had been a delay in starting the council while the others had waited impatiently for Achilles to appear. The mood was now fraught with nervous anticipation.
Agamemnon hesitated. He had no wish to enter into open conflict with this volatile young man, but neither was he willing to trust the success of his first, crucial assault to a warrior who had yet to fight a full-scale battle. Before he could pick his words, Achilles narrowed his eyes. ‘Calchas has warned you that this war can not be won without my help. If the gods are looking to me to seal the victory, they will favour me as I lead the first attack.’ He spoke as though the full force of oracular authority lay behind his declaration, leaving no room for debate or contradiction.
News of the omen about the seventh son of Peleus had spread quickly throughout the ranks, and Achilles already commanded the affection of the troops as well as their respect. His Myrmidons had always been prepared to lay down their lives for him, but so were many others now, and he was known among the common soldiers as the luck of the force. Well aware of it, Agamemnon had already bitten back his tongue on a number of occasions when the youth had spoken with arrogant presumption, but this time he was not prepared to yield.
‘We commend your ardour, son of Peleus, and are grateful for your offer,’ – he glanced down at the chart of Tenedos on the table before him – ‘but our trust is in the experience of Diomedes, the veteran of Thebes. When you have proved yourself in battle as thoroughly as he, we will be glad to give you a command.’
Agamemnon cleared his throat and was about to progress the attention of the council to a discussion of tactics for the assault when Achilles said, ‘The High King must think again.’
Agamemnon visibly swallowed his rage. ‘Did I not make myself clear?’
Achilles rose from his seat. ‘Quite clear enough. The insult you have just given me was quite as clear as the first I had to suffer at your hands.’
Agamemnon looked up in impatient bewilderment.
Anxiously old Nestor sought to intervene. ‘Calm yourself, Achilles,’ he said quietly. ‘I feel sure that no insult was intended.’
‘No,’ Agamemnon growled, holding up a clenched hand so that the gold shone on the lion-seal of his ring, ‘let’s have this thing out once and for all. I shall be most interested to hear how the son of Peleus thinks I have insulted him.’
Achilles brought his fist down on the table. ‘It’s been clear to me from the first that you recruited me to this campaign only as a mere afterthought. Had Calchas not made it plain that Troy would never fall without my aid, you would have been content to leave me on Skyros and keep all the glory for yourself. Is that not so?’
Irritably Agamemnon said, ‘If your fame had been greater we might have thought of you sooner.’
Achilles’ nostrils flared. He was deciding whether to release his pent-up fury or to turn on his heel and walk away for ever, when Odysseus spoke. ‘Achilles my friend, you’re wrong to believe that the High King slighted you. Had I been quicker to come from Ithaca, you would have been called sooner to the cause. Such things are ruled by the gods, but if there is a fault here, it is mine.’
‘And today?’ Achilles demanded, barely mollified by the generous apology. ‘Have I not seen my courage thrown back in my teeth?’
‘No one doubts your courage,’ Odysseus answered, ‘but you ask a great deal.’
Menelaus shifted uneasily in his chair, sweating a little in the heat. ‘My brother seeks only to secure the success of the landing.’ ‘Then am I to understand that the sons of Atreus question my prowess?’
Nestor smiled at him. ‘No more than I do, and that is not at all. But there will be many opportunities for you to demonstrate your skill at arms, young man.’
‘You are old, sir,’Achilles answered, ‘and I respect your wisdom. But were you not once as young as I am and as impatient for fame?’
‘It’s your impatience that worries me,’ Agamemnon scowled. ‘I will not court disaster merely to feed your ambitions.’
Again Achilles bristled. Again Odysseus was about to intervene, but it was Idomeneus who spoke first. It had been one thing for the King of Crete to gain formal acknowledgement as joint-commander of the enterprise, but it had been quite another to make his authority felt in a council that had assembled around Agamemnon and evidently owed him its allegiance. His position was weakened also by the fact that he had brought twenty less ships from Crete than the hundred he had promised. But having observed this dispute with cool detachment, the suave Cretan now saw his first clear opportunity to assert himself. ‘There is a way we might resolve this matter to everyone’s satisfaction while at the same time advancing our business here today’. Gratified to sense that he had secured the full attention of everyone present, he kept them waiting a few moments longer than necessary. ‘I agree with my royal cousin of Mycenae that Diomedes is the right man to lead this force. The conqueror of Thebes will surely make short work of Tenedos.’ Achilles stiffened but Idomeneus smiled and raised a restraining hand. ‘Be patient with me, friend.’ When Achilles settled in his chair again, Idomeneus looked round at the others. ‘Priam has, of course, anticipated our plans to seize the island, and has taken steps to fortify it. He knows that the only harbour large enough for the number of ships we will need is here.’ He pointed to the place on the chart. ‘One of my spies reliably reports that a number of large rocks have been placed on the cliffs above the harbour. In the event of attack, they will be rolled down, causing massive damage both to ships and men as they come ashore.’ Agamemnon was about to demand why he had not been told this before, but Idomeneus spoke over him. ‘This is my suggestion. Let Diomedes command the main assault on the harbour, but give Achilles command of a smaller force that will swim ashore under the cover of darkness, making for this cove here. From there he can storm the cliff positions from the rear. If he times his assault correctly, and conducts it with sufficient ardour, he will prevent the release of the rocks and allow the main force to come ashore unmolested.’ His black eyes smiled across at Achilles. ‘There is great honour to be won from such a perilous task. And this way the two commanders will act together – as Agamemnon and I act together, to mutual advantage and for the good of all.’
Odysseus and Nestor immediately commended the merits of the plan. When Diomedes declared that he had no objection to sharing that part of his command, Agamemnon gave the scheme his general approval so long as the details could be worked out to his satisfaction. But though the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles had been contained, it had not been resolved, and Odysseus came away from the council privately convinced that, whatever the oracles promised, the hostility between the High King and the dangerous young man he had brought out of Skyros might one day prove disastrous for the whole campaign.
Whenever Odysseus spoke about Achilles in later years he would always claim that there was a mystery about the youth that baffled understanding, for though his pride was impossible, his murderous efficiency as a warrior was matched by a degree of tenderness such as Odysseus had observed in no other man. In some respects, he suggested once, Achilles had more in common with Helen than with anyone else he knew. They had both grown up loving wild things in wild places – Achilles at Cheiron’s school in the mountains, Helen in the wilderness groves of Artemis – and both had a certain feral quality about them, by which I think he meant an almost amoral air of innocence that was capable of ruthless action. It’s true also that both of them had been injured by the human world at a crucial moment of their development and their destinies were shaped for ever by those wounds. Above all, however, they seemed kindred in the knowledge that though their bodies were mortal, their spirits were not, and everything about them seemed touched by immortal fire.
‘Mother,’ Achilles had said at last as he and Thetis parted, ‘I was born to die soon, but Olympian Zeus owes me some honour for it.’ And so he had come to the war, convinced that he would never return, and driven by so urgent an appetite for his destiny that he would let nothing stand in the way of his honour. Out of forces that once threatened to tear him apart – the bitter strife between his mother and his father, between the old religion and the new, between the claims of his peaceful life on Skyros and