“When you are fighting a much stronger animal, intelligence isn’t enough,” Leda replies.
The Spartan boy is waiting for Agamemnon to go straight at him, walking around to catch him in a moment of imbalance. He has a lean face, dark and sharp-eyed. Agamemnon tries to grab him, but the boy jumps to his right. In a second, before Clytemnestra’s eyes can trace the moves, Agamemnon tips the boy over. The Spartan falls facedown and makes a strangled sound. He starts to crawl, but Agamemnon jumps onto his back. He grabs the boy’s neck, his large, scarred hands closing in. The boy’s face sinks into the sand; blood gushes from his nose. He wriggles, desperate to breathe, but he is choking on his own blood. There is the cracking sound of ribs breaking, and Clytemnestra can’t help but think of the sound of criminals’ bodies crashing against the rocks of the Ceadas. She turns to her sister, but Timandra doesn’t flinch. She too knows the sound well.
Leda runs onto the wrestling ground; her feet sink into the wet sand. She seizes Agamemnon’s arm and pushes him backward, shielding the Spartan with her own body. For a moment, Clytemnestra thinks Agamemnon will strike her mother, but he only looks at her, surprised. Behind her, the Spartan boy emits a low, painful sound. He is alive.
“Stand,” Leda orders.
Agamemnon brushes the red sand off his hands against his thighs. Then, without a word to Leda, he walks straight toward Clytemnestra. He comes into the shade of the trees and takes her arm gently, surprising her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Timandra tighten her grip on her spear.
“I hope you enjoyed the fight, my queen,” Agamemnon says. It is the first time he talks to her. His expression is hard as rock and his features too sharp, as if carved by a careless sculptor.
“Leda is your queen,” says Clytemnestra. Agamemnon ignores her. He lets go of her arm, and Clytemnestra feels her skin burning where his fingertips touched her.
“I’ve heard that you’re good at wrestling,” he says. “Women aren’t trained like men where I come from.”
“I’m sorry for them,” Clytemnestra replies.
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t answer. His quiet is frustrating. She wishes she could strike him or run away as he studies her, his eyes peeling off her skin. But she stays where she is. When he finally turns to walk away from the gymnasium, she joins her mother on the wrestling ground. Timandra drops the spear and hurries behind her. Together, they stare at the broken body of the Spartan boy.
“Timandra,” Leda says, “find the physician. And bring some opium.”
Her daughter scampers away, quick as a cat. Leda glances at Clytemnestra, then at the portico where Agamemnon had been seconds before.
“He likes you,” she says finally. Her green eyes have a flat look, like aging copper.
“Can’t he see that I’m pregnant?”
Leda shakes her head. “Some men want only the things they cannot have.”
*
Clytemnestra walks back to the palace alone. The water in the Eurotas is the color of silver and the land around it is like liquid bronze. She thinks about Leda and the priestess, facing each other in the megaron. Her mother was right but shameless. She was the one who had taught Clytemnestra there are always better ways to treat your opponents, better ways to humiliate them. But all she had done was humiliate herself. Why hadn’t she sent away the priestess? Perhaps she’d tried but Tyndareus hadn’t allowed it. The thought is painful, like a sharp cut on the throat.
Rain is falling. She hurries along the path, her sandals muddied already. When she gets to the stables, she stops, catching her breath, taking shelter next to a mare and her foal. She pats them, listening to the raindrops pounding the ground.
Then she hears another sound, somewhere to her left. She listens more carefully, hiding behind the bales of hay. It is a soft cry—she can hear it clearly now. She steps closer, and behind a large stack of hay, she sees Agamemnon’s back. His tunic—still stained with the boy’s blood, Clytemnestra notices—is rolled up above his waist, and his hands are on a young woman’s hips. The girl is moaning and crying but Clytemnestra can’t see her face. She steps forward, thinking of the bruised helot.
“Leave her alone,” she says, her voice loud over the rain.
Agamemnon turns quickly, his hand flying to the knife dangling from his tunic. The girl stands, not bothering to cover her naked body, and smiles at the sight of Clytemnestra. It is Cynisca.
“What do you want?” she asks. There are scars wrapping around her strong legs, like snakes. Her breasts are small, her nipples large and brown. There is a big birthmark on one breast, which Clytemnestra has never noticed in the gymnasium. She turns to Agamemnon, whose hand is tight on his knife. It is different from Spartan daggers, more like the kind of blade men use for gutting pigs.
“Put that away,” she orders.
He doesn’t. “It was you who interrupted us.”
“This is my palace.”
“And I am your guest.”
Cynisca puts on her chiton, which she covers with a longer cloak. “Go back to the palace, my lord,” she says. “I will come soon.”
He turns to her with his hard look but doesn’t seem annoyed. He leaves without looking at Clytemnestra, his figure quickly swallowed by the darkness and the rain.
Cynisca bends to tie her sandals. “You can’t always have everything, you know,” she says.
Clytemnestra frowns. “Do you really think I would want someone like him?”
Cynisca looks up at her. Suddenly she laughs. “You thought he was raping me.”
“I didn’t know it was you.”
“Or you wouldn’t have stopped him?”
Clytemnestra hesitates.
“Never mind,” Cynisca continues. “Now you know he doesn’t force me to do anything. Anyone would be lucky to be with a man like him.”
“I don’t think so.”
Cynisca laughs, scornful. “That’s because you don’t see power when you have it in front of you.”
She has finished tying her sandals. She gives Clytemnestra one last triumphant look, as though she has just won a wrestling match, then walks away.
*
When Clytemnestra finally reaches the palace, she is drenched and shivering. The corridors smell damp and musty, and the torches are burning out. She hurries to the gynaeceum and knocks on the door of the bedroom she used to share with Helen. It opens straightaway. Her sister stands against the jamb, a thick woolen tunic wrapped around her.
“What is it?”
“Can I sleep here tonight?” Clytemnestra asks.
“Of course.” Helen gives her a feeble smile. “I don’t sleep much when I am alone anyway.”
“Neither do I.” Clytemnestra sits on the wooden stool next to the bed, and Helen gives her a warm woolen tunic.
“Cynisca was in the stables with Agamemnon,” Clytemnestra says when her teeth have stopped chattering. “He was inside her.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw them. Just now.”
Helen shrugs. “Cruel people always find each other.”
Clytemnestra wraps her feet in the tunic, feeling for each toe. “There is something different about him,” she says.
“Yes,” Helen agrees.
“I don’t like being near him.”
Helen gives her a little smile. “Perhaps because he scares you. The only people who frighten you are those whose motives you can’t see.”
She sits on her stool and pours some diluted wine for herself. On the table, next to the wine jug, there is a golden necklace with petaled rosettes. Clytemnestra has never seen anything so beautiful. “Where did you find that?”
Helen looks at the necklace absently, her golden hair loose around her shoulders. The two of them look so different now that they barely seem blood-related. “It doesn’t matter,” she says.
Clytemnestra is ready to argue, but Helen is quicker. “What do you think it means?” she asks. “The prophecy.” She lifts her head, her eyes burning as they always do when she wants answers from her sister.
Clytemnestra catches her breath. Her face feels suddenly numb. “I don’t think it means anything.”
Helen stares at her. “You don’t believe in it.”