by Henry Treece
But, distracted as I was, I had his measure. I was his big sister again, as I had been in childhood. I took the dagger from him gently, and he let it go without a protest, his hands as weak as a child’s.
I said to my husband, ‘What ought to be done with him, Pylades?’ Truly, I do not know what was in my heart when I said this; but I think it was what I had just seen, and the dagger in my hand, that made me speak so.
My husband was gazing at me strangely among the moonlit blossom with the blood over his breast and face. Then he shook his head like a swimmer coming up out of the water, and whispered, ‘We must take him with us, wife. His men are waiting by the wall. They will finish us if we do not bring him back to them. They are sworn avengers.’
It was then that I heard the low moaning again, from beneath the apple-tree where I had left poor Rarus. God, I thought, still alive! Not dead yet—how is it possible to crawl so long down the tunnel of death? Is there any mercy in heaven for a man to be left so long in agony?
My heart brimful of pity, I cried to Pylades, ‘Let me go a little moment. I shall not be long; but I cannot leave until I have parted from a dear friend.’
He nodded, distantly, and I ran into the crowded boughs.
Some blows are struck in anger, some in remorse, and some in gentle kindliness. These last are like a kiss, like a caress, no more. They carry so much love with them that all the pain is stilled in it, and the blow is welcomed, not begrudged.
So it was with the blow I gave, under the apple-boughs. And as I raised my hand to put an end to agony, the knife-blade caught the branch above my head, and clouds of blossom fell on Rarus and on me. It was like a pretty wedding, when the young girls scatter flowers over the bride and groom, no more than that. And all in the moonlight, Dis’s moonlight. Calm came to me, at this blessing of our final union; it seemed as though the Mother smiled on what I did, giving consent.
When I went back to the orchard’s edge, Orestes was in my husband’s arms, sagging like a great doll, his legs too weak to carry him.
‘Pylades said, ‘So, it has come to this. I always suspected your brother, Electra, when it came to final thrust. He has the heart for it, yes, but not the force to carry it through. So, we must carry him.’
Together we bore Orestes through the orchard, down towards the tomb. Behind us, lights flared in the palace rooms, and high shouts warned us that what we had left on the floor of the hall had now been found.
I said to Pylades, ‘We have little time, husband.’
He nodded, but did not speak. His face was that of an old man, in the moonlight. I thought how young and peaceful Rarus had last seemed to me, with the moon-lit blossom on his face and his dark tumbled hair.
‘Come, come.’ I said, ‘this is the quickest way, alongside Agamemnon’s tomb, not through the colonnade. We have no time to lose.’
When we rounded the far corner of the tomb, we stumbled and fell with Orestes. I did not need to be told what obstacle had flung us down. My hands told me this, plainly enough. Orestes’ company lay heaped about, in the rough grass, one across the other, as though they had died holding the gap in the wall. Helmets and javelins were everywhere.
I was already on my knees, about to ask Pylades what we should do now, when, from behind the wall, rose a line of soldiers, some of them bearing resinous torches. Menelaus stood tallest among them, dressed in his fine Egyptian armour and holding up a sword.
His voice rode lightly on the evening air. ‘So, niece,’ he called, ‘the chariot-wheel turns well, and the fox runs into the trap!’
All the dark-faced men about him laughed in their strange, foreign way, at his words. I flung the ivory-hafted dagger at him, through the moonlight, but he dodged it with an easy movement, and then they laughed again and closed on us where we kneeled.
Orestes’ mouth was wide open and he was gasping like a man in a fit; Pylades was striking out wildly, as they came to grasp him, but he only hit the air. Then the soldiers thumped at his chest and body with the butt-ends of their javelins, without any mercy, until he rolled away and stopped shouting.
Menelaus himself put his hands into my hair and dragged me down. I think, for an instant, he meant to put the sword into me; but through the dark air there came the rustle of wings, just above our heads. It was perhaps a flock of birds, disturbed from their nest in Agamemnon’s tomb by our scuffling; but to Menelaus it seemed something else. He flung his sword away as though shocked by what he might have done.
To a captain he said, ‘Enough, enough! This lies beyond us now. It must be settled by the law of Mycenae. Take them to the prison. They are out of our hands.’
And, as we went, the deep droning of the bees from the Tomb of Atreus sounded in our ears, at every step. It was as though I had become a frightened little girl again, and all this had been for nothing: nothing at all.
41
I never saw my Uncle Menelaus again after that. We lay, the three of us, in damp straw upon the stone floor. The prison was a filthy place, with only one small runnel to carry all away.
In the presence of my husband and my brother, I did not like to use the thing. It is strange how nice one may be, even in such a desperate condition. I spoke to the gaoler about it, ordering him to flush it down with water more regularly. But he smiled and said, ‘I hardly see what great difference that will make, lady, since you will be here so short a time; and after you have gone up out of this place, such things as modesty and cleanliness will seem mere toys of the mind.’
He went away, and the runnel was never flushed. Yet I was the only one who seemed to mind. Orestes lay in a comer, his eyes turned up, his hands, palms-upwards, on the floor beside him, out of his senses. And my husband, Pylades, was often up near the high, barred window, striking at the walls and calling for his warriors to come and save him. His knuckles were all bloody, but he did not know this.
I had no pity to spare for either of them. I felt alone, though they were always near to me in that small cell.
When the chief citizen came down the steps to visit us, in his fine robe and with a clay tablet in his hand, I was glad even to see him.
I ran to him and said, ‘What news, citizen? Oh, what news?’
He flung me away and put on his mincing voice, his official voice, the one he used when he made announcements to the simple peasant-folk in Mycenae.
He said, ‘You have been tried by the Council, with myself and Menelaus to guide the jurors….’ Even then I smiled inside me to think of this upstart jack putting himself before great Agamemnon’s brother. I hardly bothered to listen to the rest of his words, for I could tell by his tone that they boded no good for us now. He went on, ‘And we have decreed, we the Council of Elders, that Orestes and Electra, Prince and Princess of Mycenae, are guilty of matricide, and must die the death on this account. Furthermore, we have decreed that the man called Pylades, of another country than ours, is guilty of regicide, and so must die on this account. I have spoken the law.’
More for something to say than anything else, something to keep him talking in that lonely place, I asked, ‘What manner of death, Tyndareus? And when shall it be?’
He did not deign to look at me as he answered, ‘It will be the hemlock cup, in view of your nobility. And, if I can arrange it, it will happen tonight. You will not know when, until you see the cup bearers come through the door. You will not mistake them, woman, I can assure you. These men are chosen with care. They wear the face of death.’
Then he flung the clay tablet on the floor, so violently that it smashed to small crumbling pieces, as was the custom, and, turning away from us, went between the guards back up the steps.
I sat and watched him go, seeing the thick oak door shutting on us for the last time. Then, for the want of something better to do, I leaned forward and took up a piece of the broken tablet and put it between my teeth. It crunched easily in the mouth and gave me a dull sort of contentment, as though I was consuming death before death took me in its maw.
So, through the afternoon, I ate the whole of death and was glad to see it gone; though when it was finished, I felt ready to retch and secretly I hoped that the clay of that tablet had been poisoned.
When the door was flung wide again, I sat quite still, having decided that I would stare the death-bringers in the eye to the last. and would let them put the cup to my mouth without any struggle. But I was disappointed; it was not the cup-bearers who came in, but my Aunt Helen.
She was dressed as I had last seen her, at Aegira, in all the finery of an Egyptian queen. But though her jewellery and gold ornaments jangled richly, there was no splendour now about her face. I could see beneath its paint and gilding, even in the dim light of the cell. She was an old woman, decked out to look a young one. At a distance this might have been well enough, but, close to, she was the ravaged whore of half the world. Her jet-black hair was grey at the roots, and when it swung from beside her jaw, I noticed how her face had fallen into dewlaps. Above and below her amethyst collar, her skin was as wrinkled as a chicken’s neck, plucked for the pot.
I laughed up at her and said, ‘So, it comes even to a queen, then? Time has no respect for greatness or nobility, dear aunt!’
Helen’s mask of dignity could not stand against this mockery. I could tell that her heart was as warm and soft as ever, despite her Egyptian splendour. She waved the guard away and told him to close the door. Then she came a pace towards me and said, ‘Electra, dear one, have some small pity for me. You are soon to go away in the fullness of your powers and beauty, but I must carry this mummy of a body about with me for ever. I cannot be lightened of my load by death. Have kindness, princess.’
Suddenly, she seemed so weak and helpless that I almost laughed. She, a great queen, who had set the world at war, once upon a time; and I, a filthy, ragged prisoner, waiting for the poison-cup, like a heifer brought into the pen for slaughter, the dirt on my flanks, the chain about my neck.
I said, ‘Have it your own way, aunt. I am beyond pity, for you or for myself, now. This prison is a wonderful place for teaching one what is important in the world, and what is not. And at this moment I would willingly exchange my smooth flesh for your wrinkled parts!’
She put her hand to her mouth, as though she wanted to cry out at my words. Then, instead, she went on her knees beside me in the dust, regardless of her white linen skirt, and took my hands in hers.
‘I beg you, Electra.’ she said, ‘to forgive me. I had no hand in all this. There has been enough killing already, and I wish for no more. I tried to argue for you all in the Council, but the men would not listen to me. I am only a woman when it comes to these affairs, they told me, though I may count as a queen in other matters. Believe me, I begged for your life.’
I said, ‘Much good does it do me now, to tell me this! Have you any more amusing tales to tell me?’
Helen turned her face from me and lowered her head. ‘Try to understand, Electra,’ she said in a low voice, ‘none of us escapes, however great we are, in this life. The god sees that, one day or another, we get what is laid down for us. My own death seems to have been a century coming—but yours will be short, your time of waiting so brief that I envy you.’
I ran my fingers through her dyed hair, ruffling it so that I could see how much grey there was in it. This hurt her more than anything, though she bore my insolence bravely, and did not pull away or push my hand down.
Then, at last, she said, ‘Now comes the hardest thing of all. Orestes is truly wedded to my dear daughter, Hermione, is he not?’
I nodded and laughed. ‘They make a pretty, crazy pair,’ I said. ‘A crazy husband for a crazed wife.’
Helen frowned a little and said, ‘And Hermione is safe in Oeta, is she not?’
I said, ‘Someone has told you truly, aunt. Was it one of Orestes’ warriors, before you killed him by the hole in the wall?’
She nodded. ‘It was sad,’ she whispered, ‘but I could not stop the Egyptians, once they had started. They are a merciless people, Electra.’
I answered, ‘We are all merciless, aunt, when it suits us; Hellenes, Cretan, Egyptians, Dorian….’
She shuddered suddenly and said, ‘Dorian! Oh, god, they are like a fever in the blood to set all men sweating. I am afraid of them, the Dorian. But Menelaus only laughs at the mention of them. He is god-drunk and thinks he can wipe them from the earth as easily as he did Aegisthus’ New Army of untried farm-lads.’
I shuffled away from her and said, ‘I am tired, aunt. It is very-wearing, waiting for the poison-cup. So leave us now, and go back to your king.’
She rose and, as hesitant as a small girl asking for a gift from a strict mother, said, ‘The god has put it in my power to save one of you from all this ruin. Understand, Electra, if I had my way, I would save you all, but I have only been able to bribe the captain to let one of you go up from this place.’
I smiled and said, ‘Say no more, Helen. I understand well enough; I am not a child any longer. Take him with you, and much gladness may he bring to your dear daughter, one of these days, if you ever find her again.’
So the Queen of Laconica said no more, but led Orestes away as though she were a blind beggar’s woman, guiding her helpless master over the cobblestones of a crowded market-place. Pylades sat and watched them go without speaking. Like me, he was now beyond caring. Indeed, I think he was glad to be rid of the incubus of Orestes’ madness at last. For he had borne the weight of it longer than anyone else, and a man has only the strength for so much, and then no more.
42
But after Orestes had gone and I saw his empty place, I began to weep, my guilt and loneliness heavy on me.
‘Why, oh why, did the prince forsake us? Why did he leave us?’ ‘Be quiet, Electra, it was his duty to go, so that if the dice fall otherwise another year he may come back and reign in Mycenae again. The god wills it.’
I said, ‘We shall not be here to see it. We shall lie cold in the tombs, with masks over our faces—if we are lucky!’
Then I wept again. Pylades taught me how a princess should control herself; I was angry and ashamed, rather than grateful, for this. Such is a woman’s way.
He said, ‘No one must see that we are afraid of death, Electra. The man who brings our food must not see tear-stains on your face. It is our duty to let him carry away the tale that Electra and Pylades laughed and sang as though they were going to a feast. Unless we do this, the common folk will think that the kindred of kings are like themselves. Then all kings will fall, and the lands will be like farmyards, governed by peasants. This would anger the god.’
When I used to give way to my grief, remembering how we had killed so many, especially my mother and poor gentle Rarus, Pylades would say, ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart, remember what we once saw on the beach at Alope. When the boys knocked off the heads of the tortoises, did those little beasts complain? No, they lay still under the blows and agreed to die, humbly and quietly. Let us take our moral from them, wretched as they are, for the god made them even as he made us, a part of him is in them.’
I did not care to call a tortoise my brother, but these words did have some force with me, and whenever I felt like crying aloud or tearing my robe in grief, the memory of the little creatures would come to me and then, though I kneeled with my face to the wall in a
dark corner, I tried to make no further show of terror. But it was too much, and the waves of fear came in, ever stronger, to beat against the rock of my courage. I fell to the floor, weeping.
Pylades kneeled beside me and said, ‘What’s done is done, wife. We cannot change it with tears. The god only laughs the louder to see all this useless water flowing from our eyes. Come, sit up now and swallow these things, I am happy to stay behind and take what torments the people offer, so that you shall go unmarked into the shadows. Have no fear, I will join you there before long.’
While I was still shuddering with anger and fear and self-pity, he took a horn box from his pouch and said, ‘There are seve
n pellets here—little balls of a grey substance. They are easy to swallow, I hear, and one only feels cold after taking them. There is no pain.’
His words made me burst out again with tears, but at last, with his arms about me, I was quiet again. He kissed my tears away and said, ‘Come, Electra, I will hold the box for you, since you are shaking so much, and put them into your mouth. There is a cup of water left to wash them down. Then you can lie quietly on the bed until the god carries you away,’
He led me on to a heap of straw and laid me down, then as though it was too much for him, he fell beside me groaning. So, it was my woman’s turn to console him.
While this happened, I reached behind him and put one of the grey pellets into my mouth, hoping to end my life on a moment of glory, as a singer often ends his song. But it burned my tongue and dried my throat so fiercely that I almost screamed. Had not Pylades been by me at the time, I should have done. But his weight held me down and, besides, there was a silly laughing part of me still alive that told me he would think me too weak and tender to sustain his embraces if I pulled away now. It was a sort of woman’s pride that kept me there, as the poison burned in me. In those days the Laconian girls used to boast of what they could stand, in this matter, and say that Europa and her bull were child’s play. ‘See,’ they would say, ‘Pasiphae, the Cretan Queen, thought nothing of it. So why should we?’
I only know that the sudden onrush of the moment drove the poison pangs from my thoughts, and I soared with Pylades for a while.
Then, in the quiet that followed, he said to me, ‘It is a hard choice the god puts to us, my wife. If it were left to me, I would say: let us enjoy our last hours so, and so, and so, until when the time came at length, we walked in a dream to whatever death was waiting for us. But that would be selfish, for always I should think that I kept you here for my own pleasure. Here, Electra, swallow the pills.’