“Why do we have to ask her what we can find out for ourselves?” I said.
My brothers smiled. The next instant my uneaten dinner was abandoned as the three of us fled the kitchen, off to haunt the great hall for news, to put our ears to a few doors, to talk to the servants, to do whatever it took to discover the identity of Sparta’s newest guest. I had a hard time keeping up with Castor and Polydeuces on account of my injured foot, until the two of them made a carry-chair of their linked hands, scooped me up, and carried me along before I could protest.
They might have helped me, but their good intentions hurt our mission. You can’t gather secrets when you’re making a spectacle of yourself in the palace passageways. They no sooner set me back on my feet beside a pillar in the great hall than we were discovered.
“Why are you three lurking here?” Mother’s girlhood skills as a huntress were as sharp as ever.
We whirled around, my brothers already babbling flimsy excuses. I didn’t bother. Mother’s no fool, I thought. She knows why we’re here.
Of course she did. She folded her arms, regarded us severely, and said, “He’s from Mykenae.”
“Who is?” Castor was still trying to keep up the illusion of innocence.
Mother just rolled her eyes. “Do you want to play games, Castor, or do you want to know about our guest?”
“I do if he doesn’t,” Polydeuces spoke up. “Mykenae! Mother, is it true what I’ve heard about their royal house? Did Lord Atreus really make his brother eat his own—?”
“Silence,” Mother commanded sharply. Her eyes flashed. “I forbid you to mention any of those awful stories while we’re entertaining Lord Thyestes’s ambassador. I thought you had more sense, Polydeuces.”
My brother lowered his head, ashamed. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said.
“What awful stories?” I whispered to Castor, but he refused to tell me anything as long as Mother might overhear.
Which she did. “None you’ll hear while that man is our honored guest, Helen. Unless you want to ruin your sister’s marriage plans.”
“Marriage!” I cried. The word bounced wildly off the painted pillars of the great hall. “Clytemnestra? But she’s only—”
“Lower your voice,” Mother told me. “I won’t let that Mykenaean go home and tell his king that Sparta’s future queen has no manners.”
“So that was Clytemnestra’s big secret,” Polydeuces mused. He patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Helen: Father is only making the marriage agreement with Mykenae now. Clytemnestra won’t leave us for a while yet.”
“Long enough for her to lord it over us because she’s going to be queen of Mykenae.” Castor did a deadly accurate imitation of how our sister always sailed through the palace, spine stiff with pride, nose in the air, lips pursed as if she smelled a rotten fish. Even Mother had to laugh. As much as she loved us all, she couldn’t deny that Clytemnestra did like to put on airs.
That night, I went to bed with my head spinning from the news. Married! My sister was going to be married. I wondered when she’d have to leave Sparta. I wondered what her husband would be like. I wanted to lean toward her bed and whisper a dozen questions to her, to find out if she was really pleased with the future that Father and the Mykenaean ambassador were giving her. It would have to wait for morning.
Alone in the shadows, I whispered a small prayer to my favorite goddess. “O Aphrodite, make my sister’s husband love her as much as Father loves Mother.” It was the first time I hadn’t called my mother “Mama.” My sister was going to be married. Neither one of us was a child anymore. “If he loves her, he’ll want her to be happy.”
The next morning I rose early, dressed, gobbled my breakfast in the kitchen, and went in search of Clytemnestra. She was carding wool on a courtyard bench when I found her. It was a tedious job, pulling the matted clumps of fleece through the carding combs. I wished her a good day, then sat beside her on the bench and began to pick out some of the knots in the fleece with my fingers. We worked together in silence. It was as if nothing had changed, as if there were no Mykenaean visitor under our roof.
At last I put my clump of wool back into the basket of washed fleece. “Mother told us,” I said. “I hope you and Lord Thyestes will be happy together.”
Clytemnestra rolled her eyes and gave me a condescending look. “Oh, Helen, Lord Thyestes is ancient. I’m marrying his son Prince Tantalus.”
“Oh. So you won’t be queen of Mykenae?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She gave the carding combs a hard tug. “Sorry to disappoint you, but my husband will be king of Mykenae after his father dies, so you won’t be the only queen in this family. And Mykenae is richer than Sparta too!”
“That’s not what I—” I began.
She didn’t let me finish. “I can’t wait to get away from this place. I’m tired of having to listen to Ione and Mother and Father and—and to everyone say how pretty you are all the time, as if that’s an excuse for why you never do any real work.”
“But I don’t think they—”