by Hannah Lynn
She did not waste time on apologies as she raced out of the dining hall and into the wide corridors of the palace. Her heart was pounding and panic was muddling her thoughts.
“When did you last see him? When were you with him last?”
“We were playing hide and seek. He was to hide from us. But we cannot find him. We have searched everywhere.”
“Where have you looked?”
“Everywhere. The courtyards. The throne room.”
“Your chamber? Did you check the chamber?”
“I… I think so. I think Chrysothemis went there.”
Instinct had taken over. Clytemnestra pushed aside the curtain into the children’s room. This was always his favourite place. After all, at only six, where else would he have the imagination to hide?
“Orestes? Orestes? Where are you?” The beds were pristine. The room was empty. She pulled aside the drapes, in case he was hiding there, but when all she found was the whitewashed walls, her fear spiked again.
“My Queen, is everything all right?”
She spun around. Standing there, with furrowed brow, was Laodamia.
“Orestes has gone. He is missing. We must alert the guards. Call them immediately.”
“Orestes?”
“Aegisthus!” Her eyes suddenly widened in fear. That had been his plan all along. To distract her with a sob story, then sneak in and kidnap her child. “He has taken him. But where would they go?”
She paced back and forth, trying to decide what her next move should be. But this was just wasting time. She needed to find them before it was too late. She would not let this happen again.
“When?” Laodamia had turned pale. “When did this happen?”
“I do not know. But he is gone.”
Guards had gathered around them now. Orrin’s men.
“Fetch my horse! I will find them!”
“My Queen, have you checked the kitchen?” Laodamia asked.
“The kitchen?”
“I saw him head that way. Not so long ago.”
She hesitated, her eyes going from Electra to the guards to the children’s nursemaid, finally returning to Electra.
“Was the kitchen checked?”
“I… I do not know. I think so.”
Her attention moved back to the guards.
“My horse and a dozen men. Send half of them straight off now. The others will wait for me. I will follow. You are to look for a man. Aegisthus.”
She turned and sped back down the corridor, towards the kitchen, where staff were milling about, filling and refilling platters for the men in the dining hall.
“Have you seen the Prince?” she demanded.
“Orestes?” one of the women asked. “Not since he came for food after breakfast.”
She swept around the room, crouching to peer beneath the tables.
“Orestes! Orestes!”
The place was full of baskets of bread and fruit, but no sign of her child. Angry that she had wasted yet more time, she rushed back to the door, colliding with a young man.
“My Queen, I apologise.”
“Get out of my way!” she yelled, pushing past him. “I need to find my son!”
“You are looking for the Prince?” he asked.
She stopped. Misreading the tiny twist of his lips, the slight widening of his eyes, her hands flew to his neck and she slammed him against the wall, the thud reverberating around them.
“What did you do with him?” she screamed. Whatever she might lack in strength, she was making up for in pure rage. “Where is he?”
His face was turning red from the pressure on his throat.
“I … I… He …” he spluttered.
“My Queen, please,” Laodamia was at her side. “He cannot speak. He cannot tell you.”
Clytemnestra dug her nails into his skin, before releasing him. The young man’s knees buckled, although he was wise enough to keep his eyes on her. He managed to choke out the words:
“He said he needed a good place, that was all.”
“A good place?”
“To hide. To hide from his sisters.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did not think it would be a problem. He just wanted to win. They were all playing.”
“Where is he? Who took him? Where did they go?”
“Go? No, he is still there. I just checked. He is still hiding.”
The flood of relief was short lived and now mingled with a new sense of fury. “Where? Where is he? Where is my son?”
Tears filled the young man’s eyes, as he whimpered, “He is hiding in the food store. In the pantry. Behind the sacks of flour.”
She should have told the guards to march him outside the citadel, never to be allowed to return, she thought, as she bolted for the stairs that led off the kitchen, but she needed to check first. If her son was not where he said, it would be more than just banishment awaiting the cook.
It was a part of the palace that she had never visited. As queen, there was no need to go there, but she knew exactly where to head. The air cooled as she ran down the staircase and into the dark storeroom, where the smell of salted meats caught in her throat.
“Orestes? Orestes, are you down here?”
Her eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness. This could still be part of a trap. A ploy to give her enemies more time. She was ready to turn around, to find a knife and slit the cook’s throat, when a small squeak came from the back of the room, from behind the flour store.
“Orestes!”
Tears blurred her vision, as she pushed the sacks aside. There, dusty and dishevelled, was her son, his bottom lip protruding in a pout.
“Did I win?” he asked. “It surely does not count that you found me. Vander said this was the best place to hide. Did I win?”
Her heart was fit to burst, as she pulled him to her chest and breathed in the aroma of his floury hair.
“Yes, my darling, you won. You won.”
A smile split his face. “I did!” he yelled with glee.
She did not dispose of the young cook as she had originally planned. Carrying Orestes back up the stairs, her son’s face lit up at the sight of him.
“Vander, I won!” he announced, beaming from ear to ear. “You were right. I won!”
“I am very pleased, My Prince,” he replied.
Clytemnestra clenched her jaws, as she considered a fitting reprimand. But punish a man who had done nothing more than help her child play a game? Relief finally won out and she realised that this would not be appropriate.
“We will eat in the children’s chamber,” she said instead. “Be quick with the food.”
Later, her body quaked with the delayed reaction of almost losing another child. Anything could have occurred down in that cellar. What if something had happened to the cook, and no one had known where Orestes was hiding? What if something had fallen on him? So many what-ifs whirred around her brain, she could barely sit still. So, instead, she headed out into the warm summer evening, to sit in the grave circle and talk to the stones that housed her daughter’s bones.
Situated to the south of the Lion Gate, it was one of the few places within the citadel where she could rely on being on her own. This burial site was only for monarchy and thus no one but the Queen, her family or the gardeners had need to be there. And yet, as she approached, she realised she would not be alone.
He knelt in the grass, by the stelae of Atreus, Agamemnon’s father—the man who he had murdered.
“I told you to leave.”
Stumbling to his feet, Aegisthus kept his head bowed.
“My Queen, I am—”
“Enough. You have come here to gloat. To taunt those you have already taken.”
“No, no, that is not it.”
“Then give me one good reason why I should not kill you now?”
Lifting his chin, his eyes met hers and only then did she see how they glistened with tears. He had been crying, she realised. He had been kneeli
ng at the grave of the man he had murdered, sobbing. His voice cracked as he spoke again.
“I do not have one,” he said, in answer to her question. “You should just do it. Please, kill me now.”
Chapter 11
This had not been at all what she had expected. Clytemnestra found herself standing in the grave circle staring at the weeping man. Getting to his feet, Aegisthus wiped his cheeks with the edge of his robe.
“Forgive me, My Queen. I will leave you now. I will leave Mycenae this very night, as you requested.”
He went to move away, but this time it was she who caught his arm.
“No,” she said. “You will tell me what it is you are doing here in my kingdom. Here at this grave.”
“I told you. I seek forgiveness.”
She tightened her grip. “I do not take being lied to lightly.”
“Nor should you,” he said. “But it is the truth.”
In the fading light of the summer evening, she searched his eyes for a hint of deceit, yet could find nothing but sorrow. Her grip loosened. With a small dip of his chin, he conveyed his thanks.
“If you have time to walk with me, I would like to tell you a story,” he said.
The evening chorus of the cicadas accompanied them as they strolled slowly around the east side of the walls, towards the stables. Neither had spoken since leaving the grave of Atreus. She somehow found herself drawn to his pain and was keen to know the reason behind this usurper’s reappearance. This time, she had the reassurance of a dagger sheathed at her side. They arrived at a stone bench and he gestured for her to sit. Even then, he did not speak.
“Why would you come back here?” she asked. “When he dethroned your father, Agamemnon swore he would kill you if you ever returned, remember?”
“He never saw me when he took back the throne.”
This caught her by surprise. She had heard the story many times, how Agamemnon and Menelaus had sent Aegisthus fleeing into the night, barefoot and snivelling.
“What do you mean he did not see you?”
“By the time Agamemnon came for my father, I had already left Mycenae. Atreus and Thyestes were petty and spiteful men who used Agamemnon, Menelaus and myself in their bloody feud. I wanted no part of that. If you still think I am here to avenge my father, then you are very much mistaken.”
If he were lying, then he was even more dangerous than she had first feared, for she couldn’t read so much as a hint of trickery in him.
“I thought it was the will of the gods that every son must avenge his father.”
“My father was not murdered. Not directly. He was exiled, and died a slow and, hopefully, extremely painful death.”
“Surely you were there with him?”
His bitter laugh came as a harsh contrast to the tranquillity of their surroundings.
“Then what happened?” she asked. “What is the truth of the matter? And why have you come back to a land where you are despised?”
“It makes no difference where I go. I am despised everywhere. I have been since the moment I was born.” As he drew in a deep breath, his shoulders lowered into the posture of an old man.
This was why he had come, she realised. This was what he needed to explain.
“Tell me,” she said.
A long moment passed before he lifted his gaze to meet hers.
“You will know of what happened to my siblings, I assume. How Agamemnon’s noble father, Atreus, chopped them up—his own nephews—and served them as a meal to his brother, my father, Thyestes.”
She’d heard the story. Few hadn’t. It was one of the most despicable acts in all history. When she had first met Agamemnon, she’d thought it impossible that anyone could be as brutal as his father. Now she knew he was just as bad, if not worse.
“I was raised by Atreus. An abandoned baby, gifted a second chance by the generous King of Mycenae. I am sure you know that much too. And it was only in my attempt to please him, by killing Thyestes, that I discovered who my true father was. You cannot imagine the torment that I faced when I found that out. Atreus, despite his faults, had raised me. But I had always felt out of place in his palace. Always felt as though a part of me were missing. I think that happens when you are abandoned as a child, you will always wonder what was wrong with you.”
A feeling of sympathy arose in Clytemnestra, although not directly for Aegisthus. It was for a woman she had never met. She could not imagine what would force a mother to abandon her child like that. From the moment she had birthed each one of hers, all she had ever felt was unadulterated love and the desire to protect them, even if it cost her own life. To feel anything less was unfathomable.
“Thyestes was my father. The man Atreus had raised me to hate was of my own blood. And, for all the compassion he had shown me, Atreus had served up my siblings and made my father eat them. So, when I discovered the truth and Thyestes, in his turn, asked me to kill Atreus, I did not know what I should do.”
He shook his head.
“My father was sly; I will give him that. The way he worded it, I truly believed that Atreus was the one to blame, not only for the murders, but for how my life had turned out—for the way I had been abandoned, left in a field, still bloody from my birth. Thyestes laid it all on the old King and, somehow, I believed that killing him would give me vengeance for all I had been through. But he was not to blame. I killed the wrong man.”
Even in the warmth of the summer evening, Clytemnestra’s arms prickled with goose bumps.
“What do you mean?”
Aegisthus brushed beads of sweat from his forehead, his mouth working soundlessly before he spoke again.
“I killed Atreus, with the sword that Thyestes, my father, had given me. On my return, I was hailed a hero and a great feast was thrown for me. That was when I learned the whole truth. As I triumphantly, brandished that weapon and while all around were cheering me, my sister Pelopia’s eyes were fixed on the blade, now wiped clean of my uncle’s blood. She recognised the markings on the metal, knew it from another place, another time. It was the sword that had been held to her neck, to stop her from screaming while she was being raped, impregnated with an heir who would do the bidding of the man who was violating her. Our own father. And my sister, my sweet, loving sister, was also the heartless mother who had abandoned me to die in that field all those years before.
“When she discovered the truth, when she learned who I was… who our father had been …”
He paused, battling his emotions to finish the story. Clytemnestra’s own pulse raced, as she feared she already knew the ending. It took but a moment for it to be confirmed.
“She seized the sword from me and fell upon the blade.”
Aegisthus’ eyes, once more overflowing with tears, rose to meet hers.
“I did not come to Mycenae for vengeance, Clytemnestra. You must believe me. I came here for forgiveness from your family, for what I did to them. I did not understand what I was doing. I was not my own man. Please, please, I beg your pardon.”
She saw it all there, etched on his face. The young boy, yearning for a family. The headstrong son, only wishing to do his father proud. And then the blow. The discovery of who he was and how he had been conceived.
How could anyone get over that? she wondered. And then find the courage to reveal it and not just to a stranger, but to a member of the house that he had betrayed.
Never, in all her life, had a man asked for her forgiveness. And never had she felt it less warranted. But she knew now why he had come, and what she should do.
“You have it,” she said. “You have my forgiveness.”
“And your husband, Agamemnon. Do you believe he will show me the same kindness?”
The last image she had of him came to mind, walking away from her, his hands stained with Iphigenia’s blood. She could not bring herself to even utter his name.
“My husband has enough forgiveness of his own to seek,” she said.
Chapter 12
Four days passed and Clytemnestra found herself fully occupied with the business of running the citadel. Arguments had gone back and forth on how to allocate the food they had harvested, so that neither the women and children of Mycenae nor the armies would suffer. It was not just a case of dividing the grain and meat and rationing the salt, but of sacks and baskets that needed to be woven. Everything took time and the women, in addition to spinning the yarn and weaving it, were now also having to tend the herds and shear the sheep. Their workload had not only doubled, but they were doing jobs once deemed only capable of being undertaken by a man, a fact that her politicians seemed unable to grasp. Around and around they would go, bickering worse than infants. Any spare time she could find, she spent with her actual children.
And so, when Laodamia came to her one evening as she lounged in the courtyard, after a full day of battling the Polis, Aegisthus was a thousand miles from her thoughts.
“My Queen, there is a gentleman wishing to meet with you.”
“Where is he?” she replied.
“He will not come into the palace. He says he will wait for you outside. Down at the stables.”
She snorted. Another of Agamemnon’s cronies, ready to tell her how to do her job, no doubt.
“Do you have his name?”
“I do not, My Queen.”
“Well, if whoever it is cannot be bothered to drag himself up to the palace to see the Queen, then he will just have to wait.”
She sighed and closed her eyes. The nursemaid hovered a moment longer, before disappearing, no doubt to relay the message far more diplomatically than it had been given.
Night had truly settled in, when she finally left the courtyard to head to the children’s chamber. As she wandered through the colonnades, her thoughts returned to the man waiting by the horses.
There was very little chance he would still be there, she considered, and yet she was intrigued. So many men viewed a palace without a king as an opportunity for the taking. Rumours from Ithaca told how Penelope was inundated with suitors, despite the fact that her husband was still alive and fighting. That this man wanted to keep his distance from the palace, told her something. Only what that was, she wasn’t quite sure. Grabbing a shawl and an oil lamp, she headed out into the night.