Electra

by Henry Treece

  I mounted and led the party, still in my shift, with my hair uncombed and no food in me. I felt I had to be off, somewhere, anywhere.

  We rode over the low hills that fringe the town, and so down into the green valleys where the white cottages lay scattered, here and there. Peasant-folk waved to us and shouted that it was good news, the birth of a child to Mycenae, but I did not answer. It was as though, by what I had seen that night, I had been set apart from those around me. It was almost as though I had been dedicated, by my mother’s blood, to something that lay outside the knowledge of common men.

  After a while, as we passed by rows of poplars, and cornfields heavy with the golden grain, past hedges, and stone walls and apple orchards, past rich pastures where oxen, goats and sheep grazed carelessly, and women in straw hats, with their skirts bunched up to their waists as they swung their sickles, Hermione pushed her mount beside mine and laid her cool brown hand upon my leg.

  ‘They tell me the girl-child will be called Helen,’ she said. ‘That is my dear mother’s name, Electra, but I count it no honour that a child got by Aegisthus should share it.’

  We were now riding through an olive grove, where the luxuriant green leaves seemed to hold all the richness of earth in their rustling darkness. I thought of my mother, as I had last seen her, worn out and wasted, in that brooding great fortress of a palace, where Atreus’ grim ghost seemed to overbear everyone and bring them to disaster.

  I turned suddenly on Hermione and struck her across the face with my riding-switch. I hardly know why I did this; but perhaps it was because I thought she should have been mourning for my mother, not for her own. By good fortune, the cheek-piece of her helmet took the main force of my blow, and only the tip of the lash curled across her cheek and cut the smooth skin.

  She gave a little cry and then suddenly kicked at her pony’s ribs and cantered off away from me. Behind me, Orestes started to say something by way of a protest to me, but Rarus, always-gentle Rarus, quieted him and told him to mind his own affairs.

  Then, later, Rarus promised my brother a pomegranate when we got back home, and Orestes was contented. He was only ten, and a simple child, it seemed to me, though as handsome as a god—a little god.

  As for me, I was ashamed of what I had done to my cousin, and I pressed on after her. The rocky hillside rose again, and among the pines there, I came on a man wearing a goatskin hat and leather leggings, who told me he had seen a soldier-boy galloping and weeping in a farther valley.

  We came on Hermione when the sun was above us, sitting behind a boulder, her helmet beside her, her ruddy hair tumbled about her neck, sobbing. A little way from her a shallow stream flowed clear and bubbling over the smooth, round pebbles, but she did not seem in hear its cool voice. Her own tears were water enough for her.

  I got down from my white pony and kneeled beside her, smelling the sun’s warmth coming off her bronze corselet. All about us the grey-green wild lavender flung up its sweet and bitter scent. The flat and cloudless sky seemed to suck up all flavour from the earth and all who walked on earth. I felt that it was sucking everything from me, like a great mouth taking away the poison from a wound, leaving all clean, leaving all featureless and mindless, careless, nothing.

  Under such a healing sun, in the clean and panting heat, with the voice of cool water in my ears, and the smell of herbs in my nostrils, I began to feel reborn, remade, cleansed and changed. All my sadness and my anger had left me, and my heart was as empty of foreboding as was a stone, baking in the sunlight.

  I sat beside Hermione and put my arm about her shoulder. The hard bronze burned into it, but I let it lie, as though the burning itself was a pleasure. Then I put my face beside her hot face and rubbed my cheek against the wound I had made on it, so that her blood came on me.

  I even kissed this wound and tasted the salt of it.

  I said, smiling, ‘I have not broken my fast today, dearest.’

  My cousin turned and looked at me with great wide eyes. Her tears had made little runnels through the grey dust that lay upon her cheeks, and suddenly I kissed away these marks, holding her to me, pressing at her armoured body.

  She let herself lie in my arms, and smiled back up at me. ‘Thank you for striking me,’ she whispered. ‘You taught me my place, princess. All the years my mother and my father have been away, you have cared for me, and yet I am an ungrateful thing, speaking to you as I did.’

  I let my hair hang over her face, tickling her and making her eyes screw up. Then we both laughed at each other, like children with a new toy, a doll that will obey all commands, will move its limbs this way and that, a doll whose dress one may strip off, or put on, as one chooses at the moment.

  Under the breathless sun, this truth came to us both so suddenly that it was like a slap across the face, but given by a smiling lover.

  Behind us, I knew the two boys came up on their ponies, and as I bent over Hermione, smothering her in my hair, I heard Rarus call out, ‘Come, Orestes, these girls are occupied at their game. They do not want us! Follow me along the stream; there is a cave farther down where the ancient folk set clay images. Let us find them.’ Then the thudding hooves faded from us and we only heard the crickets praising the sun in their endless chorus.

  I whispered to my cousin, ‘Dearest, I am straight from my bed. I must smell of the sheepskin coverlet, of the flock mattress. Lie in the shade and wait for me while I bathe.’

  She nodded, sleepily, and I walked, waist-deep, in the stream, where the pebbles shelved and made a little basin. The sun had warmed the surface of the water, and it lapped about my body pleasantly; but below, about my feet and ankles, it was still as cold as though it had just come down from high Olympus when the first snows melt. A silver fish, mottled with blue, came flickering down between my outspread legs. I bent to take it in my hands, letting my tangled hair drag in the water; but the fish flicked its tail like a gay dancer and was away. Laughing, I fell back in the water and pretended to be a fish myself. From the shadow of her rock, among the lavender, Hermione watched me and clapped her hands, pleased as a child at my clowning.

  Helpless to wait longer, I climbed out, all wet and shining, and went to her across the hot stones, laughing as they burned my feet, my heart thumping in me like the echo of the ponies’ hooves.

  As she lay cradled in my arms, Hermione smiled up and said, ‘Now you smell like Aphrodite, fresh from the waves.’ And I said to her, ‘And you are of earth, of lavender and musk, my dear.’

  And as we spoke so, there was a fluttering in my ears, as though wings were beating there, deafening me, rendering me helpless. Dazed, I saw that my cousin’s face was suddenly blank, too, as though she had heard the same. A voice said, ‘Man, the destroyer, the swine grunting in the straw!’

  But whether she or I said this, I do not know. I can only remember that, in the purple shadow of the tall rock, we put our arms about each other, and felt the warmth of sun and earth pass through us, as the crickets carolled and the sweet and bitter herbs came at our nostrils.

  For me, it was much as when I was with Rarus that night in the stable, but gentler, less of an agony, or, if an agony, a pretty one. And Hermione’s smiles told me that she was of the same mind. Somehow I got pleasure from the hard pressing of her bronze corselet; its rounded edges stirred some distant memory of my father, accoutred for war, when, as a little one, he swung me up on to his shoulder. Yet I hated my father, but I loved Hermione; why did I think of him, of his armour?

  I thought also of old King Nestor, with his nodding sheep’s head and his shaking hands, as he stood me between his knees and told me that one day I would become the Glory of Hellas.

  These dreams came and went, as sleep came and went, under the rock, with the kind sun always cleansing us, burning the fear from us, hour by hour. Together, we laughed and we wept, though our weeping was of joy, not sadness now.

  Once, as the sun sank in the sky, and we paused, my cousin whispered hoarsely, ‘Electra, this day I have
seen the god’s pattern for the first time.’

  I placed my hand over her mouth to silence her, but she bit it sharply and made me draw it away. Then she said, ‘We are of the one blood, Amber; our mothers are sisters and our fathers, brothers. So, we are like the leaves on one tree.’

  I was feeling this, as well, as she spoke, and I whispered back to her, ‘Times may change, and the world may tumble about like a drunken man, but we must always hold together, dearest. You must marry my brother, Orestes, and be his queen and my king; then we shall always be together.’

  Hermione nodded and pushed back her hair so that she could see me better. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that was in my heart. He is only a boy now, and I am twice his age; but he will grow, yes, he will grow; and while he is growing, I can be like a mother to him, and you and I will have each other. All the leaves on one tree share the sap that rises in the trunk; why should we not share our great love?’

  As she stretched up to kiss me again, I turned my face and saw that Orestes and Rarus were standing above us, on the tall rock, gazing down on us gently and smiling, the sun behind them, making them look like young gods come down to earth to bless all men.

  ‘What are they doing now, the silly creatures!’ my brother laughed.

  Rarus put his arm about Orestes’ shoulders and answered, ‘They are vowing to love and care for you for ever, my prince.’

  Orestes flicked a small pebble down on to Hermione’s body and made her wriggle with mock annoyance. He said, ‘Am I not capable of looking after myself, without two great girls pestering me all the while?’

  The moment was over, and there was no getting it back now. And I was hungry and sleepy after this day in the open. A small chill breeze came over the valley, making me shiver. I put on my tunic again and we went to where the ponies were standing, head to tail, sweeping the gnats away for one another.

  I squeezed Hermione’s hand and whispered, ‘See, in all nature one creature helps the other. It is the law of god, surely.’

  She put her lips to my shoulder and kissed me as a baby presses its mouth to its mother, seeking the breast. Orestes did the same to Rarus, but in mockery.

  Then, laughing and singing, we mounted our ponies and set their heads back towards Mycenae, as saddle-sore after that lazy day as though we had ridden half-way across the earth.

  As we came through the twilight into the last village before the town, we saw torches, and a cluster of peasant-folk bending over something that lay on the ground.

  When they saw me, one of them called out, ‘Lady, here is a messenger. He has run over the land all this day with his news. He is too spent to reach High Town, but one of the House of Atreus should hear his message.’

  The peasant-folk drew back as I leant over the man. He was a thin-ribbed fellow, whose eyes burned darkly in his head. His feet were caked with blood from the rocks, and he wore nothing but an old deerskin clout about his middle. In the rough dialect of Argolis, he groaned up at me, ‘Lady, I think I have burst my heart. It was hard going across the hills, and no water has passed my lips this day.’

  I nodded curtly, knowing what these shore-folk were like, trying to screw the last ounce of reward when they carried a message inland to the city-folk, whom they thought were soft in the head.

  I said to him quietly, ‘I understand. Give your news and be done with it, man. We all know what it is like to suffer thirst. Give your news.’

  He stared up at me as though I was a ghost. Then he began to laugh, fighting for breath. I shook him to make him speak, and even got my whip ready again, lest he needed more persuasion. But the headman of the village came behind me quite roughly and snatched the whip from my hand. I offered no resistance to this, for I knew that he was one of Aegisthus’ farmer captains of the militia.

  So I swallowed my pride and said more gently to the man on the ground, ‘I beg you, tell your news, and there will be all the reward you deserve.’

  The messenger smiled and then laid his cheek against the dusty pathway. I could hardly hear his voice, so hoarse and weary was it.

  He mumbled, ‘The fires have been burning all night, across the seas, from island to island, each taking up the message from the other.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, my impatience growing again.

  ‘You say you also are thirsty,’ he whispered. ‘Well, there will soon be blood to drink:, my lady. But who will drink it, god knows. Troy has fallen and Priam is dead. Agamemnon is back, the High King is back at last. His ships are already beached at Epidaurus, and he comes as a lamb not a lion.’

  I gasped and stared about me. The peasant-folk were clustered together, like sheep when the eagle flies above their flock, shuddering.

  Hermione pushed forward and took the man by the hair. ‘Tell me, fellow,’ she said, ‘is my mother with them?’

  The man began to laugh in the dust. Then he muttered, ‘No, woman. Helen is not back; nor your great father, Menelaus. The sea-god has put his jaws about them and munched them up for all the disaster they have brought on Hellas!’

  She struck at him again and again with her switch, and no one stopped her now. It seemed that the peasants needed some show of violence to express the dread that lay in their hearts.

  The headman spoke aloud and said, ‘So, this is the moment Aegisthus trained us for, the crafty devil! Now he will send us against the veterans of Hellas, men who use the chariot and the long sword.’

  He turned to the men about him, who stood wavering in the torchlight. ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘is this just? These hounds that Agamemnon brings back have been fighting, day by day, for ten years. They are the pick of Hellas. How can we, who are scarcely practised to shoot down a wild duck, stand against such men? We are as good as dead, I tell you!’

  I could stand no more of this coward’s mouthings. I flung a bead-bracelet beside the gasping messenger and we rode away. Whether he lived or died, I do not know. He was a tool to be used, no more, like a sickle or an adze. If the blades stand against their work, well enough; but if they break, then their time has come, and another tool must be got.

  24

  all the next day, the armies came through Mycenae. From the headman’s words, I had thought they would be ravening wolves— yet now they seemed to me more like beaten dogs; though, to do them justice, they put on the best face they had, poor as it was. And, in a way, I even felt some sorrow for them.

  Aegisthus looked like a wraith, his pale face gleaming and working all the while. He was clad in sackcloth, heavy with sweat. Since I had taken him the news the night before, he had been unable to keep any food down; and now, as we stood at the Lion Gate, he was sucking a piece of hard goat-cheese, to give his mouth something to do.

  My mother leaned, gasping, between two of her women, with old Geilissa close behind her, in case she fell from the weakness of her recent child-bearing. It hurt me to see Clytemnestra hobbling down the palace steps to wait for Agamemnon, her hair all wild and tangled, her dress hastily put on and dragging behind at the hem, her feet as hare and horny as any field-woman’s. Yet, for all her weakness and rags, her constant coughing and clutching at her side, she looked a queen. Not a rich queen of a prosperous land, but a Queen of Despair—one elected by the Furies to represent them on earth, one of Night’s Daughters.

  I stood with Hermione and Orestes, behind Geilissa. My brother had put on his armour, in spite of my warning that he should not do so, and was telling anyone who would listen that today the two Agamemnons were to meet for the first time. He had no memory of his father, poor lad.

  Time and again, I saw Aegisthus glance over his shoulder angrily as Orestes said these things; but there, in public, Aegisthus could not stop the boy’s mouth.

  A ragged group of Laconians came through the gate, driving a flock of sheep before them, and leading milch-cows on rope halters. The men’s ribs stood from their blackened skin, and most of them still wore brown-crusted bandages about arms or legs. Some of them hobbled as best they could on wooden crutches, t
heir feet bound with rags. Few of them had armour worth calling by that name; but every man carried a sword, however hacked, and every man made a great show of smiling and smoothing his hair as he came into public view.

  Despite themselves, the Mycenaeans roared to see them, and the Laconians moved on towards the taverns of the market-place, looking neither to left nor to right, as though they had noticed nothing strange about their welcome. One peasant-farmer near to the royal party called out, ‘What of King Menelaus? And his queen?’ The Laconian captain, a grey-haired old fellow with his arm strapped to his side, threw back his head and bawled at the sky, He’ll be back, if the Egyptians leave him feet to walk on. If not, she’ll carry him! They have wed again, the fools!’

  They said no more, but went on among the crowd, beating a path for themselves by sweeping out the ash-shafts of javelins to make men give way.

  A company of Corinthians came next, sitting on carts and playing flutes and lyres. One of them led a leopard on a chain, fondling the frightened beast as he went, his arms covered with scratches. When one of their treasure sacks fell from the cart, the Mycenaeans saw that it contained nothing but sand and sea-shells. The Corinthian who dropped it just laughed and called out, ‘You want a show, and we give it to you! But it’s your king who brings back all the booty Agamemnon is the fellow for loot!’

  Aegisthus’ face grew calmer and calmer, as though, having seen what the returning army was like, his own fear had shrunk. I saw him lean towards my mother and heard him say behind his hand, ‘My New Army is stationed all about the city, and in many houses within the walls. But, my dear, I hardly think we shall need them. If we let this tattered tribe drink their fill, they will be on their way by dawn, only too glad to sec their homes again.’