‘Greetings, Myrmidons!’ cried the near one, tossing his head until his long white mane floated.

‘We will carry him bravely, Myrmidons!’ issued from the lips of the middle horse, the steady one.

‘Never fear for Achilles while we draw his car!’ said the off one, his voice more neighing than the others’.

The Myrmidons stood grinning, dipping their clusters of spears in salute, while Idomeneus in the chariot ahead of Achilles stood with jaw dropped, shivering.

But I had seen the trick, following close behind that golden car. Patrokles was talking for them, keeping his lip movements to a minimum. Clever!

The weather continued sunny, the breeze a light zephyr; all the omens spoke of an uneventful sailing and a clear passage. But on the night before the launching I could not sleep, had to get up to pace long and restlessly beneath the stars. I was contemplating the profile of a nearby ship when someone came through the dunes.

‘You cannot sleep either.’

No need to peer to see who it was. Only Diomedes would seek out Odysseus in preference to any other. A good friend, my war-scarred comrade, the most battle hardened of all the great company going to Troy. He had fought in every campaign of any size from Crete to Thrake, and he had been one of the second Seven Against Thebes, who took that city and razed it when their fathers could not. He possessed a ruthless passion I lacked, for though I owned the ruthlessness, I did not have the passion; my spirit was forever tempered by the ice inside my mind. As on other occasions, I felt a stab of envy, for Diomedes was a man who had sworn to build a shrine out of the skulls of his enemies and actually kept the vow. His father had been Tydeus, a very famous Argive king, but the son was the better man by far. Diomedes would not fail at Troy. He had come from Argos to Mykenai with all the fiery eagerness his heart could marshal, for he had loved Helen to distraction, and like poor Menelaos he refused to believe she had run away of her own accord. He held me in high esteem, an emotion I sometimes felt was close to hero worship. Hero worship? Me? Strange.

‘It will rain tomorrow,’ he said, lifting his long throat and looking into the depths of the sky.

‘There are no clouds,’ I objected.

He shrugged. ‘My bones ache, Odysseus. I remember that my father always said that a man broken on the rack of battle many times, his frame cracked or shattered by spears and arrows, aches with the coming of rain and cold. Tonight the pain is so great that I cannot sleep.’

I had heard of this phenomenon before, and shuddered. ‘For all our sakes, Diomedes, I hope that just this once your bones are wrong. But why seek me out?’

He grinned. ‘I knew the Ithakan Fox would not sleep until he felt the waves beneath his ship. I wanted to speak to you.’

Throwing my arm across his broad shoulders, I turned him in the direction of my tent. ‘Then let us talk. I have wine, and a good fire in the tripod.’

We settled down on couches with the tripod holding the fire between us, full goblets at our hands. The tent was dim and warm, the seats plumped with pillows, the wine unwatered in the hope it would induce sleep. No one was likely to disturb us, but to make sure, I drew the curtain across the tent flap.

‘Odysseus, you’re the greatest man in this expedition,’ he said earnestly.

I couldn’t help laughing. ‘No, no! Agamemnon is that! Or, failing him, Achilles.’

‘Agamemnon? That stiff-rumped, pigheaded autocrat? No, never him! He may get the credit, but that’s because he’s the High King, not because he’s the greatest man. Achilles is only a lad. Oh, I grant you there is potential for greatness there! He has a mind. He may prove formidable in the future. But at this moment he’s untried. Who knows? He might turn tail and run at sight of blood.’

I smiled. ‘No, not Achilles.’

‘All right, I concede that. But he can never be the greatest man in our army, because you are, Odysseus. You are! It will be your work and none other’s that delivers Troy into our hands.’

‘Rubbish, Diomedes,’ I said gently. ‘What can intelligence do in ten days?’

‘Ten days?’ He sneered. ‘By the Mother, more like ten years! This is a real war, not a hunt.’ He put his empty cup on the floor. ‘But I didn’t come to talk about wars. I came to ask for your help.’

‘My help? You’re the skilled warrior, Diomedes, not I!’

‘No, no, it has nothing to do with battlefields! I know my way around them blindfolded. It’s in other things I need your help, Odysseus. I want to watch you work. I want to learn how you hold your temper.’ He leaned forward. ‘You see, I need someone to watch over this accursed temper of mine, teach me to keep my daimon inside instead of letting it loose to my cost. I thought that if I saw enough of you, some of your coolness might rub off on me.’

His simplicity touched me. ‘Then call my quarters yours, Diomedes. Draw up your ships next to mine, deploy your troops next to mine in battle, come with me on all my missions. Every man needs one good friend to bear with him. It is the only panacea for loneliness and homesickness.’

He extended his hand across the bright flames, not seeming to notice how they licked about his wrist. I wound my fingers around his forearm; thus we sealed our pact of friendship, shared our loneliness, and made it less lonely.

Somewhere in the middle marches of the night we must have slept, for I woke in the dawn light to the howl of a rising wind, singing in the shrouds of all those ships, crying loud and vicious about their prows. On the other side of the blackened, guttered fire Diomedes was stirring, breaking off the supple beauty of his arousal with a grunt of pain.

‘My bones are worse this morning,’ he said, sitting up.

‘With good reason. There’s a gale outside.’

He got cautiously to his feet and went to the curtained flap of the tent, peered outside and returned to his couch.

‘It’s the father of all storms come down out of the north. The wind’s still in that quarter, and I can feel the breath of snow. No launching today. We’d all get blown to Egypt.’

A slave came wheeling a tripod with a fresh fire upon it, made up the couches and brought us hot water to wash in. There was no need to hurry; Agamemnon would be so put out he would call no council before noon. My woman fetched steaming honey cakes and barley bread, a sheep’s cheese and mulled wine to finish the repast. It was a good meal, the more so because it was shared; we lingered warming our hands over the fire until Diomedes went back to his tent to change for the council. I donned a leather kilt and blouse, laced on high boots and flung a fur-lined cloak about my shoulders.

Agamemnon’s face was as dark and stormtossed as the sky; fury and chagrin warred in his rigid features, all his plans collapsed around his golden feet. He had a sneaking feeling he would yet look ridiculous, his grand venture disbanded before it so much as got started.

‘I’ve summoned Kalchas to an augury!’ he snapped.

Sighing, we made our ways out into the unwelcome teeth of the gale, pulling our mantles close. The victim lay with all four legs strapped upon the marble altar beneath the plane tree. And Kalchas dressed in purple! Purple? What had been happening in Aulis before I arrived? Agamemnon must think the world of him, to permit him to wear purple.

The coincidence was just too much to swallow, I thought as I waited for the ceremony to begin; two moons of perfect weather, then on the very day the expedition was to have sailed, all the elements combined against it. Most of the Kings had elected to return to their quarters rather than suffer the freezing wind and sleet that staying to witness the augury meant. Only those senior in years or authority remained to bolster Agamemnon: myself, Nestor, Diomedes, Menelaos, Palamedes, Philoktetes and Idomeneus.