The Outcast

by Laura Gill

  After an hour, I brought the chariot around to head back. Boukolos, clutching the rail, threw back his head and laughed above the jangling of the harnesses, and the creaking of the oiled axles. “Admit it, I was right!”

  “I admit nothing!” I called back.

  “Hah!” Boukolos had marked my grudging smile. “I’ll hitch my chariot tomorrow, and we’ll race.”

  We returned to the citadel in the early afternoon. Boukolos flirted outrageously with the handsome young stable hand who unhitched the horses from their harnesses; the youth blushed furiously, and stammered as he started to lead the horses away to rub them down. I chuckled, grasped Boukolos’s shoulder to keep him from following. “Does that boy know how often you fall in and out of love?” I asked.

  High color suffused my companion’s cheeks. “No, and you’re not going to tell him, either!” he hissed. “I’ve only just begun to press my suit.”

  Our banter and the excitement of the ride allowed me to forget my cares, until on our ascent to the palace a nobleman appeared on the path to pay his respects. “Prince Orestes,” he said courteously, with an accent that hinted at an Epirote origin. “I am Talamenes of Dodona. I was told you were a guest here.”

  Boukolos nodded toward me, then withdrew to a discreet distance. I waited for him before answering the stranger, “Your name sounds familiar. I assume you are attached to Lord Ambassador Pelagon and the embassy from Ephyri?”

  “Indeed,” he replied smoothly.

  I gave him a moment to state his purpose, for surely he had had some reason to accost me, but when he did not elaborate further, I continued, “How does the queen fare? She is my kinswoman.”

  Talamenes favored me with an oily smile. “Queen Hermione is in mourning for her late lord, as are we all.” His thin black eyebrows arched up a hair. “Shall I give her a message from you on my return?”

  Whatever it was that this Epirote sycophant wanted, whether it was an invitation to the Mycenaean court, or an excuse to assess my character, he was a fool to think I would confide in him, or entrust him with my most private correspondence. “Is your delegation leaving so soon, when you have only just arrived?”

  Talamenes smoothed an imaginary wrinkle over his breast. “Would we could tarry, my lord, but ours is a most serious mission, and the regents must be kept informed.” His smile persisted, even though his eyes did not convey any genuine pleasure; for whatever reason, he did not care for me. “Should your kinswoman still be at court, I will gladly bear her a message.”

  Again, the offer to convey a letter to my cousin; it pricked my suspicions to new heights. I doubted that he, or whoever he might be working for, would deliver such a message with seals intact. For now, I did not call him on his insincerity, but played him as he was trying to play me. “Is there some reason why your queen should not be at court?” I asked pleasantly.

  “I have heard she may soon return to Sparta,” he replied.

  Obviously it was trivial news to him, the way he said it, but said volumes to me. For Hermione to return to her father’s house meant she was not with child; there was hope yet that she might be mine. “It is so soon,” I commented, while striving to keep a solemn face. “Her lord husband has not even been dead a month.”

  Talamenes acknowledged my observation with a nod. “True, but the sailing season grows short. The lady would no doubt prefer the solace of her family in this difficult time. She should not be forced to tarry among strangers any longer than necessary.”

  A peculiar disdain edged his words, as if he were only too glad to see his queen gone from the land. It made me wonder what my beloved might have said or done to offend him, if she had done anything at all. “She does not have any ritual duties to attend to?” I asked. “For a queen to leave so suddenly seems rather...abrupt.”

  Talamenes’s eyes glittered coldly, despite his persistent smile; he reminded me of a snake, who seemed to grin while contemplating a strike. “Alas, the lady was with us for so a brief a time that whatever duties she may have had were inconsequential.”

  And thus, I finished privately, she herself was of no account. I clasped my hands tightly behind my back to suppress a sudden urge to strike some respect into him. “Forgive me, but I fear I must have distracted you from your errand with my queries about my cousin. What was it you wished to see me about?”

  Talamenes inclined his head. “It was no great matter. I merely wished to pay my respects.”

  He was neither a convincing sycophant nor a good liar. I dismissed him with the usual courtesies and rejoined my companion, who had, it turned out, overheard much of the exchange. Boukolos cast a wary glance over his shoulder. Assured we were safely beyond earshot, he observed in a low voice, “I don’t think that man likes you.”

  III.

  Mycenae

  Chapter Sixteen

  “To Orestes Agamemnonides, brother and king of Mycenae: greetings. I have sent this message ahead of the honor guard which should arrive in Krisa the next few days. Not twelve hours ago, I went myself before the Argive assembly with your seal ring and the messages from Delphi, and presented your case to them. The vote was unanimous. I may officially inform you that you have been invited to return home to Mycenae, and assume your rightful seat upon the Lion Throne.”

  King, at last! I paused for a moment to savor the news, to inhale its very essence along with the cool breeze wafting through the open window. It came as no great surprise, for in my mind I had been king the moment I left Delphi, but to have it made official, that was a heady feeling, indeed.

  True to his nature, Pylades kept his letter concise. “I am disseminating the news throughout Argolis. Elektra and I are preparing the citadel for your arrival. Lord Kleitos will be your escort; he will arrange your transport and lodging, and send word ahead of your progress. May Poseidon and Hermes grant you their favor, that you will be with us again within the month. I am your kinsman and regent, Pylades Strophides.”

  His letter had come at a propitious time, for the goldsmith had delivered my new seal that very morning. Butes knew how to select motifs suited to his clients, and did the most magnificent work; he had, he proudly informed me, been trained in the ancient Cretan technique, which was fast becoming a dying art.

  When I was six years old, Mother had let me hold her seal stone, a gold ring the size of a fig, engraved with women offering wheat ears and poppies to a seated goddess. Father, too, had had a wonderful seal, the same one Pylades now used as regent. The double lions of the House of Atreus. It had been too large for me to wear when I had taken it from Father’s dead hand eight years ago, yet though it might fit now, I did not want it as my own. I did not want men who received my messages to look upon the seal and say, “That is the mark of High King Agamemnon.” I was not going to rule in my father’s shadow, but stand as my own man.

  But there must be a lion. How else would others recognize me as the king of Mycenae? Thus, upon an oval surface of gold two inches across, Butes had engraved a regal lion reposing under an olive tree sacred to Athena, with holy Olympus in the background. Fitting, I mused, for a king whose name meant the Mountain Dweller. I tried the seal upon my forefinger, found that it fit and became me, and paid the goldsmith his due.

  Strophius admired the workmanship when he saw it that evening. “A royal ring befitting a new king.” As we drank wine together in the empty megaron, we conversed yet again about the obligations of kingship. He had known about the letter, he told me, as the Mycenaean messenger had announced it was for Orestes the king; he had been among the first to congratulate me. “Be sure to render thanks to Zeus, and the Two Ladies of Argos for this honor,” he reminded me. “And make certain you beseech Poseidon to calm the waters in the gulf, Artemis to grant you favorable winds, and Hermes to safeguard the road on your journey home.”

  A good many animals, I reflected, would shed their blood upon the altars between now and my homecoming. Poseidon and Zeus would want fine bulls. I should dedicate a snow-white ewe and lamb to
Artemis, and two young bull calves to...

  “I understand you spoke with an Epirote dignitary the other day,” my uncle was saying.

  “Lord Talamenes sought me out.” I gazed at the fire crackling upon the hearth. Warm as the days still were, the early autumn evenings were cool. “I have no idea why. He seems to dislike me.”

  Strophius exhaled a long breath. “The Epirote delegation has expressed some misgivings about you.”

  After my encounter with the man, it failed to surprise me. “About their own queen, too, it seems,” I snorted. “Talamedes sounded as though he couldn’t wait for her to board a ship and leave.” An uncomfortable pause followed. I glanced away from the fire toward my uncle, and found him wearing a tense look. “What is it?”

  “About your cousin...” He cleared his throat anxiously. “Now, hear me out, Orestes. I’ve heard a disturbing tale about Hermione, and how she wrote to you to ask you to kill her husband.” Once I absorbed what he was saying, I could not believe it. I immediately opened my mouth to protest, when he raised a preemptory hand to silence me. “I know you had nothing to do with Neoptolemus’s death,” Strophius said, “but I also know she sent you letters during your illness.”

  To think he would pay heed such vile rumors, much less repeat them to me as if they were the truth! “That’s a lie,” I spat. “You don’t know the lady. She’s too honorable and gracious to even think such a thing!”

  “I see,” he said. Liar. His tone indicated that all he saw was what Hermione’s naysayers told him. “Whatever the case may be, the story has already begun to propagate. Pursue her, make her your wife, and the lie will become truth.” My ears were closed to his insults. I burned with the need to lash out.

  And he saw it. His eyes glittered in the firelight; he acknowledged my rage with a grim nod. “Orestes, you are a man in love with a beautiful woman, but think carefully about what you do. She’s Helen of Sparta’s daughter, she is not a young maiden, and she will not—”

  “Enough!” I knotted my fingers around the armrests, and clawed into the heavy oak. “You’ve no right to speak so to me.”

  “I have every right!” he roared. “Who sheltered and raised you? Who granted you safe passage when the Erinyes hounded you? Who has sacrificed his son’s future for your sake? So when I tell you to listen, you will listen!” He straightened in his chair, seeming to grow a foot taller, and his eyes blazed. “I’m sure you think you may do whatever you please, now that you’re king of Mycenae. And I’m sure you think you know better than me, but remember, your forefathers all married badly. Will you make the same mistake?”

  Whatever hard truths he thought he was hammering into my ears, I was neither ready nor willing to hear it; it made my head pound, my blood boil. “I won’t discuss this further with you tonight.” So saying, I tossed back the wine remaining in my cup, and left the megaron.

  Plagued by a sour stomach and my own angry thoughts, it took me a long time to fall asleep that night. How dare Strophius disparage my beloved, whom he had never even met! Who was he to judge her by her mother’s deeds? Hermione was ashamed to be Helen’s daughter. She was not lascivious or capricious or duplicitous enough to toy with men. She had not complained about her marriage to me—not in any way that counted—for she knew as well as I that it was not seemly for a royal woman to air the grievances of her marital bed. She would have acted her part as queen, high priestess, and faithful wife as befit her station.

  Boukolos bore the brunt of my smoldering anger the next morning, in the roughness of our sparring in the palaestra. “Just as well we’re not drilling with sharp bronze.” He rotated a bruised shoulder. “Orestes, you must forget this business with your lady love and make amends with the king.”

  Panting, I studied him with a dull anger that said traitor. “How much did he tell you?”

  “Not as much as you might think.” Boukolos waved away the men and youths staring at us. “He said there were things being said about the lady that weren’t true, and that you were angry.” He caught the towel someone tossed him, wiped his neck with it. “Eros’s darts make fools of us all.”

  “So you believe the talk?”

  “I’ve never met your kinswoman.” Boukolos chucked the towel at me. “But I do know that people will always gossip, and spread lies, and believe the worst, because that’s how the gods made us men.” Then he threw me a salacious wink, such as he had not given me in more than a year. “If it’s anything to you, then perhaps you ought to take my father’s advice. When someone spreads disagreeable rumors, then maybe it’s time to give them something else to talk about, and spread a few rumors of your own.”

  *~*~*~*

  As soon as Kleitos alit from the chariot, he bent the knee. “King Orestes, I am at your command.”

  I raised him up, and kissed him on both cheeks: the mark of a king greeting his loyal vassal. “It’s good to see you again, Kleitos.” A year of comfortable living had eased the careworn lines around his mouth and added some weight to his frame. “You look well.”

  “As do you, my lord.” In looking me up and down, he lingered longest on my shorn hair. “Three ships await you at Cirrha. And the lords of Corinth, Kleonai, and Nemea wait to do you homage.”

  Departing was neither a simple nor a quick matter. Carting my goods and livestock to the coast to load onto the ships took several days, during which my uncle demanded my company. We were speaking again, though not as before; the tension between us remained thick. Strophius had disparaged Hermione without cause, and had not apologized; he held me to account for his son’s exile; and he doled out advice as if I were a child. I itched to leave, to take up my dominions and responsibilities as king, and, in short, do rather than wait.

  What hours I could, I spent away from the palace, riding or hunting with my companions. Kleitos had brought news from home, along with wax tablets bearing a full account of the king’s personal estate; even before I left Phocis, I knew my worth in livestock, groves, vines, sacks of wool, seed, and slaves. “Aegisthus kept the old scribes and overseers,” he explained, “and there have been two good harvests since his death, so what he took from you has been replenished.”

  “And the palace treasuries?” I closed the diptych, handed it back to him. “I understand they didn’t fare so well.”

  Kleitos snorted. “He spent gold and silver like it was water. Gifts for his followers. Masons, materials, and artisans for his father’s tomb. A new—”

  “He buried that wretch within the walls?” I knew the tomb Kleitos referred to. Thyestes had begun it during his short reign, but left it unfinished. As a boy, I had marked out the site for my own tomb. Gods forbid that Thyestes should have been interred there, to befoul Mycenae with his presence.

  “Not at all, no.” Kleitos waved his hand dismissively. “The tomb is still unfinished.”

  I expelled a breath. “Good.”

  He went on to tell me that the Lion Court was secure; the nobles, guards, and servants were steadfast in their loyalty, and the traitors I had marked for death had been summarily dealt with. “I trust there were no difficulties?” I asked.

  Kleitos’s expression tightened. “With the traitors, no. Seizing and executing them took no more than four days, but it took seven weeks for your councilors to deal with all their women. We endured their weeping and wailing, and released the bodies for burial. And we let them return to their families, those who had kinsmen left to take them in, or seek sanctuary among the gods, as you decreed. No need to be cruel and take them as captives, though by the time Pylades returned many of us began to wish we had.” He shook his head ruefully. “We dealt gently with those who had nowhere to go, but the ones who refused to leave, well, Lord Menon had them removed by force for defying the king’s will, confiscated their jewels for the treasury, and banished them to remote sanctuaries. I’m afraid two or three escaped to Argos, and are petitioning the assembly to restore their lands and revenues.”

  “Argos has nothing to say about it,” I
said hotly.

  “Indeed, not,” he agreed. “Pylades explained the situation to their representatives when they came. I believe he would have used much stronger terms, had he not needed them to confirm your kingship.”

  Except that Mycenae did not answer to them. From this moment on, there would be no more meddling from Argos. Let the old men wheeze and complain, and see for themselves what it got them. Father had kept Diomedes as a loyal and useful vassal, but Cyanippus was no Diomedes, and I was no Agamemnon.

  One solemn duty remained to be observed. Years ago, I had sworn to take Timon home. Death did not cancel my vow. So I had his remains disinterred, his bones washed in wine, and shrouded in fine new linen. I inspected everything, and sealed the painted larnax with my own hands, caulking the lid with wet clay. Whether Timon’s Argive relations would claim his remains, I did not know, nor did that matter. I was his family, too, and from me he would have all the grave goods and rituals a devoted son should provide.

  The feast Strophius hosted the night before my departure began a tedious cycle of feasts, audiences, and processions that would consume the next four weeks. Anaxibia fussed over me, and bade me to deliver letters and gifts to her son and daughter-in-law. Strophius voiced the usual courtesies; he was done arguing with me, though not, even at this late hour, with dispensing advice. I listened with one ear, while counting the hours till sunrise. The only counsel I wanted was from my Mycenaean advisors, and only when I asked them for it.

  I retired early, slept little, and set out from Krisa with my escort an hour before dawn. Boukolos rode with me to Cirrha, but no farther, as urgent filial obligations prevented him from accompanying me. “Father thinks he’s dying every time his arthritis bothers him.”

  Lord Ixos’s hypochondria was well known. “Then you’ll be my guest when spring comes.” I clasped Boukolos’s arm, then embraced him.