Her voice was hesitant, uncertain. I looked up, squinting in the sun, thinking for a moment that it was Elektra who spoke, but it was Iphigenia, standing framed between two pillars. The childlike ring to her voice sounded more like it came from her small sister than herself. One hand was twisting at the fine golden chain of her necklace; the other clutched at the smooth stone beside her as though she needed help to stand upright.
‘Come to me,’ I said, patting the cushion of the low couch on which I sat in the courtyard. I had been looking out to the distant sea on the horizon, not such a calming pastime recently. Everything had been thrown into tumult. I did not like to think of the way that Agamemnon had sailed away; of the words between us before he left.
Iphigenia didn’t move. I was seized for a moment by the wonder that still made my breath stick in my throat. That glorious, maternal sweep of pride and delight that was almost painful in its intensity. I had three daughters now, and another baby kicking in my womb, but motherhood could still swell my heart in these simple moments: my daughter, fourteen years old, standing in the sunshine. Sometimes I saw the woman she so nearly was. The plump little cheeks of childhood, which I had so loved to kiss just to feel their inexpressible softness, had given way to fine cheekbones, and there was a new thoughtfulness in her eyes that replaced the incessant curiosity that had inspired a thousand questions when she was younger. But at other times, when I saw her shriek with laughter alongside her younger sisters, the elegance she tried to assume nowadays shrugged off and forgotten for a moment, I could see the little girl she had been, the infant I had been cradling in my arms when I first felt that fierce, sweet rush of a mother’s love.
She seemed just then poised between the two states. There was a keen edge of excitement burning a flush across her face, but I could see a desperation in her eyes as well, a note of fear and confusion, and a longing for my help.
‘What is it?’ I asked, sitting straighter.
‘A herald comes,’ she answered. She sounded distracted and her fingers knotted her necklace even tighter as she spoke. ‘You need to come to the throne room to receive him.’
‘News of your father?’ I stood, concern snaking up my spine. I wondered if this was the message to tell us that he had sailed at last. His army was assembled, all the warriors of Greece gathered at Aulis, ready. It had taken weeks to rout them all out – Odysseus in particular had given them some trouble, I knew – but the most recent proclamation had told us they waited only for a fine wind, one that would carry their fleet to Troy. I couldn’t imagine it: such a number of ships as had been gathered. More than a thousand, we’d heard: a thousand ships with tall, curved prows, each one crammed with eager young men, armour and weapons.
So many ships, to carry back my sister. Helen, somewhere across that ocean, behind walls we had never seen. I tried to shake the thought from my head; I could not imagine her there. All of our lives she had been in Sparta, and I had known what she ate, whom she talked to, what she wore and where she was, but now I had no idea what surrounded her, or how she felt.
‘I thought that too,’ Iphigenia said. ‘That it would be news that they had sailed, and so I said I would come to fetch you myself – I thought you would want me with you.’ She was always kind, my daughter, and she knew how I had dreaded this moment. I had seen Menelaus when he arrived at Mycenae; the despair that hunched his shoulders, the tears falling loosely down his cheeks. The story spilled out, his chest hitching and sobs gulping in his throat as he told us how the Trojan prince had gone, and Helen was nowhere to be found. His grief embarrassed me. I hated to see a man so shattered, and the words of comfort that I sought wouldn’t come. It was my sister who had done this to him, and the memory of her shimmered back to the surface for a moment: her satisfied smile at her own reflection when she wondered aloud what grand destiny the gods might have in store for her. Did she think that she had found it in this Paris?
I left it to my husband to console his wounded brother, and when they returned late that night, reeking of wine, Menelaus was transformed. I don’t know what Agamemnon had said to him, but a dreadful frenzy consumed him. His mouth twitched convulsively, flecks of foam scattered in his beard, and fury raged behind his eyes. I could not wish my husband anything other than victory in war, but I feared what punishment awaited my sister at the hands of this man, who seemed suddenly a stranger. Gone was the gentle, worshipful lover that had been so glad to win her; here instead was a vengeful, embittered, humiliated king with all the armies of Greece at his disposal.
I steeled myself. ‘Thank you,’ I said, and made to walk with her, but still she stood where she was.
‘Only, I heard the women talking as I left the hall,’ she said. ‘They didn’t know I was there. They said – they said that the army will not sail until a wedding takes place, that Father has promised—’
That look stamped across her face – part excitement, part dread. The way she was unable to take another step, so uncertain and exhilarated all at once. She was luminous with it.
‘That Father has promised his daughter to Achilles – that they send for me to come to Aulis to be – to be his wife,’ she said. A sob of laughter bubbled in her throat, and she shook her head, dazed.
Achilles. So many bargains had been made, so much persuasion deployed across the islands of Greece to bring this mighty force of men together. But of all the great soldiers famed for their skill and strength in battle, no stories paralleled those of Achilles. And it had seemed for some time that he had disappeared from the face of the earth altogether. The scattered fragments of the gossip that had reached us in Mycenae sounded fantastical, absurd: that his sea-nymph mother, Thetis, had disguised him as a girl and hidden him among a troupe of dancers; that somehow he had been tricked (by Odysseus, we had no doubt) and discovered. I had wondered what had changed his mind and made him agree to fight after all – perhaps this was it. Perhaps my husband had offered him our first-born child in exchange for his loyalty.
I had so many feelings, I didn’t know which one took precedence. To me, she still seemed so young, and although she was old enough to marry, I had hoped we might have a little longer before a husband carried her away. And Achilles, a fighter, being the one to take my gentle girl? I knew that Aga-memnon would consider him a son-in-law to boast of, but what would it be like for Iphigenia to be his wife? I tried to picture him: brawny and bristling with muscle, a spear clenched in his great fist. It was said that he was handsome, though. And if he had passed unnoticed among the girls that his mother had hidden him with, he could not be the monstrous giant of my imaginings.
Besides, he was to sail to war immediately. And I could not suppress the shameful thought that war was an uncertain thing. For all we knew, he may not come back. At the very least, it could take some time, and my daughter would still be mine for a little longer.
‘Mother?’ she asked again, tremulously, and I saw that her eyes were swimming with unshed tears.