This was worrying. And Clytaemnestra felt increasingly irritated by the sesame factors obsequious manner. Outside, in the yard below the balcony, she could hear her children at work on a play that Orestes had written. He was also the director of the drama and had, moreover, claimed the role of Achilles, which he considered to be more glamorous than that of the High King his father, who was played by the fat son of the high priest in Zeus’ temple. As usual, the girls were doomed to act the part of effeminate Trojans -- twelve-year-old Iphigeneia making an unconvincing King Priam, and Electra a sulky Paris.
Their mother was thinking that if this war dragged on much longer, Orestes would be called upon to take up arms in earnest, but as far as the boys of the court were concerned, the war at Troy was going very well indeed that afternoon.
Now, however, Orestes and Electra were quarrelling, and if someone did not do something about it there would soon be tears. Clytaemnestra was about to get up and dismiss the ridiculous merchant when a herald entered the chamber and saluted her. She recognized the man as a junior on the staff of Talthybius, so the message must be from the High King. But why had Agamemnon not sent Talthybius himself, who had been appointed on her own recommendation, and from whom she might have gleaned answers to the many questions pressing on her mind -- unless, of course, it was for that very reason?
Instantly her senses prickled. The factor was briskly dismissed. Clytaemnestra reached out to receive the bronze cylinder from the herald’s hand and took out a scrolled sheet of paper sealed with the lion impress of her husband s signet ring. The message was not written in her husband’s clumsy scrawl -- it must have been scribed for him -- but the tone was typically, and peremptorily, all his own. The demands it made astounded her.
Iphigeneia had not yet been five years old when her beloved father sailed for Troy. When she thought of him now it was hard to picture him at all, for her only memory was of someone big and very hairy, who sometimes swung her in his strong arms yet made her feel safe. What she knew was that he had been there for a time, and then he was gone, and all that was left of him was stories.
She knew what everyone else knew, of course -- that her father was High King of Argos, that great men trembled before him, that he was leader of the mightiest army that the world had ever seen, and that one day soon he would return in glory with all the treasure of Troy to add to his stupendous wealth. But Iphigeneia found it difficult to conceive of such an awesome figure. It was too much like looking at the sun -- one was left blinking at hot shadows.
And perhaps her brother Orestes felt the same way, she thought, for though he was older, and his memories clearer, and he used to brag about their father all the time, he was infatuated these days by the dashing figure of Achilles. Orestes insisted that Achilles was the greatest warrior the world had ever seen. He was the next best thing to a god, the terror of the Trojans, as beautiful as he was brave, and he would live for ever in the songs of men. In a year or two, when Orestes was old enough to go to the war himself, he would join the Myrmidons, and he and Patroclus would fight beside Achilles, leading the last assault on the Scaean Gate, and their valour would so inspire the rest of the Argive host that the city must swiftly fall. Iphigeneia, who dearly loved her brother, and was filled with admiration for him, felt sure that this was how it would be.
Regrettably, she would never be allowed to fight in the war herself because she was only a girl, but as she listened to Orestes, she felt her soul swell with pride and glory, and longed for ways in which she could be of service to the cause. For she too believed that she was singled out for a special destiny. The dull womanly world of weaving and chatter and child-bearing was not for her. Her heart and her imagination were far too wild for that. And had not her mother already proved that a woman could serve the state as powerfully as any man? Well, Iphigeneia intended to find means to do that too, but in ways that would make people love her rather than fear her. She would be like her favourite goddess Artemis, who was virgin sister to Apollo, as she was sister to Orestes. She would keep herself pure, proud, single and free.
She had been thinking such thoughts even as she waited in the hot courtyard, wearing the silly beard that was meant to make her look like King Priam, while she listened to Electra telling Orestes that she was fed up with his stupid play and wanted to go indoors. The complaint had turned into a quarrel, with Electra in tears and no one else to take her part, so the play had been a disaster, which put Orestes in an angry mood. Iphigeneia was wondering what to do when, unusually, her mother had called down to her from the balcony of her chamber, and asked her to come up at once. And now she was waiting again in the anteroom, while her mother talked with her advisors inside.
Iphigeneia felt increasingly afraid. She was trying to remember what she could have done that would get her into trouble, and was frightened because she couldn’t think of anything. So how should she prepare herself to deal with the cold tempest of her mother’s rage?
Then the high door opened and the advisors came out and told her to go inside. But there was something strange in the way the old men looked at her, as though people had been telling tales behind her back, and they believed the lies.
Iphigeneia stepped inside the spacious room with its frescoed walls and pillars of mottled marble. She saw her mother standing in the light by the balcony with her back to the door, looking at a scroll. When she turned, there was a frown in her eyes but not the immediate release of anger that Iphigeneia had feared. After a moment, there was even, across those gaunt, rouged cheeks, a hint of a smile.
‘Close the door behind you,’ Clytaemnestra said, ‘and then sit down.’
Iphigeneia did as she was told. She knew that, where her mother was concerned, it was wiser not to speak until you were spoken to, so she sat in silence, looking down at her knees in order to avoid staring too closely at the paint on her mother’s eyelids and the heavy gold ornaments she wore.
‘How old are you now, child?’
‘I will be thirteen soon.’
‘Yes, I remember -- you made your offering to Artemis not long ago, so I suppose we must think of you as a woman now. Yet with your father at the war and all the cares of state on my head, I have scarcely had time to see you as a child. Stand up and turn around. Let me look at you.’ Again, though more self-consciously, Iphigeneia did as she was bidden. ‘Yes,’ her mother said, ‘you are more fortunate than Electra. She has her father’s looks. You are more clearly mine. In a year or two you will be a beauty.’ She nodded and sighed as though this too might be some kind of burden. Then she said, ‘Sit down again. I have something to tell you. A message came from your father today. He is in Argos, at the port in Aulis. He wants me to bring you to him there.’
Iphigeneia raised her eyes in astonishment. Her breath shortened. She could feel her heart jumping at the thought of this important stranger returning to her life at last. But she was uncertain whether it did so with excitement, awe or fear.
‘Will Orestes and Electra come also?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say.
‘This does not concern them. Only you and I will go, and we must go soon. So you will have to prepare yourself. You are going to be married, my dear.’
Iphigeneia was so used to unquestioning obedience in this formidable presence that she had almost said, ‘Yes, mother, I will get ready at once,’ before she realized what a momentous thing had been announced.
She sat in awestruck silence, clutching the edges of her seat, and wondered for a moment whether she was about to faint. Then she realized that some god must be present in the room, for the feel of the air had altered around her, and there was an unfamiliar tingling in her skin.
In the same moment it was clear to Clytaemnestra that the thought of marriage had never seriously crossed the child’s mind.
‘Have you nothing to say?’ she asked, and when this unusual child did not immediately reply, she added drily, ‘Do you not, for instance, wish to know who will be your husband?’
‘Y
es,’ Iphigeneia whispered, ‘I would like to know.’
‘I think you will be pleased. Not of course that your feelings count for anything in this matter. Your father has made up his mind without even bothering to consult me, so your own wishes will be a matter of indifference to him.’
Clytaemnestra closed her eyes and for a time she was gone from the room, back into her own younger days, when her father Tyndareus had decided what was to be done with the precious thing that was her life. Suddenly, to her own surprise, and for all the authority and power with which she could now make truculent men tremble before her, she was experiencing with more intensity than for many years the ineluctable pain of a woman’s life. Much sooner than she had anticipated, she and this strange, dreamy daughter whom she hardly knew at all, were entirely at one in their fate -- for both of them were finally at Agamemnon’s mercy, in this and almost all other matters. And that was no safe place to be.
Clytaemnestra opened her eyes and looked at the girl again. Though he had done well enough for the child, she was certain that Agamemnon s motives must have been shaped more by policy than affection, and she was furious that she had not been consulted -- so furious that only for the child’s sake did she contain her rage. So furious that she might have wept, for there was grief in that fury -- grief for herself, grief for the girl, above all grief at the injustice of things.
Perhaps Iphigeneia was right to preserve her silence. Why waste words where words could make no difference?
‘You are to be married to Achilles,’ she said at last. ‘If the gods are kind, you may live up to the name we gave you and bear him a strong race of children. Now go. Marpessa will help pack your things. We leave for Aulis tomorrow.’
Almost three weeks had passed since the fleet took refuge from the storm at Aulis. Agamemnon had reckoned it would take them a week to render the stricken vessels sea-worthy, and then they would make speed for Tenedos in the hope that they would get back to the island before Priam realized that its garrison was unsupported. It might be a close run thing, but it could be done.
Yet once the repairs were made, the north-easterly gale that had driven them there refused to back. Agamemnon had risen each day at dawn with the intention of setting sail but the wind remained unseasonably fierce. Roof tiles were lifted, rotten trees smashed, vineyards wrecked. Sooner than bruise their heads against this gale, even the gulls huddled where they could. Meanwhile the crowded ships damaged each other again as they jostled in the greasy swell. Provisions in the hulls began to rot. The town stank of too many men sodden with rain. They were drunk and listless, thinking of their women not so many miles away, and of how wretched their life had been on Tenedos. And still the wind blew, a maddening bluster of air, banging at doors and casements, rattling blinds, crashing the waves against the harbour wall, obstinately locking the seas against them.
Soon, inevitably, someone murmured that a god’s breath must be behind it.
Calchas took the omens and found that Divine Artemis was responsible for the wind. Someone in the host had offended her. The contrary wind would continue to blow until the goddess was appeased. Palamedes, who was standing at Agamemnon’s side in that moment, whispered. ‘The hart,’ and looked up into the High King’s blanching face. ‘The hart belonged to Artemis.’
The story of that unlucky hunt through the woods near the hot springs had been kept quiet lest it further disturb the army’s already uncertain morale. But truth is the daughter of time, and time had passed, and now Agamemnon found himself answerable before both the goddess and his men. If disaster was to be avoided, some sacrifice acceptable to Artemis must be made at once. Again Calchas was asked to consult the omens.
The priest was shaking when he emerged from his oracular trance. Sweat stood visible on his brow. He was already aware that Agamemnon mistrusted him. Now he was caught between the High King’s anger and the anger of a god.
‘Speak up, man,’ Odysseus demanded. ‘What did you see?’
Hoarsely Calchas said, ‘As virgin mother to the creatures of the wild, Divine Artemis saw one of her young blasphemously killed in her own sacred grove. Only one sacrifice will be acceptable to her. The life of the killer’s most beautiful child must be offered in return.’
Like everyone around him, Agamemnon stood transfixed. Then he clutched the hem of the cloak he was wearing, lifted it up to his mouth and began to back away. Wide-eyed, he shifted his gaze from the soothsayer to Palamedes, as though desperately seeking signs of collusion between them. ‘No,’ he was saying, ‘this must not be. ’Then he turned on his heel and walked away from them, still holding the cloak at his mouth.
But the oracular rites had been performed before too many witnesses and there was no denying what they had said.
That night Agamemnon locked himself away with his brother Menelaus, and the ghosts of the house of Atreus howled about their heads -- children who were slaughtered, children who were murderers, innocence extinguished from the earth. Terrible things had been done in the time of their fathers and, whatever Agamemnon and Menelaus did to appease the fates, it seemed that the curse carried by those deeds crossed the generations and could never be escaped.
Agamemnon was in no doubt which one of his children the goddess had singled out. Iphigeneia had been touched at birth with something of Helen’s beauty, though it was sharpened a little by the angularity of Clytaemnestra’s face. Agamemnon remembered the child as he had last seen her, nine years ago, when she could hardly have been more than three or four and was still small enough to dandle on old Nestor’s knee, or be swung about his own shoulders like a bundle of thistledown. He remembered thinking how slender her wrists were. He remembered the delight that had shone in her eyes. She was the only one of his children ever to lay large enough claims on his heart to keep him for more than a few moments from the things that really mattered to him. And now, as Menelaus mixed more wine in a golden bowl they had looted from some king’s palace across the sea, Agamemnon raged to see his most tender feelings chopped up and served as a bloody dish that he must force himself to eat.
But Clytaemnestra would never permit this atrocity. He had already snatched one child from her breast and ordered its death. Never would she allow him to kill another, not if all their wealth and power should hang upon the death. She might not be the most tender mother that the world had ever seen, but if she learned what was asked of him, she would take the whole brood of his children and flee with them to furthest Scythia sooner than let this terrible thing happen.
It could never be done.
Yet the wind still clamoured at the latches on the casement of the room. The ships still rotted in the port, a garrison on Tenedos waited for relief, and if the fleet did not get there soon, the island must fall, the bridgehead would be lost, and all the long years of the snake would have been endured for nothing.
Either way, he could see only disaster from which he might never recover.
That night Agamemnon drank himself into a stupor of unconsciousness and woke before dawn, sweating from his dreams. Yet for all his fervent prayers, there had been -- he heard it at once -- not the slightest lessening of the wind.
Later that morning, the warlords came to his room. He sensed that they had already been arguing among themselves, but Palamedes had insisted that the High King must be told of the murmurings among the men. A number of men who lacked heart for the war had already deserted, but Palamedes claimed that most of the rest were willing to fight on for victory so long as the fleet was not delayed in Aulis much longer. If it was, then Agamemnon might soon face a full scale mutiny. Already some voices were saying that the High King had brought this trouble on his own head. If he was not willing to placate the goddess and lead them to Troy, then they were ready to look for another leader.
So what did he intend to do?
The High King intended to rage against the injustice of both men and gods.
Had not Apollo promised him that if he held out for nine years, victory must come in the
tenth? Had not Calchas given him that oracle in this very place? Had they not all seen the snake for themselves? Had the god s promise not sustained them all throughout the long years of the campaign? Was he now to call Apollo a liar? Or was it rather that duplicitous Trojan priest he must mistrust? Could he even count on the loyalty of his own generals any more?
His generals shifted uncomfortably as he raged. Not one of them seemed ready to speak. Palamedes frowned impatiently at his colleagues then turned to face the king again. Calmly he pointed out that there need be no conflict between the two oracles. Yes, Apollo had promised victory all those years ago, and that promise might still be kept. But Apollo was brother to Divine Artemis and if the god was forced to choose between loyalty to a mortal and loyalty to his offended sister, then that promise could also be swiftly revoked. It was for men to win the favour of the gods, not the other way round. And that could be done only by making the proper offerings at the proper time.
Odysseus turned away in disgust. ‘Palamedes seems as ready to trust the divinations of a Trojan traitor as he is to listen to complaints among the men.’
‘I have merely reported what the High King needs to know,’ Palamedes retorted. ‘My own loyalty is not in question. Do you dare to suggest otherwise?’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ old Nestor sought to restrain them. ‘We are all bewildered by this development. Let us not darken counsel further.’
Agamemnon turned to Odysseus for support. ‘What are you saying?’
Almost in a gesture of despair, Odysseus shook his head. ‘Don’t I recall that this whole quarrel between the Trojans and the Argives began in the days when Laomedon offered his daughter up as a human sacrifice? And much good it did him. What I am saying is that I, for one, want no part in the killing of a child.’
The War At Troy Page 27