The Songs of the Kings

There were prolonged shouts of 'no' in answer to this, coming now from every quarter. Achilles' brow was marred by a scowl. Pleuron, at his wits' end now, noticed that Nestor, accompanied as usual by his two sons, had joined the gathering. Some rambling and long-winded words from him, even if quite beside the point, might give the prosecution time to regain the initiative. 'I call upon Nestor, wise in counsel, to give us the benefit of–'

He was interrupted by a shout from the back of the crowd. 'I know that pendant!'

Heads craned round at this. But only those nearest could make out who had spoken. 'Can that man be brought forward?' Calligonus shouted over the hubbub. This was done, to the accompaniment of some back-slapping and words of encouragement. The interrupter was revealed as a person of short stature with luxuriant eyebrows and a habit of frequent blinking. He peered up at the pendant, still held aloft by Ajax. 'I thought as much,' he said. 'This pendant belonged to my mother's brother, I'd know it anywhere. He always wore it. He said it brought him luck.'

'When did you last see it?'

'He was wearing it when I saw him last. He went on a trading trip and never came back. None of the party came back. That's two years ago now – we've given him up for dead.'

'Your uncle's name?'

'Dalgon of Thebes. He was a merchant, he exported pottery from the workshops on the mainland to Thrace and the islands of the north.'

'And where did this particular trip take him?'

'To Pteleon.'

Eyes now turned towards Achilles, who had taken his small ivory-handled fan from a pocket in his skirt and was fa

Calligonus risked a smile. He was entering the danger zone, but the passion of the pleader had him in its grip. 'He said it brought him luck? His luck ran out when he got to Pteleon. Someone else saw a pretty thing and liked it.'

'I must protest against these i

Agamemnon nodded slowly, his face showing ashen against the dark hair of his beard. It was his first public appearance since the waiting for Iphigeneia had begun. Chasimenos had prevailed on him to attend, pointing out that allowing someone else to preside over the tribunal would be taken as a sign of weakness. 'Does this nephew of this uncle wish to make accusations against some particular person?' he asked. Does he seek to avenge some slur on the honour of his family?'

The Theban's eyes rested briefly on Achilles, whose splendidly articulated biceps rippled below the oiled skin with each slow movement of the fan, and who chose this moment to turn his head lazily, not as if looking but listening.

'We are waiting,' Agamemnon said.

'Well, now that I look again, I'm not so sure. I could be wrong. One pendant is very like another after all.'

'We understand perfectly,' Calligonus said, casting significant looks here and there. He was coming to the end of his plea and he wanted it to be strong. He felt the sympathy of the crowd and it led him now to think – a bad mistake, as it turned out – that he could get Leucon off altogether. 'It is the wind that is to blame,' he said. 'This terrible wind that keeps us cooped up here. Consider the case of this poor Leucon. Consider it well, because it is the case with all of us. When he first came here he was full of ardour and enthusiasm, determined to distinguish himself in battle, get his hands on a pile of loot and move up some notches in society. Then what happens? He lies awake night after night listening to the voices of the wind. He feels the constant touch of it, on his face, on his body, always picking him over, giving him no peace. Round the headland he knows it is a gale. Day by day his hopes wither, all that youthful idealism crumbles away, he is not far from a nervous breakdown. Like us all, he is waiting for Iphigeneia. Like us all, he must believe his leaders when they tell him that the sacrifice of the witch will bring an end to the wind. He must have faith. But faith is a variable, not a constant. It goes up and down. Anyone who denies this is either a fool or in bad faith. On top of everything else, this poor Leucon is hungry. It's getting harder all the time to screw anything out of these miserly people. And there aren't enough whores, Leucon has to stand in line. Waiting half a day in the wind is guaranteed to take the edge off anyone. Is it so surprising that his morale, his sense of solidarity should be undermined? Is it so surprising that Leucon, in his frustration, should become bewildered and confused, should lose his sense of the distinction, a valid distinction as I am the first to agree, between pilfering and pillage? He took only one small thing, not very valuable. It was a gesture, a token. My friends, this was not a theft at all, it was a cry for help. Let our great commander Agamemnon, tamer of horses, show mercy to this poor confused man and give the blame to the wind.'

Even before he came to the end of this he saw a certain sort of stillness settle over the judges and knew he had blundered. There was silence for some moments, then Agamemnon said, 'How can a wind sent by Zeus be a cause of crime?'

Odysseus, one of the two judges on Agamemnon's right, now spoke for the first time. 'You would have done better to stick to the issue of impulse and beg for leniency, without bringing the wind into it. But you are in love with your own voice, Calligonus, and you have gone too far. Do you not see that you have forced us to an extreme judgement? If we make the wind an excuse for this theft we make it an excuse for any wrong that is done here. Murder, mutiny, desertion, failure to keep your weapons in good order, you name it. It's a formula for anarchy. Above all, and this is where you have really fouled up your case, it reduces everyone to the same level. We are all exposed to the wind. If Leucon is a victim of the wind, so are we all. In that way we lose the vital distinction between a contemptible instance of petty thieving and the noble and altruistic readiness of our Commander-in-Chief to sacrifice his nearest and dearest for the sake of the common good.' He paused for a moment, glancing towards his fellow judges. 'I hope I take you with me on this,' he said. 'It seems to me absolutely crucial.'

No way round it, this Leucon would have to die, he thought, as he watched them nodding. An even more dangerous precedent lurked behind this one of declaring that the wind was to blame. He had seen how cleverly Calligonus had swayed the audience, made his appeal to the common man; he had noted the easy rhetoric, the sense of theatre, the readiness to run into danger for the sake of wi

'One might just as well say the sound of the sea maddened me, or the cawing of the crows, or the voice of a neighbour,' said Agapenor, leader of the Arcadians, the judge on the King's left.

'Zeus sends the wind to show us our past crimes, not lead us into new ones.' This came from the Lapith chief, Polypoetes, on the other side of Agamemnon.