by Laura Gill
Just then, Philaretos hastened into view with the man who had been sent to fetch him. When he climbed into the cart to uncover the body and survey the damage, the color drained from his face. So we had to relate the story all over again, with the high priest cutting in to demand why the Master of Arms had not been supervising us to begin with. For the very first time, Philaretos was at a loss for words.
That did not, however, prevent him from marching us up to the palaestra to vent his spleen. “What in Hades were you thinking, letting him get on the fence like that?” Spittle flecked his lips, giving him the appearance of a rabid dog. Blood suffused his face so he was dark as a grape. Several boys were sobbing. I flinched when Philaretos stared goggle-eyed at me, but it was the eldest of us who took the worst tongue-lashing.
Kleitos endured it bravely, kneeling rigid and composed before Philaretos, nodding throughout. Tears streamed down his face. I thought Philaretos would lash him, but he refrained, because all the witnesses had made it abundantly clear that Kleitos had done everything he could.
In the end, Philaretos hurled his rawhide switch onto the sand. “You all deserve to be flogged!” His bellow echoed around his courtyard, as fearsome as the bull that had gored Hippasos. “Get out!”
A somber Timon awaited me outside the palaestra. Fathers, uncles, and one outraged mother thronged the space to inspect their boys for injuries and led them away for private punishment.
“We didn’t mean for it to happen,” I told my pedagogue. “We tried hard to get him down, but—”
Timon seized my upper arm in a bruising grip. I had no idea he owned such strength. “You obviously did not try hard enough,” he hissed.
His reaction brought it all back: the impact against the enclosure, the sudden blood, Hippasos rising, then collapsing again. I started to shake so violently that my teeth rattled. “Timon...”
Timon relaxed his hold, stroked my arm where he had pinched it, while softening his tone. “I know you did not mean for any of this to happen, Orestes, but the gods are capricious. It does not take much to offend them.”
A sick feeling settled in my stomach. “Is there going to be another earthquake?” And would Poseidon demand my death? Would Father order Hyrtios to lay me across the altar and cut my throat? I could not articulate the fear lest it become real.
“I do not know.” He led me away from the chaos of crying boys and scolding elders, back to his cubicle where he made me drink strong wine and rest until I was steady enough to return to my chamber.
One more reprimand waited, the very worst for last. Aegisthus caught me on the way upstairs. Without warning, he grabbed my arm to yank me toward him. Had he not been holding me, I would have stumbled and lost my balance. “Come with me, young man.” His fingers dug into me like a vise. There was murder in his voice.
He hauled me away from the palace to the platform overlooking the Chavos ravine. There, Aegisthus shoved me down onto the pavement. He gave me a moment to flounder around, then grabbed me again by the hair, and dragged me flailing to the very edge, so I hung over, staring straight down at the tumbled rocks and dried riverbed almost two hundred feet below.
“That was a sacrificial animal!” he yelled.
Aegisthus was going to throw me into the ravine where only condemned criminals were executed. I braced myself against the low ledge. “Let me go!”
He curled his fingers in my hair, lifted me back several inches, and slammed me once more against the stone so that the impact bruised my ribs. “You fucking Atreid brat!” he shouted.
Snarling, he jerked me up again, twisted me around, and held me there, his fingers wrenching my scalp. “Offend the gods again and your mother will cut you to pieces and roast you on a spit to serve to your father when he comes home.”
I had no time to answer as he released me, letting me fall gasping to the stones. A spitwad landed on the pavement beside me.
Rage surged through me as he stalked away. Your mother will cut you to pieces and roast you on a spit to serve to your father when he comes home. I lifted my hand to feel my throbbing scalp; the skin was unbroken.
A sudden queasiness overwhelmed me. I scrabbled for the ledge as vomit flooded my mouth, leaned out, and spewed the food and unwatered wine Timon had plied me with into the ravine.
Aegisthus cared nothing about the bull, nothing about the god’s anger. You fucking Atreid brat. Today’s accident was just an excuse to threaten and torment me.
I stayed there, lying spent against the ledge as the sun started westering. This had been the worst day of my life. A boy dead, a god offended, and Aegisthus... Gods, he was just inventing that tale about Mother killing and cooking me in a stew, wasn’t he? She could not possibly consider doing something that horrific, could she? I swallowed around the taste of vomit. Of course she could! Father had snatched Iphigenia from her. What better vengeance could she wreak against him than to deprive him of his only son?
At last, a sentry noticed me sprawled below, and left his post on the rampart to investigate. He might have witnessed the entire incident, because he never asked why I was lying there so sick and despondent, only inquiring whether I felt all right. The humiliating possibility that he had seen Aegisthus rough me up fueled an impetus to wobble to my feet and get away.
I crept through the darkened citadel as the servants started lighting the lamps, at last reaching my chamber where I doused the light and flung myself onto the bed. The crack disfiguring Castor’s face still had not been mended. Mother had forgotten. Or rather, she had left it from some malicious desire to see me slashed and dead, just as Aegisthus had smashed Father’s kylix. A lump formed in my throat. Miserable tears stung my eyes. She was going to send me to the altar.
Kilissa tried to get me to eat something, with no success. Hermione came soon after. She dismissed the nurse and sat beside me in the lamplight, as Kilissa had blatantly ignored my wish for darkness. “You’re upset about what happened with your friend and the bull,” she said softly.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I mumbled.
Hermione gently stroked my hair, smoothing it away from my face. “Of course it wasn’t.”
“Tell Aegisthus that!” I told her everything he had done and said, because she could keep secrets.
Elektra’s arrival cut Hermione’s reply short. My sister brought bread and meat, and barley water flavored with mint. I exchanged a pregnant look with Hermione. Elektra must never know what Aegisthus had said, for then my vengeful sister would harp on the incident until she found some way to hurl the insult back at him. I did not want her to make a public spectacle. I did not want the embarrassment of having the servants whisper ever after that my mother hated me so much that she planned to carve me up and boil me in a stew for my unsuspecting father.
Chrysothemis poked her head in to ask what was wrong. “Does your stomach hurt, Orestes?” she asked. “Ask for a hot pad and go to sleep.” I wondered whether she even knew about today’s incident.
Last of all, Timon came upstairs, because Hermione sent for him. Once everyone withdrew, he closed the door and sat down in the chair my cousin had vacated. “You need to rest, young man.”
He listened carefully as I told him about the incident on the platform, nodding his understanding throughout. “Aegisthus is an evil man,” he commented afterward, keeping his voice to a murmur. “I know it is hard, but you are not in a position to do anything about it, so you must swallow the insult as best you can and bide your time. As for the taunt about your mother, ignore his lies. Your fears about her sentiments toward you are unfounded, fed by too many dark tales.
“Speaking of your mother,” he continued, “she wishes to see you straightaway. No, do not get up. I told the messenger you were ill, but you will have to answer the summons first thing in the morning.”
He got me to eat a little bread and olive paste, and promised to stay the night. Kilissa arranged a cot for him by the window where it was coolest. When it was time to retire, she brought me wine laced w
ith poppy juice to help me sleep.
I slept, but not well, and was groggy during the next morning’s interview in Mother’s apartment. Hyrtios was there, along with Aegisthus, who smirked at me from behind Mother’s chair.
Mother commented on my sickly pallor and the dark circles under my eyes, but the moment she ascertained that I had not been injured, that was as far as her sympathy went. She tore into me like a vulture, picking at me with one ruthless question after another until she and the high priest were satisfied that blame for the accident rested solely with the victim.
“You will pour a propitiatory libation during the sacrifice tomorrow, just to be certain,” she informed me. Hyrtios grimly nodded his agreement. “You will also attend the funeral this afternoon, as a representative of the royal family. Timon, Orestes will have no lessons today. He is to rest and prepare for the funeral. He will also fast until tomorrow morning as penance, so the god’s anger will not turn on him.”
Mother presented me with a suitable gift to give the family, then sent me away. Timon escorted me back to my room to let me sleep away the poppies. He returned in the early afternoon when the servants brought hot water for the bath. “Do not say anything about the accident,” he cautioned, “either to the family or the other mourners.”
“I know how to be tactful,” I mumbled, studying the way the bath water distorted my limbs. The poppies were still working on my senses, dulling them. This time yesterday, Hippasos had still been alive. What malevolent god had possessed us to venture out to the enclosure?
“It is my job to remind you,” he answered kindly.
I dressed in the black clothes Kilissa had laid out and, bearing the funerary gift, set out for Mnessos’s house. Last night, Hippasos’s family had washed his body and anointed it with precious oils. They had wrapped him in a linen shroud and laid him out in the entryway for the ritual prothesis, or viewing. Frankincense burning in little clay pots alongside the bier discouraged the flies and disguised any putrescent odors. Four servants fanned the air, but with the mid-afternoon heat and all the mourners thronging the courtyard it was stifling.
Only Hippasos’s face showed through the shroud. Death had tinted his lips blue and turned his flesh waxen. His mother was inconsolable, rending her cheeks with her fingernails and tearing her hair.
Stone-faced, Mnessos stood apart, receiving and exchanging words with guests. I recognized the priest hovering over his shoulder; he regarded me with a hard and unsympathetic look.
Philaretos was there, too. Hippasos’s best friends Leukas and Nireus came with their parents. Kleitos came alone. He took the death very hard, and prostrated himself before Mnessos to ask his forgiveness. Mnessos raised him up, kissed him on both cheeks, and forgave what little there was to forgive. It had not been Kleitos’s fault, but the god’s anger that took Hippasos’s life. Everyone knew that.
I presented my condolences with the formal speech Timon had made me rehearse, and presented the jar of precious unguent. Mnessos thanked me very much for coming. His voice was hoarse from weeping. His hands felt cold when he shook mine.
As the late afternoon light slashed across the crowded courtyard, Mnessos covered his son’s face. The pallbearers lifted the bier onto their shoulders, the professional mourners began to keen, and the funeral procession set out for the tomb.
Most funerals took place during the day, because night was Hekate’s domain, when ghosts roamed abroad. But Mother and Hyrtios had ordered evening rites to conceal the blasphemy and appease Poseidon. I shivered, despite the lingering warmth of the day and the myriad torches; the wailing women filled the falling night with their demonic screeches and groans.
Mnessos owned a chamber tomb on the lower flanks of Mount Charvati, so small it accommodated only the immediate family and priests. I remained outside with Timon and the other funeral guests as the pallbearers carried Hippasos into the tomb. He would never again join us in the palaestra, never again cast his javelin or tackle the training wall. He would never again make jokes with Leukas and Nireus, or tease the novices. We had not been close friends, for he was somewhat of a bully, yet all the same I felt saddened by his loss.
I did not attend the funeral feast afterward because of the fasting, and because Mother demanded that I receive purification before tomorrow’s great sacrifice. So I bade a polite farewell to the grieving family and returned to the citadel.
Hyrtios met me outside the cult house complex. “Prince Orestes,” he said, intoning my name with particular dolor. “When you cross the temenos, you will enter the god’s domain. Bow your head. Fill your heart with contrition for your sins. Do not speak unless you are directed to do so.”
I had to strip away my black clothes and step down into a lustral basin called an adyton. A novice poured water from a jug over my head; the cold bit through my flesh, despite the evening’s sultry heat. Frankincense choked the air. I tried hard not to cough as the high priest uttered the purifying prayers.
“Zeus Thunderer who watches from on high.” Hyrtios clamped a stern hand atop my head. “Father Poseidon who shakes the earth. Receive these prayers for this young man, Orestes, son of Agamemnon. Wash clean any sins he may have committed. Look favorably upon him, and watch over him, so he does not stray into impiety.”
I felt nothing except the chill from the water and the sadness already weighing on my heart. Hyrtios’s words summoned no deities to either absolve or condemn me. Zeus and Poseidon aren’t listening to him. I did not know quite how I knew for certain, only that I did. The air was still and warm, hazy with bluish incense that made my eyes water and nose itch. They aren’t here. I wondered whether he realized how empty his prayers were.
I left the sanctuary still damp from the purifying bath, and troubled by my new knowledge. Timon waited for me in the darkness just outside the sacred enclosure to lead me back to the palace. I would have liked to ask him about the high priest’s ability to commune with the gods, yet had no idea how to phrase my question, or even whether it was wise to say anything.
*~*~*~*
Sacrificial rites always began with a triton call to the heavens, to summon the gods to receive their offerings.
I stood upon the circuit walls near the Lion Gate with Timon, Hermione and my sisters, and listened to the din as the procession got underway in the lower town. After the triton sounded, a cacophony of panpipes, drums, and sistrums battered the morning calm. Distant shouts competed with the music, the warm breeze snapping the banners above my head, and the faint jangle of the women’s jewels. It was a ten minute walk from the tomb of Atreus to the Lion Gate, but with all the crowds and pageantry it would take much longer for the procession to reach us.
Mother stood alone under a fringed canopy, wearing a high priestess’s scarlet leather girdle above her naked breasts. A round headdress crowned her head. Appeasing the Earth-Shaker fell to the royal kinsmen, so Mother would not wield the labrys, but as the goddess incarnate she presided over all. She was a living cult statue, flesh painted white all over with scarlet suns daubed on her face. She stood absolutely motionless, her arms raised to her sides, her palms facing outward to bestow Mother Dia’s benediction upon the people.
As the sun grew higher in the sky and the morning’s coolness burned away, the procession appeared along the road below the walls. Sunlight flashed off Mycenae’s great ceremonial great labrys as High Priest Hyrtios carried it before him; it glinted off the priesthood’s gold and silver ornaments and the gold leaf gilding the king bull’s horns. Priests carried the god’s sacred pine boughs, and a troupe of bare-breasted priestesses shook their sistrums and danced for the god’s pleasure.
I counted thirty-five bulls and six horses, just as the priests had announced. At the head of the animal procession, the king bull took somnolent steps, following the lead of the acolyte who held his garlanded tether. One would never know to look at him, drugged and decorated with wreaths of anemones, wild roses, and daisies, that he had gored a twelve-year-old boy to death only two days a
go. But Poseidon still dwelt inside him; I could sense the god’s presence even from thirty yards away. Others could, too. Philaretos and the sentries posted above the Lion Gate bent their knees as he lumbered through. A cry went up from the servants and craftsmen thronging the rooftops.
The king bull died first, as befit his sacred status. At the altar just inside the Perseid grave circle, the priests stripped the foil from his curving horns and removed his garlands. Hyrtios handed the labrys to Aegisthus, who as the presiding adult royal male would carry out the sacrifice. My gorge rose to watch his hands befoul the sacred double axe. I was the king’s son. I should have been down there with the high priest!
Hyrtios raised his arms to the heavens. “Poseidon, Earth-Shaker, Lord Of Horses, Great Bull From The Sea.” His voice carried across the citadel mount. “You have made your awesome wrath known to the people. All Mycenae bows before your anger. Receive from her subjects this splendid offering of bulls and horses. Accept this gift along with our fear and obedience.”
At his nod, a priest stunned the bull between the horns with a mallet. Aegisthus raised the labrys and brought it down hard, landing a blow at the base of the neck that severed the spine. Hyrtios plunged the sacrificial dagger into the artery alongside the bull’s throat and slashed. Acolytes rushed forward to collect the spouting blood in vessels to drench the altar stone, the threshold of the megaron and Lion Gate, and all the altars throughout the citadel and lower town All I saw in my mind’s eye was the king bull slamming again and again into the enclosure wall, the blood smearing his left horn, and bloodstain blooming like an unfurling poppy over Hippasos’s heart.
One after another, the bulls died. There was something fascinating and horrific about Aegisthus wielding the axe; he was born to shed blood. Soon enough, he and his acolyte attendants were wading ankle-deep in it, trampling dislodged garlands and soaking their elaborate fringed hems in gore. Carcasses were quartered, the thigh meats pulled apart and wrapped in succulent fat for the burnt offering. The air became choked with the stench of roasting flesh and fat.