Electra

by Henry Treece

  I think we should have torn him to pieces then, but as we mounted the steps together, my mother suddenly groaned and fell sideways. A trickle came from her mouth’s corner, and her breathing was harsh and hard.

  She said,’ Go on, Electra, put an end to him. My time is near, anyway! We have each served our purpose, he and I—and Agamemnon.’ But all at once I was as cool and steady as a great oak. I had seen the awful fear that Aegisthus had for me, and I knew that, from this time on, I was his master and he my frightened slave. I bent to lift Clytemnestra and carry her downstairs again to her waiting-women. I said to her, ‘All is well, mother. He can wait. I know where to get him now, whenever I want him.’

  As we reached the floor below, he was still crying on the dark steps, like a child afraid in the night.

  26

  My memory is at its tricks again, doctor. Time eludes me like a sly little water-snake. Now it is here: now it is there! Always slithering through the hand that tries to grasp it.

  Sometimes, as I try to recall what happened, a single day will stretch out until it seems to have been a year—and, then again, five years will shrink, like badly-dressed cloth, until they seem like one afternoon….

  What I have told you of the bath-house must have been a great shock to my mind—like a blow taken lightly in the full flood of battle, but which leaves a man crippled for the rest of his days. And I say this in spite of all my coolness when I had Aegisthus in my power on the stairway.

  Much is still unknown to me of that day, and many others which followed it. But I do recall that I shouted for the old nurse, Geilissa, and was told that she had gone from the palace. I thought little of this at the time for I was occupied in getting my mother to her bed. Two handmaidens helped me in this, and after our palace doctor had given the queen a draught to stop her raving, I went in search of Orestes and the others.

  Rarus met me in the feast-hall, his face white, his fingers picking at the neck of his tunic. I had to laugh at him, despite myself.

  ‘What,’ I said, ‘am I so much a Fury that you fall on your knees and cannot keep your mouth still, like this?’

  ‘Princess,’ he answered, ‘I am left behind to bear the bad news to you. Old Geilissa feared that once the town had tasted blood again, all the House of Atreus would be slaughtered. She has gone away with your brother, and Hermione, and Chrysothemis.’

  I put my hands in his shock of black hair and shook his head savagely: that was the mood I was in, as changeable as the wind.

  ‘Gone away? How could an old woman go away, with three big creatures like them? How could they even get away, with the city, and the countryside about it, swarming with soldiers? Answer me!’

  Rarus lowered his eyes and said, ‘There was a soldier, I did not learn his name, but he was a captain in Aegisthus’ New Army—I saw that much. He bundled them all together, after you went with the queen and the dead king up the stairway, and told them their lives were in danger. He had horses waiting for them behind the great byre, and a handful of soldiers to escort them. They rode off without a word. I stayed behind to tell you this. I could have gone, also, my lady.’

  I hung him to the floor in my fury and stormed over him, trying to put my heel in his face.

  ‘What!’ I shouted. ‘You could have gone, also! You, a creature no better than a dog, to ride with kings! And now lie here to torment me! Where have they gone? Out with it or, I swear, I’ll have you hung from an apple-tree and stoned!’

  Rarus now lay flat on his back, his face resigned and still, which put me off. I am capable of doing many things, doctor, if my blood is up and men contest me: but if they are passive I do not find it easy to hurt them. This weakness has been with me all my days, you understand. Later, when I became the Goddess in the palace, I often found it more than I could do to draw the knife across the throat of a quiet lamb, or strike a cud-chewing bullock with the axe. But if they kicked and struggled, or swung their horns at me, then it was different, easier.

  So now I held back from hurting Rarus any more and said, ‘Where have they gone, old friend? Forget what I have just said and tell me, quietly, and without fear,’

  He still gazed up at me, never moving, his face a mask I had not seen before. Gravely he answered. ‘I have never feared you before, princess, but now I shall be cautious of you for ever. Yet I cannot tell you where they went, whatever you do to me, for I do not know. They rode away, kicking their horses’ sides, as though they meant to reach the end of the world before sunset. That is all I know.’

  I turned from him then, without another word, and went to seek Aegisthus. It was clear in my heart that he had put his soldiers up to this—to get my kinsfolk away, and then have them murdered in some quiet place, so as to wipe out our House and let Thyestes triumph in the end.

  I found him in the small armoury at the far end of the megaron.

  He was sitting on a sword-chest, surrounded by soldiers of his New Army. A young lieutenant was holding a wine-cup at my step-father’s quivering lips.

  When I went in with my hair flying and the silver droplets on the flounces of my skirt clashing together, they all turned round and stared at me, holding their breath. The lieutenant let the wine-cup fall, as though his hands had lost their use. They all had javelins or short stabbing-spears, but none of them made any move to attack me.

  Aegisthus was slobbering as though he saw a ghost. The red wine was coming back out of his mouth and wetting his chin. He made a great effort and held out both his hands towards me, then, just as suddenly, let them fall on his lap again.

  Now I stood less than two paces from, them, well in range for a thrusting spear. But, though the skin of my back was prickling and a vein in my neck thrumming like a little harp, I stayed very still and said, ‘Well, where are they, my brother and sister? Out with it, goat!’

  If Aegisthus could have given the sign for one of his javelin-men to make a cast at that moment, all his troubles with me would have been over, and I would have had no power to prevent it. Instead, they gazed at me like frightened sheep, or like timid beasts of the woods, ready to scatter and run if I but clapped my hands.

  As I sensed this, the warmth of power rose again from the deepest part of my body, then mounted until it filled my head with fire. There was a feeling as though the strings of a purse were being drawn tight, to keep the power in, to let it build and build before it should burst forth in fury. I felt my mouth opening stiffly, as though a curse was forming itself on my tongue and making ready to break out. I felt my eyes widening until their lids could hardly contain them, as though in a moment lightning would flash from them to destroy all that lay within their vision. I was almost blind with this power.

  Then Aegisthus had slithered down from the chest and was at my feet, stretching to bold my ankles in supplication. I kicked him away, and felt my hard heel strike the flesh of his face.

  There was a clattering about me in that small room and, for an instant, I expected a spear to enter me. But it was not that: the soldiers had flung down their weapons, and now all knelt before me, their black heads bowed.

  Aegisthus was saying, ‘Mother Via, Mother Via, oh, deal gently with your servants!’

  The soldiers took up this prayer. ‘Mother Via, who are come again on earth, have mercy, we beseech you!’

  Now, as the godhead ran through my heart and my bowels, like scalding water that suddenly turned to ice, I felt my face set and stiffen into a bone mask. My hands went up in the ritual to cup my breasts, like the images of the goddess that the old Cretan made at Cnossos. Even the damp hair about my face and neck seemed to move, as though a cold reptile life had come into it without my knowing.

  I stood there so long, in my new dream, that I thought my heart had stopped beating and that I had truly become a statue at last. I only knew that time had passed because, little by little, I heard the men who lay before me start to groan as their joints and muscles stiffened on the cold paved floor.

  With a great effort I made myself
say at last, ‘Where are my kin, Aegisthus?’

  He did not look at me when he answered, ‘Goddess, I do not know.

  I swear on your sacred shrines, I do not know. It was no doing of mine. This I swear, or may you lay me on the altar at the next festival.’

  Although I now both hated and despised this creature, I felt that he was speaking the truth. I turned from them stiffly and went away. They did not even whisper until I had passed the door.

  When I entered my mother’s bed-chamber, the women fell before me. Even Clytemnestra looked up at me as though she would rather have shrunk back through the bedding, I placed my chilly hand upon her forehead and said, ‘All will be well now, queen of Mycenae. Your children have gone away, but one day they shall be found again. Now sleep, and from this time forward, shut your door to Aegisthus, who is a king here only because I permit it. I do not permit him to be your husband in anything but an empty name.’

  Clytemnestra said slowly, ‘Lady, you have become—her!’

  It was as though she saw me for the first time. I nodded quietly.

  Then I said, ‘You shall be well again. You shall be the queen here and none shall gainsay your commands. But I am the queen behind the queen, the shadow that will keep you where you are. If a man’s shadow goes, that is the end of him; there can be no man where there is no shadow.’

  The queen smiled up at me and nodded. Then she said, ‘Now that you are what you are, lady, I am content at last. The pattern is making itself known and we are secure in the hand of the god. But, tell me, lady, did we do right in putting an end to Agamemnon? It is all that troubles me now.’

  I looked away from her and said, ‘Our hands are clean of blood-guilt, queen of Mycenae. I put the towel about him to dry him; you laid the axe on his neck after he was dead. The one who must carry the burden for the rest of his days is the man who came in between the folding of the towel and the falling of the axe. The man who put the ivory-handled knife into Agamemnon’s heart, with us powerless to stop it, among the steam.’

  She reached out, hesitantly, and touched my garnet-studded girdle, as though for a token of good fortune.

  Then she said, ‘My heart is at rest, now, lady. What is next to do?’

  I laughed within myself at this, for now I was truly queen in Mycenae, although my mother bore the title. And I said, ‘First, we shall raise a tomb to Agamemnon’s glory. Then, all the world will know that we are guiltless. Next, we shall so train Aegisthus to do our bidding that he shall seem little more than one of those dancing bears the Phoenicians lead about with them to attract the crowds in market-places. That will not be hard, for he is a man without an army now; they look to me as their goddess who will bring them fortune or disaster, as I please. And, last, when the time is ripe, we shall bring back Orestes to this kingdom and set him on the throne, with Hermione as his queen, in our good time. So our House will be safe to the end of the days.’

  My mother sank back in her bed, smiling, as though she was well satisfied.

  But one of the serving-women ran forward and bowed before me. ‘One question, goddess,’ she said, her head lowered. ‘What is to become of the baby, Helen, who is of Aegisthus’ getting? Is she to be kept, or put out on the hillside for the beasts to take?’

  I glanced at my mother, thinking she might have a feeling about this, one way or the other, for after all this child had come from her own body. But her eyes were closed and she was smiling up at the rafters as she had done before.

  I turned and said coldly to the woman, ‘Ask no more. That will arrange itself in good time. It is not your affair. Do as you are bidden, the burden is on other shoulders.’

  So I went away to the Hearth Shrine, whose new mistress I became. There was silence in the palace wherever I walked; men fell before me; women covered their faces with their skirts.

  This it was, then, to be a goddess. All I regretted now was that my dear lover, Hermione, was lost to me at that moment. How we might have celebrated, secret in the Shrine! But one day, I thought, yes, one day—and when that day comes, what gifts I shall have to offer her!

  27

  after the bright-eyed young heralds had called from every rooftop that the goddess had come again to Mycenae, and all the dark-haired folk had rejoiced, the sewing-women of the palace began making my garments, under my mother’s supervision.

  They sat about, round her bedside, with the rolls of stuff by their stools, and the gold wire looped over sticks, their hone needles twinkling, their fingers pinching in the cloth, flaring it out, stiffening it with cow’s hoof glue, and so on.

  I did not understand half of what went on, doctor; I was only required to be present, lounging about unclothed, waiting to have this fitted, that tried on, the other altered.

  We of the House of Atreus had never dressed extravagantly, and, to tell the truth, my sisters and I had often run about as ragged as the daughters of any hill-farmer; but now I was being garbed royally for the first time.

  The sewing-women gloried in dressing a goddess after all these years, and took their patterns from little images of glazed and painted clay that their forefathers had brought across from Crete. They made me a full skirt, of wool dyed red with sea-creatures, and made heavy with six frills, or flounces, of gold wire, one rising upon the other, just as the roofs of Babylon once did. It was a glorious skirt, though it almost killed me to squeeze into its waist—I could hardly breathe, the women made it so tight! One of them, a big chested girl from Phaestus, whispered, ‘You must eat less, goddess, if you wish to wear this one!’ I could have pulled her thick black hair!

  Among the flounces, they sewed alternate droplets of silver, of ivory, and of amber; so that, by swinging my hips a little as I walked, I could hear them all clash together as though a small army was on the march, beating cymbals. Since I was permitted to wear nothing on my feet, but only have my heels and toes painted, my coming into a room was unannounced, save for the clashing of my skirt. When I wanted to surprise anyone, I would hold the skirt up to my knees, heavy as it was, and only let it fall when I was almost on them. I frightened half the palace guard to death that way.

  But I overrun myself, doctor. I must tell of the rest. The husband of one of the sewing-women, a goldsmith, made me an apron-stomacher. It pinched my middle so fiercely that at first I fainted, getting into it, but this wore off, and I loved this thing more than any other garment I had. It fell down at front and back in great ovals of beaten gold, and was studded round its edges with emeralds. Within the edging, the smith had scored criss-cross lines, on the bias, to give it pattern.

  Clytemnestra watched this stomacher being fitted the first time and said slyly, though she was very ill at the time, ‘Now, daughter, here’s an end to any careless dallying. This girdle will make a young man think twice before he approaches you!’

  I smiled within myself, because my heart was set on no young man; Hermione, when I found her again, would know the answer to this golden stomacher. But I said nothing at the time; I only smiled, to humour my sick mother, and made some comment about goddesses having to drink less than mortals.

  Then, above the golden girdle, and intended to push my breasts out, to their fullest, the women made me a short corselet of stiffened leather, that came up to a peak in the middle, and was tooled about its surface with sea-shells and acanthus leaves. It was dyed red, like my skirt, and was very pretty; but, oh, the agony of wearing it on hot days! It rubbed me almost raw, until my body hardened to its strong embrace.

  They also made me a dark blue jacket, with sleeves that barely reached the elbows. This was a welcome thing to wear, for it lay open at the front, and let the cool airs blow on me above the leather corselet. It was of the finest Egyptian silk and, in a shower, turned the water as easily as a turtle’s shell. Its colour was to represent the sky; just as my flounced skirt was red for the wine-dark sea, and also for the blood of Man. My stomacher was the Treasure of Earth, all gold, that garnished the inner darkness.

  I think I look
ed well in these things, especially as the hairdressers had trained my long locks to hang like snakes over my shoulders, my breast and my back, all oiled and crimped into ringlets, and bound here and there with little bronze rings set with pearls, the Tribute of the Sea, of Aphrodite.

  On feast days I wore a tower-hat made of starched linen, and covered with silver sequins. It was round, and rose in three tiers over my head, getting smaller all the while, until at the crown it was but a palm’s breadth. To match this silver hat, I started the custom of wearing silver bracelets about my arms and ankles, fashioned like snakes, with eyes of amber chips.

  Many of the great ladies of Hellas took this up after I had been seen in them at one out-door gathering; though, naturally, however rich they were, they did not dare exceed my own bracelets in size, which was very big.

  About my throat, at shoulder level, I wore a hoop of copper, inlaid with silver. No lady tried to copy this, because it was so uncomfortable. But I wore it to create a difference, to make them realise that they and I were of different worlds. My mother used often to say that it would throttle me, but I laughed and said, ‘Was there ever a goddess who died strangled? Name me one, mother. Go on, name me one.’ She could not—so I went on wearing the collar.

  When the feast days were gay, and not for sacrifice, I also wore a set of ancient Cretan seals at my throat and wrists—small amethyst ones, of bulls and dancers and palm trees, that kept up a symphony of sound with the droplets on my skirts, as I moved this way and that, in the slow dancing.

  I tell you, doctor, I got to be so used to being a goddess that I would often stand on the low altar above the Shrine to Hestia. among the sea-shells, and before the marble cross, for hours at a stretch. I learned how to set my painted feet so as to take my weight, then I bowed my head, shut my eyes, let my long hair dangle, and cupped my breasts in my two hands. And this way I could stand still, hardly breathing, until even the watchers grew tired and moved away to their meals or their field-tasks.