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With sweet Hypnos ever afar, the great Laertides, equal to Zeus in his mind's resource, lies awake, star-bright eyes turned to the great heavens, thinking, thinking. And that for naught; the thoughts he weaves bend far back into time and history, far back to lovely Ithaka in summer, full of sun-scorched leaves and the sickly-sweet smell of turning wine. Agamemnon Atreides would wish for those woven thoughts to turn to battle and the din, to victory and boon, but night is each man's own even in faraway Ilios.
So it is for Tydides, great-hearted warrior of the Epigonoi, Diomedes master of the war-cry. Standing ashore, his eyes fixed above the roiling black sea, he sees faraway Argos, shining city that it is with its many lands and fields. Argos, with its many roofs and many souls that holds much of his life, paused the way it is while Diomedes toils away at war that is never-ending by the gods' grace.
And Laertides, you, resourceful Odysseus, should you know what the great gods have in store for you, there would be no time wasted to make haste across the seas to lovely Kephallonia, to Ithaka your ancestral home, to see your son Telemachos of nine winters now and the wife of your marriage, deft-handed Penelope. Alas, the great goddes Athene, daughter of Zeus who holds the Aegis, holds you in her favour; even such favour will be not enough to push you along ahead of your destiny. Many will be the miseries that you suffer in your great heart, ever yearning to see the shores of Ithaka.
Ere those long years make him wander far and long, ere the voyage on the turning seas, Odysseus, master of all kinds of trickery lies awake, then, with naught but memories for company. Ere the final great rush, ere the great treachery, godlike Diomedes stands on the shores of Ilios, imbued with Pallas Athene's protection against sword and spear, lonely and forlorn as if the goddess' blessing itself had cursed him.
Not to wonder, then, at two great friends' meeting in the darkest hour, at soul comforting soul before the last charge is surmounted and well-walled Ilios falls. And so it is that godlike Diomedes of the ash spear and resourceful Laertides, King of Ithaka are twined together that night, in the blackest hours of dawn, before the first bow twangs and its string sings loud and the din of battle rises all around.
For there aren't many to match either of them in the strength of their heart or the resource of their minds, it is said; not even the peerless son of Peleus, shining Akhilleus knows the wily ways of Odysseus, burly ram amongst his herd of subjects, and not even great Patroklos, son of the Argonaut Menoitios knows the strength of the great spearman Tydides' arms in battle and in love. For that is what the two of them share, both kings by divine right and leaders of men, masters of the war-cry, love is what passes between these great heroes of the Argives, the stoking of desire and mounting of want.
Borne of necessity, this joining of body and soul on the battlefield amid the black blood plaguing their every step is tether to Laertides, anchor to Tydides, string to pull through the armies of the Danaans to keep one's feet steady, just as Theseus had followed the string white-armed Ariadne gifted him. Such is the knot these two have tied, godlike Diomedes and wily Odysseus, upon the golden thread they hold between them.
So in the blackest hour of dawn, before the first bow twangs and its string sings loud and the din of the battle rises all around, Argos plucks the ripe fruit of Ithaka, offered up for the taking, savours it as one does a blushed peach; the juices drip along the jaw, the soft flesh yields, and the sharp teeth biting down part the fibres of its very being. And its king, much-enduring Odysseus, son of Laertes, offers it and indeed himself in pliant, breathless glory, for it is wily Odysseus who wins this battle, if not the war against godlike Diomedes, King of sweet Argos. Thus the rasp of skin agains skin fills the tent, and their hearts quicken in their shaggy breasts, breaths mingle in the chill of the black night on the windy shores of well-walled Ilios. When it becomes impossible to say which of them is born to Laertes and which to Tydeus, but before yet to the crashing of the sea's waves, cresting over their heads, then and only then do they again find themselves after a day's worth of grim fighting and the breaking of their spirits.
Then and only then are they righted in their place in the great Kósmos, between sand and stars and the tang of salt on the wind, hemmed in as they are by the Trojans, breakers of horses, on one side and by the great sea and indeed the well-greaved Achaians on the other with their many beached black ships. And the rasp of skin against skin fills the tent, and now it is windy Ithaka's turn to claim bountiful Argos, the maps to battalions and movement across great seas drawn out by the scars that mar that golden skin. For golden, it is: divine Diomedes of the Epigonoi is protected by the craft and charm of the great goddess Athene, daughter of Zeus who holds the Aegis and the Gorgoneion in her own right, so that no arrow may pierce the golden skin, no spear may find its way through flesh. But man of many resources, wily Odysseus finds his way to twist and turn through that goddess-given protection, and does indeed pierce the flesh of strong Diomedes, softly yielding under the callouses of Laertides' hands.
Great kings and leaders of their men, both the other's equal in strength and in speech, find themselves equally matched in matters of carnal flesh, in sacred joining. Odysseus, son of Laertes, fills his mouth with the taste of the Argives' great hero, and Diomedes of the ash spear fits his much-enduring hands in Laertides' shaggy hair, long now as the other fine-haired Achaians', a mark of war that they have endured in the long years spent outside the walls of the shining city.
It is not a sweet or gentle thing, to make love amidst the carnage of sacred war. The hero son of Tydeus finds himself a changed man from the faraway bed of his marriage to Aegialia, and wily Odysseus is not the man that had fathered young Telemachos. And when that wave crests and crashes on shore, with the first cries of the gulls filtering across land and sea, Odysseus Polipórthios, sacker of cities takes Diomedes, master of the war-cry, makes him his and wholly his.
Athene Glaukópis herself looks down at her favourites of all warriors then, and stretches the black dawn, lengthens young Hélios' stride so he reaches the shores of Ilios only when Zeus' shining daughter had granted her warriors a moment's reprieve. And Odysseus of many twists and turns and Diomedes, master of the war-cry lie twined together for that eternal moment granted them by the grace of Pallas Athene, hip to navel to shoulder to knee, such a tangle of limbs and skin as one of the Hekatonchires.
And when the first rosy streaks touch the dark sky and shining Hélios' chariot climbs above Ilios with the great stride of his fearful horses, when the unforgiving day begins to dispel any softness of the night, when their destiny is set, the dread bronze blade rising high in Diomedes' mind and wily Odysseus answering him with lies; only then is the destiny the great gods have carefully taliored for them complete.