Authors: Colleen McCullough
If Nestor, Palamedes and I could not sway him, what chance did a young pup like Achilles have? Agamemnon stood with lips compressed, a red spot burning in each cheek. ‘I appreciate your concern, Achilles,’ he said stiffly. ‘However, I suggest you leave such worries to me.’
Unrepentant, Achilles handed the Staff to Kalchas and sat down. As he did so he said, apparently to no one in particular, ‘Well, my father always says it is a silly man doesn’t care for his soldiers himself, so I think I’ll carry additional supplies for my Myrmidons in my own ships. And hire a few merchantmen to carry more.’
A message which sank in; I saw quite a few of the others deciding to do the same.
So too did Agamemnon see it. I watched his brooding dark eyes rest on the young man’s vivid, eager face, and sighed. Agamemnon was jealous. What had been going on at Aulis in my absence? Was Achilles gathering adherents at Agamemnon’s expense?
The following morning we assembled and drove out to inspect the army. Awe-inspiring. It took most of the day to tour the beach from end to end; my knees shook from standing in my car’s wicker stirrups bearing the weight of full armour. Two rows of ships towered above us, tall vessels with red sides striped in black seams of pitch, their beaked prows daubed in blue and pink, the big eyes on their bows staring at us expressionlessly.
The army stood in the shadows they cast across the sand, each man fully armoured, shield and spear at the ready; interminable ranks of men, all loyal to a cause they knew nothing about, save that there were spoils in the offing. No one cheered, no one rushed forward to get a better look at their Kings.
At the very end of the line stood the ships of Achilles and the men we had heard so much about, yet never seen: the Myrmidons. I was experienced enough not to expect them to look any different, but they did look different. Tall and fair, their eyes gleamed uniformly blue or green or grey beneath their good bronze helms, and they were fully clad in bronze rather than in the customary leather gear of common soldiers. Each man held a bundle of ten spears instead of the usual two or three; they carried heavy, man-high shields not that much inferior to my own veteran, and their arms were swords and daggers, not arrows or slingshots. Yes, these were front-line troops, the best we had.
As for Achilles himself, Peleus must have spent a fortune equipping his only son for war. His chariot was gilded, his horses by far the best team on parade – three white stallions of the Thessalian breed, their harness glittering with gold and jewels. Wherever the armour he wore had come from, I knew of only one suit better, and that reposed in my own strongbox. Like Agamemnon’s dress suit it was gold-plated, but backed by a weight of bronze and tin that probably only he or Ajax could have carried. It was wrought all over with sacred symbols and designs, and embellished with amber and crystal. He bore one spear only, a dull and ugly thing. His cousin Patrokles drove him. Oh, cunning! When something ahead caused the parade of the Kings to halt for a moment, the horses of Achilles began to talk.
‘Greetings, Myrmidons!’ cried the near one, tossing his head until his long white mane floated.
‘We will carry him bravely, Myrmidons!’ issued from the lips of the middle horse, the steady one.
‘Never fear for Achilles while we draw his car!’ said the off one, his voice more neighing than the others’.
The Myrmidons stood grinning, dipping their clusters of spears in salute, while Idomeneus in the chariot ahead of Achilles stood with jaw dropped, shivering.
But I had seen the trick, following close behind that golden car. Patrokles was talking for them, keeping his lip movements to a minimum. Clever!
The weather continued sunny, the breeze a light zephyr; all the omens spoke of an uneventful sailing and a clear passage. But on the night before the launching I could not sleep, had to get up to pace long and restlessly beneath the stars. I was contemplating the profile of a nearby ship when someone came through the dunes.
‘You cannot sleep either.’
No need to peer to see who it was. Only Diomedes would seek out Odysseus in preference to any other. A good friend, my war-scarred comrade, the most battle hardened of all the great company going to Troy. He had fought in every campaign of any size from Crete to Thrake, and he had been one of the second Seven Against Thebes, who took that city and razed it when their fathers could not. He possessed a ruthless passion I lacked, for though I owned the ruthlessness, I did not have the passion; my spirit was forever tempered by the ice inside my mind. As on other occasions, I felt a stab of envy, for Diomedes was a man who had sworn to build a shrine out of the skulls of his enemies and actually kept the vow. His father had been Tydeus, a very famous Argive king, but the son was the better man by far. Diomedes would not fail at Troy. He had come from Argos to Mykenai with all the fiery eagerness his heart could marshal, for he had loved Helen to distraction, and like poor Menelaos he refused to believe she had run away of her own accord. He held me in high esteem, an emotion I sometimes felt was close to hero worship. Hero worship?
Me?
Strange.
‘It will rain tomorrow,’ he said, lifting his long throat and looking into the depths of the sky.
‘There are no clouds,’ I objected.
He shrugged. ‘My bones ache, Odysseus. I remember that my father always said that a man broken on the rack of battle many times, his frame cracked or shattered by spears and arrows, aches with the coming of rain and cold. Tonight the pain is so great that I cannot sleep.’
I had heard of this phenomenon before, and shuddered. ‘For all our sakes, Diomedes, I hope that just this once your bones are wrong. But why seek me out?’
He grinned. ‘I knew the Ithakan Fox would not sleep until he felt the waves beneath his ship. I wanted to speak to you.’
Throwing my arm across his broad shoulders, I turned him in the direction of my tent. ‘Then let us talk. I have wine, and a good fire in the tripod.’
We settled down on couches with the tripod holding the fire between us, full goblets at our hands. The tent was dim and warm, the seats plumped with pillows, the wine unwatered in the hope it would induce sleep. No one was likely to disturb us, but to make sure, I drew the curtain across the tent flap.
‘Odysseus, you’re the greatest man in this expedition,’ he said earnestly.
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘No, no! Agamemnon is that! Or, failing him, Achilles.’
‘Agamemnon?
That stiff-rumped, pigheaded autocrat? No, never him! He may get the credit, but that’s because he’s the High King, not because he’s the greatest man. Achilles is only a lad. Oh, I grant you there is potential for greatness there! He has a mind. He may prove formidable in the future. But at this moment he’s untried. Who knows? He might turn tail and run at sight of blood.’
I smiled. ‘No, not Achilles.’
‘All right, I concede that. But he can never be the greatest man in our army, because you are, Odysseus. You are! It will be your work and none other’s that delivers Troy into our hands.’
‘Rubbish, Diomedes,’ I said gently. ‘What can intelligence do in ten days?’
‘Ten days?’ He sneered. ‘By the Mother, more like ten years! This is a real war, not a hunt.’ He put his empty cup on the floor. ‘But I didn’t come to talk about wars. I came to ask for your help.’
‘My
help? You’re the skilled warrior, Diomedes, not I!’
‘No, no, it has nothing to do with battlefields! I know my way around them blindfolded. It’s in other things I need your help, Odysseus. I want to watch you work. I want to learn how you hold your temper.’ He leaned forward. ‘You see, I need someone to watch over this accursed temper of mine, teach me to keep my daimon inside instead of letting it loose to my cost. I thought that if I saw enough of you, some of your coolness might rub off on me.’
His simplicity touched me. ‘Then call my quarters yours, Diomedes. Draw up your ships next to mine, deploy your troops next to mine in battle, come with me on all my missions. Every man needs one good friend to bear with him. It is the only panacea for loneliness and homesickness.’
He extended his hand across the bright flames, not seeming to notice how they licked about his wrist. I wound my fingers around his forearm; thus we sealed our pact of friendship, shared our loneliness, and made it less lonely.
Somewhere in the middle marches of the night we must have slept, for I woke in the dawn light to the howl of a rising wind, singing in the shrouds of all those ships, crying loud and vicious about their prows. On the other side of the blackened, guttered fire Diomedes was stirring, breaking off the supple beauty of his arousal with a grunt of pain.
‘My bones are worse this morning,’ he said, sitting up.
‘With good reason. There’s a gale outside.’
He got cautiously to his feet and went to the curtained flap of the tent, peered outside and returned to his couch.
‘It’s the father of all storms come down out of the north. The wind’s still in that quarter, and I can feel the breath of snow. No launching today. We’d all get blown to Egypt.’
A slave came wheeling a tripod with a fresh fire upon it, made up the couches and brought us hot water to wash in. There was no need to hurry; Agamemnon would be so put out he would call no council before noon. My woman fetched steaming honey cakes and barley bread, a sheep’s cheese and mulled wine to finish the repast. It was a good meal, the more so because it was shared; we lingered warming our hands over the fire until Diomedes went back to his tent to change for the council. I donned a leather kilt and blouse, laced on high boots and flung a fur-lined cloak about my shoulders.
Agamemnon’s face was as dark and stormtossed as the sky; fury and chagrin warred in his rigid features, all his plans collapsed around his golden feet. He had a sneaking feeling he would yet look ridiculous, his grand venture disbanded before it so much as got started.
‘I’ve summoned Kalchas to an augury!’ he snapped.
Sighing, we made our ways out into the unwelcome teeth of the gale, pulling our mantles close. The victim lay with all four legs strapped upon the marble altar beneath the plane tree. And Kalchas dressed in purple!
Purple?
What had been happening in Aulis before I arrived? Agamemnon must think the world of him, to permit him to wear purple.
The coincidence was just too much to swallow, I thought as I waited for the ceremony to begin; two moons of perfect weather, then on the very day the expedition was to have sailed, all the elements combined against it. Most of the Kings had elected to return to their quarters rather than suffer the freezing wind and sleet that staying to witness the augury meant. Only those senior in years or authority remained to bolster Agamemnon: myself, Nestor, Diomedes, Menelaos, Palamedes, Philoktetes and Idomeneus.
I had never seen Kalchas at work before, and had to admit that he was very good. With hands trembling so much they could hardly lift the jewelled knife, his face waxen, he cut the victim’s throat jerkily, almost upsetting the great golden chalice as he held it to catch the blood; when he poured the scarlet stream out upon the cold marble it seemed to smoke. Then he slit open the belly and began to interpret the multiple folds of entrails according to the practice of priests trained in Asia Minor. His movements were rapid and dysrhythmic, his breathing so stertorous that I could hear it whenever the wind died for a moment.
Without warning he spun about to face us. ‘Listen to the word of the God, O Kings of Greece! I have seen the will of Zeus, the Lord of All! He has turned away from you, he refuses to give this venture his blessing! His motives are clouded by his wrath, but it is Artemis who sits upon his knee and begs him to remain obdurate! I can see no more, his fury overwhelms me!’
About what I had expected, I thought, though the mention of Artemis was a deft touch. However, to give him his due, Kalchas really did look like a man pursued by the Daughters of Kore, a man stripped of all save his life in a single flake of time. There was genuine agony in his eyes. I wondered about him anew, for he obviously believed what he said, even if he had worked it all out beforehand. Any man who possesses the power to influence others interests me, but no priest ever interested me as Kalchas did.
And no, you have not yet concluded your performance, I thought; there is more to come.
At the foot of the altar Kalchas wheeled and flung his arms wide, his huge sleeves flapping soaked in the sleety wind, his head far back, the line of its tilt revealing that he looked at the plane tree. I followed his gaze to where the branches were still bare, wormy buds not yet unfurled. A nest was tucked into one fork, and on it sat a bird, hatching. An ordinary brown bird of some indiscriminate kind.
The altar snake was writhing along the branch with greed in his cold black eyes. Kalchas drew in his arms, still upraised, until both hands pointed at the nest; we watched with bated breath. A large reptile, he opened his jaws to take the bird, swallowing her whole until she was a series of tattoos thrusting at his rich brown scales. Then one by one he devoured her eggs: six, seven, eight, nine, I counted. The mother and all nine of her eggs.
The meal over, like all his kind he stopped in his tracks, curling about the thin branch as if graven from stone. His eyes were riveted on the priest without the shadow of an expression; no human blinks fractured the frigid penetration of his stare.
Kalchas twisted as if some God had driven an invisible stake clean through his belly, moaning softly. Then he spoke again.
‘Listen to me, O Kings of Greece! You have witnessed the message of Apollo! He speaks when the Lord of All refuses! The sacred snake swallowed the bird and her nine unhatched young. The bird herself is this coming season. Her nine unborn children are the nine seasons as yet unborn of the Mother. The snake is Greece! The bird and her young are the years it will take to conquer Troy! Ten years to conquer Troy!
Ten years!’
The silence was so profound it seemed to vanquish the storm. No one moved or spoke for a long time. Nor did I know what to think of that stunning performance. Was this foreign priest a true seer? Or was this an elaborate charade? I looked at Agamemnon, wondering which would win: his certainty that the war would end in a few days, or his faith in the priest. The struggle was a violent one, for he was by nature a religiously superstitious man, but in the end his pride triumphed. Shrugging, he turned on his heel. I left the last of all, never taking my eyes from Kalchas. He was standing stock still, gazing at the High King’s back, and there was malice in him, outrage because his first real exhibition of power had been ignored.