They passed the last night of their journey only a few miles from the city in the hall of an old baron whose son had been killed in the war. The man’s grief darkened the triumphal air of their arrival. The women began to wail. Depressed by the misery around him, Agamemnon retired early from the feast. Too weary and morose to make demands on Cassandra, he fell asleep, grumbling that these people had no understanding of what had been endured at Troy.
Sure now that this would be the last night they would pass on the face of the earth, Cassandra looked down where the recumbent figure of Agamemnon, King of Men, Sacker of Troy, lay snoring at her side. And if her heart was heavy, it was not only with an uneasy mingling of pity and contempt, but with an overwhelming sense of the pathos of all human circumstance.
Death in the Lion House
They entered Mycenae late the following afternoon. On their approach to the city, Agamemnon had proudly instructed Cassandra to peer out through the veils of her litter. She looked up and saw the grim bastions crouched on their crag. She heard the shouting of the crowd long before they passed under the gaze of the stone lions guarding the gateway to the citadel. She saw the light gleaming off the bronze plates of the high double doors and, though those doors remained wide open to admit the rest of Agamemnon’s train, she felt as helplessly trapped inside the city as if the huge masonry blocks of which the walls were built had collapsed behind her. Sharp sunlight glinted everywhere, cold as the light off a winter stream, yet after the airy elegance of Troy, Mycenae shadowed her mind. Her heart quailed when her eyes fell on the ancestral graves inside those walls. She caught, like the hot stench rising off an abattoir, her first close sense of the obscene history of this city.
At the top of the steps beneath the entrance to the palace, Clytaemnestra stood waiting to greet her husband. Talthybius stood at her right, holding his heralds staff; on her left, Idas and Doricleus, counsellors who had both served Atreus well in the old days and had known Agamemnon since he was a boy, smiled to receive the returning king. But, as yet, Agamemnon had not allowed his eyes to alight on his wife. Even as he acknowledged the acclaim of the crowd on his approach to the palace, his eyes were taking in the prodigious scale of her expenditure on the city. Yes, Clytaemnestra had certainly made Mycenae a capital fit for a homecoming king of kings, but he was wondering how much of the wealth shipped back from the sacked cities of Asia could be left in his treasury after the bills had been met for the huge number of architects, quarry-masters, masons, sculptors and artists it must have taken to create this magnificence, let alone for all the materials, many of them precious and rare, used in the building? Also, despite his specific instructions to Talthybius that there should be no extravagant arrangements made for his return, richly woven cloths of purple and scarlet had been draped along the streets all the way from the Lion Gate to the palace steps. The hooves of his chariot team had trampled on them.
As his driver reined in the horses, Agamemnon glanced quickly across the crowd of ministers and officials who were cheering and applauding him where they stood behind the Queen. Gorgeously robed, they crowded the steps and portico, loudly proclaiming their allegiance. Yet he was surprised how few of those faces he immediately recognized.
Agamemnon reminded himself that he had been away from the city for ten years; everyone he knew must have changed in that time, and old retainers who had perished from disease and accidents would have been replaced. In any case, his true friends were behind him now, the veterans of the long war, those who had paid in wounds and endurance for the luxurious lives of these young stay-at-homes. Well, they would have their reward. He would see they profited from the changes he made now that he was back in control of the city’s affairs. In the meantime, to a tumultuous roar, he raised his right hand in acknowledgement of his people’s adulation. The Lion of Mycenae had come home.
From where she still cowered behind the veils of her litter some distance behind the High King’s chariot, Cassandra heard the roar go up. Drums were beating. When she peered through a chink in the veils she saw a flock of startled doves rise from the roof of the palace in a clatter of wings. Then her eyes settled on the lean figure of the queen where she stood with her strong chin tilted, smiling up at Agamemnon in his chariot. She was smaller than Cassandra had expected, yet nevertheless imperious in her long, flounced gown, with gold flashing from her necklaces and bangles, its lustre brightened by contrast with the dark sheen of her hair.
And then, as if drawn by the intensity of Cassandra’s gaze, Clytaemnestra turned her eyes on the litter as the carriers lowered it to the ground.
Reflexively Cassandra pulled back into the shade.
What was she to do? To draw the curtains and step out into the sunlight would be to attract the ferocity of that queenly stare. She could not bring herself to move. The shouts of the crowd became a roaring in her head. She huddled inside the veiled litter and watched a delirium of pictures forming in her mind. The scarlet cloths covering the steps to the Lion House turned to a torrent of blood. Someone had put out the sun. Mycenae became a city of ghosts and night. Cassandra’s mind was in flight, moving swiftly along dark corridors. Murder and malice, hatred and vengeance polluted this city’s sky. The air was thick and toxic. This palace was a butcher’s cave, the streets runnels of blood. From generation to generation no one was safe. In Mycenae only the dead survived.
Cassandra recoiled back against the cushions, squinting against a sudden crash of light. Then a suave voice was saying, ‘Come, lady, your presence will shortly be required.’ When she opened her eyes she was looking into the tense face of Talthybius who was offering his hand.
Calling on Apollo to defend her and the Earth Mother to support her, Cassandra stepped into her fate.
He had postponed the moment for as long as he could — making dispositions for his retinue, receiving the greetings and congratulations of old friends, quietly ordering Talthybius to look to Cassandra’s welfare, then making a long and solemn show of his ritual offering of thanks to the gods; but now they were alone together in the private apartment of the palace. Recalling how the last time he had seen his wife she had been transformed into a demented Fury by her hatred for what he was about to do, Agamemnon was still uncertain what to say to her. He knew she was watching him now as he took off his helmet and began to undo the buckles of his leathers. It seemed she had no intention of making this easy for him. There had always been a severe edge to Clytaemnestra’s high-boned features and the years had done nothing to soften it. He found it hard even to look at her directly now.
Agamemnon heaved a weary sigh. For centuries to come the bards would remember him as the conqueror of Troy, but in this private apartment of the Lion House he would forever remain the monster who had sacrificed his daughter. And that terrible business at Aulis might have won him a fair wind back to the war but it had left deep lesions on his mind; and it made everything impossible back here in Argos. Above all, as far as he and his wife were concerned, it had abolished any possibility of truth.
Taking in the unfamiliar, sweetish odour of the incense burning in this chamber, he said, ‘I see you’ve spared no expense on improving the city.’
If there was criticism in his tone, she chose to ignore it.
‘I thought,’ she said, ‘that Mycenae should properly reflect your glory.’
‘It feels more like your city than mine,’ he muttered a little peevishly. ‘I shall have to do something about that.’
‘You are the King.’
‘Yes,’ he answered, fumbling with a stiff buckle at his hip, ‘I am the King.’
A vault of silence closed down round them, from which, it seemed for a time, there might be no escape. Then she surprised him by sighing as a wife will who despairs of her husband’s ham-fistedness.
’Here,’ she took a step towards him. ‘Let me help you with that.’
He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he would prefer to call for his body-servant; then he relaxed his shoulders and turned into
her reach. A moment later she was lifting the heavy corselet from his back.
Sighing again, he sat down, reached for the wine that had been poured and took a swig. ‘It feels as though I’ve been locked in armour for the last ten years.’
‘Then it will be good to put it down. The slaves are heating water for you in the bath-house. You have done well,’ she conceded. ‘It’s time to take your ease.’
But he did not entirely trust this muted benevolence.
‘Not for long,’ he said. ‘Not if there’s any substance in the reports I’ve been getting from the north.’
‘The Myrmidons are holding the Dorian advance,’ she quietly replied. ‘The son of Achilles will not let them pass.’
‘You are confident of that?’
‘The Dorians invaded only because they thought the Lion of Mycenae had his hands full at Troy. But Troy is finished. After the destruction you’ve made, your name is feared everywhere. Now that you are home they will withdraw.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ He glanced across at her, reluctant to reveal the anxiety behind his question. ‘Have you heard about these new weapons they wield?’
‘Agents have already been placed behind their lines. Sooner or later they will find out the secret. Then we too shall have such weapons.’
Impressed by the quiet authority of her tone, he studied his wife with an involuntary surge of the admiration that this formidable woman always inspired in him. Surely other men must feel it too. So had she taken a lover from among them while he was away? The reports from Pelagon had always assured him of her fidelity; but Pelagon had died and Agamemnon had heard nothing since. And ten years was a damnably long time for any woman to nurse her virtue. He would make discreet enquiries of Idas and Doricleus. If there was cause for concern they would have caught wind of it.
But he glanced away wondering whether such suspicious thoughts demeaned him. Could the earth have a stronger or more resourceful queen to show than this one had proved herself to be? Agamemnon very much doubted it. And in any case Clytaemnestra was Queen here only because he was King, and it was evident that she enjoyed that queenly power too much to surrender it lightly. With a little cunning it ought to be possible, therefore, to retain her invaluable services while looking to Cassandra to supply his more intimate needs. Like harnessing a new pair of horses to the chariot, he thought, it was all a question of handling.
‘If I was able to give all my thought to winning the war at Troy,’ he began, ‘it was only because I could rest in the knowledge that Mycenae was in safe hands.’
Clytaemnestra nodded her acknowledgement. The nuances of movement about her lips might almost have suggested a smile.
Agamemnon also nodded. ‘There’ll be time enough for you to give me a full report tomorrow. But you too have done well. Come and sit down with me.’ He sighed as she chose a seat by the window some distance across the floor from him. Something further was required. With a loose hand he gestured towards the frescoes on the chamber walls. ‘I even approve of some of these changes you’ve made.’ Though in truth he did not at all care for the painting on which his eyes fell at that moment. As far as he could make out, it showed the occasion on which Zeus had been bound with rawhide thongs by his wife Hera and the other Olympian gods. It would be wiser, however, not to reveal his distaste for it. Not yet at least.
Then another thought occurred to him. ‘Where are the children? Why is Orestes not here to witness his father’s triumph?’ Only after the words were out did he recognize how close they brought him to perilous ground. Was she hiding her children from him out of some irrational fear that he might do them harm?
But she answered him calmly enough. ‘They are with King Strophius in Phocis. Orestes is greatly attached to the king’s son Pylades. He is safe enough there.’
‘He would be safer still with me here in Mycenae.’
‘I know.’ Clytaemnestra glanced away, and back again. ‘And he is disappointed to miss your triumph. But I had reason to leave him in Phocis for the time being.’ She did not flinch from the interrogative glare in his narrowed eyes. ‘Consider this,’ she said, ‘— it is all of ten years since you and I were alone in each other’s company. The truth is we are little more than strangers to each other now. I felt that we needed time to renew our life together. Time to try to heal the harm that has been done. There will be time enough for the children when that is accomplished.’ She drew in her breath. He saw the effort that this declaration had required. He respected her truth when she added, ‘It will not be easily done.’
Almost grateful that she had decided to breach the silence between them before it became impassable, he said, a little hoarsely, ‘I do not forget the grief I have given you.’
Where she sat in her chair by the window, Clytaemnestra closed her eyes like a woman in pain. She shook her head, not evidently in refusal of his appeasing gesture, but as an indication of the gravity of that pain. With the long fingers of her left hand she stroked her cheek.
‘I even concede,’ he said, ‘that I may have given you cause to hate me.’
He had left an opportunity for her to offer some answering word of demurral. When no word came he flushed and looked away. Already he was regretting this rash impulse of conciliation. But having said so much he must say more.
‘We were all in the hands of the gods.’ He tapped his clenched fist against the arm of his chair. ‘I had no desire to do what I did … How could any man? But you must understand that I was left with no choice. I had no choice at all.’
Clytaemnestra gazed out of the window at where the sky had reddened above the mountains, casting a hectic glow on the high slopes of snow. Soon those clouds would be ferrying dusk across the plain. Sounds of revelry rose from the streets below. The air was savoury with the smell of an ox roasting on a spit.
‘Yes,’ she quietly averred, ‘sometimes the gods leave us with no choice.’
A silence settled between them. He took a measure of satisfaction in it. Were there to be no recriminations then? Had the passage of time taught her some philosophy; or was her pragmatic spirit sufficiently appeased by the fact of his victory and the wealth that came with it?
‘And look,’ he risked after a time, ‘evil it may have been, but see what good has come of it. Haven’t we done what we set out to do? The treasure of Troy is ours.’
‘Yes,’ she concurred, ‘we have done what we set out to do.’
‘And the past is the past. We cannot change it; but need it haunt us for ever?’
He looked across at her with the mild urgency of a man appealing to reason. ‘Can we not put a stop to it?’
As though impelled by a residual impulse of affection, she smiled at him wanly.
‘Yes,’ she whispered to the evening air, ‘I believe we can put a stop to it.’
‘Good,’ he said simply, pouring himself more wine. And again, ‘Good.’
He took a drink and felt his head swim a little. This wine was strongly mixed. When he looked up from the goblet he saw that she was watching as he wiped the back of his hand across his beard. Evidently she had not yet finished with him. Some other issue was pressing on her mind. Then it occurred to him that if she had spies in place behind the Dorian lines, then she might also have kept spies behind his own. Did she already know something about Cassandra? If so, it might be better to have it out now while this air of truce prevailed.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘I was wondering,’ she said, ‘do you have news of my sister?’
Relieved to find himself on easier ground, Agamemnon sniffed and grunted. ‘Not a word. Not since she and my brother sailed from Troy.’
‘You decided to let her live then?’
‘It was his choice. If it had been left to me …’ Agamemnon stared into his wine, shaking his head. ‘I don’t understand the man … To take her back like that, after all the humiliation and pain she’s caused him.’
He looked up and caught a wry, ironic glint in Clytaemnestra�
�s eyes.
‘Perhaps Menelaus has also decided that the past is the past,’ she said.
For a moment he thought she might be mocking him.
But she got to her feet and said. ‘You must be weary. Come, your bath is prepared. Let me help to soothe your limbs.’ She took the golden combs from her hair so that the piled coiffure fell in a black cascade about her shoulders. Then she held out her hands to raise him from his chair. ‘The war is won. You have shown yourself for what you truly are. The world knows it and all your troubles will soon be at an end. From today,’ she smiled, ‘everything will be different. I promise you.’
Astonished and mollified by the alteration in her manner, he got up and followed her through to the bath-house where steam was rising from the sunken bath that had been heated for him. Nereids and dolphins danced together against the azure blue of the walls. The humid air was fragrant with perfumes and scented oils. His own body-servant stood waiting there along with three women from the palace, but Clytaemnestra dismissed them all. ‘The King desires to be alone with his Queen,’ she declared. ‘I will attend to his needs myself.’
As the servants left by the door leading to their quarters, Agamemnon pursed his lips in a smile of gratified surprise. He had not fucked this woman for more than ten years and in all that time she had lacked the consolations that had been available to him. This lioness must be on heat. And once she was replete and satisfied, he thought, it might be much easier to raise the matter of Cassandra.
He moved to take her into his embrace but Clytaemnestra placed the palm of her hand at his chest and pushed him, smiling, towards the bench of white marble that stood beside the pool. ‘First,’ she said, ‘you must take your bath.’
Already erect, he opened his hands in appeal.
The Return From Troy Page 19