The hall is large and bare, its tall windows opening onto the plain. There are only a few old weapons hanging on the walls and a long table, dark wood scratched and faded, where men and women usually eat together.
“Make sure no one has stolen from the grain stores,” Leda is telling the servants, “and leave some wine for the king when he comes back from his journey.” She dismisses them with a wave of the hand, and they slip out of the room, as silent as fish moving through water.
Phoebe wipes her hands on her brown tunic and leans toward her mother. “When will Father be back?” she asks. She and Philonoe are still little, with their mother’s deep-green eyes and olive skin.
“Your father and your brothers will return from the games tonight,” Leda says, savoring her cheese. Clytemnestra’s uncle has been hosting races in Acarnania, and young men have gathered from every Greek city to participate.
“It will be as boring as an elders’ meeting, Sister,” Castor had told Clytemnestra before he left. “You will have more fun here, hunting and helping Mother to run the palace.” He had brushed his lips against her forehead and Clytemnestra had smiled at his lie. He knew how much she wanted to come.
“Do you think Castor and Polydeuces have won anything?” Philonoe asks.
“Of course they have,” Timandra says, her teeth sinking into the juicy pork flesh. She is thirteen, with stark, uninteresting features—she looks much like her father. “Polydeuces is stronger than any Spartan, and Castor runs faster than the gods.”
Philonoe smiles, satisfied, and Phoebe yawns, slipping a piece of meat under the table for the house dogs.
“Mother, why don’t you tell us a story?” she asks. “Father always tells the same ones.”
Leda smiles. “Clytemnestra will tell you a story.”
“Do you want to hear of the time Castor and I killed that wolf?” Clytemnestra asks.
Phoebe claps her hands. “Yes, yes!”
So Clytemnestra tells her stories, and her sisters listen. Blood and death don’t frighten them because they are still young, growing up in a world of myths and goddesses, and they don’t yet understand the difference between what is real and what is not.
*
Outside the window, the sky is orange-flushed. Someone is singing in the village, and the air is hot and sweet.
“Timandra is so like you,” Helen says, ready for bed. Their room is at the very end of the gynaeceum, the women’s apartments, and has walls painted with simple images—red flowers, blue birds, golden fish. There are two wooden stools where their dresses are neatly folded, a water bowl, and a bed of Egyptian ebony—a gift from the Athenian Theseus to Helen when she was fourteen.
Clytemnestra lifts a handful of water to wash her face.
“Do you think she looks like you? Timandra?” Helen repeats.
“Hmm. Yes.”
“She is mischievous.”
Clytemnestra laughs, wiping her forehead. “Are you saying I am mischievous?”
Helen tilts her head, frowning. “That is not what I meant.”
“I know.” Clytemnestra lies down on the bed next to her sister, looking at the ceiling. She sometimes likes to think it is painted with stars. “Are you tired?” she asks.
“No,” Helen whispers. She hesitates, taking a breath. “Father will come back tonight, and tomorrow he’ll tell you and Timandra all about the races. He loves you very much.”
Clytemnestra waits. She feels for the scar on her back, touching its jagged ends.
“It must be because I have never killed anything,” Helen says.
“It is not,” Clytemnestra says. “You know it is because he thinks Leda had another man.”
“Well, did she?”
How many times have they had this conversation? Clytemnestra sighs, ready to repeat what she always tells her. “It doesn’t matter. You are Leda’s daughter and my sister. Now, let us rest awhile.”
No matter how many times she says it, Helen listens as if it were the first. She gives Clytemnestra a small smile and closes her eyes, her body relaxing. Clytemnestra waits until she hears Helen’s rhythmic breathing, then turns to her. She looks at her sister’s perfect skin, smooth as an amphora ready to be painted, and wonders, When did we start lying to each other?
*
The next morning is wrestling day. The servants brush and flatten the sand in the gymnasium, then carry a high-backed chair under the shade of the trees. The Spartiates gather in one corner of the ground. Some are restless, picking up handfuls of sand, while others stand quietly, touching old bruises. Clytemnestra stretches her arms while Helen ties back her hair so that the strands don’t fall into her face. Her sister’s fingers on her head are gentle.
Up on the hill, the palace bathes in the hot sun opposite the river and mountains, which are cool and shaded. The exercise yard is quiet, half hidden by rocks and tall grass. Often in spring and autumn, the girls come here for their music and poetry classes, but it is too warm now, the sun high overhead, hot air sticking to the skin like wet sand.
A small group of men appears on the dusty path that runs from the palace. The servants move away from the courtyard, crouching behind the trees, and the Spartiates fall silent. Clytemnestra watches the warriors take their places around the yard as her father sits on the high-backed chair. Tyndareus is short but strong, his legs stiff with muscles. His eyes linger on the girls, bright and sharp as an eagle’s. Then he clears his throat. “You live to honor Sparta and your king. You fight so that you may have strong, healthy children and rule your houses. You fight to prove your loyalty to the city. You fight to belong. Survival, courage, and strength are your duties.”
“Survival, courage, and strength are our duties,” the girls say in unison.
“Who will start?” Tyndareus asks. He casts a quick glance in the direction of Clytemnestra. She looks back at him but remains silent. It can be foolish to challenge the other girls straightaway—her brother has taught her that. She has wrestled the Spartiates for years, yet there are always new things she can learn about them, secret moves they haven’t shown her yet. It is important that she observe them first.
Eupoleia steps forward. She chooses her adversary, a thin girl whose name Clytemnestra doesn’t know, and so the wrestling begins.
Eupoleia is slow but violent. She shouts and tries to grab the other by the hair. The girl looks scared and edges around slowly, like a stray cat. When Eupoleia aims at her head once again, the girl doesn’t jump far enough, and Eupoleia’s fist meets her jaw. The girl falls and doesn’t stand. The game is over.
Tyndareus looks disappointed. He doesn’t come often to watch them train, and when he does, he expects a good fight. “Someone else,” he says.
Cynisca steps forward, and the other girls make space, like frightened dogs. Daughter of an army comrade of Tyndareus, she is tall with a beak nose and strong legs. Clytemnestra remembers when Cynisca tried to steal her toy, a painted clay figure of a warrior, years ago at the marketplace.
“Who are you fighting, Cynisca?” Tyndareus asks.
Something in Cynisca’s eyes stirs Clytemnestra’s blood. Before she can volunteer to fight her, Cynisca speaks: “Helen.”
The girls gasp. No one has ever challenged Helen before, because they know the fight would be too easy, and there is no honor in that. They are afraid that Tyndareus might intervene in favor of his daughter, but Tyndareus doesn’t favor anyone. Everyone looks at him, waiting for an answer. He nods.
“No,” Clytemnestra says. She takes her sister’s arm.
Tyndareus frowns. “She can fight like any other Spartan.”
“I will fight,” Clytemnestra replies.