Once the door had been closed, Odysseus took me by the hand and sat me down on the bed. ‘Forget everything you’ve been told,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, or not very much. But it would help us both if you could pretend. I’ve been told you’re a clever girl. Do you think you could manage a few screams? That will satisfy them they’re listening at the door and then they’ll leave us in peace and we can take our time to become friends.’

This was one of his great secrets as a persuader - he could convince another person that the two of them together faced a common obstacle, and that they needed to join forces in order to overcome it. He could draw almost any listener into a collaboration, a little conspiracy of his own making. Nobody could do this better than he: for once, the stories don’t lie. And he had a wonderful voice as well, deep and sonorous. So of course I did as he asked.

Somewhat later I found that Odysseus was not one of those men who, after the act, simply roll over and begin to snore. Not that I am aware of this common male habit through my own experience; but as I’ve said, I listened a lot to the maids. No, Odysseus wanted to talk, and as he was an excellent raconteur I was happy to listen. I think this is what he valued most in me: my ability to appreciate his stories. It’s an underrated talent in women.

I’d had occasion to notice the long scar on his thigh, and so he proceeded to tell me the story of how he got it. As I’ve already mentioned, his grandfather was Autolycus, who claimed the god Hermes was his father. That may have been a way of saying that he was a crafty old thief, cheat, and liar, and that luck had favoured him in these kinds of activities.

Autolycus was the father of Odysseus’s mother, Anticleia, who’d married King Laertes of Ithaca and was therefore now my mother-in-law. There was a slanderous item going around about Anticleia—that she’d been seduced by Sisyphus, who was the true father of Odysseus but I found it difficult to believe, as who would want to seduce Anticleia? It would be like seducing a prow. But let the tale stand, for the moment.