The Songs of the Kings (6 page)

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, “And 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.”

But Phylakos was not prepared, in a military camp, to take rebukes from a civilian, however high-ranking. “It wasn't me telling the story,” he said, in a voice like the dragging of gravel. “It wasn't my story at all, it was yours. You schooled them in it, you should have seen the bastard was off his chump.”

“Good heavens, do you think I have time for character analysis? Have you any idea of the administrative difficulties involved in organizing a meeting like that, making sure that the chiefs are notified well in advance, so no one is drunk or out hunting or pillaging some local farm or busy raping someone? No good sending out memoranda, none of them can read.” This clodhopper, he thought, all he can do is swing a sword. “And you backed him up,” he said. “You supported that nonsense about the eagles eating the young of the hare. It's the official version now.”

“No good crying over spilt milk,” Odysseus said. “The harm is done now, recriminations won't help.” How ridiculous, he thought, these two standing glaring at each other, the soldier and the civil servant, each feeling he belonged to a superior race, when in reality they were as alike as two peas, both hirelings. Phylakos had physical courage but he would sign up with anyone he thought likely to win; he took orders and hoped for promotion if he did well. Chasimenos was devoted to the King's interest, as he saw it, but he was a natural subordinate, dreaming of a Greater Mycenae across the water, where his services would be rewarded and his power and influence increased. One in steady employment, one up for grabs, that was really the only difference. “We must look forward, not back,” he said. “The past has less substance than a shadow, it can hardly be said to exist at all. Besides, it isn't such a disaster. The omen has become more ambiguous than we intended, that's all. Phylakos, can I ask you to do me a service?”

Phylakos raised his chin and squared his shoulders. “Yours to command.”

“Either go yourself or send one of your people, find Croton the priest and bring him here to my tent as soon as possible.”

“I will go myself.” With this, he raised his hand in salute and strode out, without a glance at Chasimenos, who said, as soon as he was out of the tent, “That man is an oaf, he has no manners at all, he really gets my back up.”

“Well,” Odysseus said, “you are two very different kinds of person after all. But we'll have to forget our differences and forge ahead if we want what is best for Agamemnon and the Greek cause.”

“That is true.”

“Before Croton comes, there are one or two things I thought we could talk over. As you and I both know, the expeditionary force is far from united at present. Less than half of the people here are from regions anywhere close to Agamemnon's power base in the Argolis. My own Ithacans are a case in point. Of course, I'm bound by oath to the Mycenaean cause, through thick and thin, but the same can't be said for everybody. There are 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.”

“Brilliant.” 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.”

“We need an event, a significant future event.”

“A 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.”

“Well, 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?”

“Marginalized.”

“Marginalized, 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?”

“Certainly. Responsibility is the essence of command.”

“Essence of command, there you go. But responsibility for what?”

“Why, the conduct of the war, of course.”

“I 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.

“So 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 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?”

“Certainly not. But no one knows the cause of the wind.”

“Exactly, 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.”

“He 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.”

“Inescapable, 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.

“I 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.”

“I see. Is there some special reason?”

“Until this uncleanness ends and the will of Zeus is clear to all.”

“Let 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?”