Electra was again at her loom, the elderly servant in a corner spinning wool. Electra welcomed me and sent her servant for wine and refreshments. I introduced Ardeste and hastily explained the plan before the old woman returned.
We were nervous, but we spent a long time in idle talk, recalling incidents from childhood, Orestes’ talent with bow and arrow, and the games we used to play. Electra could hardly sit still. She sipped at her wine. “Ugh! This wine is terrible! Pero!” she called to the servant. “Bring us new wine, and clean goblets.”
I looked at my cousin admiringly. She was playing her role well. When the old woman had gone out to fetch a different wine, Ardeste produced the poppy-seed powder and sprinkled a little into each of the goblets from which we had barely sipped. When Pero returned with the new wine, Electra said, “Please take this awful stuff away.”
We waited, to see if she’d decide that the wine in the goblets she’d carried out was not so awful after all. Soon she returned with three more goblets and another jar of wine and resumed spinning. But it was not long before the spindle dropped from her fingers.
While the old woman slept, I helped Electra out of her peplos, Ardeste removed her tunic, and the two exchanged garments. But now we encountered a problem: Electra was tall, and Ardeste was not. Ardeste’s tunic wasn’t long enough, and Electra’s peplos dragged on the ground, even when Ardeste pulled it up as high as she could around her waist and cinched it tight with the belt.
“It will have to do,” she said, and added Electra’s gold bracelets and necklaces and draped a shawl over her head.
Ardeste, posed at Electra’s loom, would wait for a chance to find her way to the postern gate. Electra knocked on the door and called to Asius, “My guests are leaving now.” I prayed that the giant was unobservant.
The door opened. I was startled to find Chrysothemis standing there. “You’re here again, Hermione?” she asked. “And with your servant this time? I had no idea you and Electra had so much to talk about.”
“I’d hoped to visit you as well, Chrysothemis,” I said, improvising desperately. It seemed less and less likely that we would get through our scheme without being caught, but I pressed on. “My servant is feeling ill,” I said, “and I must help her get down to the city, if you will kindly excuse us.”
Chrysothemis frowned at Electra, bent over beside me in Ardeste’s ill-fitting tunic, clutching her belly with one hand and drawing a shawl over her face with the other.
“There may have been something in the wine brought by Electra’s servant that has had a bad effect on all of us,” I said. My own “servant” groaned, and I put a helpful arm around her shoulders. “Please do excuse us, Chrysothemis,” I repeated anxiously. Had she not noticed Pero slumbering soundly in the corner?
Chrysothemis continued to study the situation. When was she going to announce that her sister’s disguise hadn’t deceived her for a moment, and that she’d seen through our clumsy ruse? “Asius will bring a chariot to take you both down to wherever you’re staying,” she said.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary!” I protested. “I’m sure we can do very well on our own.”
But Chrysothemis insisted, and we were forced to wait for the gigantic guard to fetch the chariot. Still Chrysothemis lingered. A trickle of perspiration crept down my back, and I could feel Electra, hunched over beside me, trembling violently. Behind us, Ardeste, wearing Electra’s peplos, was pretending to weave on Electra’s loom, no doubt straining to hear every word.
Asius arrived and carried my ailing “servant” out of the palace, while I followed, and placed her in a chariot drawn by a pair of horses. Chrysothemis, apparently satisfied, went on her way. Electra looked up at me from under her shawl, eyes wide and frightened. I stepped aboard and had begun to breathe more easily when Asius suddenly bolted back into the palace.
“Where is he going?” Electra whispered.
“I don’t know.” I wondered if we had really succeeded in fooling huge Asius—or if he knew exactly what was happening and was on his way to alert Chrysothemis. “What should we do?” My voice was edged with panic.
“We’ll take the chariot,” she said. She stood up and grasped the reins. “I know how to drive it. I used to go hunting with Orestes, and he taught me.”
“Wait!” I cried. “He’s coming back, and he’s got Ardeste!”
Asius galloped toward us with Ardeste, still dressed in Electra’s peplos, slung over his shoulder. “I didn’t have a chance to exchange clothes with the old woman,” she whispered. She looked terrified. Asius dumped her unceremoniously next to Electra and me, vaulted into the driver’s position, and snatched the reins from Electra’s hands. We clung to the sides of the chariot, exhilarated and alarmed, as it careened down the steep road.
Asius slowed the horses when we’d reached the streets of Mycenae, and we moved at a stately pace through the city. Citizens stopped to stare at the chariot and its giant charioteer. Out of the crowd a musician playing a syrinx wandered into the street. I expected Asius to let the musician feel the sting of his whip, chasing him out of our way, as I’d seen other charioteers do, but the giant reined in the horses and stopped to listen to the music as though a spell had suddenly come over him.
“Take them to Nauplia,” the musician told Asius, and our driver nodded courteously.
I didn’t need to look for the wings on the musician’s sandals. “My lord Hermes!” I called out. “We’re going to Athens!”
“The road to Athens is too dangerous. A ship will take you there from Nauplia.” The messenger god played a few melodious notes on his syrinx. “Don’t worry—Zethus is waiting for you,” he said, and disappeared.
Asius flicked his whip and resumed his reckless charge through the crowded streets of Mycenae, scattering merchants, women buying bread, shepherds and their sheep, children playing games. At a crossroads by the massive walls where the city ended and the countryside began, a familiar figure waited with a donkey laden with bundles. Asius reined in the horses. Ardeste jumped from the chariot and rushed into Zethus’s arms.
What were we to think about Asius? We would surely attract attention all along the way to Nauplia. A chariot driven by a giant could scarcely be ignored. There would be no disguising either one. Yet Hermes had been clear in his instructions: Take them to Nauplia.
And so we turned off the road that led to Athens and went in the opposite direction.
WHAT AN ODD SIGHT we must have made—a giant and three women crowded into a chariot intended for two, with Zethus and the donkey plodding along behind. Sometimes Asius walked, carrying the donkey’s load, to give Zethus and Onos a rest. Our progress was slow, but the farther we got from Mycenae, the less we feared pursuit and capture.
Asius tried to put our fears to rest. “Chrysothemis has few servants,” he said, “and fewer friends. The people of Mycenae want a wise ruler, but they don’t want Chrysothemis in that role.”
We stopped in small villages and sent Zethus to inquire for lodgings. Once we spent a night in a sheepfold. Electra and I had put away our elegant gowns and dressed in plain tunics with knitted shawls and thick sandals. By ourselves, we blended easily into the crowd. But not Asius. Our unusual charioteer made us curiosities, and word of our impending arrival always reached the next village ahead of us.
At first this worried me, but Asius, in addition to his size and strength, turned out to be a fine storyteller and a great asset. Each evening the villagers gathered to see the giant for themselves and to listen to his stories.
“Yes, I am the son of a Cyclops,” he told them. “My father was a Cyclops, from that race of men descended from Poseidon, brother of Zeus. My father’s people were blacksmiths who worked the forge with Hephaestus to make Achilles’ magnificent shield. And my father’s family had the special calling of making Zeus’s thunderbolts.”
A little girl, who should have been asleep on her mother’s lap, piped up, “If you’re a Cyclops, where’s the eye that’s supposed to be in th
e middle of your forehead? You have two eyes like everybody else.”
The giant smiled kindly. “For many generations the Cyclopes had only a single eye, as you’ve described. But when they married ordinary women, their children had two eyes, just like you.”
“My mother says you eat little children,” the girl said. The mother attempted to silence her, but the child tore loose and took a few bold steps toward the giant. “Are you going to eat me?”
Asius looked at her thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “I’m not. Little girls who ask too many questions aren’t particularly tasty.”
The girl, wide-eyed, scrambled back to her mother, and that was the end of the questions.
When the crowd had dispersed, drifting back to their huts, I did have another question for Asius. “Why have you decided to come with us?” I asked. “It would have been easier for you simply to do as Chrysothemis ordered.”
“I do it out of loyalty to Orestes,” Asius explained. “I served as his charioteer at Troy after the first charioteer was killed. Orestes was a superb archer and a brave fighter. He doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him. And I know of the depth of his love for you, Princess Hermione. You were always in his thoughts. I want to help you find him and to bring him home.”
29
Voyage
WE ARRIVED IN NAUPLIA on the coast of the Gulf of Argos with no idea of what to do next. There were five of us—Electra, Ardeste, Zethus, and me, plus the giant Asius—along with two large horses and a small donkey, all needing to be fed and sheltered. We also had a chariot, which would require us to find a ship large enough to transport it to Athens.
I walked along the water’s edge, wondering why Hermes had sent us here, wondering how we would get to Athens, and wondering how I would then ever be united with Orestes. Fishing boats came and went. Merchant ships arrived from all parts of the Chief Sea, unloaded their cargo, stowed on board sacks of grain and amphoras filled with oil and wine, and sailed away again. Zethus tried every day, but no one was willing to take us to Athens.
The days passed. My spirits were low and sinking lower. Occasional storms swept in and drove us fleeing to shelter. But then, as the winter wore on, the first signs of spring began to appear. The days lengthened, and the air grew warmer. In the evenings people gathered to hear Asius’s stories.
It was not enough. I often found myself weeping. “We’ve gone through so much,” I complained to Zethus, “and now we seem to be stuck here!”
We considered retracing our steps to Mycenae, pushing on from there to Corinth, and joining the isthmus road that followed the coastline all the way to Athens.
“Hermes told us not to do it,” Zethus said. “But what good is it to stay here?”
I agreed. “If Hermes had known this would happen, he wouldn’t have sent us here.”
“We should leave,” Electra said. “What if Orestes and Pylades have already arrived in Athens and gone to Mycenae and we’re not there?”
“Hermes would surely tell them we’ve come here.”
“But suppose they’ve already gotten to Mycenae and they’re on their way here and we suddenly find a boat to take us to Athens and we miss each other completely!”
We argued among ourselves, pulling first in one direction, then another. Only Asius seemed to have no opinion. He merely shrugged his great shoulders and agreed to do whatever we wanted. “Maybe we should divide,” he suggested. “Half take the overland route, and half find a smaller boat and go by sea.”
The mood grew tense. Zethus changed his mind and favored going by sea. Ardeste, who disliked traveling on a ship and had been so miserable on the journey from Krisa to Corinth, insisted that she would go only if we went by land. Soon she and Zethus were barely speaking.
Then one afternoon when sunlight glittered on the water like gold and the air was soft and sweet with the coming of spring, a small ship, larger than a fishing boat but not as large as a merchant vessel, sailed into the harbor. I was walking on the beach, gathering shells, and stopped to watch the bearded captain let down the anchor stone. He carried a little boy down the rope ladder, waded ashore, and set the child on the beach. The boy burst into tears when the man turned to leave, but the man stooped down and spoke to him, and left him with a kiss. Reassured, the boy squatted on the sand to wait. The captain went back to his ship and helped a young woman climb down the ladder. They waded ashore hand in hand, picked up the little boy, and began to walk up the beach.
As soon as I recognized them, I was running toward them, shouting. “Leucus! Astynome!”
Our problem was solved. I would ask Leucus to take us to Athens.
THAT EVENING WE CELEBRATED and stayed up late talking—we wanted to hear all that had happened since Leucus left us at Mycenae and began his long walk to Sparta.
“But why have you come to Nauplia?” Ardeste asked. “Where are you going?”
Leucus explained that they were on their way to the island of Sminthos, where Astynome had been born, to introduce little Chryses to his grandfather. “And Astynome has agreed to marry me,” Leucus added as the two gazed at each other.
Another pair in love! I was destined to be surrounded by lovers, while my own love was still far away. No doubt Electra felt much as I did, longing for Pylades as I longed for Orestes.
Astynome told us about the terrifying storms that plagued the journey from Troy and carried Menelaus and Helen to Egypt, followed by the long, meandering trip from Egypt back to Sparta and the news of the shocking murders at Mycenae that greeted them.
“The king and queen were kind enough to take me and my son with them after Agamemnon sailed for Greece without us. But Queen Helen does not much care for me.” She glanced at me apologetically. “I don’t wish to speak ill of your mother, Hermione. To King Menelaus she is still and always will be the most beautiful woman in the world, but her concern is mostly for herself.”
Astynome was right. My mother was indeed a selfish woman, but despite her betrayal my father was still in love with her. I was her only living child, but I had heard nothing from her since I married Pyrrhus. I sometimes wondered if she ever thought of me, but I already knew the answer.
“Who can ever make sense of the way men and women treat each other?” I mused, but I knew the answer to that as well: No one.
“If Agamemnon had taken me with him as he’d promised,” Astynome said, “I, too, would have been murdered. The gods were protecting me, but at the time I didn’t understand that I was destined to find true happiness with my wonderful captain.”
Leucus beamed, showing his gap-toothed grin.
“All is well and good that everyone is finding happiness,” I said—sourly, I’m afraid—“but we must now devise a plan to reach Athens and find Orestes.”
We sat talking on the beach long after a cloak of darkness had fallen softly around us. Clouds skittered across the night sky, veiling the moon and stars, then letting them shine again. Electra had traded a silver toe ring for fish and bread and jars of wine. We ate and drank and discussed how best to proceed.
“We brought four passengers with us from Gythion,” Leucus said. “And there was plenty of room. But now you’re speaking of adding a donkey, two horses, and a chariot.”
“And a Cyclops,” Asius added.
“The chariot and the animals could be sold,” Zethus suggested, looking to Electra, to whom they belonged.
“Or we can buy a second boat. I have enough jewels to pay for it,” Electra said.
I was relieved to hear that, for I had only a few gold beads left to trade.
The only one not in favor of this plan was Ardeste. She said nothing, but I could see her face in the firelight, and I knew she was unwilling. “You said you’d never go onboard a ship after our journey from Krisa to Corinth,” I said, “but it’s the best way. And then I promise, you won’t have to do it again.”
Ardeste excused herself and rushed off. “Even speaking of a sea voyage makes her ill!” Electra said, but I had guessed ano
ther cause. Ardeste was pregnant.
OVER THE NEXT FEW days, Zethus and Leucus prepared for the voyage to Athens, trading two of Electra’s gold armlets and the last of my gold beads for a second boat, large enough to accommodate the chariot and horses and extra passengers. The two men hired rowers and brought aboard the necessary provisions. Leucus had decided to follow the shoreline, rather than making a straight line across the Saronic Gulf to Piraeus, the port of Athens. It would take longer, but it would avoid open sea and keep Ardeste happy—or at least less miserable.
Our two boats set out with good weather, steady winds, and a willing crew, with the exception of two rowers who arrived drunk and had to be sent away. For several days the boats stayed within sight of each other, letting down their anchor stones in the same coves at sunset and spending the night. One day as the sun burned directly overhead, Leucus led the way into the great port crowded with grain ships and merchant ships from countries surrounding the Chief Sea. For some of us, the journey was nearly over. Leucus and Astynome and little Chryses would continue on to Sminthos.
“We’ll leave you here,” Leucus explained, “but when the moon has waxed and waned three times, we will come back to Athens and find you and serve you any way we can.”
We embraced them and watched them sail away. Zethus hired porters to unload our boat in Piraeus and carry our goods inland to Athens, a half-day’s journey. I made offerings to thank the gods for our safe arrival and prayed that I would find Orestes here.
Book V
Athens
30
Acropolis
THERE HAD ONCE BEEN a contest between Poseidon, god of the oceans, and Athena, goddess of wisdom. Both wanted to be the patron of the beautiful city ruled by King Cecrops, who had decreed that each must offer a single gift and let the citizens choose. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident, and a spring flowed forth, symbolizing the power of the sea. Athena planted an olive tree, a gift that would provide food, oil, and wood, symbolizing peace and prosperity. The people wisely chose the olive tree and named their city Athens in her honor.
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