The servants are staring at him, uneasy. There is desperation in their eyes, and Tantalus pities them. “I will come,” he says.
He follows them around the winding corridors while the baby keeps whining. Tantalus hushes him. Halfway through, he realizes he has not brought any weapon with him, not even his small knife with glittering rubies, a gift from his late grandfather . . . He is being too fearful again. In front of him, the servants quicken their pace. Instead of turning right toward the megaron, they turn left in a windowless corridor, where a single torch is burning. He stops and takes a few steps back. At the opposite end of the corridor is Agamemnon.
“I thought you were bringing me to the king?” Tantalus asks.
“I am king,” Agamemnon replies. “King of Mycenae.”
The baby has become silent. He clutches the sling, his wide eyes as he stares around.
“Whatever you want to discuss, Agamemnon,” Tantalus says, “we can do it somewhere else.”
“Give your baby to the servant, foreigner,” Agamemnon orders.
Something wrong is happening, Tantalus thinks. There are no guards around, no one he can call.
“Why should I?”
Agamemnon fingers the handle of his sword. Unlike Tantalus, he is carrying two knives and a long bronze blade. They say he is better trained than most Spartans, that he has defeated men much younger and stronger than him. They say he has crushed someone’s skull with one hand.
“Give him to them,” Agamemnon orders again. “I want to make this quick.”
The servants move forward. Tantalus shoves them away—he is stronger than them after all. Holding the baby to his heart, he runs toward the megaron. Agamemnon’s steps behind him are loud, heavy blows against the stones. There is an older woman near the entrance of the hall, the servant who always brings food inside. In desperation, Tantalus shoves the baby into her hands. “Take him and go! Run!”
The woman’s mouth drops open, but she does as she is told. The baby starts crying. Tantalus turns to face Agamemnon. He is walking slowly toward him, a lion facing his cornered prey.
“Kill me,” Tantalus says. “Do not harm the baby.” He is aware of the woman hurrying away to his right. He hopes she will find Clytemnestra.
Agamemnon gives him a weak smile. “I cannot.”
“Have you no mercy?”
Agamemnon takes a step forward, his long sword in his large hand.
“MURDER!” Tantalus shouts. “BETRAYAL—” The blade flies, bright and sharp, and slashes Tantalus. As he falls on his knees, his hands filled with his own blood, he thinks, Where is Clytemnestra?
*
Leda is drinking wine in the megaron when she hears a call for help. The doors of the main hall are thick and muffle even the loudest sounds, but the cry is high enough to reach her. Blood beats in her ears. She stands, dropping the cup. Wine spills on the floor. Before she can stumble forward, Tyndareus grabs her arm.
“Someone called for help,” she says.
“Stay,” Tyndareus says. He seems agitated, but his grip is firm. She shakes him off and runs out.
She is the first to see. Not far from the door, Tantalus is bleeding on the floor, a long cut slashing his body. Leda screams and walks closer. His eyes are empty, the color of the morning sky without clouds. He has a sling around his torso, but where is the baby? Leda looks around. There is something like a blood-stained bundle not far from Tantalus. Marpessa, the old helot who always brings food from the kitchen, is dead, her ragged tunic around her like a shell. And in her arms, Leda’s grandson. Leda collapses next to them. No. No, no, no, no. She takes the baby and shakes him, but he is dead. A sudden thought comes to her, and she almost faints right there.
“Clytemnestra?” Her voice comes out as a whisper. “Where is she?”
“She is alive,” a voice says.
Leda turns. Tyndareus is standing next to Agamemnon. A knowing look passes between them, like hunting dogs before they maul a deer. She runs to her husband and shouts with all the strength in her body, “WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
*
When Timandra opens her eyes, her face is full of blood and mud. She can barely breathe. She groans and rolls onto her back. The alleyway smells terrible. Onions and old bread crusts are rotting somewhere on her right. She cleans the mud from her mouth and nose. The blood comes from her head. She touches it, and pain makes her gasp. She finds the stone that Cynisca used to hit her and remembers. She needs to run back to the palace. Her hands sink into the mud and litter and her knees shake, but she manages to stand. Cynisca is nowhere in sight. There are voices far away, close to the square. Is anyone hurt? She stumbles onto the main street, stepping on rotten peaches. The light is blinding, but she follows the voices. People are gathering in the square, craning their necks. Some are whispering, agitated, others pushing and shoving. Timandra stops an old woman carrying a basket of bread. “What is it? Is anyone dead?”
The woman gives her a fearful look. “They say it’s the princess’s son. The Atreidai murdered him.”
Timandra starts running. She can hardly stand and keeps bumping into the walls, blood trickling down her neck, but she doesn’t stop. Tears stream down her cheeks and blind her. It is the first time she is frightened for someone else, not only for herself. The feeling makes her choke.
*
Helen has heard the first scream, then the second, and the third. She has kept her place on the stool, even when she was sure the voice was her mother’s. Sounds echo around the corridors of the palace faintly, like the fluttering of bat wings in a cave. The servant boy is staring at her, waiting for a reaction. He doesn’t know she has long learned to school her face to dullness. Only the gods know how she is crying inside.
She lets the hair loose on her back, twists her neck, as though easing back pain. She touches the pin of her dress and lets one strap fall. The servant blushes, his cheeks red as apples. He wants to look, but at the same time, he doesn’t.
“Come,” Helen orders. She keeps her voice sweet and quiet. The servant can only obey. He walks closer, staring at Helen’s long neck, her breasts barely visible.
“Closer.” She beckons. “I won’t bite.” She sinks her husband’s knife into the servant’s knee. He shouts but she silences him, her hand clasped on his mouth.
“What is happening outside?” she whispers. “What is Menelaus doing?” The servant shakes his head, and Helen shows him the blade. “Speak now.”
“They were looking for the king of Maeonia and the baby.”
Helen lets him go and he drops to the floor, holding his leg. She hides the knife in her dress and climbs out the window onto the adjacent terrace. She fixes her shoulder strap as she runs, corridor after corridor. At last, she arrives at the megaron.
She sees the whole thing in pieces. Her mother holding the dead baby. Tantalus’s bloodied hands. Timandra, her face baked with mud, trying to hold her sister. Clytemnestra is mad, tearing her tunic apart. She is trying to grab a blade to slash her own throat. Helen jumps forward and joins Timandra. Clytemnestra cries and bites like a panther, but together, they manage to take her down, their beating hearts the only comfort to their sister.
13
The Atreidai’s Wives
HER FEET ARE soaked in Tantalus’s blood. She can smell it, the pain that is filling the palace, permeating its walls. Clytemnestra knows that the smell will never go away; it has entered too deep. Somewhere buried under the odor of blood, the scent of her husband is fading. She is losing him as she holds him tight, and the blood streaming from his chest stains her tunic. She cries. All she can see is the scarlet cut on Tantalus’s body. A sweet voice is talking to her, far away. It must be Helen’s. She can barely hear it as his dead body is carried away from her, like a puppet, broken and useless. She faints, overwhelmed with pain, as Helen’s voice, like a lullaby, guides her to a place of nightmares.