The Singer chewed for some moments more on his grapes and bread. He enjoyed the blended taste when he put both into his mouth together. Chewing took time because a number of his teeth had gone. He did not like this voice. 'The wind doesn't belong in the Song of Perseus,' he said.

'Doesn't belong? I am astonished to hear you say that. Have you never heard of flexibility? You of all people should know that anything can go into a Song, it just depends on the way you deliver it.'

The Singer wanted the rest of his bread and grapes, but he could not eat them while a conversation was going on; and this, combined with his dislike and fear of the voice, frayed his temper, took the guard from his tongue. 'Do you think a Song is like a political speech or a funny story?' he said. 'Do you think you can shovel anything into it to suit the purposes of the moment? A Song has the form that belongs to it and that is also the soul of the Song. Anything that touches the soul of the Song must depend on the singer and the gods that speak through him.'

'Is that so? Well, now I'll tell you something,' Odysseus said, still aiming at the Singer's ear. 'I didn't come here to talk about art and soul and all that stuff. As far as that's concerned, I may be a philistine, but I know what I like. I'm going to have someone in that audience tomorrow morning and he's going to report back to me. I don't care whether you wrap it up in something else or tell it as a separate story, but if you know what is good for you, you'd better make sure this message about the wind goes over loud and clear, with briefer repetitions in subsequent sessions to reinforce the point. It must be noised abroad, made common knowledge, disseminated on a large scale – what's the word I'm looking for?'

'I haven't the faintest idea,' the Singer said with sudden weariness. I have enough to do to find my own words.' And with this he lifted a compound wodge of bread and grapes to his mouth.

6.

Calchas slept heavily by the dead fire and woke to the warmth of the sun on his face and the sighing sound of the wind. The sea below was covered with low ridges, white along the crests. The hills beyond the camp were half lost in the morning haze. He felt no sensation but hunger. He shared with Poimenos the bread and cheese they had brought, leaving some aside for the keeper. They did not speak much but he felt the boy's eyes on him; and when he returned this gaze he did not see enquiry or curiosity on the other's face but an expression brooding and grave, which he could not remember seeing before. It was as if years had been added to the boy in the course of this one night. He had slept badly, he said. Perhaps it was only this. Or perhaps my eyes wither what they look on, the priest thought.

The keeper held out thin brown arms for the food and bowed in thanks, but she did not eat before them and it was clear that she was waiting for them to be gone. They descended by the same path and waited near the shore, in the thin shade of a pine tree, for the boatman to come for them. Sure enough, as the sun rose overhead, they saw him plying across. As they waded through the surf and climbed into the boat, he made the same gestures of exaggerated toil. And Calchas felt a blankness in his mind, as if some power moved the man's limbs in exact repetition, so as to cancel all the time that had elapsed since he left them there, the presence of the Mother, the scented fire, the vision of the drained warriors and all the interval of night. In payment he gave the man the bronze belt-buckle marked with a wave pattern along the edges, which he had brought with him for the purpose; and the man was pleased with this, and even smiled.

The walk back took longer than the apparent distance seemed to warrant, generally the case by the sea, when there is no obstruction to the view; and Calchas was tired and walked slowly. So there was no time for rest when they returned and not a great deal for preparation. Poimenos brought water and helped his master to wash away the traces of vomit and the heavy, sweetish smell of hemp that still hung about him, afterwards rubbing oil scented with jasmine into the priest's shoulders where they felt painful and cramped. Calchas put on his amethyst necklace and the white silk vest that had been the gift of Agamemnon, and a long skirt of dark blue cotton with gold-stitched hems. His long black hair was wetted and combed out and gathered at the nape with a piece of white ribbon. The chalk circles were deftly applied to his cheeks. Then Poimenos was sent to ask when his master might approach and returned to say that the King required him immediately. But after all this haste Agamemnon was alone with his guards when he arrived, the chiefs had not yet began to assemble.

'I wanted to speak to you alone,' Agamemnon said. 'I sent for you in the night but you were not there.'

'My Lord, I had your leave to be absent for the night, to go to the shrine of Artemis.'

'Yes, I know that, but I needed you.' He spoke as if the need alone should have brought his diviner back across the water. 'I had a dream in the first part of the night and I needed you to tell the meaning.'

Calchas felt a premonition that restricted his breathing, like the drawing of strings within his chest. He too, by that fire, in the first part of the night, had been dreaming. 'Does my Lord remember the dream still?'

'Yes, I remember it perfectly.' Agamemnon's dark face, with its straight mouth and prominently curved beak of a nose, was suddenly younger, innocent-looking. 'It was dark,' he said, 'thick darkness, there was no light at all. I was in a forest, I had to feel my way among trees. There was a nightingale singing somewhere not far away. I knew it for a nightingale because I have heard them singing at home, on the slopes below the citadel. This song was beautiful and loud. I moved towards the song through the trees, reaching out with my hands because I could see nothing. As I drew nearer the bird sang more loudly, always more loudly with every step, until the darkness was full of this song and it seemed that the bird was very close, almost within the reach of my hands, but as I reached to take it, the song ceased and I was standing alone in the dark and I woke and heard the wind in the canvas and sent for you, not remembering, in the toils of the dream, that I had given you leave to go.'

Calchas had felt the blood drain from his face as the King spoke. It was immediately clear to him that Agamemnon had dreamed his own death, a death on the threshold of triumph, when the trumpets were sounding. That music of death came from the battlements of Troy. Dark and light held the same message, and it was the message of Pollein, god that blended two natures, the water and the light on the water. The silver of the river in the distance, empty of bodies, the darkness when the song ceases. Turning away from the song was the only salvation; but Agamemnon would not turn away from the promise of conquest. And Calchas knew he would kill the one who advised it.

'You can come closer,' Agamemnon said. 'Speak to me closely, the guards need not hear.'

'My Lord and King,' Calchas said, striving to control his voice, 'I have made a study of the natures of the different birds. The nightingale is a special case. He is condemned to sing in the dark and yet he feels fear of the dark. The beauty of his song is caused by fear. When he senses a presence, this fear increases and he sings more and more loudly as the danger draws near. The bird felt your power in the darkness, and sang the more loudly till you reached to grasp him and then his heart burst with fear and with the effort of his song. There is also the story of Philomela, which the King will remember, of how she was seduced by Tereus, who was married to her sister, and of how he cut out her tongue to prevent her from speaking of this, and of how, at a moment of extreme fear, she was changed by the gods into a nightingale and given the tongue and throat of marvellous song. But Philomela remembers her fear, and when danger comes close she again becomes tongueless. Beyond any doubt, the bird in your dream represents Priam, king of Troy, who fears your greatness and puffs himself up and boasts the more loudly as the fear grows.'