Like everybody else, I looked at the statues: flaking paint, rotting wood, Poseidon’s nose missing, Athena’s owl-like eyes dimmed, Apollo tilting dangerously to one side, as if bending in concern over his fallen sister.
“Now, I’m not saying the neglect of their statues has so incensed the gods that they’ve sent this wind as a punishment. I’m saying that the neglect of the statues is a sign of a much greater offence: a failure of the respect we all owe to beings so much greater than ourselves.”
Calchas was sweating in the heat, his face paint flaking, the dark lines round his eyes beginning to run—that, and his immense height, made him look like a decaying statue himself. A sort of thirteenth god.
“Friends,” he said. “We all know that when a great city falls, things are done which in an ideal world would not happen. It’s nobody’s fault—I’m not blaming anybody. The harsh necessity of war, which the gods themselves have imposed on the Greeks, makes such actions inevitable—but still, the facts remain. The temples of the gods were desecrated. Women who’d taken shelter behind the altars were dragged out and raped. Even virgin priestesses were not spared.”
Calchas was careful not to look at Ajax, but everybody else turned in his direction. I was suddenly aware of Cassandra standing beside me; glancing down, I saw the whiteness of her knuckles as she gripped the rail.
“And then,” Calchas continued, “the temples were set on fire. Many of them burned to the ground. Is there anyone among you who can say this was not a cause of deep offence? But the gods are merciful. They don’t require the rebuilding of their temples. They’ll be content if their statues are repaired and the kings make sacrifices in front of them—after every man in the camp has purified himself.”
That was the lightest of light punishments. A team of skilled carpenters—and there were many such in the camp—could repair the statues in a week. Ajax looked relieved—as well he might—and there was a general stir, an easing of tension.
But Calchas hadn’t moved. He waited for his audience to settle again, and then said: “In revealing the will of the gods, I run the risk of offending a great leader, a man pre-eminent for his courage and skill in fighting.” He turned to Agamemnon. “I must ask for your protection, Lord Agamemnon.”
Agamemnon raised his hand. “You have it. Speak without fear, as the gods direct.”
“Friends,” Calchas said, again. (Did he have a single friend in that whole vast assembly? I doubted it.) “Friends. We all know that Zeus in his mercy gave laws to mankind that a wise man will be careful to obey, if he wishes to see his children and grandchildren prosper. Above all, Zeus gave us the laws of hospitality, guest-friendship, the sacred tie that binds host and guest together—for life. And we also know that this bond, once forged, overrides all other loyalties. Guest-friends are not permitted to kill each other, even if they’re fighting on opposite sides in a war. Some of you will remember that Diomedes encountered his grandfather’s guest-friend on the battlefield and very properly refused to fight him. Nobody blamed Diomedes for walking away from that encounter, because the killing of a guest-friend is never justified, not even in a war.”
The assembly had gone very quiet. They couldn’t see where this was leading. Diomedes had been mentioned, but only to be exonerated. Ajax, everybody’s favourite for the role of chief offender, seemed to be off the hook…“Now I come to the difficult part,” Calchas said. “You all know that when great Achilles walked among us, he killed Hector, the son of Priam, and so great was his desire for revenge that he dragged Hector’s body back to the camp, inflicting countless injuries upon it. King Priam came to Achilles by night, alone, and was received by him with every mark of courtesy and respect. When Priam left the camp, with Hector’s body in his cart, Achilles saw him to the gate, fully armed, and prepared to defend him even against his fellow Greeks. There is no possible doubt that the bond of guest-friendship had been forged between them. That bond descended to Achilles’s son, Lord Pyrrhus, who killed Priam on the altar of Zeus in Troy. He killed his father’s guest-friend on the altar of Zeus, the god who gave mankind the laws of hospitality.
“Could there be any greater insult to the god than that? My friends, it’s Zeus himself, the father of gods and men, who keeps us imprisoned on this beach.”
All eyes were on Pyrrhus now. He looked bewildered, staring blankly from side to side. It was obvious he hadn’t thought for a moment that this might be the outcome of the assembly. I saw Automedon lean forward and put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
Calchas went on, “Now you may say Lord Pyrrhus didn’t know of the bond between his father and Priam, and that may well be true, but an offence committed in ignorance is still an offence. So now I come to the punishment that Zeus demands. Priam must be buried with all the honours due to a king, but before the pyre is lit Lord Pyrrhus must sacrifice his black stallion, one of the team he was driving when he won the chariot race.”
Pyrrhus leapt to his feet. “NO! No—you stinking heap of dogshit, I’ll see you in hell first.”
Alcimus put out a hand to restrain him. Pushing him aside, Pyrrhus hurled himself across the arena, pulling his sword as he went. Agamemnon’s guards were rushing forward to protect Calchas, who shrank back against the statue of Zeus with both arms raised to protect his face. At the last moment, Pyrrhus seemed to hesitate, long enough for Automedon to grab him by the hair and yank his head back. Alcimus stepped in front of Calchas, holding up his hands to show he was unarmed, and at a word from Agamemnon, the guards fell back. By now, the Myrmidons were closing around Pyrrhus, who had to suffer the humiliation of being disarmed by his own men and dragged away.
Uproar. All over the arena, men were out of their seats, waving their arms and shouting. Agamemnon called for order several times before he managed to make himself heard. When the assembly was finally quiet, he thanked Calchas for his words of wisdom, said that Pyrrhus was understandably upset—he was a very young man and, as they all knew, young men lacked judgement and had to be guided by those who were older and wiser…And so on. He was sure that when Lord Pyrrhus had had time to reflect, he would see sense—and obey the gods.
And with that, Agamemnon’s procession re-formed and left the arena, leaving Menelaus to contemplate the fact that his sole remaining ally in the camp, the man to whom he’d just promised his daughter’s hand in marriage, was in disgrace. Meanwhile, the Myrmidons, in total disarray, moved off in a great huddle with Pyrrhus’s red hair at the centre, almost as if they were carrying a wounded comrade from the battlefield. I went back inside the hall, sat at one end of a bench and rested my arms on the table. Cassandra, who’d followed me in, sat opposite.
“We-ell,” she said. “What did you make of that?”
I didn’t need to ask what she’d made of it: her pupils were so widely dilated her eyes looked black. I wondered how much she’d had to do with Calchas’s speech—which in many ways was uncharacteristic of him. No interpretation of dreams; no reference to the flight of birds—not a stranded sea eagle in sight. “How much of that was you?”
She shrugged. “Does it matter? I’ve learnt not to be too attached to my own prophecies. They’ve only ever been believed when I could get a man to deliver them.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I’m still waiting to hear what you thought.”