The War at Troy. Lindsay Clarke

      Menelaus, about whom gloom had gathered like a pall, instantly brightened at the suggestion. ‘Two years! That seems a more reasonable estimate for a campaign against Troy – especially with Odysseus there to help us win it.’

      ‘And little Telemachus would hardly have gained the power of speech by then.’ Palamedes glanced at Menelaus. ‘I see his mother suckles him at her own breast, so all our friend would miss would be such pleasure in his wife as two years of sleepless nights allowed him.’

      ‘When you are the shrine-priest at an oracle,’ Odysseus said grimly, ‘I may look to you for guidance. Meanwhile, I shall trust the earth-wisdom of my homeland gods.’ But there was less confidence in his thoughts than in his voice.

      Once again he got up and was about to bid his guests good night when Palamedes said, ‘I have been thinking about your son.’

      ‘What of him?’

      ‘That one day he will be king here – and a brave warrior, one hopes.’

      ‘I don’t for a moment doubt it,’ Odysseus said.

      ‘But will it not be great shame for him when he sails to Argos then and hears the songs of the noble deeds that were done in the war at Troy by the fathers of other men, yet cannot call upon the harper to sing of what was done by Ithaca?’

      Odysseus stood in silence, his head swimming with the wine. He stared down at the ground beneath his feet as though it was already turning to salt and he could see his infant son abruptly thrown beneath a ploughshare there.

      Palamedes began to speak again, that dry, suavely insidious voice, through which an ironic intellect glittered like a blade. ‘And will not those other kings have good cause to wonder why Odysseus dared to give his son such a proud name when he lacked the heart to honour the pledge that he himself had devised, and fight on his friend’s behalf in the decisive battle?’

      For a moment, such was the sudden blaze of rage inside him, Odysseus could have picked up this angular young man by the throat and thrown him over the cliff. But he heard the sea-surge sounding in his ears, and the ground might have been trembling under his feet. So he was held where he stood by the knowledge that, though he had never been counted among the contenders for Helen’s hand, he too had been required to stand upon a bloody portion of the King Horse in Sparta. He too had asked Earthshaker Poseidon to bring ruin on his land should he fail to keep his oath to Menelaus. And he had done so at this man’s urging.

      A brief, self-mocking laugh broke harshly from his lips, and such was his sense of the irony of the gods that it was edged already with a bitter premonition of the anguish that was to come.

      By the time he arrived in Mycenae, Odysseus was back in his right mind once more, but the interim had been a vertiginous descent to the bottom of his soul such as he was not to experience again till he began, ten years later, the long return from Troy.

      In the end, I suspect, it was Penelope herself who freed him from the dilemma that was tearing him apart, though she never said as much. Always poised and self-possessed, she would say only that before Menelaus and Palamedes took ship for the mainland, her husband had pledged to bring a thousand of his Ionian islanders to Troy, and that honour required him to keep that pledge.

      What she may not have known, however, was that Odysseus would also bring, concealed inside the darkest chamber of his heart, a patient hatred for the clever young man who had brought him to this pass.

      When the envoys that Agamemnon had sent to Troy reported back to Mycenae, they brought two surprises with them.

      As expected, King Priam demanded to know what satisfaction he himself had been given in the matter of his sister Hesione. Why should the sons of Atreus expect him to act in the matter of which they complained when he had been demanding his sister’s return in vain for many years? In any case, he had no certain knowledge that his son Paris was involved in the Queen of Sparta’s disappearance as his ship had not yet returned to Troy.

      ‘Then where in the name of Hades has he got to?’Agamemnon demanded.

      The envoys could only report rumours that Paris and Helen had been heard of in Cyprus, Phoenicia and Egypt, but no actual sightings had been confirmed.

      ‘Then they’re lying low, hoping the storm will blow over,’ Nestor said.

      Agamemnon nodded. ‘But they can’t stay on the run for ever, any more than Priam can hide for ever behind his ignorance.’

      ‘What about Aeneas?’ Menelaus asked the envoys. ‘Wasn’t he in Troy?’

      The envoys had seen no sign of the Dardanian prince. However, they had taken advantage of a private conversation with the High King’s counsellor, Antenor, to question him on the whereabouts of Aeneas. They were told that, for some time now, both Anchises and his son had kept to their palace at Lyrnessus. Though Antenor had been careful to watch his words, hints were dropped of a cooling of relations between the courts of Ilium and Dardania, and the envoys were left with the impression that, if Prince Paris was never seen again inside the walls of Troy, Antenor himself would not greatly grieve.

      If this news was welcome, the envoys’ assessment of the powerful fleet Priam had built in readiness for war was less so. But the second surprise they brought back with them proved more encouraging. On the night before they were due to sail, they had been approached by a Trojan soothsayer named Calchas. As priest in the Thymbraean temple of Apollo at Troy, he had consulted the omens and could see no good future for the city. He now wished to take passage to Argos with the envoys and offer his services to the High King in Mycenae. Having decided that the man might prove useful, the envoys had brought him back and he was here in the Lion House now, eagerly awaiting an audience with the king.

      ‘Then bring him before us.’ Agamemnon said, ‘Let’s see if this soothsayer can bring us any better omens than did Odysseus’s dream.’

      While Calchas was being summoned, Palamedes said, ‘They would have done better to leave the priest in Troy. A single friend behind the walls might have proved of more value than a whole company of archers on this side of them.’

      ‘The priest serves Apollo,’ Odysseus murmured from where he sat beyond Nestor to the left of Agamemnon. ‘He knows the run of his own life-thread better than you or I. In any case, it seems we may have such a friend already. And he is powerfully placed – though he may take a little time to declare himself.’

      ‘We do?’ said Agamemnon.

      ‘Odysseus refers to Antenor,’ said Menelaus. ‘He was the father of the child killed by Paris and has no love for him.’

      ‘Do you suspect some connection with this priest?’

      ‘Who knows?’ Odysseus shrugged. ‘We must see what emerges.’

      At that moment Calchas was escorted down the hall. When he arrived before the Lion throne, he threw himself on the floor and lay there abased in the Asiatic manner with his arms outstretched and his forehead pressed against the tiles.

      Agamemnon said, ‘I don’t much care for grovelling.’ Calchas got to his feet, arranging his dark robes, and stood before the High King with his head lowered. ‘Also I should warn you that I mislike traitors,’ the High King added, ‘– unless, of course, they can deliver my enemies into my hands.’

      Calchas raised his face. Above the swarthy hollows of his cheeks, dark intelligent eyes looked back at the High King with no sign of fear or deference. Nor was there any arrogance in the voice that asserted quietly, ‘We who serve Far-sighted Apollo in his temple at Thymbra answer neither to the High King at Troy nor the High King in Mycenae. We answer only to the god.’

      ‘So I can rely on you no more than Priam can?’

      ‘If you will hear what Divine Apollo, Slayer of Darkness, has to say, you can rely on my truth. If not,’ Calchas opened his hands as if to let something fall, ‘so.’

      Agamemnon sat back on the Lion throne, studying the impassive face of the priest with his