Free The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth Page A

held responsible for the cause of it, the wind. If he is not to be marginalized, I mean. We can’t allow him to be marginalized, can we?”
    â€œCertainly not. But no one knows the cause of the wind.”
    â€œExactly, you’ve hit the nail on the head, no one knows the cause, that’s why it’s so demoralizing. But if they
believe
they know the cause, if they believe it lies in him, in the King, if they believe he has it in his power to end it, not now, not immediately, but through some significant future event, to use your excellent phrase, something only he can do, what then?”
    The two men looked closely at each other for some moments. Then Chasimenos said, “We could hope to discover the sender and make sacrifices of atonement. In that case, the curse would be lifted before the future significant event needed to take place. Then there would be no problem. But the King will suffer in the meantime.”
    â€œHe will, he will,” Odysseus said, infusing his tone with compassion. Agamemnon was already being blamed for the wind, they both knew that. It surprised him slightly that Chasimenos, for all his undoubted intelligence, understood so little of future significant events and relative probabilities and the nature of public promises. Or perhaps he wished to seem ingenuous. Either way, it didn’t matter.
    The scribe was nodding slowly. “I can’t see any way round it,” he said. “No one will believe that Agamemnon can put an end to the wind without also believing that he is the cause of it. It’s inescapable.”
    â€œInescapable, brilliant, that’s just—”
    At this moment, Phylakos reentered the tent, the tall and lantern-jawed Croton beside him. Odysseus briefly debated within himself whether the captain should stay. As a general principle, the less the trust, the less the risk, but Phylakos could be useful, he had influence with certain sections of the army, especially those from Mycenae; and his own interest could be expected to keep him faithful.
    â€œI am glad Phylakos found you,” he said to Croton. “Can I offer you a cup of wine?”
    The priest’s long hair, which he wore piled in the shape of an inverted bowl on top of his head and waxed to keep it in place, had been disordered by the wind and hung round his face in glistening strands. His lips were very pale and sometimes had a writhing motion when he spoke. “I am under a vow,” he said. “I take nothing to eat or drink during the hours of the sun.”
    â€œI see. Is there some special reason?”
    â€œUntil this uncleanness ends and the will of Zeus is clear to all.”
    â€œLet us hope it will be soon, for your health’s sake.” Odysseus glanced away from the priest’s face, which was disturbing in its contrast between the fixed gaze and the convulsive movements of the mouth. Croton inspired a strong distaste in him, but one could not always choose one’s instruments. And the priest would go to any lengths to spread the power of Zeus and his own. “I am told you have a theory, let us call it that, regarding the sender of this wind and the reason it is sent?”

2.
    The Singer was in the place he usually occupied in the middle hours of the day, sheltered from the wind and protected from the sun by an overhang of rock. He had been silent for some time, leaning back against the rock, between sleep and waking, his lyre resting over his knees. The dazzle of reflected sunlight from the white surfaces of granite on the hillside, the shivering of light from the scrub as it was endlessly agitated by the wind, the vague gleams of human forms as they moved before him, these were splinters that could still hurt what was left of his eyes. He kept them closed now as he took up the lyre again, feeling the thin, bitter tears beneath the closed lids.
    It had been a day like all the others since they came there, the wind contending with