The Armour of Achilles

Начало книги

Penelope, queen of Ithaca, stood tall and stiff, staring at the door to the great hall. The muffled sound of voices came from behind its thick wooden panels, punctuated with frequent bursts of laughter. She knew they were waiting for her – to tell her news of the war that had reached its tenth year, and of her husband, Odysseus, whom she had not seen in all that time – but still she hesitated.

‘Should I go now, Mother?’ asked the boy at her side, whose auburn hair she was twisting nervously with her slender fingers. ‘I know children aren’t allowed in the Kerosia.’

‘This isn’t a gathering of the council, Telemachus,’ she replied, looking down at her son and smiling. ‘It’s a private audience with the men who arrived today. They have news for me, and I have questions for them.’

‘Then is it true they’re Ithacans, back from Troy?’

Telemachus looked at his mother and she caught a sudden glimpse of Odysseus in his clever green eyes. It made her catch her breath and the only way she could prevent the swell of tears was to avert her gaze to the gloomy, torch-lit corridor that led back into the palace. At ten years old, her son had inherited little or nothing of his father’s short-legged, triangular bulk. Instead, he was already showing signs of his mother’s height and lean build, as well as her dark, intelligent looks. But his eyes came from his father, and from time to time he would give her a shrewd look or cunning glance that brought memories of Odysseus into painful focus.

Читать дальше →