Helen Had a Sister

by Penelope Haines

  “Nestra, stop! Let him be.” He dragged me to the seat, forced me into it and made me sit.

  The messenger sprawled, crumpled, coughing and gasping, against the table. Papers flew to the floor and a wine flagon toppled over, its contents dripping onto the sheaves of paper below. The man’s harsh panting filled the room and his hands rubbed his damaged throat. His colour slowly returned to normal, and he eyed me warily as he slowly straightened up.

  “Get him out of here,” I ordered Myrto.

  I was shaking with reaction and suppressed violence. Did the fool actually believe the nonsense he had been saying, and was he retailing this travesty through all the royal houses of Greece? Had Agamemnon truly managed to persuade the gullible that this version of events was the truth? It was possible, I conceded. There had been enough nonsense spouted about Helen and Pollux’s birth. If we hadn’t known the truth, would we ourselves have believed it?

  Was this what priests called faith? Childish lies designed to appease the simpleminded? If so, the belief went deeply into us. I would have cursed Artemis myself, but a residual fear of her retaliation kept me silent. I had given her my devotion throughout the years of my girlhood only to have her betray me. I would never pray to her again. My goddess of choice now was Hera, she who had been much abused and betrayed by her husband and who understood vengeance better than any mortal.

  I didn’t much care what the gods did. My rage was focused on Agamemnon. If there was any to spare it could encompass Calchas, but I had no doubt whose weakness had led to my daughter’s death. Agamemnon had lied to me, entrapped his daughter and allowed the army to use her life as a tool for their stupid war. Agamemnon had given in to pressure. I had always known him to be weak. I hated him with an intensity that threatened to make me ill or send me over the edge towards insanity. I remembered Leda’s words about the Atreus line and their cursed deeds. I willed to destroy it forever.

  Myrto returned from escorting the messenger out. He brought a slave and a fresh flagon of wine. The slave mopped and tidied up.

  The killing rage was ebbing and I started to shake.

  “Lady,” Myrto said quietly as he passed me a filled cup.

  I swallowed, forcing the liquid down through a sudden constriction in my throat.

  He reached out and gently squeezed my shoulder. The quiet support and kindness nearly undid me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  * * *

  I took to lacing my wine at night with a concoction Chryseis brewed for me. I didn’t ask what was in it; all I wanted was that it let me sleep through the night, otherwise there were wings and shadows in the bedchamber and low mutterings of anger in the dark watches of the night. The Furies were searching for Agamemnon. I could feel them gathering round, looking for their prey. They’d have to move to Troy if they wanted him. They couldn’t want him more than I, and I didn’t intend to rely on them for justice.

  Sane or insane, the intensity of my rage kept me purposeful. I lay in bed and planned my vengeance. Time after time I destroyed my husband in an endless series of excruciatingly cruel deaths. I gouged, burned, ripped and maimed him, destroying his mind and his flesh as I took my revenge. I prayed to every god and goddess I could name that if he died in Troy it would be a slow, agonising death. If he returned to Mycenae alive, I would kill Agamemnon myself.

  I stood in the sanctuary of the temple, in front of the altar of Hera. I had brought a calf, and I watched while the priest dispatched it for me and offered it to the goddess. The sickly smell of blood spilt on the altar lingered after he had taken the creature’s life. I thought of Charis’s description of Iphigenia’s sacrifice and shuddered as I waved the priest away.

  We stood as a close group of women – Charis, Io, Chryseis and I. Io was trembling, Chryseis more composed. I could read the cold anger in Charis’s eyes. I had no doubt she would plant a dagger just as effectively as I to avenge Iphigenia.

  I had wondered whether to include Myrto in the group but eventually decided it would put him in a difficult position. He served Agamemnon, and to ask him to change loyalties would have been unkind.

  I moved forward to the altar and put my hand out in a plea to the goddess.

  “I swear by Hera, and by all gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil, according to my ability, this oath and this covenant, though it may take my lifetime to achieve it. I will avenge my daughter’s honour and her memory. I will oppose those who conspired to bring her to her death in any way I can, and I will repay Iphigenia’s death by the death of her father who ordered the wicked deed carried out. I will take upon myself such punishment the gods may deem just for this act. May I fulfil this oath and not violate it.”

  I had never before prayed with such intensity. I needed those who heard to understand the depth of my rage and my need to exact revenge.

  After, I stepped back, well pleased. Let the gods chew on that, I thought with some satisfaction.

  The women shadowed me as we walked back to the palace. Passers-by dipped their heads in recognition and respect. The whole city mourned the loss of their princess. Myrto had issued a statement to the people, giving them the bare facts of her death and making Agamemnon’s responsibility clear. The version the messenger had tried to peddle was also in circulation. There would be some confused citizens.

  We reached the steps at the foot of the palace. They were slowly being covered with laurel and other evergreen wreaths, placed there in mourning by the citizenry. I bent to look closer at them. Some were already drying out in the late summer heat. They were such small symbols to celebrate my daughter’s life, but the thought behind them was kindly meant.

  “We will need to work out how to dispose of them,” said Myrto. “We can’t just sweep them up and throw them out. It would be disrespectful.”

  “They can be taken to the temple of Artemis at the end of the week,” I said, “and burned there as an offering. We’ll make the occasion a memorial service to Iphigenia. The people have not had a chance to participate in any ritual for her, so it will be an opportunity for us all to mourn.”

  I liked the idea of having our own funeral pyre for Iphigenia.

  Myrto nodded. “I’ll make all the arrangements.”

  * * *

  I went to see the children. I realised how quickly Orestes was growing when I saw how short his tunic had become. He wasn’t my baby any more but a wriggly toddler who was learning new words to say every day. I picked him up and cuddled him. I loved the smell of him and rested my nose in the crease of his neck, inhaling his essence. He squirmed in my arms, impatient to be set down again. He looked more like Agamemnon every day, with the same colouring and the same stocky body; but his nature was very different. He shared Iphigenia’s essential sweetness. He was an easy little boy to love.

  Electra was playing with a rag doll, fiercely concentrating on her toy and shutting the rest of us out. I could hear her telling herself some involved story.

  Charis sat on the floor near her, ready to play with either child. Her act of mourning had been to take on the role of big sister to Iphigenia’s siblings, providing them with a continuity of support and protection.

  “I love them for Iphigenia’s sake,” she had said, simply. “When I am with them, I can feel her presence. She would have wanted them to be protected and loved.”

  I nodded at her. I had told the children their big sister wasn’t coming back, and that their father had been responsible for sacrificing her for his army’s gain. Orestes grew sad and quiet for a while. I doubt he understood much of what was said.

  Electra was full of questions. “But why, Mummy?” she asked as I explained the idea that her sister had been sacrificed to appease an angry goddess.

  “I don’t know, darling,” I said sadly. “Calchas told your father the goddess wanted Iphigenia as a sacrifice.”

  “But how did Calchas know?”

  “Maybe he made it up. I don’t know. I�
�m sure no goddess would have wanted a young woman murdered.”

  But an unpleasant, rancid man might have been happy to kill in her name. It demonstrated his power over Agamemnon and, by default, over the whole Greek army. I wondered whether Iphigenia had really been a sacrifice to Calchas’s ambitions.

  “Daddy loved Iphigenia,” said Electra. Her bottom lip was trembling.

  “Not enough,” I said sharply. “When he had to choose between a fair wind for sailing and her life, he chose to kill his own daughter.”

  How do you tell a six-year-old ugly truths? Could I say to her, as I so wished, ‘Your thrice-cursed abomination of a father murdered your sister’? Or worse, because it was closest to my truth, ‘Your father is no sort of man at all. Yes, even now somewhere there is a fool of a poet writing an ode in his honour, or elsewhere some sculptor is chipping away at a lump of marble trying to immortalise his face and form, but the truth is, this man couldn’t get through the simplest of day-to-day living without abusing others and making them carry the blame for his actions. Now he’s murdered your sister. Be grateful; it could have been you.’

  I could see Electra trying to reconcile the brutal facts with her love of her father. I suppose I could have been kinder, but I wanted her to realise just what sort of man he was. I just didn’t have the courage to tell her so in a realistically brutal way.

  The wreath-burning ceremony was simple and poignant. I think the whole town must have assembled to see the floral tributes put to the torch in Iphigenia’s honour. I watched the smoke rise and wondered where her spirit was. I prayed she was at peace. Was there a place in Elysium for a gentle young woman?

  The crowd watched silently. I saw many with tears in their eyes.

  “She was too young to die,” I heard one crone mumble.

  “She was too perfect for this world,” replied another.

  “The gods take the young and beautiful for their own,” said yet another.

  The crowd’s palpable sorrow soothed my own. I stood with the children, watching until the last ashes fell inwards to the fire.

  It was done.

  * * *

  Days became months, seasons became years. As Odysseus had predicted, there was no easy victory for the Greek army. Occasional messengers brought news from Troy. The army was laying siege, camped around the town. There were occasional skirmishes but no real progress in the war. I wondered bitterly who else Agamemnon would be prepared to sacrifice to break the impasse.

  Mycenae, like all the other kingdoms of Greece, was quiet. We had adapted to the men’s absence. Women performed work that men traditionally did, whether on the farms or in the town itself. The few men who had been left behind were growing older, but there was a new crop of youngsters growing up. Those who had been too young for conscription were now young men and ready for citizenship.

  I saw Myrto watching a group of these youngsters.

  “Are you looking for potential trouble?” I asked.

  He looked startled then gave me his slow smile. “No. I’m just wondering what my boy looks like now. They’ve been gone five years. He won’t be a boy at all but a fully grown man. My wife misses him – and the grandchildren he could be giving us.”

  I heard the wistfulness in his voice and nodded. Similar conversations could occur anywhere in Greece. The war against Troy, which was supposed to be over in a couple of months, had split families. There were many parents who would never see their boys again.

  Traders still called and brought their goods to the town, but their numbers were down. With Troy blocked as a trading post, many brought their goods directly to Mycenae, so at last we had first pick of their wares. Agamemnon had achieved one of his goals at least.

  “There’s no profit in it any more,” one of the merchants said to me. “We used to be able to sell goods in Troy, then pick up fresh supplies as we went from kingdom to kingdom. Now there simply isn’t enough new product for us to make up our stock. We are having to look to other markets.”

  I nodded, but I was concerned. Much of Mycenae’s wealth depended on the traders and the taxes and levies they paid to the city.

  The man shrugged. “Still, we bring what we can to Mycenae, if only for the sake of your beautiful face, my lady.”

  I snorted. For a merchant, flattery is his stock in trade, but I was the queen and didn’t like impertinence.

  Then the merchants brought something else. Disease.

  The first deaths went unnoticed, part of the usual pattern of life and death, but others followed in short succession. Soon it seemed every family in Mycenae had at least one sick member. The onset of symptoms was sudden, with burning fever, headache, coughs and sore throats. Death occurred within hours, and very few of the sick survived.

  The disease moved swiftly through the city putting additional stress on a town already operating at full stretch with all the men away. Maintaining a basic civil infrastructure became a daily nightmare, and Myrto and I were worked off our feet. Those who recovered had a protracted convalescence that lasted weeks. Most disturbingly, the disease was at its most lethal in vigorous young adults, those you would have thought least likely to succumb.

  The healers worked round the clock caring for the afflicted. Bodies had to be buried in a mass grave; there was no time for the usual ceremonial funerals. I was terrified that Electra or Orestes would be affected.

  Chryseis worked tirelessly, brewing tonics and soothing syrups. She separated herself from the household to avoid bringing the disease to the palace. “We don’t know where it came from, or how it spreads,” she said sadly. “Only that it kills so ferociously. It could be a curse from the gods, it could be caused by an evil miasma or foul water. Who knows?”

  “When Helen was last here, she mentioned they had suffered a plague in Sparta. Do you think it’s the same?”

  “Maybe,” replied Chryseis. “But if I remember, the cure for Sparta’s plague was for Menelaus to travel to Troy. I don’t think we can do that now. There’s no one left to send, and Troy is under attack from our own people.”

  “Just be careful of yourself,” I exhorted her.

  Myrto became ill the next day.

  “Go home,” I said. “You can do no good here. Let your wife nurse you.”

  “My wife already has it,” he coughed.

  I looked at his flushed face and strained eyes. “Then you need to be with your wife so you can both look after each other.” I put my hand out and grasped his arm. I could feel the abnormal heat of his skin. “I need you too much to allow you to take a risk,” I said gently. Then, when he looked to argue, “Go to bed. You look wretched.”

  He gave me an exhausted smile but went gratefully.

  Chryseis brought word later that he and his wife died that night.

  “I called by to see them and check they were all right. They were both cold. His wife must have died first, for she was in his arms. I am so sorry, Clytemnestra.”

  I went out on the balcony, sat on the balustrade and looked over the town. Io arrived with some stuffed peppers, olives and wine. She poured for me, but I sat with my hands useless in my lap.

  I hadn’t loved Myrto as one would a lover, but he had been a close friend and support for many years. I thought of the son, far away in Troy, who would never again see his parents. Myrto and I had worked together for Mycenae, and though we discussed our personal lives little, I had come to know him as an honourable, loving man for whom family was the core of his world.

  Mycenae was a poorer place tonight for his loss.

  I felt a terrible depression creep over me. What was the point of carrying on when it seemed everything I cared about was taken from me? I wondered whether Helen, who had chosen a life of passion and adventure, was happier than me. I had tried to do my duty, and a grim choice that had been. I bent my head and wept.

  Charis and Electra found me.

  “Why are you crying, Mother?” asked Electra.

  I dried my
eyes hastily. “Myrto and his wife died today, darling. He is a terrible loss.”

  Electra looked at me with cool eyes. “He wasn’t family, though, was he? Not really your friend either. Just a sort of palace servant.”

  I gasped at her lack of respect.

  “He was much more than that. I relied on him for so much,” I said.

  Electra gave a little shrug and turned away. I stared at her back. Had I once been as callous? I tried hard to remember how young she was, that she couldn’t yet know the reality of adult pain.

  “He was a good man,” said Charis softly. “I am sorry, Clytemnestra.”

  “Thank you, my dear. Yes, he was a good man.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY ONE

  THERE WOULD BE A STRANGER IN the hall for dinner. Actus, who had become my principal assistant, warned me early. I sighed. We were short of rations, short of serving staff and most certainly short of the appropriate spirit of joy a stranger is supposed to inspire in us. Still, the rituals must be observed, the rites honoured, and guests were sacred to us.

  I was at the head table with my family. None disputed my absolute right to be there. No one ever would. This much Agamemnon’s absence had given me – the undisputed rule of Mycenae. We were a small group gathered that evening. The plague, whatever its cause or name, had left many places at our tables empty. I could look down the scarred wood where once high nobles and warriors had sat. Now their places were taken by servants, mostly women. Mycenae had become a ghost town.

  Our guest entered formally, and I rose to give the greeting. He was a tall man and well favoured, although I had supposed myself past noticing such things. He wasn’t young. I placed him between forty and fifty years of age. It may have been more, but his physical form carried the years lightly. Tall, well muscled and with long legs, he was a man to command attention. His hair was cropped short; clearly it had once been dark but was now well peppered with grey. It suited him. His skin was ruddy, indicating an active, outdoor life. I looked again at those long thigh muscles. This was a man in his prime, physically fit and strong. I wondered how he had avoided the call of the army that was still encamped outside Troy. Most men of his age wasted their lives away on the barren plains of Ilium.