'There is something we did not know before,' Agamemnon said. 'My captain, Phylakos, has words for us.'

Phylakos took a step forward from the other three and stood in a position of attention, arms at his sides. 'These men saw something more. They were at the lookout post on the northern side of the citadel on the third day of the eagles, early in the morning, soon after dawn.' He paused to look briefly round at the others in the tent. 'The light is good at this time,' he said. 'That I can vouch for. I sometimes inspected the guard posts then. It is the time you find men sleeping, before sunrise, before the guard is changed.'

His face was impassive but it was immediately apparent to Calchas that he was trying to secure belief beforehand for what they were going to hear; or at least to anticipate objections. But this, after all, was no more than anyone would do when there was a story to tell, a story he believed and wanted others to believe.

'This man will tell you what they saw,' he said now, indicating one of the three. 'He is called Leucides.'

Leucides stepped forward in his turn and braced his shoulders, preparatory to speech. He was a bony man with a conspicuous ribcage and a long, sad face. 'There was a hare,' he said. 'We saw the eagles swoop at this hare. They killed it and tore it to pieces.'

In the startled silence that followed on this the plaintive muttering of Nestor became audible, rising above the shushing of his sons. His concentration span was short, and he had lost interest in the proceedings at an early stage, embarking yet again on the interminable narrative of his own past deeds. He was talking now, Calchas realized after some moments, about a cattle raid into Elis that he had made in his distant youth.

'...show these Trojan dogs a thing or two, I'd be over there in two shakes of a duck's tail if I was young again, in those days I could outdistance the wind, I would race ahead of it, as I did when we went rustling cattle in Elis, they couldn't stop us, they tried to stop us but they couldn't stop us, nobody could stop us, Achilles is a runner but he isn't a patch on what I was, I tell you I could outrun the wind, bounding and bounding over the land, and the wind falling short behind me, I heard the wind behind me, wailing because it couldn't keep up...'

'That is a striking image, father, but running is no good now, there is water before us.'

'Father, that wind was behind you, whereas this one...'

'They couldn't stop me, they tried to stop me, nobody could stop me, we got away with fifty cows, Itymoneus tried to stop me, or was his name Iphitomenos, he was the son of Hypeirochus or Hypernochus, I'm sure of that, they were his father's cattle, he came against me, he fancied his chances, but I took my sword – it wasn't a javelin, the singers have said it was a javelin but it was a sword, who would carry javelins on a cattle raid, you need to make a quick getaway on a cattle raid, it was a sword – I went down on one knee and quick as a flash I gave him an upward thrust with it, straight up the crotch, ha, ha, he wasn't expecting that, the blades were longer in those days...'

The old man raised his head and a brief light blazed in his eyes. 'I split him open,' he said in a stronger voice, 'the point went in at the crotch and I pushed up with it, I got both hands to it, got it in up to the hilt, they knew how to make swords in those days, he couldn't fall, he wanted to fall but he couldn't fall, I was holding him up on the sword, he was skewered from his balls to his belly like a stuck pig, then I twisted the blade and his guts came spilling out, now, you bastard, I said to him, now you know the stuff Nestor is made of and he said, what did he say, no, he didn't say anything, he just–'

'Those were happy days, father, you were young then, but now we must listen.'

'Now we must be quiet, now we must listen.'

Their voices were like the notes of doves, yes, Calchas thought, but contented doves, doves in the sun, clucking together, the sounds overlapping. Blotted in these cooing remonstrances, the old man's voice faltered away into its habitual muttering, half-querulous, half-plaintive, and then trailed off into silence.

'I think Nestor needs to take a good long rest,' Odysseus said. 'I propose that he be escorted back to his own quarters.'

There was a quality of anger in his voice, something that seemed to Calchas more than mere impatience at the delay. Was it because Nestor's reminiscences had lowered the level of attention, reduced the impact of this strangely belated news about the hare? If so, there must have been some prior knowledge on Odysseus' part, on that of others too. He felt a gathering of suspicion.

'No, no,' Agamemnon said. 'Absolutely out of the question. Nestor must stay. No council is complete without Nestor. He has attended more councils than any man alive.' He looked again at Leucides. 'We are listening.'

'We were on the wall, on the side that looks north. We saw the eagles rise together into the sky and wheel in a wide circle. Just below us a hare was feeding. There are hares, they come in the first light, anyone who has been on guard duty on that side can tell you. We shoot at them sometimes; the ground is open there, you can recover the arrows.'

He paused and swallowed, still in the same rigid posture. Calchas studied him with quickened attention. Constraint was to be expected, even awe: he was in the tent of the Commander-in-Chief, among the heroes of the army, men who featured often in the verses of the Singer. Awe, yes, but Leucides looked frightened. He spoke in the manner of someone who had rehearsed his words – or been rehearsed in them. But this was natural enough, he was without practice. His speech was rough, half bitten back in the way of the country people of Argos. In some remote village, herding his goats, tending his strip of vines, turning over the stony ground, he had been fired by thoughts of Trojan gold, a life of ease.

'The eagles swooped down on the hare both together and killed it and devoured it, sharing together.'

As these words were uttered Calchas' gaze fell on the face of the man standing next to the speaker, on his right. A febrile face, the yolk of the eye too much visible, something too excitable and tremulous in the mouth. Prone himself to the tremors and fevers of strained nerves, the priest recognized the signs. This did not look a reliable witness. But of course they had not been able to choose, it had to be these three, the three on guard on the northern wall in the hour before sunrise, when few people were about...

The silence was broken by Chasimenos, who raised his narrow, pale-eyed face and spoke directly to the King: 'This is news indeed.'

'Why do we know it only now?' The question came from Achilles, who looked at nobody as he spoke and moved his smoothly tanned and perfectly proportioned shoulders in the usual narcissistic shrug. 'Why was it not reported at the time?'

'They did not think it important,' Phylakos said.

'Not important?' Calchas looked directly at the captain, raising his eyebrows in a surprise he was conscious of assuming. Commander of a hundred, a professional soldier from the mountainous country round Larisa, in middle age though strong still. Not many campaigns left, not many chances, this perhaps the last one, the big one, an occasion for plunder he could retire on. Yes, it was easy to see that Phylakos would want to strengthen belief in victory at a time of trial like this when the army's resolve was wavering in the wind. 'I find it strange that they should not think it important,' the diviner said.

Phylakos looked at him without expression. 'They are simple men.'

'Those simple men should be hanged for not thinking it important,' Achilles said. 'I've a good mind to string them up myself.' He moved his beautiful shoulders again in the same shrug, lithe, luxuriant, deeply self-loving. Or drown them in Ajax's latrine,' he said.