Helen smiles, hopeful. “Maybe you’ll have one more husband. Remember, the priestess said that we’ll marry twice and thrice.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
It is Helen’s turn to laugh. She finishes her daughter’s hair, and Hermione rests her head against her chest.
“You know Leda once said that our lives are short and miserable, but sometimes we can be lucky enough to find someone who cures our loneliness.”
Clytemnestra is not sure her mother’s loneliness was ever cured, but she keeps silent. Helen takes her hand. “No matter how many husbands we’ll have, we have already been lucky enough to have each other.”
For a moment, the torches burn brighter, and nothing else matters for Clytemnestra but her sister’s love.
*
Before bed, she goes to her mother’s room, in the deepest part of the gynaeceum. Most of the torches have gone out, and Clytemnestra feels the wall under her hand to avoid stumbling.
Inside Leda’s chamber, it is warmer and the air smells of spiced wine. She can see her mother’s figure lying sideways on the bed, her face turned toward the only window.
“Clytemnestra,” Leda says, her voice clear in the utter silence. “Light a torch for me.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She takes the last, dying torch and brings it to the others in the room. They light and flicker, casting long shadows on the cowhide on the floor. Leda sits up and studies her. “You are more beautiful than ever,” she says. “Mycenae agrees with you.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
Leda smiles. “Come, sit with me.”
Clytemnestra covers the space between them and sits on the sheepskins. From up close, she can feel her mother’s warmth and detect her faint smell, like the earth after rain.
“What do you think of the girls your brothers love so much?”
She examines her mother’s face in search of any right answer, but Leda is just curious. “I like them.”
“I knew you would. Phoebe is tough. They were just unlucky.” She stoops to pick up a quartz-chiseled cup from the floor. She gulps some wine, then turns to stare at her daughter. “I know you killed Cynisca,” Leda says.
Clytemnestra stays quiet. Her mother doesn’t seem angry, just sad. The moment of silence stretches between them until it snaps.
“You have always been a bright child,” Leda says, “brighter than the rest. And I think you knew that. It gave you the strength to be bold and to speak freely whenever you wanted to.” She sighs, resting her head on the pillow. The golden leaves embossed on the headboard frame her head like a crown. “But it didn’t teach you to accept defeat and that to achieve what you want from the men around you, you must allow them to believe that they are in charge.”
“If that is what a woman must do, I don’t want to be one.”
Leda sinks lower into the bed. Her hands are more lined than they used to be, veins popping out of the skin like rivers. “You are one. Who else has a spirit like yours? Since the moment you were born, you were your father’s favorite. What king prefers a girl to his sons?”
“A good one.”
Leda takes her hand in hers, which is warm, almost feverish. “We had hopes for you, ambitions. Your father put too much pressure on you, eager for a powerful marriage. And he ruined you.”
The words sting. “I am not ruined.”
“But you are unhappy.” Leda puts aside the cup, and her head falls onto her shoulder. She is exhausted. “Now I must sleep,” she says, her eyes closed. Quickly, her breathing becomes louder and her hand falls limp from her daughter’s.
Clytemnestra remains on her mother’s bed for a long time. Leda is right. All her childhood, she tried to be perfect, to excel in every challenge and mend every broken thing on the way. She did it because her parents taught her so. But that girl—wild and brave, always testing her own courage, always protecting her loved ones—is long gone.
How can Leda not see that?
*
The corridors reek of memories.
Someone else might have to focus to catch the smell—it is buried under the oily scents of the baths and the hints of spices from the dining hall. Not Clytemnestra. She wants to go to her room, bury her face under the sheepskins and disappear, but the dead are here, somewhere, desperate to reach her.
The walls are cold under her touch, lifeless. Dark old stones that carry the dried blood of her Tantalus, his last words and breaths. Her son’s last cries and tears. He was killed while he was in the hands of a helot—Marpessa was her name. He should have been in the hands of his mother.
She is supposed to mourn her husband and son outside, in the royal tombs, where their ashes and bones rest in gilded urns. But only cold and silence await her there, nothing more.
It is here that their memories are to be found, here that their pain has seeped—in each crack of the wall, every ember of the dimming torches.
It is here that Tantalus and her baby died and here they will be trapped forever, while life in Sparta goes on without them, unconcerned, merciless.
*
“Did you forgive him before he died?” Clytemnestra asks. She has spent all night pacing the corridors, stomach burning, memories clawing, and now she is back in her mother’s room, eager to cry out her grief.
“Who?” Leda asks. Her eyes are foggy.
“Father.”
Leda sighs. “It is not our duty to forgive. Forgiveness is in the hands of the gods.”
Clytemnestra turns away. “You did nothing. You knew of his plan and did nothing to protect me. You spent all those years lying for Helen, keeping her safe, yet you couldn’t find a way to protect me.”
Leda shakes her head. “I found out when it was too late. You know this. I found their bodies when they were already dead.”
“I am not speaking of their deaths,” Clytemnestra says. “I am speaking of my marriage.” Leda closes her eyes and her face seems about to crumble, but Clytemnestra continues to talk: she has been keeping the words inside for too long. “You could have warned me, helped me. Instead you kept silent while he sold me to a cruel man.”
“This is Sparta. The king’s wish is the law. Every man’s honor, every woman’s life belongs to him. Yes, I was powerful. Yes, I ruled with your father, but I wasn’t free. None of us are.”
“What about my honor?” Clytemnestra snarls. “You can’t begin to contemplate the things I have endured because of the king’s wishes. There is no honor in being raped, no honor in being beaten. If you think there is, you are a fool.”
Leda draws a deep breath. Cold air seeps into their bones, and Clytemnestra waits for her mother to ask for forgiveness, even though she knows it wouldn’t be enough.
But Leda says, “I never told you how I came to marry your father.”
I do not care, Clytemnestra wants to say. It is too late for your stories. But her tongue feels heavy in her mouth, like a stone.
“You remember when I told you about Hippocoon and how he overthrew your father? Before Heracles helped him retake the throne, Tyndareus ran away with Icarius. They begged many kings for hospitality until they were welcomed by your grandfather Thestius, my father. Thestius fed and treated Tyndareus as if he were his own, but he asked for something in return.”
“A marriage,” Clytemnestra says.