“You can’t go in there alone,” he remonstrates. She ignores him and moves the cloth aside, stepping into the back room.
The heat is strong enough to drown men in their own sweat. Six traders are seated at a large wooden table, cups of wine in hand, some roasted meat in the middle. They don’t look up when she walks in. Hearing her footsteps, one man says, “I thought we agreed, girl. It’s too hot in here to fuck.”
Clytemnestra stands very still. She can imagine Leon on the other side of the curtain fuming, clenching his fists.
“The king told me you don’t wish to speak to me,” she says, her voice loud and clear. The men turn, their faces bright red. When they see her, they freeze on their chairs.
“Basileia,” a small man with beady eyes says. Though he calls her “queen,” there is no respect in his voice. “We didn’t know you were here.”
She walks to the table, takes the jug, and pours some wine into an empty cup. The men stare back at her, unsure of what to do. They look like deer, their heads turned together as they confront a leopard.
“I have paid you in gold as compensation for your trade losses,” Clytemnestra says, “yet you have betrayed the king and tried to take advantage of the situation by selling your gold and jewels to Troy. I could have executed you, as my husband suggested, but I paid you more and made you promise to keep Troy out of your trade.”
“You have been gracious, Basileia,” the small man says. The others nod, looking at him as if for instruction.
“I have. But still, you don’t wish to take orders from me. Why is that?” she asks, even though she knows why. She wants them to say it aloud.
A look passes between the men and she watches as they take their time to answer. Their tunics are of fine embroidered cloth but yellowish with sweat. Their faces are sun-darkened, lines framing their eyes and necks. They are not strong men, but cunning. “You were taught to fight warriors, but watch out for merchants,” Agamemnon once said to her. “They are the most dangerous men.”
Because they keep silent, Clytemnestra says, “Speak.”
The small man speaks again for the others. “We don’t take orders from a woman.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t hesitate this time. “The strongest one rules,” he says.
She smiles. “And who is that among you?” She lets her eyes linger on them, on the flabby stomach of one, on the golden rings of another.
“Merchants have no leader,” the small man says.
“And yet you speak for all of them.”
An older trader with arms thin as a woman’s clears his throat. “He is our leader, Basileia.”
The small man grins. He wanted them to say it, Clytemnestra is sure. And now it is too late for him.
“Good. Then I challenge you to fight me, here and now. If you win, you will keep making decisions for the merchants. If I win, you will take your orders from your queen.”
He frowns. “Surely you don’t want to fight a man as low as me.”
“The strongest one rules, you said. So let us discover who is stronger.” She downs the wine and places the empty cup on the table. The other traders step back toward the wall.
The small man looks panicked, like a field mouse. A thought crosses his mind and he speaks. “What about the king?”
“The king will never know of this,” she says. “He will be spared from your vile behavior.”
She has just stopped speaking when the man jumps forward, his fists clenched. She moves to the side without effort. He is slow, unbalanced, weak—a man who has never wrestled in his life. And still he wishes to command her. When he moves in her direction again, she takes his arm and bends it behind his back. He falls to his knees, gasping. She punches his head, and he drops to the floor like a sack of wheat. She turns to the other men. They are wide-eyed, gaping.
“He has lost consciousness,” she says. “But he will revive in a moment. He no longer commands you. I do. And from now on, every time you hear someone complain that they have to take orders from a queen, remind them of what happened to the small trader.”
They nod. It is hard to tell if they are frightened or just in awe. What is the difference anyway? Her brother used to say that there is none.
18
The Favorite Daughter
IT IS AUTUMN, and the land is painted in yellow and orange shades. Envoys come and go from the palace, bringing news of trade, marriages, alliances. Warriors and villagers ask for an audience in the megaron, each with their own request: My king, my son is born a cripple, my wife lay with another man, the merchants wouldn’t sell me their wine.
My queen, the neighbor stole my bread, insulted the gods, spoke of treason.
Their words fill the room like songs, and Clytemnestra looks at the painted walls as she listens. Beside her, Aileen sits on a low stool, organizing piles of clay tablets filled with inventories: sheep and rams, axes and spears, wheat and barley, horses and war prisoners. Many commoners come to speak to the queen. They walk into the bright light of the hall, kneel in front of the king, then turn to Clytemnestra with their requests on land disputes and marriage portions. They know that she listens calmly to every plea and that she gives her help to those who respect her.
They also know that it is better to have her as an ally than as an enemy. Everyone in the citadel remembers when a villager’s daughter was raped and killed by a nobleman’s son after she cried out her defilement. The dead girl’s father had come to the megaron, a small, broken man, asking for the impossible: that the nobleman’s son pay the price. The elders had been appalled. Fathers didn’t seek vengeance for their daughters. Kings didn’t punish lustful young men—Clytemnestra had learned that a long time ago.
But she is no king. She had the nobleman’s son dragged outside under the scorching sun and before the people’s eyes. He was whipped until his back was soaked.
As the boy was carried away, barely conscious, Clytemnestra remained in the street, watching the stream of blood run past every door. Agamemnon stayed with her. He watched her with the amusement of a merchant who has made a good investment and now enjoys the fruits of his labor. The smile on his face made her sick.
*
In the practice yard, Clytemnestra and the army master show the boys different swords, shields, and spears. There are also slings and axes, bows and arrows. It is Leon who teaches the boys to shoot, because Clytemnestra has seen him hunt birds and squirrels, and he never misses the target.
Orestes has come for his first year of training, and Aileen has taken his sisters to the yard to watch. Clytemnestra wanted her daughters to train too, but Agamemnon has forbidden it. “If they start training, other women will want to train too,” he said.
“So? You would have a bigger army.”
“A weaker one.”
“I am stronger than most of your men.”
He laughed at that, as if she were joking, and walked away.
The day is sweet and rainless, with a cold breeze that carries birdsong to the yard. Clytemnestra makes the boys fight in close combat. She gives one a short sword and leaves the other without a weapon to teach him how to be quick and disarm with his bare hands. It is a difficult task, but the boys are eager to learn. Orestes is smaller than most, but he is as fast as a hare and manages to disarm a much bigger boy by tripping him. When the master hands him the sword, however, he becomes slow and lets the opponent go unharmed.
“Why did you do that?” Clytemnestra asks.
He gives her a guilty look. “It is not a fair fight.”
“And it was when you were the one without a weapon?”
Orestes shrugs. He draws a circle in the sand with the point of his sword.
“So you think war is fair?”
Orestes shakes his head. Clytemnestra knows her boy is weak—she has seen him cry after one of his father’s beatings, cower when his sisters yell at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Electra staring at her. She wonders what her daughter is thinking.