In my rear they slipped into the water, big red-and-black ships like centipedes with bristling oars for legs, crawling over the surface of Poseidon’s unfaltering, eternal deeps. Twelve hundred of them altogether when the tally was in; eighty thousand fighting men and twenty thousand helpers of all kinds. Some of the extra ships contained nothing but horses and oarsmen; we are a chariot people, as are the Trojans. I still believed that the campaign would be a short one, but I also understood that we would see no fabled Trojan horses before Troy fell.

Fascinated, I watched the scene, hardly able to credit that mine was the hand at the helm of this mighty force, that the High King of Mykenai was destined to be the High King of the Greek Empire. But not a tenth of the ships had gone down into the sea before my crew had rowed me out into the middle of the Euboian Strait and the beach was tiny in the distance. I knew a momentary panic, wondering how such a vast fleet could manage to hold itself together through the open leagues ahead.

We rounded the tip of Euboia in blazing sun, passed between it and Andros isle, and as Mount Ocha faded at the stern we struck the breezes which always blow around the open Aegaean. Oars were fettered gratefully to stanchions, men swarmed around the mast; the scarlet leather sail of the imperial flagship blossomed under the pressure of a southwest wind, warm and tender.

I strolled back along the deck between the rowing benches and mounted the short steps to the foredeck, where my special cabin was built. In our wake many vessels plied steadily through the swell breaking in tiny waves about their beaked prows. It seemed as if we were staying together; Telephos was standing right forward, turning his head occasionally to shout instructions to the two men who leaned on the rudder oars, steering us straight. He smiled at me contentedly.

‘Excellent, sire! If the weather holds we’ll keep up our pace in this wind, it’s perfect. There shouldn’t be any need to put in at Chios or Lesbos. We’ll make Tenedos in good time.’

I was satisfied. Telephos was the best navigator in all of Greece, the one man who could guide us to Troy without our running the risk of beaching on some strand far from our destination. He was the only man to whom I would have entrusted the fates of those twelve hundred ships. Helen, I thought, your freedom is short-lived! You’ll be back in Amyklai before you know it, and it will give me enormous pleasure to issue the command to cut off your lovely head with the sacred double axe.

The days passed happily enough. We sighted Chios but pressed on. There was no need to revictual, and the weather was so good that neither Telephos nor I cared to stretch our luck by dallying ashore. The coast of Asia Minor was scarcely out of sight now and Telephos knew the landmarks well, for he had passed up and down that coast hundreds of times during his career. He pointed out the huge isle of Lesbos to me gleefully, sure enough of his course to sail west of it, out of sight of land. The Trojans would not know we were coming.

We came to harbour on the southwest side of Tenedos, an isle very close to the Trojan mainland, on the eleventh day after sailing from Aulis. There was no room to beach so many ships; the best we could do was to let them ride at anchor as close inshore as possible, and hope that the clement weather persisted for a few more days. Tenedos was a fertile place, but boasted only a small population due to its proximity to a city held the largest in the world. As we came in the Tenedians clustered along the shore, their helpless gesticulations betraying their awe.

I clapped Telephos on the shoulder. ‘Well done, pilot! You’ve earned a prince’s share of the spoils.’

Swollen with his triumph, he laughed, then clattered down the steps to the midships, where he was soon surrounded by the hundred and thirty men who had sailed with me.

By nightfall the last of the fleet was nearby; all the top leaders came to join me at my temporary headquarters in Tenedos town. I had already done the most important job, which was to round up every living human soul on the island. No one could be let reach the mainland to inform King Priam what lay on the far side of Tenedos. The Gods, I thought, were united behind Greece.

The following morning I set off on foot for the top of the hills which crowned the centre of the isle, some of the Kings with me for the exercise, glad to be on solid ground. We stood with our cloaks flapping behind us in the wind, looking down across the blue, tranquil water to the Trojan mainland a few leagues away.

We couldn’t miss Troy the city; my first sight of it made my stomach sink. I had thought of it, of course, in the only terms I knew: Mykenai atop the Lion Mountain; the mighty trading seaport of Iolkos; Korinthos commanding both sides of the isthmus; fabulous Athens. But they paled to insignificance. Troy not only towered, it spread as well, like some kind of gigantic stepped ziggurat too far away to discern details.

‘What now?’ I asked Odysseus.

He seemed lost in thought, his grey eyes fixed. But at my question he came back into himself, grinned. ‘My advice is to sail across tonight under cover of darkness, marshal the army at dawn and strike Priam unaware, before he can close his gates. By tomorrow night, sire, you’ll own Troy.’

Nestor squawked, Diomedes and Philoktetes looked horrified. I contented myself with a smile, while Palamedes smirked.

Nestor spoke, saving me the trouble. ‘Odysseus, Odysseus, have you no idea of right or wrong at all?’ he demanded. ‘There are laws governing everything, including the conduct of war, and I for one will have no part in a venture wherein the formalities haven’t been observed! Honour, Odysseus! Where is honour in your plan? Our names would stink out Olympos! We cannot disregard the law!’ He turned to me. ‘Don’t listen to him, sire! The laws of warfare are unequivocal. We must obey them!’

‘Calm down, Nestor, I know the law as well as you do.’ I took Odysseus by the shoulders and shook him gently. ‘Surely you didn’t expect me to listen to such impious advice?’

For answer, he laughed, then said, ‘No, Agamemnon, no! But you did ask me what now. I felt obliged to give you my choicest morsel of wisdom. If it falls on deaf ears, why should I repine? I’m not the High King of Mykenai. I’m merely your loyal subject Odysseus from rocky Ithaka, where a man must sometimes forget things like honour in order to survive. I’ve told you how to do the job in one day, and what I said is the only way that could be done. For I warn you – if Priam is given the chance to close his gates, you’ll howl outside his walls for the whole ten years Kalchas prophesied.’

‘Walls can be scaled, gates can be battered down,’ I said.

‘Can they?’ He laughed again and seemed to forget us, his eyes turned inward.

His mind was a wondrous entity; it could lock upon the truth instantly. If in my heart I knew his advice was right, I also knew that if I were to take it, no one would follow me. It meant sinning against Zeus and the New Religion. What always fascinated me was how he managed to escape retribution for these impious ideas. Though it was said that Pallas Athene loved him more than any other man, and interceded with her almighty Father on his behalf at all times. She loved him, it was said, for the quality of his mind.

‘Someone will have to journey to Troy bearing the symbols of war for Priam and demand the return of Helen,’ I said.

They all looked eager, but I already knew which men I wanted.

‘Menelaos, you’re Helen’s husband. You must go, of course. Odysseus, you and Palamedes will go too.’

‘Why not me?’ asked Nestor, annoyed.

‘Because I need one of my chief advisers here,’ I said, hoping it sounded convincing. Let him think I was deliberately shielding him from stress and he would fly out at me fiercely. He did eye me suspiciously, but I think the long sea journey must have taken its toll, for he didn’t argue any further.