“If I see another bruise on my sister’s body,” Clytemnestra says, her voice shaking with rage, “I will kill and gut you like dead fish.”
Agamemnon stares at the juice on the floor. In a second, he grabs his blade with one hand and Clytemnestra with the other, shoving her onto the table. She feels the coolness of the knife against her neck, the overturned jug against her shoulders, wine pouring onto the table, wetting her hair.
She bites his hand. Warm blood trickles through her teeth. He doesn’t let her go, so she kicks him in the groin. He steps back and she stands, pushing him to the floor. He doesn’t fall but swings, the knife tight in his hand. Clytemnestra grabs the overturned jug and throws it at him. He bends, dodges it. They stare at each other. Then he looks down at his bleeding hand as though the arm didn’t belong to him. The sight makes him laugh. She jumps toward him, but he is quicker and grabs her by the neck, choking her.
“You must learn your place among men, Clytemnestra,” he says. His words are whips, slashing at her hurting throat. “You are too proud, too arrogant.”
She feels her face become purple, air leaving her lungs. “You are the same,” she croaks, “if you kill me.”
He drops her. She hits the floor, like a dead animal after a sacrifice.
“Kill you?” Agamemnon says. “I never wanted to kill you.” He comes closer, kneels beside her. Clytemnestra makes an inarticulate noise, clutching at her throat. She tries to move, but he pushes her back. “Stay down, Clytemnestra. Learn your place.”
And he leaves her on the floor, alone but alive in the high-roofed hall.
*
Maybe I should cut myself and pretend I’ve been beaten, Timandra thinks. So Father won’t be suspicious when I go back to the palace.
She is lying on the wet earth of the town garden. Ants pass around her in endless lines, and she can smell the fig and almond trees, their branches thick above her. The silence is delicate, disturbed only by the fluttering of wings and the rhythmic breathing of Chrysanthe next to her. She turns. Chrysanthe is staring at the sky. There is a scar on her shoulder where Timandra cut her during training, and some of her fingers are still broken. She shifts, and her black curls tickle Timandra’s shoulder. Desire floods Timandra’s heart, as powerful as a swollen river.
“Is your sister covering for us again?” Chrysanthe asks.
“Not today,” Timandra replies. “She has to care for the baby.”
“Can’t servants do it for her?”
Timandra laughs. “That is not my sister. She would never put her child in someone else’s arms, let alone a servant’s.”
“So no one is covering for us,” Chrysanthe says.
Timandra caresses her face. Chrysanthe has very clear eyes, like snow-melt streams.
“Don’t worry. Clytemnestra protects us. For as long as she is here, we are safe.”
Chrysanthe opens her mouth to protest, but Timandra kisses her. They haven’t kissed many times. Their lips are clumsy: they are too eager to taste each other. Chrysanthe leans forward and Timandra backward.
“I should go now,” Timandra says. Pleasure still frightens her, because she isn’t used to it.
“I will go first,” Chrysanthe says. “It is better.” She stands and races away among the plants and flowers of the garden, toward the square. Timandra rests a little in the shade. Dear gods, she thinks, let me be with Chrysanthe forever. If Clytemnestra approves, why can’t everyone else? Sometimes it seems to her that every Spartan rule was made to keep her unhappy. Why does she have to marry a man? Why does she have to be taken with force after the marriage? Why does she have to be whipped if she doesn’t obey? Why does she have to threaten others to make them listen? She spots a small snake hiding in a crack in the earth. It is time to go back. Her knees are muddy as usual, and her hair is full of twigs. She hops around the garden and takes the steep, narrow road back to the palace.
When she turns the first corner, she bumps into Cynisca. A dark tunic clings to her strong body, a veil covering her head. There is something threatening about her. Blood freezes in Timandra’s veins. If Cynisca has seen her . . .
“Timandra,” Cynisca says. Her voice is like Tyndareus’s when he scolds her.
“Cynisca.”
“You can’t go back to the palace.” Her tone is sharp, but her orders mean nothing to a princess.
“Leave me alone,” Timandra says, walking past her. That is her mistake. She feels Cynisca move behind her, but when she turns, it is too late. Cynisca hits her head, and she falls to the ground. Her sight is blurred, her head pounding. She tries to move her arms, but a weight is keeping her down, crushing her fingers.
“It is for your own good,” Cynisca adds, banging Timandra’s head against a stone. Everything goes dark.
*
Helen opens her eyes, barely breathing. She was dreaming that she couldn’t wake up. Someone was pinning her to the ground—she could feel cold stones under her back and hear a man’s voice, laughing. “Stop fighting,” he was telling her, and there was scorn in his tone, as though she were a lizard pinned to the earth, uselessly wriggling.
It was Theseus. She hasn’t dreamed of him for a long time. Something bad is going to happen, she knows it. She pulls herself up shivering, touching her head where Theseus hit her in the dream.
Menelaus is dressing in a corner of the room. A servant is sitting on a stool at his feet, polishing his sandals. Helen stands quietly and her husband looks at her, as if annoyed that she is up.
“I will be gone all day,” he says. He is wearing armor, Helen notices. She feels a tingling in her skin, urging her to run to Clytemnestra. She needs to tell her sister about the dream.
“You will wait here?” Menelaus asks. She didn’t expect the question. He never asks about her. She hesitates for a moment too long.
“That was not a question, Helen,” Menelaus says.
She grasps his hand, panic fluttering inside her. “I wanted to take some air. I am not feeling well.”
Menelaus shakes his head. “You can’t. You will have to wait here. Someone will bring you herbs to help you feel better.” He goes to the door and she hurries behind him, almost knocking the servant down.
“Why can’t I leave?” she asks, her voice drenched with fear.
Menelaus turns and pushes her back. “You need to be safe,” he says. “The servant will keep you company.” He opens the door and closes it quickly behind him. Helen lunges forward but the door doesn’t open. He has locked it from the outside. She hits the wall with her hands, screaming.
“Open it! Let me out, Menelaus!”
She hears him mutter from the other side, “Be quiet, Helen, or the servant will make you.” She turns just in time to see the helot boy advancing in her direction. She jumps away and grabs the knife Menelaus has left under his pillow.
“Stay away,” she says. “You take no orders from him.”
The helot backs down. “I have to make sure you stay here,” he mutters. “I have to make sure you are safe, Princess.”
Helen spits at him, then throws the table against the door. “LET ME OUT!”
*
“You are wanted in the megaron, my lord.”
Tantalus turns and sees two young servants waiting for him by the door of the chamber. They are dark-skinned, their arms covered with cuts and bruises, and in their eyes, there is a flicker of fear. Behind him, the baby whines. He hasn’t been nursed yet this morning. Tantalus wraps him in a piece of light cloth and puts him in the sling he prepared earlier.
“Who calls for me?” he asks as he makes sure the baby is comfortable.
“The king.”
Is it his impression, or was the servant’s voice shaking slightly? Since the baby was born, he sees danger everywhere: bees flying around him, dogs roaming the palace, weapons hanging on the walls. It is the impression the palace of Sparta has made on him from the very beginning—a place of violence and danger.