“She’ll be riding in a cart, all alone,” I put in. “Father, please. She’s so unhappy. Let me go!”
“Let you go?” he echoed. “Have you forgotten you’re the heir to Sparta? Do you expect me to put all of my children into Thyestes’s power? Why don’t I just hand him my sword and let him cut my throat?”
“But Thyestes is our kinsman now,” Mother maintained. “He’d never—”
“A lot that means to a Mykenaean!” Father countered. “You know the stories.”
“So do you,” Mother said bitterly. “You still gave him our daughter.”
“What choice did I have?” Father’s jaw tightened. “He wanted an alliance, guaranteed by marriage. Clytemnestra is the price of peace.”
“Is that what you want me to do when I’m queen of Sparta?” I asked. “Buy peace?”
Father gave me a sad look. “I don’t do this gladly, Helen. We Spartans are never afraid to fight, but even if we’d win a war with Mykenae, it would take so many years and cost us so many lives that Sparta would be defenseless afterward. Your enemies will always be watching for any signs of weakness. Remember that when you’re queen.”
“Then why not show Lord Thyestes just how strong we really are?” I asked. “Father, if you let me go to Mykenae with Clytemnestra, it will be like saying, See the power of Sparta, Lord Thyestes! We’re so mighty that we have no fear of letting all of our children travel beyond our borders at once, even our future queen! We have no fear of you at all.”
“That,” said Father, “is a bad idea.” And he sent me away.
In the days that followed, my sister did nothing but weep quietly in her bed while the servants packed her things. I spent my days at her side, trying to cheer her, telling her how much I envied her the chance to travel, to see new places, new people. Who knew what adventures the road to Mykenae might hold? She only sobbed that she didn’t want any adventures, she just wanted to stay home or die.
She refused to eat, making Ione so frantic that she fetched Mother. Mother took one look at Clytemnestra’s haggard face and went to speak with Father. Soon the palace halls echoed with sharp words and loud arguments as Father’s counselors and highest-ranking noblemen were drawn into the matter.
On the afternoon of the fourth day, Mother sat beside me on Clytemnestra’s bed and told me to go to my room. Puzzled, I obeyed, and when I got there I found Ione busily packing my clothes. Father came in before I could question her.
“Your idea about going to Mykenae with Clytemnestra isn’t so bad after all,” he said wearily. “It’s certainly the best I’ve heard, these past few days. Others have just said everything from ‘Call off the marriage’ to ‘Just send her, weeping or not; she’s Lord Thyestes’s problem now.’ It’s bad enough that I must give her in marriage to Mykenae. I’ll tear out my own heart before I cause her any further pain. Your brothers will look after you, and you’ll ride with my best soldiers for guards. Do what you can to comfort your sister, and may the gods watch over all my children.”
7
THYESTES’S SNARE
The next dawn found me seated beside my sister as our ox-drawn cart began the tedious overland trek to Mykenae. Even though the hard wooden slats we sat on were thickly cushioned with folded cloaks and blankets, I still felt as though my spine was going to be jounced out of my body when the lumbering wheels rolled over the next rock in our path.
And the smell! The gods alone knew what the oxen had been eating, to give off such a stench. I tried breathing through my mouth, but it didn’t help.
Clytemnestra dealt with the discomforts of the road by complaining, her voice crowding my ears so thoroughly that it often blotted out the creaking of the cart, the tramping of our guards’ sandaled feet, and the clash, clatter, and jangle of the wagons behind us, all loaded with my sister’s bridal goods. I let her grumble all she liked—it was better than her helpless tears. Sometimes I persuaded my brothers to ride their horses alongside our cart and let her gnaw on their ears, for a change.
It worked, but it was tiring for all of us. By the time we reached the outskirts of Mykenae, the four of us were heartily sick and tired of each other’s company. As our train of wagons began the climb up to the great gates of the city, two colossal stone lions above the entrance to the citadel glared down at us in vain. We were all too worn out to be impressed.
We were welcomed with bread and salt by Lord Thyestes himself. The ruler of Mykenae looked like one of Zeus’s own thunderclouds, his hair and beard a stormy gray, his eyes flashing like lightning. I didn’t believe his words of friendship for a minute. He had a wolf’s smile. It made my skin creep every time he looked at me, and he looked at me much too long and too often for comfort.
That night I couldn’t sleep. Lord Thyestes had given me a queenly room all to myself. Though there were two loyal Spartan soldiers standing guard outside my door, I was too tense to close my eyes. I’d wanted to share a room with my sister, but the king wouldn’t allow that. He claimed it would be an insult to all Sparta if I weren’t given lodging worthy of my rank. Maybe he was telling the truth, but I still felt like the deer that the hunting hounds isolate from the herd before they bring her down.