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grounds and found neither droppings nor slots which mark the passage of boar.
    For reasons of health I journeyed periodically to Rhipe, leaving the flock for the day in the spearmen's charge. Clymene greeted me ecstatically, and speedily administered the medicine I sought. Afterwards, lax and satiated, we strolled around the manor. Diores had transformed the place, thatching roofs, plastering walls, restoring gaps in the ramparts and generally tidying up. Workmen had entirely refurnished the house, providing chairs and tables, cooking pots and gaily pat­terned hangings. Gelon weighed the wool crop and calculated, quill in hand, the proportion due for tribute and set it aside in store rooms; weavers worked at looms to convert the rest into cloth. Clymene informed me proudly she had taken command of the household, ordered the slaves and kitchen staff and kept Diores happy.
    'Your solicitude stops at his stomach, I hope?'
    'How could you say such a thing ? I am yours, Agamemnon, body and heart and soul. Besides,' she pouted, 'Diores is be­sotted with a fat Euboian slut. How he abides the girl is beyond my comprehension. She waddles like a pregnant cow and washes once in a moon.'
    During these hasty visits Clymene cooked me a midday meal: a haunch of mutton grilled on the spit (we never had meat while herding), gravy and savoury herbs and spices - cumin, fennel and mint - which Clymene gathered at day­break. Then I gave her a farewell tumble in the little cubicle Diores granted - a singular privilege; but Clymene, though a slave, belonged to me, and her blood was noble - and departed on the long tramp back to the flock.
    A midsummer sun blazed high in the sky; the stream dwindled and the grass turned yellow and brittle. I folded the sheep in different valleys to alternate the grazing, and idled away the burning days in the shade of parch-leaved trees. When the summer lambing started I despatched a spearman for help and for days was frantically busy. We did well, losing only twelve ewes and twenty lambs; Diores was pleased. With the size of the flock near doubled I had to shift ground more often, and hoped the end-summer rainstorms would freshen the grass.
    Clouds like pale transparent shreds drifted across the sky, gathered above the peaks, slid lower and misted the hills. Light­ning crackled and thunder rumbled; the deluge fell like spear- shafts.
    'Autumn advances her banners,' said Echion the spearman while we sheltered beneath a crag. 'We shan't stay here much longer.'
    Diores, on his next visit, agreed. He kicked a clump of grass and said, 'There's little goodness left in the grazing here. Start mating the ewes for winter lambing, and then we'll bring you down to the manor pastures.' Again he scowled at the hilltops, where rain-mist shrouded the trees. 'Maybe sooner. Here, I've brought you this : wear it wherever you go.' He handed me a sword in an oxhide sheath attached to a leather baldric. I protested in astonishment. 'Why? A sword will clutter my movements and' - I patted my kilt belt - 'I always carry a dagger.'
    'Do as I say - and keep it sharp.' Diores turned to the spear­man. 'Anything, Echion?'
    'Nothing, my lord.'
    'Good. Tell your dog to round that wether, Agamemnon: if he falls into a gully he'll surely break a leg.'
    Diores waved farewell and strode away.
    ***
    I mated the ewes, and wore a cloak while I worked; the days were growing shorter and the wind had a bite like knives. Winter's onset turned my charges restless; they wandered far in search of richer herbage. Dawn and evening counts revealed sheep gone astray which had to be retrieved with much scrambling and searching. One morning, dog at heel and Echion in tow, I followed a missing ram along a steeply slanting gully which cleft the hill from forest-line to valley. Clamber­ing up the rocks was wearing work; I paused to regain my breath.
    Echion eyed the thick-set trees which crept down the slope a spear-cast distant. 'Give the ram best, my lord.