I tossed and turned, then got up and looked for the long, narrow box that held my jewelry and ornaments. As the heir of Sparta I’d been sent to Mykenae with enough necklaces, pins, and earrings to show off our land’s prosperity. The box holding them was Glaucus’s gift to me, and only the two of us knew its secret: When I tilted back the lid, with its inlaid patterns of pomegranates, and touched a secret catch inside, the false bottom of the box came loose, revealing my sword.
It comforted me to hold the little blade and practice some of the fighting moves that Glaucus had taught me. Just knowing that I wasn’t helpless was enough to push my fear of Lord Thyestes and his wolfish grin back into the shadows. Smiling, I hid the sword away again and went to sleep.
My sister was married on the third day of our visit. It was a grand event, with lavish sacrifices made to all the gods and two nights of feasting. Clytemnestra’s husband, Tantalus, wasn’t young or handsome, but he wasn’t too old or ugly either, and his homely face was so kind that it was impossible to believe he was Lord Thyestes’s son.
“When he saw how frightened I was, he made it a point to tell me that even though we’re married, we won’t live as husband and wife until I’m ready,” Clytemnestra confided in me as we sat together at the table during the first banqueting night. Her fears had begun to fade and she looked like her old self again. “Look at the wedding gift he gave me!” She proudly showed off the gold diadem in her hair with its embossed design of ivy leaves.
“I helped him choose it!” The boy seated beside me blurted out the words as though he’d been saving them up all his life. I knew who he was, because he’d been presented to us along with all the rest of the Mykenaean nobility: Prince Aegisthus, Lord Thyestes’s youngest living son. He was skinny, dark, about the same age as my sister and me, and had the first soft sprouting of whiskers on his upper lip.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “You did a good job.”
The simple compliment made him blush crimson. “I just told Tantalus that girls like plant patterns more than animals,” he muttered. “That’s right, isn’t it? Or do you like animal patterns better?”
I smiled at him. “I like both.”
“Because if you’ll tell me what you really like, I’ll make sure to get it for you.”
My smile wavered. “You don’t need to—”
“But I want to!” Suddenly, Aegisthus was gazing at me as if I were something he feared and wanted at the same time. “At first I didn’t, but now that I’ve seen you”—he gulped for air—“I want you to like me.”
“I do like you.” I said it without thinking. “You don’t need to give me an expensive gift for that.”
“But you’ve got to have a bridal gift from me,” he said. “One that’s good enough for someone like you.”
I don’t know how the rest of the banquet went. I was too stunned by Aegisthus’s declaration. Only the bride’s husband could give her a gift as rich and gorgeous as a gold diadem. Suddenly it was clear: Without anyone bothering to ask or tell me or my father, it had been decided that I was going to marry Aegisthus. No need to wonder who’d made that decision. How convenient for Mykenae.
That night I sent one of my guards to fetch my brothers. I sat in the dark, clutching the hilt of my sword, until they came. When I told them what I’d learned, they wanted to scoop me up and race back to Sparta as fast as their horses could run. Polydeuces wanted to kick Thyestes over a cliff first.
“Stop it,” Castor said. “You know we can’t do any of that. If we run away, the Mykenaeans will use the insult as an excuse to start a war.”
“Even if they don’t do that, they’ll take it out on Clytemnestra,” I added. “This is all my fault for insisting on coming here. I’m going to have to deal with the consequences.” I took a deep breath to slow my racing heart. “It’ll be all right. As long as Thyestes doesn’t do anything to force me into marrying his son, I’ll just have to put up with the rest of it until it’s time for us to go home.”
“I say it’s time to go home now,” Polydeuces insisted. “Before Thyestes can come up with some scheme to keep you here until you agree to the marriage.”
“He can keep me here until the sky shatters,” I replied. “I won’t marry Aegisthus or any other Mykenaean princeling, and he can’t make me!”
My brothers just shook their heads.
Castor and Polydeuces tried to stay with me as much as possible the next day. They were waiting for me the instant I stepped out of my room.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Protecting you,” Castor said.
“I don’t think you need to do that,” I said. “I doubt he’s going to abduct me. Where would he take me? I’m already inside his walls.” I was trying to make a joke of a tense situation, but my brothers didn’t see the humor. They also didn’t see that Thyestes’s strength wasn’t in direct attack but in subtlety.
Though my brothers did their best to stay by my side all day, Thyestes found one excuse after another to separate us. In the morning he told my brothers that the young warriors of Mykenae wanted to test their skills against the princes of Sparta. How could Castor and Polydeuces refuse? And how could I be allowed to go with them when girls were forbidden to watch men’s athletic contests? In the afternoon he told them that they had to speak for Sparta before the Mykenaean nobles. That was no place for a girl either, even the Spartan queen-to-be.
Keeping my brothers and me apart was only part of the old fox’s plan. While Castor and Polydeuces were elsewhere, the king pushed Aegisthus and me together. I could have hidden myself away in my room until the banquet, but I was no coward. I was Helen of Sparta, and I wouldn’t run away when I could fight.