I see comprehension dawning on her face. Through the blood smeared on her cheeks and the dirt and dust that cling to mine, we see into the calm centre of each other’s souls.
I loosen my hold on her skirt and move my hand to hers. Now it is I who is gently unclasping her fingers, revealing what lies in her palm.
She carries a dagger. Her life is a precarious one; she has murdered the king, and her fate hangs in the balance as much as my own. She will defend it for herself; she has the stomach for battle, she is as ferocious as her lionesses snarling in stone. But it is her compassion I seek, and beneath her monstrous exterior I can see she overflows with pity, and I know that she will help me. It was her pity that I feared; her pity that might have driven her to offer me a future, some attempt at comfort, an exhortation to carry on, to make a life out of any fragments I have left to me. But I know that I can make her understand what it is that I need.
She shakes her head just a little as I guide her hand. As I hold it suspended above my breastbone, the sharp blade poised over the fluttering pulse beneath my skin, my other hand still clutches at her knee in supplication.
‘No,’ she says, and I hear a trembling in her voice. She yanks her hand away.
I twist her skirt in my clenched hand. It is damp from the bathwater; from Agamemnon’s final struggles, his flailing desperation. She cut down the king of all the Greeks, the leader of a thousand ships that thronged the Trojan shores for so long. She cannot be afraid to take the life of one woman.
My skull aches with a dreary, familiar pain. It is an injury never allowed to heal; the ragged, gaping edges of the wound from Apollo’s relentless violations that rip my mind open, again and again. I search for a way to make her see, to make her understand. I only want this pain to stop. Helen promised me that Clytemnestra was kind. I hope with everything I have left within me that it is true.
She takes a step back and I let the twisted fabric fall away from my fist. The soft light of morning falls through the narrow window behind her, and she is a dark shadow, an indistinct silhouette. Then she turns her head and I see her profile; brave and fierce. And then she looks back to me, and I see the white gleam of her eyeballs, and my throat dries up over the words I don’t need to say.
28
Clytemnestra
I pull back from the Trojan woman when she brings my dagger to her breast; an instinctive horror making me look away from her. But even as I stare into the creeping light spilling dimly through the window, I see only the despair in her face. I think of Iphigenia, poised on the threshold of a future that belonged to her; a future that shattered like a vase dropped on stone tiles.
This woman, I think, is dead already. It comes to me in an abstract flash of clarity; a moment of absurd calm. She is a ghost of Troy: a citizen of a world lost in flames and crumbled to ash. Iphigenia roams the dark bowels of the earth, her life stolen from her. Elektra screams with rage and yearning, and a pain I do not know how to begin to heal. But here, before me, there is a gift I can bestow. A suffering I can ease.
I touch the woman’s face gently. I cradle her trembling jaw. I remember the suddenness of the violence when Agamemnon pulled my daughter against his chest; the spray of blood before I could even scream.
I smooth my thumb against Cassandra’s eyelids, closing them gently. I feel her breath, warm against my palm. I keep my hand steady when I draw the blade against her neck. Even when it is done, and my vision swims with tears and her body slumps against me, I hold her like I held my daughters when they slept in my lap. Even though her blood runs warm through my skirt, I hold her there still. I stroke her hair softly, her dark curls spilling through my fingers as if she is lost in no more than a pleasant slumber, the way I last held Iphigenia.
A tumult erupts in the palace: shrieking voices, slamming doors and clattering footsteps. This is the moment when I should be stepping forth, announcing my triumph. I draw in a long breath and ease Cassandra’s head on to the floor so that I can stand, shaking away the wave of sorrow that rears up and threatens to pull me under just as my victory is complete. No longer do I need to sit in shadowy rooms weeping over a dead girl. My daughter is avenged. Somewhere, she is free.
The door crashes open, the heavy wood juddering against the ancient stone wall. Aegisthus’ eyes widen as he takes me in: blood-spattered and righteous. The sight of the corpse at my feet stops him in his tracks for a moment and I see he is robbed of words, so I speak instead. ‘He is discovered?’
Aegisthus nods. He swallows. His eyes flicker over the scene. ‘Why did you . . .?’ he begins, then shakes his head. ‘We must go – declare ourselves, quell the panic.’
We dreamed of this nearly ten years ago, plotted it out in the hidden darkness together, and we have lingered over the details every night since. Our common purpose, the goal that has united us all this time, our shared grief and rage taking shape at last.
He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t draw me into an embrace or take my hand to lead me out into the light as we claim our long-awaited triumph. I see how his gaze slips away from me, how his thin face grimaces with something that looks a little like disgust. I can feel a loose peal of laughter building up within me, and I can only imagine what he would think if I let it escape.
The ominous weight of dread presses in on us as we step out into the corridors; fear and shock thicken the air. I think I am smiling, that bubble of repressed mirth threatening to burst, but it isn’t happiness that I feel. The world around me seems muffled and distant. I hear Aegisthus snap at a slave-girl I hadn’t even noticed to summon everyone to the throne room, and I hear how she scuttles away from us, but all I am left with is the lingering impression of her eyes rounded in horror. I think how everyone will shrink from me, and I want to laugh even more. But underneath it all, I feel the hollow void at my core, and how its edges are collapsing in, and I am afraid that I will be lost forever. I keep walking. That is the key. That is what has sustained me since she died; I kept moving forward, intent upon this moment, and now I am here, and I will not let myself think about what happens next.
I didn’t see her. I didn’t feel her. When his legs gave way beneath my blows, she did not guide my arm.
I shake away the thought. There is no time for it.
It is a wary gathering of old men and slaves in the throne room. I feel the bitterness of their stares when we sweep in, Aegisthus and I, but that is all they have. Although Aegisthus prickles against their animosity, his narrow shoulders raised and his thin chest puffed out, I know there is no need. We can afford generosity, he and I. I will bestow certainty upon them, and their loathing will dwindle away, along with their suspicion.
Agamemnon’s body has been carried in and it lies in the centre of the room, still wrapped in the sewn-up robe. Mangled and bloody; a silent accusation. I suck in my cheeks, to stop myself from smiling, and take a step further.