Chapter Twenty-eight

 

 

 

At daybreak, Elektra took me down to the cult house so I could begin my duties as queen. “You’ll find everything in order,” she said. “It’s spotless inside.”

My sister-in-law sounded so uncertain and anxious to please, even striding on ahead to open the door. She had been like that last night, too, worrying over every detail so she was unable to enjoy the feast.

Pylades had much to do with her skittishness, I surmised. At the table, he had behaved with perfect courtesy, deferring to my husband and father, engaging them in conversation, and solicitously inquiring after my health after Orestes announced my pregnancy to the court, all while scarcely acknowledging his wife. King’s son and royal kinsman he might have been, but I thought him a colossal ass.

Orestes seemed not to notice his sister’s discontent. Or rather, I thought, he expected her gloom to vanish now that she had my company. Perhaps I ought to say something to him, but not yet. I would not meddle until I was certain it was the correct thing to do.

Elektra described the fresh paint and frescoes, new vessels and offering tables, rambling on and driving me to distraction till I could bear it no longer. “Enough!” I cried. “You’re starting to sound like Chrysothemis.”

At that, she started, turning wan with hurt. “Hermione...” Moisture glistened in her eyes.

Her reaction astounded me. The Elektra I knew was not this sensitive. She ought to have scowled, and snapped, and boxed my ear like the lioness she could be, not shrunk back like a kicked dog.

“I’m sure everything is beautiful,” I reassured her. “Let’s go inside.”

Elektra led me to the main altar, where she began to arrange the painted offering table before the deities. Our maids assumed their place against the wall with the offerings.

I arranged the votaries on the altar, lingering over my favorite, a hook-nosed old woman who absorbed our sins, and whose face we always kept turned toward the wall; I liked her because she reminded me of the loud-mouthed vendor women typical of the agora.

Then I noticed the sprigs of birthwort tucked into Eleuthia’s votive slots. “Who placed these here?” I asked.

“I did,” Elektra admitted, “after we got the message about the baby.”

Taking the offerings from the maids, we poured out the libations of honey and wine. A new house snake dwelled under the navel stone in the rear court. Once we set down the milk, Elektra told me, “I found her sunning herself on the omphalos the very day Orestes went free. It was a good omen.”

The lower citadel was alive with activity when we left the cult house. I heard the whir and clack of shuttles in the weaving house nearby, and suddenly found myself wondering what Elektra had done with the Euboean woman Orestes had won.

“Her?” Elektra snorted her disdain when I asked. “She had skilled hands when she cared to use them, but I never met such a clumsy, lazy slut. I sent her to the slave market in Tiryns. Got four head of cattle for her.”

“And Orestes doesn’t mind?”

“Orestes won’t take a concubine unless I inspect her first,” she replied. “He expects them to behave at all times and earn their keep.” As she spoke, a hint of uncertainty once more crept into her voice. “I’ve always overseen them, but if you’d rather...”

I shook my head vigorously. “I want nothing to do with his women.”

“He has but one at the moment,” she said, “and she knows her place.” A cart lumbered past on its way to the potter’s workshop; the driver saluted us. Elektra urged me toward the great ramp. “But come, there’s something I want to show you.”

Upstairs in the nursery, we found her daughters playing dolls with their old Phocian nurse. I had not visited this room since Orestes was six years old.

A treasure stood in the corner: a cedar cradle inlaid with ivory and gold. Bullion glittered on the purple blankets, and the linens had come from Egypt. “Anaxibia gave it to us when young Strophius was born.” Elektra ran a wistful finger over the headboard. “It seems a shame to waste it.”

“It’s beautiful,” I agreed.

“I have something else for you, too.” Elektra cooed at her playing daughters on her way to a chest, where she removed a stack of linens. I hesitated, for although the diapers were clean, they looked used, and not at all suitable for a king’s firstborn son.

Elektra caught my reaction. “New mothers always want brand-new linens, but after you have three or four babies, clean and serviceable is all that matters. Children grow faster than they can wear out their clothes.”

As she explained, two servant girls entered carrying water for the toddlers’ bath. Elektra stopped them to dip her fingers into both jugs. “I said hot, you slut!” Her palm cracked across the nearest girl’s cheek; water splashed onto the floor as the girl almost lost her balance. “Now, get out!”

I watched the girls retreat. “You can still be a harpy when you want to be.”

“Not around my husband.” Elektra bent and lifted little Anaxo in her arms, nodding to the nurse, who withdrew to give us privacy. “When Pylades was regent, you would have thought he was king. So strict and cold. He’s always been that way, of course, but this time it was different.” Her mouth twitched with the effort it took to let the words flow. “I tried to talk to him, but he kept ignoring me until I could no longer bear it. So I shouted at him, right there in the great court.” Her arms reflexively tightened around her daughter. Sensing her mother’s agitation, Anaxo started to fuss. “Do you know what he did then? He locked me in my chamber for four days, with only bread and water to eat, and he refused to let me out till I agreed to behave like a proper wife.”

I watched her rock her daughter to calm her, and bury her face for a moment in the child’s tousled curls. What did the children think, seeing the discord between their parents? “Should I say something to Orestes?”

Elektra’s eyes went wide. “Gods, no!”

“Are you certain?” I asked. “Pylades will listen to him.”

“And he expects everything to be all right, now that you’re here.” Elektra’s voice grew thick with emotion. “I told you, Pylades has always been that way. He never wanted to marry me, but then, marriage isn’t really for love, anyway.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” I exclaimed, even though I knew better.

“It’s true.” Anaxo began to whine in her mother’s arms. Elektra set her down beside her sisters on the sheepskin rug. “I haven’t been the best wife, either.”

I started to speak, but the little girls, having watched us with growing curiosity, decided at that moment to interrupt. “Mama,” five-year-old Antiklea said, “the pretty lady has red hair, too.”

“She’s your Aunt Hermione,” Elektra replied.

“What lovely girls you all are!” I took the nurse’s vacant chair, sat down, and held out my arms. “Why don’t you come here and show me your dolls while we wait for your bath?”

Antiklea crinkled her nose in disgust. “No bath!”

“Princesses have to take baths so they can make themselves pretty,” I told her.

Meanwhile, three-year old Charis had come over to show me her well-worn rag doll. “See my dolly!”

I smoothed the doll’s chewed, tangled yarn hair and admired it. I, too, had had a rag doll at that age, receiving the one with a ceramic head only when my grandmother saw I was responsible enough to properly look after it. “She’s a very pretty doll.” And dirty, and threadbare. “Maybe we should put a little perfume on her and paint her lips so she can be even prettier.”

“I should have the stuffing pulled from that thing and have it thoroughly washed,” Elektra commented, “but she refuses to be parted from it.”

Charis hugged my knees as the chastised servant girls reappeared with the water jugs. “No bath!”

Elektra tested the water a second time, and then sent the women into the bathroom. Both little girls whined to hear the bathwater splashing into the tub. “I want to play some more!” Antiklea whined.

“You do as you’re told, young lady,” Elektra said firmly.

“Come here, sweetheart.” Antiklea shuffled over wearing a hangdog look. I hugged both girls close. I adored them already. “You take a bath as your mother says, then once you’re all clean and fresh, you can play at my dressing table. My women will paint your lips, and you can try on my jewels.”

Charis beamed up at me. “We can play dolls?”

I stroked her red-gold curls. “Yes. We can play dolls, too.”

 

*~*~*~*

Orestes and Pylades took my father boar hunting in the hills northwest of the citadel. As I did not follow hounds, I remained behind to manage the servants and prepare the night’s feast.

To no one’s surprise, Elektra joined the hunt, driving her own chariot. I heard she carried extra spears, and accompanied the hunters on foot into the brush. Pylades and Orestes shook their heads at her recklessness, though to my bewilderment, neither one forbade her to stalk the boar, or cast her spear when the moment came. Perhaps they feared her ritual power as a high priestess, or the darker impulses she had inherited from Clytaemnestra.

It amazed me that she, a woman, would presume to wield anything more than the sacred labrys and sacrificial dagger, but Menelaus found her high courage admirable. “A true granddaughter of Atreus!” he exclaimed.

While they hunted, Menelaus and Orestes plotted to undermine the Argive assembly. Even after many weeks, I still thought the elderly Argive king’s persistent requests to receive my husband in Argos were perfectly reasonable, as his ailing health made it difficult for him to travel, but Orestes maintained his rigid view that going to Argos was a sign of his submission.

At last, he could delay no longer. Although Orestes traveled to Argos two days after the boar hunt, he did so strictly on his terms. He waited until the last possible moment to send Cyanippus word of his intent to visit, then, to further strengthen his position, he unexpectedly brought my father along as his elder kinsman, and arrived early. Clever. Foolish. I heard later that the Argive assembly had had to swallow its collective dismay at the united Mycenaean-Spartan front that Orestes and Menelaus represented.

Orestes returned confident in his authority. Menelaus was elated to have exercised influence in Argolis once more. Despite my misgivings over how they had antagonized the Argives, I had never seen my father as lively as he was during those two weeks.

Then the time came for him to leave. How I wished he could stay longer, at least until the child was born, but that was a daughter’s selfish wish. Menelaus had a kingdom to rule. Orestes needed to stand on his own feet as king. I had to let go for his sake and that of our child.

Before he left, my father gathered me in a tight embrace. “Remember to write,” he said. “Let us all know how the little mite is faring.”

Thus far, the mite in question was punishing his mother with renewed bouts of morning sickness. Elektra made me comfortable upstairs while taking over my duties downstairs. From among the palace scribes, she recommended a competent personal secretary, but always double-checked the ledgers after I finished.

Did she think I was new at managing a household? I asserted my authority the third time she did this. Once was an honest mistake, twice an irritation, and thrice a habit I would not tolerate. “I know my figures,” I said sharply.

“Of course you do,” Elektra answered, ignoring my flash of temper. “But you haven’t been to the kitchen lately. You remember Mykale? Well, she’s grown absentminded. Constantly orders items she already has, and is too stubborn to hear it from her assistants. A shame Orestes likes her cooking so much, or she would be retired.”

As long as she did not dictate to me, I let her manage the household stores and servants. She was efficient, and the regular work kept her spirits high. Nonetheless, I would not let her assume my duties in the cult house. Propitiating the gods was the queen’s responsibility, and given to me alone.

I interviewed the new high priestess of the town, a sickly, middle-aged woman who held her title due to her rank, and began receiving the ladies of the court in the afternoons, something which Clytaemnestra had never done. I understood why. Mycenae’s noblewomen were ambitious, preening birds who brimmed with inane gossip and dropped constant hints about spouses and sons seeking royal favor.

Orestes neither needed nor wanted a woman’s interference in his affairs. I listened to the ladies over my spinning, smiled and nodded at their courtesies, and gave bland, noncommittal answers.

Elektra, on the other hand, bared her claws whenever she thought a petitioning noblewoman went too far.

“Astyoche!” She singled out a woman who had spent the last half-hour singing her son’s praises. “Diokles is old enough to petition the king on his own behalf. So stop encouraging him to cling to your skirts, and let him be a man.”

Wincing at her bluntness, I did my best to undo the damage without coddling the noblewoman. “Lady Astyoche, forgive Princess Elektra for speaking her mind. I realize you love your son, but he is grown, and perhaps it would be wise to let him handle his own affairs. The king will grant him a fair hearing.”

Astyoche was not the only woman at court who despised my sister-in-law; they all did, and it had little to do with her perceived crimes. Like her mother, Elektra typically avoided her own sex, preferring instead the company of men, but her brother, husband, and their followers did not want to hear her views. So she inflicted them on the women, who were not accustomed to her bluntness.

No wonder she had been so lonely.

 

*~*~*~*

Letter and gifts arrived from home. My mother sent recipes, prayers, advice on selecting a good wet nurse, and new linen diapers. Chrysothemis wrote to me, too, her excitement bubbling through as her time neared. She was fretting over everything. I imagined some poor Spartan scribe shaking his head as he took her dictation.

Elektra groaned as she commented, “I thought you said she wasn’t such a goose anymore.”

I folded the letter and stowed it in my wool basket. “No, I said she and Aethiolas were getting along better. She’s still a goose.”

“She needs someone to tie her down. All this fussing won’t help her.” Elektra held two red skeins up to the light, trying to decide which one to use. “I pity your brother.”

A moment later, she laid aside both skeins. “I almost forgot to tell you. There’s another baby on the way. Chione is with child.”

I encountered my husband’s concubine only once. Chione was young, fifteen years old, with a winsome face and nimble fingers on the loom. Moreover, she remained invisible, making no demands and affecting no airs. I liked her despite myself, but did not believe for one moment that my sister-in-law had forgotten to tell me about her condition. “How far along is she?” I asked.

“She will deliver early next spring.”

That meant Orestes had gone into her since our return. I swallowed hard, biting back my hurt. All kings had concubines and bastards. I stared out the window. Had Orestes not taken slave women for his pleasure, people would have mocked him as uxorious, or worse, as a pederast.

Chione’s pregnancy upset me more than it should have. Marking my distress, Elektra offered a blunt, business-like solution. “I can have her take the medicine and lose it.”

But Chione did not belong to me, so it was not for me to decide. Orestes might already know about her condition and, exulting in his sexual prowess and glowing with paternal pride, want her have the baby. “Do nothing to her.”

“Are you sure?” Elektra asked.

I propped an elbow on the armrest and leaned into my hand, a hair’s breadth from bursting into tears. This irrational weeping would not do! “Did Orestes sire any bastards back in Phocis?”

“No. I made certain of it.” Elektra found a linen cloth among her threads, and handed it across. “Here, I used to cry all the time when I was pregnant.” Just staring at the linen threatened my resolve. “Go ahead and cry,” she urged. “then dry your eyes, and tell Orestes he’s going to be a father twice over. Let him give the girl some cheap beads or a new dress. Her child isn’t the one that matters.”

Orestes absorbed the news with obvious pleasure. “Make certain Chione has enough to eat,” he said, “and that she rests if she’s ill or gets too tired.”

“The girl’s a slave, not a wife,” Elektra said sharply.

Orestes glared at her. “Do you object?” He brooked no challenge to his authority, not even from behind closed doors from his own sister. Elektra had no choice but to see his will done.

After she withdrew, he asked me to remain, which I did not necessarily want to do, even when he solicitously took my hand. “I knew about the child. Chione told me a few days ago,” he confessed, “ but I preferred not to trouble you with it.”

So when had he intended to tell me, his wife? When the girl’s belly started showing, or when her labor pains began?

Orestes noticed my distress, as his sister had. He rose and came around behind my chair to wrap his arms around me. “Her child is nothing next to yours,” he murmured into my hair. “You know that.”

“I know.” I forced back tears. Orestes had announced my pregnancy to the people. He escorted me every month to the altars of Eleuthia and Artemis in the lower town, and made certain that I enjoyed every comfort; he had not done that with his concubine, and never would. “It’s the baby that does this to me. I have no quarrel with Chione.”

“When her child is born,” he said, “I will give her glass beads. You shall have bright gold.”