Free The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth

plenty here who think only of their own interest. The alliance was always shaky and it’s getting shakier day by day. People are homesick—home being the place where there is no wind, no sense of being under sentence of doom. Before very long, if we don’t find a way of holding things together, the army will start melting away. I’ve seen it happen before. Desertion is contagious. It starts here and there, in ones and twos, then before you know where you are it has developed into a mass movement. By then it’s too late to do anything about it, much too late.”
    Chasimenos nodded, lips compressed. He had a habit, when pondering deeply, of switching his eyes from one side to the other, as if following the flight of some small, erratic insect, and this lent a look of slight alarm to his narrow face. “What we need,” he said, “is some way of guaranteeing the end of the wind, some promise of an end to it that they will believe in.”
    â€œBrilliant.” Odysseus felt the customary throb of pleasure at subjecting another’s intelligence to purposes of his own. It was hardly necessary in this case, their interests more or less coincided; but deceit was more than an inveterate habit, it was power, it quickened the blood in his veins. “I never thought of it in quite that way, but it’s true,” he said. “Duels won’t do it. Omens won’t do it. That is all spectacle, it is all part of the entertainment business. What we need is something more, something definite.” He paused a moment, brow furrowed. “Something that will reconcile them to waiting.”
    â€œWe need an event, a significant future event.”
    â€œA significant future event, bravo, that’s it exactly.” He looked with smiling wonder at Chasimenos, who was still tracing the flight paths of the insect. “Absolutely brilliant,” he said. A delicate moment had arrived. Chasimenos was loyal to Agamemnon, and even loved the King in his way, or at least regarded himself as the King’s creature. That could be put to use, but it needed a light touch. “Of course,” he said, “whatever this future significant event turns out to be, and I am confident of further ideas from you on that score, we must take care that Agamemnon is kept informed.”
    Chasimenos’s look of concentration disappeared and he stared at Odysseus with surprise and the beginning of indignation. “Kept informed? It must proceed directly from the King, it must be seen as his will, his intention, his idea. It must be he that guarantees an end to the waiting, no one else. Surely you see the importance of that.”
    â€œWell, now that you put it like that . . . Of course, whoever guarantees an end to the waiting will be hailed as leader, and as we know only too well, there are those among us ready to seize any occasion to take over the command. No, I see it now, we daren’t allow Agamemnon to be set aside, relegated, what’s the word I’m looking for?”
    â€œMarginalized.”
    â€œMarginalized, brilliant. No, we can’t allow Agamemnon to be marginalized, whatever happens we can’t allow that. But the thing is, if he is not to be marginalized, if he is to act as guarantor, he will have to accept responsibility, wouldn’t you agree?”
    â€œCertainly. Responsibility is the essence of command.”
    â€œEssence of command, there you go. But responsibility for what?”
    â€œWhy, the conduct of the war, of course.”
    â€œI couldn’t agree more, but we are still here at Aulis, still waiting to embark. How to deal with this waiting also belongs to the conduct of the war, wouldn’t you say?”
    Chasimenos was looking less certain now. “I suppose so, yes,” he said.
    â€œSo Agamemnon, if he is to be responsible for the conduct of the war, must make himself responsible for the waiting, which means that he will also be