“So I stopped, picked up Telemachus, and said I would go to war. You can imagine Penelope’s desperation, though she kept it to herself, as usual. My wife doesn’t like to trouble others with her feelings.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Clytemnestra says. She feels the tiredness inside her bones, like a sickness. Her head is spinning: it must be the heat and the lack of sleep. On each side of Odysseus, sweat glistens on the men’s necks and arms.
Odysseus shrugs. “We all have to sacrifice something. I sacrificed the time with my wife and son. The chance to see him grow.”
“I am sure you will see him again.” She stands to take some water, because the warmth is oppressive. One of Odysseus’s men almost stands too, but Odysseus stills him with a hand on the shoulder. An odd gesture.
Clytemnestra drinks and cools her forehead. She must check on Iphigenia: the wedding will take place in a few hours.
“I have to go back now,” she says, smiling at Odysseus. “Help my daughter get ready.”
She waits for his face to break into another of his mischievous smiles, for the lines around his eyes to appear. But Odysseus’s face remains blank. He opens his mouth to speak, then something shifts in his eyes. “It is time,” he says coldly.
Before Clytemnestra can understand, his men jump up and draw their swords. Instinctively, she snatches for her own, but her hand comes up empty: she has left it in the tent. Leon pushes her behind him, his grip tight on his short dagger.
“Go back to the tent, my queen,” he says. She turns to do as he says, slowly, before the men can move—
But the door is blocked. The three guards who were sleeping outside are wide awake now, blocking the entrance. They must have been pretending before. She turns to Odysseus, shocked. He is looking at her.
“There are two ways in which we can do this,” he says, and his voice is suddenly emptied of any warmth. “Give up your weapon and stay here—”
“Where is Iphigenia?” she asks.
“Or I am afraid I will have to knock you out.”
“Where is she?” she repeats. “Tell me, or I swear I will cut you down.”
“You have no blade,” Odysseus says matter-of-factly.
Leon lets his dagger fly. It sinks into one man’s knee while the other throws him against the table. There is a loud crash and the wood smashes, Leon collapsing on the ground with it. Clytemnestra jumps aside and yanks the sword from the wounded man. The guards are behind her, and Odysseus is in front, unarmed. On her right, his man and Leon are thrashing, moving together on the ground. Leon is choking, kicking the floor.
“Let him go,” Clytemnestra says.
The men behind her attack. Their swords close in around her. Clytemnestra keeps them off, swinging hers, but they are too many. She feels the blade of one cutting her leg and she stumbles. They take her down while she shouts, still waving the sword. Someone’s blood spurts on her face. They tie her hands and feet with thick rope. When they try to gag her, she bites their hands and they scream. But soon even her mouth is tied, the knot so tight her head throbs. She can’t see Leon. In front of her, the figures of Odysseus’s men waver before they walk away, outside the tent. She sees Odysseus’s serious face as he kneels in front of her and waits for him to speak, but he says nothing. He places a hand on her knee as though he were soothing a dog, then he leaves too.
She is alone.
*
The rope cuts into her wrists, and her arms are numb. They must have tied her to the chair, because however she moves, she feels a weight against her back. She tries to think, to ignore the pain, but the heat makes it impossible. The gag in her mouth is so tight that she can’t feel any liquid in her mouth. She needs water. She needs something sharp.
When she was young and disobedient, Leda would leave her alone in her room without food or water. When her throat started to scorch, she would convince herself that her mind was tricking her, her body really didn’t need water, and thus she would endure.
Now she wills herself to do the same. She must think first, then do something.
Her mistake was to trust. It is always the worst mistake to commit. She trusted a man who is a master of exploits. And he tricked her. The many-minded, Odysseus is called, but he is just a traitor. Unless he wanted to keep her here to protect her? But that seems impossible. Where is Iphigenia? Someone must be harming her daughter, or they wouldn’t have brought Clytemnestra here, to Odysseus’s tent. Iphigenia needs protection, and as long as she’s safe, Clytemnestra is safe too. So no. Odysseus has betrayed her, though she still doesn’t know how.
Something moves behind her. A pained mumble, then a struggled breath. Biting into the gag, she turns, the chair scraping. Leon is lying on the opposite side of the tent. He seems alive, barely. His face is almost purple, and he is gasping for air. They have tied and gagged him too. Clytemnestra moves in his direction, pushing the weight of her body forward with her legs. A jug lies on the floor. It came down with the table when Leon was thrown against it, but there is still some water inside. And next to it, a kitchen knife. They must have overlooked it when they cleared the space. Clytemnestra looks at the shapes moving outside the tent. There seem to be just two men tasked with guarding them now.
Beyond them, somewhere toward the marketplace, a crowd is gathering. She can hear shouts and prayers, the chanting of soldiers calling to the gods. Calchas must be presiding at the sacrifice Odysseus was talking about. But what of Iphigenia?
She swings forward and gets into a kneeling position, the chair on her back, the sand scraping her skin. She moves on her knees as silently as possible until she reaches the knife. Then she lets her body fall to the side and grabs the handle with the tips of her fingers. She feels the skin bleeding around her wrists. The knife isn’t sharpened and the chair slows her, but she manages to cut the ropes around her wrists. The chair falls with them. Her hands freed at last, she unties the gag, gasping for air, then pours the water onto her face, licking the pitcher. The soldiers outside are chatting, but she can’t hear anything—the sound is muffled by the rising chant. She saws the ropes around her ankles as quickly as she can. When they come off, she stumbles, trying to stand, the numbness in her legs slowing her down.
For a moment, she considers trying to revive Leon. But that would only give her away. Besides, he looks too weak; he is barely breathing. So she approaches the entrance of the tent alone, the knife in her sweaty palm. The guards are laughing at something, their voices loud and unpleasant.
She throws the tent open and stabs the first guard in the back of his neck. He falls like a sack of wheat, the ghost of laughter still etched onto his face. Before the other man can draw his dagger, Clytemnestra snaps his head to the side. He drops to his knees, unconscious, and she takes his dagger to finish him off. The blade cuts into the skin easily; blood spurts on the sand.
The chanting from the marketplace is growing, each word still in the windless air. It is a sacrifice song, though she can’t hear any mooing of cattle. She moves swiftly between the tents on the beach, though it seems that most of the men are gathered in the market anyway. She passes the open ditches where two men are easing themselves and keeps moving toward her tent, keeping the chanting sound to her left.
Then, a cry. Her daughter’s voice, fearful and desperate, calling for help. It is coming from the marketplace. Clytemnestra turns to the left, running. She stumbles in her sandals and kicks them away—the sand burns her soles.
When she storms into the marketplace, this is what she sees.
A crowd of men singing with their eyes closed, their faces directed at the sky, as if the gods could hear them.
Prince Achilles—it must be him—frozen in his spot beside the altar, his mouth open as if he would cry, except he is silent. Or maybe he is crying and the sound is buried in the song.
Calchas next to him, his twisted face a mask of utter coldness. His little black eyes are resting on a group of generals at the edge of the altar: