Irus

His real name is Arnaeus, the chapter doesn’t bother. The suitors call him Irus because he runs their errands, a beggar by trade who knows the palace gates better than the servants do. He sees a competitor and decides to drive him off for the entertainment of the crowd. Money changes hands. Bets are made. Irus circles, flexes, talks trash, all meat and momentum, certain he outweighs the stranger. Odysseus doesn’t move. Irus comes at him. Odysseus sidesteps and throws one punch, a fist from another life, and Irus goes backward through the air and lands hard enough to crack something. Blood comes out of his mouth. The crowd howls and claps each other on the back like they’ve just watched theater. Odysseus stands above him, breathing normally. Something flickers across his face: not anger, not pride, but the shape of who he is when he stops pretending. Then he sits back down among them as if nothing has changed. Irus is the small drumbeat before the slaughter, the first time the disguise cracks far enough for the suitors to glimpse what they’re sitting in a room with. They don’t read it. They will.