The man hesitates, fingering the handle of his sword, but then he does as she has ordered. Their eyes meet. His irises are of a cold blue green, like evergreen leaves covered with frost. He reminds her of someone, though she can’t tell who. So she waits for him to speak.
He turns to look at the frescoes. His eyes linger on the warriors chasing the frightened lions. The long bodies of the animals glow golden in the feeble light, and the warriors’ hair is as dark as ashes.
“I’ve always found this scene rather false,” he says. “Lions don’t flee like that.”
There is restlessness in the way he stands, as if he is ready to run or strike at any moment. Clytemnestra regards him. That is what I always thought too, she wants to say, but instead she asks, “You have been here before?”
“Oh yes,” he says, turning back to her. “Many times.”
“Then you know how to address a ruler when you are in front of one.”
He tightens his jaw. He doesn’t look angry, rather like a conflicted boy. “Isn’t Agamemnon king of Mycenae now?”
“Yes. And I am the queen.”
He gestures to the empty queen’s seat next to her husband’s throne but keeps silent.
“You come here asking for shelter, yet you do not bend to your queen.”
He tightens his jaw again. “I assume you will send me away as soon as I reveal my name. What would be the point of bending?”
“I haven’t sent you away so far. The law of hospitality forbids it.” She uses the word xenia, the respect from hosts to guests that no one can break, not even a god.
“Some laws are stronger than this.”
She frowns. “Such as?”
“Vengeance,” he says.
She sits back in her throne. She half expects the man to draw his sword, but he is standing still. “Have you wronged my family in any way?”
He looks at her with his strange eyes. In Sparta, children born with such a blue color are considered freaks.
“I have wronged your king in the past,” he says. It seems he is waiting, for scorn or punishment, it is hard to say.
“Even if you have wronged my husband, you know I must allow you to stay in this palace.”
The man smirks. “I don’t want to be killed in my sleep, my queen.” The words sound mocking in his mouth, yet she likes it.
“You won’t be. I give you my word.”
He tilts his head and clenches his fists. He doesn’t trust her, she can see.
“Leon,” she says, “bring Aileen here so we can wash this man’s feet and welcome him properly.”
Leon disappears, his steps echoing on the stone floor. Other guards take his place by the door, staring at the stranger with suspicion.
“I will have you washed and welcomed,” she says, “and then you will tell me your name.”
“Yes, my queen.” That mocking tone.
They wait in silence as Leon brings Aileen to the megaron, staring at each other. The stranger’s hair is jagged, as if roughly cut with a kitchen blade. It barely hides the scars on his face: one on the bridge of the nose, the other on his cheekbone, close to the eye. He looks at her with his head slightly bent, as if afraid. She wonders what he is noticing of her.
“We are ready for the cleansing, my queen.” Leon stands aside and Aileen enters, a cloth in her hands, her red hair tied back in a long plait. She takes a few steps forward, smiling at Clytemnestra, then notices the stranger and freezes. She knows him.
“Wash this man’s feet, Aileen,” Clytemnestra orders.
Aileen hurries forward and kneels in front of the stranger. As she unties his sandals and cleans him in the footbath, Clytemnestra studies his face for any hint of recognition, but the man seems not to remember Aileen. Still, Aileen has changed since Clytemnestra came to the palace. Whoever this stranger is, he hasn’t been to Mycenae in years, or Clytemnestra would know him too.
And then she understands who he reminds her of.
Aileen wipes the man’s feet with a dry cloth and ties on his sandals. Then she hurries back into the shadows of the anteroom. The stranger turns to Clytemnestra. “I will tell you my name now, since you have sworn to offer me shelter.”
“There is no need,” she says, smiling coldly. “You are Aegisthus, son of Thyestes and cousin of my husband.”
He starts. His jaw moves, as though he is biting his tongue. Behind him, Aileen stares at the scene, gaping.
“You are clever,” he says.
“And you are a fool for coming here thinking to hide your identity.”
“I have lived in the shadows of forests and palaces for years. Men never recognize me.”
“Well, I am no man,” she says, smiling again.
He smiles back, unable to contain himself. The expression is jarring on his face, as though he hasn’t done it for years. It shows a different side of him, more childish, less alert.
“You are welcome in this palace, Lord Aegisthus,” she says. “No one shall harm you. Now go. I will see you at dinner.”
“My queen,” he says, bending his head slightly. Then he turns abruptly and walks away. She stares at his back as he passes the frescoes and the columns.
There is a feeling in her she can’t recognize, as if a flame has been suddenly lit, burning her from within. After nine years of pain and plotting, this is unexpected. Whether good or bad, she will find out soon enough. In both cases, she holds the sword, and she is not afraid to strike.
*
By the time she has received all the petitioners for the day, dinner is almost ready. The smells of onions and spices come from the corridors, making her stomach twist. She orders the doors of the megaron closed and lets everyone out except Aileen. When the room is empty and quiet, she sits by the fire and invites her servant to join her.
“You once said that Aegisthus didn’t use violence like everyone else in his family,” she says. “You were scared of everyone except him. And yet he comes here alone with a sword at his waist, refusing to call me his queen. Should I trust this man?”
Aileen looks at her hands in her lap. They are very pale, like milk. “He saved my life,” she says quietly.
“You never told me that.”
Aileen smooths her tunic; it is wrinkled at the knees. “When Agamemnon and Menelaus came back to retake the city, I was in Lord Thyestes’s bedroom, cleaning the torches and folding the sheepskins. I don’t know where he was. There was a call from the Lion Gate that the walls had been breached, and I could hear the soldiers arming themselves. I didn’t know where to go, so I stayed in there, waiting.
“Then Lord Aegisthus came in. I think he was looking for his father. He asked me what I was doing there and dragged me out of the room. He told me to run behind him and I did. When I stumbled, he picked me up. He took me to the kitchen and ordered me to stay there and pretend that was my duty. ‘The servants in the king’s quarters will be the first to be executed,’ he said to me. Then he disappeared. He took the tunnel that leads to the back gate.
“When Agamemnon and Menelaus infiltrated the palace, the first thing they did was to slaughter all the servants upstairs, just like Aegisthus said. Then Lord Thyestes was burned alive, and everyone else was interrogated on Aegisthus’s whereabouts. We heard Lord Thyestes’s screams for a long time.”
“And yet you didn’t say anything,” Clytemnestra says.
“No, my queen. I hope you can forgive me.”
“He saved your life. There is nothing to forgive.”
Aileen nods, with a small, grateful smile.
“Still,” Clytemnestra continues, “I can’t trust a man like him. You understand why?”
“I am not very good at politics, my queen.”
“No one is.”
Aileen thinks it through. “He wants revenge on Agamemnon and Menelaus.”
“Yes, but both are away now. Yet Aegisthus came to Mycenae today, not when Agamemnon was here. Why?”
“You are in Mycenae. And Agamemnon’s children.”
“Yes. Do you remember what Atreus did to his brother Thyestes?”
Aileen looks down. “He killed his children, cooked them, and fed them to him.”
Clytemnestra stands and paces around the hearth. “Aegisthus hasn’t come here to be friends with Mycenae’s queen. He either wants the throne his father once occupied, or he is looking for vengeance. Whatever the case, we must be careful.”
Aileen looks up timidly. “I don’t think Lord Aegisthus wants to murder the children, my queen.”