Chapter Six

 

 

 

Late spring showers kept us indoors.

Chrysothemis took it badly. Having spent the frigid winter months gossiping with the maids, spinning and weaving to her heart’s content, she now panicked over a single day’s confinement. She hated silence and gloomy things, and had no strength to confront the ghosts of Mycenae. Sometimes she let her spindle fall idle and stared blankly at the wall, tears streaming down her face.

After Elektra left, Chrysothemis took no pleasure stitching the bright embroideries she worked so well. And she refused to weave as it meant facing the wall where someone could surprise her from behind. She grew pensive and wary. Her hypervigilance, mingled with my own fears, convinced me to keep a lamp burning at night while I slept. A true daughter of kings ought to be fearless, but in the end a princess was still just a woman.

As the days passed, Chrysothemis sometimes broke the silence with soft utterances. “I wish Mother would let me get married.” She twisted yarn between her fingers, drawing out a fine, even thread as the spindle twirled. “I’m more than old enough.”

Chrysothemis’s desire to marry and leave home was a familiar refrain, though now she dared not ask her mother for the privilege. Rumors were going around that Aegisthus intended for his bastard son, a bad-tempered eight-year-old brat he had sired on a slave woman, to succeed him as king of Mycenae. King Aegisthus. The whole notion sickened me.

I strove to hold my distress in check when the bastard boy barged into Orestes’ chamber to rummage through his things. Aletes knocked over the gods on his rival’s altar, took his jewelry, and tore up his cherished letters from Agamemnon. Gods forgive me for not having rescued them! I had not wanted to violate the sanctity of my cousin’s possessions.

Chrysothemis opened her mouth to keep talking, yet only a choking gasp emerged, and her gaze was fixed on a point beyond my shoulder. The doorway, I surmised. I turned to see what was amiss

Aegisthus. Acknowledging us with his peculiar brand of mock courtesy, he entered the sitting room and stopped beside my chair, but it was my cousin he was looking at. “I see a certain lady’s tongue is as busy as her hands,” he said. “What are we chattering about today, Princess?”

Chrysothemis stared at him with large, terrified eyes. Aegisthus took a perverse satisfaction in toying with his inferiors, like a cat tormenting a mouse before making the kill.

“Ah,” he drawled, after giving her a moment to answer. “As usual, nothing at all.”

His fingers clamped down on the back of my chair. “My dear little bird, your aunt wishes to see you.”

I choked back sudden panic. “She does?”

“You say that as though you’ve done something wrong.” Aegisthus bent down to regard me with a knowing little smile. I felt his hot breath on my neck. “I can’t imagine what you could’ve done.”

A true daughter of kings was fearless, I remembered. “Has she said why?” This time, my voice sounded steadier. “She never sends for me.”

“‘Why’ is irrelevant, young lady. You are to come at once.” Straightening, he extended his hand to me. Lacking another option, I set aside my embroidery hoop and got to my feet without his help.

He stopped me in the deserted corridor, claimed the hand I had refused him, and raised it to his lips while holding my gaze. “Dear Hermione,” he breathed, lingering much too long over my knuckles. “I wonder who is going to claim you now that your fiancé is gone.”

Revulsion tempted me to wrench my hand away, yet caution kept me still. Aegisthus’s lips curved in a sly smile as he turned my hand over to flick his tongue over my palm. My fingers twitched with the urge to curl into a fist and make it impossible for him to continue his disgusting attempt at seduction. “That is for my father and grandfather to decide.”

“Hmm, but you are here and your grandfather is in Sparta.” The point of his tongue teased the hollow of my wrist. It was like being licked by a lizard. “Your father has not yet returned home.”

“I thought my aunt wished to see me.”

His lips, replacing his tongue, grazed my pulse. “There is no rush.”

I concentrated on pulling my scattered thoughts together. “Should an uncle be meddling with his niece?”

Aegisthus released me, though not entirely. He braced his left arm against the wall, trapping me on my right. “Ah, but you’re Helen’s daughter.” With his free hand, he traced his fingertips over my left breast. I suppressed a shiver. “Does she have the same lustrous red hair and creamy white skin as you?” He leaned in, so his voice caressed my ear. “But you are much younger than she is, a virgin girl. I wonder...”

Then, laughing, he chucked me under the chin and drew away, leaving me speechless. “Let’s not keep your aunt waiting.”

I was still trembling when he led me into the queen’s apartment. Clytaemnestra’s sitting room was luxurious. Inlaid tables, painted vessels, and embroidered scarlet hangings and cushions worked with gold thread made this the most sumptuous chamber in the entire palace. I used to be envious of this room in the days before my nightmares daubed the walls with blood.

Clytaemnestra held a wax tablet and stylus in her hand as she perused the citadel accounts. “Sit down, Hermione.” She indicated a high-backed chair across from her. “I have news from Sparta.”

Those five words cut through my apprehension to offer hope. “Has my father returned?” Aegisthus had just claimed otherwise, but I preferred not to believe anything he said.

“No, not quite.” Clytaemnestra handed me a sheet of papyrus. Papyrus meant a letter from an important person, for only the wealthy could afford to import the costly Egyptian writing material. “It’s from your grandfather. Winter storms diverted your parents to Egypt, where they are now guests in Pi-Ramesses while Menelaus finshes repairing his ships. But when he does come home, he will expect to find you there waiting for him. So Tyndareus has sent for you. You will be leaving within the week.”

“Parents” meant my mother was still alive. I perused the missive to verify the news. Tyndareus wrote infrequently, even though Clytaemnestra sent regular reports about me. The letter he wrote now was terse, laconic, a mere paragraph informing my aunt that my father had been delayed, and that it was time for me to come home and assume a woman’s responsibilities.

Ten words or fifty, it did not matter. I was leaving Mycenae, escaping, going home.

“I hope you speak well of your time here,” Clytaemnestra said.

I caught the ominous note in her voice. Aegisthus’s presence loomed behind me. Flustered, I fumbled for words. “Of course. I-I am very blessed to have had your hospitality.”

Clytaemnestra bestowed an enigmatic smile upon me. “This has been a very difficult time for all. I’m sure that you’ve heard many rumors about your uncle’s death, but the bloodshed that day was a terrible accident.” Aegisthus braced his hands on the back of my chair. I imagined him throttling me the moment I gave a wrong answer. “I’ve been told you were wandering near the megaron just before the trouble began.”

Denying it would have exacerbated the situation; Aegisthus must have told her everything. “Elektra said men were coming.” I focused on keeping my composure, on not betraying any more than necessary. “I went downstairs to see if it was true.” I sucked in a breath. I was shaking all over. Surely Clytaemnestra could hear my pounding heartbeat. “Uncle Aegisthus found me. He told me I was mistaken, and sent me back to my room.”

“She’s such a sensible girl.” Aegisthus smothered every word in honey. “So obedient.”

Yet Clytaemnestra kept watching me, scrutinizing me like a serpent contemplating its prey. “Indeed. But as I recall, her room is within earshot of the megaron. I’m afraid she must have heard something.”

Her clinical detachment pricked my fear to even greater heights. I knew the next few moments would determine my fate. All those sleepless nights I had lain awake rehearsing possible answers should anyone question me, yet now it took all my will to remain calm and remember. “Yes. I heard a terrible commotion coming from the megaron.” My aunt must have heard my voice shaking and my teeth rattling. “Men fighting. It frightened me.”

“You were wise to stay away. Agamemnon always had such a hot temper. Besides, a brawl between rival kinsmen is no place for a woman. That poor concubine was proof enough of that.” Clytaemnestra’s smile softened slightly. I had given the correct answer. I had passed the test.

 

*~*~*~*

Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus loaded me with gifts suitable for a marriageable young princess and arranged a modest feast in my honor. I received new clothes and jewels, iris oil, new bronze needles, and ribbons for my hair: more treasures in one day than I had received in the last seven years. I saw the gifts for what they were. My guardians were trying to buy my silence.

On my last day at Mycenae, as the servants decorated the megaron with fragrant garlands and the cooks roasted meat and baked bread for that evening’s feast, Clytaemnestra took me down to the cult house to petition the gods to safeguard me during my voyage home.

Mycenae’s cult house contained a network of chambers: a room for the entire pantheon upon a painted altar, another for the bloodless offerings, a storeroom for the ritual vessels, a lustral chamber with a ceramic tub where purification rites took place, and an area where the house snake dwelt. On the other side of the building, men had their own rooms for worship.

Iphigenia used to assist with the offerings, as the eldest daughter of the house always did. Those duties now fell to me. Clytaemnestra had never turned to her surviving daughters to help or comfort her.

My aunt began arranging the deities upon the altar, selecting those who most required appeasement. “In Sparta, tending the immortal gods will be your responsibility.”

I acknowledged her comment with a nod. Clytaemnestra poured milk and honeyed wine onto the three-legged offering table before the altar, and repositioned several of the ceramic votaries so they faced the gods in perpetual worship. Then she raised her arms, palms facing outward. I mirrored her actions as befit an attending priestess.

“Swift-running Hermes, receive this sweet libation of milk and honey,” she intoned. “Watch over this woman Hermione, the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, during her journey home. Poseidon, Earth-Shaker and Father of the Sea, receive this sweet libation of milk and honey. Watch over this woman Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, during her journey home.”

Then it was my turn to placate Artemis. I saluted the goddess’s image with an uncertain heart. Even though I kept faith with her as every virgin girl must, Lady Artemis was also the goddess whose anger at Agamemnon had claimed Iphigenia. “Artemis, Mistress of the Winds,” I said solemnly, “receive this sweet libation of milk and honey. Watch over me.” Dare I trust her safeguard me? “Bless my ship with favorable winds on my journey home.”

Together, we bowed deeply to the immortals then left the chamber to let them feast upon the libations while we offered milk to the house snake in the sunny inner court.

Once we finished the morning rites, Clytaemnestra did not lead me back to the palace but onto the circuit wall above the ancient Perseid grave circle. A light breeze played over the ramparts. As I wondered what we were doing there, she spoke, “I see very little of your mother in you.”

Coming from her, it was a compliment. I kept my mouth shut, knowing her observations were more her thinking out loud than an invitation to engage her in conversation.

Clytaemnestra gazed out over the tiled roofs of the lower town. “Menelaus should have killed the slut. But no, he waited a moment too long to run her through. Men are so weak when it comes to beautiful women. One look at your mother’s tits was all it took, I hear. The sword between his legs rose and the one in his hand fell.”

Again, she was thinking aloud, repeating a crude joke Aegisthus had told several months ago. “Oh, I know,” she continued. “He must keep her alive if he wishes to remain king in Sparta. But no one ever said he couldn’t beat or disfigure her. She ought to have that perfect face slashed, and be flogged through the streets of Therapne. She deserves to have a daughter taken from her, as mine was taken from me.”

A chill passed through me that did not come from the morning breeze. I had never thought to hear that sentiment voiced again after so many years. Her words recalled the labrys striking the doorjamb mere inches from my head. She wanted me dead.

I surreptitiously studied the drop from the wall to the jagged rocks below. A powerful woman like Clytaemnestra could easily heave me over the crenellations. No one would stop her.

But it was not my life she wanted; her quarrel was with Helen. Keeping that thought in mind, I gathered enough courage to open my mouth and try to deflate her angry musings. “Perhaps my father is saving her for some special punishment.”

“I doubt it,” she observed dryly. Then she shifted her gaze to the mountains of Arcadia. They rose like a bulwark to the west; snow still dusted the highest peaks. “I fear for Orestes out in the wilderness, hungry and cold, his head filled with perverse ideas.”

Then she looked sidelong at me. “You understand my meaning.” She lifted a jeweled finger to command my silence when I would have protested my ignorance. “I think you and Orestes both saw and heard more than you should have. In fact, my followers tell me they saw a redheaded woman hiding up in the gallery that day. I wonder, who that could have been?”

“It was an accident.” My explanation tumbled out in an uncontrollable rush. “Agamemnon arrived before I could get away.”

“Hermione!” she snapped. “Stop behaving as though you’re about to be punished. You were on your way back to your room when it happened. Of course you heard the commotion. Perhaps you even saw a little bloodshed and it was a terrible shock.”

Clytaemnestra moved in closer, her gold bangles and rings glittering in the sunlight as she clamped a firm hand on my upper arm. My heart jumped. Was this it? Was she about to drag me to the wall and shove me over the edge? “Agamemnon does not deserve your pity. You never knew what a monster he was. He courted me by butchering my first husband and dashing my baby’s brains against the wall. Then he threw me down and took me while my child’s body was still warm.” Feral rage dripped from her like acid. “You can’t know what hate truly means until you’ve had a man violate you and murder your children before your very eyes. Hate is something the immortal gods can never take from you.”

Releasing me, she sucked a deep breath through her nostrils. “I have lost two children. As for the rest, it’s murder a child or be murdered by him. Hah! What a conundrum! Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you do, the gods will curse you either way.”

 

*~*~*~*

Chrysothemis was devastated at losing me, her last true friend and confidant, and insisted on spending the final night in my bedchamber. My aunt, however, refused her the comfort. “It’s time you stop whining and cringing like a kicked dog and start behaving like a princess.”

Abashed, Chrysothemis’s lower lip quivered with burgeoning tears. I squeezed her hand, then led her out to the stairwell to offer what encouragement I could. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”

“Everyone’s leaving,” she complained. “I’m going to be all alone here, and you know how Mother hates me.”

Although I did my best to reassure her, her fearful whisperings and gossip would have kept me awake all night. I kissed her goodnight, then, yawning, retired to my room to undress. I had eaten and drunk a bit too much at the feast, and my eyelids were drooping. Althaia, too, was sluggish, fumbling as she removed my paint and finery. She had better be awake and alert in the morning. I had to rise early.

A faint noise outside my door roused me from a disjointed dream about the cult votaries attending the feast, and calling with reedy little voices for more milk and honey. I listened for the sound again above Althaia’s rhythmic snoring, heard nothing, and dismissed it as a mouse or some other night noise. I yawned and sank back into a snug, blissful slumber.

Sudden lamplight stung my eyes. Someone had entered the room. I heard shoes thump to the floor, then what sounded like fingers undoing a belt. Squinting, and hazy with sleep, I tried to make out the figure looming beside the bed. A man. Sluggish fear stirred in my belly. “Althaia,” I groaned.

A powerful hand came down on my wrist. “I don’t think so, little bird.”

Aegisthus, still holding me fast, dragged aside the coverlet and sat down beside me; the mattress sagged under his weight. He was naked. Panic banished my sleepiness. “No!” I twisted in his grasp and cried out again for Althaia, snoring on her cot. Why would she not answer me? “Let me go.”

“Your maid is sound asleep.” He leaned over to lick my earlobe. “I’m afraid she drank a bit too much tonight.”

I tried to collect my scattered wits. “Get off me.”

Ignoring my protests, Aegisthus kissed my throat, his stubble scratching my skin. A scream started in my throat, but he anticipated me by covering my mouth with his. I bit down on his lip, tasted his blood, and a moment later tasted my own when he backhanded me across the face. Rough fingers grasped my throat. “Don’t make me beat you into submission,” he hissed. “It would ruin your pretty face.”

My lip throbbed where he had struck me. “I don’t want you.”

Aegisthus responded by tearing open my linen shift. Feeling his erection pressing against my belly heightened my terror. Sobbing, I tried yet again to escape him, but all my thrashing and squirming did was give him a chance to get between my legs.

“You’re Helen’s daughter. You were born for this.” The taste of my blood soured his kiss. When he thrust his tongue into my mouth, it was all I could do not to gag or bite him again. His erection prodded my thighs.

I kept crying as he sucked the blood from my lips and moved down to kiss my breasts. His slimy tongue on my nipples filled me with disgust. “Stop!”

When he began to move against my body, I knew what was coming. His chest mashed against my breasts, his hands pinioned my wrists above my head, except for the moment when he reached between my thighs to guide his shaft into me. I could not move to struggle, except to turn my head away from him and close my eyes.

Aegisthus pierced me with a single, vicious thrust and kept going, deep inside me, ignoring my pain. He tore me open, again and again, and with every thrust he pounded me into the mattress. I could not move for the agony, or breathe for the weight crushing me. I could not even cry out except to whimper incoherently.

It went on and on, with him grunting and groaning into my neck, claiming sloppy kisses from my mouth, telling me how good it felt. Sweat poured from his body. His masculine odor filled my nostrils. I gagged back vomit.

Finally, he shoved into me one last time, and then, with a strangled groan, he emptied his seed into me. Once he finished, he continued to hold and caress me as though we were actual lovers.

He kissed me on the mouth, lingering with his tongue. Perspiration dripped from his brow onto my breasts. “It’s a shame you have to leave so early tomorrow,” he purred. “I would like nothing better than to stay and enjoy you again.” Groping hands squeezed my buttocks.

Tears leaked from my eyes to run down my sticky cheeks. His slime oozed from the aching void between my legs. “Just go. Get out.”

Obliging me, he rose and dressed, but just before he left he tugged the sheet out from under me and roughly wiped away the seed and blood staining my thighs. “I will take this with me.” Wadding it in one hand, he picked up the lamp with the other. “Go back to sleep now, little bird.”

I curled my lips into a snarl. “Stop calling me that.”

“Ah, but it’s my favorite endearment for you.” Aegisthus leered down at me. “It’s what my father used to call my mother when she was a little girl.”