Higher up the spring bubbled out over the flat, mossy stone, rippling the trails of moss like hair in the wind. Below it a pool had formed, clear water under the trees, with cress at the edges. Dragonflies hovered here and gnats rose and fell. Beyond was the dark mouth of the cave. It was a small, separate world of water they were in, set apart from the dry scrub of the hillside, the loud concert of the cicadas and the myriad brittle creatures of drought.

Close to the entrance was a formation of rock in the shape of a belly and a navel, and as they paused here an old woman came towards them, walking upright but slowly. From the absence of greeting they knew her for the guardian of the shrine, the keeper of the fire. She stood before them and bowed her head but did not speak. They gave her the woven shawl they had brought with them as a gift to the goddess and she took it and stood aside. They entered the mouth of the cave and stood together at the edge of the low wall of stones built round a raised slab for offerings. There was the smell of woodsmoke and they felt a faint heat against their faces, from the hearth below the table, where a fire of charcoal was kept alive under its quilt of white ash. The ground at their feet was scattered with cold ash and the bones of animals.

The old woman lit the lamp that stood on the earth floor inside the entrance. They were able now to see the dark stains of blood on the table, and the votive offerings that lay over the stains: bronze knife blades, the simulacrum of a double-headed axe, a wide-mouthed jar. Beyond this, in the centre of the cave, rose the shrouded figure of the goddess, in the shape of a column, streaked with eternal dew.

The priest felt Poimenos draw closer to him, press against his side, felt the fear transmitted through the boy's body, helping him to control his own fear, relieving the constriction of his heart. In these moments of silence they heard the slow drip of water from the darkness deep inside the cave, a sound strangely distinct. Calchas prayed in his native Luvian to the goddess, Mistress of Animals, Mountain Mother, asking her pardon for this intrusion of strangers, her blessing for Poimenos and himself, her help in lighting up his mind with the meaning of the message she had sent them through the man's throat. Touching the stone of the wall with his forehead, he thought he heard a hiss of breath from deeper inside the cave, sign that he had been heard. They poured libations of wine, using the bronze beaker they had brought with them, and they left this as an offering and came away to the clear space outside.

From here, from a point just above the pool, they could see through the trees and look back across the water, see the way they had come, see the tilting masts of the ships and the wind-driven smoke of the fires. It was this view of the tormented camp that made Calchas understand. The distinctness of the water drops, the hiss of the goddess's breath... There was no wind in this enclave, the leaves were still, the flight of the gnats untroubled. He should have known: the author of the wind could not be touched by it – the calm was a proof.

The light was fading, the summer dark would fall quickly. He sent Poimenos to gather dry sticks. When the boy returned with an armful of kindling, he went and took some fire from the hearth, a small ember from under the ash, holding it between two twigs. He built a small pyramid of twigs round it and blew till the twigs took fire. Poimenos went again for thicker pieces. When he returned the priest told him to sit further off and he obeyed, though Calchas knew he was afraid and would have liked the comfort of nearness. He waited till the fire had a red heart then raked it over. When the flames had died he took his bag of hemp seed and crushed bay leaf, and cast a handful over the embers and sat with his face close above, covering his head with a piece of silk woven with gold stars, which accompanied all his travels, a gift to him from a merchant of Byblos whose future wealth he had foretold, though without staying long enough to see how things turned out. The heavy folds of the cloth hung down on either side, closing off the air. Eyes fixed on the pattern of the embers, he breathed in the scented fumes, striving to empty his mind of all that might obstruct.

Three handfuls he gave to the embers, feeling the sweat run on his face from the heat of the fire and the deep breathing in that hunched position. Then there was heat no more, he was on the banks of the Maeander, in the land of his birth. The water was clear, he saw the pale shapes of the stones in the stream bed as he had seen them in childhood, and the swirls and eddies where the current fretted, and it was autumn because the surface was suddenly covered with bronze-coloured leaves and these were borne away swiftly and they trembled and quivered with light, they were not leaves but the bodies of men in armour, it was the river of blood he had glimpsed at Delphi before his mind clouded, but now the water and the drowned warriors were all one colour of bronze, Greeks and Trojans mingled together in it, drained of blood, limbs and weapons tumbled helplessly together in the tide of metal that was bearing them away into the far distance, where the stream ran silver and was quite empty.

It was this emptiness that brought fear. He cried out and flung the cloth from his head and tried to move back from the fire but his limbs would not obey, they shone like bronze, like silver. He felt hands at his back and spoke some words without knowing what they were. Then nausea rose in his throat and he turned away from the hands and choked up the drained soldiers and the bronze blood; and in the coldness and loneliness after the vomiting no slightest sign or mark of favour came to him from anywhere in this enclave devoted to the Mother.

The departure of Calchas and Poimenos was witnessed by one of Chasimenos' people and reported back to him at once. Little went unnoticed now in this camp, where rumours were rife and spies multiplied by the hour. It was impossible to meet and talk without this becoming known to the chiefs, and especially the more powerful among them. However, it was one of the several advantages of association with Chasimenos – and all were well known to the wily Odysseus – that the scribe enjoyed Agamemnon's trust, was in fact Agamemnon's chief informer, the one on whom the King most relied. It was Chasimenos who had told him of that intimate talk between Calchas and Ajax of Salamis before the meeting. In this Chasimenos did no more than continue one of his main duties at Mycenae, which was to keep tabs on everything that went on in the palace. Thus, whatever he did now, and wherever he went, it was assumed to be in the King's interest; and indeed it was in this light that the scribe himself regarded it. No one reported on Chasimenos – not to Agamemnon at least. The suspicions of others did not matter. The camp was a hive of suspicions anyway, as Odysseus pointed out later that day, when the two were discussing Calchas and the reasons he might have for going across the water.

'No need to worry about Calchas,' Odysseus said. The other was worried, he knew that. 'Calchas is a damp squib.'

'But he must have some purpose, some plan, in going over there. Otherwise, he wouldn't absent himself at such a crucial time.' Chasimenos was a dedicated planner himself, and long years in the palace bureaucracy had refined this talent.

'He doesn't think like that.' Odysseus glanced at the other's face, which was unpleasing with its indoors pallor and unsteady eyes – he was tracking insect flight-paths again. Chasimenos saw everything in his own terms, he had no insight into honest minds. It was a limitation. 'He doesn't think politically. He's an intellectual, he spends his time trying to establish what things mean, whereas you and I know that meaning jumps this way and that according to circumstances. Calchas is one who will always be surprised by events.' It was neat, it was pleasurable, to be prophesying the doom of a prophet. 'First surprised, then overwhelmed,' he said.