King in Splendour

by George Shipway

  Contemptuously she cut me short. ‘Will you again affront Ouranos? Such trash will not placate Him! Go, King Agamemnon, go and await His punishment!’

  ‘I’ll give anything you wish, my most treasured possessions, for the Daughters’ intercession with ... the God ... on my behalf.’

  ‘How may you appease His dreadful rage? What have you to offer?’

  ‘I shall sacrifice bulls--’

  ‘You give Him animals? Animals?’ Fanatical frenzy distorted her features, froth bubbled at the corners of her lips, her utterance climbed to a screech. ‘He is Lord of the Shades, The Thunderer--the blood of men alone will purge your hideous sacrilege!’

  I winced. Human sacrifice is not unknown in Achaea: the Daughters’ invocations involve some grisly rites. On a hillock near Mycenae they celebrate springtime’s birth in an oak-embowered shrine. At an understood point in the liturgy the men invariably leave. Horrible sounds from the shrine follow one down the slope, the noises of a being suffering unbelievable torment. One doesn’t probe: the Daughters’ sacred mysteries had better be left unveiled.

  I said through stiffened jaws, ‘If such is your demand I’ll provide an appropriate offering.’

  ‘Some valueless slave? Do not try to deceive The Destroyer! You promised your most treasured possessions. To appease Ouranos’ wrath you must surrender someone you hold most dear!’

  It was then I saw the solution, like a wonderful flash from a cloudless sky. I closed my eyes and thought. In one astonishing stroke I could expiate my crime, and placate the God, and rid myself of an incubus, and execute a vengeance long desired.

  Would the sacrifice I envisaged horrify the world? No matter--a desperate situation demanded resolute measures.

  I faced the priestess and said soberly, ‘The God shall have my daughter.’

  * * *

  I confided my intention to Odysseus. Even that hardened character recoiled in consternation. I walked him on the foreshore and emphasized the dilemma, insisted no lesser measure would sever the knot that bound our ships to the beaches. (My other incentives found no place in the argument.) Odysseus, a rational man, eventually accepted my reasoning. Heaving a sigh of relief I bade him travel quickly to Mycenae and bring Iphigeneia to Aulis.

  He said sardonically, ‘Am I to tell the girl I’m hauling her to her death?’

  ‘No such thing. You’re a master of dissemblance, and should be able to persuade Clytemnaistra I’ve found a husband befitting her daughter’s rank.’

  ‘A husband? How old is Iphigeneia?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Urn. Isn’t she young for marriage?’

  ‘I’m pretending she shall be officially betrothed, not married--a customary ceremony when the people concerned haven’t met.’

  ‘Yes. I remember the junketings in Argos when Diomedes and Aegialeia plighted their troth. Who shall we say is seeking your daughter’s hand?’

  ‘Let me see. Unwedded kings are rather rare in the Hosts. I have it--Achilles!’

  ‘Heir to Phthia’s crown. An attractive proposition for any match-making mother. Provided the fool hasn’t drowned himself and the news becomes known to your queen! Very well--I’ll go.’

  I passed the days of waiting in dissuading Heroes from launching ships and sailing home. In two instances I failed: a petty king from the islands and Nireus of Syme fled south before the wind. Not a disastrous loss: between them they sailed four galleys.

  Achilles’ flotilla limped into port, sails torn and ships dismasted. I avoided questioning the nitwit, nor did he deign to tell me his misfortunes. Diomedes and Ajax were less forbearing: they scolded him in terms of ‘I told you so’. I gathered from them the squadron rounded Geraistos--Euboia’s southernmost cape--fought through Andros’ strait and met the gale’s full force. A sensible man would then have abandoned the voyage.

  Not Achilles.

  In the north-easterly’s teeth he set his Heroes rowing, and laid a course for Lesbos. Incredibly they reached a point off Scyros where his exhausted oarsmen, unable to hold the course, were blown on the island’s shores. After staying awhile to repair what damage they could he ran before the wind round Euboia’s northern coast and so came home. During this ignominious escapade the sea swallowed six penteconters and over three hundred men.

  (Achilles’ bard, I hear, scrapes a spurious credit from the episode by composing adulatory verses that allege his lord reached Mysia, landed and ravaged the country. The bounds of time and space alone prove the story false. But Heroes are credulous men; I have small doubt the lie will be recounted down the ages.)

  Odysseus returned belatedly from Mycenae. Wagons and servants burdening his train had hindered progress--Clytemnaistra insisted that Iphigeneia’s betrothal be celebrated in style. ‘Had a struggle dissuading the queen from coming to Aulis herself. She said it was only proper to attend her daughter’s troth. As well I succeeded--she’d certainly spoke your wheel!’

  Inwardly I dissented: nothing short of a change in the wind could now save Iphigeneia. I received the girl ceremoniously, provided a spacious tent, housed her attendants. Her looks had not improved: a sallow, malformed face, thick slobbering lips and staring eyes. She mumbled unintelligibly and spittle drooled from her mouth. A dolt, half-witted from birth, whose end upon an altar would come as a happy release.

  Rumours of the sacrifice were whispered through the Hosts. Reactions ranged from revulsion to wondering admiration. Menelaus, horrified, cursed my inhumanity; Nestor’s face, when he heard, stayed stonily inscrutable; Ajax praised my selflessness in giving a darling daughter to appease a wrathful God.

  Ignoring approval and censure alike I went to the Daughters’ manor. The virago longed to advertise her triumph, and demanded the kings attend. Sternly I refused: none but I and her acolytes would see Iphigeneia slaughtered. She sullenly yielded, and appointed the day and meeting place. After returning to camp I found trouble on my hands: Iphigeneia’s lady in waiting had heard of my intention, wrung her hands and tearfully besought me to abjure so ghastly a crime.

  ‘You’ve been misinformed, my lady,’ I improvised. ‘Iphigeneia goes to The Lady’s shrine for purification before betrothal to Achilles; and I shall sacrifice a hind to sanctify Her blessing. Is that not a customary rite?’

  Achilles then stalked into my tent. ‘I’ve heard some stupid gossip,’ he snarled, ‘about my espousing your daughter. I thought her dedicated to--er--the God. You can’t have it both ways. Let’s hear the truth!’

  An awkward intervention. I pleaded gaunt necessity and confessed the pretext used for bringing the girl to Aulis. Achilles was not placated.

  ‘Ruddy impertinence! I’ve a damned good mind to interfere, save her from the axe and marry her when she comes of age! Men may say that I, the noblest and most valiant of all Achaea’s Heroes, cravenly let my betrothed be butchered to save your skin!’

  ‘To save the entire enterprise,’ I said coldly. Curbing my resentment I cajoled, ‘You’re a famous Hero, Achilles, renowned throughout the land, a prodigious prize for a lady to win. What woman could resist so glorious a marriage? In using your name the fault is mine--yet nothing less would lure my daughter to Aulis. Sink your dignity, I pray, for on your mighty shoulders reposes the fate of Troy!’

  A deal more flattery followed--the remembrance makes me retch. Achilles lapped it up like a tabby-cat gorging cream. Mollified at last, he swaggered from the tent. I gulped a restorative draught of wine and reflected on the subterfuges high command compels.

  (In the camp beside Scamander these fabrications later gained a strangely contorted credence. All kinds of fables were bruited abroad: that I substituted a hind at the altar and whisked Iphigeneia to Tauris; that Achilles indeed intervened, saved the girl and shipped her off to Scythia. The tales that people believe are endlessly surprising.)

  * * *

  Wind dragged tattered clouds across a lowering sky. Thunder grumbled like distant drums, flurries of rain spasmodically spattered the ground. A small
procession snaked from the beaches, wound past the walls of Aulis and entered the gloomy pine-woods. White robed Daughters glided in front and chanted funeral dirges. Then Iphigeneia, alone, bare-footed, garbed in a blue linen bodice and flounced, pearl-beaded skirt. Rain-sodden hair drooped limply on her shoulders. She rocked her head from side to side and mumbled through slavering lips. Frequently she tripped, looked huntedly at the ground, the trees, the sky as though beseeching guidance from unresponsive gods. Gait and mien were habitual, the tokens of imbecility. The girl could not be frightened, for I’d told her, speaking slowly, she went for purification.

  Whether she understood I cannot tell.

  Golden crowned and scarlet cloaked I followed Iphigeneia. Four Heroes in armour guarded my back--I trusted not in the slightest the fanatical Daughters of Aulis. I had chosen close-mouthed, devoted men who swore on their mothers’ wombs no word of what they witnessed would be whispered.

  Tree trunks crowded our shoulders, a dark-green dripping canopy shrouded the threatening sky. Feet sank ankle deep in a yielding carpet of needles the pines had shed over centuries. Wind-whipped creaking branches moaned a stridulant discordance to the Daughters’ solemn chanting. Iphigeneia stumbled; I reached out a hand and hauled her erect. She awarded me a vacant, idiot leer.

  The path sloped sharply downwards to a tree-palisaded hollow matted by straggling thorns and yellow grass. Creeper fronds and rushes partly veiled a cave mouth yawning blackly in the centre; an altar built from chiselled granite squatted in front of the opening. Bulls’ horns curved from the corners, brown blotches crusted the surface. Daughters flanked the altar, halted, fronted the cave. Lifting her hands on high the termagant I hated sang a mournful invocation. She dropped her arms and waited still as stone.

  I can only relate the event, and offer no explanations. A hollow rumbling swelled from the cavern’s mouth and drowned the thunder muttering overhead. The rumbling climbed to a stupendous roar, a blast of sound that mauled and stunned the senses. Hairs prickled on my nape; I quelled a frantic urge to turn and run.

  The terrible voice diminished, sank to a growl and ceased. I was cold as the snow on Helicon’s peaks, yet sweat streams coursed my back. My Heroes’ spears supported their shaking legs; their eyes were wide and affrighted.

  The Daughter beckoned. Two acolytes led Iphigeneia nearer to the altar. She walked with dragging feet, head lolling on a shoulder.

  They stripped her bodice and loosed a golden girdle. The skirts dropped round her feet, exposed a scrawny body, knobbled backbone, ribs like the rungs of a ladder, small childish breasts. The Daughters gripped the girl by arms and legs, lifted her and placed her prone on the altar. Saliva dribbled from her mouth and spilled a tiny pool upon the stone. Iphigeneia made no sound, lay passively unresisting, limp as a broken doll.

  I do not think, in her poor mad mind, she realized what was happening.

  The priestess faced the cave, shrilled a hymn of dedication in language so archaic I could scarcely understand. She stalked to the entrance, knelt and took from the ground a stubby stone-headed axe, touched lips to the blade, returned and approached the altar. The Daughters backed away, and bowed their heads. She poised the axe on high, called loudly the Deity’s dreadful name and severed the spine at the base of the skull.

  Blood gouted in a torrent. The body jerked convulsively, splayed arms and legs and slumped. The woman grasped the shoulders and turned the corpse face up. Her axe blade rose and fell, dull thumping blows that hacked the ribs from breastbone. Plunging a hand in the rib-cage she clawed and wrenched and tore, ripped the heart loose from sinews and veins and flung the slimy gobbet into the cavern.

  I gagged on the bile that fouled my throat, lurched from the clearing and fled through the forest. Heroes trod my heels, frantic to escape from Ouranos’ fearsome Presence. At a stumbling trot, unspeaking, we reached the galley-barred shore and gulped great breaths of salt untainted air.

  At nightfall the storm-wind veered and died. Sunrise brought a sailing breeze blowing warmly from the south.

  Chapter 8

  Transparent ghostlike clouds lazed in an azure sky; indolent little waves that rippled the water’s surface shot countless volleys of golden barbs from the sun’s reflected glare. From shore to shore ships crowded the strait, sails straining at the masts, foam creaming round the rams, running easily and sweetly before a vibrant breeze. (Iphigeneia’s wind, they said, when telling the tale at Troy.) I stood on Aulis’ deserted beach, trampled and pocked into sandy billows, littered by empty huts, firewood and garbage and the fire-blacked strakes of a gale-stove galley abandoned and burnt as beyond repair.

  Fifty Mycenaean warships rocked idly in the shallows. Periphetes sailed with the rest in the van of a thousand ships, borne on the wings of a following wind on a non-stop voyage to Lesbos. He had pulled a face, for a passage so long meant cruising through the night--which deep-sea mariners avoid whenever they can--and south winds tended to fail at dusk. Brusquely I reminded him the galleys carried oars, and ignored his hints for a sunset beaching at Scyros. The fleets had weighed at dawn; at noon the last flotillas were clearing Aulis’ harbour.

  The order of sailing was long since decided, squadron by squadron, fleet by fleet, meticulously arranged in lines twelve galleys abreasts. Planning ashore and practice afloat were different baskets of bread: before the narrows were passed ships became intermingled, faster sailers overhauling slower, bulwarks scraping bulwarks, masters bellowing oaths and derision. For this reason I kept half Mycenae’s fleet in hand to shepherd stragglers and hasten laggards.

  As the last sail faded from sight I said to my sole attendant, ‘Time to embark, Talthybius.’

  He made no move, stayed staring at the summer-green valance of tamarisk and myrtle that draped the storm-banked pebbles bounding the beach.

  ‘We have visitors, sire.’

  Chariots threaded a winding path to the sea. Tyres crunched shingle, the vehicles halted. A figure in the leading car dismounted and walked towards us.

  Clytemnaistra.

  She dressed as women do in time of deepest mourning, a linen bodice covering breasts, unbound hair cascading to the waist, unflounced robe of sombre black brushing her unshod feet. She walked as women walk who follow the dead to burial, heavy deliberate steps, hands folded one in another, head bowed and shoulders drooped.

  At the length of a spear she stopped, and raised her head.

  Her face was grey as an Iron Man’s blade, haggard and heavily lined, the mouth a livid gash: a countenance twenty years older than the thirty-five years she owned. She looked at me unspeaking, and the skin crawled on my neck. Never have I seen such hatred engraved on a human face, such virulent vindictiveness, such bitterness and loathing. Green eyes glared into mine, whites bloodshot round the pupils. The venom they spat was deadlier than all the snakes in the world.

  My mouth went dry as sun-bleached hide. I said in a rusty voice, ‘You come late to bid farewell, my lady.’

  Clytemnaistra stayed silent. Anger routed fear. ‘Say what you have to say!’ I rasped. ‘The ships won’t wait on your pleasure!’

  ‘I speak as The Lady commands.’ Her voice was a sibilant whisper, a hissing like wind-driven sleet. ‘You are accursed, Agamemnon. Your kingdom shall be forfeit, your majesty and life. I am become Her instrument, the weapon that will execute Her will.’

  ‘You’ve consulted the wrong oracles,’ I mocked. (I have always found invective a tonic for wavering nerves.) ‘Try Dodona--the Selli will hold to your eyes the brazen mirror of truth. Where shall you win the power to topple my throne? Can you muster war-bands, do warriors run to your call? Go, my lady! Return to your spfnning and weaving, and do not utter threats you can’t fulfil! Brew your baneful potions--Mycenae holds no hostages as targets for your spite!’

  My words were feathers pattering the cliff-wall of her hatred.

  She said in low, monotonous tones, ‘You shall suffer, Agamemnon. You shall see my dagger hovering, and wait helplessly for de
ath like a falcon trapped in a net!’

  She said more, much more, which I will not repeat: malevolent profanities, scabrous and obscene. All the while she stood unmoving, never a gesture, still as a rock. She seemed possessed by demons, a stranger, a different being from the sultry daughter of Leda whose fatal beauty bewitched me long ago in Sparta.

  ‘You’re crazy!’ I stepped towards her and said viciously, ‘After humiliating me for years, after foisting on my loins Helen’s bastard Iphigeneia, after poisoning Merope--did you think I’d let you go unscathed? I am not a man whose wrongs go unrequited. Yes, I took your foster daughter--mad misbegotten brat--slew her on the altar and savour my revenge: a vengeance rendered sweeter by all the years of waiting!’

  Clytemnaistra held my eyes, a long malignant look. Despite my boiling anger a chilly coil of fear slithered like a serpent in my bowels. ‘Your ending, Agamemnon,, shall be full of pain, not quick; and the shades of those you’ve slaughtered will gloat upon your dying!’

  I made a derisive noise, turned on my heel, strode to the water’s edge and waded through the shallows. Talthybius clasped my legs and hoisted me aboard the triaconter. Sails climbed to mastheads, tugged at sheets. The galleys gathered way, steering sweeps carved furrows on a sea like burnished bronze.

  Till a headland hid her from sight the woman on the beach stood still as a hewn-stone image. I imagined the burning eyes that watched me on the poop, and felt an eerie coldness despite the sun’s warm glow.

  * * *

  By sunrise the leading ships harboured at Lesbos. Crews went ashore to cook and stretch their legs; I posted guards to prevent them wandering far from the beaches. Horses remained aboard, so saving time and labour. Achaean settlers, mostly Mycenaeans, brought provisions and jars of wine, and Odysseus vented his energy in a wrestling match with a local chieftain, a muscular black-browed scallywag who insisted on this payment for the sheep and goats he gave us. Luckily for our credit Odysseus’ smart cross-buttock banged his opponent’s head on a rock and parted him from his senses.