The Songs of the Kings: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

  “How often did the birds wheel in the sky?” he asked Leucides. “Once only or more than once?”

  “Once only.”

  “Did they cry out?”

  “No, they were silent.”

  “The eagles came in the days just after the full moon, when the face of the moon was crumbling. At the hour you saw the hare the moon would still be clearly visible in the sky?”

  “Yes, the moon was still to be seen.”

  “The eagles, in their flight, did they cross the face of the moon?”

  For the first time Leucides hesitated, but not, it seemed to Calchas, in the way of one striving to remember. “No,” he said, “no, they flew lower.”

  “Did they fall on the hare with folded wings or wings extended?”

  Leucides was hesitating again, but it was a question destined never to be answered. The man whose excitable face Calchas had noticed earlier now broke into stumbling speech:

  “The hare was fat with young, the eagles swooped on her and ripped her open, the young ones came spilling out, they were fully formed . . .”

  The voice seemed not his own, it was thick, with a strange bubbling in it, as if struggling up from somewhere lower in the body. Calchas felt fear at the voice, at the staring face, at the convulsive movements at the throat.

  “And then?”

  “Mother and young were torn to pieces and devoured.”

  The silence inside the tent was so loud now that it smothered the crying of the wind. Yet they heard the sound of the man’s swallowing, the click of his tongue in the dry mouth. His eyes had opened wide as if he could still see the ravenous descent, the ripped flesh, the gorging. Calchas felt the clutch of fear grow tighter. The man was possessed, a god was speaking through him, pronouncing the one and only truth to be found in this whole account, though it did not belong to that dawn at Mycenae, it was happening now, here in the tent, he knew it from the stillness of the man’s companions as they stood there, stillness of shock, knew it even as he saw Phylakos, readier than the others, raise his chin as at a call to battle, and heard him say, “Yes, this killing of the young was also in the report they gave me, the hare was pregnant, the eagles ate the mother and the young.”

  But it came too late and the knowledge of this was on the face of Phylakos as he spoke. The hush was broken now. As if a quilt had been lifted they heard again the clamor of the wind in the world outside the tent. The brain-soft Nestor, again growing restive—and perhaps jogged by these details of the gutted hare—raised his lamenting voice again, sought to return to that ancient disemboweling of Itymoneus or Iphitomenos, only to be silenced again by the pigeon notes of his dutiful sons on either side.

  Taking advantage of this diversion and the breathing space it brought with it, Calchas moved forward and turned to the King and bowed low. On behalf of all, he asked for time to interpret the meaning of what they had heard, a day and a night for reflection. He heard the request granted and uttered thanks, struggling to control his voice, to betray nothing of the trembling he felt within him at his first dim perception of who it might be that had spoken to them through the belly and throat of this staring man.

  5.

  Poimenos was waiting for him outside and supported him back to his own tent. Once there, however, he could not rest. He sent the boy away and covered his face and head with a dark cloth and sat in the close heat of his body, seeking through this warmth and enclosure to find again a time before he knew a difference between his body and the space surrounding it. He felt the run of the sweat on his brow and chest. In the darkness under the head cloth the tranced face of the man took form again, uttering the words that had been forced from his mouth, the lie that had changed from lie to truth as it was uttered, truth for everyone present in that tent, but most of all for him, servant of the Divine Companion, who united male and female in one being and blended them like water and the light on water. It could only be she, the Lady, whom the Greeks knew as Artemis, one of her many names, protectress of the young, mistress of wild things, goddess of childbirth. Always alert for opportunity, she had found the slack mind and the slack mouth, and used them to warn of a price to be paid. The eagles were from Zeus, yes, but the pregnant hare was hers.

  In a day and a night he would have to announce this to the King. The reader of omens takes the omen for himself, takes it over, makes it his own, together with the danger of it. Calchas felt fear in the darkness, felt it in all the pulses of his body, customary fever, companion of all his travels. With it came the need for a time apart, in which to consider. He would have to get away from the camp for a while and for that he would require the King’s permission—there was no leaving without it. Agamemnon needed, demanded, to know where he was at all times of the day and night; in the hours of his insomnia he would send a summons, or at the moment of waking, the sweat of his dreams still on him. And he was sudden now and terrible in his rages. Poimenos had brought back from the gossip of the camp the story of the slave boy who for spilling water had been struck so heavily by the King that he had lain lost to the world for most of a day and now did not put words together in a connected way. Even when Agamemnon was not enraged, Calchas sensed a malignancy that was new, felt it in the glances he received, even when his understanding was being asked for. It was as if the King, hating his own misery, had begun also to hate those who were witness to it.

  There was a cave shrine to Potnia, the Lady, on the island, just across the narrow water. Calchas had heard the priests of Zeus inveigh against it in their regular processions through the camp, denouncing the presence of an ancient pollution, this nearness of unclean earth cults, pointing to it as one of the causes of their troubles. It was there he would ask leave to go.

  The wind had strengthened, he heard it loud in the scrub of the hillsides and felt it push against his face as he walked the short distance to Agamemnon’s tent. He spoke to the armed guards at the entrance, was checked for hidden weapons, as everyone now must be who sought audience with the King. One of the guards went inside, returning moments later to admit him. Agamemnon was sitting in the same place, on his chair of state, staring somberly before him. Two dark-skinned male slaves were fanning him with squares of woven rush attached to long canes. The displaced air lapped in warm waves against the priest’s face as he approached to make his obeisance. Bowing low, he smelled again the sweetish odor of hemp that hung about the King’s person.

  Agamemnon kept his face averted as he listened; but Calchas was not discouraged by this, knowing it for the habit of kingship among the Mycenaeans. There was a haggardness, a look of nightmare, in the face thus presented in profile. As he made his request, Calchas felt some sorrow mingling with his fear; and while he waited through the long silence for the answer he tried to conquer the fear with the sorrow. Ruler of the most powerful kingdom in all the Greek lands. A sacral king by virtue of his forefathers in the House of Atreus. By common consent and election of his peers, commander of a great invasion force. Troy waiting over the water, a city famous for her gold and her horses. The eagles of Zeus, blessing his quarrel. The prayers all uttered, the libations all made. And now this raging wind from the north, prolonged in a way never before heard of in this season, implacable, keeping the fleet penned there. And he wonders, Has the god turned against me? What mistake have I made, how have I offended? And no word or sign. And not far away there are those ready to blame him for the wind, for the vicious fault which he cannot discover, ready to proclaim themselves to the army as more fortunate, more favored. People with a following already, Palamedes, Idomeneus . . .

  Agamemnon raised his right hand in the gesture of consent. “By sunset tomorrow you will return. You will tell us the meaning as you have understood it. I will call an assembly of the chiefs. We will also hear Croton and any others who have a mind to speak.”

  Calchas was beginning to back away, but the King spoke again, in a different, sharper tone. “This morning, before the meeting, you were seen talking to Ajax the Larger. The two of y
ou, faces close together, he gripping your arm.”

  “Yes, we spoke together.”

  “What was the subject of this talk?”

  “Lord Ajax spoke to me about his idea for a Day of Games.”

  “And what may that be?”

  Calchas did his best to explain Ajax’s idea, no easy matter, as he had been so muddled about it himself. There would be competition in various things, running, jumping, weight lifting, throwing the javelin. Those who did well would gain points and these points would also belong to the places they came from. In the end, one person and one place would have more points than any other person or place, but the person with the most points would not necessarily be from the place with the most points . . .

  Agamemnon stirred in his chair with a restless motion. A look of frowning incredulity had appeared on his face. He could not believe, in the midst of the troubles that plagued him, that he should find himself listening to such stuff. Calchas said, “He sees it as a way of bringing the men together in friendly competition, keeping their minds off the wind and putting an end to all this quarreling and bloodshed.”

  “Why did Ajax not come to me himself with this?”

  “Lord, I do not know.”

  In the silence that followed he felt the King’s eyes upon him and kept his own gaze fixed on the ground. Since this affliction of the wind Agamemnon saw conspiracy everywhere and he was dangerous in his suspicions because any trifle might be taken to confirm them.

  “Well,” he said at last, “it sounds a dubious enterprise to me but I don’t see anything against it, it will keep him busy at least.” A sudden contempt lightened the misery of his face, restored for a moment or two its normal expression of tight-lipped, watchful pride. “He’ll need help with the adding-up,” he said. “That much is certain.”

  “He spoke of bringing the other Ajax into it, Ajax the Lesser.”

  “Did he so?” A faint smile came to the King’s face. “Two likely peacemakers there, they do nothing but quarrel whenever they are together. You have our leave to go. See that you are here again by sunset tomorrow. And see that you come with the right words.”

  He smiled again, saying this, and the smile was terrible to Calchas, as was the threat contained in the quickened tone. They were still present to his mind as he left the tent. Hatred there, not for him only. Again it came to him that the King was mad. A man who had scented in his soul the disfavor of the gods and still demanded the right words rather than the true ones . . .

  Poimenos had returned and together they made ready. The diviner abandoned his long-skirted robe and girdle for a sleeveless vest and short kilt such as the Greeks used. Poimenos wore cotton drawers, tied at the waist with a strip of crocodile skin which Calchas had given him and of which he was very proud.

  Calchas watched him as he moved about, passing inside the tent and out again, getting together the provisions for their journey. And again his heart was wrung by the boy’s beauty, which was without knowledge of itself in this bustle of preparation, the slight but well-defined muscles of the shoulders and thighs, the warm olive tone of the skin, no flaw or fleck in it, lustrous—it was as if the hot sun oiled him, spread him with unguents. By what mystery, what casual gift, had a goatherd, a descendant of goatherds, been endowed with such unconscious grace of movement and form? In the crisis that had come upon him, in the danger that he felt, Calchas was swept by longing for negation, freedom from the torment of alternatives, he wanted the boy’s body next to his, in a light so pure and strong that it contained no faintest hue and so was indistinguishable from darkness. No conflicting voices could live in such a light, only peace of the senses and vacancy of the mind.

  It was not possible now, as it had never been before, to know whether Poimenos understood the refuge he gave, the sheltered place where the light and the dark were one. Almost certainly not, the priest thought; it was outside the range of the boy’s conceptions, though he was sensitive and quick when it came to the messages of the body. He recognized the need in the eyes, but thought it only for the pleasure he knew how to supply. Now, it seemed, he saw something of his master’s foreboding too, for he paused in his preparations to touch the priest’s shoulder and smile and say, “The goddess will reveal the truth to you, and you will reveal that truth to Agamemnon, tamer of horses, the great oak that shelters us.”

  He had not understood—it was the truth itself that Calchas feared most. But as the priest made up his mixture of hemp seed and dried bay leaf, as they put their bread and cheese, and the wine for the libation, into a cloth bag, as they set out along the shore together, away from the camp, to look for a local fisherman who might take them across, all the while he held to the simplicity of the words. For Poimenos truth was triumph over uncertainty, peace after struggle, complete and unmixed. It was why he would remain always a server, always in the anteroom of the temple, never knowing the terrible obscurity of the god’s purposes. Like looking at a great tree, Calchas thought. At a distance, one single shape, a dome, a spire. Approaching, one saw the articulation of the limbs, the separate masses of the foliage. But what mortal man, drawing nearer yet, looking up through the canopy of the branches, could keep the whole marvelous structure present to his mind? And if, nevertheless, there was still the terror of failing to see the vein in the leaf . . . Suddenly, unexpectedly, Calchas felt envy for the boy at his side, who would never stand in that place and look up. The envy was new, born of his fear; and contained in it was the first impulse of a fatal desire to share, to instruct. “Tamer of horses?” he said. “Great oak? These are the Singer’s phrases. You must not pay too much attention to the Singer, he does not deal in truth.”

  THE Heavy Burden OF Command

  1.

  What went wrong?” Odysseus took care to keep his tone casual. The last thing he wanted to do was antagonize the man before him, who might then decide to change sides. Unlikely, he was too deeply implicated. But Phylakos was corrupt, and so more easily offended in his dignity than an honest person. “I mean to say, it was a simple enough matter, wasn’t it? All you had to do was coach the men in the story so they didn’t contradict each other.”

  He had thought at one point that Calchas would take it into his head to interrogate the three separately, in which case discrepancies would certainly have been revealed. But he had seen almost at once that there was nothing to worry about. Behind his professional manner the priest was terrified of discrediting a symbol so potent; to do so would have been to cast doubt on the success of the expedition in the presence of the man who was leading it. A braver man than Calchas would quail at that. “Just a device, really, wasn’t it?” he said. “The hare, I mean. A proof of our loyalty and devotion, strengthening belief in victory, holding things together through these difficult days. Agamemnon was ready to believe it, so was everyone else. Almost everyone.” He thought of the priest again. Something would have to be done about Calchas. Too much play of mind. He glanced at the dogged face before him, weathered by a score of campaigns. Not much play of mind there. “How did this pregnancy business get into it?”

  Phylakos stared unwaveringly before him, habit of an old soldier who felt himself under reprimand. He had been summoned to Odysseus’s tent early for this private talk. Chasimenos, who had also been party to the story, was due later. “We couldn’t have known he would come out with that,” he said. His voice was scraped, painful-sounding, as if always proceeding from a parched throat.

  “But you must have known he was a hysteric. Those with him must have known.”

  “Hysteric?”

  Odysseus sighed. “They must have known he had a screw loose. You only have to look at his face.”

  “They said he screamed in his sleep sometimes, and sometimes laughed for no reason, but they were used to him. They thought nothing of it and neither did I. All the fool had to do was keep his trap shut.”

  “Well, he didn’t.” Odysseus paused for a moment or two, then said in a tone of wonder rather than of reproach, “An
d you backed him up.”

  There was no reply to this and Odysseus expected none. It had been a bad mistake, but he knew that Phylakos had not been able to help himself, it had been in the nature of a reflex action. The backup, the closing of ranks, the solidarity to the group, this was the conditioning of military life. It counted for morality with many, even in support of a lie. Only very rare beings were free of such limiting factors, such blindness to their own interest: clear-sighted men, who saw things steadily and saw them whole. Men like himself. “Well,” he said, “it’s too late to do anything about it now. I trust this blabbermouth will be rendered harmless, made incapable of further damage, what’s the word I’m looking for?” He liked this fishing for words, casting, seeing the float bob, pulling up a plump one. But Phylakos, still staring doggedly before him, was not the right sort for it. This time he was obliged to answer his own question. “Neutralized,” he said.

  “Snuffed out, you mean? Already taken care of. That’s one motherfucker won’t talk out of turn again, I can promise you that.”

  “Your patriotism will be remembered and rewarded,” Odysseus said. “Liberally rewarded. You know, when we get across the water.”

  In the reflective silence that followed these words, one of his Ithacan guards came in to announce that Chasimenos was outside, asking to be admitted. Odysseus went himself to the entrance to accompany the scribe inside—it was essential that Chasimenos should feel valued.

  “What went wrong?” Chasimenos said to Phylakos as soon as he was inside the tent. He took less care than Odysseus had taken to keep his tone free of annoyance. “All the planning that went into it and you people couldn’t even stick to the story.”