21

Plan for Escape

I URGED ZETHUS TO leave the citadel immediately and find quarters in the lower town. “Pyrrhus has spies everywhere, so no matter what you do, he’ll know about your visit before the day is over. I’ll tell him about our plans to decorate the palace, and you’ll have a chance to look for artisans. Everything will look quite normal. We’ll meet again soon. Now go—quickly.”

By the time the heralds reached the citadel to announce Pyrrhus’s return, everything was ready for him: a sheep had been slaughtered and spitted and was roasting over a fire, water was heated for his bath, the robe I’d woven for him had been laid out in his dressing room—very much like the way my aunt, Clytemnestra, had prepared for the return of my uncle, Agamemnon, though I had no intention of murdering my husband. I was leaving him, but without the help of Aphrodite. There would be no goddess to put everyone into a trance until I got away. I would have only Zethus to rely on.

The royal household gathered in the courtyard to welcome Pyrrhus: Andromache with her little son on her hip, Hippodameia with her newborn daughter in her arms, a number of cooks, guards, and servants.

With a false smile and modestly lowered eyes, I greeted my husband. He barely acknowledged me, responding in his arrogant manner. After he’d bathed and his servants had dressed him in his new robe, I led him into the gloomy megaron, the walls blackened years ago with smoke from the hearth.

Pyrrhus was in an ebullient mood, unusual for him. He ate heartily, enjoying the roast meat and the bread, staining his fingers red with the seeds of a pomegranate. Wine elevated his mood even more. He admired his bastard son, setting him on his knee, and paid scant attention to his bastard daughter. After the children had been carried away by their nurses, Andromache and Hippodameia quietly took their places on stools nearby.

The time seemed right to tell him about the arrival of Zethus and my plans to improve the palace: hiring plasterers and painters and tile makers, all to work under Zethus’s guidance.

“You recall how cleverly Zethus designed and built the wooden horse! Imagine how pleasant this megaron will be, the walls painted with scenes of our glorious victory at Troy!” I said brightly. Before he could begin to grumble about the cost, I leaned closer. “What an excellent way to impress your people,” I suggested. “It will give them pride, to see their king and queen living as splendidly as any in Greece.”

“No need to make any changes here,” Pyrrhus said, tearing into a meat-laden bone. “We’re moving. I’m building a new city with a citadel and a palace.”

“Moving?” This took me by surprise. “Where? What do you have in mind, Pyrrhus?”

He scowled. “If you will just let me enjoy my meal in peace, I’ll tell you all you need to know.” He continued to rip meat from the bone, reached for a chunk of bread, and then drained his wine goblet and pounded it on the table to be refilled.

I waited silently, exchanging glances with Andromache and Hippodameia, who appeared as startled as I was. Finally, his appetite sated, his wine goblet full again, Pyrrhus talked loudly about his journey westward.

“We set up our tents in the mountains of Epirus, near the oracle of Dodona. There I met some of my father’s people, who led us to the shrine with the sacred oak tree and the priests with unwashed feet who interpret the rustling of its leaves. Months ago Helenus prophesied, ‘When you find a house built upon a foundation of metal, with walls of wood and a roof of wool, there you will build a city.’ The oracle said that our tents made of blankets draped over our swords stuck in the ground and supported by branches exactly matched Helenus’s description! The meaning is absolutely clear. I will send Helenus to begin to build our new city on that precise spot. It’s to be called Bouthroton.”

“But that’s so far away!” I exclaimed.

“Far away from what?” Pyrrhus asked irritably.

Better to have said nothing, I realized. “Just . . . Sparta,” I stammered. “My parents. I’d like to visit Menelaus and Helen.”

“Really? You want to visit the whore and the man who can’t keep his own wife in his bed?” Then he added with a malevolent smile, “Or is it your murderous cousin Orestes you’re so eager to see again?”

He knows. Stunned, I opened my mouth and closed it again, unable to utter a word.

“Helenus foresaw the murders, which included his sister Cassandra,” he said. “It’s hard to say what’s more appalling: the queen’s murder of her husband, or the son’s murder of his mother.”

Pyrrhus drained his wine goblet for the third time—or was it the fourth? A servant refilled it without waiting for him to pound the table. “Your family, Hermione!” he said sarcastically. “Your mother’s sister and your dear cousin of whom you are so deeply fond—both murderers! I wonder what Menelaus has to say about this. And your mother, too, if your father hasn’t yet punished her for what she’s done. As he should! If it hadn’t been for Queen Helen, none of this would have happened. She’s the one who deserves to die, as does any woman who betrays her husband.”

My face burned with hurt and anger, but his remark sent a chill through me. “Surely you can’t blame my mother for this!” I replied sharply. “Helen had nothing to do with Clytemnestra’s betrayal and murder of Agamemnon, or with Orestes’ vengeance!”

“But it does show a certain pattern among the women in your family to cuckold their husbands, doesn’t it?” I didn’t like the way his mouth twisted or the way he leaned toward me, his face too close to mine. I hated his sour breath on me.

I knew it was a mistake to argue with him, and yet I couldn’t stop myself. “And when husbands betray their wives with concubines, that’s a very different matter, I suppose? Men are free to sow their seed wherever they wish, and women must accept it! I’m supposed to accept it!”

I saw the alarmed expressions on the faces of Andromache and Hippodameia, Pyrrhus’s favored bedmates. They stared at me, mouths forming O’s, and they knew, as I did, that there were others as well. I wondered about their true feelings, but I no longer cared enough about either woman to want to ask them.

The anger rang in his voice like the clash of a bronze sword on a bronze shield. “My ill luck to have married a whore like her mother in every way but one—her looks. At least Helen is beautiful!”

For little more than a heartbeat I was rigid as stone. Then I inclined my head slightly in the direction of Pyrrhus’s glaring eyes and reddening face and swept out of the megaron.

“Bitch!” he shouted. A wine goblet flew past my head and smashed. Wine ran down the wall like blood.

I kept going.

“You’re not even a decent whore, Hermione!” he bellowed after me. “Andromache knows how to please a man. Hippodameia does too. You eat my food and drink my wine and give me nothing in return.”

His cruel words bounced off me like pebbles off a wall, but I knew that I would pay for my words, for speaking out. I sat in my bedroom, trembling, waiting for whatever punishment he chose to deal.

My husband had no love for me; I was merely part of the spoils of war, as Andromache was. But she had given him a son, even Hippodameia had produced a daughter, and he often threw it in my face that I was barren. Of no value, he had told me more than once; worthless.

My punishment was longer coming than I’d expected. As the night wore on and he didn’t appear, I hoped that he had decided to stay with one of his concubines and I could go to sleep. But I was wrong. Pyrrhus strode shouting into my bedroom and seized me.

“I’ve been thinking about your visitor,” he snarled, forcing me down on the bed. “Zethus is your lover now, isn’t he?” he roared. I denied it. “Now that you’ve lost your pretty Orestes, you’ve turned to a common carpenter.” Pyrrhus shouted at me, called me vile names, had even viler names for poor Zethus, and vowed that he would castrate him and make him a slave.

There was no reasoning with him. Madness ruled him. His anger had inflamed his lust. I shut my eyes and bit my thumb to keep from screaming.

 

I HEARD THE SERVANTS stirring outside my room when at last Pyrrhus finished with me and stumbled off to his own bed. My bones ached, my whole body hurt, and I was exhausted, but sleep was out of the question. I ordered a warm bath and sank into it gratefully. My maidservant, Ardeste, rubbed me with oil. I saw in her eyes that she had heard more than I wanted her to know.

She dressed me in an embroidered peplos and fastened a narrow belt of gold links around my waist. “Mistress,” she whispered, “I can help you, if you wish.”

I looked at her. “Help me? In what way, Ardeste?” Is this a trap? Is she another of Pyrrhus’s spies?

“In the servants’ quarters last night we heard Pyrrhus raving, spewing hatred of you and your friend. Zethus should leave Pharsalos without delay. It’s dangerous for him. I can take a message to him.”

I studied my servant carefully. “How do I know I can trust you, Ardeste? This household is infested with spies.”

“We have a saying here in Pharsalos,” she replied. “‘There are more spies than fleas.’ But in the end you have to trust someone. You’ve known me since you first came here with Pyrrhus, and you are well liked by the people. Achilles is remembered as a brave and wonderful warrior, but many who had nothing to fear feared him anyway. Pyrrhus is much like his father in the wrong ways. Everyone is afraid of him except his Myrmidons, who claim to love him. Escape while you can, mistress. I’ll come with you, if you wish.”

I thought hard about what Ardeste was telling me. She was right—if I intended to escape and set out to find Orestes, no matter what terrible thing he had done and how terribly he was being punished—then I had to do it now. Ardeste, her back to me, knelt by my bathing tub and dipped out the water, waiting for my decision.

“What do we need to do to get ready, Ardeste?” I asked.

“I’ll find Zethus,” she said. “It won’t be difficult—everyone will know of the stranger in town. We’ll arrange to meet. I grew up here, and I know the place well. There’s a cave where he can wait for us. It’s well hidden. We won’t be found there.” She sponged out the last of the bath water and replaced the jar of scented oil on a shelf. “You will not be able to travel as a queen—there will be no carrying chair. Do you think you can manage?”

“I lived in a military camp on a beach for ten years,” I said. “I know how to get along very well without luxuries.”

She pinched back a smile. She probably didn’t believe me. “I’ll bring you plain tunics and sturdy sandals. And a shawl to cover your head. Everyone will recognize your red hair.”

“I once stole a scarf from a marketplace to cover my hair.” It was my turn to smile, remembering how old Marpessa helped me to travel on the women’s ship to Troy.

Ardeste said, “On the night we leave, you must give Pyrrhus a drug that will induce the most pleasant dreams and leave him unable to pursue you. I’ll bring you a powder made of ground poppy seeds to mix with his wine. Be sure to give some to Andromache and Hippodameia. I’ll make certain that the Myrmidons with him also drink some.”

I hoped I could do what she suggested without arousing suspicions. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, my mind was clear.

“Find Zethus,” I told her. “Tell him our plan. We’ll leave tonight. The longer we wait, the harder it will be.”