A smile came slowly to Ajax's face. All expressions were slow with him and this seemed to be because of the great expanse of his features and the time it took for his moods to travel across them. 'I'm glad you see it in that light,' he said. 'I would win easily. There is no one else in the world who can hurl a javelin as far as I can. We could have a weightlifting event too. It is a pity that in my dream there was not more guidance about how to organize the points system. It must be groups, let's say the Spartans make one group, everybody tries to get points for himself and for his group, and then these groups...'

He paused and a frown spread over his face, replacing the smile. The fringe of ginger-coloured hair that lay along his upper lip bristled slightly. 'These groups, the people in these groups...' The frown deepened. 'I am going to ask Ajax the Lesser to be my partner in the project,' he said, 'when I see him. He has a head for figures.'

'Won't he be at the meeting?'

'No, he has had leave not to attend. He is with his Locrians, celebrating Stimon's victory. They'll be well on the way to getting drunk by now. He mixes with the rank and file too much, the officers should keep a distance, I've told him that before. I don't drink myself, it clouds a man's mind. Stand away from us.'

This last was said to those clustered round him. He advanced and took Calchas by the arm in what was doubtless intended as a friendly grip. 'I don't know whether you've noticed it, but there are deep divisions among us.'

'Yes, I have, as a matter of fact.'

'I want to change all that. I want to bring the allies together. When we get to Troy, that will be the war process. Here at Aulis what we need is a peace process. I'd like to feature in the Songs as "Ajax the Unifier", the man who held the army together in the face of a hostile wind through the brilliant idea of a Games Day.'

And so you will. I'll make it my business to speak to the Singer about this at the earliest opportunity. He is a foreigner like me, we are both from over the water, and so I have some influence with him as to what he includes. And what he leaves out, of course, which is sometimes more important.' In point of fact he had practically no influence with the Singer at all; between diviner and bard there was rivalry, both in their different ways being reciters, disseminators of stories; but Calchas lost no opportunity of encouraging a belief to the contrary, as it added considerably to his status in the camp.

'You will do that?' Ajax's grip tightened. 'I swear you'll not regret it.'

Calchas saw the large face, now radiant with gratitude, close above him. He was not himself a short man, but at this close range he had to crane his neck to meet the moist, emotional eyes below the unruly wisps and whorls of the brows.

'To approach him myself would be too lowering,' Ajax said.

There was no intention of offence in this, as the diviner knew. Ajax was rarely aware enough of others to want to offend them, except when he got heated and then all he wanted to do was kill them. He had spoken openly and confidingly, like a child. Calchas' womanly dress and painted face were like the plumage of some strange bird to him, perhaps exciting. And then, he knew the diviner had access, not only to the Singer's ear but to the meaning of dreams and the signals of the gods. And, more immediately important, he enjoyed the favour of the Commander-in-Chief.

'The Singer will require a gift,' Calchas said. His arm was beginning to feel numb.

'I'll give you a silver hairclip for him.'

Calchas nodded. It sounded an unlikely thing for Ajax to have in his possession. It might be plunder of course. Whether this gift would ever materialize was a matter of doubt to him, as was also the question of whether, if it did materialize, he would ever pass it on to the Singer. To his intense relief he felt the grip removed from his arm. 'He'll appreciate that,' he said.

'You might speak to Agamemnon about this idea of mine for keeping up the morale of the army. Just mention it to him, he listens to you. I don't want to speak to him myself, it looks too much like toadying. Why should I ask him for permission just because he has the general vote for Commander? Besides, we are related. My mother is Periboea of Athens, and she is a granddaughter of Pelops and Pelops is Agamemnon's grandfather. That makes us cousins of a sort.'

By now the crowd had thinned, there was nothing before them but the churned and bloodied patch of shingle, the swaying masts, the endless rearing and tumbling of the waves. It was time to present themselves at Agamemnon's tent. As they went, Calchas fell behind and loitered for a while, allowing Ajax to precede him. Not a good idea to enter together, he thought. All such things were noted and might sooner or later be used against one in ways not foreseeable. He was still wondering vaguely, as he entered, why the family connection with Agamemnon should be felt by Ajax an impediment to easy speech.

4.

The King was waiting, seated in his great chair. Calchas knelt before him and touched his forehead to the ground. He rose and was backing away to a respectful distance, but the King stopped him with a gesture and indicated a point close to his chair, a place of honour. Across from him but farther off were Croton and his two disciples, bearded like their god, their hair piled on the top of their heads in the shape of beehives and thickly lacquered to keep it in place. They were dressed for the occasion in their white robes and white headbands, and they held their oak staffs grounded, like spears at the ready. All three looked at Calchas with hatred.

Most of the chiefs had already assembled. Glancing round quickly as he took his place, he saw Achilles and Palamedes standing together – natural allies, those two, he thought, alike in coldness of heart. Round-faced, red-haired Menelaus was there, whose cuckolding by Paris had provided the pretext for the war, and wily Odysseus, and the aged and rambling Nestor, whose head trembled incessantly. Idomeneus, leader of the contingent from Crete, entered quickly, hailed the King and stood alone: he had no friends except among the people he had brought with him.

Calchas was still struggling to make sense of Ajax's words; it was his nature always to be tormented by what he couldn't understand. Was it because references to his grandfather were offensive to Agamemnon? Pelops after all had committed a string of notable murders, in Pisatis, in Arcadia, in Elis. A serial killer, basically – he had left a trail of blood wherever he went. On the other hand, the first of these killings had been for love, in order to gain Hippodameia for his wife. This should be a cause for family pride or at least fellow-feeling in Agamemnon, whose first act as king had been to slaughter Tantalus, the husband of Clytemnestra, so he could take her for his own wife. He had gone one better. In his jealous desire to remove all traces of the man he had supplanted, he had ordered the child of the marriage, a baby still at the breast, to be smothered with a sheep fleece. So it was whispered at least. No, he was probably quite proud to be the grandson of Pelops... Then suddenly he understood. Nothing to do with family sensibilities at all. Even the impetuous and unreflective Ajax had been infected by the general distrust now gaining ground among the chiefs. It emanated from the King himself, who lay awake at night and listened to his enemies breeding in the wind. The nearer the claim, the closer the connection, the more suspicious Agamemnon would be about the motives. Better to say nothing about this Games Day himself either; Ajax would blunder on with it anyway. Only six days it had taken to bring them to this pass...

In accordance with his usual tactics, Agamemnon was waiting for movement among the chiefs to cease before he spoke. The constant billowing and collapsing of the canvas, like labouring lungs, was beyond his control, as were the flat, smacking sounds of the wind on it. He had put on the skullcap, of black silk stitched with gold thread, which he used for audiences of state. Below this his eyes looked huge, dark-ringed and slow, eyes of the sleepless or the drugged. It was hot inside the tent, but he wore the same heavy blue gown, the same thick belt with its buckle of bronze and hanging dagger. When the people gathered there were still, he spoke, not loudly, 'Let them be brought before us.'