The Young Lion

by Laura Gill

  Elektra was a very bad liar. Strophius would have received the letter under normal circumstances; it was clear she had intercepted it at the megaron door. And she was not so thickheaded that she would not have known who the sender was the instant she heard the messenger came from Sparta. I studied the unfamiliar image in the wax: griffin-headed supplicants approaching a seated goddess crowned with poppies. A queen’s seal. Hermione must be presiding as Sparta’s high priestess while her mother was away.

  “You knew perfectly well the message wasn’t from Mycenae.” Remembering Timon’s advice about asserting authority over my sister, I thrust the portion with the broken seal in Elektra’s face. “Now you know what Hermione’s seal looks like. Don’t pry into my correspondence again.”

  “As you wish.” Adopting an air of bored nonchalance, Elektra lowered herself into a chair and laid her hand over her mounding belly. “She’s fine, by the way.”

  Ignoring her, I carried the letter over to the window to read it. “Dearest Orestes, I am relieved to hear that you are safe and unhurt. Athena and Hermes answered my prayers, and watched over you.” I brought the papyrus sheet to my nose and inhaled deeply, regardless of what my sister might think; it even smelled like my betrothed, like oil of irises, and the rose-scented water with which she washed her hair.

  “I am glad you have settled so amicably into your new home, and found friends among our kinsman. Pylades sounds like a perfect friend and mentor. I know you have wanted a brother since you were small. Let Queen Hera grant him and Elektra a good and fruitful marriage. She took your father’s death very badly.”

  Hermione sounded far too formal in places. Perhaps Tyndareus and Menelaus had insisted on censoring what she wrote.

  “As for Chrysothemis, she wept without cease from the time your father died right through the funeral rites. I have not heard from her since leaving Mycenae. No doubt she is very frightened, all alone with your mother and the usurper, but I do not believe she is in any danger.” Poor Chrysothemis! Had it been she rather than Elektra who was rescued, she would have been thrilled to come to Krisa and marry Pylades.

  “I am sorry to say that Aegisthus’s bastard son has moved into the palace, and has your old room. He and Aegisthus tore up your father’s letters.” I knew it. That miserable little shit. When the time came, I would kill Aletes, too. “Forgive me for not having had the foresight to rescue them.”

  Mercifully, Hermione changed the subject. “We are all well. I am sorry to report my father has not yet returned home. The storm which struck his fleet damaged those ships he did not lose outright, and he has no choice but to remain at Pi-Ramesses as he makes repairs. It may take a while. Our grandfather says Egypt lacks suitable wood, so it must be sent for from Byblos at great expense. I am not certain whether Father will be able to sail before autumn. It may be spring before we see him again.”

  She said nothing about her mother, an omission which did not surprise me. I wished she would speak plainly. It felt as though we were playing word games with each other, concealing our true thoughts from our guardians.

  “Take care, Orestes,” she wrote. “Do as your aunt and uncle bid you, and do not trust anyone. Write to me again when you can. I am your loving cousin, Hermione.”

  Elektra watched me fold the letter. “I hope you intend to kill Aletes, too.”

  “Yes,” I muttered. “Is that what you came to tell me?”

  “Did you have a good time at Amphissa?”

  I nodded. She was not here to ask about my time in the country, and we both knew it. “Why are you here?”

  Elektra smoothed her hand over her belly. “Because I have missed you. Because I am bored. Do you want to feel the baby kick?”

  I stared at her in bewilderment. “The what?”

  “The baby. It’s quickened. Do you want to feel it kick?” She scrunched her face in exasperation while waggling her fingers at me. “Come on, Orestes. It won’t bite.”

  Pregnancy was a women’s mystery, something men had no business interfering with. My reluctance forced Elektra to shift forward, to seize my hand, and place it upon her womb. For a moment, I felt nothing but the soft wool of her dress, warmed by her body’s heat, but then, a miracle occurred. A movement, a nudge against my fingers. It startled me. I flinched away, afraid that my touch might offend Eleuthia or some other goddess. “Does it hurt?” I asked.

  “Sometimes, when the baby kicks me under the ribs,” she said. “And my back aches all the time.”

  Thank the gods I had been born a man, not to be incapacitated like that. “Has Pylades felt it?”

  “He will, later.”

  So she had shared it with me first. Did that mean she had forgiven me whatever it was she thought needed her forgiveness? “Will it be a boy?”

  A smile flitted across her lips, betraying her preference. “It will be as the gods will.”

  Elektra left me to rest through the remaining hours of the afternoon. I dozed, keeping Hermione’s letter close. I would have to write back to her, of course, and send the ribbons and beads.

  As I napped, I heard someone strumming a phorminx down the corridor, then a man’s familiar voice singing a ribald ballad about a two rival priests who constantly played practical jokes on each other. Pylades. He had a wonderful singing voice, as I had learned while in the country. A woman’s full-bodied laughter answered.

  I stirred at the sound. Elektra. Pylades was singing to her, something he had never done before, and she was enjoying it. I had not thought Pylades the type to relish the lewd songs or good-natured mischief she delighted in, yet obviously he was willing to accommodate her. She must have told him the good news. I closed my eyes again, relieved that the lioness had sheathed her claws and was calm again.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  As my sister’s time neared, Pylades and I left Krisa again, this time to visit the mercantile warehouses in Cirrha. Elektra had become peevish and broody, and took our departure as a personal slight, but Pylades managed to forestall a tirade by assuring her that we were going on official business. “It’s been more than a year since the scribes have seen a representative from the palace. Who knows what chicanery they might be up to?”

  “And you have to drag Orestes along?” she complained.

  “It’s good instruction for him. And besides,” Pylades added, sounding downright uxorious, “we’re no use around here. Men shouldn’t be interfering in these women’s matters. Mother knows what to do.”

  “You should be here when the child’s born.” A note of hurt slipped through Elektra’s gruff exterior.

  Pylades played the loving husband to the hilt, lest she make a scene. “Cirrha is but a day’s ride from here. Father will send word the moment your labor starts, and we will return straightaway.”

  His frustration showed through his placid exterior the moment we left the citadel and turned onto the coastal road leading south to the coast. “Thank the gods she didn’t make a scene! I couldn’t have borne another hour of her moods.”

  Pylades had no need to explain his dilemma. Elektra kept him awake at night with her constant backaches, swollen ankles, and other physical ailments, but refused to let him sleep in his own bed for fear that he would turn to another woman and neglect her. What fools childbearing made of women! What should Elektra care what her husband did among the servant girls as long as he honored her as his wife and acknowledged the child as his? Lying with concubines was his right.

  It was a hot, cloudless day. Farmers toiled in the ripening fields, and the dust clouds stirred by our chariot’s wheels hung over the road. Seagulls circled in the brilliant blue sky overhead; the air tasted like salt and sand the closer we got to the coast.

  Pylades had secured lodgings for us with the governor of Cirrha. At dusk, we feasted with our host on fresh mussels and oysters in seasoned olive oil, and drank Corinthian wine while the megaron doors stood open to admit a salty ocean breeze. Lord Polyxenos expressed his condolences over my father’s death, but mercif
ully did not linger on the subject. He expounded instead upon recent shortages and merchant ships lost to local pirates, who were growing bolder and more vicious now that there was no longer a High King to quell their numbers.

  To my dismay, Pylades truly meant business. He spent the next day visiting dockside warehouses, talking to scribes and merchants, and reviewing the tallies. I would rather have stayed behind in the palace, or gone with an escort down to the beach, since my brother-in-law did not really require my assistance, but he forced me to accompany him, nevertheless. “You know better than that, Orestes.” I did, that was true, but still... “These are the things a king needs to know.” Noting my impatience, he winked, saying, “Tomorrow we can do as we please.”

  He kept his promise. Phocis had flat beaches, perfect for sprinting and chariot racing. On warm days such as this, one could watch the young noblemen racing on foot or pitting their chariot teams against each other. Many came around to pay their respects to the Phocian heir and to congratulate him on his recent marriage and impending fatherhood. Friends brought watered wine and food, and joined us for an impromptu picnic after we finished exercising. Pylades introduced me to them. I weathered curious stares, polite queries and—yet again—condolences, and was content to sprawl out on a blanket with a wide-brimmed hat to wear against the sun.

  At noon, Pylades roused me from a light doze and walked me over to his chariot, which he had had his groom drive down to a beach now relatively vacant after the morning’s activity. “Climb in,” he said. “Now we can race.”

  Once I established a firm grip on the rail, he snapped the reins and off we went. The evenness of the sand allowed the horses to achieve a brisk gallop, resulting in the fastest ride I had ever experienced. I relished the salty air whipping against my face, and the creaking and jouncing of the plaited leather platform under my bare feet.

  Two hundred yards on, we reached the rocks marking the beach’s edge, where half a dozen old fishermen congregated to mend nets near an overturned boat. Pylades called out a command, drew on the reins, and cornered sharply to bring the chariot about; the wheels threw up sand. We shouted and laughed while the fishermen shook their fists.

  On the second turn, he eased the team into a walk. I thought the adventure over, until he suddenly transferred the reins into my hands. “Your turn, Orestes.”

  No one had ever let me drive a chariot before. I found the prospect daunting, even though the proper age to begin training was fourteen. What should I do? Pylades laughed. “Relax!” he cried. “You’re simply going to walk them, not race. Hold the reins steady but not too taut. The horses know what to do.”

  Maintaining a steady walk proved easy on that flat stretch. Pylades took over only to bring the chariot about, so I could practice some more. “Now,” he said. “Give the reins a light twitch to take the team into a canter. And give them a good ‘yah!’”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll be here watching. Go ahead and try.”

  At first, I was too soft on the reins, then, when pressed, much too hard, so the horses started to gallop. I could pull on the reins to stop them, but too hard and fast, and the vehicle could tip over, crushing us. Meanwhile, the fishermen and their boat were getting closer and closer. “Pylades!” We were going to crash, we would overturn, and...

  At the last possible moment, he seized the reins to bring us about, kicking up sand and earning us yet more foul-mouthed curses from the panicked old fishermen.

  By the time the lesson ended for the day, I was exhilarated and eager for more, except that the horses needed to cool down and rest, and it was time to return to the governor’s residence, because we were expected elsewhere that evening. “But we can go out again tomorrow,” Pylades said. “You made some mistakes, but you have a good sense of the chariot and the horses. The real test, though, is on the road, where the ground isn’t so even or giving.”

  Throughout our stay, Pylades had received supper invitations from the most important men in town. Cirrha, a town of merchants and sailors, had few high-ranking families, so we moved in the same circles night after night. And thus, I began to distinguish a pattern in the interactions between the old and young men that went beyond the usual friction between generations.

  Shortages and unrest plagued the Hellene lands. Pirates roamed the seas and brigands threatened on land, because the established order was breaking down in those regions where the king or his male heirs had died at Troy.

  “To hear the elders talk, you’d think the world was coming to an end,” one young man whispered in my ear.

  Had I drained a cup of wine every time I heard someone mention the Dorians, I would have been passed out drunk by the second course. Achilles’ sixteen-year-old son Neoptolemus had shown courage against the Dorians in Thessaly, yet any praise the elders granted him was condescending, even backhanded. “Achilles never would have let anyone capture Iolkos,” said one, shaking his head.

  “Listen to Korainos talk!” my dinner companion snorted. “Just five years ago he had nothing but scorn for Achilles.”

  Korainos might have been old, but his hearing was still good. “Do you have something to say to me, Aetios?”

  “Why do you judge Neoptolemus so harshly?” Aetios challenged. “He won a great victory, yet you scorn him.”

  “Victory? Is that what you youngsters call losing your territory?” Korainos shot back. “Thanks to Neoptolemus’s incompetence, Thessaly and Iolkos now belong to the Dorians, and very soon they’ll take Phthia, too.” A rumbling chorus of agreement from the graybeards. “Neoptolemus ought to be strengthening his defenses, patrolling his borders to root out Dorian scouts. Instead, he and his Myrmidons are rampaging their way through Epirus, fighting the Molossians while leaving his ailing grandfather to hold Phthia. Gods know, Peleus was a great warrior in his time, but he’s seen his last battle.”

  “Heroes aren’t what they were fifty years ago,” a second elder commented.

  Neither were kings, it seemed. Nestor of Pylos, Telamon of Salamis, and Agapenor of Arcadia were old. Peleus was dying. Argive Cyanippus, who had recently ousted the treacherous wife of Diomedes and her lover, was middle-aged, without strong legitimate sons to succeed him.

  “You’re forgetting that the High King left a son.”

  I did not realize I had uttered my thoughts aloud until the conversation around me abruptly ceased. Everyone’s gaze turned in my direction. All the old men scratched their beards, skeptical to say the least, and dismissed me, while the younger men appeared more willing to listen. To my left, Pylades remained unreadable. I expected him to say something later.

  “Yes, he did,” Aetios mused. “I hear Aegisthus is unpopular. The Argive assembly ignores him completely, and sends their messages and envoys straight to his wife.” So Mother wielded the power, as she had always done.

  Korainos added, “That hasn’t kept him from ousting Agamemnon’s men from their estates and rewarding his own followers.”

  These Phocian noblemen knew more about the matter than I did. That was a bitter morsel to chew on. I, the heir of Mycenae, was the last to hear anything about my own homeland. That had to change. “And what has the Argive assembly done to correct these wrongs?”

  Pylades looked at me strangely, as if to say my question was a foolish one. “Nothing. Mycenae governs those estates.”

  “And yet, the Argive assembly meddles in Mycenaean affairs on other occasions,” I pointed out. It was essential that I stay in the conversation, remain relevant, or lose respect. “They have to approve the new king, so either the assembly has the authority to defend Mycenaean estates and oust Aegisthus, or it doesn’t have any say in Mycenaean affairs, and ought to mind its own business.”

  Scattered sniggers undercut the muttering and murmuring among my audience. So they dismissed my remarks as childish nonsense, did they? I might not know what was happening right now in Mycenae, but I remembered my lessons in politics well enough to know how the Argive system worked.


  At least one elder agreed with me. “You make a sensible point,” Polydoros said. “I never understood the Argives exercising their authority over Mycenae. I’m surprised your late father didn’t bring them all under his rule.”

  “Perhaps he would have,” said the elder seated beside him, “had he not respected Diomedes as much as he did, or found him so useful.”

  “Too late now,” a third muttered.

  His acerbic dismissal prompted dissent among the younger men. “Why is it always too late or not good enough with you?” Aetios challenged. “Agamemnon left a legitimate son and heir with the right sort of breeding and a good head on his shoulders, and yet here you ignore him like some stable boy.”

  “What?” the third elder sputtered. “Would you have us throw our support behind a thirteen-year-old boy who’s never even seen his first battle? That hothead Neoptolemus is punishment enough, but now you want another child to lead us?”

  Insulted, I started to open my mouth when Pylades abruptly lifted his hand and cleared his throat. He waited for the crosstalk to subside before speaking. “Orestes may be young now, but he’s rising fourteen, and won’t remain a child for much longer, as Aegisthus and Clytaemnestra well know.”

  Enthusiastic agreement from the young men, and grudging acknowledgement from the elders. “So, Prince Orestes,” Polydoros said. “What do you intend to do about your mother? Surely your uncle has explained to you that it’s forbidden for a man to kill his mother, even to avenge his father.”

  As though Strophius had had to explain the situation to me! Did they think Argives had no understanding at all of the gods? I did not want to discuss the subject, not tonight, and certainly not at a symposium of Phocian noblemen; it was a private affair, to be worked out among kinsmen. “I haven’t yet decided what to do about her.”

  “Then let me give you some advice,” Korainos said. “Think very carefully before you act. I saw the consequences of such familial strife in Thebes, when Oedipus’s reckless young sons slew each other.” He offered a brisk nod, to assure me that he had been there with the Seven Against Thebes, and witnessed those things. “I remember also when the gods sent that famine against the Argives for the monstrous crime—you know the one—your grandfather committed. Should you act without thinking, young Orestes, and offend the gods by slaying your own mother, your people will be cursed along with you.”