Cassandra looks at the seer, thinking of ways to kill him. She has cradled the thought ever since the greedy Greeks sacrificed her sister. Eyes like precious jade, skin like olive oil, hair like polished bronze—no one was as good and beautiful as Polyxena. And yet the cruel seer ordered her death so they could sail home. Nothing good and shining is safe in the hands of the Greeks, Cassandra has learned.
Soldiers were still drinking in the hall when she and Calchas left “to pray to the gods.” She has been eager to be alone with the seer since they sailed from Troy. Now they are walking in a garden toward a pale temple, and Calchas’s footsteps in front of her make no sound, as if he were wan and fading. Cassandra tries not to stumble on the path. She has stolen a knife from the dining hall, and her hand around it is so damp she is afraid it might slip and drop to the ground.
They reach the temple and Calchas steps inside. Cassandra stops, sickness taking hold of her. She remembers the cold columns of another temple in her homeland, her hands clinging to them so tightly that her fingers were bruised, her screams echoing all over as the ones of a trapped bird, and the pain, so severe she feared it might break her in two.
Ajax was the name of the man who raped her. The many-minded king told her when they were distributing the women for the Greek generals.
“Come, pray with me, Cassandra,” Calchas’s voice calls from the temple. She steps inside and crouches at the seer’s feet. He touches her head as if she were a dog and closes his eyes.
Her mother has taught her to be kind, and her god has told her to be just. But where are they now? Hecuba has lost everything, and Apollo has stopped speaking to her ever since Ajax took her. She fought and cried for help and no one came. That is what everyone does in the face of atrocity: they look away. No one is brave enough to acknowledge the truth, not even a god.
Forgive me, Mother. Forgive me, Apollo.
She has never hurt anybody. How will it feel? She is drawing the kitchen knife when she hears steps behind her. She turns just in time to see the Mycenean queen.
She catches her breath as if about to dive underwater and slides closer to the seer.
*
Sacrifice
Clytemnestra turns up her nose, covering her face. Inside the temple, the air smells wet and pungent. She doesn’t come here often. The stillness of the place disgusts her—it’s like a tomb. Under the big statue of Hera, Calchas is praying. Next to him, crouched in a sitting position and staring at her, the Trojan girl. There is a strange light in her eyes, dazzling and dangerous.
“Leave,” Clytemnestra orders her. The girl springs up and walks to the door, but Calchas doesn’t turn. Clytemnestra examines the back of his head, like an eggshell whose surface has been cracked.
“I knew you would come,” he says.
“Did some sheep’s intestines tell you so?”
He turns, and his little black eyes seize her, like a hook with a fish. “I prayed for you in these ten long years.”
He prayed. She almost strangles him there and then. Men like him, who pretend to be holy while others do their dirty work, have always enraged her the most.
“How generous of you,” Clytemnestra says.
His lips curve into a hideous smile. It is calculated, like everything he does. “Your father and mother are gone. Your brother was killed, your sister abducted. Yet here you are, queen of the most powerful Greek city, with an army of men at your command. I find that admirable.”
She steps closer to him, her feet light on the marble floor. Why are people so eager to remind her of her family’s fate? It must be because they wish to weaken her.
“You are an ambitious woman married to a ruthless king. In my experience, ambitious people fall quickly. But not you. You have a talent for survival.”
She stops close enough to touch him. “So do you. Though while I fight my way till the end, you crawl and whisper in kings’ ears. Not heroic, but you do what you must to survive.”
He tilts his head to the side, his hollow eyes sucking her in. “We all do what we can with the gifts of the gods.” She remembers that Odysseus once said something similar and feels a deep pain inside, like a splinter festering within the flesh.
“Yes. And what do you do with your godly sight?” She pauses, but he keeps silent and utterly still, like animals in the woods when they sniff danger. “You order an innocent girl to be butchered like a goat. A mistake, one might say, but no, because in Troy, you give the same order, this time sacrificing a Trojan princess, Polyxena. It was you who ordered the sacrifice, wasn’t it? How brave of you. What a great use of your gift.”
“I do what the gods order me to do. It is unwise to challenge their will.”
She laughs. The sound echoes all over the temple. “Do you know what was unwise? To keep me alive once you slaughtered my daughter. My brother always said that when you make enemies, you must eliminate them before they eliminate you. That was the mistake you made.”
“Our mistakes matter little in the eyes of the gods. We all die in the end, like your brother did.”
She licks her lips. “Yes, we do.”
She is about to draw her dagger, but he moves first. With a gesture far too quick for a man of his age, he takes a knife out of his sleeve and points it at her. She doesn’t step back but grabs his wrist without effort and twists it. He drops the knife. She lets her own dagger trace the contours of his face, from his hollow little eyes to his thin lips. He doesn’t struggle.
“You won’t spill blood in here,” he says. He doesn’t sound scared, only a little surprised. “You are not that bold.”
She is amused he would say that after drawing a knife out of his vest. “You do not know how bold I am,” she says.
She sticks the dagger into his eye, the very same eyes that saw her daughter must be sacrificed. He drops to his knees, screaming, and she cuts his throat quickly before anyone can hear. He falls onto the floor, his body small and decrepit in the large vest. In the shadows, it looks like an empty sack.
She remains standing, catching her breath. Everything inside her is cold and hateful. She can feel it like tendrils spreading around her bones.
She turns to the door, and there is the Trojan girl. Clytemnestra approaches her with caution, putting away her jeweled dagger. Cassandra takes a step forward, her chin out, challenging. She is not afraid.
“Do it,” she says when Clytemnestra is close enough. “Do it now.”
She truly is a princess. Only royalty would give orders like that.
Clytemnestra reaches out and touches her arm gently. “Hide here,” she says. “No one will hurt you, I promise.”
The look Cassandra gives her is of utter distrust. Clytemnestra understands. If she were the girl, she wouldn’t trust her either.
*
Dungeon
Aegisthus has promised himself that he will trust Clytemnestra, but an entire lifetime of wariness is getting the better of him. This saddens him. If he can’t trust the only woman he has cared for in all his life, then maybe it is too late for him.
He is sitting in the dungeon, his hands tied to a wooden column, a guard standing by the door. They can hear the cheers coming from the dining hall, the whispers and clattering from the kitchen.
The place is bringing back bad memories. Atreus had once thrown him down here after he had lost yet another wrestling game. “So you learn what it means to lose,” he had said, and Aegisthus had spent two days alone in the dark with rats creeping around him. Agamemnon had come to see him, and when Aegisthus asked him for food, Agamemnon frowned. “You wouldn’t learn anything, would you?”