She didn’t grieve for the Leda who stood aside as her father and Agamemnon plotted. That Leda was long dead to her.
Now she tries to picture her sister in Troy, alone in a city of people who must hate her. She has sent two of her best scouts across the mainland to bring her any news of the war they can find, yet they have nothing about Helen. That means her sister is still alive. The comfort she takes in this is strange, for it has a bitter taste in her mouth, like ashes.
Helen lives, Iphigenia is gone. There is some injustice in it, though Clytemnestra has spent her life protecting her sister.
Do you wish Helen had died?
She closes her eyes. She can see them together, swimming in the Eurotas as children, their naked bodies splashing in the clear water, their arms wrapped around each other. It is always difficult to decide if one life is worth more than another. It is also pointless. The dead are dead.
She walks back inside, leaving her thoughts behind. Above her, the pain of Iphigenia’s destiny hangs in the sky like an endless prayer.
27
Wolf’s Teeth
CLYTEMNESTRA FOLLOWS ELECTRA in the hot summer sun, the market stalls around them. People stream past, their faces sun-darkened, their hands chapped for the work—a man cutting a pig’s hocks, his ax and apron stained with fresh blood; a woman hanging plucked chickens by their feet; a dark-haired girl giving apples from a large basket. Clytemnestra stops by a stall displaying diadems, the gems glittering so brightly that sunlight seems to rise from them. Jewels for royalty. The trader bends his head, staring at Clytemnestra’s feet. “My queen,” he says. “My princess.”
Electra caresses a thin golden headdress, each pendant in the shape of a leaf. It would look good against her pale skin, Clytemnestra thinks, but Electra moves on. The people flood the streets like lizards, each looking for a spot under the sun.
Clytemnestra thinks about her meeting with the elders, how arrogant and ungrateful they had been that morning. They insisted that she imprison Aegisthus and that she keep him hostage until Agamemnon returns.
“What use would that be?” she asked. “Aegisthus has no family left. No one will pay a ransom.”
“Then keep him in the dungeon until the king decides what to do with him.”
“The king has been away for nine years,” she replied. “During which I have ruled this city, kept it safe. And yet you still refuse to trust my authority.”
They fell silent. She enjoyed the look of defeat in their eyes.
“Do you think the traitor Aegisthus is handsome?” Electra asks, distracting her from her thoughts. Her cheeks are red from the sun and she is patting a dog as if she had just asked the most innocuous question.
“I haven’t thought about it,” Clytemnestra replies. That is a lie. She has, in fact, considered what it is about Aegisthus that intrigues her, but she hasn’t come up with an answer yet. “Do you?”
Electra lifts the hem of her dress to avoid some fruit left rotting on the ground. “I think he was once. But now he is too scared of himself.”
“You don’t find him frightening, then.”
“No. I just wonder what a man like him thinks. His eyes are like ice—they shut you out.” Clytemnestra smiles to herself. It must be hard for her daughter to feel shut out from someone’s mind—she, who is always searching people’s faces to understand their every move and motive.
They reach the end of the street. Perched on the gate, the sculpted lions are mighty in the sunlight, their gazes empty, indifferent. “The kings of Mycenae are lions,” Agamemnon told her once, “preying on the weak.” When she pointed out that the relief sculptures were more like lionesses, her husband laughed. Would he laugh now that a lioness sits on his throne?
Clytemnestra starts walking back to the palace, and Electra follows, still brooding.
“I have asked the women in the kitchen,” she is saying. “They say Aegisthus was born after Thyestes raped his own daughter, Pelopia. She was performing a sacrifice in the temple, and he took her in the darkness, then disappeared before she could see his face.”
“The women in the palace talk a lot,” Clytemnestra comments.
“Pelopia didn’t know that it was her father who raped her. She was ashamed and sent the baby away, so he was raised by Atreus, which means Aegisthus grew up with Agamemnon.” She has stopped calling him “Father” in Clytemnestra’s presence ever since her mother threw a cup at her years ago. Now, all her children call their father “Agamemnon.” How they refer to him when she is not there, she doesn’t know.
“When Pelopia sent Aegisthus away, she gave him a sword, Thyestes’s sword. Only she didn’t know it was his. She had snatched it away from him before he left. So when Atreus sent Aegisthus to murder Thyestes, Thyestes saw the sword, recognized Aegisthus as his son, and convinced him to take his side.”
Clytemnestra knows Electra is talking to try to understand the man better. Stories are all she has, so she dissects them until she feels in control. After all these years, she hasn’t yet understood that women are rarely in control.
“I wonder if he knew his father raped his mother. He must, for everyone else knows. And if he does, what does he think? Does he forgive him?”
A group of women walk past them, their arms filled with figs, grapes, and lemons. The fruit is so bright it looks like flowers.
“Do you know where Pelopia is now?” Clytemnestra asks.
“No.”
“She killed herself.”
A shadow passes over Electra’s face. She looks at her feet, her cheeks bright red. The sun drives higher in the empty sky, and Electra is silent for the rest of the walk.
*
A product of incest and rape. A child born for the purpose of revenge. Unwanted by his mother, abandoned in the woods, taken by the very man he was meant to kill once he had grown up. How many things has Aegisthus seen? How much pain has he endured? The answers to her questions seem carved onto his face like scars, stitched into his skin like secrets. She can find out by reaching out and touching.
She is told that he spends his time around the practice yard in the late afternoon, so she goes there alone when the boys have finished training. Sunset is painting the sky in dark-red strokes. In the middle of the yard, a torch is thrust into the ground, its light burning strongly.
She can’t see anyone at first—maybe Aegisthus has left already. Then a shadow moves by the armory and he comes into the light, a sword in one hand, a spear in the other. Two hunting blades gleam at his waist. She can see the scars running along his bare arms, pink like peaches and jagged like stones.
He casts his spear into one of the trees. The weapon flies faster than her eyes can follow. It sinks into the bark, and splinters fly.
In the stark light of the torch, Aegisthus wields his sword. It flashes forward, like a lion’s claws, then back. There is nothing elegant about his movements, nothing graceful. There is a kind of desperation in the way he fights. The sky bleeds above him, then grows darker, angrier.
She holds her jeweled knife tight. She waits as he turns his back to her, making his sword whirl, and then she throws it in his direction. His head jerks back in time. He lifts the sword to his face, and her knife bounces off it.
He looks at her, his face raw with rage. She feels as if she has just discovered a secret of his, something she wasn’t meant to see. She moves forward, grabbing a spear from the ground as she walks. In the practice yard, she smiles. A challenge.
“You are good.”
He takes a step back, and his figure slips away from the light of the torch. “I won’t fight you.”
She keeps moving forward. “Why? Are you afraid?”
“You are my queen. And a mother.”
And you are a usurper. And a son.
“Fight me,” she says.
She lifts the spear and he instinctively moves his sword. The two weapons clash, bronze on bronze.
“I’ll put my sword down now,” he says.