The Return From Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  When he saw that he had Menelaus at a disadvantage, Hylax made him wait for the kernel of his news. First his listener had to be assured of the veracity of its source — another Phoenician, a reliable man who plied his trade between Sidon and Sicily, calling in on smaller islands between. Then consideration had to be given as to what Menelaus might offer in return for an item of such interest, and only when he had agreed to use the ship’s chandler that Hylax recommended, did the Phoenician reveal what he knew.

  Having listened to his story, Menelaus was first left feeling that if Odysseus of all people could behave this way, then there was no loyalty left in the world. But after a time he was forced to recognize that he was envious of the freedom from care that his old comrade seemed to have won for himself. Agamemnon was dead; Diomedes and Idomeneus had been deposed; Neoptolemus was still struggling to defend his birthright; and old Nestor’s life-thread must be running short by now. Out of all the surviving captains of the war at Troy, it seemed that only Odysseus had found much in the way of happiness.

  Yet of all of them, Menelaus thought with a rueful smile, perhaps he was the one who most deserved it.

  In the spring of the year that Menelaus and Helen returned to Sparta they were visited at different times by four young men.

  Neoptolemus had recently strengthened his position in the north. Taking a small detachment from the forces with which he and Peleus had stalled the Dorian advance, he debouched westwards into the shadowy gorges and high, slate-blue mountains of Epirus. Once established there, he rallied the Dolopian tribesmen of the region, who were his own ancestral people, and then combined with Peleus’ forces in the east to engage the Dorians on two fronts. Their fierce simultaneous attacks had forced the invaders to retreat, and Neoptolemus was now hopeful that the lost capital of Iolcus would soon be recovered. Nor did his plans end there, for his successes led him to foresee a time when he would become suzerain of all the northern kingdoms, with the little son whom he had sired on Hector’s widow Andromache one day ruling Epirus on his behalf.

  In this already exalted state, Neoptolemus received the letter from Egypt proposing a marriage alliance. It seemed that things were changing everywhere, for he had often heard Agamemnon and Menelaus talk of the day when their kingdoms would be united under the rule of Orestes and Hermione. Clearly such a union was out of the question now; and Mycenae, where Talthybius was struggling to control a gang of unruly barons, was in turmoil still. With Menelaus offering him the Spartan succession, a distinct possibility emerged that the son of Achilles might one day seize the Lion Throne as High King of all Argos.

  It would also be good, he thought, to have a younger and more compliant partner in his bed than Andromache. Neoptolemus had found no comfort in the arms of a woman who detested him and, having proved his manhood by making her pregnant at last, he had been glad enough to leave her behind his lines and get on with the more profoundly satisfying business of war.

  So, yes, Andromache could be disposed of without great loss, and he would take Hermione as his wife and future queen.

  Menelaus received him warmly in Sparta as an old comrade; but never having met Helen before, Neoptolemus had come to the city filled with expectation and was disappointed by her remote and wary presence. Had ten years of war really been fought on account of this woman? If so, he found it hard to see what all the fuss had been about.

  Hermione was another matter. If her mother lacked fire, this girl’s eyes glowed with it, though it was, he thought, a sullen sort of fire that might prove petulant if not kept under strict control. Nor could he find much enthusiasm in her curt responses to his efforts to interest her in the new war he was fighting. It further occurred to him that, after the luxury of her life in Egypt and Sparta, this spoiled young woman might not take kindly to the spare and disciplined life awaiting her in Thessaly. Neoptolemus was obliged, in fact, to suppress a number of uneasy reservations he felt about this marriage in favour of the advantages it would bring. Just as well, he thought, that the need to love and to be loved had never ranked very high among his priorities.

  Having spent time recalling stories of the war together, and giving thought to the effects of its turbulence on the world, Menelaus and Neoptolemus eventually got down to discussing the terms of the marriage settlement. Hermione, it seemed, would bring a generous dowry with her, but only on condition that Andromache’s child be passed over in favour of any sons that Hermione might bear. The condition came hard to Neoptolemus who had grown fond of his little son Molossus in the few hours he had spent with him; but Menelaus would not shift on the point and eventually it was agreed. Satisfied with the business he had done, Neoptolemus returned to his mountain fastness in order to prepare for marriage later that year. And if Hermione behaved throughout this whole stiff occasion with a restraint that left her parents feeling pleasantly relieved, it was only because she was concealing quite different plans of her own.

  Orestes had grown into his young manhood torn between two contradictory imperatives. The first was the duty to avenge his father’s murder by taking the assassins life; the second was the age-old taboo against matricide that made it unthinkable to kill his mother. In an attempt to resolve his intolerable dilemma, he consulted the oracle at Delphi as soon as he was of an age to do so. The answer he received was unequivocal: Agamemnon’s death must be avenged.

  And so, accompanied by his friend Pylades, whose love for him had remained constant throughout, he returned covertly to Mycenae, where he might work out a plan of action with his sister Electra. Certain only that he wanted to kill Aegisthus, Orestes was still hoping that the gods might contrive some other means to end his mother’s life.

  If Aegisthus had been allowed his way, Electra would have been dead some time ago, but Clytaemnestra had already lost too many children to yield to his ruthless will. Yet she understood very well that if Electra married and bore a son, the child would become a rallying point for all the disaffected barons of Mycenae. The Queen’s solution was to marry her daughter to a commoner — a man from whom her aristocratic spirit would proudly shrink — so that there could be no issue from the marriage.

  When he secretly met his sister and heard the story of her humiliations, Orestes wept. What kind of mother was it, Electra asked, who could pleasure herself with her husband’s murderer, while inflicting shame on her daughter and leaving her son to be hunted down like a rabid dog? Her hatred had grown so powerful that she declared herself ready to kill Clytaemnestra herself if her brother’s courage failed. She reassured him that there many people in the city who had no love for either the queen or her lover. They knew that blood must have blood. It was the law of things. Mycenae had become a city ruled only by fear. Once the deed was done, Orestes would be greeted with joy.

  Even as he listened to his sister, Orestes could feel fate shutting down around him. He was being pushed into a dark place from which he might never escape. Yet he was the son of Agamemnon, the rightful Prince of Mycenae, and his father’s blood was crying out for vengeance. So the moment arrived when Orestes resolved that the pollution of his mother’s death could be allowed to fall on no head but his own. Together at their father’s tomb, he and his sister prayed for the help of the gods. Electra made her sacred offerings to Persephone, asking the Queen of the Underworld to guide their actions, while Orestes prayed to Sky-Father Zeus for his support, to the Earth Mother for her mercy on him, and to the shade of Agamemnon for the strength to do what he must do.

  Five years had passed since either he or Pylades was last seen in Mycenae, and both were bearded now. It was feasible, therefore, to present themselves at the gate to the Lion House disguised as emissaries from the King of Phocis with an urgent message to deliver. Even when they stood before Clytaemnestra in the private chamber where she received ambassadors and supplicants, they went unrecognized. Solemnly Pylades stepped forth holding an urn. It contained, he declared, the ashes of the queen’s son Orestes, who had been killed in a chariot-race during a festival at D
elphi.

  Gripping a knife in the folds of his robe, Orestes watched the blood drain from his mother’s face. He heard the sigh she released as one of her hands reached backwards for her chair.

  Was it grief that overwhelmed her? Or merely exhausted relief that the threat of her son’s vengeance was lifted from her head? It was impossible to say, for that impassive face had long grown used to concealing its secrets.

  When Pylades stammered out his regret at bringing such unhappy news, Clytaemnestra wearily shook her head. ‘If I had not heard it from you,’ she said, ‘someone else would have told me soon enough.’ She lifted a weak hand, and got to her feet again. ‘You will excuse me. I need to grieve alone.’

  Unable to move, Orestes watched his mother walk out of the chamber. A roaring, like a big wind, gusted through his head.

  As Pylades stared at him aghast, the lean-faced secretary who had shown them in to the chamber cleared his throat and stepped forward to usher them out.

  They stood without moving, staring at each other.

  ‘The Queen is understandably distracted,’ the secretary offered. ‘If you will wait outside for a time, I feel sure your patience will soon be rewarded.’

  The seconds passed. Again the secretary cleared his throat.

  Appalled that they had risked so much and accomplished nothing, the two young men were about to turn and follow him out when they heard voices in the next room. The inner door by which Clytaemnestra had left the chamber opened again and Aegisthus was there demanding that they wait. Casually dressed, he was dabbing barber’s soap from his face with a towel.

  ‘Leave us alone,’ he dismissed the secretary, ‘I wish to question these Phocians more closely.’

  When they were alone, he addressed his visitors with a theatrically doleful smile. ‘Forgive my appearance,’ he said, ‘but such tragic news demands immediate attention. Come closer, I pray you. Tell me what you know.’

  He half turned to indicate a couch on which they might be seated. In the same moment, as though acting under urgent orders, Orestes strode quickly across the floor and thrust the knife into his side. Aegisthus stared down at the harm that had been done to him in disbelief. He opened his lips but only a gasp came out. Quickly, Pylades grabbed the towel and pressed it firmly over the gaping mouth.

  Orestes pulled out the knife and took a step back. Then he pushed the blade into the man’s ribcage and twisted it there. Blood splashed across his tunic as he stabbed again, and again, for a third and fourth time. By now he was desperate for this ruined body to die. When a red stain soaked the towel where the mouth must be, the dying man’s grip on his killer’s shoulders slackened. A moment later Aegisthus slid to the floor where his lean, athletic form shook and shook as in the throes of a fit. With the knife in his hand still, Orestes stood shaking over him.

  Sensing his uncertainty, Pylades hissed, ‘It has begun. Now it will be easier. Remember Apollo’s command.’ Then he crossed the room and threw open the inner door.

  Even before he entered her apartment Orestes knew that what happened next would play itself out over and over again in the arena of his mind. Each time he took a knife to meat he would remember the blade entering his mother’s breast. Each time he closed his eyes against the night he would see the hand lifted to her mouth as the blood sprayed from it. Whenever he slept — if he ever slept again — his dreams would be loud with her last, gasping whisper of his name. As he stepped through to where his mother looked up, suddenly weak and old and jaded, from the couch on which she lay with her hands in her hair, he knew that he was stepping into the darkness where the Furies live. He knew that they would pursue him from that place forever. And so great was the need to shift into his body the pain that seared his mind, a day would come — just one of the many intolerable days of which his life must now consist — when he would gnaw to the bone, and finally bite off, the index finger of the hand that held that knife.

  And it would make no difference. Nothing would ever make any difference. No rite of cleansing. No word of understanding and consolation from a friend. No imprecation of the gods. Not a second of this horror could ever be undone.

  And this was the haunted young man who burst into the palace at Sparta one humid afternoon many months later, demanding to have audience with Menelaus, wanting to know what treacherous dealings had led his uncle to forswear himself by giving away his promised bride Hermione to another man.

  Still indomitably loyal to his friend, Pylades had travelled to Sparta at his side, and the two fugitives might never have gained admission to the palace had it not been for the iron laws of hospitality. The porter did not feel easy about these travel-worn desperados shaking dust from their hair as they dismounted from their chariots, but when one of them brusquely announced himself as Orestes, son of Agamemnon and nephew to the King of Sparta, and the other as Pylades, Prince of Phocis, he could not refuse them entry.

  The chamberlain Eteoneus despatched a minion to warn Menelaus and Helen of their arrival, and they were at once thrown into consternation. Reports of his unpredictable behaviour had preceded Orestes along the roads of Argos. How best to receive this young madman? Should he be calmly entertained, as Menelaus believed, and then ushered away with a kindly word? Or was Helen wiser in her conviction that it was too risky to grant him an audience? They had just agreed that, whatever else happened, Hermione must be kept well apart from her cousin when they heard shouting in the hall below.

  Stepping onto the inner balcony, Menelaus saw that two spearmen had already been summoned from the guardhouse. Orestes was growling at them with bared teeth like a distempered boar-hound while Pylades restrained him with a firm hand at his shoulder. Seeing Menelaus, Pylades demanded to know whether such an inhospitable show of force was the custom in Sparta these days.

  ‘It certainly is not,’ Menelaus called down as he descended the marble stairs. ‘But neither is it customary for our guests to behave like unmuzzled dogs.’ He stood before them with narrowed eyes, struggling for composure. ‘First let me bid you welcome in the name of Zeus of the Strangers,’ he said; ‘then I think you should be seated, gentlemen, so that we may discuss your business here.’

  ‘I’m no stranger, Menelaus of Sparta,’ Orestes retorted. ‘I am your kinsman Orestes, son of Agamemnon, lawful heir to Mycenae, and well you know it.’

  With a dubious smile Menelaus said, ‘Surely not? I remember my nephew Orestes as a well-bred young man.’

  ‘So I was once, in the days when you gave me my first hunting knife as a gift. But that was before the curse on our house came home to me. And it has done so with a vengeance.’ Orestes glanced at his friend with a sickly smile on his face. ‘Did you hear that, Pylades? I said it has come home with a vengeance.’ But then he turned savagely on his reluctant host. ‘Don’t toy with me, Uncle. I warn you, it would not be wise. I’m here only to claim what is rightly mine. Hermione has bid me come to claim her. We were promised to each other long ago. I will not leave this house without her.’

  Stunned, Menelaus said, ‘Hermione asked you to come here?’

  ‘She did. I have the letter here.’ Orestes fumbled with the straps of the wallet at his belt and took out a piece of Egyptian papyrus. ‘See for yourself.’

  Menelaus looked down at the misspelled scrawl with which Hermione had summoned this mad young man to rescue her from the unwanted marriage to Neoptolemus. He looked up from it, flushed and angry. ‘My daughter had no leave to send this letter. She has transgressed the bounds of obedience and modesty. I regret that she has brought you here on a fool’s errand, but I am a man of my word and she is promised to another.’

  ‘And if I meet with Neoptolemus I will surely kill him,’ Orestes snarled. ‘A man of your word, you say? A man of your word! Believe me, Uncle, I will kill you too sooner than let you break the solemn pledge you made to my father that Hermione and I should wed.’

  At that moment more spearmen rattled into the hall. Raising a hand to prevent them from entirely surroundin
g Orestes, Menelaus studied the angry young face across from him, aware how dangerous was the unstable mind behind it.

  Yet still he hoped to reason with him. ‘That pledge was made many years ago,’ he tried, ‘in a different world. Everything has changed since then. We have all been forced to rebuild our lives.’

  ‘Some of us have been forced to do more,’ Orestes glowered at him. ‘Yet some things remain constant. The gods know that Mycenae is mine though I have been banished the city. Hermione is mine though you seek to give her elsewhere. Do not add to the storm in my mind, Uncle. Give me what belongs to me in Sparta. The rest I will reclaim for myself.’

  ‘I cannot do that, Orestes,’ Menelaus sighed.

  ‘If you are a man of honour you can do nothing else.’

  ‘Surely you must see that your own actions have made it impossible?’

  ‘I see only a double-dealing villain who promised me the throne of Sparta once. I mean to make him keep his promises.’

  Helen, who had been standing in the shadows of the balcony since Menelaus began to descend the stairs, stepped forward now. ‘And I see only a mad boy who has murdered his own mother and my sister.’ Her voice had echoed through the hall. Orestes stared up at her, wincing, as if into bright sunlight. ‘I see you, son of Agamemnon,’ she cried. ‘I see that you have no love for my daughter. There is nothing left in your heart but guilt and hatred. You would have to kill me too before I let you take her.’

  ‘Is that the whore of Troy I hear accusing me?’ Orestes shouted. ‘I have two deaths on my conscience. How many thousands lie on yours?’

  ‘None by my own hand,’ Helen retorted, flushed with passion now, ‘nor any by my wish. I am not answerable for the madness of the world. No, and not for your madness either. That you got from your father. Only a fiend willing to murder his own daughter could father a son capable of taking his own mother’s life.’ She heard Menelaus call up to silence her, but she was not to be stopped. ‘You spring from the same rotten seed as him, Orestes of Mycenae,’ she cried. ‘I will never permit that seed to pollute my daughter’s loins.’