Talthybius.
Night recognized the name.
In the myths, one of Agamemnon's two chief heralds was as close to a right and left hand as the man had.
He and the other herald named Eurybates, acting on Agamemnon's orders, struck at the root of things by raiding Achilles's camp while the two of them were in the middle of their confrontation.
Not only did they take Briseis, they also seized a vast amount of treasure, everything that should have belonged to Achilles as his spoils.
This was Talthybius?
Night thought back to the banquet.
The herald standing at Agamemnon's side then was a different face entirely.
So that one must have been Eurybates.
Two heralds who were essentially Agamemnon's closest and most indispensable subordinates, almost never out of his presence, were now taking turns appearing.
One at a time.
Agamemnon didn't have the habit of making them into sons in a filial sense, but he genuinely treasured both heralds and kept them at his side constantly.
Now only one was here at a time.
Something clicked in Night's mind.
In the myths, these were the two men who took Briseis away.
Was the current situation connected to Briseis?
Agamemnon took Briseis and, of course, needed trusted men to keep watch to prevent Achilles from taking her back.
Night had good reason to suspect the other herald, Eurybates, was guarding Briseis right now.
These thoughts passed through his mind in an instant.
.
.
Outside,
When Agamemnon stopped his herald,
The great king's face had lost all its previous fury and shifted into something more like relief.
Just as the herald was about to make a move on Night, a terrifying instinct came over Agamemnon, a feeling like being locked onto from the sky above.
If something happened to this man, the next moment something might come spearing down from the heavens straight into the top of his skull.
Hostility from the moon.
Agamemnon jolted fully awake.
Who could it be?
Connecting it to Night's identity, the king of kings thought of the goddess who already gave him so much grief.
Goddess Artemis.
Damn it.
The curses he had to bite back.
This petty goddess was determined to make his life difficult?
He didn't dare gamble on whether Athena would show up to protect him if he ran into real danger.
For the first time he felt the same frustration Achilles must have felt when his attack was intercepted.
Night had no idea what was running through Agamemnon's head, but he took the opening and started laying out Achilles's demands.
The conditions Patroclus came with were Achilles's conditions.
If they were not met, as the original owner of the armor, Achilles had every right to take his property back and cancel the loan entirely.
Now the heroes standing on the sidelines got anxious.
They all started pressuring Agamemnon to back down.
Multiple voices called his behavior unjust and dishonorable.
Odysseus and Diomedes were the loudest.
They were the most desperate for the armor and the ones who considered themselves the most deserving of it.
They didn't even bother worrying about offending Agamemnon now, the two of them leading the charge alongside a crowd of other heroes.
Seeing this, Agamemnon swallowed his fury.
However, in the end, after a prolonged standoff that went nowhere, he finally gave in.
He agreed to let them choose the person themselves, but he was absolutely not going to pay any compensation.
Even if Achilles wanted to take the armor back, fine.
He would rather kill Patroclus and have the blood-soaked armor sent back to Achilles on the spot.
For one moment,
Night was almost tempted to sit back and watch Agamemnon actually do it.
If Agamemnon really went through with it, sending the bloodied armor back like some sort of message, Achilles would be pushed completely and irrevocably to the opposite side.
But this was obviously just Agamemnon refusing to admit defeat.
He didn't have the nerve to genuinely fight the demigod to the death.
If he had, he would have done it back then.
Or rather, once a man had become the king of kings and grown accustomed to supreme power and all its comforts, he was no longer the same kind of courageous figure he was when he was younger, fleeing and adventuring through the wilderness.
Gambling everything he now possessed against a fight with Achilles?
Agamemnon decided it wasn't worth it.
On the other end, Patroclus wasn't going to accept this either.
In the end, Odysseus came up with a solution.
He stepped out and organized the heroes to pool their money together, producing a payment for Patroclus out of shared contributions.
He told himself it was just the price of a ticket to compete for the armor.
What he didn't know was that this cleverness was digging a massive pit for his future self.
When Night eventually turned his attention to Odysseus,
Every hero looking back on this day would feel they had been thoroughly played, that they paid money to help Odysseus complete his own personal scheme of revenge.
But that was a story for later.
When Patroclus finally got what he came for,
Every hero's eyes turned toward him, each one hoping he would call their name.
Especially those who contributed the most, who felt like gamblers convinced that whoever donated the largest share was owed the most gratitude and that Patroclus, if he had any sense of obligation, would choose them.
But when Patroclus said the name Palamedes,
The heroes froze.
Even Diomedes, the strongest human fighter in the room, who had essentially emptied his entire savings for a shot at real divine equipment, went blank-faced.
Even Odysseus, who told himself he came up with the whole plan that solved everyone's problem and deserved to be named as a reward, stared in disbelief.
Every other hero's eyes went wide.
Even if the chosen person wasn't them, they might have been able to stomach it.
But it was not supposed to be someone who, during the entire donation process, blended into the background like a ghost, not showing even a fraction of the eager energy other heroes put into donating and chatting up Patroclus and networking in hopes of increasing their chances.
'Palamedes.'
Throughout the whole event, this handsome young man had stayed consistent with his identity as a musician, rather than leaning into being a prince or a hero.
On the matter of obtaining Achilles's armor and going to the battlefield to win glory, his interest registered somewhere between none and absolutely none.
He was actually quite self-aware that he was not suited for it.
Recruiting people into conflicts, that was his specialty, though the method tended to be of the extremely friction-generating variety.
Combat ability was another matter, and he knew he was not built for equipment that capable.
The man who just got picked was also stunned.
Palamedes didn't react right away.
Then he noticed every single hero in the room turning to stare at him with expressions ranging from predatory to deeply unpleasant and belatedly caught up.
Wait, that name that was just said sounded very familiar.
"Me?!"
Watching Palamedes with his expression of complete bewilderment and shock, knocked senseless by something he never expected,
Raging jealousy and hatred ignited inside Odysseus.
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)