“Did you hear that?” Tantalus asks.
She nods. They wait until they hear another knock, as quiet as the first.
Tantalus stands, frowning. “Who can it be? It is not dawn yet.”
He opens the door. A woman is on the other side. In the darkness of the corridor, it takes them a moment to recognize Helen, shivering in her nightgown, her golden hair loose around her shoulders. She isn’t carrying a torch.
“Helen?” Tantalus says, but she jumps forward and puts a hand to his mouth. She hurries inside and closes the door behind her quickly.
Clytemnestra sits up on the bed. “What has happened?”
Helen walks closer to her. Her gown has only one strap, and her left breast is visible, white in the feeble light. “I needed to speak with you.” Her voice is drenched with fear. Clytemnestra gives the baby to Tantalus, who rocks him.
“Please, don’t let him cry,” Helen says.
Tantalus nods. “Where is Menelaus? Does he know you are here?”
“My husband is sleeping,” Helen replies. Her words are rushed, one whisper following the next. “He must not wake.”
Clytemnestra takes her sister’s chin in her hand and forces her to look up, straight into her eyes. “What has he done?” she asks.
Helen turns, showing a small bruise on her neck. “It is nothing,” she says when Clytemnestra opens her mouth to speak. “This is not why I am here.”
“Why?” Clytemnestra says. Anger is taking hold of her, and as always, she can do nothing to stop it. “Why did he do it?”
“He does it when he is angry, to threaten others.” Her tone is matter-of-fact. “But this time I heard him. I was meant to be asleep and he was outside our chamber, speaking to Agamemnon. They said, ‘It is time. We must do it now before it is too late.’”
“What did they mean?” Tantalus asks.
“Please, we have to be quiet. I don’t know. But this isn’t the first time they’ve talked about it. Tyndareus must be involved too. They speak to him often in the megaron, in private.”
“They have taken Mycenae with his help. They are bound by a pact,” Tantalus observes, but Helen shakes her head.
“This is something else. I have tried to spy on them . . . But they mentioned you, Tantalus, then said, ‘We have to be careful even if Tyndareus approves.’”
“What is this?” Clytemnestra stands, agitated. She walks back and forth a few times, Helen staring at her. “Is this the first time he has hit you?”
“I am not afraid of him. This time he hurt me only because he caught me listening. I.” Helen stops and her eyes fill with tears. “I made a mistake in marrying him. I was wrong.” Tears streak her face, like rivers flooding a plain. She covers her face with her hands, shaking silently.
“He will not touch you,” Clytemnestra spits out. “Do you understand? I will make sure he doesn’t touch you again.”
Helen falls to the floor, sobbing at Clytemnestra’s feet. “And now you are leaving, and I deserve it. I deserve everything. I married him only because I was a fool . . . I was jealous of you . . . And Tyndareus told me to do it. When Penelope came to speak to me, to convince me, Tyndareus told me she was just jealous . . .”
The baby cries softly. Tantalus quiets him. “You must not be sorry, Helen,” he says. “What is done is done.”
“I will protect you,” Clytemnestra says. “I will speak to them. I will end this.” She draws her sister to her, and Helen curls into her arms. She weeps silently, and when she is spent, she wipes her face and stands up.
“I have to go now, or he will notice.”
Clytemnestra hurries between her and the door. “You can’t.”
“I must.” Helen gives her a sad smile, her cheeks glistening with tears. “He won’t hurt me. He is sleeping.”
She rushes out of the room and fades into the darkness of the corridor.
*
When Tantalus has fallen asleep, the baby bundled in his arms, Clytemnestra goes to the window. The raindrops are hitting the earth as musicians’ hands beat the tympanon, the rhythm like a song for gods.
No one has ever hurt her sister without paying the consequences. It is strange that she, Clytemnestra, is so used to pain that it doesn’t bother her, as long as it isn’t Helen’s. Why can she bear her own so well yet can’t accept her sister’s? It must be because she believes Helen can’t take it. She imagines Menelaus raising a hand to her sister and Helen covering herself, like a bird hides under its wings. The thought spreads and festers until she can no longer breathe and her entire body is clenched like a fist.
Helen is lost in a game too powerful for her. But these lies and secrets, these threats and games must stop. I will stop them.
12
The Bird with Crushed Wings
CLYTEMNESTRA WAKES WHEN the sun is already high in the sky, a sense of purpose tightening her body. After the storm, the air is cool and the day bright. She wears a light-brown tunic and ties back her hair. Tantalus and the baby are sleeping together on the other side of the bed. Her family. She shakes her husband gently, and when he opens his turquoise eyes, she whispers, “Stay with the baby today.”
“Where are you going?” He frowns, suddenly alert. “Do not do anything stupid, Clytemnestra.”
She smiles and turns back to give him one last kiss. “Don’t worry about me. Look after our baby.”
She walks in the semideserted corridors, her bare feet silent on the stone floor. She passes two older servants carrying dead chickens, and Cynisca, who hurries in the opposite direction without a word. She can hear the loud chatter of the women coming from the village, the pleading of a family trying to enter the megaron to speak to the king. She ignores it all and keeps moving, past the baths and narrow storerooms, down a large corridor that leads to the dining hall.
She thought about it last night while she was staring at the ceiling, wide awake and restless. At first, she wanted to talk to Menelaus, but then she understood it would be the wrong move. It is no use to clean an infected wound on the surface if a splinter remains inside, festering. You must cut through the skin and remove it before it corrupts everything else. And Menelaus is no splinter: he merely does what his brother tells him to. She must deal with Agamemnon.
She finds him in the dining hall, alone, the light spilling softly from the windows onto his tall figure. He is sitting at the head of the table, her father’s seat, sipping red wine from a painted jug. As she walks toward him, he looks up at her. If he is surprised to see her, he doesn’t show it. She remains standing, quiet, and for a moment, a feeling comes over her, the need to run back to her baby and keep him safe. But she has never run away from confrontation.
“You have something to say to me,” Agamemnon points out, half smiling. Smiles don’t look good on his hard face. “What is it?”
“Your brother hurt my sister.” Her words are flat, as she has heard her father speak so many times when facing an opponent. “He won’t do it again, or he will pay.”
He seems amused and picks up some grapes left on the table. “What my brother does to your sister shouldn’t concern you. She is his now.” He puts them into his mouth.
She looks at the blade he keeps at his waist. “No, she isn’t.”
“Your father says you can be difficult from time to time. That you do not know your place.” The words jar her. Why would her father say such a thing to Agamemnon? He stares at her, coldness in his eyes. “I expect your foreign husband likes that. But that is not how women speak to kings here.”
Clytemnestra takes the grapes from his hands and throws them onto the floor. They splatter, purple juice staining the walls. Let him learn that I speak as I choose.