My farewell to Sparta was emblazoned on my memory; an image burned against the darkness when I shut my eyes. I built it over and over in my head through the first nights at Mycenae, conjuring the details I had not known I noticed at the time: the tang of salt in the air and the screeching of the gulls overhead; the way the sun struck against the surface of the water, making rainbows in the spray; the white of Menelaus’ knuckles as he clung so tightly to Helen’s arm, as though she might fall and be swept away by the ocean tides if he did not hold her fast.
My arrival at Mycenae, in contrast, was a tumultuous blur of sights and sounds and confusion. I remembered the huge blocks of stone built into a mighty wall around the palace, so vast they could not have been moved by mortal men. Cyclopes had built it, Agamemnon assured me: that brutal and half-wild race of one-eyed giants to whom the lifting of an enormous boulder was no more effort than shifting a sack of barley. He glowed with pride, clasping my hand tightly in his. Beneath his stern demeanour, I could see his delight. I thought it was for me; his joy in showing his newly won kingdom to his newly won bride.
In Sparta, we had lived in the valley with mountains rising to three sides, like friendly guardians overlooking us. Here, the palace was built on high ground, towering above the neighbouring hills, and it felt as though the whole world lay at our feet.
Past the thick stone walls, we entered through a monumental gateway and into the palace itself.
I did not exult in the deep-painted columns, the vivid colours of the frescoes and the gleam of gold, ivory and jewelled adornments everywhere I looked. I could not relish the warm sunlight that poured through the light well in the roof above us, illuminating the great megaron, the throne room from which Agamemnon would rule. In those early days, I felt little but a hollow sickness in my stomach as I yearned for the familiar simplicity of Sparta.
When I had been back at home, just a girl laughing with my sister, I had dismissed the legendary curse upon the House of Atreus. Now, shaken from my roots, I could not stop the thought rustling in the back of my mind, like the stirring of dry leaves swept up in the first chill of autumn. Cursed or not, this was a palace where father had murdered son, where brothers had drawn swords against one another, where Agamemnon had drawn his dagger across his uncle’s throat and let the blood drain across the fragmented tile of the mosaic floor. I knew the slaves had scrubbed it clean, but if you looked closely, you could trace the bloom of the stain where it had spread. Now that I knew where it lay, I could not prevent my eyes from being drawn to it, could not keep myself from picturing Agamemnon in the full blaze of his avenging fury. I could not quite reconcile that image with the man who shared my bed.
It felt almost as though I had two husbands, one that I had never seen before. I had felt his nerves when he stood in our great hall in Sparta. I would not let him see that it was me who felt shy and overwhelmed by the change in my circumstances. I remembered how Helen would behave, cool and imperious, with mischief bubbling in her eyes, and how the strongest of men would be like liquid before her. I might not have the golden blood of Zeus in my veins, but I had learned from my sister, and I assumed her loftiness like a cloak, pulling it around me every day. I tried to make my voice arch and knowing like hers, to pretend that I knew the world’s secrets and that nothing could perturb me. I wanted Agamemnon to find me a challenge and a mystery, not a snivelling, homesick child. I pretended to myself that I was Helen until it felt natural to me; until the control I feigned to wield was truly mine indeed.
And I found, to my surprise, that I was not so insignificant as I might have thought myself here. The attitude of the slaves was reverential, respectful, as I would have expected, though they were less timid than those in Sparta. Here, I felt their eyes upon me, and I had been taken aback by their direct and often friendly gazes. I was even more startled when the slave-woman fastening the rope of glittering gems at my neck stopped for a moment and breathed out, ‘Thank you,’ so softly I barely heard it.
‘For what?’ I asked, twisting my head around to see her more clearly.
She dropped her eyes. She was not young, and her face was lined heavily from a lifetime of slavery.
‘We know that you saved the boy, Aegisthus,’ she murmured. ‘We were glad of the mercy Agamemnon showed him. We know that it came from you.’
‘How do you know that?’
She looked at me directly then. Her palm was warm and dry against my neck. ‘He said it was in your name that he spared the child. He said it when he – when he killed Thyestes.’
I wanted to know more, but it felt too indecorous to probe for details. ‘Were you fond of the boy?’ I asked instead.
She nodded. ‘We all were,’ she said.
I felt the unspoken words burn between us. I wondered what she thought of Agamemnon; how the inhabitants of the palace had felt seeing their former master slain, and whether they celebrated or mourned the return of the rightful king. Would anyone here remember further back, before the usurping Thyestes? Were there aged slaves somewhere who had silently cheered the sparing of Agamemnon and Menelaus when they fled as boys? I felt dizzy, assembling the pieces in my head. It was too much to think of. But what I could be sure about was that my advice to Agamemnon had been sound.
I exulted in telling him as quickly as I could how right he had been to let Aegisthus go, but I was surprised to see his lowering brows draw together.
‘Why would I be pleased to hear the prattling of slaves?’ he grumbled.
I felt wrong-footed, confused by his reaction. ‘You have won their loyalty with your generosity—’ I started, but he cut me off.
‘What does their loyalty matter? I have the throne. I don’t care for the opinion of slaves.’
These were the first words we had spoken at odds since our marriage, and I found myself all at once floundering. ‘It was the wise thing to do,’ I said carefully. ‘No one doubts your power, but when the strong show kindness, people speak their admiration and—’
He swept away my words with an imperious wave. ‘If I had killed the boy, they wouldn’t dare to speak at all.’
I wanted to turn, to walk away from him altogether, so horrified was I by this, but curiosity held me to the spot. ‘Is that what you would prefer?’ I asked.
He brooded for a moment. I feared what he might say next. But in a moment, the storm clouds on his face parted and he looked again like the man I had married. ‘It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks,’ he said. ‘It is done.’
I took what he said for truth, though I had cause to remember that first sharp exchange later.
Before I had lived a year in Mycenae, our first child was born. I had felt relief when I had known myself with child; this baby would extinguish the last flickers I had of insecurity here, for I would be mother to the heir of Mycenae. As well, I felt a powerful surge of gratitude that I would have blood of my blood with me at last. With no sister at my side, I had felt adrift and alone, but with my baby in my arms, I would have my place in the world again.
She was born as dawn broke across the city, as though Eos herself proclaimed my daughter’s existence to the world. I had thought a new baby would be such a fragile, breakable thing, but her soft solidity felt more like an anchor, as though it was she who held me safe in the world, instead of the other way around.
Agamemnon deferred to me for the naming of her, and I knew it at once. ‘Strong-born,’ I said to him, in those precious first hours of her life. ‘That’s what it means.’ He was pleased, thinking I meant that she was a healthy child, pink and full of vitality from the start. But it was the strength I derived from her that I was thinking of when I gave her the name.
He had been proud, benevolent. ‘What is the name?’
I drew in my breath, sore and exhausted but bathed in contentment, so commonplace and magical all at once, and I spoke her name aloud for the first time.
‘Iphigenia.’