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the side of the neck, entering deeply into the throat. When the point was withdrawn, Opilmenos moved still, but it was the pumping of his blood that moved him. The Locrian turned away, not towards the King—he did not give a glance to Agamemnon—but towards his own people. Calchas heard, or thought he heard, the metal shoulder pieces of the dying man scrape on the pebbles. Then all other sounds, even the lamentation of the wind, were engulfed by the great shout of triumph that came from the Locrians as they broke ranks, their leader, Ajax the Lesser, to the fore, and surged forward to raise the victor shoulder-high. Agamemnon rose to his feet, again smiling. The show was over.

3.
    Calchas remained where he was while the army began to disperse, while the corpse of Opilmenos was carried away. Poimenos, who missed no change in his master’s face, saw now that it was ashen below the caking of chalk. Without knowing the cause, he made to draw nearer, but Calchas waved him away and sat motionless, head declined, staring down at the ground before him. How could he have been so deceived? He was the more shaken as this had been—or seemed—a private message, not a matter for public pronouncement but an assurance that he was still held worthy of trust, still had the favor of Pollein.
    The moving body, the moving flames, the Singer at the edge of the firelight—perhaps that sightless one had seen more than he? Fire and dance, the briefest of things and the most lovely. But not the same . . . Was that where he had gone wrong? He pondered it, eyes still fixed on the ground. The flame has no past and no future, it belongs only to now, it is born and leaps and dies, no other flame will exactly resemble it, though the number should be countless. Also the dance dies and cannot be reborn and no other dance will exactly resemble it, even though the dancer be the same. He had thought this consuming joy of life meant the death of the dancer along with the dance but Stimon the Locrian had killed while dancing and lived to dance again. Perhaps the god had wanted him to understand that the more intense the life the greater the power of death, and therein lay the divine contradiction. Or perhaps it had not been Pollein who had led him there, perhaps some other god altogether had directed his steps, visited him with that shaft of conviction, luminous and deceiving. Fear came with this thought, fear his familiar, the companion of his days, the nightmare fear of not knowing the sender, not knowing whom to placate. It was like the wind . . . he seemed to remember now that there had been laughter from somewhere in the crowd, or perhaps somewhere beyond. Laughter of men or gods? Had he simply been tricked, toyed with, or had his mistake somehow been necessary? And if so, necessary to whom and for what purpose? How could it be known? At least he had made no public forecast, he had merely hinted at knowledge, always a safe thing to do.
    He was seeking to derive what comfort he could from this when he saw Ajax the Larger bearing down on them with his rolling gait, head and shoulders above everybody else, flanked by the usual group of sycophantic companions from Salamis, who were making a way through the crowd for him, jostling anyone who didn’t move quickly enough. Calchas got to his feet as they approached and Poimenos followed suit.
    â€œI wanted to have a word or two before we go in.” Ajax made a motion of his huge head in the direction of Agamemnon’s tent.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œI was against this fight from the start. These people will tell you. Speak up, was I or was I not against it from the start?”
    â€œYes, Ajax, you were, you were, right from the very start.”
    â€œI said as much, I told Agamemnon how I felt. Did I or did I not?
Speak up
.”
    â€œYou did, Ajax, you did.”
    â€œWell, events have borne me out.”
    Calchas experienced the usual mixture of feelings Ajax of