“The war is won,” she says quietly. “Your father is coming back.”
Electra flinches, and her deerlike eyes gleam in the darkness. Clytemnestra knows it is because she has called Agamemnon “your father,” which she hasn’t for a long time. Chrysothemis opens her eyes too. Maybe she has been awake all along, because when she sits up on the bed, the first thing she says is “What will happen?”
Clytemnestra doesn’t reply. Her daughters stare at her, their heads cocked to one side, their breath held. She can tell they have waited to ask this question. Unable to keep the silence, Chrysothemis speaks again, her small voice no more than a breath of wind. “Will he hurt us?”
The question cracks Clytemnestra’s heart open. “He will never touch you,” she says.
Electra sits up too, jaw set, body tense. “How do you know?”
“Because I won’t allow it. While he was gone, much changed.”
“Some things didn’t,” Electra replies. “You still hate him.”
She is almost tempted to draw back as she looks into Electra’s eyes. It is like staring into deep, dark water.
“He took my children away from me,” she says. “My perfect daughter and my baby boy. Would you not hate someone like that?” She knows “hate” is the wrong word. But in all these years, she has never found the right one. Some feelings aren’t meant to be captured.
Chrysothemis seems alarmed. She leans forward and takes her hand. “We understand, Mother. We always have.”
Electra draws her knees up to her chest. “Do you think the gods are watching us? Do you think they know that you hate him?”
“Listen to me,” Clytemnestra says. “Gods do not care about us. They have other concerns. That is why you should never live in the shadow of their anger. It is men you must fear. It is men who will be angry with you if you rise too high, if you are too much loved. The stronger you are, the more they will try to take you down.”
Her daughters’ profiles are sharper now. Soon it will be dawn, and the summer heat will become unbearable.
“Father doesn’t love us, does he?” Chrysothemis asks.
Clytemnestra looks away, the words carrying her to a painful place.
A scorching heat.
A purple tent.
Iphigenia’s sweet voice. Her daughter had asked the same question before she died.
“It doesn’t matter what he feels,” Clytemnestra says. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. I love you both, as I loved your sister, more than anything in the world.”
Her daughters’ faces brighten like shields in sunlight. She takes their hands.
When vengeance calls and the gods stop watching, what happens to those who have touched the people I love?
*
Aegisthus is waiting for her in her room, wide awake. She finds his body in the dawning light, takes his head in her hands. When he kisses her, she can taste his hunger for revenge. The lion comes home and finds the wolf ready to welcome him.
“The fire,” he says, his voice flat. “He is coming back.”
She nods and walks to the window, looking at the golden sky. He follows and brushes his lips against her shoulders. She feels herself growing tense, her mind sharpening like a blade. She closes her eyes and imagines killing her husband—the thought that has fed her for years, the seed that has grown into a vine. She couldn’t stand if she stopped thinking about it. It is the same tightness one feels before a fight—and this is a fight for which she has been preparing for a long time.
“Agamemnon is always watchful and will be even after a ten-year war,” she says. “He is clever enough not to trust anyone around him, ever.”
Another man would tell her to relax, to be sure of herself, but not Aegisthus. He knows that those who relax fall easily into spiders’ webs. His face is full of malice. Maybe in another life, he might have been innocent, a life where he wasn’t caught in games of cruelty and power. Could a life like that even exist?
She stares at him. “Which is why we don’t play the heroes. We need to strike like snakes. We crawl and kill when no one is watching.”
He gives her his wolflike smile. “I was never much of a hero anyway.”
*
The next day, she has the elders gathered in the megaron. They take their places around the throne, bowing to her. As soon as they are seated, her guards drag Aegisthus inside.
“As you know, the king is coming back now,” she says. “He will decide what to do with his prisoners.”
A murmur of assent, like a breeze, runs through the old men. How easily they are fooled. How trusting they become when she gives them exactly what they want.
Last night, as she lay on the bed sleeplessly, she told Aegisthus that he had to trust her. I trust you, he said, reaching for her, pressing his body against hers. She felt his warmth but it wasn’t enough. She wanted him to tear through her skin, to hold her so tightly that she might break.
“Throw him into a cell,” she orders, each word as bright as a knife.
“Traitor,” Aegisthus says as the guards drag him away again. She keeps her face expressionless, thinking of a stone before it is carved, until his figure disappears beyond the hearth. Silence looms and the elders stare at her.
“Agamemnon will return and find his wife loyal and true,” she says.
The elders are wide-eyed, watchful. They suddenly fear this is a game or that she has gone mad. Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to be no more than a watchdog, licking the mighty king’s feet?
“Give the news to the people in the citadel,” she says. “Agamemnon is sailing back, and the queen readies to welcome him.” Cadmus nods, and so do a few others. “Tell them also how the city was taken. Tell them that Troy was sacked, temples destroyed, priests killed.”
The elders frown. There is no greater offense to the gods than to spit on their holy places.
“Remind them that Agamemnon and his men come home as true heroes.” She stops for fear that her malice will show between her honeyed words.
Cadmus clears his throat. “War has its necessities, my queen.”
She smiles. “Of course. But remind the people of what those necessities are.”
He nods quickly and takes his leave. The others follow him closely, perhaps not wishing to be left behind.
Light comes into the hall, touching the frescoes. She walks past them, tracing the lines of every figure, every painted blade of grass. It hurts her to see that lies come easily to her now. Once, it was decency, courage, goodness. But that was another lifetime.
*
The next morning feels like the hottest day of the year. Electra and Chrysothemis wait patiently as Clytemnestra stands by the window, staring at the citadel while Aileen does her hair. People are running their errands, cleaning and clearing the streets for their king’s arrival. Some men move carts and chests aside, while others pour water on the cobbles. As the crown is placed gently on her head, she turns to her daughters.
“You won’t dine with us tonight,” Clytemnestra says. “You will welcome your father and then disappear.”
Electra doesn’t answer. She plays with her rings, precious stones on glittering gold. Clytemnestra looks at her daughter’s arm, clean and smooth, then at her own scars.
“Guards will be stationed outside your quarters. Whatever happens, do not come out.”
Chrysothemis frowns. “Mother?” Her hair is adorned with little gems plaited into each strand and ribbons. Clytemnestra kisses her forehead, her lips barely brushing the skin.
“Come now. The army is here.”
Her daughters share a look before they hear it: horses’ hoofs beating on the dust in the distance.
*