Her father had sent word that she was to be married to Achilles, and her mother’s servants had packed their things and bundled them out of the palace so quickly she had known that they were afraid the great man would change his mind. But why should Achilles be anything other than delighted to marry her? She was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister to Orestes and Electra, niece to Menelaus, cousin to Hermione. Whereas Achilles was who? Of course, they said he was the greatest warrior the world had ever known, but he had yet to fight in a war. And when he did strap on his greaves and unsheathe his sword, it would be for her family. The troops were drawing together at Aulis, ready to sail to Troy. But it was her father who commanded the Greeks, not Achilles – who commanded only his own men, the Myrmidons. And yes, perhaps he was more nimble than Apollo, swifter than Hermes, more destructive than Ares, as the rumours went. But he was not disgracing himself by marrying her. Her chin jutted forward as she berated her imaginary accusers for their ill-considered slight.
Iphigenia and her mother were on the road to Aulis before she even knew where it was. Her infant brother accompanied them while Electra remained at home with the wet-nurse. They rode in a small cart which juddered along the stony paths, and when the going became too rough, she and her mother clambered out and walked so the horses had less of a burden. No one wanted to lose a horse in the mountainous region north of Mycenae. Even as she turned her ankle, stepping on loose sand which covered a treacherous rock, she consoled herself with the beauty of her saffron-coloured gown, packed into a box, safe from the bleaching sun and the billowing dust. She would make a spectacular bride, gazed at by every man in her father’s armies.
But these thoughts consoled only her. By the time they arrived at Aulis, her mother was irritable from the heat and the dust and, most of all, the absence of her father to greet them. Agamemnon was somewhere in the camp, they were told by a gruff soldier who hastened them to their tent, but no one seemed sure where.
‘The commander will wish to see his wife, his son and his daughter,’ Clytemnestra declared to the men who bustled past carrying animal feed and weapons. But no one slowed down to listen. The queen of Mycenae was not important here.
Knowing her mother’s temper was unlikely to improve, Iphigenia took her little brother away for a while, down to the rock pools so that he could prod for crabs with a small stick he had picked up on the journey, and she could inspect her reflection. Although she did not look her best when seen from below, which tricked her into thinking she had acquired a double-chin. She stood back and angled her neck to get a better view. Her dark hair was parted down the centre, its kinked rows pinned tightly along her scalp before foaming into extravagant curls at the crown of her head. It flowed down her back, and she knew it would be set off perfectly by the saffron wedding dress. But none of the soldiers she could see – talking and play-fighting with one another, testing their strength and guile – wanted to pay her any attention at all. Were they all so afraid of her groom that they would not flirt with a princess, and one sitting so prettily in the afternoon sun?
She had thought that Achilles would wish to present himself to her – officially, at her mother’s tent, or approaching her here in private, while Orestes busied himself with the soft red arms of a starfish which curved up like flower petals when he touched them – but he did not. Perhaps he was nervous, she thought. Though he could not be a coward, this hero about whom she had heard such things.
When she took Orestes back to their tent, she found Clytemnestra in a slightly better temper, after a brief meeting with Agamemnon and Menelaus. Her mother was still vexed that no one had greeted their party, but she had been mollified by the suggestion that they had travelled more quickly than the men had imagined would be possible. Clytemnestra was a vain woman, and few things gave her more pleasure than men admiring her for having achieved something in the way a man might have done it. She considered herself a queen rather than a wife, and she never wished to be compared to other women, unless it was for the purpose of demonstrating her vast superiority to the rest of her sex.
‘The wedding will be tomorrow at first light,’ she told Iphigenia, who nodded happily. She did not share her mother’s disdain for womanish things and hunted through her belongings for the make-up she wished to wear the next morning: red discs on her forehead and cheeks, each one surrounded by a little cluster of red dots, like tiny suns. A thick black line encasing each eye, and darkening her solid brows. She had delicate gold chains to wear threaded through her hair. When the wedding ceremony began, she would be ready. The perfect bride.
Before dawn, by the smoky light of a torch, Iphigenia prepared herself. She painted the lines and the circles, tied the sparkling metal strands into her carefully plaited locks. A servant arranged her hair exactly as she wished, making her glad that they had rehearsed the style at the end of every day’s travel. This was the moment when everything had to be flawless. She had the slave examine her work, lifting her chin and tilting it left, then right, to be certain that the dots she had placed on each cheek were level, before she filled them out to the neat circles she desired. Her mother did not paint her own face, but she wore a bright red dress which Iphigenia had never seen before, and the two of them smiled, clutching hands for a moment.
‘I look beautiful,’ Iphigenia said. She could not quite bring herself to phrase it as a question.
‘You do. The most beautiful bride these men will have ever seen, no matter which part of Greece they have travelled from,’ her mother said. ‘Here.’ She produced a small pot of thickly perfumed oil, and Iphigenia smoothed the scent of crushed flowers onto her hands and then into her glistening hair. ‘Perfect,’ her mother said. ‘You will make me proud today. My first daughter, married to the greatest warrior among all the Greeks.’
They heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside, and a small, low cry. The soldiers were here to accompany her to the altar on the shore. Orestes was still asleep and Clytemnestra vacillated for a moment about waking him to accompany her, so the prince of Mycenae would see its princess become queen of the Myrmidons. But the thought of a fractious infant was more than she could bear, and she left him behind with the slaves. They opened the flap of the tent to see a motley assortment of soldiers waiting for them.
‘This is hardly the honour guard we might have expected,’ Clytemnestra said. ‘Do you not have more respect for Agamemnon and his family?’
The men mumbled their apologies but there was no sincerity in their voices. They were waiting to go to war, Iphigenia thought. They had not the least inclination to attend a wedding between a man most of them had never seen fight, and the daughter of the man who commanded them, but not yet in battle. It was too soon for pride and honour. Her mother could not see it.
The soldiers waited for her to adjust her sandal so the strap didn’t rub, and then began the short walk towards the sea. She walked beside Clytemnestra in silence, imagining how she must look in profile with her perfectly straight neck. For just a moment, she wished her father was there to tell her everything would be alright. But he had not returned to their tent after she had missed him the previous day. Still, as they came around the high dunes near the shore, she could see him ahead of her, standing by a makeshift altar.
There were so many men lined up in front of the water, so many tall ships drawn up behind them. The city of Troy would never withstand such a force. Iphigenia felt a brief spasm of sadness, that her husband would be unable to distinguish himself in such a short-lived conflict. Perhaps there would be other wars. She continued to walk towards her father, so grand in his ritual garments, standing beside an ornately dressed priest. And as she felt the sand scratching the skin between her toes, she realized something was wrong.
The sails of the ships were completely still. It was too early to be hot, but there was a solidity to the air which stifled her. She had thought the same yesterday, when she was watching her brother play in the rock pools, but she had dismissed the oddity: they were in a sheltered part of the shore. But here were all these men, all these ships, and yet nothing was rippling in the breeze: every sail lay limp. The air was never so still this close to water. Was it an omen? She felt her breathing quicken. Were the gods warning her off this marriage? Or was it the opposite: they had calmed the winds in honour of the ceremony? She wished that she could ask her mother, but Clytemnestra had not noticed anything unusual. She marched forward as though walking to her own wedding. She seemed almost surprised when the soldiers placed themselves between her and her daughter, several of them leading Clytemnestra off to the side while four men continued towards the altar with Iphigenia.
It wasn’t just the windless sky which was worrying Iphigenia now. There was something else. She knew men were not perhaps so interested in weddings as their wives and sisters might have been. But the atmosphere was not at all celebratory, and she thought the prospect of a few wineskins later on would have been enough to provoke a little joy. Instead of which, the men seemed closed off, from each other as well as her. They frowned as she passed them, staring at the ground rather than revelling in her beauty. For a terrible moment, she thought she must have done something wrong: worn an ugly dress or applied her make-up inappropriately. But her mother’s slaves had been unanimous in their praise of her. She was correctly attired for a wedding.
And then she saw the glint of her father’s knife in the morning sun and she understood everything in a rush, as though a god had put the words into her mind. The treacherous stillness in the air was divinely sent. Artemis had been affronted by something her father had done, and now she demanded a sacrifice or the ships would not sail. So there would be no marriage, no husband for Iphigenia. Not today and not ever. She had perfect clarity of thought, even as her senses became blurred. She heard her mother’s cry of rage, but distantly, as though it were echoing off the walls of a cave. The men stopped at the foot of the altar, and she climbed its three rickety steps towards her father. He looked like someone she had never met.
She knelt in silence before Agamemnon. Tears streamed into his beard, but he held the knife just the same. Her uncle stood behind him, his red hair glowing in the morning sun. She sensed his hand reach out to her father, offering strength for the ordeal he was about to undergo. She looked out across a sea of leather armour and wondered which of them was Achilles. On Iphigenia’s right she could see her mother, mouth gaping in a savage scream, but a buzzing sound had filled her ears, so she could not hear the words. She saw Clytemnestra was being restrained by five men, one of whom eventually forced his arm around her throat. Still her mother did not fall limply into their arms. She continued shouting and flailing, long after she could have had air left in her lungs.
Many of the men in the front ranks looked away when the knife came down. And even those who did not blanch rarely spoke afterwards of what they had seen. One soldier was sure that in the crucial moment, the girl had been spirited away and replaced with a deer. But no one listened to him, because even the men (the young ones who had not fought in many battles, and the fathers of daughters who had fought in too many) who had looked away as the blade cut – who had shut their eyes rather than see her blood pouring from her neck – even those men had seen her white, lifeless body lying at her own father’s feet. And then they had felt the gentle breeze wrap itself around them.