There was a cave-shrine to Potnia, the Lady, on the island, just across the narrow water. Calchas had heard the priests of Zeus inveigh against it in their regular processions through the camp, denouncing the presence of an ancient pollution, this nearness of unclean earth-cults, pointing to it as one of the causes of their troubles. It was there he would ask leave to go.

The wind had strengthened; he heard it loud in the scrub of the hillsides and felt it push against his face as he walked the short distance to Agamemnon's tent. He spoke to the armed guards at the entrance, was checked for hidden weapons, as everyone now must be who sought audience with the King. One of the guards went inside, returning moments later to admit him. Agamemnon was sitting in the same place, on his chair of state, staring sombrely before him. Two dark-skinned male slaves were fanning him with squares of woven rush attached to long canes. The displaced air lapped in warm waves against the priest's face as he approached to make his obeisance. Bowing low, he smelled again the sweetish odour of hemp that hung about the King's person.

Agamemnon kept his face averted as he listened; but Calchas was not discouraged by this, knowing it for the habit of kingship among the Mycenaeans. There was a haggardness, a look of nightmare in the face thus presented in profile. As he made his request, Calchas felt some sorrow mingling with his fear; and while he waited through the long silence for the answer he tried to conquer the fear with the sorrow. Ruler of the most powerful kingdom in all the Greek lands. A sacral king by virtue of his forefathers in the House of Atreus. By common consent and election of his peers, commander of a great invasion force. Troy waiting over the water, a city famous for her gold and her horses. The eagles of Zeus, blessing his quarrel. The prayers all uttered, the libations all made. And now this raging wind from the north, prolonged in a way never before heard of in this season, implacable, keeping the fleet penned there. And he wonders, Has the god turned against me? What mistake have I made, how have I offended? And no word or sign. And not far away there are those ready to blame him for the wind, for the vicious fault that he cannot discover, ready to proclaim themselves to the army as more fortunate, more favoured. People with a following already, Palamedes, Idomeneus...

Agamemnon raised his right hand in the gesture of consent. 'By sunset tomorrow you will return. You will tell us the meaning as you have understood it. I will call an assembly of the chiefs. We will also hear Croton and any others who have a mind to speak.'

Calchas was beginning to back away, but the King spoke again, in a different, sharper tone. 'This morning, before the meeting, you were seen talking to Ajax the Larger. The two of you, faces close together, he gripping your arm.'

'Yes, we spoke together'

'What was the subject of this talk?'

'Lord Ajax spoke to me about his idea for a Day of Games.'

'And what might that be?'

Calchas did his best to explain Ajax's idea, no easy matter, as he had been so muddled about it himself. There would be competition in various things, running, jumping, weightlifting, throwing the javelin. Those who did well would gain points and these points would also belong to the places they came from. In the end, one person and one place would have more points than any other person or place, but the person with the most points would not necessarily be from the place with the most points...

Agamemnon stirred in his chair with a restless motion. A look of frowning incredulity had appeared on his face. He could not believe, in the midst of the troubles that plagued him, that he should find himself listening to such stuff. Calchas said, 'He sees it as a way of bringing the men together in friendly competition, keeping their minds off the wind and putting an end to all this quarrelling and bloodshed.'

'Why did Ajax not come to me himself with this?'

'Lord, I do not know.'

In the silence that followed he felt the King's eyes upon him and kept his own gaze fixed on the ground. Since this affliction of the wind Agamemnon saw conspiracy everywhere and he was dangerous in his suspicions because any trifle might be taken to confirm them.

'Well,' he said at last, 'it sounds a dubious enterprise to me but I don't see anything against it; it will keep him busy at least.' A sudden contempt lightened the misery of his face, restored for a moment or two its normal expression of tight-lipped, watchful pride. 'He'll need help with the adding up,' he said. 'That much is certain.'

'He spoke of bringing the other Ajax into it, Ajax the Lesser.'

'Did he so?' A faint smile came to the King's face. 'Two likely peacemakers there – they do nothing but quarrel whenever they are together. You have our leave to go. See that you are here again by sunset tomorrow. And see that you come with the right words.'

He smiled again, saying this, and the smile was terrible to Calchas, as was the threat contained in the quickened tone. They were still present to his mind as he left the tent. Hatred there, not for him only. Again it came to him that the King was mad. A man who had scented in his soul the disfavour of the gods and still demanded the right words rather than the true ones...

Poimenos had returned and together they made ready. The diviner abandoned his long-skirted robe and girdle for a sleeveless vest and short kilt such as the Greeks used. Poimenos wore cotton drawers, tied at the waist with a strip of crocodile skin, which Calchas had given him and of which he was very proud.

Calchas watched him as he moved about, passing inside the tent and out again, getting together the provisions for their journey. And again his heart was wrung by the boy's beauty, which was without knowledge of itself in this bustle of preparation, the slight but well defined muscles of the shoulders and thighs, the warm olive tone of the skin, no flaw or fleck in it, lustrous – it was as if the hot sun oiled him, spread him with unguents. By what mystery, what casual gift, had a goatherd, a descendant of goatherds, been endowed with such unconscious grace of movement and form? In the crisis that had come upon him, in the danger that he felt, Calchas was swept by longing for negation, freedom from the torment of alternatives, he wanted the boy's body next to his, in a light so pure and strong that it contained no faintest hue and so was indistinguishable from darkness. No conflicting voices could live in such a light, only peace of the senses and vacancy of the mind.

It was not possible now, as it had never been before, to know whether Poimenos understood the refuge he gave, the sheltered place where the light and the dark were one. Almost certainly not, the priest thought; it was outside the range of the boy's conceptions, though he was sensitive and quick when it came to the messages of the body. He recognized the need in the eyes, but thought it only for the pleasure he knew how to supply. Now, it seemed, he saw something of his master's foreboding too, for he paused in his preparations to touch the priest's shoulder and smile and say, 'The goddess will reveal the truth to you, and you will reveal that truth to Agamemnon, tamer of horses, the great oak that shelters us.'

He had not understood – it was the truth itself that Calchas feared most. But as the priest made up his mixture of barley seed and dried hemp leaf, as they put their bread and cheese, and the wine for the libation, into a cloth bag, as they set out along the shore together, away from the camp, to look for a local fisherman who might take them across, all the while he held to the simplicity of the words. For Poimenos truth was triumph over uncertainty, peace after struggle, complete and unmixed. It was why he would remain always a server, always in the ante-room of the temple, never knowing the terrible obscurity of the god's purposes. Like looking at a great tree, Calchas thought. At a distance, one single shape, a dome, a spire. Approaching, one saw the articulation of the limbs, the separate masses of the foliage. But what mortal man, drawing nearer yet, looking up through the canopy of the branches, could keep the whole marvellous structure present to his mind? And if, nevertheless, there was still the terror of failing to see the vein in the leaf... Suddenly, unexpectedly, Calchas felt envy for the boy at his side, who would never stand in that place and look up. The envy was new, born of his fear; and contained in it was the first impulse of a fatal desire to share, to instruct. '"Tamer of horses"?' he said. '"Great oak"? These are the Singer's phrases. You must not pay too much attention to the Singer, he does not deal in truth.'