by Laura Gill
We reached Mycenae in the mid-afternoon. Kilissa admired my kill, promising to sew the pelt onto my cloak once it was cured. A delighted Elektra fussed over me, too. “You’re a man now, Orestes!” Squeezing me close, she kissed both my cheeks. “One day soon you’ll bring back a lion skin. Father had a dozen.”
“I would be happy with one.” I had not seen a lion skin since Mother burned the one which had lain across the ivory footstool in Father’s apartment.
“Nonsense! You’ll have scores to drape about your shoulders, a different one for every day,” she laughed. “You’ll rest your feet on another, and have one for your chair in the megaron.”
Kilissa shooed my sister out, because she saw I was tired, and had me step into the bathtub the servants had filled. I bathed, ate some bread and cheese, and dozed until after moonrise.
A servant brought a summons for me to attend my mother in the queen’s apartment. When not entertaining Aegisthus, Mother spent evenings spinning wool or sewing with her women. I found her working her small loom.
“Did you enjoy your excursion?” she asked.
I noted how her attention remained on her weaving, where she was combing the weft, rather than on me. “Oh, yes. Very much so.” I held up the pelt. “Look, I caught a hare. Kilissa’s going to sew the fur onto a cloak.”
She acknowledged it with a perfunctory glance. “I see.”
Her lukewarm reaction floored me, leaving a tightness in my chest. Father would have been ecstatic. “Aren’t you proud, Mother?”
“Proud?” Mother sucked in a breath. “Hunting is war games,” she said coldly. “One day, it won’t be an animal pelt but a man’s head.” She set down the comb and took up her shuttle, weaving threads of scarlet wool through the warp with expert precision, all while avoiding my gaze. “Do you expect me to celebrate and praise you for killing one of Mother Dia’s creatures?”
Embarrassment flushed my cheeks. What was she talking about, killing one of the goddess’s creatures? Hunting was hunting. “Mother, it was only a hare.”
“But before you know it,” she said, still not acknowledging me, “you will be a man, and then you will turn into your father.”
“But Father is a great man.”
She stared at me, the shuttle frozen between her fingers as she arched a disdainful eyebrow. “And how do you think your father became such a great man?” she asked. “Mighty Agamemnon climbed to the pinnacle of kingship over the corpses of all those who got in his way. Is that what you want, Orestes? To bathe in the blood of women and innocent children? To wear the Atreid curse as your crown?”
When she said it, my gaze went to the scarlet wool she was working, blood-red like the threads of Fate. I shivered despite myself. Why did she have to twist my youthful pride into something terrible? “Forgive me, Mother.” There was nothing else to say.
Moments later, I stood in the corridor, trying to sort through my bewilderment. When had I ever said anything about killing anyone? All I had done was go hunting. All I wanted from her were a few kind words! She had not even looked me in the eye. She might as well have rescinded her summons.
I needed to go somewhere, to do something, to dissipate my chaotic emotions before returning to my room, or else the ghost boys would scent my unease and feed on it. They had not completely vanished after my propitiatory offerings, but reasserted their presence whenever I was sick or upset. Even now, disembodied voices seemed to gather around me. Forget her. Temptation breathed cold against my ears, shivering the hairs on the back of my neck. You’re a man. Do as you like.
What I wanted was to storm back into her apartment and demand that she acknowledge me, show me a mother’s love. I wanted to kill Aegisthus, regardless of his sacred guest-right. I wanted to drive him out so Father could rest easier, knowing that his son was a man he could take pride in.
Rebellion swelled in my heart. I started to turn, to face Mother’s door, to turn the latch, but at the last second my heart faltered. Instead, my attention traveled down the corridor, into the shadows surrounding the king’s deserted apartment. Do it. You have the right.
A clay lamp burned in a niche near Mother’s door. I removed it and ventured into forbidden territory. No sentries stood on duty, for my mother did not always want them about. Not that it would have mattered. I was the High King’s son and heir. I would have commanded them to stand aside.
Opening my father’s door and entering proved easy. Taking in what lay beyond was hard. The light from my wick illuminated a scene of utter desolation. Mudbrick and timber framing showed through where the plaster had fallen away from the walls. What had been a kingly abode had become a haunt for mice and nesting birds. Droppings spattered the floor, where the dust, dirt, and windblown leaves lay an inch thick, concealing remains of broken furniture and potsherds.
A sob escaped my throat, then the tears came, all in a rush. Father might as well have been gone a hundred years. He might as well have been dead. I knelt, setting down the lamp, and wept into my hands even when the dust made me cough.
An object amid the debris suddenly caught my eye. Sniffling, I knuckled my eyes dry and reached down to pry whatever it was loose to brush away the dirt. What was this, now? A bull’s lowered head, black against a red and white background, a shard from a vessel smashed against the wall and left to lie. I had not expected to find anything so nice.
And where there was one piece, there were surely more. I forgot my desolation in the rush to search. A bird’s wing, a broken rim with black bands, yellow flowers—all from the same cup. I could even fit some of the pieces together! Hope beat in my breast. Perhaps the shards could be reassembled with animal glue.
Father must surely have sent a god to guide me to these remnants. He was not dead. He had not forgotten me, after all!
I hid the pieces in my tunic to ferry back to my chamber, and the next day took them downstairs to store with Timon. He let me work in his cubicle in the late afternoons after my lessons; he even helped me obtain the glue to try to reassemble them. The project filled me to bursting with excitement. At last, I would have something belonging to Father! I would have rescued it from oblivion.
Timon urged me to exercise patience. “Remember, a task hastily undertaken is a task wasted. If these shards have waited in the rubble for these last three years, then they are not going anywhere.”
One night, Aegisthus almost caught me exploring the ruins in my quest for more treasures, fragments that would complete the whole. I made myself small by clinging to the wall, doing my best to blend with the shadows, and prayed to the gods to conceal me. Then I heard the interloper issuing orders to his valet; he was still talking even as he stepped into Mother’s apartment. I shut out their obscene night noises while combing the wreckage in Father’s bedchamber. Timon had warned me that I might never recover all of the cup’s pieces, either because they were too small, had been crushed, or had flown in all directions and were now buried under and mingled with the filth. He did not have to tell me. I counted myself fortunate that I had discovered anything at all.
I found other wonderful things, though: bits of fresco, splinters of carved wood from Father’s massive headboard, pieces of rock crystal or ivory, and a piece of pottery showing a lion’s head.
I wrapped that last object in linen and carried it to the women’s quarters to show my sister, despite the late hour. People would notice during the day. They would ask questions, then Mother would find out about the cup and smash all my hard work.
“What do you want?” Elektra had been asleep; her hair was a wild tangle, and her eyelids drooped. She did not sound at all happy.
“I brought you something.”
She stifled a yawn. “Now?”
“I just found it.”
“Show it to me in the morning.”
“I can’t. It’s a secret.”
Elektra shuffled over to the brazier to get a better look at the potsherd. I followed her into her cubicle with the lamp. A little gasp left her lips. �
��I know this lion!” She was awake now, and excited. “Where did you find it?”
“Father’s bedchamber.”
She studied my rumpled state. “You went in there?”
“Every night this week.” I lifted my chin proudly. “I’ve been collecting pieces from a cup with bulls and flowers on it.”
“Bulls and flowers? Are they yellow flowers, with blue birds?” Her eyes brightened with excitement. “Oh, Orestes! You found Father’s wedding kylix.” Still holding the lion shard, she grabbed my shoulders. “Where is it?”
“I’m still working on it, but there are a lot of pieces missing.”
She flung both arms around my neck and kissed me. I could scarcely breathe, she was crushing me with her enthusiasm. “Bring me more things!”
Mother summoned me early the next afternoon, once my lessons with Philaretos were done and she had finished hearing the morning’s petitions. She sat alone, still dressed for the megaron in her paint and jewels, as remote and forbidding as a goddess. “Come here, young man.”
I approached her reluctantly, to let her drape a white arm around my shoulders. “I understand you’ve been roaming the palace at night,” she said, “and collecting old rubbish.” I held my tongue. She studied me a moment, then sighed. “You might as well go by day when the light is better. The nights are getting very cold.”
Her arm slung about my shoulders felt like a yoke, and she wore too much scent. “Mother,” I began, “why did you say those awful things to me last time, about blood and murdering people? It was just a hunt.”
Another mother might have apologized, but not mine. “You’re still a boy,” she explained, “but that will all change in a few years. You will start to have a man’s longings, and men become violent with their wants.” Her fingers dug into my shoulder, as though by gripping me hard enough she could prevent me from growing up. “It’s a disease the gods afflict men with.”
“Why does everything have to be about Iphigenia?” I turned, compelling her to release me. “She’s gone.”
Bitter lines formed around her mouth, leaving hairline cracks in her face paint. “Be careful what you say, Orestes,” she warned.
“But it’s true.” My anger rose. I caught myself starting to raise my voice. “You only care about Iphigenia. You never say anything nice about Elektra or Chrysothemis, or even Hermione. And you don’t care about me, either.”
“Lower your voice, young man!” Mother drew herself up straighter in her chair.
I started to feel very foolish standing there, my face flushed, with hands curled at my sides. What seven-year-old boy raised his voice to his mother, especially when she was both queen and high priestess? “Next time,” I muttered, “I won’t bring you my trophy. I won’t bother.”
Mother slitted her kohl-rimmed eyes, raking me up and down with a critical gaze. “I didn’t summon you here to quarrel.” Her right hand moved, and she held out an object. “No doubt you want to write to your father about your accomplishments. In order to do that, you’ll need a seal.”
I took the seal stone, warm from her hand; it was a cabochon amethyst carved with a reposing lion. “Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because it’s obvious that you intend to seek out your father,” she answered. “You might as well do it with my knowledge and consent.”
That stung. I should not need her permission for what was mine by nature and right. Her gift also made no sense. “Are you sure, Mother?” After all, I had just raised my voice at her. Worse, I had flung Iphigenia in her face.
“There is nothing else to be done,” she said, with a ponderous sigh. “Orestes, child. There’s much you have to learn about the world, and the interactions of men and women. And there are things between your father and me that you can never understand.” Her hennaed mouth curved into a strained smile, further cracking her face paint to give hints of the woman underneath. “I never said that I did not want you. It was you who said that.”
So saying, she turned her face away, as though the topic embarrassed her. “Sometimes it’s simply easier not to love. Love is one way by which the gods toy with us. Making us happy for a time, letting us dream, then ripping it all away. Hate is much easier. You can live on hate for a very, very long time. The gods will never take that from you, because they can’t.” Then, hesitantly, she regarded me again. “Ah, but that has nothing at all to do with you.”
Chapter Ten
Aegisthus often came out to the palaestra to watch me practice. Although he kept a discreet distance, subtle menace rolled off him. He never left the citadel to hunt or drive his chariot, because Father’s agents were lying in wait with orders to kill him the moment he did, so he could not follow me to the lower town or practice field, but nonetheless sent someone to observe. I recognized the man as one of his companions, who always assumed a different disguise: an idle laborer, a herdsman, a farmer on his way to market. It became a game among us boys, to root out the spy.
One morning, I decided to confront the man directly. “Euryalos! Don’t slouch and act like you don’t know me. Come on down here and watch me cast the javelin. You’ve been watching every day for a month, after all.”
“Oh, I haven’t the time, sir!” he sputtered. “I was just delivering these goats to the palace.”
“Hah!” Kleitos snorted. My friends had decided to follow, in case Euryalos should attempt violence. “Aren’t those are the same two goats you’ve been ‘delivering’ for over a fortnight?”
“You’re Aegisthus’s man,” Klymenos said.
Euryalos fumbled for another lie, then like the coward he was, he bolted. “Go on!” I shouted after him. “Run to your master!”
That evening, Aegisthus visited me in my chamber. “Euryalos is quite upset over the way you and your friends ran him off this morning.”
I had expected his reprimand, and received him while oiling my sandals. A linen cloth lay spread across my lap to keep the olive oil from staining my clothes, and the little jar sat closed at my feet. I would rather have been whetting a dagger, but that would have been too overt, too threatening for an eight-year-old boy facing a thirty-one-year-old man. “You didn’t have to send him, you know.”
Aegisthus inspected the Trojan shield hanging from the wall, Castor and Polydeukes above the bed, and the painted offering table. “Ah, is this the kylix you were working on?” Mother must have told him about my excursions, and his spies must have relayed my attempts to repair the cup. “I see you never quite managed to find all the pieces.” He started to reach for it, then, marking my momentary panic, chuckled and withdrew his hand. “Your mother wants to know how you’re doing with your training.”
An unlikely story. Philaretos’s regular reports meant that Mother knew about my every mistake, success, sprain, and cut. “Of course she does.”
“I will send Euryalos out again,” he said.
I shrugged my shoulders. “There’s nothing to see.”
Aegisthus strode over and leaned down so we were at eye level. He smelled like the costly saffron his servants scented his clothes with, and the mint leaves he regularly chewed to sweeten his breath. “Perhaps not, Orestes, but I find your progress most enlightening.”
*~*~*~*
High summer’s heat created a shimmer inches above the road. Sweat slicked my neck and plastered my forehead under my wide-brimmed hat, and the sun beat upon us in the open chariot. Mother had sent me on a diplomatic mission east through the mountains to the workshops in the Berbati valley. I would rather have visited the seashore, but any excuse to leave the palace and have the freedom of the open countryside was an opportunity I could not refuse.
Kteatos, my chaperone, was a minor official charged with overseeing ceramic production in Berbati. All along the route, he assailed my ears with facts about the pottery trade. Berbati had excellent clay deposits, he droned, and the town housed skilled artisans who turned out finely decorated vessels for trade to Anatolia, Canaan, and Egypt.
I was far more
interested in the roads and surrounding landscape. From Mycenae, we crossed the Chavos ravine, then the saddle between the Two Ladies into the Berbati valley. Throughout, the highway was paved and terraced to protect against erosion and make it accessible in all weather, and laid out on a gentle grade.
We reached Berbati in the early afternoon, when the agora was empty, the workshops closed, and the people were dozing through the hottest part of the day. At the governor’s residence, a sluggish groom took our chariots. A steward led us inside to a place where we could bathe, eat, and rest. Kteatos informed me that we would tour the workshops tomorrow morning, but tonight we would dine with the governor.
Lord Laodokos and his wife received me warmly, presenting me with a fine cup painted with scarlet and white birds on a black background, such as the artists made in the workshops. Kteatos dominated the conversation, inquiring about worker shortages, quotas, and other dry statistics while the servants went around replenishing the wine cups. The megaron doors stood open to admit a breeze which never came.
That night, we slept outside on the cool aithousa, rising with the dawn. We dressed, broke our fast on bread, cheese, and olives, and ventured down to the workshops. Dominating the town was the Potters’ Quarter, where the craftspeople worked and lived with their families. Male and female potters alike shaped the local clay on their wooden wheels to turn out stirrup jars, amphorae, kraters, and decorative vessels of all shapes and sizes. After the clay dried, artisans sketched in designs with charcoal and applied the pigment before firing. I became absorbed watching a woman paint an octopus on a pyxis destined for some foreign lady’s dressing table; she outlined a tentacle with hairline precision, holding her arm so steady that she seemed not to move at all.
But Kteatos was displeased with what he found. The High King’s quotas, he insisted, were not being met. Laodokos took him outside to explain that there simply were not enough workers to fulfill demand. “We train them as fast and best we can—you saw the children working the wheels and mixing the pigments—but it takes time to pro—”