There is also the memory of Thyestes in a cell, how he told him that the sword Aegisthus was wielding was his and that he was his long-lost son.
Aegisthus banishes the thoughts and focuses. He had gotten out by himself all those years ago, hadn’t he? He needs to do the same now. The ground stinks of piss and mud, but he sinks his fingers into it. His tied wrists ache as he searches for a stone, a shard, anything. His hands unearth a bone, a dead rat, then something that feels like a pin. He feels it between his fingers. Sharp enough.
He cuts the cord that binds him and waits. When the guard turns toward the door, he jumps on him. They tumble down and Aegisthus bangs the man’s head against the wall. The guard drops, unconscious, and Aegisthus steps over him.
Upstairs, he runs through the corridors, a familiar fear tearing him apart. Clytemnestra is strong and knows her husband, but Aegisthus knows him better. He grew up with him, fought with him, has hated him since he was a child. And he knows Agamemnon always wins.
He stops running by the entrance of the gynaeceum, flattening himself against the wall to avoid two guards. Here the corridor divides. He could go left, toward the baths, where he knows Clytemnestra will have the king cleaned. Or he could go right, toward the temple, where the mad seer will be hiding. He can smell blood and fear coming from the garden. He follows the scent like a wolf.
*
Garden
Cassandra has learned that the Greeks are two-tongued. She has watched, speechless, as Clytemnestra killed the seer by the statue of Hera, blinding him first. The queen spoke of her dead sister Polyxena, and Cassandra cried in the shadows of the columns. She thought the queen would kill her too, but she left her here.
This is a strange land, and it breeds strange people. They have no respect for gods or men. They kill and rape each other in holy places and lie to their enemies with no mercy. That is how they won the war, by lying. Her mother kept saying, “We will prevail because we aren’t greedy or false.” But greed and cunning win wars, as Cassandra tried to tell her. Her mother didn’t listen, but then, no one ever really listened to her. Her sister Polyxena was the most loved, and so was her brother Hector. They were beautiful and charming, while Cassandra always said uncomfortable things.
Then, back in the Greek camp, after Troy had fallen, the king of all the Greeks had chosen her. She couldn’t understand it. “This one is tough,” Agamemnon said, dragging her away among the tripods, golden weapons, and rich tapestries. “At least I won’t be bored.”
Now she’d rather die than go back to him. Maybe you won’t have to. She could leave now, run to the woods. And then? She could cross the sea again and search for other survivors. She holds her kitchen knife tight. Maybe that is what the Mycenean queen wanted to say when she told her to hide.
She walks out of the temple and into the garden. The valley looks menacing from up here, dark as the deepest parts of the sea. Her shadow leaps ahead of her like a frightened spirit, and the sweet scent of flowers drifts around her. It reminds her of home, of the sounds of flutes and lyres, of her sisters dancing under the branches of the courtyard, of the stallions neighing in the stables. She should steal a horse, she considers, and then, before she can realize it, a man comes out of the shadows. She stumbles, trying not to fall, her hand clutching the knife.
“Shh,” he whispers. He is tall and handsome, his face scarred, his eyes like ice. He watches her, and she watches him. She is good with people, always has been. She can sense their feelings as her own, and Polyxena always said that she should be a seer, not a priestess. But seers aren’t good with people. They care only about gods.
“Who are you?” the man asks. His voice is kind, but there is something inaccessible in his eyes . . . Rage? Hurt?
“Cassandra,” she says. “Slave and concubine to King Agamemnon.”
The expression on the man’s face changes. Something dangerous has slipped between them. Cassandra steps back, and the man draws a long sword.
*
Trial
Clytemnestra steps into the bathhouse. The air tastes of salt. It is a sharp smell that seeps into her and makes her think of Aulis. She closes the door gently behind her and takes in the scene.
Agamemnon is lying in the bath with his back to her, his large, scarred arms around the edges. There are no weapons in sight and no guards. She has made sure of that. This is it, then, she thinks. No false steps, no mistakes. She can’t afford them.
“Here comes my wife at last,” he says. “The mighty queen of Mycenae, as they call you now.” He chuckles, amused by the idea. “I am sure you have earned the name.”
She walks to him and stands by the side of the tub. The row of smoking lamps hanging on the wall makes his face shiny. “Once it was you who were called mighty,” she says.
He looks at her. “Now I am the lord of men.”
Clytemnestra takes the cloth Aileen uses to clean her and kneels to scrub her husband’s arm. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t relax under her touch either.
“I heard a few stories on my way back here,” he says. She waits, listening to the silence that stretches between them. “Stories of you and my dear cousin Aegisthus.”
Of course he would talk about Aegisthus. Any other man would ask about his children, about Orestes’s departure, about Electra’s growth. But Agamemnon is not like any other man. “People like to talk,” she says.
He snorts. “He was always a beggar, even as a child. We would beat and humiliate him, yet he always came back, pleading for mercy and love.” He says the word with revulsion. “He never understood how the world works.”
“I think he does now.”
“Didn’t he come here and beg for shelter?”
“He wasn’t looking for shelter. He wanted to murder me to make you pay for what you did to his father.”
Agamemnon laughs bitterly. “Atreus was Aegisthus’s father as much as Thyestes was. He took him in and brought him up with the rest of us. And Aegisthus killed him.”
She passes the cloth over his shoulders, the scars carved on his skin. “That is why I threw him into a cell.”
His back grows tighter. “But you fucked him first. Isn’t that true?”
She walks around the tub and takes his feet into her hands, wipes each toe with the cloth. Ten years of dirt and blood to be scrubbed. Ten years of pain to be avenged.
“Aegisthus is a weak man,” she says.
“You have always liked weak men.”
She keeps her movements slow and controlled. “What about the Trojan princess? Did you take her?”
Agamemnon’s eyes never leave her. “She reminds me of you. That was why I chose her. When we took the city, all the other women were crying and cowering, but not Cassandra. She kept glaring, and when one of my men struck her, she spat at him.”
“It takes courage to do that.”
“Or stupidity. She was proud and didn’t accept that her role had changed.”
“You wouldn’t accept it either.”
He shakes his head. Outside, the stars are coming into view, bright and clear like lamps. There is the distant sound of men stumbling to their beds, drunk, dragging their lovers with them.
“I would have slashed my own throat long before that,” he says. “People like me don’t make good slaves.” He adds, “And you would have done the same.”
Something tightens inside her. “I am not like you.”
“You have always prided yourself on thinking so, but you are no good either. You take things from people, just like me. You lie when you don’t trust others with the truth, just like me.”
She wrings the cloth. “I am not like you,” she repeats. The words sound empty in her mouth. Agamemnon must feel it too, because he smirks.
“Polydamas and Lycomedes are dead,” he says. “Did you kill them?”
She knows where this is going but answers him anyway. “They didn’t respect me. They plotted against me.”
He waves his hand. “People always plot behind a ruler’s back. They didn’t do your bidding, so you got rid of them.”