“She was trying to run away,” Aegisthus says, “but I found her.”
Clytemnestra screams. Cassandra’s face, young and lovely in her desperation . . . like her daughter’s before she died. “She did nothing to you! Why did you have to sacrifice her?” she shouts, spitting at him. The expression on Aegisthus’s face shifts. Pain and fear—fear of her—are tearing him apart.
“I thought you wanted her dead,” he says.
She sinks her head into Cassandra’s robe and weeps. She weeps for the Trojan girl, but mostly for everything she has lost. Her tears belong to Castor, who was caught in a cruel man’s net; to her baby son, whom she didn’t name and thus will always float in the afterworld in anonymity; to her dear Tantalus, the king who loved her and died because of her; and to her beautiful daughter, whose heart against her chest she can still feel, like the feeble beating of wings.
Mother, I am at peace now.
She keeps still, barely breathing.
You avenged me, now let me rest. I will meet you in the darkness when you are ready.
Leda was right. The dead do speak. She lifts her head and reaches out, almost expecting to see her daughter. But in her arms, there is air and nothing else.
35
House in Order
THE KING’S BODY is taken to the garden, and they all gather around it—the elders, the women of the palace, Agamemnon’s faithful warriors, and Clytemnestra’s men.
She stands to the side with her daughters as servants arrange the wood before bringing the torches to it. The fire builds and the flesh starts to burn. You can’t kill me, he’d said. But he is dead, his body—what is left of it—quickly turning to ashes.
Chrysothemis kneels and cries. She covers her face with her hands, wailing. The other women are wailing too, calling for the gods. Electra keeps silent, her eyes fixed on the flames as if she were burning the body herself. She was the one who found him, who shouted for help and awakened the palace.
Clytemnestra takes her broken hand in the other. She tries to move the fingers, pain shooting through her. I have killed the lord of men, Agamemnon. My debt is paid.
Somewhere down by the walls, Calchas’s body is burned too, away from his king. He talked about being remembered in the times to come, but all that people will know of him is this: an ugly, freakish man who ordered little girls to be sacrificed.
Calchas will wither away, while Agamemnon’s name will live on. But Clytemnestra doesn’t care: she knows that kings tend to become heroes to future generations. Heracles, Perseus, Jason, Theseus . . . songs about them are sung, and their cruel deeds are turned into sunlight.
As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her better. Let her be hated forever.
*
In the dining hall, she stands at the head of the table while Cadmus and a few other elders take their seats on one side and, on the other, Aegisthus, Electra, and Chrysothemis. Some of Agamemnon’s faithful warriors stand opposite her, surrounded by her most loyal men. The light that comes from the windows is reddish, streaked with fire. Clytemnestra catches sight of Aileen in the shadows by the door, the other servants crowding around her.
It is Cadmus who speaks first, his face grave. “My queen, we ask you to execute the man who committed this hideous crime.”
A murmur of assent. She almost smiles. As she predicted, everyone thinks Aegisthus killed Agamemnon. It must also be Electra’s doing. When they took their place around the pyre, Electra whispered in her ear, “Your lover killed my father.” Now she sits next to Aegisthus, the hatred in her eyes like a burning whip.
“Act for act,” a large man intervenes—one of Agamemnon’s commanders in Troy. “Justice demands it.”
Aegisthus shifts in his seat. He trusts her, yet he can’t help fearing an angry crowd.
“Vengeance is our way of life,” Clytemnestra says. The men nod, their faces gray in the light of the torches. “But what about Aulis? What about Princess Iphigenia, who was sacrificed like a beast, her blood still wetting the altar stone?”
No one speaks.
“Did anyone avenge her? Her father murdered her, yet you didn’t demand that he was banished. You didn’t hunt him down, as you are ready to do with Aegisthus.”
Everyone stares at her, confused. Her eyes meet Electra’s, and she sees realization dawn on her daughter’s face. She is the only one who understands.
“The princess gave her life willingly,” a warrior says, “for the war.”
Are these the lies you have been telling yourselves all these years?
“You were there,” Clytemnestra says coolly. “You saw how she screamed and cried. My daughter came to Aulis for a marriage, and she never left.”
“We mourned the princess, my queen,” Cadmus says calmly. “But now our king is dead.”
“Was his life more important than Iphigenia’s?” she asks.
Cadmus hesitates. She wants him to say it—she dares anyone to say it.
“He was our leader,” the large man says. “A king and lord of men.” He steps forward, his finger pointed at Aegisthus. “And this man murdered him!”
Clytemnestra takes a deep breath. She thinks of her father when he talked in the megaron—how deep his voice was, how his men revered him. She will never have that kind of devotion, no woman can, but she will have respect.
“You are wrong in accusing Lord Aegisthus,” she says quietly. She doesn’t look at her daughters as she speaks, for she is afraid her heart might break. “The work is all mine. I killed your lord of men, and I did it to avenge my daughter.”
The silence is as deafening as when a predator passes through the forest. Then, very slowly, Cadmus says, “You exult over a fallen king.”
“He was no king of mine,” she says.
Agamemnon’s men step forward as one, their swords drawn. In a second, Clytemnestra’s guards are around them. Blades meet blades.
“You are a murderer and a traitor!” the large warrior spits in her direction.
She meets his gaze. “Yes, I murdered him, but I will not stand here and let you call me traitor—you who watched a king sacrifice a little girl and did nothing.”
“We understand your grief, my queen,” Cadmus says, “but what you did cannot be forgiven.”
Who decides what can be forgiven? Her heart is beating too loudly, and she is afraid they will hear it.
“I was raised to be a warrior and a queen,” she says. “Most of you don’t know this, but I was married when your king took me for himself. Tantalus was his name, and he was king of Maeonia, one of the richest lands our world has ever seen.” The name in her mouth tastes like tears. “I loved him and he loved me, and together we had a baby boy.”
Aegisthus’s face is in the shadows, and she wonders what he is thinking.
“Then Agamemnon came and murdered him. He took the baby from my husband’s arms and smashed him onto the floor. He did something that cannot be forgiven.
“All my life, people have wronged me. I was whipped and shipped like a cow. My own father betrayed me. I was raped and humiliated, marred and beaten. But I am still here. All the things I have done, I did to protect the ones I loved. Wouldn’t you have done the same?”
For a long time, no one speaks. The wait is painful, and she feels as if she is plummeting through the sky, with no wings to raise her. Finally, something in the air shifts. Cadmus steps forward and kneels. His thin white hair looks like feathers on his head. “My queen,” he says, “you have made this city thrive with richness beyond imagining, and you lead us with strength and valor. What is done is done. All I can do now is choose to follow you for the rest of my days. You are the true keeper of the House of Mycenae.”
He looks up and she looks down. When she nods, he rises to his feet again.
Agamemnon’s warrior sheathes his sword. “For a woman, you are brave and worthy. But what you did cannot be forgotten.”