Argos (15 page)

E
very few days I leave my master's farm and take the path north to see Aurora. I would like to go more often, but my days are full of hardship and work, and it is not easy for me to leave my home unguarded. But when she can, Aurora will slip away from her farm—for the herds there are small and easily managed by shepherds—and visit me. She arrives in the late afternoon, when the herd animals and the humanfolk nap, and we hunt for hares in the pine forest or lie in the sun.

Sometimes we chase each other through the olive orchards; she is very fast, long-legged and lean, while I am broad of chest and large footed, but I would sometimes catch her—or she allows me to. Other times we take the path down to the harbor and watch the ships as they are rowed into port. They come
from far-off places and the men speak languages we had never heard, but the seagulls would tell us where the ships came from: Chios, Thasos, Lesbos, Rhodes, and farther.

The summer passed, and the olive tree branches drooped low, heavy with their fruit. Still, every day the suitors arrived, sometimes in small numbers of ten or fifteen; other times, more than a hundred descended upon our house. When they came, my mistress would greet them, as is the custom here, and then climb the stairs leading to her bedchamber and remain there the rest of the night, weaving and sewing or singing to herself until they left.

How many pigs, sheep, and oxen my mistress was forced to slaughter for them! What barrels of heady wine they drank! My mistress took on new servants and cooks in order to feed them all, and her stores of gold, silver, and bronze were slowly depleted month after month to pay for her forced hospitality. A week ago, one of the new servants asked my mistress why she allowed the suitors to come every night.

“It is only a custom, my lady,” she said. “Surely a queen such as you can break a tradition, especially one as burdensome as this,” she reasoned.

My mistress stood to her full height and swept back her long
tresses. I thought she might strike the servant for her impertinence, but instead she merely smiled and said, “If a queen does not honor custom, how can she expect anyone else to?”

Then my mistress left the dining hall and climbed the stairs to her spinning room and began to sew. I noticed that for the next seven days the impertinent servant peeled onions from morning till dusk, and she did not ask another rude question of my mistress.

It is autumn now, and Apollo's chariot flies faster across the sky, so the days are shorter and I have even less time to spend with Aurora. I want to surprise her today with a visit, so I finish my herding early and race to her farm. I find Aurora napping under her favorite tree, and I rouse her, saying, “Come, golden one, let us chase hares while the sun is warm on our backs.”

But she is slow to move; instead, she rolls onto her side, pretending to be asleep, although I can see a smile on her muzzle.

“Were you up late chasing sheep, lazy girl?” I ask.

“No, loudest of all four-legged creatures. Sleep did not come, because I could not find a comfortable position.”

And then Aurora stands up, and I can see why she couldn't sleep. Her belly is swollen, ever so slightly, with puppies.

“You are to be a mother!” I exclaim.

“And you a sire.”

“When?” I ask. “How long before you give birth?”

“Another moon must pass, and then I will be ready.”

Just then, we both hear her master's whistle.

“I have to go now, Argos. A lamb must have wandered off.”

“Let me help you find it!”

“Don't be silly. If my master were to see a half-bear dog near his flock, he would round up the village men and arm them with spears, and my puppies would never know their father! Go back to your master's farm and return when you can. Night is best, when your black coat cannot be seen and the sheep are in their paddocks.”

Again we hear the whistle.

“Go quickly, Argos. He will kick me if I don't come right away.”

Saying this, Aurora barks once and begins to run toward her master, who whistles a third time from the other side of a small hill. She looks back once at me, but I know she is right. He cannot see me; I am Argos, the Boar Slayer, and men fear my quick jaws and sharp teeth. I turn around and begin to make my way back to my master's farm.

Along the way I skirt Mount Nerito and its foothills and cut through the thick forest that lines my master's fields. It is
there I see it: flying just above the tree line, an eagle careening through the sky with a viper in its talons. The snake's jaws are clamped around the eagle's neck, and neither will release its hold. It is an omen. I do not know its portent, but I know the gods are planning ill for me or someone I love. That is their way, for to be immortal simply affords more opportunity to convey misery on those who are not.

I reach my master's farm in time to bring the herds in and to watch from the barn as the suitors make their shameless arrival. As the evening comes in, the wind from the west brings thick clouds that cover the stars, and then Luna herself. The sheep in their paddocks grow anxious over the impending storm, so I bed down in there to keep them calm. Throughout the night Zeus hurls thunder and lightning down upon Ithaka and Poseidon shakes the seas. All night long I think of Aurora. I can only hope that she is dry and safe from Zeus's hammer; that her poor master has given her food to eat so that she does not have to catch a hare; and that the puppies inside her are growing strong, for this is no life for the weak.

A
urora is fat now with puppies. Almost daily I bring her extra food to eat, as she can no longer hunt well enough to supplement the meager rations her master gives her.

“Leave him!” I suggest a hundred times or more. “Come to my master's palace! Come live with me so we can raise our offspring together!”

Each time she replies, “I cannot leave my master, Argos. Though he is poor, it is our fate to remain loyal to one man, just as you maintain your loyalty for brave Odysseus.”

“But Odysseus is my master!” I cry.

“Boar Slayer, Odysseus has been gone for more than seventeen years. You are loyal to his memory. I am loyal to a man of
flesh and blood who needs me to guard his home and watch his herds.”

How those words sting, although she does not mean to wound me.

“My master lives!” I say, though to my own ears I did not sound confident.

“So say the birds, the sea turtles, the bats. And I believe them too, Argos, but my master is inside his house
now
, and I must guard his herds.”

“Three old oxen, two sheep, and a goat is not a herd! At my master's farm we have hundreds of oxen, sheep, goats, and swine to shepherd.”

“One day he too will own much livestock, Argos. I have heard my master talking about it to a man by the harbor. Then our offspring and I will have plenty to eat and dozens of lambs and kids to guard and lead to pasture. He has said so himself!”

And so my mate will not leave, and I, almost daily, make the trek to her master's farm, watching her belly swell and waiting for her time to come. When it does, it happens at night, under a bush, instead of in a warm barn, where even the lesser dogs on our land give birth.

And I am not there.

But today I race to see her. I find her nursing six puppies and
resting in the sun. Aurora's eyes are closed in maternal bliss and exhaustion, and she barely stirs when I lick her cheek. I had carried in my mouth a meaty lamb bone, and I lay it on the ground next to her, and then I stand guard, against what I do not know, but I am Argos, the Boar Slayer, loyal mate to Aurora, and sire of six blind, mewling puppies, five of them black as I am, and one tawny and full of mischief.

What else am I supposed to do?

Three years ago, on a black and storm-tossed night, my mistress promised the suitors that she would wed one of them once she finished weaving the funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes, who grows older and more infirm every day. I have not seen the shroud, but it must be wondrous, as my mistress is the cleverest woman on Ithaka. How she labors on it through the cold, dark nights! She is a queen, and yet I have more freedom; the entire estate belongs to me, as does Ithaka itself.

Tonight the suitors left early. A storm was coming and they did not wish to be caught in it, so they left just after they finished their honey and figs. Luna was covered in clouds, so they had to walk back to their own homes by torchlight. I can only hope they trip and stumble on their way. When the last
suitor has left, I enter the hall, and for a moment watch the servants clean the last of the plates. I must admit I hope for a few scraps, and some come my way. Then I climb the stairs that lead to the corridor that ends in my mistress Penelope's room. Across from her bedroom is the room where she sews. I want to see her. I had not licked her hand in several days, nor had she scratched my ears, and I miss her gentle touch.

There is one obstacle before me, though. Melantho, one of her servants, is a jealous older woman; she resents anyone who comes close to my mistress, two legged or four. How many times have I heard her scold a servant girl for simply entering the room where my mistress was sitting. As I am four legged and beloved by my mistress, I am doubly despised. But I have come upstairs for another reason beyond merely a chance to lick my mistress's hand before she retires for the night: when the suitors left to avoid the storm, one had remained. And I smell him upstairs.

Melantho is there too. She has a broom in her hand and tries to block my way, but since when did a stick with straw on one end deter me?

“Back, vile dog!” she cries. “Go back or I'll make you sleep with the pigs!” And then she spits on me.

Argos the Boar Slayer does not heed insults from servants. Or
anyone. Still, I wonder why I hear panic in her voice. Does she have something to hide? I lunge at her—never intending to bite, though—and she steps back. As I lunge again, a coin falls from her hand, and she steps on it frantically. Then, just as I press against her leg to make her move her foot, Zeus sends a thunderbolt crashing down near the barn. The storm has come.

A sudden breeze blows through the corridor and extinguishes the two candles lighting the hall, and we are plunged into darkness. I hear my mistress cry out from the sewing room, but is it the sound of the thunder that frightened her, or something else? The breeze also brings the scent of the suitor. I leave Melantho and run down the corridor, but I do not growl. Black death should come silently.

I reach the end of the corridor and stop. My mistress is to my right, in the sewing room. To my left, in mistress Penelope's bedroom, I smell the intruder, but the wooden door is closed. I rear onto my hind legs and press against it, but it will not open. Then I bark to warn my mistress. Behind me, Melantho screams, “The black demon has gone mad! Out, Argos! Leave this house!”

A moment later, my mistress Penelope appears from the sewing room. A small candle in that room adds a gloomy light to the hall.

“Argos, what is it? What do you smell? Who is in my room?” she asks.

Again, I lunge at the door. Again, a bolt of lightning crashes.

My mistress reaches for the latch and begins to lift it. Then two things happen. Melantho reaches us and, taking the latch in her
own
hand, swings open the door. I jump up against my mistress—forgive me, master—and push her down. I hear a bowstring hum, and an arrow hits the wall just over my mistress Penelope's shoulder. Then I turn and leap into the room just as the intruder himself jumps out the window. I hear him cry out in pain from the fall, and then I run out of the room, dodging Melantho and my mistress, and bound down the stairs.

The intruder, if he can run at all, will be heading for the harbor, where he can find places to hide. But he has not gone far. I find him beneath the window from which he had leaped. He cannot run. His leg is broken. I stand over him in the darkness, barking, until my master's guards reach us, followed by my mistress Penelope. Then Telemachos, roused by the commotion, joins us. I stand by him. Lightning strikes again, opening the sky for rain. In the flash, though, I recognize the assailant: Lestorides, an oafish, bald man with a scraggly beard who is quick to use coins to get his way, since he has no charm of his own.

The guards begin to question him. “Why did you attack our mistress?” they demand.

He laughs as only a doomed man can. “Why not ask the queen?” he says. “She knows the truth. And now we do too, for Melantho told us how you weave the shroud for King Laertes every night, and unravel it during the day.”

Then he raises his fist toward my queen. “For three years she has done this while we wait like fools for her to finish. Well, I could wait no longer. I wanted to see the shroud myself and bring proof to my comrades that the queen is a liar!”

“Take him from my sight!” my mistress demands.

“But how did he reach your room, my queen?” asks one of the guards.

Then I remembered the coin that fell from Melantho's grasp, and it comes together. Lestorides bribed her to let him into my mistress's room!

Where is Melantho now?

I bark twice and then tug on Telemachos's arm.

“Queen Mother, Argos wants something!” he says.

“The Boar Slayer saved my life tonight. Go with him, Telemachos. You, too,” she says to one of the guards.

I lead Telemachos and the guard back around to the front of the house. From there I begin the chase. I find Melantho easily
enough. She is running wildly, purposelessly, with thoughts only of escape. From there, it is just a matter of steering her where I want her to go. I cut her off in one direction, forcing her to run in another. Back and forth I drive her, letting her think she has escaped me before I reappear beside her. Finally she has no choice. To avoid my teeth, she climbs the fence and enters the pigsty.

“Sows!” I call. “She is here to steal your piglets!”

Thus did Melantho, who betrayed my queen, sleep with the pigs.