300 Sheep
The scene that awaits in the throne room isn't as wholesome as I prepared for. Yes, a woman —looking like the exact copy of my sister, but much more mature — sits on the throne.
She is my Mother, I no longer doubt it.
Her long wavy hair has an even stronger dark-auburn tone, and I can see where my sister and I got this color from. Her eyes are brown, almost black.
The chiton, — if her longer and even fancier sheet still qualifies as one, — is rich with gold and purple. If there's one thing to know about the ancients, that's how expensive purple dye is.
It must have cost more to dye her dress that color than to lace it with gold. It shows that she's a woman of power and that this tiny island is the center of a notable kingdom.
She wears it with dignity, and I would still rush in to greet her, but she is busy.
She is in the middle of an audience, early in the morning in the king's absence.
"My Lady, you must tell us where King Laertes is." Villager number one begs on his knees.
Even though she has the same power as her husband in most matters, they aren't treated the same.
The throne room is spacious and circular, with her large gypsum throne in the center.
The hole in the ceiling coats her face in golden light, but the rest of the room is dimmer.
Benches line the walls, rich with colorful frescoes. The ground has geometric patterns made of tiles, and there is a slight depression near the center. It must be some ritualistic prop.
"This is a grave insult to the people of Ithaca, we must pursue them at once." Villager number two is more upset than humble. The king they seek is by my side, but they don't see him yet.
With a few more of them standing around, there's still plenty of space in the hall. I only ever saw the ruins in photographs, the real thing is something else.
"The winds are unfavorable." The woman shakes her head, waving the men off. "Do you think my husband can turn those around too? You should have come to him when it wasn't too late."
"But Lady Anticlea, the king would at least do something." The second man keeps wailing as the lady in question finally notices us. She is a true queen even if the villagers don't realize it.
Her face is a hard mask, stern, serious, but still beautiful. That mask drops when she sees her husband and child for one second, to give place to her overwhelming smile.
And then she notices me. I can no longer read her expression, but she freezes long enough that the villagers follow her gaze too. They don't care about me or the others, only about Laertes.
"My Lord, at last! It's a disaster." They drop to their knees in front of him before he can reach his throne. They cut into each other's words to explain the situation, but my father looks cold.
He walks past them and stands by his beautiful wife, his hands resting on her shoulders.
It has a symbolic meaning that he won't take the throne for himself.
The men talk about insults, not realizing how much they insulted their queen.
We stay behind, so we don't interrupt their audience. And they sure complain a lot.
My dear little sister, Ktimene won't miss a beat to shoot a suspicious glance at me.
"You've been here one day. One single day. And three hundred sheep and all their shepherds are gone." She sifts it through her teeth, loud enough so I can hear, but not the rest of the room.
That's what the villagers come to cry about.
The timing is strange, but I didn't see sheep yesterday, nor a fleet that could sail off with three hundred of them.
But I get it, she'd love to blame it on me, and get an 'I told you so' moment.
Well, too bad, she's not going to get it. This is the perfect moment for me to step forward.
"Father, Mother, please, let me take care of this," I announce my presence and every eye turns towards me.
From jealousy to confusion, I can see all kinds of reactions.
But they don't know what I do.
There's a mention of this in Homer's notes for a second epic he never finished.
It delved into the aftermath of the Trojan Wars.
No, that's not accurate. He tried to expand the timeline in both directions before and after the Iliad.
He collected songs about every participant and could've written an even greater epic.
The project never got anywhere, but historians had a field day with his unearthed notes.
I found them too, thanks to the power of the internet, and they mentioned this specific incident.
"The perpetrators were the Messenians. I saw their ships on my way here and they acted suspicious." I'm talking out of my ass, and if anything, I raise my sister's suspicion even more.
But if those notes had anything to do with reality, that's what happened.
Athene sent me to the future to prepare for what is to come, so I should act upon this knowledge.
"I didn't know what they were up to at that time. If I did, I would have tried to stop them." The consequence of using Mycenaean Greek is that I already sound like some epic hero.
"Hearing these good men talk, everything is clear as a day now." This should explain how I put the pieces together without saying too much. I don't know what Athena told my parents.
Where do they think I spent my last twenty-odd years? I'll play it safe and keep it quiet until they bring it up. In the worst case, I'll bullshit something about training on the Olympos.
But back to the sheep, in the songs, Odysseus spent half a year searching for them.
I can skip most of that, and it'll be an impressive feat. I was about to go on a quest anyway.
"You told me to set sails to Parnassus and seek out Autolycus." I step even closer.
"On my way back, I'll free the shepherds and demand compensation from the Messenians."
Solving this incident was one of the few successes in the old Odysseus' life. It got him the prestige he needed to take over the kingdom from his father so he could abdicate the throne.
He announced his intention right before we entered.
If that loser from the songs could solve this, it would be a breeze for me.
And the little owl, Glauca chooses this moment to land on my shoulder.
I won't complain, this must seem like a strong omen for the villagers, even if they still don't know who I am.
"It will be quite a diversion," Laertes notes, and he's not wrong. Parnassus, where Autolycus lives is in Central Greece, and Messene is in Penelopesos. The latter is much closer to Ithaca.
"It's the least I can do to help our people." I bow toward my Mother before repeating it to my Father too. "It's about time I let everyone know I have returned."