This was three nights before the fire.
The Greek camp was dark. The fires were low. The watch had changed an hour ago, and the men on the perimeter were settled into the slow rhythm of a night that nobody expected to bring anything.
A figure moved through the camp.
He wore a common soldier's cloak — rough wool, undyed, the kind that every man in the camp owned. A bronze cap pulled low over his forehead. No crest. No insignia. No mark that would identify him as anything other than another body in an army of fifty thousand.
He walked past the Cretan tents. Past the supply wagons. Past the horse lines where Achilles' black stallion stamped in its sleep. He did not stop. He did not speak to anyone. He walked as if he knew exactly where he was going and did not need to think about it.
He reached Agamemnon's command tent. The guard at the entrance — a man named Arges who had served the High King for twelve years — looked at him. The man's hand went to his sword.
