a brew of herbs; the king spits and gags and chokes, but they keep pouring, tears in Pylades’ eyes as Orestes boggles and squirms.

Anaitis stands in the doorway of the temple of Artemis, a bow in hand, and watches the heavens break. Priene is at her side, sword on her hip, and behind her, her warrior women, faces lost to the dark.

I turn from the Furies as they spin the storm into a whirlwind, dim my divinity, hide within palace walls as Orestes screams and Menelaus smiles and the animals shriek and the storm breaks across Ithaca.

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