Thinking of this brought back to his mind thoughts of the fight that was soon to take place. He believed he knew who would win it. He had been given a sign, not because the gods were interested in the outcome, but because their power pervaded human life, like this fire that glowed on the masts without consuming them.

On the first night of their stay here, when it was still thought the wind would be short-lived and spirits were high, he had walked alone along the shore, passing close to where the Locrians had their quarters. He had seen one of them dancing with wonderful grace in the firelight, to the music of pipe and drum. The man was naked but for a loincloth and his body shone with oil or sweat. The fire was veering and flaring in the wind and he brought these movements of the flames into the dance, stepping near to the fire with his arms raised and his head turning, now held in stern profile, now glancing down in serious pride. Such a dancer was he that Calchas had stayed to watch and seen him twice leap the fire, over and back, without faltering, without breaking the rhythm of the dance, so that those watching him shouted in exhilaration, their hearts leaping with him as he leapt. The firelight was cast upward and Calchas had seen the man's face clearly and the faces of those nearest. He had seen the Singer there too, a little apart, with his lyre laid across his knees, looking straight before him, and he had wondered what this scene might mean to the Singer, who was almost blind, what flickering, looming shapes of dancer and flame he might be seeing.

So he had watched for a while, then moved on; but the strong impression of the dancing stayed with him. Then there had been the brawl between groups of Locrians and Boeotians, and a serious wounding – a man stabbed in the right shoulder, disabled. Such incidents bred feuds, when men had little else in mind; and feuds among the Greek tribes, once taking hold, spread like a virulent fever. So champions had been elected in haste on either side to meet in single combat and settle the matter.

It was when he saw these champions brought forward to be presented to the assembled host that Calchas thought he knew which would be victorious. He had recognized the Locrian at once: it was the man who had danced in the firelight. The other was a half-head taller, smooth-haired, narrow at the waist and powerful in the shoulders, an athlete. Moreover, he was a professional soldier who had fought for Thebes against the combined forces of Phocis and Megaris. They stood on either side of Odysseus, who along with Chasimenos had organized the business, while their names were shouted out: Stimon of Locris, Opilmenos of Boeotia. Both were acclaimed in equal measure for the promise of entertainment they offered, and the Boeotian smiled to hear the shouts but the Locrian remained as serious now as he had been among his own people.

As Calchas had watched and seen one man smile and the other not, it had come to him with luminous certainty that Stimon the dancer would be the one to die. He remembered how he had been drawn by the music and the shouting. And he knew now that he had been directed to turn his steps that way, so as to come upon the man in the pride of life, at the climax of his dancing, when he leapt the fire. The truth of things lay always in contradiction; as the cup brimmed, so it spilled. His own splendour had marked the dancer out for death. So Calchas had reasoned when the champions were brought forward; and so he reasoned still as the sun climbed in the sky and they waited for the event.

Poimenos was sitting on the other side of the dying fire, keeping his distance in the absence of indications to do otherwise. Calchas noted that the boy had copied his own posture with exact fidelity, sitting cross-legged with back held straight, holding his bowl of tea with both hands. He would have dipped his cake into the warm tea and eaten it so; Calchas knew this, though he had been too much occupied with his thoughts to notice. He knew it because it was what he did himself. Poimenos watched him without seeming to and strove to imitate his movements in the hope of being graced to read the signs, and so take some part in the stories of the gods and in their power. Perhaps then he would leave me, Calchas thought. But there was no danger; the boy was devoted but he showed no sign of a gift. There were those who were drawn to the threshold never to enter the house; he was one of that number, born to serve. At times, Calchas detected the helpless knowledge of this already in him. He was beautiful to look at, slender of form and narrow-boned, with eyes black as jet, slanting upward towards the temples, and a mouth with a full underlip, giving him a slightly sulky expression as if needing kisses. Poimenos had been a gift from the gods to him; he had found the boy at Delphi when he had gone there from Mycenae, sent by Agamemnon to consult the Oracle of Ge, the Great Mother, as to the outcome of the war, which at that time was still at the planning stage. The boy had been a server there at the sanctuary, the humblest of servers, sweeping the precincts, gathering wood for the sacred fire, which was tended by others. He had run away from home, a mountain village on the slopes of Parnassus, and was living as he could on the leftovers from the offerings. Poimenos had been at his side when he had half-fainted and almost fallen at the vision granted him by the Oracle, the river of blood and the warriors of Troy rolling over and over in the swift current, borne away on their own blood-tide. The boy had seen his power then and stayed by his side ever since. The vision he had recounted to Agamemnon, and received gold beads and a silk vest...

More to get the boy to look openly at him than for any other reason, Calchas said, 'They are wagering on the result of this fight, isn't it so?'

'They are laying bets, yes.'

'But what kind of betting can that be? The mass of them have nothing but what they stand up in, apart from their weapons, and those they can't risk losing, surely.'

Poimenos hesitated a little before replying. He was easily abashed when it came to speaking and had difficulty in finding words. 'The bets are what you say you will give, they are like promises.'

'But that is always so with bets.'

'No, Master, the promises are for when we take Troy.'

'Ah yes, I see. Then we will all be rich.' From the fabled spoils of the city the debt would be paid. A girl, a gold seal, a bronze tripod, a certain weight of amber or silver. It was a form of dreaming. In that great tide of plunder there could be no losers. He thought of the other tide, the one he had seen as the scented smoke rose to his nostrils and the voice came from below the ground in broken words and snatches of song. A flood of red between the banks and the armed bodies rolling in it like the tumbling of debris in the swollen waters of the Maeander River in early spring, which he remembered from childhood. 'The dead won't have to pay,' he said. 'But of course those making promises expect to kill, not to die, don't they?'

Poimenos might have found some answer to this, but Calchas did not give him time. Prey to sudden curiosity, he said, 'Who will be the winner today, in your opinion?'

This time there was no hesitation. 'Opilmenos, Master. Opilmenos will win.'

Calchas looked at his acolyte for some time in smiling silence. The boy was particularly beautiful to him at this moment, touching too, his face radiant with the force of his opinion; not so much an opinion, the priest thought, as a view of the world. Poimenos had chosen the one who was better made, more handsome, more like the kind of hero he would have wished to be himself. These were the qualities that carried success; how could one live in a world in which things were otherwise? One day the boy would wake up in that world and never leave it again... With an intensity that brought the beginnings of tears to his eyes Calchas found himself hoping that this would not happen for a long time. In the candour and simplicity of the boy he had found solace and repose, a refuge from the tortuous purposes of the gods and his own tormented subtleties; and he never prayed to Pollein, whom the Greeks called Apollo, without remembering to give thanks for the gift.