“Twelve.” Diomedes shrugs. Timandra stirs next to Tyndareus, suddenly aware of her own age.
After a while, the fire burns out and the lights flicker feebly, like stars in a cloudy sky. Leda seems asleep on her chair, and Helen has to help her out of the room when the dinner is over. Helen doesn’t reappear from her mother’s room, so when the soldiers start leaving the hall, their foreheads greasy and their eyes tired, Clytemnestra and Penelope go to sleep together. When they reach the entrance to the gynaeceum, Penelope mumbles something about forgetting her cloak and runs back to the hall. Clytemnestra waits for her in the room, opening the windows to let in some air. The wind is colder than a blade, cutting her skin, but she enjoys it after hours spent in the crowded hall. She takes off her blue dress and curls up under the thick blankets.
Penelope bursts in, panting. She is holding up her tunic to avoid tripping, and the fabric is now crumpled around her waist.
“What is it?” Clytemnestra sits up.
“Prince Odysseus was talking to your father—I heard them,” she says, breathless.
“What about?”
“About me, but I couldn’t hear properly.” She frowns. “I think they were making a kind of agreement.”
“An agreement?”
Penelope shakes her head. She paces the room briefly, then jumps onto the bed next to Clytemnestra.
“I like that prince,” Clytemnestra says.
Penelope chortles. “I do too. He sounds like your husband.”
“You think so? He gave me the same impression.”
“Yes, they are different from the others. They have something dark about them, though it’s hard to say what.” She thinks for a moment, then adds with a smile, “Talking to them is like entering a cave.”
Clytemnestra knows the feeling—moving in the darkness and feeling each stone, finding each secret with your hands, step by step.
“They draw you in with questions about yourself,” Penelope continues.
Clytemnestra laughs. “That is Tantalus’s specialty.”
Penelope moves closer to her, warming her feet under the blankets. She has goose bumps on her arms. “And what did you think of that man, Diomedes?”
“Disgusting,” Clytemnestra says. “Even worse than Menelaus.”
“I thought so too.”
“And Ajax the Great. He looks like an oversized boar, hairs and all.”
Penelope laughs. “He does! And when he talked of women moaning—”
“If I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have challenged him to a wrestle, right there in the hall.”
“Oh, I wish you had. You would have kicked the arrogance out of him.”
They keep laughing as they go through all Helen’s suitors, huddled close in the bed, and Clytemnestra’s baby kicks, giggling with them.
*
The morning is even colder than it was the day before. In the gynaeceum, servant girls hurry around, whispering to each other while helping the women dress. Penelope has already disappeared to find Helen and convince her to choose the right suitor. Clytemnestra stands by the window while a servant does her hair. She feels the girl plaiting two short strands backward, pulling the hair away from her forehead. A myrtle crown lies on the stool beside them, its golden leaves sharp to the touch.
Last night, she dreamed of Tantalus again. He always comes to her in her dreams, with his warm skin and bright blue eyes. The people are ready. He smiled. They know a Spartan woman is soon coming to be their queen. I’ve told them that you are fierce and that you are not afraid to fight for what is right. When she opened her eyes, the moon was as small as a fingernail, and the bed was empty.
“Princess Clytemnestra?” the servant says.
Clytemnestra looks out the window. In the frost-covered valley, Menelaus and Agamemnon are riding to the palace. Just in time.
“Are those—” the helot starts.
“The Atreidai, yes,” Clytemnestra says sharply.
The girl falls silent and works on the last touches. Two small earrings to match the diadem. A white tunic, smooth and thin. A lynx’s skin to cover her shoulders. The servant brings a basin of cold water, and Clytemnestra plunges her face into it.
She is ready.
*
When the servants open the wooden doors of the megaron, suitors fill the room like locusts. They are all wearing their best tunics, gold, silver, and crimson, the symbols of their islands and cities visible on their cloak pins and daggers. Tyndareus sits on the throne near the hearth, his beard trimmed, a thin golden crown on his gray hair. Next to him, Leda looks beautiful with anemone earrings dangling down her neck and lambskins hanging over her shoulders. Clytemnestra smiles. It is like looking into a clear stream and seeing herself in twenty years.
Helen is already seated on a chair, draped with brown cowhide, on a small dais positioned in front of the painted wall. There is a veil around her head, covering her golden hair. She is quite still, so that the colorful frescoes of dancing women frame her perfectly. She could be part of the painting, and indeed, exposed like that on the dais, she looks more like a fading fresco. Feeling her sister’s gaze on her, she turns and their eyes lock. Clytemnestra wants to run to her, grab her, and take her away from this, to the tall reeds of the river or among the trees that grow on the mountains. But then Helen looks away.
“They should have let her sit next to your father,” Penelope whispers in Clytemnestra’s ear, suddenly at her side. Clytemnestra didn’t even hear her coming.
“Did you speak to her?” she asks quietly.
“I did,” Penelope says. She has also plaited her hair, and the style enhances her soft lips and gentle features.
“And?”
“She seemed convinced. I praised Idomeneus, who is quite handsome,” she says, turning quickly to her left, where the Cretan prince stands, “and Machaon, because Helen has an interest in the art of healing, does she not?”
“She does,” says Clytemnestra, impressed by her cousin’s attentiveness. She cranes her neck to see Machaon. He has calloused yet gentle-seeming hands and long, curly hair. Clytemnestra tries to picture her sister next to him, her gleaming beauty clashing with his coarse looks.
As the men stand in the center of the room, their servants holding precious gifts, Clytemnestra notices the son of Laertes leaning casually against one of the columns, his hands empty and his servants nowhere to be seen. How does he think to woo Helen without a gift?
Leda beckons to Clytemnestra, and she approaches the throne. Phoebe and Philonoe stand next to their mother, each wearing a thick cloak adorned with a golden pin. Tyndareus seems annoyed.
“What is it?” Clytemnestra asks.
“Find your sister Timandra,” Leda says. “She is not here.”
“Be quick,” Tyndareus orders. “The Atreidai are coming, so we will start soon.”
Clytemnestra nods and walks out of the hall. A few servants are standing outside in a line, flattened against the walls in the shadows, ready to answer Tyndareus’s orders.
“Have you seen Timandra?” Clytemnestra asks.
A young boy blushes, but the older helot next to him answers, “She was just here—”
“Your sister is on the terrace.”
Clytemnestra turns. On the opposite side of the corridor, wearing a crimson tunic, Agamemnon is walking in her direction, his brother behind him. It has been two months since they last saw each other, and now he is staring at her large belly, distaste spread over his hard features. She resists the urge to cover it with her hands.
“You’d better fetch her before she does something stupid,” he says.
“What my sister does doesn’t concern you,” Clytemnestra replies.
Menelaus snorts. He is holding another wrapped tunic in his hand, the fabric woven with wonderful figures, though Clytemnestra can’t see it properly. She turns to Agamemnon. “You have not brought any gift.”
“I am not here to claim your sister.”
“Come, Brother,” Menelaus says, clapping a hand around his shoulder. Together they walk toward the megaron, their steps heavy on the stone floor.