IN THE BRIEF TIME he’d been aboard the pirate vessel, Odysseus had spotted the one thing that had given him some hope. There had been a flock of seagulls barely visible in the distance.
Where there are gulls, he thought, there must be land.
If he could only make it to land, anything was possible.
A fresh ship.
A sword.
Men to follow him.
He worried about Mentor on the ship more than he did about himself in the sea. It was only a matter of time before Mentor’s unthinking honesty betrayed him. As soon as the pirates discovered the truth, they’d fling Mentor over the side of the boat along with their slops. But only if they were feeling particularly forgiving.
Odysseus swam slowly towards the spot where he’d seen the gulls.
Better thinking than sinking, he told himself. Gritting his teeth, he began swimming with renewed vigour. Both their lives depended upon him reaching land.
Odysseus was actually a strong swimmer when he didn’t have high waves, a weakened leg, and a sick friend to contend with. He’d grown up on an island, learning to swim before he could run. He knew not to rely on one kind of stroke, but to rotate several—an overhand for a few minutes, then a more restful sidestroke, then the overhand again, and finally turning on his back, letting his legs do most of the work.
The last time on his back, he not only saw gulls but could hear them as well.
He flipped over and, lifting his head, tried to catch a glimpse of a shore.
There was a smudge on the horizon that might be an island.
He forced himself onward, stopping every hundred strokes or so to tread water. But lack of food, lack of fresh water, and, most of all, lack of sleep were telling on him. His limbs were growing weaker. He had a persistent headache from the sun and the salt. Each time his arm ploughed through the water, it took a greater and greater effort to raise it again. His legs protested too, especially the right leg. His chest burned as if an iron spike had been driven through it. But still he swam on, now counting the strokes as he went.
One hundred … two hundred … three hundred …
This time the cries of the gulls, which he had taken for encouragement, sounded mocking, as if they were calling out, “Foolish mortal! Neither fish nor fowl.”
Water kept splashing into his mouth, though he tried to keep it closed. The salt stung his eyes. His lungs ached with the effort of breathing.
One thousand … one hundred…
He trod water again, tried to see if the shore was any closer. But his eyes were cloudy, and he couldn’t see a thing.
He was done.
He knew he was done.
Best surrender with grace, he thought.
The sea sucked him down, and he had time for only a single cry.
Then the water was over his head. First blue. Then green. Then gold—shards of it, like coins sparkling over his head.
He’d seen those coins before, when he was a baby, pitched headlong into the calm water of the Bay of Phocis, his first swimming lesson.
No, not coins. He realised that now. A golden thread above him, where the sun met sea. Like the thread of life woven by the three sisters, the Fates. It was Clotho who spun the thread, Lachesis who wove it into the fabric of the world. Finally it was grim Atropos who—at the end of a man’s life—cut the thread with her knife.
But I’m not a man yet, he wanted to cry out, as if that had ever made any difference to the Fates. As if one could make a sound beneath the water.
A sound.
Like a chittering.
A whistle.
Recalling the sound of a shepherd directing his flock on land.
Life.
And then something surged below him, stopping his descent: a giant hand beneath him; giant fingers cupping him, lifting him up, pushing hard against the wall of water.
Poseidon? he thought wearily. Is it you, mighty god of the sea, uncle to my own Athena? He was too tired to think more.
Looking down for an instant, he thought he saw a pair of Nereids, those beautiful, long-haired sea nymphs that sailors desire. One of them swimming on each side of him, their graceful bodies arcing effortlessly through the water.
And then his head broke through the waves, and he gasped and gasped for air, his eyes dazzled by the light.
The sun blazed like a beacon above him, and his ears were filled with thunder.
The thunder of breakers crashing on the shore.
A final heave of the water threw him forward, and he was suddenly knee-down in shallow water, waves frothing angrily around him. Belching out a stomach full of brine, he crawled painfully up on to the dry beach.
A dingle, a shingle, a wee bit of sand.
For a long while he lay on his side, sucking in air and thinking, The Nereids. I will honour them. I will make sacrifices to them. I will tell my children and my grandchildren how they saved me.
Then rolling over on to his stomach and pushing himself up on to his elbows, he stared out at the sea for some sign of his rescuers.
And then he saw them—two fins coursing through the waves side by side.
“Dolphins!” he cried, his voice as torn and ragged as a cloth on a nail. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he would have laughed.
He looked behind him at the land. A rocky height dotted with moss and scrub rose up like a castle wall.
“Must … climb,” he croaked. “Must … find … water.”
But he could do neither. His thread of life, so nearly cut, could carry him no further. With a groan, he fell back down on the sand and surrendered to the darkness.