The Poison In The Blood (6 page)

All that night, Philoctetes” cries of pain drifted over the beach so that no one could sleep. In the morning, Odysseus spoke to Menelaus and the other Greek leaders. He told them that his men were getting depressed. It was bad for their spirits to have to listen to Philoctetes all night. Even worse was the smell. “We cannot put up with this,” he said. “After all, we will soon be at Troy. We have a war to fight.”

The other leaders looked uneasy. Menelaus bit his lip, then said, “What exactly are you proposing?”

“Leave him here,” answered Odysseus smoothly. “there is water. There is game. He will hardly starve.”

Again, the other leaders glanced uneasily at one another. There was a long silence. Dimly, above the waves, Philoctetes’s cries could be heard. Menelaus looked at the others, then he gave a nod. “Let’s be on our way,” he said. “Hoist the sails for Troy.”

“Every able-bodied man?” asked Odysseus.

Menelaus inclined his head. “Naturally. We have no use for anyone who is not well-bodied. As you pointed out, we are going to war.”

So the Greeks went back out to their ships. Even those who had sailed with Philoctetes abandoned their king. The ships pulled away and Philoctetes was left alone on the beach. His sobs of pain mingled with his curses as he shook his fists at the vanishing ships of the Greek fleet. He watched in despair as the last dots disappeared over the horizon, then he screamed at the heavens. The echoes sounded from the mountains before eventually fading away. Philoctetes buried his head in his hands and wept.

A week passed, then a month, then a year. The only human noises that Philoctetes ever heard were his own cries of agony, and the echoes that they made. Sometimes he would see ships passing the island, but they never stopped. Philoctetes often wondered why. Then, one day, he stopped by a clear and still pool, and caught sight of his reflection. He jumped in horror. There was a ghost staring up at him. Its beard and hair were long and tangled. Its eyes were bloodshot. Its clothes were rags. Its heel was still swollen and putrid. Philoctetes turned away and looked out to sea, where he saw a ship. As the sound of his cry reached it, he saw the men on board staring towards the island, and talking among themselves. Then the ship changed course. Philoctetes watched it sail away, then looked back down into the pool. He studied his reflection. “I have become a ghost,” he whispered. “I am trapped on an island of the dead.”

After the first year, he lost all track of time. Each day seemed the same. He slept in a cave like a beast. He drank water from a stream. He hunted goats. When he did so, he would remember Heracles’s dying words: “Are you content to remain a goatherd all your life?” Philoctetes wished that he had been. Better to live as a goatherd than to die like this. He cursed his fate. Sometimes he came close to snapping the hero’s great bow in half, but he never did. Despite everything, he still loved to trace his fingers along the curve of the wood. He loved the hum of the string when he played it like a lyre. He loved the deadly glint of the arrows” poisoned tips. So he kept his bow secure; he looked after his arrows; and he clung to the hope that he would leave the island one day.

Then, one evening, shortly after sunset, he saw the blaze of a fire on the beach. He stared at it in amazement and his heart started to beat fast. He crept slowly towards it and could make out three men huddled around the flames. A small boat had been dragged up on to the sand. Fishermen, Philoctetes supposed. But why now? What were they doing there? He knew he should be careful, but he was so desperate for human company that he could not help himself. He began shouting and the three men looked round. Using his bow as a crutch, Philoctetes stumbled across the sand until he reached the fire. He fell down on his knees, clasped his hands together and begged the strangers to help him escape. His words made no sense at first because it had been so long since he had spoken to anyone, but at last he made his meaning clear.

The three men, holding their hands to their nostrils, looked unsure. Philoctetes promised them that he was a king. He promised them gold. He almost sobbed as he begged them. At last the three men nodded their heads and said that they would take him away. One of them offered Philoctetes some bread. He fell on it greedily, tearing at it like a dog. It was the first time he had tasted bread for many years. The three men smiled. When Philoctetes had finished eating, they offered him some wine.

He grabbed at the jar eagerly and gulped down the wine. Even as he swallowed it, he could feel the alcohol. The stars, the moon and the sky began to spin. Philoctetes took another swig. Everything spun even more. He moaned and stumbled, then collapsed. The world went black.

When he woke, Philoctetes found that his hands had been tied behind his back. He was tied to a post that had been driven into the sand. A man was sitting opposite him. Philoctetes shook his head in disbelief. The man was the last person in the world he wanted to see: Odysseus.

There was a long silence.

“You need a haircut,” said Odysseus at last.

Philoctetes struggled to his feet and tried to throw himself at his enemy, but the rope that held him to the post yanked him back.

“You see now why I had to tie you up,” said Odysseus. “But I do regret it. Hear me out, and I will let you go.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Odysseus looked hurt. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve come all this way for you.”

“After leaving me here for ... for . . .”

“For ten years.”

“
Ten
years?”

Odysseus nodded. “All a mistake. You see, when we left you here, we did not know what we know now.”

“And what is that?”

Odysseus leaned forward. “As I said, we have spent ten years camped outside the walls of Troy. Still they won’t fall. Why? That question has been worrying me a good deal, as you can imagine. So I decided to find out. I disguised myself as a beggar and crept into Troy. I kidnapped the high priest and took him back to our camp. I demanded to know the secrets of the city’s defences. Not the walls, the battlements, boring details like that. No, I wanted to know deeper secrets. Oracles we might have missed. Details of the city’s fate that the Trojans knew but we did not. Mysteries revealed to them by the gods.”

Despite himself, Philoctetes was intrigued. “And what did you find out?”

“That Troy would not fall until a certain condition had been met.”

“Did the high priest reveal the condition to you?”

“Oh, yes.” Odysseus nodded. “After some "persuasion", yes.”

“And what was it?”

“Ah, well, that is why I am here.” Odysseus reached behind his back and drew out Philoctetes’s bow and his quiver of arrows. He studied them, then looked again at Philoctetes. “We need you to join us,” he said at last. “We need you to fire the great bow of Heracles in battle. We need you to kill Prince Paris. For you see, until you do that, the walls of Troy can never be brought down.”

Philoctetes laughed, a bitter, hollow laugh. “You really expect me to help you? You and all the other Greeks who left me here for a decade? You must be mad!”

“Mad?” Now it was Odysseus’s turn to laugh. “Yes. As mad as when you came to fetch me from Ithaca. Which is to say, not at all.”

“Then how can you possibly think that I would come and fight for you?”

Odysseus shrugged. “Because I know something you do not.”

“Which is?”

Odysseus rose and took a step forward. He stared down at Philoctetes’s rotting heel and pulled a face. “Time hasn’t healed your wound, I see.”

Philoctetes did not answer.

“Is it
utter
agony?” asked Odysseus.

“stop playing games with me.”

“Oh, I am not playing games. You see,” Odysseus paused, “I know how it can be cured.”

“Liar.” But Philoctetes still felt a sudden surge of hope. “This is another of your tricks.”

“I can see why you would think so. But I promise you, it is not. And here is the proof. Sail with me now. Leave this island for ever. Come with me to Troy. You will not have to lift your bow in anger until you are healed. We cannot make you fight. Only once you are cured will we ask you to go to battle. Only once you are cured will we ask you to shoot Prince Paris. Only once you are cured will we ask you to slay him with the venom of the hydra’s blood.”

Philoctetes remained silent. He lay still where he was and listened to the waves. He looked up at the mountains of the island. Then he turned and gazed eastwards at the horizon, to where Troy lay, beyond the line of the sea and sky.

When Odysseus walked up to him and cut the rope that tied his hands, he rose to his feet. He took his bow and arrows back from his enemy’s, and then he hobbled after Odysseus and took his place in the boat.

Yonani stopped.

Is that it?” gasped Paris. “Is that the end of your story?”

There is nothing more to say.”

“So it is the hydra’s poison in my blood?”

“It is.”

“It was Philoctetes who shot me?”

“It was.”

“After he had been cured?”

“Yes,” answered Yonani. “so it seems.”

Paris struggled to sit up. “But who could have done it? Who had the power to heal his wound?”

Yonani smiled. Her lips tightened. “Can you not guess?”

Paris did guess. It took him a moment, even with Yonani smiling down at him, but he did finally guess. “You,” he whispered. “It was you. Then . . .” He shuddered. He moaned. “I am doomed. There is no hope.”

“No hope at all. Not for you. Nor for me. No hope.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“I beg you.”

“Beg as much as you like. My answer will stay the same. I am the one who killed you, Paris. As surely as if it were my own hand that fired the arrow from Heracles’s bow.”

“Why?”

“Why?
Because you killed me first, Paris.”

He stared at her for a moment longer, then he screamed at his servants: “Get me away from here! Get me away! Get me away!” The servants picked up the stretcher, but even as they lifted it, Paris began to shake. The fever was more terrible than before. He shrieked in his agony. His words bubbled on flecks of spit. “Get me away!”

Yonani watched them go. When they had vanished into the trees, she listened to the crashing they made. When that had faded into silence, she rejoiced. She clenched her fists, then raised them in joy. She laughed in triumph, then she listened again to the silence. It closed around her. She imagined it would swallow her up. Then she howled, an animal howl of pain.

“It is not too late,” she told herself. “It is not too late to correct the mistake I have made.” She began to run through the undergrowth. She moved faster than the fastest deer. “Paris!” she wailed. “Paris!” But there was no answer. On she ran. Then, from ahead of her, she heard sobbing and wailing.

Paris had died in the same clearing where Hermes and the three goddesses had appeared to him. Yonani took his body in her arms and covered it in kisses. The heat was still coming from his limbs. She hugged her lover tight to herself and lay with him on the grass. Still the heat radiated from his body.

Meanwhile, the servants had been gathering wood to build the funeral fire. They raised it high. When all was ready, they laid Paris’s body on its top, then held a torch to it. The flames leapt up, licked the wood, then began to caress the body of Paris. The smoke turned greasy with his melting flesh. Yonani threw herself upon the flames. She hugged the body of Paris - and she hugged the fire.

But she could not die. And when her lover’s body had burned away, she rose from the ashes of the fire and left the glade, to return to the emptiness of her mountain.

And never did she allow herself to fall in love with a mortal again.

Tom Holland
received a double first from Cambridge. He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. One of his previous books,
Rubicon,
was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2004, while his latest book
_;
Persian Fire,
was a bestseller and a Book of the Year pick in seven newspapers.

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