Idas attacked him then. The quickest man in Messenia, his men called Idas, but Polydeuces was quicker. He killed him as Idas taunted him about Castor’s death. When Idas’s body finally dropped to the ground, Polydeuces butchered it until his cousin’s face was gone. His men found him the morning after, a bloody bag of bones among the beheaded sheep.
Polydeuces didn’t cry as he walked back to Sparta with his brother’s body in his arms. He didn’t cry as Phoebe ran to him, wailing, touching her lover’s lifeless hands. “Castor. Castor. Castor,” she muttered. The women took the body in their arms, falling to the ground with him, beating their fists against their chests. Polydeuces stood there, like a statue, until Hermione was beside him. She wrapped her little hands around his bloodied waist—the waist of the man who is her uncle but has been a father to her, of the man who loves her mother more than he loves himself. Her arms were like the petals of a lily, and only then he broke down. He fell and shook and sobbed as he had never done in his life, his voice echoing in the empty valley. The pain nearly broke him, and he cried out his anger in the arms of a child.
*
Leon is quiet. Aileen puts her hands on Chrysothemis’s shoulders as if to stop her doing something impulsive. Clytemnestra feels her daughters staring at her, three pairs of big eyes waiting for a response. Why is a reaction to loss always expected? Why can’t loss be something one mourns in private, away from everyone else? Isn’t she mourning if she doesn’t tear out her hair, bruise her cheeks?
“Let us ready you for your father’s presence,” she says. Her voice is cold and detached, and she listens to it as though it belongs to someone else. “He will be wondering why we are late for dinner.”
Chrysothemis shakes Aileen away. She takes a few shy steps forward and hugs her mother’s leg. Clytemnestra focuses on the Cretan priestess in her daughter’s hand. Iphigenia slips into her blue dress and sandals—she is doing everything in her power to be as silent as possible. Next to her, Electra’s face is like a flame. Clytemnestra hopes her daughter won’t speak. She is feeling rage mounting inside her, ready to lash out.
“Mother,” Electra says, “we should pray for your brother first.”
Clytemnestra’s slap makes her fly sideways. Electra hits the wall and stumbles. When she turns back to her mother, her cheek is redder than blood and her eyes are burning.
Go on, Clytemnestra thinks. Provoke me again.
Electra takes her bruised cheek in her hand, narrows her eyes as she has seen her sister do a thousand times, and shouts, “Why do you make others suffer when you are in pain? Why can’t you weep and mourn like everyone else? Why are you like this?”
She leaves the room before her mother can dismiss her. Her rage stays behind, razor-sharp.
*
Clytemnestra walks into the dining hall with her fists clenched, savoring the feeling of her nails sinking into her palms. Iphigenia walks at her side, and behind them Aileen holds Chrysothemis’s hand. Are servants whispering as she passes or is she imagining it?
Agamemnon is already seated, sipping wine from a bronze cup. Next to him is the seer, gnarled and scarred, like an old tree, and on the other side, Orestes and Electra. Clytemnestra sits as far from Calchas as possible, keeping Iphigenia close. From the way everyone is sitting, rigid and uncomfortable, it seems they were waiting in silence.
“I am sorry to hear of Castor’s death, Mother,” Orestes says. He looks at her tentatively, and she gives him a feeble smile. The food on her platter is messily arranged. She moves the roasted fish and bread aside and focuses on her wine. Everyone else starts eating; the plates scrape in the silence.
“Castor’s death wasn’t the only news that came from Sparta,” Agamemnon says.
Clytemnestra’s head jerks up. The torch behind him has gone out, and his face is in the shadows. “What else?” she asks.
“You pretend you don’t know now?” He is angry: his voice is low and thick, each word pointed. She straightens the knife beside her platter, admiring how still her hand is, how firm her grip.
“I have just learned of my brother’s death,” she says. “What would I lie about?”
Agamemnon leans forward and slams his hand on the table. She can see his face more clearly now, rutted and hot.
“I have told you to tame your family!” he shouts. “And what have you done? You have let your sister fuck the enemy!”
Clytemnestra flinches. How does he know of this? Keeping her face expressionless, she turns to the seer. He is staring at her, the hollowness in his face sucking her in.
“You are wondering how the king knows of your sister’s betrayal,” he says.
Agamemnon grips his cup so tightly that his fingers turn white. “Tell her,” he says. “Tell my wife how another of her sisters became a whore.”
She feels Iphigenia hold her breath. On the other side of the table, Chrysothemis is still clasping the Cretan doll, her face pale and terrified. Clytemnestra wants to tell her to leave, to finish her dinner in the gynaeceum, but she is too focused on the seer. His little eyes are cold, shiny like onyx. “Helen left Sparta with Prince Paris,” he says. “They are headed for Troy at this very moment.”
His voice feels too loud. Everyone’s eyes dart to her. She almost cries then, though she is not sad. What she feels is more like satisfaction or pride. She sees herself seated next to her sister in Sparta, laughing together as Paris answered Castor’s questions. Soon it will be my turn, Helen had said. And then we’ll all be deserters of our lawful husbands.
“Is this true?” she asks.
“Troy deceived us,” Agamemnon says, “and your stupid sister fell for it.”
Iphigenia intervenes. “I thought Sparta was finally at peace with Troy, Father.”
It is the wrong thing to say. Agamemnon throws his cup in her direction. Iphigenia dodges it, and the bronze thunders against stone. Wine spills, spreading quickly around their feet.
“Take my daughters away, Aileen,” Clytemnestra says calmly, “before the king can shame himself.”
Aileen jumps up promptly, but Agamemnon spits on the floor. “The children stay here. They need to know your sister is a whore. We are at war now because of a whore who couldn’t stay in her husband’s bed.”
“Your brother can find a new wife,” Clytemnestra says. “I once heard him say that women are better when ripe and fresh, like fruit.”
“We made peace with Troy,” he hisses.
“The peace can stand.”
“A prince came into my brother’s palace and took his queen!”
“My king,” Calchas says, intervening, “this war was meant to happen.”
“Good,” Clytemnestra says, staring straight at Agamemnon. “You spent the last five years looking for a reason to wage war. Now you have it, and you want to blame someone else.”
Agamemnon walks to her. Quick as a serpent, he raises his hand to strike her, but Clytemnestra draws back, grabbing the kitchen knife. His hand slaps the air and his eyes rest on the knife, disbelieving.
“Are you going to kill me in front of our children?” he asks. “Are you going to murder a king?” With a quick sway of his arm, he sweeps the platters off the table. “Go back to your room before I order the guards to drag you! And contemplate your sister’s mistake!”
She takes Electra and Iphigenia by the arms and pulls them up from the bench. Somewhere behind her, Aileen grabs Chrysothemis’s hand and follows, the child crying softly.
Clytemnestra pants as she runs out of the hall, the torches swaying around her, the smell of fish sickening her. Once safe in the dark corridors, she leaves her daughters and keeps running forward, toward the gynaeceum and beyond, out of the palace.