Chasimenos shook his head slightly, as if the fly had come too close. 'I have been making inquiries,' he said. 'There is a cave-shrine to the Mountain Mother there, on the other side. She whom we know as Artemis. They say it has always been there. The boatman was sent back, so it seems likely Calchas intends to stay overnight.'

'He will have gone to consult the goddess. Let's hope she will have words for him.'

Chasimenos stared. 'Why should that be a thing to hope for?'

'My dear Chasimenos, because it will confuse him further. And the more confused he is, the more he will complicate the matter, and the more he complicates the matter, the less dangerous he will be as counsellor. Agamemnon is in deep trouble, he will need simple words, he will not welcome subtleties.'

'Calchas is close to the King, he has established himself as an authority, his words are believed.'

'That is true of course, he has had some lucky hits. That is why he constitutes a threat. Normally, what should we do in such a case? We would try to discredit him, sow doubts about him in the King's mind, reduce his influence, kill his voice, deaden his tongue, what's the word I am looking for?'

'Delegitimize.'

'Delegitimize him, brilliant. You have a first-rate vocabulary, Chasimenos, you are seldom at a loss for a word. But you should spend more time on the study of character. You don't mind me saying that, do you? We are both past our first youth and we can speak frankly together, pooling our experience in a spirit of friendship and trust. We don't need to delegitimize Calchas, because Calchas will delegitimize himself.'

'How?'

'Imagine his situation. He is a foreigner, an outsider, totally dependent on the King's favour. He is not very brave. I saw his face when that madman was gulping out the stuff about the young of the hare. He took it seriously, in some sense he believed it. Now he goes to the shrine of Artemis. His god as worshipped in the lands of the Hatti is a hermaphrodite god. Did you know that?'

'Yes, the slaves we buy in the markets of Miletus sometimes have knowledge of this god.' Chasimenos' mouth, normally thin enough, had drawn even thinner. 'We have called him Apollo,' he said.

'I very much doubt whether Calchas does. Now, in the schools of Karkemish or Hattusas no doubt he could debate the matter brilliantly, the blending of the male and the female natures, balance and harmony, but this is not a debating chamber, it is a military camp with a leader at a crisis in his fortunes. Calchas will be driven to complicate things, and at the same time he will be afraid of losing his privileged position. As I say, he is an intellectual, and the fate of the intellectual awaits him, powerless to act, unable to make himself understood, lost in useless speculation, what's the word I am looking for?'

'Paralysis.'

'Paralysis, brilliant.'

Chasimenos' face, relieved for the moment from anxiety, was smooth, with only the faintest of lines in it, face of a worn child who has never known childhood. 'Good thing we have Croton on our side,' he said. 'No danger of paralysis there.'

Later, when Chasimenos had left, it occurred to Odysseus to go and check up on the Singer, in whom he had small trust. His way led him past the Ajaxes, Larger and Lesser, who were standing side by side shouting at a small group of men that had gathered and at each other.

Odysseus paused – to watch rather than to listen. He did not expect to hear much of interest but the pair made an amazing spectacle standing there together, the one red-faced and gigantic, always on the brink of violent wrath, the other dwarf-like, bow-legged, sad-looking and more or less permanently randy – there was generally a tumescent bulge discernible below the stuff of his kilt.

'Suppose you are the winner of the foot race,' Ajax the Larger was bellowing. 'That is to say, one of the foot races...' He floundered here, staring furiously before him, confounded by the bothersome intrusion of detail.

Ajax the Lesser came to the rescue. 'There are three foot races of different distances. The 100 paces, the 500 paces, and the 1,000 paces. My friend here is asking you to imagine that you have won one of them.'

'No, first there are the heats.' Ajax the Larger glared at his partner. 'Good grief,' he shouted, 'you are forgetting the heats. Each of these three foot races will have a certain number of heats, and each heat... The winner of each heat goes on to the next heat...'

'No, he fucking doesn't. Everyone is in just one heat and the winners of the heats–'

'I've told him before about this bad language. The winners of the heats get five points for winning the heat and the winner of the final will get a total of fifteen points, no, wait a minute...'

'You're getting it all fucked up again.' Ajax the Lesser stamped a small foot in exasperation. 'The overall winner will get twenty points. Ten for getting to the final and ten for winning it.'

'That's what I was going to say,' shouted Ajax the Larger at the top of his voice. 'Step forward anyone who is interested in training for these events. There will also be wrestling, jumping, throwing the javelin, weightlifting. Any of you men listening now could be a winner. Think of the credit you will bring to your town, returning after the war is over with twenty points notched up.'

'Or thirty, or fifty. Think of the success you will have with the ladies. Your fame will go before you. They will line the streets to give you a hero's welcome.'

Here the little man, thinking to liven up the audience a bit, did some steps of a jig and made obscene thrusting motions with his pelvis. He was quick on his feet and though lacking in stature very strong in the arms – he always received mention in the Songs when the list of notable rapists was recited. 'The man with the fifty-point power pack,' he shouted.

Ajax the Larger had gone a deeper shade of red. 'I've told him I don't like that dirty talk,' he yelled. 'I was brought up to respect women. Step forward men, don't be shy.'

No one in the audience made any move in the forward direction, though several, seeing that the entertainment was drawing to a close and some contribution from them expected, began to drift away. Odysseus was about to move on too, when he saw a staring fixity descend on Ajax the Larger's face, and knew that the huge fellow was in the painful grip of an idea.

'Wait! Don't go away! Ye gods, I've got it!'

He held up a mighty arm. 'Prizes!' he shouted. 'Not points, prizes. Points and prizes. I and my small friend here will offer prizes to the winners, handsome prizes.'

Before turning away, Odysseus had time to notice from the little man's expression that this joint offer had not been welcome to him. Dissimilar as the two were in every other way, they were alike in their extreme stinginess. All the same, as he proceeded on his way, he wondered what the prizes might be. Both the Ajaxes had come back from raiding in Mysia loaded with booty. He was chronically hard up himself and the crew of his one ship were in arrears of pay. In fact, they had not been paid at all. This poverty was galling to him, aware as he was of outstanding abilities. Few could match him in fluency of speech and readiness of wit, in the subtle stratagems of deceit. He loved falsehood for its own sake, saw beauty in it. But these gifts had not resulted so far in the amassing of wealth or the acquisition of power. And he was approaching middle age, with a wife and son at home.

This Trojan campaign would change everything of course. From lordship of a few barren acres to an empire in the lands of gold, the fertile East. For the moment his only possession of value was the great bow that his friend Iphitus of Oechalia had given him when he was only eighteen. It had belonged to Iphitus' father, the famous archer Eurytus, and Odysseus valued it so highly that he had not wanted to risk its loss by bringing it with him, but had left it at home in a safe place. While still a very young man and eager to get the best product available on the market, he had travelled all the way to the mountains of Thesprotia, braving many dangers, to get arrow poison from Ilus, grandson of the noted poison-maker Medea and, heir to all her expertise. Anyone who was anyone got his arrow poison from Ilus, it was quite simply the best. It came in elegant bags with silk strings at the neck and Ilus' trademark woven on the side, instantly recognizable everywhere. But by the time he got there Ilus had gone mad and spent his days muttering in a corner, possessed by dread of the gods' disapproval. He had refused to sell any poison, naturally on the grounds that the gods might disapprove. Odysseus had had to be content with an inferior poison from the nearby island of Taphos. Yet another failure, he thought, remembering how he had minded at the time. But Troy would change all that. Troy would make up for everything... He thought he could probably win the wrestling, if they were planning to have that as one of the events. He was broad at the shoulders and well-knit, a good build for wrestling. It suited his temperament too. There were stronger men in the camp, but he knew how to use the strength and weight of an opponent to defeat and disable him. And a man well oiled, who knew the holds, could slip out of any grasp.