you are not afraid of me,’ Odysseus said, ‘you will tell him that the friend who made it possible for him to come to Skyros wishes to speak with him.’
‘I have no fear of you, Ithacan.’
Odysseus smiled. ‘Then tell your son that I also bring word from his friend Patroclus. Perhaps he will speak to me when the rites are done.’
Odysseus was excluded from the inner mystery of the rite that took place on Skyros the next day but they could not keep him from joining the crowd that witnessed the procession afterwards. After hours of waiting in the sunlight he heard the clangour of approaching bells, and then the crowd were shouting and singing. His heart jumped as the procession rounded a corner of the narrow street and he was looking up at the huge, bear-like figure of a man hooded and caped in sheepskins, and with no face – for beneath the hood dangled only a featureless shaggy mask made from the flayed skin of a goat-kid. The man carried a shepherd’s crook, and around his waist and hips were tied row upon row of goat bells which clattered and jangled as he danced along the street with a curious swinging amble designed to make all his bells ring. At his side danced what Odysseus took to be the veiled figure of a maiden wearing long, flounced skirts, but as more and more such figures appeared, he realized that these were in fact young men dressed in maiden’s clothing.
Among them ran other, more comical figures holding long-necked gourds with which they made obscene gestures to the delight of the old women in the crowd. The air began to stink of wine and sweat. The din made by hundreds of bells was painful on his ears. But he was caught up in the noisy tumult of the cavalcade, wanting only to drink and dance and give himself over to the frenzy of the god. And then he became aware of one of the female figures faltering in the dance to stare at him with a shocked look of recognition, and he knew that hidden behind those veils and flounces stood the suddenly discomfited figure of the young man he had come to fetch from the island.
They talked together that night. Odysseus allowed Achilles space to tell about the life he had made on Skyros, of his love for Deidameia and their little son, whom they had called Pyrrhus because of his reddish-blond hair. He talked of the warm sense of return and homecoming he had found among his mother’s people, and how Thetis herself had supervised his initiation into mysteries that had previously lain beyond the reach of his gauche, juvenile emotions. He claimed that never in his life – not even in the years at Cheiron’s school – had he felt so at peace.
Odysseus listened with the kind of patience and sympathy that Achilles had never found in his father. He said that he was deeply glad that Achilles had found peace and joy at last. He said that he understood very well the things that the youth had been trying to tell him because he had known such a tranquil life himself on Ithaca. He too had a beloved wife. He too had a small son who was the delight of his life, and he knew how such things changed a man for the better.
‘Then why have you left them?’ Achilles asked.
‘Because I am a man and I gave my word at the swearing of the oath at Sparta.’
Odysseus watched as the intense young man across from him frowned and shook his head. Then he added almost casually. ‘Your friend Patroclus will go to the war at Troy for the same reason.’
‘Patroclus is going to the war?’
‘Of course. He was among those who contended for Helen’s hand. He took the oath and will honour it – though that’s not the only reason he will fight, of course. He and the rest of the Myrmidons are eager for the battle. They know that it will be the greatest war that has ever been fought in the history of the world. They know that there is such honour to be won there as will be sung of by the bards for generations to come. Even as I speak, a huge army is gathering not far from here at Aulis, on the other side of Euboea. Thousands upon thousands of men are arriving by land and sea. The harbour will be crowded with ships. All the great heroes of the age will be there – Agamemnon, Menelaus, Diomedes of Tiryns, Ajax and Teucer, Nestor of Pylos, Idomeneus of Crete and countless others. Everyone who cares about the glory of his name.’
Odysseus smiled and shook his head as though amazed by the wonder of the thing. He allowed time for Achilles to respond but when the youth said nothing, he added, ‘Your friend Patroclus wouldn’t want to be left out of a gathering like that even if he wasn’t bound by his given word.’
After a moment Achilles said, ‘Did he not ask if I would come?’
Odysseus shrugged. ‘He presumed that you would lead the Myrmidons – particularly as your father is in no shape to fight these days. Phoenix thought so too.’ He looked up into the uneasy gaze across from him. ‘But then they don’t know how content you are here among these shepherds on Skyros.’ Odysseus sighed. ‘I could almost envy you, Achilles, knowing that you have a long and peaceful life ahead of you untroubled by the din of battle and the tumult of the world with its lust for deathless fame.’ As though a new thought had occurred to him, the smile became a frown. ‘Your father is bound to be disappointed. He was sure you would take his ashwood spear to Troy with you. He knows what a fine warrior you have become. He saw you winning all the glory that his wound has denied him. But it seems that you belong to your mother now.’ Odysseus glanced out to sea. ‘So shall I tell him that you’ve wisely decided that it’s better to dance in maiden’s clothing than to lie gloriously dead inside a bloody suit of armour?’
They had agreed to assemble the fleet at Aulis, a rock-sheltered harbour on the narrow strait between Boetia and the island of Euboea. The Boeotian levies were already there, and neither their northern neighbours, the Locrians, nor the warriors of Euboea had far to come. By the time Agamemnon’s own fleet of a hundred ships arrived in the port, Ajax and Teucer, the sons of Telamon, had also arrived from Salamis bringing the twelve vessels they had promised. Meanwhile, Menelaus had mustered sixty ships out of Laconia, and though there was no word from Crete as yet, the principal Argive allies rallied quickly to his cause. Diomedes brought eighty ships out of Tiryns while Nestor’s flagship led ninety more out of Pylos round the many capes of the Peloponnese, and Menestheus sailed fifty Athenian warships around Sounion Head. More impressively, Odysseus and his allies out of the Ionian islands managed to launch only eight vessels short of the sixty that Palamades had mockingly suggested.
Even the distant island of Rhodes contributed nine ships, but King Cinyras of Cyprus was less forthcoming. When Menelaus sailed on a recruiting mission there, half-hoping that he might waylay Helen and Paris somewhere at sea, Cinyras promised to send fifty ships to Aulis. In the event only one Cyprian vessel turned up – though its captain did launch forty-nine model ships made out of earthenware in fulfilment of his monarch’s pledge before he sailed away.
Menelaus was furious to have been duped in this manner, but perhaps he should have expected no more from a king who was also high priest to Aphrodite on the island of her birth. Worse still, the insult confirmed a suspicion that had haunted his jealous mind while he was on the island – that Cinyras had made a pact with Paris to conceal the runaways on Cyprus while he himself was there.
Agamemnon had set up his headquarters in the ancient fort on the rocky bluff overlooking the harbour where a vast fleet of around a thousand ships jostled each other as they made ready to cast off for Troy. The town below the fort had been overcrowded for some time now, and at night the watch-fires lit by the bivouacked troops stretched far along the strand. Standing beside Agamemnon one evening, the head of the college of Boeotian bards – a famous master of the art of memory – assured the High King that no one before him, not even Heracles or Theseus, had ever mounted an expedition on this scale. The Lion of Mycenae could scarcely manage his pride.
But various minor conflicts had already demonstrated the difficulty of holding together a diverse force that spoke many different dialects and harboured a number of old feuds and grudges. Agamemnon was under no illusion that so many men had been drawn to Aulis merely out of loyalty to himself and his brother. Yet whether it was greed for the rich spoils of Troy, or lust for land and trading advantage, or the mere love of violence and adventure that had