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Calchas felt envy for the boy at his side, who would never stand in that place and look up. The envy was new, born of his fear; and contained in it was the first impulse of a fatal desire to share, to instruct. “Tamer of horses?” he said. “Great oak? These are the Singer’s phrases. You must not pay too much attention to the Singer, he does not deal in truth.”

THE Heavy Burden OF Command

1.
    What went wrong?” Odysseus took care to keep his tone casual. The last thing he wanted to do was antagonize the man before him, who might then decide to change sides. Unlikely, he was too deeply implicated. But Phylakos was corrupt, and so more easily offended in his dignity than an honest person. “I mean to say, it was a simple enough matter, wasn’t it? All you had to do was coach the men in the story so they didn’t contradict each other.”
    He had thought at one point that Calchas would take it into his head to interrogate the three separately, in which case discrepancies would certainly have been revealed. But he had seen almost at once that there was nothing to worry about. Behind his professional manner the priest was terrified of discrediting a symbol so potent; to do so would have been to cast doubt on the success of the expedition in the presence of the man who was leading it. A braver man than Calchas would quail at that. “Just a device, really, wasn’t it?” he said. “The hare, I mean. A proof of our loyalty and devotion, strengthening belief in victory, holding things together through these difficult days. Agamemnon was ready to believe it, so was everyone else. Almost everyone.” He thought of the priest again. Something would have to be done about Calchas. Too much play of mind. He glanced at the dogged face before him, weathered by a score of campaigns. Not much play of mind there. “How did this pregnancy business get into it?”
    Phylakos stared unwaveringly before him, habit of an old soldier who felt himself under reprimand. He had been summoned to Odysseus’s tent early for this private talk. Chasimenos, who had also been party to the story, was due later. “We couldn’t have known he would come out with that,” he said. His voice was scraped, painful-sounding, as if always proceeding from a parched throat.
    â€œBut you must have known he was a hysteric. Those with him must have known.”
    â€œHysteric?”
    Odysseus sighed. “They must have known he had a screw loose. You only have to look at his face.”
    â€œThey said he screamed in his sleep sometimes, and sometimes laughed for no reason, but they were used to him. They thought nothing of it and neither did I. All the fool had to do was keep his trap shut.”
    â€œWell, he didn’t.” Odysseus paused for a moment or two, then said in a tone of wonder rather than of reproach, “And you backed him up.”
    There was no reply to this and Odysseus expected none. It had been a bad mistake, but he knew that Phylakos had not been able to help himself, it had been in the nature of a reflex action. The backup, the closing of ranks, the solidarity to the group, this was the conditioning of military life. It counted for morality with many, even in support of a lie. Only very rare beings were free of such limiting factors, such blindness to their own interest: clear-sighted men, who saw things steadily and saw them whole. Men like himself. “Well,” he said, “it’s too late to do anything about it now. I trust this blabbermouth will be rendered harmless, made incapable of further damage, what’s the word I’m looking for?” He liked this fishing for words, casting, seeing the float bob, pulling up a plump one. But Phylakos, still staring doggedly before him, was not the right sort for it. This time he was obliged to answer his own question. “Neutralized,” he said.
    â€œSnuffed out, you mean? Already taken care