The Songs of the Kings: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

  Now, quite suddenly, as the road continued to follow the flank of the hill, they came within sight of the citadel above them, with its inward-curving, horn-shaped peaks on either side, rising above the valley. She had seen it thus often enough before; but at the sight, even with mind prepared, she experienced always the same involuntary intake of the breath, as at some pause of life within her. She had first seen it soon after being taken from her mother, sitting in a cart like the one that was following behind them now, on her way to becoming a birthday gift for Iphigeneia, though she had not known at the time that this was intended. Her mother had been put to work in one of the royal textile factories at Lacinthos, three days’ journey away. Sisipyla had not been able at first to make that journey, and later, when she might have had permission, she had lost the desire. She had become a new person with a new language and a new home. She belonged in the palace, where she was sheltered and fed, where she had the love and protection of her mistress. She had no idea where her mother was now, whether she was in the same place, whether she was still alive.

  These things did not come so much to her mind now; but there was still this clutch of memory when she looked up at the citadel. Something of dread too: the peaks were like the horns of a bull, so it was commonly said, the animal favored by Zeus, signifying male strength and fertilizing power; but to Sisipyla Mycenae seen from below had always looked like a gigantic spider, with the peaks for its legs, extended on the web of the sky.

  They passed below the massive bastion on the left and approached the narrow entrance to the Lion Gate under the gaze of the two rampant stone beasts above the lintel, a gaze as unfriendly as that of any lion could possibly be, Sisipyla thought. This morning the sun, by now well clear of the peaks, caught the bronze lumps of their eyes and made them glitter fiercely.

  The party waited while the wooden gates were opened from within, then rode through onto the long stone ramp, passing the storehouses built against the wall and drawing level with the ancestors’ grave circle. From just beyond here the road to the palace rose steeply. Iphigeneia dismissed the guards and the women got down from the cart and began to disperse on foot.

  At this moment, when Iphigeneia, with Sisipyla behind her, was about to turn her horse onto the road upward, the entrance gate was again opened and a light chariot with two men in it, followed by a small party of mounted men and panting dogs, passed onto the ramp and advanced towards them. The man driving the chariot was Macris, an officer of the garrison and a kinsman of Iphigeneia, some six years older. He jumped lightly down from the still-moving vehicle when he saw them, throwing the reins to his companion and ordering the men behind to ride on to the stables below the palace. He bowed as he drew near, rather hastily, and greeted the princess with an impetuosity of tone clearly habitual to him. “Nothing but a couple of hares,” he said. “The ground is so well hunted round about, you have to travel half a day to get anything.” He checked at this and smiled and bowed again, very slightly. “Excuse me, princess,” he said, “I blurt out news of my doings before it is asked for, one of several habits I am trying to get rid of.”

  “Well,” Iphigeneia said, “if the others are no worse than that . . . I suppose it exercises the horses.”

  The young man’s smile broadened. “Certainly it does that,” he said. “Us too.”

  He was tall; even standing thus he was not much below eye level with the two girls on their small horses. It was immediately clear to the jealous eye of Sisipyla, to whom he paid small attention, that despite his smile and his casual words, this unexpected morning encounter, outside the usual round of the palace, had thrown him into some confusion. He bore himself with the confidence of the privileged class to which he belonged; but his face expressed his feelings more than perhaps he knew, a face rather broad at the temples for a Greek, deeply tanned, with prominent cheekbones and brown eyes generally careless in their regard, but not so now, Sisipyla noted—there was no mistaking the admiration in them. Neither he nor the princess had eyes for her, she was at leisure to take him in, and she was compelled to admit that he made a handsome figure as he stood there, with his tallness and ardent looks, his hair the color of dark straw, his legs shapely and strong without heaviness below the short kilt, the breast of his sleeveless tunic stitched in gold thread with his clan sign of the dolphin. The princess’s feelings were less easy to read. Her gaze was always open and direct, not easily deflected; but now she glanced away, as if unwilling to return such close looks.

  “You will have been to deck the trees,” he said, in the tone of one who has glimpsed an important truth. And this at last made Iphigeneia smile. Her smiles came rarely, but they were captivating when they came, warming her face with joy. “That was not such a difficult deduction, cousin,” she said, “seeing the day it is and the robes we are wearing.” The smile faded and her face returned to its usual expression of serene gravity. “Is there news from Aulis?”

  Macris shook his head. “Nobody knows anything. My father says they have made a chain of beacons, and the last one will be visible across the water at Megara. They have people waiting there to ride down with the news that the wind has changed and the ships have set sail.”

  His father was in command of the garrison left behind at Mycenae and a second cousin of Agamemnon. Both the father and now the son—since his recent twentieth birthday—belonged to the Followers, an officer corps of charioteers who alone had the privilege of riding into battle, the bulk of the army always fighting on foot. When the Mycenaean force had set out for Troy he had been away in the Cyclades with an uncle, trading for obsidian. Since returning he had spent his time checking the guard posts overlooking the approaches from the north, making sure the sally ports and posterns in the walls were properly maintained, badgering his father for permission to join the expedition and—increasingly—thinking about Iphigeneia. Aware now that he should be moving aside to let the princess pass, he cast round in his mind for a topic that might delay this a little. But he had not much play of mind when it came to topics. All he could hit on was his own situation. “My father still hesitates to give me leave to join the army,” he said. “Though I hope to weary him out in the end.”

  It was Sisipyla’s suspicion, which naturally she kept to herself, that the young man had not been quite so persistent of late in these attempts to persuade his father. She was beginning to wonder how long they were to be detained here. Macris was standing in the middle of the road, they could not proceed until he moved—which at present he showed no sign of doing.

  “Well, you are the only son,” Iphigeneia said, “and some must stay, we cannot be left undefended. But of course you must be sorry to be left behind here, when your friends have gone. Then there is the fame for those who do well in the fighting and have a good war, and all the spoils when Troy is taken.” Her eyes shone, saying this. The just cause of the war, the avenging of the insult to her uncle Menelaus, the heroism that she was sure would be displayed on the field of battle, the wealth and prestige that victory would bring to Mycenae and her father and the whole family, herself of course included, all this made a single shining shape in her mind.

  Macris looked at the glowing face a little above him, framed by the folds of the veil. It entered his mind to say a very bold and felicitous thing, that he wouldn’t change places with anyone, that Troy was all very well, but those there didn’t have the prospect of seeing Iphigeneia every day. But these were things too large for him to say; moreover they did not correspond to the truth of his situation. Without making a name for himself, he hadn’t a chance; and he would never make a name for himself as an officer of the garrison at Mycenae, however well he performed his duties. Iphigeneia was said to be her father’s favorite, he would be seeking a brilliant match for her. Macris was ambitious and well aware of his personal advantages, but his own father had no great name and the family was not rich. With all this in mind, he said nothing, simply gazed mutely and intently.

  “Then there are the ancestors.” Glanci
ng away again from this sustained regard, Iphigeneia’s eyes had lighted on the ring of upright stones marking the grave circle where the rulers of Mycenae lay entombed in their narrow shafts, the kings and their consorts, with their rings and weapons and gold face masks and favorite hunting dogs. “They will be honored in the war,” she said.

  “Indeed, yes.” Not able to frame his lips to praise the daughter, Macris felt all the more eager to speak well of the father. “It was a noble work on Agamemnon’s part to bring the sacred site within the walls. He has a true sense of his duties to his ancestors and to the House of Atreus.”

  It had been one of the last public works the King had engaged in before mustering his forces for Troy. The grave circle, which had always lain outside the citadel, had now been brought within it by the building of new walls and a new supporting terrace. The graves had been refurbished, the seals renewed and stones erected to mark the circle.

  “You hardly noticed the graves before,” Macris said, “when they were outside the walls. A stranger could pass by without even knowing they were there at all. Now you can’t miss them. People come to make votive offerings and pour libations. All honor to your father, he has performed a great patriotic duty, he has shown that he understands what is due to his family.”

  These words were pleasing to Iphigeneia, for her father’s sake and because she recognized the intention behind them. But she was watchful of her dignity, and the pleasure came mixed with the immediate decision neither to show it nor protract it. She smiled slightly and inclined her head a little and edged her mount forward, finally obliging the young man to give ground.

  Sisipyla was preparing to follow when the gate behind them was again opened and a single rider came through, reining in a horse lathered with sweat. Seeing the princess, he instantly dismounted and went down on bended knee. But when he rose again it was to Macris that he spoke. He had ridden from the lookout post on the far side of the Arachneus Mountain. They had seen a party of riders approaching in the distance, from the north, on the more easterly road that came down through Tenea. Not a large party, perhaps twenty-five. They had still been too far away, when he had left the post, to see what colors they were carrying, or whether they were carrying any. He had thought it better to come at once, at first sight of them.

  “Yes, you did well,” Macris said. “You had better look to the horse—you have ridden him hard. I will see that the message is conveyed.”

  His look and bearing had changed with the news. The times were dangerous, the garrison was understrength; until these newcomers were identified it was as well to take no chances; it was a small force, but there might be a larger one behind. He took leave of Iphigeneia, mounted the chariot once more and turned the horses onto the road leading up to the palace.

  Iphigeneia and Sisipyla followed more slowly. They saw Macris turn off towards the staircase on the south side of the palace. They themselves took the broader road to the main entrance higher up. Here, in the small cobbled courtyard that lay immediately below the massive supporting wall of the terrace, they left their horses to the groom and made their way directly to the Great Court and from there to the royal apartments, taking the staircase that led up to the women’s quarters. Because Sisipyla was accompanying her mistress, it was permitted to her to go by this shorter route. On her own, she would have been obliged to take a more roundabout way to the same point, through a maze of narrow passages and short flights of stairs. Her room was within calling distance of the princess’s apartments, separated only by a narrow vestibule; but the routes it was possible to take were rigidly prescribed in accordance with rank. Sisipyla could spend as much time as her mistress wished attending her in the royal apartments, but on her own she could not approach the apartments by the main southward passage that led to the vestibule. It was in this vestibule now that, having made sure her services were for the time being not needed, she took her leave of Iphigeneia.

  2.

  Her room was small. The pallet on which she slept and the chest in which she kept her clothes took up most of the space. High in one wall there was a square aperture which let in light and air from an open courtyard beyond. A narrow, curtained opening gave access to the vestibule and the adjoining bedroom and dressing room that constituted Iphigeneia’s apartments.

  She took off her robe, folded it carefully and laid it in the chest. Then she put on the clothes that were still lying on the bed: the bell-shaped skirt and close-fitting bodice, open at the front to show the inner curves of the breasts. It was the usual dress of unmarried ladies of the palace and similar to, though plainer than, Iphigeneia’s own; an unheard of privilege for Sisipyla, who was an alien and, technically at least, still a slave. It had been much resented in that narrow, jealous world of the palace; but the princess had insisted on it, from the beginning she had wanted her companion to look like herself—it was the highest mark of favor she could show.

  Even with leave to go Sisipyla felt uneasy, worried that Iphigeneia might require her for something, might want to talk. She was almost never out of sight or hearing of her mistress. But today she felt a certain need to be alone. Something in the combination of events earlier—the meeting with Macris, his words and looks, the arrival of the messenger with news of a mounted party approaching—had troubled her in a way she did not yet fully understand.

  There was a place outside the walls where she had sometimes been before when free of duties and wanting solitude. She left her room and made her way through the narrow passages on the north side of the palace, emerging below the walls, near the precincts of the shrine. From here she followed the road to the postern gate. The men on duty there allowed her through without question. Beyond the angle made by the out-works of the gate a narrow terrace led onto a path that followed the contour of the slope. She passed above a disused kiln, with farther down the ancient gashes of quarries, half overgrown. It was from here, she had once been told, that long ago they had taken the great blocks of stone for the citadel.

  The path descended and opened into a level area, planted with pine and holly oak. She sat where she remembered sitting before, in the shade of a pine, with her back against its trunk. From here she could look down over the hillside, steeply terraced with olive and vine and scattered with the beehive shapes of tombs, many of them neglected and invaded by scrub, resembling random clumps of vegetation, with the thatched huts of those who worked the terraces lying here and there among them. Far below this, half hidden in the haze, she could see a stretch of the road that came through Perseia and approached the citadel from the south.

  She began to think again about the meeting with Macris. The princess had been aware of his admiration and not displeased by it. She had not returned his looks, but she had not been displeased. They had talked about the young man once or twice before. Iphigeneia was in the habit of confiding in her, though not always immediately. They had laughed together over his forwardness, his ardent looks. It was bothersome, the princess had said once, always to find someone’s eyes upon you. But she had not seemed much bothered today . . . For her parents such a match would not be good enough, the son of a local chieftain bound by dues of clan service to Agamemnon. No, they would be looking for an ally more powerful, perhaps a prince from Crete or the land of the Hatti or even Egypt. But whoever was chosen, the day could not be so far off now. Iphigeneia would be given to someone, someone would come and take her away.

  Strange that Iphigeneia too could be a gift. This was already in my mind, Sisipyla thought. Watching them together. Then the messenger came with news of visitors. Iphigeneia would take me with her, it is not that—she would not go without me. But once there, at a foreign court, she will have new claims upon her, there will be the family of the husband. Perhaps I am needed only here, only at Mycenae, a gift for childhood, for growing up, not for a new life.

  She was swept suddenly by fear of abandonment. She had no life, no existence, without Iphigeneia. The princess’s favor had isolated her, made her an object of jealous
y and dislike among her fellow servants. Once again she thought about the day she had been given to the princess. The great people of the palace had been there, Iphigeneia’s parents, her four-year-old sister Electra, the senior clan members and the high-ranking officials of the court. She remembered the men’s darkly bearded faces looking down, how strange and fearsome they had seemed—the men in her native Lydia were clean-shaven. Within this ring of faces, on a level with her own, there was Iphigeneia’s, glowing with excitement but serious, always serious. Sisipyla could close her eyes and see in exact detail the princess’s excited face on that day of celebration, and her dress, dark red with a gold sash and tasseled sleeves. Thin gold bracelets on each wrist, her hair dressed high on top of her head, held in place by a gold net.

  The slave dealer was there too, he who had been with them on the ship. He had brought her to the palace because of her prettiness, hoping she would take someone’s fancy. This she had not known at the time—she had not known why she was alone, separated from the others. It had been the man’s luck to have come just when the wild plum trees were flowering, the season of the princess’s birth. While the flowers were on the trees a day was chosen to celebrate the event. It was thus that Sisipyla had come to the King’s notice, thus that the idea of the gift had come into his mind.