“Hopefully not.”
He laughs again and relaxes in his chair. She sees the muscles of his bare arms flexing, the scars wrinkling on his skin.
“For someone who hates me so much,” he says, “you have endured this marriage for a surprisingly long time.”
She smiles, the wine sour on her tongue. “Did you think I would kill you in your sleep?”
“You have tried, remember? Now you would be cleverer than that.” He pauses, studying her. “But you can’t hate me forever. One can’t live on spite alone.”
On that we disagree. They keep silent for a moment, each staring at their own cup.
“I still want that girl,” he finally says. “I am king.”
She puts down her cup. “You will never touch her.”
“Why?”
“Because if you do, I will gut you, like I did that whore Cynisca.”
Shock sparks in his eyes. He plants his feet on the floor and stands.
“What did you do?”
She throws back her head. “I found her and stabbed her until she bled to death.”
He comes to her, moving the carved chests out of his way. “You know Cynisca was from a powerful family. My brother needs their support like your father before him.”
“Menelaus will still have their support. Cynisca’s husband remains alive and will continue to counsel your brother. No one knows it was me.”
He grabs her neck. She smiles, defiant, even though he is hurting her.
“You are a vengeful woman,” he spits out, “disobedient.” His hand is closing and she thinks of how easily bones can snap in the neck, of how frail flesh is, easy to hurt, hard to heal. Still, she doesn’t move or struggle. She wants him to strike her so she can strike him back. But he doesn’t.
“Every day I ask the gods why you refuse to submit.” His voice sounds hoarse, though she is the one who is being strangled. When he lets go, he is panting.
She clasps the back of her neck, feeling the pain where he touched her. She swallows, then says, “I’d rather die than submit to you.”
She can’t tell if he heard her. He has turned his back on her and left the room.
20
The Prophecy
CLYTEMNESTRA IS IN the megaron when the envoy breaks in, panting, claiming to have urgent news. It is early morning, and the frescoes burn in the red light of dawn. She has been talking to Orestes about trade; her son pointed to some of the swords and axes hanging on the walls, and Clytemnestra told him where the gold, crystal, and lapis lazuli came from.
“Should I call Father?” Orestes asks as the envoy tries to catch his breath. His hands are purple with cold, and he tucks each into the opposite sleeve in a vain attempt to warm them.
“I have a message for the queen,” the envoy blurts out. “From the palace of Alea.”
Clytemnestra sits up. Of all the possible news, this is the most unexpected. “Is Queen Timandra safe?” She must look ready to lash out, because the man seems afraid to speak.
He gulps. “Timandra has deserted King Echemus, my queen.”
His voice is low, and for a moment. she thinks she hasn’t heard correctly. The envoy looks up and, seeing that she isn’t reacting, continues, “She was seen riding away in the night. They say she married King Phyleus in secret and now is pregnant by him.”
The name tells her nothing. She frowns, trying to understand. “This message isn’t from Timandra, then.”
The envoy shakes his head. “It is King Echemus who sends me. He claims Timandra went mad after he sent her friend away from the palace.” Chrysanthe. “He says he wants her back.”
“Where is Timandra’s friend now?”
“No one knows.”
“Is Echemus looking for her?”
The envoy frowns, as though Clytemnestra’s questions were missing the point. “Echemus only wants Timandra back, my queen.”
Orestes stares at him. Behind the columns near the hearth, Leon is waiting for Clytemnestra’s instructions.
“You can rest here tonight,” she tells the envoy. “Leon will take you to the bathhouse. Tomorrow you will go back to your king.”
“What should I tell him?”
“That I grieve for his loss, but I can’t bring his wife back. Timandra is someone else’s wife now.”
The envoy pulls a face, torn between laughter and gravity. “Yes, my queen,” he says, then leaves the room, following Leon.
Alone with his mother once more, Orestes walks to the wall and starts tracing the contours of the painted lions with his fingers. He used to do it all the time when he was a child, touching the frescoes as though they were windows to another world.
“Why did Aunt Timandra go mad?” he asks. There are fresh cuts on his face—he has been wrestling harder in the practice field, like a fighting dog that has learned the only way out of the arena is to take the others down.
Clytemnestra takes a deep breath. “She cared about her friend. And King Echemus sent her away.”
“So she left him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell you she would leave?”
“She couldn’t tell anyone. You heard the envoy; she ran away in secret.”
“You will never see her again, then.”
Clytemnestra loses herself in the bright blue of the frescoed sky. It is the same shade as the summer sky beneath which she and Timandra played and wrestled. Of all her brothers and sisters, she was always the most like her.
“I knew this would happen,” she says. “A priestess back in Sparta delivered a prophecy to my mother years ago. She said that the daughters of Leda would marry twice.” And thrice. And they would all be deserters of their lawful husbands. But her son doesn’t need to know that. She looks up and Orestes is frowning.
“You always tell me we don’t believe in prophecies.”
She smiles and goes to him, kisses his forehead. “You are right,” she says. “We don’t.”
*
From the top of the high wall near the Lion Gate, the land glows bright against the dark of the woods and mountains. Iphigenia is speaking to her father animatedly, and two guards watch over them, a few feet behind. Just this morning, Aileen has taken the women down to the river to wash the clothes, and now Iphigenia is wearing one of her best dresses: light blue, sewn with gold drops and pendants. Feeling her mother’s presence, she stops talking and turns.
“You are leaving us again, Mother,” she says. Agamemnon turns too. His face is tired—he hasn’t slept much. Clytemnestra heard him discussing potential alliances with his men until dark. When they had finally stopped speaking and she had fallen asleep, she dreamed of war and death.
“You heard about Timandra,” she says.
He nods. “You are going to Sparta. And this time Leon is accompanying you. So in case you want to murder someone . . .” He lingers on the word, sneering, but Clytemnestra ignores him.
“Timandra is not in Sparta,” she says.
Agamemnon meets her eyes without flinching. “Your sister isn’t the only one causing trouble. Your brothers are starting a family feud.”
Eager to participate, Iphigenia intervenes. “Uncles Castor and Polydeuces have kidnapped two women who were already promised to your cousins.”
“Which cousins?”
“Lynceus and Idas from Messenia.”
“I don’t even know them.” She has heard the names, the sons of one of her father’s stepbrothers, but never met them.
“They are still your family,” Agamemnon says, “and they are angry. Your father was close with Aphareus, Lynceus and Idas’s father.”
“Was he?”
“Tyndareus told me.”
Clytemnestra breathes in, clenching her fists. That was when she started losing her father, as soon as Agamemnon came into her home and slowly made his way into Tyndareus’s heart.
“You have to go to Sparta and fix this,” he says. “Castor will listen to you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then you make him.”
She looks down at the houses clustered around the city walls. The people in the streets are so loud that she can hear their laughter and shouts, the sounds of smiths casting bronze and of feet splashing in ponds.