“I am sure he doesn’t come for marriage. It must be some economic proposition.”
Clytemnestra feels hurt. Why must Helen be the only one ready for marriage?
As if she’s read her mind, Helen says, “Maybe he will court Clytemnestra.” Her words are as silky as cream, but for the first time, something underlies them, something Clytemnestra can’t quite tell.
“I hate kings,” she says carelessly. There is no reply, and when she turns to her sister, Helen is looking at her, her eyes dark and fierce.
“No, you don’t,” Helen says. “You will marry a king.”
Clytemnestra wants to say she doesn’t care about marrying a king as much as becoming a great queen. But she can see that Helen is hurt already—the same hurt that creeps in every time Clytemnestra dismisses her—and knows it is a useless argument. Let the men be proud and quarrelsome. She reaches out her hand and touches Helen’s shoulder.
“We all will,” she says.
Helen smiles and her face brightens, like the ripest fruit.
*
They sit together in a large room close to the dining hall for their mousike class, a chest filled with flutes and lyres in front of them. Their tutor, an older noblewoman who often performs poetry at dinner, is teaching them a new tune, plucking the strings of her lyre. Helen’s brows are furrowed in concentration. Timandra is scoffing, looking at her feet, and Clytemnestra nudges her.
It is a song on the wrath of Artemis, on the wretched fate of the men who dare to challenge the gods. The teacher sings of the hunter Actaeon, who saw the goddess bathing in a spring on the mountains and called the rest of his party to join him. But no man is allowed to watch Artemis without witnessing the goddess’s rage. Thus the hunter became the hunted, the teacher concludes, and as Actaeon fled deeper and deeper into the woods, Artemis turned him into a stag.
When it is their turn to perform, Timandra forgets half the words. Helen’s and Clytemnestra’s voices blend together like sky and sea—one light and sweet, the other dark and fierce. They stop singing and the teacher smiles at them, ignoring Timandra.
“Are you ready to impress the foreigner at dinner?”
They turn and Castor is standing by the door with an amused smile.
Helen blushes and Clytemnestra puts down her lyre. “Do not be too jealous,” she tells her brother. “I am sure he will have eyes for you too.”
Castor laughs. “I doubt it. Anyway, your lesson is over, Clytemnestra. Leda is waiting for you in the gynaeceum.”
*
Outside her mother’s room, the corridor is full of noise—women’s whispers, hurrying feet, the clatter of pots and pans—and the smell of spiced meat drifts from the kitchen. Clytemnestra opens the bedroom door and closes it quickly behind her. Inside, it is as quiet as a tomb. Her mother is sitting on a wooden stool, staring at the ceiling as if praying to the gods. Slivers of light from the small windows touch the walls at intervals, illuminating the white flowers painted against a bright red background.
“You wanted to see me?” Clytemnestra asks.
Leda stands and smooths her daughter’s hair. “Do you remember when I took you to the sea?”
Clytemnestra nods, though she can only recall glimpses: Leda’s skin, wetted by the crystalline water, the drops tracing paths on her arms and belly, and the shells, scattered among the pebbles. They were empty. When she had asked why, Leda had explained it was because the animal that had been living there was dead and its body had been eaten by another.
“I told you about my marriage with your father that day, but you were too little to understand.”
“Do you wish to tell me again?”
“I do. Do you know why marriage is called so by the Spartans?” Harpazéin is the word she uses, which also means to take with force.
“The man kidnaps his wife and she needs to put up a fight,” Clytemnestra says.
Leda nods. She starts plaiting Clytemnestra’s hair and her hands are rough against the back of her daughter’s neck. “A husband needs to show his strength,” she says, “but the wife must prove herself a worthy match.”
“She must submit herself to him.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I can do that, Mother.”
“When your father came to take me to his room, I struggled but he was stronger. I cried and shouted but he wouldn’t listen. So I pretended to give in, and when he relaxed, I put my arms around his neck until he choked.” She finishes her daughter’s hair, and Clytemnestra turns. The green in Leda’s eyes is dark, like the evergreens on the highest mountains. “I told him I would never submit. When I let him go, he said I was worthier than he had expected and we made love.”
“Are you saying I should do the same?”
“I’m saying that it is hard to find a man who is really strong. Strong enough not to desire to be stronger than you.”
There is a knock on the door, and Helen steps inside. She is wearing a white gown and a corset that barely conceals her breasts. She stops when she sees her mother, afraid to interrupt.
“Come in, Helen,” says Leda.
“I am ready. Shall we go?” Helen asks. Leda nods and takes her hand, guiding her out of the room. Clytemnestra follows, wondering if Leda has already told her sister what she has just vouchsafed to herself.
*
The dining hall looks different tonight. Wooden benches have been draped with lambskins, and tapestries are hanging in place of the bronze weapons. Royal hunts and battle scenes with bleeding men and godlike heroes now cover the walls. Servants move quickly and silently, like nymphs around streams. Tyndareus has ordered more oil lamps hung up, and they cast flickering lights on the large table where a few noble Spartans and the foreign king are eating.
Clytemnestra can’t take her eyes off the stranger. The man looks young and different from every other guest. His hair is as black as obsidian and his eyes turquoise, like the most precious gems. Tyndareus introduced him as the king of Maeonia, a land in the east, far across the sea. Men like him are called barbaroi in Greece, people ruled by despots, who live with neither freedom nor reason. Clytemnestra wonders if kings fight their own battles in Maeonia, as they do in Sparta. It doesn’t seem so, for the stranger’s arms are smooth, quite different from the scarred bodies of the Spartans around him.
The table is laid with rare delicacies—goat and sheep meat, onions, pears and figs, honeyed flatbreads—but Clytemnestra doesn’t want to eat. The king of Maeonia is talking to Helen, who is seated beside him. When he makes her laugh, he stares straight at Clytemnestra.
She looks away as her father speaks, addressing the stranger over the loud chatter. “Tell me, Tantalus, are the women in your homeland as beautiful as they say?”
Is Tyndareus trying to arrange a marriage? Sparta rarely has guests from such faraway lands, and the king of Maeonia must be very wealthy.
Tantalus doesn’t blink. He smiles, and two small lines appear at the corners of his eyes. “They are, but nothing like the beauty you find here in Sparta.” He looks at Clytemnestra once more. This time she stares back, her heart racing as though she were running. She can almost feel Castor smirking at the other end of the table.
“Your women possess the most precious beauty of all: strength of body and character.”
Tyndareus raises his cup. “To the women of Sparta,” he says.
Everyone echoes his words, and the golden cups shine in the light of the lamps.
*