Read Online Homer’s Daughter by Robert Graves - Free Book Online Page B

over again. He retired to his vaulted chamber, where he had built himself a curious bed, using a live olive tree as the bedpost, inlaid with gold, silver and ivory. In theory, the room is a tomb; and once a year at midwinter, when the customary Demise of the Crown occurs, he shaves his head, enters, eats the food of the departed, and pretends to have been killed. He lies in state under a scarlet coverlet; while the Boy King, chosen from our own clan, dances the Ballet of the Months, and assumes the sceptre for a day. My father now locked the door and, after pacing up and down, his hands tightened into fists, flung himself miserably on the bed, and closed his eyes. I asked one of my maids to peep in at the window occasionally, and report his movements; which I regarded as most ill-omened, though I did not tell her so.
    Some hours later, he emerged, went to his study, and sentfor me. “Nausicaa,” he said, “what shall I do? You are, at times, the most sensible member of this family (always excepting your dear mother) and I feel that—ahem—some god may have inspired you to advise me.”
    He then described his meeting with the Pylian merchants, and waited for my comment.
    I sighed deeply before I answered. “Father, the news does not surprise me. Your shameless Hyrian guest was lying—as I could have told you at the time. So could my mother, and perhaps she did. Let us dismiss that whole story as a fantasy designed to improve his trade; and think only of Laodamas’s possible fate. It now seems certain that the Rhodian captain never took him aboard…”
    â€œI do not agree. As Eurymachus points out, the Rhodian would hardly have risked his reputation by going off with our sails and cordage, unless Laodamas had given him permission in my name.”
    â€œIf he had Laodamas’s permission, would there have been any need to drug the guards?”
    My father brushed off this question as impatiently as if it were a bluebottle settling on his morning slice of bread-and-honey; nevertheless, he shifted his ground.
    â€œWell, then, what of that Sidonian vessel which the women saw? Laodamas may have rowed out to her.”
    â€œIn that case, why was no dinghy missing from the quay?”
    â€œHe may have swum. He is a strong swimmer.”
    â€œFather, please use the reason on which you so justly pride yourself! Could he swim with a cloakful of treasure on his back?”
    My father fell silent and I continued: “The first report ofthat mysterious Sidonian vessel came a month or two after Laodamas had disappeared.”
    â€œAre you suggesting that Eurymachus’s mother also lied? Why should she lie? Why should Melantho lie? She is Ctimene’s own maid, and devoted to our house.”
    I shrugged my shoulders. “I wish I knew why, Father. But my heart assures me that they are in collusion.”
    â€œWhat can you be trying to tell me?” he asked fiercely.
    I did not blink an eyelid. “That Laodamas never sailed at all,” I replied.
    â€œStop joking, child. Everyone knows that he sailed.”
    â€œEveryone knows that Helen eloped to Troy with Paris: or everyone, except you! To be alone in your knowledge does not prove you wrong; as it did not prove Laocoön wrong when he told the incredulous Trojans that the Wooden Horse was full of armed enemies.”
    That pulled him up short. “Oh, so Laodamas went off overland somewhere? Perhaps to join your rebellious brother Halius among the Sicels? It is possible, but not likely. Why did nobody meet him on the road?”
    Again I shrugged. “Let me tell you, Father, what the Goddess Athene has put into my mind: Laodamas never left Drepanum.”
    He looked searchingly at me, as though he feared for my sanity, and went out, slamming the door. A long piece of plaster fell from behind the doorjamb—shaped like a dagger.
    A ship had just made port in the northern harbour: a Taphian thirty-oarer,