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katerinaaqu · 3 months ago

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Ruthless Justice

This fic is dedicated to my dear friend @artsofmetamoor as a gift! She had also expressed an interest to the events of the murder of the suitors but I decided to take it into a more tragic level; the excecution of the 12 maids and I added some random emotional scene afterwards! You are warned this fic includes dark themes!

The cries that filled the room were deafening. The young ears of Telemachus could not bear them. The slave women were forced to clean up the room from the corpses of the blasted suitors that nearly killed him and took the kingdom of his father. It was the first time Telemachus had killed. He still couldn’t believe it how easy it had been! It was almost easier than hunting wild goats and deer in the mountains of Ithaca! Some part of him had felt a wild pleasure, almost hedonic gladness, when he had stabbed that first body and continued. This hedonism increased by the happiness he felt that he was helping his father, that he was useful. He felt pleasure for this justice that was finally prevailing in the halls of his house; finally the constant harassment and insults his mother and himself had gone through was punished and he had finally found his father. He had witnessed his brain and his ferocity, his dexterity and cunning first hand! So far he had only heard of it from others that had met him and yet now he had actually seen it before him; his father who was no longer at the prime of youth he had managed to clean the hall of 108 men 10 or even 20 years younger than what he was. Some part of Telemachus wondered; how was his father in his prime? How much more ferocity in battle he possessed? How much more wits and wiles could he loom in short amounts of time?

However now that the first thrill of battle had gone, now they had finished cleaning the chairs of the hall with sponges and water, Telemachus was shocked at their own strength and results. He looked around at the hall that was basically full of wrapped bodies; the bodies that used to belong to vigorous, young nobles and his father now stood at the hall, hard as the stones that built that very palace. Odysseus was not a tall man (that much was a surprise to Telemachus, for from the conversations he had heard about his father’s strength and name he had expected him to be as tall as he was, perhaps taller), he barely stood at average height, maybe a little less, but his physique showed the power that his hardships built upon him. His raven hair, which had already started turning silver from time and hardships, was curly like his own and long till his shoulders; those strong shoulders burnt by sea and sun. A thick bushy beard was hiding a strong jaw line and mouth shut tightly closed. However Telemachus particularly noticed his stone look as the onyx eyes of his seemed soulless like glass even if they burnt with hatred and anger. Right now he could see before him a man who lived up to his name; “The Anger Bringer”. Odysseus was indeed enraged; that much Telemachus could tell. The almost full day of slaughter seemed to have created a curst thick like salt upon his face, just as thick was the blood that had splattered it, the blood he didn’t have much time to clean. And yet, despite all that, he seemed to stand naturally within that chaos; like only a war veteran would stand naturally amongst corpses and cries. He remained there as the lamenting women were literally dragged and pushed at his feet as he stood at the podium of the throne. He seemed like a judge; a ruthless judge ready to pass judgment. Telemachus had seen him angry, hopeful, crying, tender and then ruthless in his killing but now he was truly disturbed at the shadow that had passed over his face. He saw then the one that had come from war; the Sacker of Cities… Odysseus looked down at the maidens crying and struggling, as if they were insects.

“I took you to my home…” he said, his voice cold as ice and sharp as a knife, “I gave you a bed, fed you, dressed you…made sure you would want of nothing while you were under my roof… I respected your wishes…never mistreated you and this is how you repay me? By mingling with my enemies…the very men that wished to violently claim my wife and kill my son?”

Every word was a hammer upon a nail. Telemachus felt a shiver down his spine. He wouldn’t want to be to the other end of that look that was for sure! The women seemed pale like bed sheets; like the sheets that were covering the bodies they had gathered with their own very hands. He saw the other two helpers of theirs; the two herders Eumaeus and Philoetius, standing over the crying maidens, watching at their master with pride. Telemachus had never seen so much wild triumph to the old face of Eumaeus’s before. Never.

“Eumaeus….” Odysseus addressed him, “What is the punishment for treason?”

“Death, my lord” his voice didn’t even hesitate

“Quite so…” Odysseus nodded.

He glared at the slave girls like a hawk.

“Normally I should drag you all out and stone you to death!”

Odysseus didn’t have to yell. All he needed was to speak in that low voice that boiled with anger, like the bubbling water in a cauldron. And yet that was more than enough to emphasize his anger.

“However we have caused enough ruin already! And I shall not even spare one single sacred stone of this palace for you!”

One could wonder whether he was about to say he would sell them away or something of similar manner, which would already be cruel enough. However the king of Ithaca said;

“Philoetius! Bring me a long piece of rope! Eumaeus, help me bring these treacherous women out! They shall be hanged!”

The word sounded as terrible as I was clear and the women broke to a woe Telemachus had never heard before (and, by gods, had he heard enough woe in his house ever since he was a baby!). The screeches and the cries they released along with their already blood-painted hands trying to claw themselves out of the swine herder’s strong grip, nearly made him throw up.

“Father!” he protested, “you can’t be serious! They are just helpless women!”

His father’s onyx eyes stuck within his own and Telemachus felt that same shiver down his spine. There was fire in those obsidian eyes! The same fire of earth that had forged the volcanic glass that gave his eyes their color seemed to be now burning deep inside those black orbs; it was though a cold fire that burnt like the ice burns the skin!

“Is the betrayal of a woman less serious than the betrayal of a man?” his voice was sharp as a broken sword; sharpness you wouldn’t know where it would cut you the worst; the actual blade or the broken tip

“N-No…” Telemachus stammered, “B-But…”

His voice was being drowned by the shrieks of the women. He couldn’t stand it.

“Does the dagger being wielded by a woman draw less blood when it stabs you in the back than the one wielded by a man?”

“Father please!”

“Stay back, Telemachus!” his father commanded, pushing him out of his way, “You are not to see this!”

Telemachus felt his heart clench but he held his ground.

“No, father, I shall help you” he said determined, “If I am to become king of this land, I must help justice prevail!”

His father eyed him once more but Telemachus stood his ground. He was Odysseades Telemachus. He had to live up to his father’s legacy. Odysseus eyed him in wonder for one second but he did not protest his request any further. Part of Telemachus had wished he had. However he knew he had to be strong and stand by his father’s side. The cries of the female voices still haunted his ears as they went out to the trees of the garden. Odysseus pointed towards the direction of one of the trees. Telemachus gulped. He knew that tree. He had played so many times around it when he was a kid! He had named it “Troy” at some point, running around with his horse (in other words a stick he fantasized to be his horse when he was five) and he would yell at the people of Troy to open their gates for him, like he had imagined his father would be doing, on occasions scaring the birds that sat on the branches. As he grew older he would climb and sit on them, joining those birds, and looking over to the horizon as if waiting for a ship to appear, as if waiting to see the sails of the 12 ships of Ithaca arriving.

How weird indeed that Odysseus chose that particular tree for the execution hall to be built behind it! Telemachus never made that connection so strongly before!

As the men dragged the women out to their final spot; behind that said tree lay the dome of court where a small, confided space, where the women tied up with one single piece of rope from the throats like cattle being led for slaughter were crying and moaning. Telemachus felt his stomach turn. Oh, Athena, he prayed silently, please give me strength to do what I must! He felt then a gentle touch upon his shoulder; like the sun warming him with his rays. His racing heart slowed a bit in beat and he breathed in deeply. Yes, he could feel Athena’s reminder of his own strength. Yes, he had to do it. He was his father’s son. No one dared to speak at that moment. Apart from the endless woe of the women that were about to be executed, it almost felt like a macabre ritual that was about to happen. The women were forced to their final resting place; the narrow hall that was closed up by the neatherd and the swineherd. Telemachus held onto the end with both hands and sighed again, feeling weirdly calm. It was as if all his essence had gone numb. He was self-conscious that his father was looking at him. He almost felt him regretful as if he tried to release him from his task but Telemachus made a mechanical move with his head to stop him. I am Odysseiades Telemachus, he thought, this is my duty! Instinctually he looked towards the sky.

“May this be no clean death…” he heard himself whispering, breaking the silence and the cries of the women, “…that I take the lives of these women…for they were wishing for my head…both mine and my mother’s…when they betrayed us and lay with the suitors…”

His father made half a step forward. Telemachus had made his resolve

He threw the rope over the dome and pulled with all his might.

The cries stopped to give their place to chocking sounds.

Telemachus didn’t cry. He only sighed and closed his eyes.

Soon the haunting sounds stopped.

There was only the creaking of the swinging rope…

~ ~ ~

Telemachus chocked and coughed as he threw up the little contents of his stomach behind a bush. How strange, he thought, he didn’t feel the need to do that when he killed all those men he hated by his father’s side and yet he reacted upon an execution he performed with his own hands. It was, maybe, because he always learnt to respect women and protect them. Quite frankly he never raised a hand against a woman before in his life. And now he had, with one fateful move he had removed the lives of 12 women he considered helpless. And yet that moment of clarity it was as if Athena was speaking through him; these women are not innocent, he thought she said to him, they betrayed you and your father, they betrayed your mother’s secrets and led to more torment to her. They conspired to kill you.

“Then why…?” Telemachus thought, “Why was this so difficult?”

He felt two warm, calloused hands on his shoulders and looked up. He faced the tired look of his father’s; his face full of the blood of the victims they had killed. In one moment Telemachus felt self-conscious and realized he could possibly look similar to this. He turned his look away in shame. What would his father think? What would he say for his weakness? Instead, though, he heard him whisper:

“I am so proud of you, my son…” the voice echoed somewhere in his soul, “I understand that was not an easy decision to make…”

“F-Forgive me…f-father…” Telemachus stammered trying to stop the sobs that were chocking him, “I…I wasn’t strong enough…”

“You’re wrong, Telemachus” his voice was whispery and yet adamant, “You are strong, much stronger than any man I have seen so far. I understand the task that I placed upon you was not a pretty one or a pleasant one. And yet you fulfilled it with the bravery that many men didn’t show in thousands of wars. I am proud of you…”

Telemachus realized what had bothered him so much; his father indeed didn’t seem to separate women from men before the ruthless justice he threw upon them. Telemachus was taught to protect and respect women. However when Odysseus arrived at the hall and ordered the demise of 12 women with hardly even blinking disturbed him. How much had he changed? This was not the father that his mother was describing…nay, he wasn’t the father he had met in the hut of the swine herder that embraced him and kissed him like he were his own soul. He saw some of that father he met right now, to the father trying to console him but before? A few minutes prior he saw an executioner; not the father he knew and loved.

“But how much do I know him, really…?” Telemachus realized, “I first saw his face a few days ago… What kind of man is he? Really?”

Odysseus patted his son on his shoulders and helped him straighten himself. They walked past the tree where the women still hanged like doves from a hunter’s stick. Telemachus couldn’t look up at the blackened and bloated faces of death. Not Odysseus. Odysseus looked up steadily and steadfast. There hardly was a reaction on his face apart from a wrinkle playing between his eyes. He seemed tired, sure, he wasn’t feeling pleasure he wasn’t smiling and yet Telemachus wondered; does this man have nerves of steel or a heart of stone to look up so calmly? How much horror had he seen so that this gruesome sight wouldn’t make him avert his eyes?

“How…?” he whispered, “How can you take this…?”

His father was silent for one second until he finally decided to talk.

“One can get awfully accustomed to the face of death…when they have seen so plenty of it…”

His voice was almost dead; as if he was just stating a simple fact such as that the sun rises from the east rather than talking about the lives of people. That rubbed Telemachus in the wrong places even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“Sometimes…” Odysseus continued, “I feel like my heart has turned into stone… Sometimes I feel like it has no more space apart from you Telemachus…”

It took him a few seconds to realize what his father had just said. Perhaps not even Odysseus himself had realized it!

“What about mother, father? What about her?”

There was silence for one second. However that silence seemed to Telemachus more cruel than any other eternity in Hades’s kingdom!

“Father!” he urged

“Of course, your mother too…” Odysseus finally whispered, “I love her more than life itself! I did everything I could so I can come back to her…to you…”

“You doubted her!” Telemachus whispered in cruel realization, “Oh, gods! I don’t believe it! You doubted her! Even after everything she went through for you!”

“No!” Odysseus immediately retorted, “No, I didn’t doubt her! Not really…it is just…”

“Just what? I don’t believe you! After all these years she waited!”

“I know this” Odysseus retorted almost calmly, “Or rather I absolutely know now. However I needed to make sure…beyond any shade of doubt. This is why Athena encouraged me to hide who I was from your mother, even if it tore me apart inside…”

“But…why…?” Telemachus was almost in tears and he was struggling really hard to keep them under control. “Why would you even doubt her so?”

They had spent years on their own and for as long as he could remember his mother was always waiting, crying and expecting a miracle. He didn’t remember one day to see his mother genuinely happy. She was smiling or complimenting his accomplishments but he had never seen her truly happy; all their life was darkened by the shadow of his father’s absence; of the lack of information whether he lived or not and now his father said that he had doubt, no matter how small it was?! Odysseus sighed deeply and looked at his son. His eyes were almost pleading even if his voice was steady.

“Son…” he said gravely, “I spent years out there…years of ordeals and pain and…many of them changed me… I cannot say much…not now…however there was someone…a woman…”

He gulped. He almost seemed ready to cry himself.

“She…she did unspeakable things to me…for years I endured hoping to come back to you and your mother… She…she kept on planting doubts in my head for years… I didn’t believe her…I didn’t want to believe her! And yet…yet all those years… Telemachus I couldn’t do otherwise! My brain was rejecting what my heart knew… And so I had to make these two come together… I had to…! Please! Perhaps one day I will be able to explain to you…and then you will understand…”

His father began walking away but Telemachus, in the heat of adrenaline and battle didn’t seem ready to let go. Not yet.

“Does this have to do with some goddess Calypso?”

His father froze and then he saw him turn around and saw another emotion he never saw before; fear. There was pure terror on his face. All color had left it; his eyes as wide as plates.

“Where did you hear that name!?” his father croaked out, “Telemachus! Where?!”

“Father…” Telemachus was more concerned and surprised than pitiful at that moment, “Look at you! You’re pale! You didn’t turn pallid when you ordered the execution of these women and yet you lost all color at the name of that woman!”

“Telemachus!” Odysseus called out desperately

“Tell me what happened father! What does this woman have to do with this?”

“I can’t!”

“Please tell me! What did that woman do to you to make you doubt your own wife?!”

“I can’t! I CAN’T!” Odysseus’s voice rose in a constant crescendo, he held his head with both hands as if suddenly his head was splitting in two

“Father, please!” Telemachus urged, “Who is that woman? Who is Calypso?”

“Telemachus!” Odysseus grabbed the shoulders of his son

Telemachus nearly whelped feeling the unbelievable strength of those hands, squeezing him in almost bruising grasp but he didn’t make a sound. He stood his ground. He was his father’s son.

“Where did you hear that name?!”

“Y-Your friend told me about it…” Telemachus finally replied, “I traveled, father. I myself tried to find the answers that I was seeking…and in my travels I visited Pylos…and Sparta…there I met your old friend… He said he had a dream in which you were trapped at the island with some goddess Calypso, but he didn’t know more… You remember him, don’t you? Menelaus the king of Sparta…”

“M-Menelaus…”

He took some breaths and he seemed to find his composure. He slowly released his son. Telemachus noticed that indeed some color had returned to his face. How much had that woman done to him to make his father react that way?! How many horrors had this man experienced to the hands of that goddess so that he would turn pale in terror even if he was completely unhinged by more than 100 vigorous men?

“Yes…of course I remember… Menelaus…he was one of my closest friends…in Troy.” That little recollection somehow calmed him down, “I…I haven’t heard of him for years… Th-Thank gods that he is fine…”

“He is in good health from what I could see…” Telemachus couldn’t lie, he didn’t know much on Menelaus but he knew that ‘fine’ was not exactly the word that described him, “He misses you a lot, you know… He didn’t speak with so warm words for anybody else…”

A sad smile spread to Odysseus’s lips.

“I remember… Menelaus was a really dear friend to me…”

He passed his hand over his face to mop some of his sweat.

“Forgive me, Telemachus…I really didn’t want this feeling to be inside me in the first place but…please understand me…that’s all I ask. That and some time… I will explain everything when I can…”

Telemachus breathed in, defeated.

“I will not pressure you, father…” he finally said, “I understand it is hard. Forgive me for insisting… It is just…”

His father’s arms wrapped around him. That moment he stopped being the heartless judge. He was the caring father again..he was the one Telemachus first met; the caring, protective father…

“Please don’t apologize…” he murmured to his son’s ear, “You have every right to be angry…you have so many questions… I promise you, my son, I will do my best to answer them all…just not yet…I can’t…not yet…”

He pulled back and looked at his son’s eyes.

“Okay?”

Telemachus smiled sadly. Suddenly his own accumulated frustration from the events of the day was evaporated. He needed this breakdown and somehow he knew his father needed it too.

“Okay” he nodded in agreement.

Odysseus patted his shoulders.

“Good.” He said, “Let’s go in now and we must order to get ourselves cleaned now. We must, sooner or later, cleanse ourselves from this murder for we both look like we went mad!”

Telemachus scoffed a bit. He began following his father; never daring to look back towards that grim execution place.

“She didn’t ask, you know…” he suddenly said

Odysseus stopped and turned around.

“What?”

“Mother. When I told her about king Menelaus’s vision, she didn’t ask. She didn’t make any inquiries. She didn’t doubt your integrity not even for one second…”

He saw his father’s chest palpitating almost suddenly. His face almost twisted with another unspoken sob. He turned around, showing Telemachus his back.

“Thank you…” he murmured

Telemachus managed to see one tear running down his father’s bloodstained cheek. There was so much behind that silent cry! Telemachus knew his father was keeping many things inside; perhaps he even blamed himself for everything. He didn’t know. He only hoped that with that last comment, he managed to give him some peace of mind. Apparently either he was right or Odysseus was a very good actor indeed, for he was back to his previous steadfast and calm self. He was once more the king.

The King of Ithaca

The Anger Bringer.

***

Not much to say here. Homer said most of it before me.

I found it disturbing and interesting how it was Telemachus the one to pull the rope of the execution so I thought to add a bit ore angst to this and show this aftermath whirlpool of emotions that could be going on inside hm.

And of course Odysseus and the years of torment, especially Ogygia.

Also in the Odyssey Rhapsody 17 Telemachus does mention to his mother how Menelaus saw Odysseus imprisoned by Calypso but Penelope didn't react to it much. She either believed not much of it in her sorrow or at the same time she felt no need to react at the name of another woman because she trusted her husband.

Hope you like it.

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