They hurry to the top of the walls to watch the army coming, right by the Lion Gate. Aileen keeps adjusting Electra’s dress, even though Electra pushes her away. Chrysothemis wrings her little hands, standing on tiptoe, trying to see better.
At the foot of the mountains, a long line of warriors is marching in their direction. They look like ants, spread across the arid land. In the hands of the two soldiers at the top of the line, the banner of Mycenae. There is something different about it, and it takes Clytemnestra a moment to make out the dark-red stains on the lion. A Mycenaean victor, gorging on the blood of Trojan kings.
The air is furnace-hot, but Clytemnestra keeps still. She lets each ant pass until her eyes rest on her husband. He isn’t hard to find. He rides at the front, next to a large chariot filled with war spoils. She expected to feel pain or anger at the sight, but there is nothing inside her. This is how vengeance transforms you: it makes you pale and cool, like a sea goddess.
She watches him ride, his breastplate glistening in the scorching sun, his men following, scattered and limping, like wounded dogs, among the shrubs and rocks. Closer now, their broken bodies come into focus—missing limbs and eyes, wounds still festering.
A girl sits on the chariot next to Agamemnon among the gold, rugs, and vases. Her hands are bound, her skin brown as oak bark. There is an old bruise on her face, half-covered by her loose hair. A war slave. Clytemnestra would rather die than live like that. “Even a slave has a choice,” her mother once said. “Slavery or death.” Is that a choice? Clytemnestra isn’t sure.
She looks down and the girl looks up. For a moment, their eyes lock. Then she disappears beyond the gate.
34
The Queen’s Justice
Feast
THE DINING HALL is lit and loud, servants running around with platters of food, warriors gulping wine as if they had never tasted it before. The king sits at the head of the table. Clytemnestra takes the place on his left, just as she always did. To have his greedy face close to her after all these years . . . It is pressing memories to her skin like a burning blade. Yet she doesn’t flinch. Calchas is in front of her, on the king’s right, which means she cannot escape the seer’s gnarled face. But that is good—she wants to look at him for as long as she can. Ten years have left no sign on him: he still looks twisted and puffy, like a dead body left on the shore by the tide. Agamemnon’s slave has also been brought to the table and ordered to take the place next to Clytemnestra. She sits with her back straight, like a queen, though her hands are trembling. For a moment, Clytemnestra fears she will take a knife and stab her.
“I haven’t introduced you,” Agamemnon says. “This is my war prize and pallake.” Concubine. The word, spoken aloud in front of everyone, is meant to humiliate them both, Clytemnestra knows. But the girl doesn’t look down as a slave would. She stares back at Clytemnestra, challenge burning in her eyes, as though she is daring her to pity her. She doesn’t know that Clytemnestra pities her only because she understands. I was once sitting like you at this very table. Not a slave, but a prisoner in the king’s home.
“What is your name?” Clytemnestra asks.
“Cassandra,” the girl says. She waits before adding, “Daughter of Priam.” The king of Troy. Her Greek is slow and rusty, each word rolling like a jagged stone.
“She is difficult, this one,” Agamemnon says, staring at Clytemnestra. He tilts his head in the girl’s direction with an amused expression. “You should see how she fights. I thought you might like her.”
“Cassandra is lucky our king chose her,” Calchas intervenes. His warm, sickly voice makes Clytemnestra gasp for air. She feels as if she is plunging into boiling water and struggling to breathe for the pain.
“Lucky,” she repeats.
“Princess Polyxena was sacrificed on Achilles’s tomb like a heifer,” Agamemnon says, biting into his meat. Cassandra’s eyes are as dark as ashes. She clenches her fists so tightly under the table that Clytemnestra fears her fingers will snap—Polyxena must have been her sister.
“And many other women were taken by brutes.” Agamemnon pauses, as if weighing a thought. “You do not wish to be Diomedes’s bed slave, trust me.”
“But the worst fate was Andromache’s,” Calchas says. “Do you know what happened to her?” His eyes never leave Clytemnestra’s.
“I am not sure I care,” she replies. She wishes she could save Cassandra from further pain. But Calchas likes pain: he would bathe in it if he could, as long as it is someone else’s.
“Hector’s wife was hunted down by Achilles’s son, Pyrrhus. He took Andromache’s baby and smashed his head open against the walls of Troy.”
Clytemnestra stops herself from biting her lip. She thinks of an egg when it is dropped and its yolk spreads on the floor. Her baby, dead in Leda’s arms.
But Calchas isn’t done with her. “Pyrrhus then took Andromache for himself.” He keeps staring at her, waiting for some sort of reaction. Clytemnestra’s face betrays nothing.
“A great warrior, but too proud,” Agamemnon interrupts, swigging his wine. “Sooner or later, the gods will punish him.”
Clytemnestra turns to Cassandra, but the princess isn’t crying. Maybe her eyes have been emptied already. That is what her husband does. He empties people.
Clytemnestra stands, lifting her golden cup. “A toast, then!” she says, and the hall grows quiet. The men turn to her, their faces raw and wrinkled. “To the gods who helped true heroes come home, and to the best victory of our times, a war that will be remembered for generations!”
Agamemnon stands too. “Everyone whispered that Troy was impregnable, that the Trojans were unbeatable. But we raped their city, broke through the walls, and took everything down.” The men cheer, and Clytemnestra sits down.
“Our men’s blood wets the earth of Troy, and we mourn them.” More cheering, cups and fists slammed into the table. “And now we drink in honor of everyone we have lost, whose memory will never fade.”
There are shouts of agreement, and the room grows loud again as cups are quickly emptied. When Agamemnon sits down, Clytemnestra chooses a piece of cheese from the platter. “You have always enjoyed lying to your men,” she says. She is aware of Cassandra staring at her and of Calchas licking his lips, thinking of something wise to say. Agamemnon snorts, but she continues. “The memory of most men who died on that field will be gone soon. No one will remember them. No one will care.”
“If they fought valiantly,” he says, “they will have their reputation.”
“They had their reputation in life maybe, but not in death. Only a few survive the passing of time.” She wants to make him angry. She wants him to speak about the dead, about the men who died because of his war, and about the daughter he killed.
Calchas’s neck twists, like a snake’s. “Time can play strange tricks. Often the gods pluck dead men from the shadows and carry them into the light for future generations to remember. They let others shine in their lifetime, then bury them too deep to be talked about in the future.”
She smiles, as guilelessly as she can. “And what do you think your fate will be, seer? Will you be forgotten, or will you be remembered as the man who sat with kings during the greatest of wars?” And who ordered them to kill little girls for a breath of wind?
Calchas draws back his lips, showing his teeth. “I do not know what will become of my name. All I know is that those who gave their lives for the greater purpose of our victory will be held like torches in the ages to come.” He pauses, and she hopes he will close his mouth. But of course, he doesn’t. “Your daughter included. Iphigenia will have more in death than you could ever give her in life.”
He dares to speak her name. He dares to mention her beautiful daughter. Agamemnon and Cassandra are looking at her, and she finds her mildest voice, the one she had used to lull her babies to sleep. “That is good to hear.” Her eyes set on Calchas’s chapped lips. His cold, scarred skin. His snakelike face.
You are going to die tonight, she thinks. Enjoy your feast while you can.
*
Temple