by Henry Treece
At the Lion Gate the New Army stood in force, turning some away, if they looked poor and too old, letting others into the Outer Court if they had possessions or seemed strong enough to fight.
Tyndareus was in charge of it all. He stood on the outer wall in his chief citizen’s robe and chain and his crown of oak-leaves, and scanned us as we hammered on the gate for refuge.
I saw his pig-like eyes sweep over Rarus and me three times, as though he wondered whether to turn us away like the others, but I took heart and shouted up to him, ‘Tyndareus, you know us well enough. Do not pretend we are strangers. Let us in quickly, for I have a message of importance for the king.’
He stared about him for a while and then, as though in his own good time, bent and whispered to a young red-cloaked captain, who passed the word down to the guards at the gates.
When they swung open a little way, scores of refugees tried to push through before us; but the soldiers beat many of them back with spearshafts, and so, ragged and bruised, we got into the city, though, I am sad to say, a handful of frightened peasants lay on the ground because of that gate’s opening.
Tyndareus was waiting for us, his robe held about his fat stomach to give him dignity. He stared at me insolently and said, ‘You have been away so long, we gave you up for dead. You can tell me your message. I will take it to the king. As you see, these days the people have more say in things than they used. Well then, what is it?’ I did not like his arrogant tone, or the way he carefully avoided using any of my titles when speaking to me. I said, ‘Tyndareus, we are both old enough to know what is what, aren’t we? So, do you mean to say that a princess of Mycenae is denied access to her own home in the palace? Has the law come to that here? Tell me, are you daring to set yourself above me? No, do not turn away, but just answer me in the presence of these soldiers. I ask again: do you set yourself above me?’
This fat tradesman had become so full of his own importance that he must have seemed like the god himself. I must have been the first to speak like this to him for years. His face reddened and his hands shook so much that he let his heavy skirt fall into the dust. But I still stared into his eyes, and at last, afraid that I might belittle him further before the young soldiers, he said brusquely, ‘Very well, come with me. I will lead you to the king.’
Rarus could not help himself. He said gently, ‘You carry too much fat, Tyndareus, for this hot weather. If you are in the habit of running up and down the palace steps all day, you should sweat some of it off.’
I wished Rarus had held his tongue, though I agreed with what he had said. The chief citizen did not even turn, but said in a firm voice, ‘Graves can be dug with words as easily as with shovels, my friend.’
I signed to Rarus to be silent now, and we went up to the citadel in silence, with two lines of soldiers marching after us, trailing their spears. I thought, as I saw them, that they would stand little chance against Menelaus’ big insolent Egyptians.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus were sitting in their gilded chairs at the top of the great stairway, dressed in what was left of their finery; but poor enough this looked when I recalled Menelaus and Helen in Aegira.
My mother did not speak to me at first, but just nodded and smiled down at me, her white face writhen with pain. Aegisthus looked every bit as old and worn, but at least he found the breath to greet me, in his way.
‘This is a fine home-coming, daughter,’ he wheezed. ‘When you might have returned in peace, at any time during the past five years, you come now with the enemy close on your heels and sores on your feet.’
He turned round, painfully, in his chair, to speak to a young girl who stood behind him, a big-eyed creature whose dark hair flowed on her thin brown shoulders. She was overladen with silks and jewels, and wore the same sort of flounced skirt that I had once been proud of, when I called myself the goddess in Mycenae. Her feet were bare and painted, just as mine had been, but there the resemblance stopped, for she was little more than eight years old and had not the fullness of body that the goddess needs.
Aegisthus said to her, ‘This is your sister, Electra, my sweeting, I have often told you of her; now you see her in the flesh.’
Aegisthus’ daughter, Helen, whose birth late in years had crippled my mother, looked at me with pursed lips, her great dark eyes taking in my rags and dirt and sores. Then she said, ‘But her hair is the colour of dust. You told me it was like amber. This is a beggar-woman of the lanes not a goddess, father.’
The king turned to me and smiled. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘children cannot look beneath the surface of things, Electra. They see only what is before them. Perhaps she is right, though; perhaps you are only a beggar-woman now, the way things have fallen out.’
Behind me on the stairway, Tyndareus chuckled, delighted to hear me put in my place at last.
I said in a loud voice to the king, ‘Send your dog away, Aegisthus. I will not be his bone.’
The king put on a mock-frown and answered, ‘Tyndareus has been my right hand for a long time, Electra. He feels the pulse of the people, and I rely on him most of all.’
I said, ‘Send him away, Aegisthus. He is a fat rogue whose only desire is to line his own pockets. I have seen his sort before.’
My mother smiled indulgently as I spoke, all the wits gone from her. Aegisthus turned to her, appealing for her to silence me, but when he saw her empty face, he shrugged his shoulders and gave in.
‘Leave us, my friend,’ he called down the steps. ‘She is still headstrong, as you see, but I need her advice. Go, Tyndareus, and I will speak to you later, the two of us together.’
After the chief citizen had gone, grumbling down the stairs, the king called for slaves to carry the two gilded chairs into the great hall. I walked between them, a hand on each, to show everyone my place in Mycenae. To do this, I had to push little Helen out of the way, but this caused me no ache of heart, although she scowled and almost broke into tears to be separated from her father.
Aegisthus saw this, but said nothing to her. Instead he spoke to me slyly. ‘You see, Electra, I have never walked very well since that day your black bull got at me. I shall speak of that again to you, later. It has been in my heart a great deal while you have been away.’
Though I hated the man, I had to admire his calm words and forebearance.
Clytemnestra leaned from her chair, smiling vacantly, and said, ‘Yes, daughter, poor Aegisthus has not been well at all since that day. The bards sing wicked songs about him, you know. They say he leaps on old Agamemnon’s tomb and challenges the Lion to fight for Mycenae; but, I tell you, the poor king couldn’t step over a thimble, much less jump on a tomb.’
Aegisthus flushed a little and made clucking noises with his tongue to quieten her; but she went on, regardless, ‘And they say he always has an empty chair placed at the table for Agamemnon to come back and sit in, to give the dead their due. But that is false, also, daughter. Aegisthus has two chairs so that he can move from one to the other, if the feast is too long, to rest his poor leg. That is true, is it not, my dear?’
But the king did not answer her. He turned to me and said quite shortly, ‘Come now, we are indoors, tell me what you have seen.’
So I told all that I had seen at Aegira, missing nothing out. I then told about the Dorian who were massing beyond the Straits. But Aegisthus waved this away, saying, ‘They are nothing, only an undisciplined rabble. We can stand against them, one day, next year, perhaps, when they find the means of coming over to us, I am not concerned with Dorian; it is Menelaus I am thinking of. Tell me, how do you rate his army?’
I answered, ‘His men look like veterans. They are armed in a way that Hellas has not seen for twenty years. Though, in number, they are many fewer than your own New Army, I have no doubt that one of Menelaus’ warriors would terrify five of yours. That is my opinion, Aegisthus.’
He sucked in his lips and rubbed his sweating hand up and down the stubble on his face. At last he said, ‘Would you, then, a
dvise me to treat with Menelaus, to offer him, say, half this kingdom, rather than to fight with him?’
I stood my ground and said, ‘Aegisthus, the time for treaty has gone by. Menelaus comes for revenge, not only for lands and gold. He has seen enough lands and gold by now, and knows he can get them easily enough, wherever he chooses. But he can only get his vengeance here in Mycenae. He can only get you here. You are what he comes for, Aegisthus, and no manner of treating will keep him from that. He has hunted you all his life, king.’
As I spoke, the flesh seemed to fall from the king’s face; his whole body seemed to shrink. It was as though I saw a man disappearing before my eyes. His chin began to tremble and beads of salt sweat coursed from his sparse hair down his forehead and into his eyes, so that he had to blink many times before he spoke again.
‘In your opinion, daughter,’ he said uncertainly, ‘would this Menelaus accept another for his vengeance? I mean, suppose I granted him this city and went away, taking only what I can carry in a litter, and left behind, say, Helen…. She is young, you know, and does not bother about these things; it would be nothing to her, yet it could be much to me. Would that satisfy Menelaus, think you?’ I glanced at his frightened, coward’s face, and then at the thin child who stood behind him, silent and patient, not understanding that her father was planning to pass the death-sentence on her. For a moment, I think I would have advised him to offer this Helen to Menelaus, to be dealt with as my own sister Iphigenia had been dealt with. Then suddenly the child put up her small hand and began to pat the king’s shoulder. ‘Don’t cry, my father,’ she said. ‘You are crying, and a king should not cry. Now, dry your eyes, and all will be well, I promise you. I am the goddess, am I not? And goddesses always speak the truth to kings.’
This decided me. That a man who set himself up as the High King of Achaea should even think of bartering his own poor hide for the life of a simpleton, his own flesh and blood, angered me. I did not love Helen—but I loved her coward father still less.
I said, ‘Do what you will, Aegisthus, but you will not escape what is coming towards you. Menelaus will have both Helen and you, to torment as he wishes. This I speak as one who once saw inside the god’s heart a little way.’
Aegisthus stiffened and asked hoarsely, ‘When do you think he will be here, Electra? How long have we got?’
I answered, ‘Today and perhaps tomorrow, for I do not think he will move down until his men are fully ready. Yet, when they do move, it will be quickly, of that I have no doubt. They will strike like the lightning, and will be amongst your folk before they know it. It is my guess that this will happen at the latest by tomorrow night, Aegisthus.’
I spoke calmly, as one might talk of some ordinary thing about the house—the laying of a fire, or the flavouring of a dish. I spoke as though this did not affect me, or my mother, but only Aegisthus. And suddenly, by my manner of speech, I could see that he felt entirely alone in Mycenae.
He drummed his hands on his bare head and all his fat body shook in his chair. I thought that he was about to have a seizure and cheat Menelaus after all. I was so concerned at this, I called for a servant to bring him spiced wine; but the poor wretch could hardly get it into his mouth. It ran down on to his robes and dripped to the tiled floor.
At last I said to the carriers, ‘Take the king into the high tower, and stand by him. He will feel more secure there.’
He looked at me with big eyes then, for I think he knew what lay behind my words; in the high tower, there was no escape for him.
37
When he had gone, my mother turned to me and shook her head sadly. I asked,’ But you do not love him, do you, Clytemnestra?’
She said, so quietly that I had to strain to hear her words, ‘Love him? I have forgotten what it is to love anyone, daughter. I only know that he and I are two old folk, too weak now to rule a kingdom, too full of pain to stand much more of it.’
I knelt by her and said, ‘Have courage, mother. We still do not know what the god intends for us. Perhaps his pattern might turn out well, after all.’
Clytemnestra shook her head very, very slowly. ‘Oh no, Electra,’ she whispered. ‘That can never be, now. I know that, and you cannot tell me otherwise. Look, ever since you have been away, not one night of rest have I had. The dark has been filled with menacing. There has been no peace for me, my love. The god has found every way to make me suffer. He has neglected nothing, even the smallest things.’
I placed my arm about her and held her like a small child, although the scent that came from her body and clothes was distressing. I said, ‘How do you mean, my mother? How has the god been at you?’
I thought that by getting her to speak of these things her heart might be lightened of its load, doctor. You understand.
She said, ‘There have been dreams, but dreams so hard and clear that I have not known whether I was asleep or waking. Dreams that have stayed with me, even when the sun has come into the room at dawn, at midday, in the afternoon. And such dreams, my daughter! The god must have kept a writing of all I have ever thought, to bring it out for my torment now.’
I said, ‘Everyone has dreams, mother, and they seem worse when one is sick and weak. They are nothing.’
She half-turned from me and put her shrunken hand over the black hole of her mouth as she spoke.
‘These dreams are not nothing. Would you like the dream of excrement? It lies everywhere, in my bed, on the table-top, on my body. Each way I turn, my hand encounters it. It fills my mouth. It slides under my feet. It is always where I least expect it. It lies at the bottom of the cup I drink from, though that cup be washed a hundred times. This the god has thought of for me. Then there is another dream, and this goes back to when I was so small, a lonely little girl wandering in my father’s great palace, too noble to play with other children. One day, up in the high rafters, in a secret room I discovered, I lifted a floor-board and under it, in the darkness, I found a nest of birds—such birds as build their houses high in palaces, I forget their name now. But this was no ordinary nest; it was left for me to find so that I should suffer. In it were three birds, quite big birds, but still young, alive and opening their beaks for food to be put in.’
I tried to laugh, and I said, ‘But a nest of birds is no bad dream, mother.’
She screwed her mouth up in disgust. ‘These birds were a bad dream,’ she whispered. ‘As eggs, they had been laid in this small enclosed space, with beams of wood and laths all about them. And so they hatched out, and grew, as their mother got in among the wood to feed them. But they did not grow like birds, for their poor bodies had to take on every shape, every twist and turn of the woodwork. Their necks grew crooked, as though they were screwed; their breastbones were shaped like a harp, with no feathers on outside; and their poor legs and feet were so twined and twisted, it was a torment to see them. I went up to them for many days, daughter, and at last, when I could bear it no longer, I dropped a stone down on them to put an end to their misery. Now that dream comes to me every night—the crooked bodies, and their open red beaks when they thought I was bringing food, and I was bringing a stone to crush them.’
Clytemnestra bent down and wept as I had never heard her weep before. I tried to stay her tears, but she pushed my hand away as though she were young again, an Amazon. ‘And now, at last,’ she said, ‘comes the final dream. All day the black snake moves inside me, curling in my bowels, sometimes sliding out again into the open to see the light; only to torture me again when he goes in to enjoy my warmth, my darkness, my corruption! So does the god speak to me of my end. Now do you understand?’
It was an hour before her weeping stopped. I had her carried to her bed, and thought she had worn herself out and was sleeping. But as I tried to leave her room, to find out what Rarus thought of it all, her eyes opened and she beckoned me back to her bedside.
‘Electra,’ she said, ‘we have talked of all these things, but yet we have not said a word about what lies nearest to my
heart.’
‘What is that, dear mother?’ I asked her.
She said, ‘Your brother, Orestes. Did you ever find him?’
I nodded my head. ‘Yes, mother, I found him. He is well, and far away, beyond Mount Oeta. He is a king there, mother, and has his own folk now. He has wedded Hermione, and one day he will be great in Hellas.’
She lay back and smiled. ‘At least the god gives us some rewards,’ she whispered. ‘It has been in my heart lately that he might try to come here again, to take back his kingdom, to sit in his father’s chair in Mycenae. But that would be death for him now. One or another would put an end to my son. Thank you, daughter, for your words.
I can rest a little, now that I know he will stay safe, far from this dunghill of death.’
Her eyes closed again, and her head fell sideways.
She was at peace, but I was not. Her words had wakened in me a new fear. Orestes had sworn that he would come to Mycenae, despite what I had told the queen. So, he would come, and would be caught between the two mill-stones—either the New Army would murder him, or Menelaus, his tyrant uncle.
I found Rarus sitting in the sunlight at the bottom of the great stairway, talking with a young soldier about iron-smelting. He saw that I was greatly anguished and rose immediately and came to me, under the shadow of a cypress tree, where no one should hear us. ‘What is it, sister?’ he said.
I said, ‘For god’s sake, Rarus, help me! I have only just seen where the pattern is leading. How blind I have been!’