The Poison In The Blood by Tom Holland Page A

am here.” Odysseus reached behind his back and drew out Philoctetes’s bow and his quiver of arrows. He studied them, then looked again at Philoctetes. “We need you to join us,” he said at last. “We need you to fire the great bow of Heracles in battle. We need you to kill Prince Paris. For you see, until you do that, the walls of Troy can never be brought down.”
    Philoctetes laughed, a bitter, hollow laugh. “You really expect me to help you? You and all the other Greeks who left me here for a decade? You must be mad!”
    “Mad?” Now it was Odysseus’s turn to laugh. “Yes. As mad as when you came to fetch me from Ithaca. Which is to say, not at all.”
    “Then how can you possibly think that I would come and fight for you?”
    Odysseus shrugged. “Because I know something you do not.”
    “Which is?”
    Odysseus rose and took a step forward. He stared down at Philoctetes’s rotting heel and pulled a face. “Time hasn’t healed your wound, I see.”
    Philoctetes did not answer.
    “Is it utter agony?” asked Odysseus.
    “stop playing games with me.”
    “Oh, I am not playing games. You see,” Odysseus paused, “I know how it can be cured.”
    “Liar.” But Philoctetes still felt a sudden surge of hope. “This is another of your tricks.”
    “I can see why you would think so. But I promise you, it is not. And here is the proof. Sail with me now. Leave this island for ever. Come with me to Troy. You will not have to lift your bow in anger until you are healed. We cannot make you fight. Only once you are cured will we ask you to go to battle. Only once you are cured will we ask you to shoot Prince Paris. Only once you are cured will we ask you to slay him with the venom of the hydra’s blood.”
    Philoctetes remained silent. He lay still where he was and listened to the waves. He looked up at the mountains of the island. Then he turned and gazed eastwards at the horizon, to where Troy lay, beyond the line of the sea and sky.
    When Odysseus walked up to him and cut the rope that tied his hands, he rose to his feet. He took his bow and arrows back from his enemy’s, and then he hobbled after Odysseus and took his place in the boat.
    Yonani stopped.
    Is that it?” gasped Paris. “Is that the end of your story?”
    There is nothing more to say.”
    “So it is the hydra’s poison in my blood?”
    “It is.”
    “It was Philoctetes who shot me?”
    “It was.”
    “After he had been cured?”
    “Yes,” answered Yonani. “so it seems.”
    Paris struggled to sit up. “But who could have done it? Who had the power to heal his wound?”
    Yonani smiled. Her lips tightened. “Can you not guess?”
    Paris did guess. It took him a moment, even with Yonani smiling down at him, but he did finally guess. “You,” he whispered. “It was you. Then . . .” He shuddered. He moaned. “I am doomed. There is no hope.”
    “No hope at all. Not for you. Nor for me. No hope.”
    “Please.”
    “No.”
    “I beg you.”
    “Beg as much as you like. My answer will stay the same. I am the one who killed you, Paris. As surely as if it were my own hand that fired the arrow from Heracles’s bow.”
    “Why?”
    “Why? Because you killed me first, Paris.”
    He stared at her for a moment longer, then he screamed at his servants: “Get me away from here! Get me away! Get me away!” The servants picked up the stretcher, but even as they lifted it, Paris began to shake. The fever was more terrible than before. He shrieked in his agony. His words bubbled on flecks of spit. “Get me away!”
    Yonani watched them go. When they had vanished into the trees, she listened to the crashing they made. When that had faded into silence, she rejoiced. She clenched her fists, then raised them in joy. She laughed in triumph, then she listened again to the silence. It closed around her. She imagined it would swallow her up. Then she howled, an animal howl of pain.
    “It is not too late,” she told herself. “It is not too