25

The Long Road

PYRRHUS WAS DEAD, HIS Myrmidons in disarray. Before nightfall the pythoness ordered Apollo’s shrine to be rebuilt and my husband’s body to be buried beneath the threshold, in accordance with custom.

The Myrmidons wandered around aimlessly. The priests of Apollo, the wielder of the sacrificial knife, and the pythoness had all disappeared. Shocked and in a daze, I climbed onto the back of little Onos and let him carry me down to the town of Krisa by the light of a moon sometimes blocked by scudding clouds. We found the fisherman’s hut that Ardeste had arranged for us. Zethus left Onos to graze in a patch of greenery. We ate the grilled fish and bread and poured a libation to the gods in thanksgiving for our safety. Not wishing to be haunted by Pyrrhus’s ghost, I also poured a libation and cut off the ends of my hair, as was expected at the death of a spouse.

Above us on Mount Parnassus smoke still curled up from the ashes of Apollo’s shrine. Naturally, everyone in Krisa was talking about what had happened. A new set of priests, those serving Dionysus, had arrived to celebrate the coming of winter with drinking and ecstatic orgies. Soon the people dismayed by the terrible behavior of Pyrrhus turned their attention to the return of Dionysus. Despite the death of their leader, even the warlike Myrmidons allowed themselves to be caught up in the festive atmosphere, though I was afraid the copious amounts of wine they consumed would soon turn them vicious again.

Flakes of snow drifted down from the black sky. Our borrowed hut was damp and too small for three. The days were short with only a little weak sun, and the nights long and dark and very cold. I wanted to leave as soon as possible. We talked about traveling south, where it might be warmer.

Was that the long road I was supposed to follow? I didn’t know.

Something else was troubling me: it was obvious that Zethus and Ardeste had become lovers. I was sure of it. I hadn’t found them in each other’s arms, but it was possible to sense these things. The way she looked at him. The way he “accidentally” touched her arm when they passed. How she said his name. He was too concerned for her comfort. When he served her a piece of the fish he had finished grilling, it was a better portion than he took for himself. There was a change in the sound of her laughter—what was there to laugh about?—and a lilt in her voice when they spoke to each other.

This had happened subtly, over time. I didn’t know when it first began, but I envied them. I was jealous. Not that I wanted Zethus for myself, for I did not. He had been a loyal friend for a very long time, but I had never been drawn to him in the way that a man and woman are drawn to each other, as Orestes and I were. I wanted that kind of love, but I wanted it with Orestes.

The two came back from a nearby spring carrying animal skins filled with water. Ardeste had borrowed a bronze cauldron from the wife of a wine merchant she’d met in the marketplace. I had not had the luxury of a bath in a long time, and she promised that I’d have one that night. Zethus heated the water over our supper fire and waited outside the hut while I bathed. I invited Ardeste to bathe in the water after I’d finished.

“May Zethus then take his turn, mistress?” she asked, and I grudgingly allowed that he might. I disliked myself for the resentment I felt, but I couldn’t help it.

Later, Ardeste carried the cauldron back to the wine merchant’s wife and returned to our crowded little hut with a jar of wine and three clay goblets, a gift from the merchant.

“I have good news, mistress,” she told me as she poured the wine. “The merchant’s wife has offered us a second hut, smaller than this one but close by. You could then have this hut all to yourself, and we can share the other hut.”

“‘We’? You mean you and Zethus?”

“Yes, mistress.” She lowered her eyes. “So that you’ll be more comfortable.”

I slammed down my goblet too hard, and wine splashed everywhere, but I didn’t care. “Absolutely not! We’re not staying here any longer.” My tone sounded petulant, childish, even to my own ears. “We must make our plans and leave.”

They glanced at me and then looked away, saying nothing. I had to get over this. I needed both of them, and I was afraid of my behavior driving them away.

 

PYRRHUS HAD ARRIVED AT Krisa with ten stolen ships, each with fifty of his Myrmidons as oarsmen—a total of five hundred men, plus their captains. Ashore, these oarsmen were again warriors, and with their king dead, they rampaged through Krisa. The Myrmidons were barbarians, interested mainly in killing and plundering. Their name means “ant people,” descended from Zeus, who turned himself into an ant and mated with a princess of Phthia after turning her into an ant as well. But without Pyrrhus the men didn’t know what to do or which way to turn. They drank and brawled and made nuisances of themselves among the people of Krisa, who’d grown sick of them and wished them gone.

Although most cared nothing for Pyrrhus’s wife, I didn’t feel safe with the Myrmidons around, for I was sure there were some who would find sport in capturing and tormenting me. Dressed in my ragged tunic and well-worn robe with a shawl covering my red hair, I avoided them. No one paid me any attention.

I visited a healer, an old crone who wrapped my injured ankle with herbs soaked in wine, and after a few days the pain disappeared and I felt strong again. I walked along the beach, so deep in thought that I scarcely noticed the long, steep road leading up to the citadel. Servants and tradesmen trudged up and down. I stopped a man carrying a load of wood on his back and inquired if by chance Prince Pylades was at the citadel.

“He is not,” said the man, barely pausing. “But King Strophius is waiting for you.”

I wanted to ask how that could be, but he was already too far away. Then I glimpsed the wings on his sandals.

I rushed back to the hut and asked Ardeste’s help. We searched through the bundles I’d packed when we prepared to flee from Pharsalos. Somewhere in the depths, with Helen’s silver spindle and my golden wedding goblet, Ardeste located the embroidered peplos she’d advised me to bring, predicting that I might find an occasion to wear it during our journey.

I dressed in my fine peplos and the jewelry that I hadn’t yet needed to trade for food and shelter and offerings. Ardeste combed and plaited my hair.

I set off to climb the steep path to Strophius’s citadel. My mother never went anywhere without at least three of her women, but I was not Helen, and I preferred to go alone.

A herald ushered me into the megaron. The walls were beautifully painted and the furnishings as grand as any I’d seen. I waited nervously as the herald announced me. “Hermione of Sparta!”

The old king glared at me from his throne. He appeared so cold and unfriendly that I regretted coming. “You’re here to talk to Pylades,” he said after a silence heavy as iron. “He’s no longer my son. I’ve disowned him.”

“Disowned him, my lord?” I hadn’t expected this.

“I have, for participating in the murder of Queen Clytemnestra. There is no forgiveness for a matricide. Orestes and Electra should have been stoned until they were dead, and Pylades with them. Only then would justice have been served. May the Furies torment Orestes for the rest of his days.”

I gasped. Zethus had not mentioned Pylades’ involvement in the slayings. But how could Strophius wish death for his own son? “I’ve heard that Orestes went to Delphi to consult the oracle after he learned of Agamemnon’s murder,” I said as calmly as I could. “Did he also come here to Krisa, my lord?”

“Yes, he came here,” the old king said, sighing. “I hadn’t seen him since he left for Troy with Agamemnon. Such a fine boy he was then! He often stayed with me. I loved him like my own son. But now I hardly recognized him. He’d just learned of his father’s murder; he was angry and confused. Powerful Apollo informed him that if he failed to avenge his father’s death, he would become an outcast. The pythoness instructed him to go to Mycenae and even told him what to do when he got there. Pylades went with him, though I begged him not to be a part of this. I disagreed with Apollo, and I disagreed with the pythoness. But Pylades wouldn’t listen to me. My son was an accomplice in the killings. Electra, too. They deserve to die.”

The old king sobbed. Tears streamed down his craggy cheeks.

Perhaps he wasn’t as hardhearted as he’d seemed at first. I tried to reason with him. “King Strophius, Clytemnestra was an adulteress and a murderer. She killed Agamemnon, your dear friend! Surely you believe in vengeance—and Apollo himself called for it.”

“It’s up to others to take revenge, you foolish girl! I know all about you. You’re in love with a man who murdered his own mother. The courts would have taken care of the matter. It was not for Orestes to take it into his own hands, and now they are bloodied forever. And my son’s are too. A matricide cannot be forgiven.”

No argument was going to change the old king’s mind. But before I left, I needed the answer to one more question. “Where are they, my lord? Where are Orestes and Pylades?”

“In exile, I’m told. Ask Electra—I hear that she is at Mycenae. All I know with certainty is that, whether my son lives or dies, I will never see him again.”

Strophius closed his eyes and turned his face away. I murmured a few words of farewell and fled from the palace.

 

ARDESTE AND ZETHUS WERE not in the hut when I rushed there to repeat what I’d heard about Orestes from King Strophius. The embers on the hearth were cold. The shelf where Ardeste stored our food was empty. I was shivering and hungry. Disappointed, too, because I had so much to tell them, and there was now so much to do. I had to find a way to get to Mycenae.

A bearded face peered in at the door, startling me. “Queen Hermione?”

“Who asks?” I inquired suspiciously.

“Leucus. I’ve come to offer my services,” he said, and smiled.

Until he smiled, I hadn’t recognized the captain who’d been in charge of burning the ships at Iolkos. He would have been a handsome man if he weren’t missing his front teeth, knocked out by Pyrrhus when the captain had dared to question the order to set the ships alight. He’d grown a beard since I last saw him, and it had changed his appearance.

“Leucus! What are you doing here?”

“Now that I no longer serve Pyrrhus, I’m in a position to serve you. My loyalty to Achilles kept me in the service of his son. Orestes was also my friend,” Leucus continued. “He spoke often of his love for you. He left with Agamemnon, not knowing you’d be forced to marry Pyrrhus. I wish I could have helped then. Perhaps I can help you now.”

My mood lifted as we talked, and I asked him to describe what had happened at Pharsalos after I fled.

“When we woke up from whatever trance the gods had placed on us and discovered that you were gone, Pyrrhus was in a rage, as you might expect. He was determined to leave at once with the Myrmidons to look for you, and he swore to kill you once you were found. I hoped to find you first and help you escape—you did not deserve to have a husband like Pyrrhus. Before we left, he sent Helenus to build the new palace at Bouthroton. Andromache went with him, and they took Hippodameia along.”

“Andromache is with Helenus?” This was astonishing news! Pyrrhus valued the Trojan’s ability to prophesy, but he’d been extremely jealous of him. It was hard to imagine that he’d sent Andromache off with the brother of the husband Achilles had slain. “How did this come about?”

“I can’t explain it,” Leucus said. “Maybe Pyrrhus tired of her. And she’s known Helenus for most of her life. She may have been happy to go.”

“I wish Pyrrhus had tired of me.”

“That wasn’t likely,” Leucus said. “Pyrrhus regarded you as the prize to which he was entitled, though he often complained that you were stubborn and difficult to control. And he knew how much you wanted to be with Orestes, so it became a contest. But now the contest is over. One contestant is dead, the other in exile.”

“And now you do have a chance to help me, Leucus!” I described my meeting with Strophius. “I must go to Mycenae to see Electra. She may know where to find Orestes!”

Leucus soon came up with a plan. We would recruit fifty Krisan fishermen as rowers, seize one of the ships Pyrrhus had stolen from a merchant in Corinth, and sail it back to its rightful owner. From there we would make our way overland to Mycenae.

“This has to be done in secrecy,” he cautioned, “so as not to arouse the suspicions of the Myrmidons. They’re a brutish lot. I know, because I’ve sailed with them for years.”

We were deep in conversation when Ardeste and Zethus returned, fingers interlaced, glowing with the happiness that love bestows. Guiltily they apologized for the cold hearth and empty breadbasket. Zethus rebuilt the fire, and Ardeste began to prepare a simple meal.

We discussed the plans while we ate. Leucus had restored my hope of seeing Orestes again, and I swallowed my envy and agreed to let the lovers have their separate hut until we left.

“I’ve come to know many of the fishermen here,” Zethus said. “I can speak to them without attracting too much attention.”

“You can probably do it more easily than I can,” said the captain. “The fishermen believe I’m a Myrmidon.”

Zethus soon discovered that it was not as easy as he’d expected. The Myrmidons were everywhere, roaming the streets of Krisa and making trouble, and the fishermen feared that the Myrmidons would steal their wives and lovers as soon as their men set sail for Corinth. Nevertheless, Zethus recruited thirty-nine fishermen who relished the idea of taking the ship from under the noses of the Myrmidon guards.

But Leucus was worried. “We’re still short by eleven men,” he said. “Enough rowers if we have good weather, not enough if a winter storm strikes.” He was worried, too, that one of the fishermen would give away the plot and our plans would be ruined.

We couldn’t wait any longer, even if we didn’t have the rowers we needed. Winters in Krisa were severe. Local women had told Ardeste about the storm that swept in last year as female worshippers of Dionysus were going up to Mount Parnassus to dance and sing as they did every year at this time. “Many women froze to death, buried in snow,” Ardeste reported. We’d leave before the weather worsened and before word of our scheme leaked out.

Leucus scouted the ships anchored near the beach and chose one of the smaller vessels. He and Zethus secretly provisioned it. Hunched against the cold, we silently slipped aboard, Zethus coming last, leading Onos. Leucus himself raised the anchor stone, and the fishermen leaned into their oars and rowed us away from the beach, into the deep water. But Aeolus roared out of the north, a fierce blast of wind that drove our vessel back toward the rocky shore. The fishermen rowed desperately to keep the ship from foundering. Waves smashed against the rocks, hurling up a spray that fell on us like freezing rain. I wrapped myself in a thick woolen robe and prayed for the storm to end. Ardeste had never been on a ship, and she was ill from the moment we left Krisa. The donkey lowered his head and endured.

After long days and nights of buffeting winds and sleet, our ship entered the quiet harbor at Corinth. The true owner of the ship recognized it as one seized by Pyrrhus and painted with Pyrrhus’s emblem, and he and his men rushed out shouting, armed with sticks and rocks. Leucus did what he could to calm them, and I offered the merchant a gift of silver spangles in addition to the return of his vessel. Our fishermen-sailors headed into the city of Corinth to reward themselves with a night or two of carousing before they considered how to make their way back to Krisa.

And I had to decide what long road to follow now.