“You are wrong about this. I just hope you will see it before it’s too late.”
His tall figure disappears in the dim light of the corridor, though his steps echo for a long time.
She closes the door behind her, controlling her movements as one does with the strings of a puppet. She lies down on the bed before Aegisthus can speak to her and pretends to sleep.
*
The news flows as fast as spring rivers. If no one dared speak of it before, now that the queen’s closest adviser has complained, everyone in the palace gathers to comment on the affair. A traitor and a queen. A cursed man and a “single-minded” woman. What will the king say when he comes back from the war? Will he burn Aegisthus alive, just like he did his father? And if he doesn’t come back at all? Will Clytemnestra marry Aegisthus? Will Aegisthus have her murdered and take the throne for himself?
The palace whispers, and the whispers reach the elders, flying like little birds. Clytemnestra calls for a gathering in the megaron before the elders can call for one without her.
She is sitting in her room, Aileen polishing the gold circlet in her hair, when Orestes comes in. “I have news, Mother,” he says, as she hoped he would.
She stands and Aileen wraps a boar skin around her shoulders. Orestes wipes his forehead; his curls fall messily at the sides.
“The servant heard Polydamas speak to another elder in an alley close to the artists’ quarter. They were spreading the news that you are unfit to rule. They want to make you surrender the throne.”
“To whom?”
He stares at her. “To me.”
She steps closer to him, cups her hand around his face. “Polydamas and who else?” she asks.
“Lycomedes.” She is not surprised. Lycomedes is usually silent, but whenever he speaks, he opposes her. He rarely even looks her in the eye.
“Where is this servant now?”
“In my room.”
“Good. Let him stay there.”
“Should I guard him myself?”
“Let some of your men do it. You are coming to the megaron with me.”
When they enter the high-roofed hall, the elders are already inside, whispering in groups. At the sight of her, they fall quiet and make space. Polydamas stays apart from the others, brooding. Cadmus stands closer to the throne, wringing his hands nervously. It makes her think of an ant moving its front legs.
She climbs onto the throne and lets Orestes sit on the high chair next to it. Aegisthus wanted to take the place beside her, but she has forbidden it. No one will respect her if she lets a man sit there—they will look at him for a decision. And it is obvious what the elders will think of Aegisthus’s decisions. With Orestes, though, she can show them that she is still queen. If the elders see that her son, strong and charming, always looks for her judgment and respects her decisions, then who are they to refuse to do the same?
Next to the throne, Leon stands as still as stone, his hand on his sword. He will watch and see what happens to those who betray her.
“I have called you here to discuss my affair with Aegisthus before you can gather and discuss it among yourselves, behind my back,” she says calmly.
Some elders look down, awkward. Others straight at her.
“You told us you had a plan,” Cadmus starts. “That you would take care of Aegisthus yourself.”
“What did you think that was?” she asks. “That I would poison him at dinner?”
“Not this. We didn’t expect this,” Lycomedes intervenes. He is hunched, pale and fearful, and his lips are cracked, like baked earth.
“Agamemnon, your king, is in Troy,” she says.
They nod with reverence, as always when her husband is mentioned.
“I imagine he is fighting like a true hero, taking enemies down one by one during the day.”
“Of course,” Lycomedes says. She wishes he would do something about his lips: the sight is annoying her.
“And during the night,” she continues, “fucking his little war prizes.”
Lycomedes looks down and so do a few others. Polydamas, of course, keeps his chin up, his face impenetrable.
“Among all the news we discuss from Troy, we never speak of this. Though if I have heard of it, I am sure you have too. How did the plague begin? Because your king took a virgin priestess to his bed and refused to give her back to her father. And when he finally relented, he took another, the slave of the hero Achilles, causing him to abandon the army and lose battle after battle.
“Agamemnon sleeps with young girls with no regard to the consequences that his choices have on his army and his war. Still, you bear him no ill will. You don’t even speak of it.” She smiles at them. “I, on the other hand, take one man to my bed for reasons you don’t know and shouldn’t care to know, and we have to gather here to talk about how wrong my choice is.”
“Aegisthus is the enemy,” Cadmus says.
“So are the slave girls. Aren’t they Trojan?”
Lycomedes’s pale face breaks into red blotches. This must be his angry look. “Warriors take prizes when they win battles. It is their privilege to do so. Your choice of bringing the traitor Aegisthus to your room has consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?”
He looks to her right, at Orestes. With a low but clear voice, he says, “Why should we follow you, a woman who sleeps with the enemy, when your son is of age to command us until your husband returns?”
“I trust my mother’s choices,” Orestes says. “And you should trust your queen.”
A few men nod. No one replies. She looks at Leon’s profile, rigid and quiet in the bright light. Then she turns to her right, where Polydamas is standing in the shadow by the frescoes of the running lions.
“Polydamas, you are quiet,” she says. “Do you agree with Lycomedes?”
“If a man sleeps with a queen,” he says in his screeching voice, “he will soon expect to be king. This is how alliances are formed and power is acquired. With marriages.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I do not need power. I already have it.”
“Aegisthus will claim the throne,” he says, coming out of the shadows. “Lycomedes speaks true. Your choices do not make you the right ruler.”
She stands and walks down the steps of the throne, fixing the boar skin around her shoulders. On her left, Lycomedes darts his tongue across his lips. “I wonder,” she says, “what a right ruler would do with traitors?”
“Imprison them,” Lycomedes says. “Kill them.”
She smiles. “I am glad we agree on this.”
Lycomedes opens his mouth, then closes it stupidly. But Polydamas can smell mischief.
“It depends on the type of treason,” he says. “Some are for the good of the kingdom. Others are not.”
You have an answer for everything, don’t you? He told her she was like the plague, but he is infecting everyone around him with conspiracy.
“I would love to discuss types of treason with you, Polydamas,” she says. He raises his eyebrow, just slightly. She looks him straight in the eye and adds, “But unfortunately, a crowd is gathering by the Lion Gate to watch your execution.”
Lycomedes makes a sound like choking. The other elders shift. The movement is like wind among leaves, barely audible.
“I do not understand,” Polydamas says calmly.
“You conspired against the throne. You and Lycomedes spread whispers that your queen wasn’t fit to rule Mycenae. A fit ruler, as you say, doesn’t let treason go unpunished.”
Lycomedes drops to his knees. “We didn’t conspire, my queen.” He gulps the last two words. She looks away from his cracked lips.
Polydamas holds his ground. “I follow the orders of the king, not yours.”
“That is unfortunate, because the guards do. And even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because I will kill you myself.”
Lycomedes starts sobbing. It is a pitiful sight. Cadmus reaches out and clasps his hunched shoulder, forcing him upward.
“You don’t have to do this,” Polydamas says. His voice scratches the air, like nails against stone. She wishes he would beg for mercy, not Lycomedes. But that isn’t Polydamas’s way.