“What made you think that?” she asks.
“Men are usually so invested in themselves, even more so when they are special. And Castor and Polydeuces are special. I thought they would want someone ordinary next to them.”
“You were never ordinary, yet Polydeuces used to love you.”
Helen sits up. “We were children. He didn’t know it was wrong to love your sister like that.”
Clytemnestra feels water lap at her neck. “Do you think he changed his mind, then?”
“People can change their minds, but they can’t change their feelings. I just think he knows now what is wrong and right and acts upon it.” Helen’s cheeks are flushed from the warmth of the room, and the steam blurs her features.
Clytemnestra feels for a scar on her own back, smoothing its jagged ends. When she looks at her sister, Helen is staring at her, eyes wide. “What is it?” she asks.
“I have to tell you a secret,” Helen says in one breath.
Clytemnestra almost laughs. As a child when her sister said she had something to confess, it was always a small secret, like stealing a fig, or avoiding Father, or hiding somewhere. Clytemnestra used to make fun of her for that.
But then Helen speaks again. “I slept with the Trojan prince.”
The light that creeps from the torch seems suddenly thin and cold. Helen’s hair is curling around her face, damp from the bath. “You have nothing to say,” she says, her voice quivering.
Clytemnestra sinks deeper into the tub, though the water is turning colder. “No.”
“That is not true. You always have something to say.”
“Are you happy?” Clytemnestra asks. The question sounds strange on her lips, and she realizes it isn’t something she often asks. Perhaps her mother was right after all.
“Yes.”
“You know he will leave soon.”
“Yes.” Helen sounds worried and speaks quickly, eager. Clytemnestra wonders if anyone else knows.
“If Menelaus finds out?”
“What if he does?”
That her husband might be angry and Helen wouldn’t be afraid: this is something new.
“I was lost when you left,” Helen says. “I was unhappy until Polydeuces came back, but then I had Hermione. She cried all the time—she wouldn’t let me sleep. But I couldn’t leave her in the hands of others, not after what happened to you . . .” She looks up at her sister and Clytemnestra nods, her heart snapping into fragments. “And then when she would finally sleep, all I would hear was Menelaus with the other women. He paraded them around, and they all hated me. I knew what they were thinking: Look at you, the most beautiful woman of our lands, you can’t even keep your husband. You are no better than us.”
“But you are better than them,” Clytemnestra says.
Helen shrugs. “I don’t know if I am. But then Paris came and everyone adored him. Godlike, they call him.”
He is like her, Clytemnestra suddenly considers. How could she not see that? Refused by his father, desperate to please others, the most beautiful of all men. Then she remembers what Menelaus said. Helen can’t seem to be happy unless she has someone’s attention. It is strange: she who is such a light is always seeking someone who shows her the way.
“He understands me,” Helen says. She tortures her fingernails for a moment, then asks tentatively, “Do you think I did wrong?”
Clytemnestra looks her straight in the eye. “You didn’t. But let’s not talk about this anymore or with anyone else.”
She almost expects her sister to complain, to plead, to keep talking about Paris. But Helen stands, her body faintly glowing in the pooling light. She wrings out her hair and says, “We should go. It’s getting cold.”
Clytemnestra rests her gaze on the small round breasts, the long legs, the curve of her hips. She once thought that Helen was delicate like a lamp, something that must be taken care of or it will burn out. But her sister is no longer like that, and maybe she has never been.
*
That night, they sleep together, curled up one facing the other, just like when they were small. Helen’s breaths are slow and calm, her body light since she freed herself of her secret. Clytemnestra lies awake, listening to the branches rustling in the wind.
We will find a way back to each other, she had promised all those years ago. And they have. But they are no longer the girls they were then. How could they be? Those girls were fresh and hopeful, like two trees sharing a root, the trunks and branches so intertwined that they looked like a single plant.
But now they have grown so used to their aloneness that they don’t even remember what it felt like to be so close to each other. There are glimpses of that love and harmony, like now, when their chests move up and down together as the night creeps past. But there is no hope for them to go back to the life they had, and deep down, Clytemnestra knows why.
The thought slides into the room, slippery and boneless. The tragedy that befell them started the day Helen chose Menelaus of all the kings and suitors. Her choice set everything in motion, each event like the ring of a heavy chain. It was that chain and the pain it brought that slashed the root that held them together. And now all they can do is keep loving each other, bearing sorrow and anger for choices they can’t change.
*
Castor is the last person Clytemnestra sees before she returns to Mycenae. She sneaks into the megaron at dawn to look at the frescoes of hunting men one more time, and he is standing by the wall, his head resting against a column. Clytemnestra walks to him and takes his hand in hers. He opens his eyes, weary but alert.
“I’m leaving,” she says. “I don’t know when I will come back.”
Castor smiles. “Once, it was always me saying goodbye.” He walks to the chair draped in cowhide, Helen’s chair, and rubs his hands against the skin.
“Do you remember when we used to stay here after Tyndareus had received all the envoys?” Clytemnestra asks.
The weariness disappears from Castor’s face. Under it, there is longing and amusement.
“We asked him questions and he would answer. Though he wasn’t very patient.”
“Sometimes he was.”
“Only with you.”
She feels pleasure, like fresh water after a climb. Then the familiar fear creeps back in. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she says.
His head tilts. “It’s about Helen, isn’t it?”
“You know, then.”
“Yes. I saw her.”
Clytemnestra shakes her head. “Has she been that careless?”
“She has been careful enough. But you know me, always looking for trouble and secrets.”
“I thought you’d changed.”
“Some things never do.”
She watches him in silence. He plays with the cowhide on the chair, then looks back at her. “So Menelaus comes home and finds his wife has betrayed him with a Trojan prince,” he says. “He is furious and wants to tear Paris apart. But unlike Paris, Menelaus is a man of reason and knows the alliance with Troy must stand. He also knows that if he murders the prince, a Trojan army will soon be knocking on our door. So he sends him away.”
“But he punishes Helen,” Clytemnestra says.
Castor laughs. “Do you really believe Polydeuces would let Menelaus hurt our sister? I once saw him cripple a man who made a comment about ravishing her.”
There’s a knock at the door, and Clytemnestra turns. Leon is standing there, his face still sleepy. “Time to go, my queen,” he says. “The horses are ready.”
She looks outside and the sky is streaked with the redness of sunrise. She can already feel the cold, clinging to her skin and bones.
Castor walks to her. “Here you go again,” he says. She knows he expects her to leave, but she lingers, unable to move her feet.
“Don’t worry, Sister,” Castor says, seeing her struggle. “We will survive without you.” He smiles, but she can see the dark thoughts on his face, growing like weeds. What if Idas and Lynceus come back and cut us down? What if Menelaus doesn’t forgive our sister’s affair? What will become of us?
She draws him to her one last time. “I am sure you will,” she says.
23
The War to Come