The ring of bronze across the plains was all we heard, where once I had been able to step out of the broiling city and feel the sea breeze cool on my face, with the gulls shrieking and wheeling overhead. All of us were imprisoned within Troy’s walls, all of us except the men, who hauled on their armour at daybreak and coiled out on to the beach like a swarm of ants. At nightfall, they returned, bruised and bloody and broken. The dead lay scattered across the plains, skewered, glassy-eyed, staring whilst the blood congealed in their wounds and the flies buzzed in thick clouds about them. At intervals there were truces, and Greeks and Trojans alike would gather the corpses. The smoke from the pyres choked the sky, swelling from the sprawling Greek camps at the shore and belching from our besieged city. Only the dead could leave Troy now.
13
Clytemnestra
He said he was a traveller when he came. I barely gave him a moment’s notice. ‘Give him food, a bath, a bed,’ I said, waving my hand to the slave-girls, whose faces had become indistinguishable to me. At first, I saw the soft curve of Iphigenia’s arm or the gleam of her hair in every young woman I encountered, no matter how little they resembled her. Whether they were slaves or the noble daughters of the other wealthy houses of Mycenae, it pained me to see them living whilst she was dead. It was the hopefulness of youth, maybe, the sweetness of life on its very cusp that I recognised. Not just the girls, either; I saw the woman she could have been in every female figure I encountered: a nervous bride, a transformed mother, even a shuddering crone. All the things she would never be. I tried not to look at them at all.
A passing traveller seeking hospitality was nothing to me. The only visitors I cared about were those messengers who brought us news from Troy. Then I pricked up my ears, listened to what they had to say. I had no system ready at first; I had relied on those heralds who could travel faster than a fleet of ships to give me warning if my husband was to return victorious. Now, I had beacons and watchmen installed, stretching across the islands that stood between us and Troy, ready to send a chain of firelight to carry the news to me as soon as the city fell. So far, there was little to report. The Greek soldiers camped on the shores of Troy, but the walls stood strong around the city still.
I had taken to walking about the courtyard at night after spending the day immersed in the kingdom’s affairs. Unlike his sisters, the baby Orestes would sleep contentedly enough in his crib, but I found I could not tolerate the hours I spent awake listening to his soft breathing. I craved solitude more than I craved anything – almost anything, at least, not forgetting how my heart quickened at news of the war and of the countless ways my husband might die, either in it or, most precious to me, afterwards. But most days, what I wanted was to be left alone. The chattering of other people, be they my own children or anyone else, was like an unbearable itch. I longed to be lost in my own thoughts, my own plans and my one remaining dream. I lived for the quiet hours of the night, when all I could hear was the soft suck and hiss of the distant waves, when all that touched me was the cold caress of the dark breeze.
No one ever disturbed me when I was in the courtyard. I doubt anyone knew I went there, night after night. It had always been private: back when Agamemnon and I had sat beneath the stars together when we were newly married; back when I had walked restless babies up and down; back when I had taken a moment’s peace from the bustle of mothering three lively girls after persuading them to sleep at last. Now, I spent solitary hours there in the quiet dark, and felt the only moments of peace I could find in my ravaged soul.
So, the sound of footsteps was so unexpected, so unprecedented, that at first I don’t think I heard them at all. I was not poised or alert for danger. Before, I had been too complacent. Now, I didn’t care what happened.
‘Clytemnestra.’ His voice was low, soft in the shadows.
I whipped around. For a second, I thought it must be Agamemnon; that, somehow, he could have returned without me even knowing the war had ended. I was not prepared; no chain of flaming beacons had lit the darkness to give me warning. I drew back, curled my fingers into my palm, my breath sharp in my lungs. We stood by a low wall: the palace overlooked a steep drop, and the rocks below would be enough. Fear mingled with exhilaration; I could taste blood, sour and metallic, in my throat.
‘Please do not fear me; I mean you no harm.’
He spoke at odds, it was not me who had anything to fear, I thought confusedly. But then he stepped forward, and I saw it was not my husband at all. A younger man, lit dimly by the beam of moonlight falling between the pillars. He was thin, taller than Agamemnon, but awkward-looking, as though he had grown too quickly and did not know what to do with his height. That I would fear someone so nervous struck me as absurd, and when the bark of laughter that escaped me made him startle, it was more ludicrous still.
‘A palace of guards will run in our direction if I scream,’ I told him. Defending the palace had been one of my first priorities, and we had recruited men from neighbouring provinces to do the job. Men with no loyalty to Agamemnon. Men who had known only me as ruler. ‘You do not look equal to even one of my men.’ He does not look equal to me, I thought.
‘I know that,’ he answered. He held my eyes steadily, despite the anxiety I could sense rising from him. ‘Your husband’s guards have chased me from this palace before.’
‘Then you are a fool to return,’ I said. I was in no mood to entertain whatever entreaty he was ready to make. To scream for the guards, though, seemed a ridiculous idea. He was an irritation, not a threat. I wanted him gone, but could not summon the energy to create a scene.
‘Do you see something familiar in me?’ he was asking.
I couldn’t imagine why he thought I would care enough to look closely. ‘See what?’ I heard myself ask.
He took a step forward and I felt myself stiffen further. It was only that he looked more hunted than hunter that still kept me quiet. I don’t think it was pity, though. Maybe a flicker of interest, despite myself.
‘I thought my blood would mark me out,’ he said softly. ‘As though the curse of Atreus would be emblazoned upon my face like a scar for all to see. But I walked through your palace doors with no notice; your servants gave me sanctuary when I asked, with no question.’
‘What?’ The heavy blooms of the flowers that entwined the pillars out here nodded sleepily in the dark air, releasing a sweep of fragrance, and dimly I remembered a conversation with Agamemnon once, in the honeyed air of a Spartan evening so very long ago. At the riverside, we had spoken of the worth of a child’s life. At once, the pieces fell into place. ‘Aegisthus?’ I breathed.
I could not see it. No stamp of Agamemnon’s heavy features in the narrow, anxious face before me. His hair hung limp, not thickly curled, and his eyes were shadowed and wary.
‘I am,’ he answered. ‘Your husband – my cousin – he killed my father here, in this palace. He drove me from this city when I was a boy and cast me out alone.’