Page 8 of Odette's Vow

“Why don’t you come and meet her properly tonight? Dine with us in my tent.”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Diomedes slapped me on the back again as we finally arrived at camp. The twenty-minute walk always felt harder and longer on the way back. “I’ll be ’round within the hour, yes? Give me a chance to wash off this Trojan scum!”

Those were his parting words as he peeled off to the left, towards Argos’ camp territory. A bunch of soldiers following him laughed at his retort. I merely nodded in response.

I continued on with my own men who had survived the day, and in the few minutes it took to reach my quarters in the Ithaca encampment, each step got heavier than the last, as if my body knew how eagerly respite waited for me in the privacy of my own tent.

Except, of course, it wasn’t waiting for me. As I batted back the tent flap, there she was, lying on her pallet, staring upat the ceiling, making a fidgeting movement with her thumbs. It seemed she was either playing a game with herself, or reciting something to remember, to report back, using a physical mnemonic device of her own creation. My brain snapped back to full alert, and as if that were her siren call, she immediately stopped her hand movements and sat bolt upright, staring at me.

“We have company coming for dinner tonight. Make sure there is enough wine and food for three within the hour.” My voice was gruff, gruffer than I intended, but the frustration of needing to stay on guard in my own tent had me grinding my molars.

She nodded, scrambling to her feet and scurrying out of the tent – her chin pulled down, refusing to look at me – as she went to gather supplies. She hadn’t hesitated at my request, so she must have met one of the other spear-wives today who would tell her what to do.

With no other nervous, anxious energy buzzing around me, I could allow the weight of the day to collapse on me as my shoulders sagged with the relief that it was almost over.

I was relieved to see the jug by the tent entrance full of water. Stripping off quickly, I poured half of it over my naked frame in the small area of the tent where I’d dug a shallow trench for water to drain beneath the canvas. Nothing would have brought me more joy than submerging myself in the warm salty water of the ocean and washing off the blood and grime caked to my skin. But there would be no time for that, not today, with Diomedes on his way. Taking a handful of coarse sand from a small ceramic pot, I scrubbed at the blood and grime until every inch of my skin felt like it was on fire. A fire I doused with the remaining wash water before I slathered oil across my body.

When she returned, I was dressed in a short-sleeved white linen chiton layered with a dark blue-trimmed himation. Her arms were laden with goods that she settled on a spare cratebefore she got to work. First, she walked over to the chest by the foot of my bed pallet and pulled out a purple cloth that she then laid on the dining pallet, smoothing out the crinkles. Next came three wine goblets and a beautifully decorated jug depicting one of the many feasts of Dionysus that I had scored in a previous raid. Then she wiped three plates – also pulled from the crate – and placed them on the table.

A scowl settled on my face. Before I could comment that she’d clearly been snooping, she began to unpack the goods she’d brought back with her.

There were brine-cured olives and goat cheese in a wide, shallow ceramic dish, half a dozen slices of barley bread that still looked fresh, honey-glazed carrots and leeks, stuffed vine leaves, walnuts, and almonds. She left the tent again and returned with a leg of roasted lamb, its rich and smoky aroma suddenly making me salivate.

It was exactly what I would have expected of a housemaid. Though, the speed with which she’d picked it up had my suspicions roaring back to life even as my stomach growled. No new slave was this resourceful. These were larger quantities than the ration allowance.

“Is everything to your liking?” she asked, as she poured the wine, and then water, into the jug. I held up a hand to stop her when it was diluted the way I liked best.

Her voice was softer than last night, when she’d spoken to me with such an attitude. Perhaps the ordeal with Thersites had spooked her. But even softly spoken, her Greek pronunciation was clear, measured. As if she considered every word before she spoke it. There was a lilt in her accent that made it obvious she was from the Western provinces of Troy, but that simply added to the poetry of her voice, as if the words had rolled around on her tongue and come out smooth.

“This is good,” I replied slowly.

She quirked an eyebrow at me, a small smile on her face. There it was – the fire behind her eyes. The slightest flicker that said she knew exactly what she was doing.

“You’ve been here less than a day. You’ve done more than what’s expected of you.”

It wasn’t a compliment and she knew it by the warning tone, for her smile dropped at the same time her hands did.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

She frowned ever so slightly. “What does it matter?”

I paused, considering my answer. “Because I do not wish to call you spear-wife. That is why it matters.”

“Odette,” she eventually acquiesced. “My name is Odette.”

“Odette,” I said, rolling her name across my tongue, getting used to the feel of it, before I nodded. “It suits you.”

“Better than spear-wife.”

A sharp bark of laughter burst from me. “That it does.”

She opened her mouth to respond and I instinctively leaned in, frustrated yet intrigued by her complexity, when Diomedes’ voice rang out as he entered the tent.

“Odysseus, my friend, how lovely of you to have me over for a meal! Pray, what are we giving the gods this night, and what are we saving for ourselves? And where is your spear-w?—”

“Odette,” I interrupted, before Diomedes had a chance to corner her and wrangle her for more information I wasn’t yet ready to give him. With that sly look on his face, I knew that’s exactly what he would do. My friend had always been a brash man, made for the war, and he’d always had a penchant for using women as little more than objects. I took a step forward to prevent him putting his hands on her. Should she slap him or show malice of any kind, it would be seen as weak of me if I let it go unpunished. I was still uncertain of her motivations; unsure how she would act. She was like a spooked horse: calm one minute, ready to bolt the next. Calm, yet feisty. Certainlyskittish. She couldn’t be trusted, and I wondered if inviting Diomedes hadn’t been one of my more stupid ideas.

“My, my, he is protective over you already, isn’t he?” Diomedes sent a knowing smirk my way before he offered Odette a dazzling smile and reached out to bring her hand to his lips. “A pleasure,” he said, as he tilted and bowed his head.

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