“A priest, eh?” grunted her husband, shifting casually in his seat. “I suppose you’ll be wanting a tax break like all the rest, hmm? For the honor of the gods or some such reason. Ha!”
The man let Agamemnon’s words echo around the hall before speaking.
“I do indeed beseech you on behalf of my temple and of the gods, Lord Agamemnon. But it is not on account of our contributions to the palace—we are quite content with our provisions for the greater good.” He paused, straightening slightly and seeming to plant his feet more firmly. He swallowed before continuing. “I come rather to ask for the return of a girl who was in service to the gods and in preparation to become a priestess. I am told that you yourself came across her at a festival in the Argolid plain, and brought her back here to your palace. I ask only that you let her return with me to the temple.”
Agamemnon was silent, but Klytemnestra could feel a new energy bristle within him. Eventually, he leaned forward and said, “Why should I? Why should I give her back? I did not take her by force, and she makes no objection to staying here. What claim do you have on her that beats the claim of a king?”
There was no doubt now that they were talking about Agamemnon’s concubine. Klytemnestra’s attention was rapt, though she pretended to be more concerned with her spinning.
“With all respect, Lord Agamemnon,” the young man continued, “the claim is not mine but the gods’. Leukippe has been designated as a servant of Artemis. She has been prepared for the life of a priestess from a young age, and remained chaste and unmarried so that her life could be dedicated to the Virgin Huntress. You deprive the goddess of her servant by keeping the girl here.”
Agamemnon barked a laugh. “Well, if that’s why you’ve come, I wouldn’t worry. I don’t think the Virgin will have much use for her now.”
Klytemnestra’s cheeks burned, both shame and anger adding their fuel to the fire raging within her. How could her husband speak so brazenly, with his wife seated right beside him? Did her feelings, her pride, really mean so little to him? Did she?
The priest, meanwhile, looked no better than she felt. There was anger in his eyes, and perhaps a hint of sadness too. His body had taken on a new tension.
“Do you mean to say you have defiled her? A priestess of Artemis?”
“Watch your words,” growled Agamemnon. “I will not be accused of impiety. As you say, she was only in preparation for priestesshood. I have committed no crime against the gods.”
The priest was speechless. He opened his mouth, but no intelligible sound emerged. Eventually, in a quiet voice, almost to himself, he said, “I have come too late.”
“Indeed you have,” boomed Agamemnon. “If her chastity was so important, the temple should have sent someone sooner. She’s been here over a month, by Zeus! I’d have had to be a eunuch!” He laughed at his own wit, while Klytemnestra’s insides squirmed.
“I was away,” the young man muttered. “At Thebes. I only returned yesterday . . . the others . . . cowards.” He spat the last word, as if the taste of it in his mouth were bitter.
“Well, if that’s all—” began Agamemnon.
“Will you not return her anyway?” the man asked, his tone almost pleading now. “She can still serve the temple . . . she belongs in Argos.”
“No, I think not,” replied Agamemnon, without consideration. “Her place is here now. You should be happy for her. It is a great honor to be chosen by the king.”
“An honor?” repeated the priest, shaking as he said it. But he seemed to bite his tongue. “Yes, my lord,” he said, through barely gritted teeth. “I thank you for your audience.”
He bowed deeply and left the hall, his eyes meeting Klytemnestra’s briefly before he turned toward the door.
She realized she’d been holding her breath, and let it out as silently as she could. Not able to look her husband in the eye, she focused on the rotation of her spindle and barely heard the last few petitions of the day. Agamemnon carried on in his usual demeanor, as if the priest’s request had concerned nothing more than barley crops, but the young man’s sad eyes lingered in Klytemnestra’s mind. It seemed that she was not the only one suffering on account of her husband’s new distraction.
CHAPTER 15
HELEN
Helen felt as though she was slowly getting back to herself. Each day she felt a little stronger. Each day it was a little easier to get out of bed, to talk to people, to do the things she used to do. Each morning her handmaids would come and bathe her, rub her skin with perfumed oil, dress her in soft wool, adorn her with jewelry. It made her feel better—less like a living corpse. She was Helen the Queen once again, not Helen the broken, bleeding girl. And there was a power in that.
Not everything was as it had been, though. She was Helen the Mother now too. She knew it was true, that the baby was real and alive—it was lying over in the corner of her chamber right now—and that her status, her life, had undergone a monumental, irreversible change. People reminded her of it every day. She was a full woman now, they said, as if she had metamorphosed, a new being born out of pain and blood. And yet it did not feel quite real. She did not feel like a mother.
She got up and walked over to her daughter’s cot. Hermione, Menelaos had named her, while Helen was still in the grips of the fever. As she looked down at that sleeping face, the full lips and the delicate eyelashes, she felt . . . nothing much at all. It was her child, she knew that, and yet it did not feel like a part of her, like her mother had said it would. She had said she would love her child instinctively, but she didn’t feel love when she looked at that face. She barely even felt a connection.
She knew she should try to hold the child more but she was scared of doing it wrong, of upsetting her or hurting her. She always seemed to cry when Helen reached down to her.
She couldn’t stand the sound of Hermione crying. It made her feel so helpless. Especially when she couldn’t do the one thing that she knew would placate her. Helen had tried to feed the child as soon as she had recovered enough strength to hold her, but it had been no good. The milk wouldn’t come. She had felt like such a failure when after several attempts they had finally given up and returned the child to her wet nurse. Now every day, numerous times a day, Helen had to endure the humiliation of watching a slave—Agatha, her childhood playmate—perform the duty that should have been hers, and give her child what she herself could not.
Though she heard no words said aloud, Helen could feel the palace talking about her. What kind of a mother could not feed her child? Wet nurses were commonly called upon for babes whose mothers had died, but here she stood, alive and breathing. A flesh-and-blood mother, and yet she was not enough. Broken. Cursed. Those were the words she imagined being whispered in the halls as she lay in bed at night.
Just as Helen was standing by the cot, the chamber door opened and Agatha stepped in. The girl was as timid as she had ever been, though she was a full-grown woman now and several inches taller than Helen. Agatha had always been smaller than her and Nestra when they were growing up, despite being between them in age, but she had grown tall and slim like a reed.
Her head was bowed as she entered, her mousy brown hair tied up with a strip of cloth.
“I’ve come for the feeding, mistress,” she said, as if Helen did not know. They went through this little exchange every few hours.
“Hermione is asleep,” Helen replied, her tone unintentionally curt. She wasn’t in the best of moods and Agatha’s arrival had done nothing to raise her spirits.
“Oh,” said the girl, lowering her head even further. “Perhaps I should come back when she has awoken.”
Agatha turned to leave, but Helen called out to her, trying to make her tone softer but only partly succeeding.
“No, you’re here now. You may as well see if she’ll take it.” She would rather get it over with than be disturbed again in an hour.
/> “As you wish, mistress,” said Agatha, and made her way toward the cot, head still bowed.
It turned out Hermione was ready for the milk after all, and so Helen sat and watched as her daughter pressed her face into a soft, white breast that wasn’t her own. Everything about it looked so natural—the way Agatha held the downy head in just the right way, the little sighs of satisfaction that leaked from those milky lips—and yet it gave Helen a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She noticed Agatha’s eyes turn on her, and realized she had been staring. Did the other girl sense her resentment? Her envy? Her feeling of inadequacy? Then a worse thought struck her. Did Agatha pity her? The last thing Helen wanted was the pity of a slave.
Desperate for a distraction, she said, “Tell me about your child, Agatha. The one you lost.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized it might be cruel to ask about such a thing. But it was said now, so she continued, “They . . . they told me that was why you were chosen to nurse Hermione.”
“There isn’t much to tell, mistress,” said the girl, her eyes lowered. “He wasn’t around for all that long before the sickness took him. Just a few months.” After a pause she added, “I named him Nikon, though.”
Agatha spoke about it so plainly, as if it were just one of those things, but Helen sensed that she grieved for the child. It must be strange for her too, Helen realized, to nurse another’s child after losing her own. She wasn’t sure whether it would be a comfort or a sadness. Perhaps it was both.
“You loved him? Nikon?” Helen asked quietly.
Agatha replied with a small nod of her head. It was a stupid question, perhaps. Of course a mother loved her child, and mourned when it was taken from her. Perhaps she had been hoping that Agatha would say no, that she hadn’t loved the child, that it hadn’t lived long enough for love to bloom. If Hermione disappeared right now, what would she, Helen, feel? Anything? Other than relief?
“Who was the child’s father?” Helen asked, thinking perhaps she could move the conversation to happier grounds. “Did Father permit you to marry one of the other slaves?”
“No, mistress.”
“Ah, a love child, then,” said Helen with a knowing grin, secretly glad that Agatha was not as perfect as she seemed.
“No, mistress. I’ve never been in love,” said the slave girl, with a face of innocent seriousness.
“Oh. Well, I only meant . . . who was it, then? The child must have had a father,” said Helen, with the hint of a giggle. She was quite curious now.
“One of your father’s guests, I suppose,” she said, quite casually. “Don’t know which one. They come to me sometimes, when they stay at the palace.”
“And you let them lie with you?” said Helen incredulously. “Even though you don’t love them?”
“It’s not a matter of letting, mistress,” the slave girl replied, her eyes flicking to Helen’s and away again. “I can’t exactly refuse them. They’re guests.”
Helen felt faintly sick.
“And Father knew?” she asked. “And he didn’t stop them?”
“Yes, mistress, I reckon he knew well enough,” Agatha said quietly. “Reckon he even told them where to find me, sometimes. It’d be inhospitable to deny them, mistress. What’s his is theirs . . . it’s only proper. So long as they don’t damage me . . . and most of them are gentle enough.”
Helen was quiet for a moment while Agatha sat watching Hermione feed. She felt foolish, naïve for not seeing the reality around her. And guilty too, for resenting the slave girl. No doubt Agatha envied her as much as Helen envied Agatha. More, most likely. She would make more of an effort to be kind, she decided. Helen’s motherly failings were not Agatha’s fault. Although knowing that was different than feeling it.
“I think she’s finished,” said Agatha, moving Hermione away from her breast. Helen looked up and nodded, letting the other girl put her daughter back in the cot.
“You may go now, Agatha,” said Helen, attempting to paint a kind, or at least polite, smile on her face.
“Yes, mistress,” the girl replied with a bow, and headed toward the door. Before she reached it, however, she stopped. After an uncertain pause, she said, “Begging your pardon, mistress, but I was thinking . . . would it be better if I stayed here in your chamber, so that I can more easily care for the child? I mean, it would be easier for you, mistress. Then you needn’t call for me or be gotten up in the night, and I can just feed her whenever she needs it.”
Helen didn’t reply straightaway, but left the girl standing there looking nervous, probably afraid she had spoken out of turn. She was right, though; it would be easier for her to be near the child. But then another option struck Helen.
“Or how about we move you and the child to a separate chamber?”
Agatha looked confused. “But, mistress . . . surely you don’t want to be separated—”
“No, no, I think that way is best. It will be easier for you and for the child,” Helen said decisively so as not to invite further comment from the slave girl. She did not mention that it would be easier for her, above all. Though she could not admit it, the child made her uncomfortable—that constant presence in the corner of the room. It made her feel like a failure, and reminded her of the ordeal she had gone through to produce it. And what had it brought her? Not joy, nor fulfillment, nor closer communion with her husband—not as yet, anyway. Better to give it into the care of another. And perhaps, in time, she would grow to love her daughter.
“Very well, mistress. If that’s what you wish. And if the king agrees,” said Agatha, with a hint of doubt still in her voice.
“She is my child and this is my decision,” Helen replied, her tone sharper than she had intended. “I am sure the king will agree.”
“Yes, mistress,” said Agatha, bowing her head. “I’ll move in with the child as soon as a room can be prepared.”
“Thank you, Agatha,” said Helen, softening now that she could see an end to her torment. “And thank you for all you have done for my daughter.”
The girl bowed graciously and left the chamber.
CHAPTER 16
KLYTEMNESTRA
It was a crisp spring day—perfect weather for the climb. Though the afternoon sun shone down on them, dazzlingly bright compared to the dim of the palace, there was a cool breeze to cut through the warmth. Klytemnestra had been glad of it on the hot, hard ascent, and now that they had reached the top of the hill the breeze was stronger still, making her clothes billow around her. She held her skirt down with one hand, afraid it might blow up in one of the stronger gusts. In the other hand she held a bunch of wheat, like all the other women who had made the ascent with her. They had brought them here as offerings to ensure a good harvest. It was one of her most important roles as queen, to lead this ascent several times a year and bring fertility to the land.
She enjoyed these rare trips beyond the citadel, out into the landscape where the gods dwelled. They had not come far at all—Klytemnestra could see the stone sprawl of Mycenae down at the foot of the hill—and yet it was like she was in another world entirely. The rules were not the same here. There was a wildness, a freedom that could not be found inside the palace. For one thing, they did not have to wear veils. This was a women’s ritual, so there were no men here to see them—except the male slaves who had helped to carry the offerings up the hill, of course, but they didn’t count.
Perhaps the biggest difference of all was the absence of her husband. Up here there was no king, only a queen. Up here she answered to no one but herself and the gods. Up here, she had power.
She felt that power now as she led the ritual, placing her handful of wheat on the large flat stone they used as a natural altar and ushering the other women as they followed her example. Some of the ears blew away, but it didn’t matter; she liked to think it was the gods whisking them away to Mount
Olympus. She said the words as the libations were poured—oil and wine, and a little honey too—and she herself cut the throat of the suckling pig that had been carried up here by one of the slaves. She let its young blood soak into the dry earth, then took an ear of wheat from the pile and buried it in the red dust.
When she stood up her hands were soiled with blood and dirt, her skirt was dusty, and her knees were sore. But she smiled at a job well done. It felt good to do real work for her kingdom, to be a queen in more than name and finery.
Now that the rites had been completed, they could descend and return to the citadel. But Klytemnestra decided she would rather linger awhile, to enjoy the sun and the breeze and the view. And up here, there was no one to tell her she could not.
And so the women settled themselves on rocks and tufts of grass, and chatted and gossiped and laughed, their voices carried away on the breeze to who knew where. Klytemnestra herself sat a little away from the others. She didn’t know any of them very well. Her own ladies, including Eudora, had stayed behind to care for her daughters, and she knew she would make the other women uncomfortable if she tried to join their chatter. Noble though they might be, she was still their queen.
As she sat at the edge of the rocky crown looking out over the Argolid plain, she knew that somewhere out there, far away beyond the distant mountains, lay Sparta. She wondered what Helen was doing right now, if her marriage was happy, if her baby was healthy. She wondered if her mother and father were well, if her brothers had found wives of their own. Suddenly she wished she had wings, that she could fly up in the breeze, soar off over those mountains, and go home to see her family and talk to them and touch them.
As she sat gazing out a shadow fell across her. Without turning her head she knew it was a slave and not one of the other women—the figure was dressed in dull cloth, not fine, bright fabrics.
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