by Laura Gill
I should not have spoken, with my mind so befuddled. Now, I had given her another reason to worry at the subject, to needle me about Mother and Aegisthus and vengeance. “Elektra...”
“Orestes!” Elektra shook me hard, practically rolling me around the mattress. “If you saw the blood, that means you must have been there in the megaron when he came. What did you see?”
Each question and poke irked me that much more. “All right, yes!” I rolled toward her again, to grapple with her and force her prodding hands away. “I saw them do it. I saw the whole thing!”
Stunned, she hung upon the edge of her chair. “You were there?”
“I saw the women filling the tub. I would have left, but then I had to hide because Aegisthus came in.”
“So you...you...?” Right before my eyes, my sister transformed from a woman into a maenad. “You bastard!” she shrieked. “You let them murder Father!”
She launched herself at me, boxing my ears till they stung, slapping my face, and punching my shoulders and arms and torso. I could have fought her, punched her as I had punched Hippomachos, and made her stop, but it was hard because she was a woman and pregnant, and she was right.
As I raised my arms to shield myself from her blows, Elektra grabbed a cushion to beat me with. It burst open. Feathers erupted into the air like snow flurries, and still she kept flogging me. “Murderer!” she hollered. “Coward!”
Her handmaidens burst into the room then to separate us, but she shoved them away, flung the torn pillowcase aside, and cast about for something else to hurl at me. Half a second later, scalding hot liquid splashed across my chest. I screamed. “Murderer!” Elektra twisted against the restraining arms of her women, and continued shrieking. “Coward!” Accusations which burned as painfully as the burns she had inflicted. By now, we were both sobbing, blubbering incoherently.
Anaxibia arrived just as the handmaids hustled Elektra from the chamber. My aunt surveyed the scene, sent for scrub maids to sweep up the feathers and change my soiled linens, then whisked me away to her apartment, where she had Ainios examine the burns. Tender redness splotched my chest and arms, but the physician ascertained no serious damage. He bathed the burns with a cool, damp cloth and applied a soothing ointment made from Egyptian aloe.
Misery rather than pain kept the tears rolling down my cheeks. Elektra had attacked me like a ravenous demon, like a vengeful goddess come to avenge Father’s restless ghost. Murderer! Her accusation still rang in my ears.
“I will deal with her,” Anaxibia said firmly. “This will not happen again.”
In the end, it was Pylades who handled the matter. His raised voice carried across the gallery which separated my sister’s rooms from the royal apartments. “What were you thinking?” he shouted. “He’s your brother!”
Elektra hollered right back at him. “He’s a coward!” A ceramic object struck a hard surface and shattered.
I stared into my soup, jaw trembling against yet more tears. Anaxibia left her loom to hold me close. I was too old for a mother’s caresses, and resented the fact that she obviously thought otherwise, yet at the same time felt too wrung out from brooding and grieving to insist on being left alone.
“He’s thirteen years old!” Pylades yelled. “What did you expect an unarmed boy to do?”
Elektra’s voice grated. “He didn’t even warn him! He didn’t do anything! Father’s ghost must be howling for shame!” Then she yelped. “You struck me! Bastard, how dare you—”
I visualized her going for her husband’s eyes with clawed fingers like a harpy, but Pylades would not have it. “Sit down and close your mouth, you crazy bitch!” he shouted. “You’ll harm the child.” A long silence. Had she actually obeyed him? “Now, tell me, what good would it have done Orestes to have called out a warning? They would have killed him, too.”
“Father would have—”
“Died anyway,” he finished. “The trap was set, and he walked right into it. Nothing Orestes did would have changed that.” I swallowed, suddenly sick to my stomach to hear him say that, even if it was true. Pylades said more, but his voice was low now, and indistinct. Elektra’s answers, too, softened to a mumble. The argument was over.
“Finish your soup, Orestes.” Anaxibia hovered beside me, forcing me to choke down several spoonfuls till she was satisfied. “Your room is probably clean and orderly, but you should not be alone right now.”
She made me stay with her, as if I were a child plagued with night terrors, while she and her women spun and sewed by lamplight. Ainios’s herbs dulled my discomfort, but made me drowsy. Anaxibia noticed my yawns, and led me into her bedchamber, where she let me lie down among her scented fleeces and embroidered covers. Listening to the driving rain outside, I dozed a little.
Pylades arrived some time later. How late was it? I felt him lift me from the mattress and carry me down the gallery to my room. Again, like a child. I leaned against him, too drowsy to protest or ask about the earlier argument. He tucked me into bed, saying, “She will not trouble you again.”
Elektra. There had been an argument; she had wounded me. “She said I killed my father,” I mumbled.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I wanted to warn him.”
That was the last thing I remembered saying. I slept through the night, waking drained and dispirited, and wanting nothing more than to go right back to sleep. Yesterday’s rain had abated to a light drizzle. A servant brought me porridge with raisins. Ainios arrived to inspect my burns.
The skin was an angry red, tender to the touch. “You’re too late to join your friends in the palaestra,” he said. “Queen Anaxibia did not want anyone to wake you. I recommend walking along the gallery later to stretch your legs. In fact, Prince Pylades told me to tell you that he will come this afternoon to escort you outside.” Trust Pylades not to let me get away with lying about for a second day in a row. “Tomorrow you should be able to resume your regular routine. Do not overdo it, and keep taking the prescribed herbs for your pain as you require them.”
“They make me sleepy,” I protested.
Ainios slathered ointment onto a fresh linen bandage. “I understand you haven’t been sleeping well.”
Someone must have told him. “It’s nothing.”
Ainios refrained from inquiring further, except to make another prescription. “Spend time with your friends. Go out in the fresh air when the weather permits. Eat foods that will enrich your blood, but avoid drinking too much wine. Go to the sanctuary and make offerings when you feel dark humors coming on.”
“Tell that to my sister,” I snorted.
“I have nothing to do with treating women.” He applied the first bandage, wrapping it around my ribs; the cool salve felt good against my tender skin. “And pregnant women have their own special needs.”
I spent the day with Timon and his new cat. Ekhinos had recently started bringing a friend, a little female who readily curled up on my lap and kneaded me with dainty paws. “I should have guarded my tongue better.” Absently, I stroked the cat behind one furry ear, eliciting a contented purr. “Why do you think I never confided in her in the first place?”
“You are not to blame.” Timon cast a worrisome glance at Ekhinos, who was avidly shredding the bed fleeces under his claws. “Elektra hounded you.”
“She picks at everything,” I said, detaching the cat’s razor claws from my bandaged torso. “But it was my fault, Timon. I failed him. I never called out a warning. I never lifted a hand to help him. I did absolutely nothing. Hekate knows, his shade probably is crying for shame.”
“Orestes,” Timon said heavily. “We have been through this before, and you know perfectly well that there was nothing you could have done the change the situation without throwing your own life away.”
I heaved another sigh, distracting the cat. Sensing my distress, she responded with a querulous little chirp. “Elektra cares nothing about that.”
“Elektra,” Timon countered, “is
a woman and has no authority over you, regardless of what she may think.”
“She refuses to talk to me.”
“Then let her shun you, until she comes to her senses and realizes she is in the wrong.” That might take a long time, though, provided my sister decided to forgive me at all. After Pylades, Strophius and Anaxibia had also taken her to task for her treatment of me, but they might as well have been lecturing the wall. Elektra knew how to hold a grudge, and she could hold it forever.
Timon marked my reluctance. “It has not been my place to say so, but circumstances have changed,” he added. “You must deal with your sister now, and learn how to assert your will, before she dominates you.”
Was he serious in expecting me to lord my will over that maenad? “Not even Pylades can rule her, and he’s her husband,” I pointed out. “How do you expect me to do what he can’t?”
“Not with your fists, certainly.” Timon snapped his fingers at the fleece-shredding Ekhinos, bidding him come. “Violence does not work with that woman, as we have all seen. You will simply have to be smarter than she is—no great task, given her sex—and find some means to turn her to your will.”
Chapter Twenty-six
After Plowistos and the equinox celebrations, once the roads were passable, Pylades wasted no time in leaving the citadel. He loaded his gear into a chariot, and pressed me into joining him. “I think it’s time we visit your estate,” he said.
I had not anticipated going so soon, as the weather was still cold, and the roads little better than muddy tracks. Nonetheless, I followed my brother-in-law’s example and snatched the chance to leave Krisa. Even now, almost two full months after her outburst, Elektra continued to snub me.
For our protection, Pylades brought along armed two guards. It took us two days traversing rough roads to reach the estate, which sat in a peaceful valley near Amphissa, northwest of Krisa.
Kusamenos, the headman, led me around the estate, showing me the vineyards and groves, the fields, the animal pens, the wine and olive presses, and the storeroom with its massive pithoi of grain, oil, and beans. From the first day, we worked alongside the men, sharing their toil, because that was what noblemen did on their estates. All those lessons Aegisthus had forced upon me now revealed their worth. I could hold my own while driving sheep to pasture, assist during the lambing and shearing, and hitch the oxen to the plow to turn the soil for spring planting.
I slept well each night, worn out by the day’s activities. Father’s death ceased to haunt me there in the countryside. And I enjoyed my brother-in-law’s company. Pylades showed a more relaxed aspect of his character once separated from the royal court and my sister. Removed from his official constraints, he engaged in more jests, sang in the evenings by the hearth, and sometimes gave me a day free to do nothing save explore and fish in the nearby stream.
As a nobleman, I continued my daily regimen with exercising and martial training. Pylades, true to his nature, laid on the criticism as hard as the exercises themselves. “You’ve gotten soft these last few months, or is that what you Argives do: loll about and leave the fighting to the women?”
“Are you calling me a weakling?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “If I had to lay odds on which of you was the stronger, your sister could break you in half with one arm.”
Why did he have to throw Elektra’s unnatural strength and aggressiveness in my face when the redness from my burns, now healed, was still visible on my chest? “But she’s older and bigger than me.”
“As I recall you saying,” he scoffed, “so was that tracker you killed. Go over to that tree.” He indicated the sturdy oak shading the west corner of the dooryard, reiterating his command when I did not obey quickly enough. “And it’s not as though you’re puny, either. Another handful of years and you’ll be a giant. Grab onto that branch—no, the one above it—and hoist yourself up. No, don’t use your legs. The object isn’t to climb the tree. Just hang there by your arms. Now, start pulling yourself up and down, Orestes. Keep your chin up! Work those muscles!”
Pylades made me hoist myself up on that oak branch ten, twenty, then thirty times, reversing the count whenever my chin failed to clear the branch. Even when my shoulders and arms burned, trembled so hard that I thought I had no more strength left, he forced me to continue. I gradually lost count of the number of hoists I had finished by the time he finally allowed me to drop to the ground and regain my breath.
“That,” he said, “was pathetic.”
No. For an adolescent boy training with Philaretos, it was not, but I could see where I needed improvement. I would be fourteen in a matter of months. A man was expected to possess twice the strength and stamina. I could see without my brother-in-law’s explanation where my injuries and the lack of focused training had left me at a disadvantage. “I can do better.”
“No, you will do better.” Pylades signaled to one of his companions. “What you ought to have had at Mycenae was a private tutor as well as drills with the other boys. Well, we’ll remedy that.” The man Machaereus ran over with two shields and two swords, whereupon Pylades thrust one of each at me while I stared at him, incredulous. “Fighting is exhausting work,” he said. “The enemy isn’t going to stop to let you rest.” He slung his left arm through the shield’s leather straps, adjusted his grip on his sword, and, to prove his point, advanced for the kill.
I brought up the ox-hide shield to block his thrust. “I already know how exhausting fighting can be.”
“No, you don’t,” he countered, “because you’ve never participated in anything more serious than a brawl. Real warfare is pure chaos—noise and bodies everywhere—and the dynamis, the sheer will to fight, that fuels you, drives you when all your other reserves of strength fail. I think I’ve heard you call that the madness of Ares.”
Dynamis. Philaretos had never used that word. I wondered why not. Had he been ordered to stint my education? I moved back a pace. Surely not, when the other students, traitors like Alastor and Ipheus, had received the exact same training. “When was the last time you fought a battle?”
“Last year, before you arrived.” Pylades circled, trying for another parry and thrust. “Ever fight hand-to-hand with a hardened brigand? He has nothing to lose.” As I lowered my guard, he lunged with his sword over my shield rim, stopping short of my forehead. “Pay attention. I could have taken you between the eyes.”
Irritated, I shoved back with the shield. “Then stop distracting me.”
Pylades remained on guard, shield raised, and sword poised. “You’ve got to work on your concentration, Orestes. One day you’re going to pursue Aegisthus, and when you do, you’re going to find that he’s going to taunt you, throw sand in your face, try every nasty trick there is to seize the advantage and kill you, because he’ll know that he can’t take you in a fair fight. Good men die that way. I’ve seen it a hundred times on raids.”
He was right, of course. Through familiar usage, I had learned to shut out Philaretos’s acerbic taunts, but Aegisthus would be different, his mockery sharper and more intense. I visualized myself losing my head with him, in all senses. “Can you teach me how to concentrate, to defeat him at his own game?”
Pylades lowered his shield, indicating that I should do likewise. “That depends,” he answered, “on whether or not you can master your temper and hatred of him long enough to learn. A man can survive a battle through sheer dynamis alone, but it takes cold, calculating ruthlessness to win a war”
*~*~*~*
In Krisa’s large agora, we shouldered aside the usual charlatans and amulet hawkers to find a vendor who sold the sort of trinkets girls liked. I bartered virgin olive oil from the farm for some green and blue ribbons and sparkling turquoise beads. Pylades humored my whim, raising an eyebrow only afterward, when I noticed the spangled veils fluttering from another stall. “Are you in love?” he teased. “You know, Boukolos would look most fetching in that crimson veil.”
“Never mind,”
I muttered. But my annoyance abated somewhat as we returned to the chariot, leaving behind the vendors to head up to the citadel. “The ribbons and beads are for Hermione.”
Pylades grinned. In less than an hour, he would be his old self, cold and forbidding. “What is she like, your Spartan sweetheart?”
“Perfect,” I answered.
Snorting, he untied the reins. Our guards were already in their chariot. “That tells me absolutely nothing.”
I stowed my purchases at my feet and gripped the guard rail. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“Well, I can see it’s no use asking whether she’s pretty or clever,” he said. “Is she anything at all like Elektra, then?”
“Gods, no!”
His sharp laughter turned heads along the narrow thoroughfare leading away from the agora. “Then good for you!”
Aktaia assumed the trinkets were for her. I snatched the ribbons from her hand before she could sully them by trying them in her dark hair, and whisked them and the beads into a chest.
“You never give me anything!” she cried.
And I certainly would not give her anything now, the greedy slut. “Out!” I shooed her away, content to bathe alone. She had become wearisome, her conversation vapid, her caresses no longer a novelty. A more agreeable girl could warm my fleeces tonight.
Elektra entered my room just as the slaves were carrying out the used bath water. What was she doing here, when she had taken such pains to avoid me? In her hand, she carried a letter. “This came for you.” She thrust a folded packet of the highest quality papyrus toward me. “It’s from Hermione.”
My heart skipped a beat, hearing my beloved’s name, especially after having just purchased ribbons and beads to grace her beauty with. Hermione had gotten my letter! Moreover, she had written back. Yet as I took the sheaf of papyrus, my elation was tempered with dismay over the broken seal. “You read it?”
“Of course.” As usual, she remained unapologetic. “I was the only one here when the letter arrived, and I had to make certain Mother and Aegisthus weren’t harassing you with their lies.”