The Songs of the Kings: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

6.

  It was not until the evening of the next day, when the face of the early summer moon was already showing, that Sisipyla was able to talk alone with her mistress. The princess had stayed late at the banquet, obliged to wait on the pleasure of her mother, who was noted for late nights and late mornings, and she had been too tired to talk by the time she got back to her apartments. And almost from the moment of waking next morning, Sisipyla had been anxiously occupied in seeing to the practical arrangements for the sacrifice, which were largely her responsibility. The ceremony at the time of the full moon, in honor of Artemis, was the most important of those that Iphigeneia had to conduct.

  Sisipyla had been running here and there, making sure that all was ready, that those escorting the procession had their garlands at hand, that the water bearers and the flute players knew their duties. The two girls who between them were to carry the incense burner had not done it before, and they had to be carefully instructed. Then there were the men who would lift up the goat at the altar; this had to be done in just the right way so that Iphigeneia could have free play with the knife. The throat had to be cut in one movement, and Sisipyla knew from experience that any botching in this department roused the princess’s ire. So it was important that these men knew their business well; they would have to do the skinning and butchering afterwards and see to the roasting of the joints. The chosen animal she had prepared herself, gilding its horns and marking its face with henna and twining white ribbons in its coat. When, this done, she returned to the women’s quarters by way of the south staircase, she found Iphigeneia waiting for her.

  “What kept you so long?” the princess said. “I’ve been calling you, I’ve got some important news.”

  Sisipyla excused herself, but briefly, not wanting to delay the news or add to the princess’s evident impatience. Iphigeneia expected her to be there when she was called, and no amount of explanation could absolve her from the fault, self-evident and beyond appeal, of having been absent.

  “I wanted to tell you that my mother has given permission for you to go with me.”

  “That is wonderful news.” She was not really surprised, however; it was what she had expected. She glanced quickly at Iphigeneia’s face, which had returned to calm now, the news delivered. A kind of calm at least; something of the exaltation of the night before, when she had come between the torchbearers with the news of the proposal, still remained. Sisipyla looked always for the light in the princess’s face—her moods were expressed in light rather than changes of feature. Vexation dimmed her, happiness or pride was a radiance. It seemed the very quality of royalty to Sisipyla, this stillness of face—she was conscious of how quickly her own eyes glanced aside, how the corners of her mouth moved at any slightest thing. She thought, I was the first to be told, I will be the one closest to her of all who go there with her. “Then we will come back here, won’t we?” she said, the words issuing, it seemed, before any intention had been formed to utter them.

  “So I would suppose,” Iphigeneia said. “What else should we do? They will hardly want us to go to Troy with them.”

  Sisipyla looked down, conscious that she had been in some way sloppy and unfocused again. From the moment she had heard of the proposal it had been her consolation that they would return, that Iphigeneia would not be taken from her. Achilles would go away to the war. People said the war would be over in no time once the army got there, but it might take much longer than anyone thought. And then, anything could happen in a war. Meanwhile she and Iphigeneia would return here and life would go on as before. In her gratitude for this, she had not much considered the feelings of Achilles, except to think it strange that a wind coming from the wrong direction should be the cause of his offer; he could not have intended it when he set out. Being forced to wait there, she thought vaguely, the desire of his heart had risen to the surface—she saw it as a silver fish in a dark pool, glimmering up to the light. And Iphigeneia had accepted, without a moment’s hesitation, just one scoop . . .

  “You have no doubts,” she dared to say now, in the tone of a question, and saw an immediate shadow come to Iphigeneia’s face.

  “Doubts? Apart from being famous and well connected and fantastic-looking, Achilles is one of the richest men in Greece. Did you know that? No, you didn’t, I can tell. He is a copper magnate, he owns at least six copper mines in the region of Lamia. But that’s not the main thing, not for me anyway. Through his mother he enjoys special protection and my family are in great need of that protection. There is a curse on us. You don’t know the story of the House of Atreus, do you?”

  “Well . . .”

  The shadow on Iphigeneia’s face deepened. “You can’t possibly know it. No one outside the family knows it. No one is allowed to speak of it. It is not known to any Singer. I learned of it by accident, when I was very little, before the time I was due to be told.”

  The quantity of things Iphigeneia herself didn’t know still sometimes surprised Sisipyla. The story was common knowledge, a matter of gossip, not only among the servants of the palace, the sweepers and washerwomen, but even in the town below the walls, among those who came with eggs and honey and cheese to sell. “I would very much like to hear the story,” she said.

  “Promise you won’t tell anyone.”

  “I promise.”

  “The founder of the line was Tantalus and he had three children, Pelops, Niobe and Broteas. He got this idea of testing the omniscience of the gods. You don’t know that word, do you? No, it’s no use, I can tell from your face that you don’t. It means knowing everything that there is to know. Tantalus invited the gods to a feast and he served them up with his own son Pelops.”

  She paused a moment, looking sternly at Sisipyla. “All mashed up in a stew, you know, and heavily disguised with spices, so no one should know what they were eating. It was his idea of a joke. Well, he was obviously unhinged. Of course, the guests saw through this trick at once, all but Demeter, she absentmindedly ate a piece of one shoulder. They were all highly offended, in fact they were furious. Well, wouldn’t you be? They condemned Tantalus to starve and thirst in Hades forever, with all sorts of delicious things just out of his reach. That is where he is now, at this moment, all chained up.”

  Iphigeneia remained silent for some moments and Sisipyla saw that she was waiting for a question to spur the narrative forward. “That was the end of Pelops then?”

  “No, they brought Pelops back to life.”

  “That must have been a difficult job when he was all chopped up like that. What about the shoulder?” She had not heard about the shoulder before and it had appealed to her imagination. “How could they put his shoulder in place when it had been partly eaten?”

  “I’ve really no idea,” Iphigeneia said impatiently. “You always seem to fasten on these unimportant details. Pelops went to another part of the country, Pisa, on the borders of Elis, and got married there to someone called Hippodameia. Her father didn’t want anyone to marry her. I think he was, you know, keen on her himself. So Pelops had to kill him.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “He bribed the king’s charioteer, whose name was Myrtilus, to take the wooden pins out of one of the chariot wheels and put wax ones there instead. He promised Myrtilus half the kingdom and a night in bed with Hippodameia. Then he got into some sort of chariot race with the king and the wheel fell off and the king was thrown out and got entangled in the reins and Pelops killed him and then galloped away with Hippodameia by his side.”

  “What about Myrtilus?”

  “Well, of course he lost no time in claiming his reward. But Pelops had no intention of keeping his promises now he had got what he wanted. He lured Myrtilus onto a boat and pushed him overboard somewhere near the harbor of Elis. Before he drowned this charioteer invoked a curse on the descendants of Pelops. This was the first curse that was put on our family, and it soon started to take effect. Pelops and Hippodameia had two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus was the rightful king of Myc
enae but Thyestes tried to get the throne from him, so they quarreled, but then Atreus pretended that he wanted to make it up and he invited his brother to dinner.”

  Iphigeneia widened her eyes and stared solemnly at Sisipyla. “Guess what happened then,” she said. “He did exactly the same thing, except that it was not his own children but his brother’s three sons that he killed and served up to their father in a stew. It was history repeating itself.”

  “Three sons,” Sisipyla said. “It must have been an enormous meal.”

  “When he had finished, Atreus showed him the heads and hands of his children, you know, just to drive the point home. Thyestes laid a curse on Atreus and his descendants, then fled into exile, taking his remaining son Aegisthus with him. That was the second curse. It is the same Aegisthus who has turned up again now and is being entertained by my mother as a guest here. No one knows where his father is. Someone sent a messenger to Atreus to say Thyestes had been killed—the man had a bloodied sword to prove it. Atreus was delighted. He went off alone to make a thanksgiving sacrifice and he was found dead next day with stab wounds all over him. Nobody knows who did it. The messenger can’t be found. Atreus had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, my father and my uncle. That curse is still lying on them and all of us.”

  Sisipyla nodded. There were voices that named Aegisthus himself as the killer of Atreus, but she said nothing of this. Lots of stories went around. There were even those who said that Thyestes had raped his own daughter, Pelopia, and that Aegisthus was the child of this rape. She saw from Iphigeneia’s fixity of expression and the thinning of her mouth that the princess had been affected by the grim story in telling it. It was hard to think of words of comfort. “It’s always the children who suffer, isn’t it?” she said.

  “That’s one thing,” Iphigeneia said. “The other is tricks. Did you notice? These two things run through all the story. A chariot race, a boat trip, an invitation to dinner, a sword with blood on it. There’s always a trick, and the trick always ends in a murder.”

  Sisipyla felt a return of anxiety about the sacrifice due soon to take place. It was late, darkness was falling. Those with parts to play in the procession would be already assembling in the courtyard below the main staircase. She and Iphigeneia would have to start getting ready soon. “What was the accident?” she said.

  “Accident?”

  “You said you only learned the story by accident.”

  “Oh yes, it was told me by a nurse when I was very little, before you came. She told me stories while she was bathing me and getting me ready for bed. All kinds of stories, but this was her favorite. Heaven knows how she found out about it. She had these huge eyes—or so they seemed to me then. She must have known she was frightening me. She made it seem like a secret, something just between the two of us; but I had nightmares, I used to wake up screaming, and so it all came out.”

  “What happened to the nurse?”

  “She was sent away. Or so I was told—I never saw her again. But I still remember those eyes of hers and her mouth moving.” She shook her head and her face relaxed a little from its former fixity of expression. “We are all the victims of stories in one way or another,” she said, “even if we are not in them, even if we are not born yet. I wasn’t born then, but Thyestes cursed me too.”

  “There might be curses we don’t know about,” Sisipyla said. “Then things would happen, terrible things, and we wouldn’t even know why.” As always, it was the unexpected that troubled her imagination most, the monster in the dark cave, waiting to pounce on the unwary traveler. If you knew about the curse, at least you could be on your guard. For some moments it had seemed to her that she shared the memory of the cruel nurse’s face, but of course that was impossible. Just a memory of unkindness, she thought. Any face would do for that. She had not expected much from the story of the double curse, being already quite familiar with it; but then this new story of the nurse and the nightmares had sprung out from inside the old one. “Princess, we must prepare for the sacrifice,” she said. “They will be waiting below.”

  “Yes, it is time.” Iphigeneia made no move for the moment, however, but remained standing where she was, in the middle of the room. “The same things happen over and over,” she said. “Did you notice? The story goes off in all directions, but it is always the same story. There is the trick and the shedding of blood and the outrage to Zeus the Guardian, protector of guests and hosts. Atreus is dead, but my father is alive, the curse is on him too. But I can save him.” Her voice had slowed and deepened a little and her eyes were shining. “By marrying Achilles, I can save my father, I can lift this curse from the whole family. Achilles is a great hero, there is no darkness on his name, he is under the special protection of his goddess mother, Thetis, and so of Zeus—it’s no secret that Zeus has always had a soft spot for her. Even if Achilles is killed in the war and I am left a widow, it won’t make that much difference, he can still use his influence from the Isles of the Blessed, he is certain to go there, being so well connected, you know, and they keep their bodily forms and all their faculties there, not like those poor shadows in Hades. I went to the shrine of Artemis this morning to make a votive offering and I just stood on my own there and I felt she was in favor and understood my reasons.”

  Devotion can still include irony towards the subject, and it did not escape Sisipyla that her loved mistress talked as if she had had the luxury of a yes or no, whereas, given the wishes of her parents, it could only have been a choice between accepting gladly and accepting reluctantly. As they went together into the short passage that led to the vestibule where their ceremonial clothes were kept, Sisipyla wondered if wanting to do what you in any case had to do was a sort of choice. No one would ever wonder about her in that way; no one would ever care whether she did things willingly or not, so long as nothing showed on her face. How marvelous and strange to be part of a family, even one with a curse on it, to have a father to save, to feel directed by the gods.

  The white sacrificial robes, freshly laundered and scented with coriander seed for purification, were in the vestibule where Sisipyla had laid them out. She helped her mistress to dress in the long-skirted, gold-trimmed gown, then the girdle of virginity, then the bib and apron of thick felt, tied at the back, covering the front of the body from the neck to the knees and marked here and there with the bloodstains that made them always more sacred. Clytemnestra, when handing over the duties of priestess to her daughter, had offered the services of her own women, who had been attending her for years and knew the procedures; but Iphigeneia had wanted Sisipyla and no one else for her dresser.

  The dressing done, Sisipyla applied to her mistress’s face the white chalk paste, silky and lustrous in appearance, which she had mixed herself in a shallow bowl, smoothing the paste with her fingertips, following the lines of the brows and nose and cheeks, making a perfect oval. No one could easily have recognized Iphigeneia now. It was a gleaming mask that looked back at Sisipyla, not a human face at all, only the color of the lips and the dark pools of the eyes breaking that stiff composure. Sisipyla rubbed her fingers clean with a cloth, then went to the paint pot and brush standing on the low stone table. The moon mask was dry already; with the thin brush she made tiny vermilion circles on Iphigeneia’s cheeks and chin and forehead, four in number, in token of the blood that was to be offered, and the phases of the moon.

  When this was done, Sisipyla dressed hastily in her plain white gown, and they were ready. They passed from the vestibule into the corridor that led to the staircase on the south side of the palace, Iphigeneia walking in front, Sisipyla a step or two behind. The last part of the corridor, before the head of the stairs was reached, was a roofed terrace, open on one side. Beyond the stone columns that held up the roof, the perfect disk of the moon was rising, intensely bright but clear and definite at the edges, as though pasted on the night sky.

  “Walk beside me till we are outside,” Iphigeneia said, speaking over her shoulder. The voice was unr
ecognizable, without inflections, coming in a single tone because of the stiffening of the paste round her mouth. She had never asked this before, and Sisipyla, obeying, knew it was because they would never again make the sacrifice together in quite the same way. Nothing would be the same, even if they did the same things. At the next full moon, Iphigeneia would have laid aside the girdle, she would wear the tiara, she would be different. Sisipyla felt again the breath of change, the chill of loss. As they walked together side by side, stepping through the bars of moonlight cast over the pavement between the columns, Iphigeneia took her hand, they walked hand in hand together to the head of the stairs, and in Sisipyla’s joy at this there was also the knowledge of loss.

  In the cobbled yard below the steps the people of the procession were waiting, the gilded, beribboned goat in their midst, held by two men on leashes of corded silk. Moonlight lay on the upper wall of the terrace but the yard was still in shadow and the attendants had lit torches while waiting. All bowed low to the ground as Iphigeneia descended, but when they straightened up again Sisipyla gave them a sharp looking-over. The only ones that should be there, at least to start with, were the people who looked after the shrine and those who had a part to play in the sacrifice. Too many people who you never saw at other times tried to get in on the sacrificial procession for the sake of the roasted meat afterwards. Others would tag along while the procession was on the move, but that was different, more acceptable to the goddess—they weren’t barefaced enough to pretend they had some official status.

  Iphigeneia walked forward, leading again now, making no acknowledgment of the people waiting. Sisipyla was handed the sacrificial basket, which she had prepared herself, with the knife concealed beneath the grains of barley. She placed the basket on her head, with her left arm upraised to support it. The torchbearers fell in on either side and the procession began to follow Iphigeneia across the yard and through an archway into the wider open area, unpaved and uneven and without enclosing walls, where the altar stood.