The Songs of the Kings: A Novel

by Barry Unsworth

  “You are devoted to your mistress, aren’t you?” Chasimenos said. “You want to serve her best interests, don’t you? I suppose you still hope her life can be saved?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “It is not possible to save her life,” Odysseus said. “We have brought you here so you can understand that. Within two days, at the outside, the thing must be done. There are a thousand men out there waiting to see the will of the gods fulfilled so they can set sail for Troy under clear skies, with a clear conscience. Her own father has accepted the absolute necessity for her death, though of course it has given him a good deal of personal malaise.”

  He paused and Sisipyla saw him swallow at something, some impediment as it seemed, in his throat. “A considerable amount of malaise,” he said.

  “You must keep this one basic fact in your mind,” Chasimenos said. “The sacrifice must and will take place. No power on earth can stop it now.”

  “The key to the whole thing lies in recognizing that,” Odysseus said. “Now you are a bright girl, I can see that, you will understand that what it boils down to is not whether your mistress will die, but how.”

  A pause followed upon this and Sisipyla sensed that some response from her was expected. “How?” she said. “Why, at the altar, by the knife, as we sacrifice to Artemis.”

  “No, no,” said Chasimenos, who could not forbear chuckling at such simplicity. “We are talking about the manner of it, not the means.”

  “Chasimenos, you are confusing the girl. My dear, it comes down to style. What would be the right style for Iphigeneia, royal princess and priestess of Artemis? Struggling in the hands of her captors, gagged to stifle her shrieks, drugged to the eyebrows and hardly able to walk? Would any of these be the right style?”

  He paused, enjoining caution on himself. He was enjoying this too much, he was talking too fast. The girl was no fool, he could see it in her eyes. All the same, it was neat, it was stimulating, persuading love to be the agent of death. “Hardly, eh?” he said.

  “No, lord.”

  “Well then.” Odysseus straightened his shoulders, pressed back his head and gazed at her expectantly. “What would be the best style?”

  Sisipyla looked seriously at the shrewd and humorous face before her. The eyes were full of life but there was no kindness in them. This was the man who was talking to Iphigeneia, he was the moving spirit in all this. She felt the force of his will and his cleverness, which was greater than hers. Something else too: this was pleasure to him, it was a sort of game. “The victim must assent,” she said. “She must go of her own accord. In that way Artemis is the more honored and the omens will be good.”

  “It is Zeus she will be honoring,” one of the other men broke in harshly.

  Sisipyla cast her eyes down, “Yes, lord, for you it is Zeus, but my mistress will not so easily be persuaded to offer her life to Zeus. She will need to feel it is the will of the goddess.”

  “Bravo!” Odysseus looked round at the others as if inviting them to share his admiration. “We were not wrong about this girl,” he said. “By all means let it seem to Iphigeneia that she is carrying out the will of Artemis.”

  “The princess listens to you, doesn’t she?” Chasimenos said.

  “I have served her since we were children together.”

  “If you love your mistress you will want her to make a good end. You must do your part, you must help us to prepare her mind.”

  “I see, yes.” Sisipyla paused for a moment, then said slowly, “When Iphigeneia is gone I will have nobody. All my service in the palace has been with her. What will I do, alone and unprotected, a slave, without possessions.”

  She had spoken without looking at any of those around her; but when she looked again at Odysseus’s face she saw that he was smiling. “But of course,” he said. “We have given that aspect of things some thought already. Devotion is all very well, but a girl needs to think about her future.” He glanced at Chasimenos. “This can be taken care of, can’t it?”

  “Certainly. I will make the arrangements personally. You will be set free from slavery and given a grant of land in a place of your choosing, terraced already and planted with olives, five hectares we had in mind, with a timbered house built on it free of charge.”

  “With a dowry like that, and a pretty face to go with it, you won’t wait long for a husband,” Odysseus said. “I will throw in a few trinkets that you can wear at your wedding.”

  “Excuse me, I am only a poor girl, how will I know that I can count on these promises?”

  “My my,” Odysseus said, and the admiration now did not seemed feigned. “Here is a young lady with her head screwed on the right way.”

  “I will give you a papyrus, signed by my hand as chief scribe, with the royal seal on it, that you can present at the palace when you return. Will that satisfy you?”

  “And how will I return?”

  Chasimenos had assumed a look of patience. “We will arrange for your passage home.”

  “Escorted?”

  “Certainly, yes.”

  “I am afraid of the Queen’s hatred if I return without my mistress.”

  “Have no fear, we will take care of everything.”

  Sisipyla allowed time for an appearance of consideration, then nodded. She felt the approval of the men now, their faces had lost that sternness of regard. “I will work to bring the princess to a proper frame of mind,” she said. “There is one thing that might help.”

  “What is that?”

  “If she could be allowed to walk with the goddess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If she could be allowed to honor Artemis by wearing the moon face when she goes to the altar, that is a white paste we make from gypsum and use at home when we offer sacrifices at the time of full moon. More than anything else I can think of this would help the princess see the way she must go.”

  “And you have this paste?”

  “Yes, we had thought it might be needed for the wedding. We use it sometimes in powder to whiten the face so that the red coloring on the cheeks will show up better.”

  Odysseus glanced at Agamemnon, who nodded with eyes averted. He himself could see nothing wrong with the idea. If it could reconcile Iphigeneia to her lot, and avoid unseemly and ill-omened behavior on her part, so much the better; and he felt sure it would please Croton and the fundamentalists, who now formed a considerable faction in the camp. Like all people interested in power, Croton understood the importance of symbols. The moon mask would bring the princess into the semblance of the goddess, it would seem to the mob that the goddess herself was being put to death for daring to compete with all-powerful Zeus.

  “We have no objection to that,” he said. “In fact it strikes me as a very good idea. You are a girl with a lot between the ears. I can prophesy a bright future for you.”

  5.

  From first light Macris had been waiting and watching not far from Iphigeneia’s tent, himself closely observed in his turn by two men from Phylakos’s squadron. He saw Sisipyla escorted from the tent by a guard. He saw her return alone some time later. Then Odysseus entered the tent and almost at once Sisipyla emerged again.

  He went forward to meet her. The scarf she wore over her head came down low enough to shade the eyes, but her face looked ghastly in this morning sunlight, drained of all color. Her manner, however, was composed, and when she spoke the voice was clear and controlled. “I was hoping to meet you,” she said. “There is something I want to talk about. I expect we are being watched, but we could walk by the shore where there would be no danger of anyone hearing us.”

  “Very well.” Even in the anguish of his spirit he was impressed by this directness and the unfaltering gaze of her eyes; impressed and in a certain way almost taken aback. He could not remember exchanging words with her before, his attention had all been for the princess. Now this slave girl did not look at him or talk to him as if his permission for anything might be needed.

 
; The sea was calm, there was a light breeze from the land. They walked for a while in silence. Then Macris could contain himself no longer. “I have no following here,” he said. “The people from our lands are with my father at Mycenae, making up the garrison. The six I brought are with me to a man, but six is very few. The tent they are keeping her in is in the middle of the lines, surrounded on all sides. We would have to get her out, kill the guards without making any sound at all, then bear her away through the camp to some safe place. We would need horses. There are six men on guard, changed every four hours. And there are others at a greater distance, keeping watch. It would have to be done in darkness.”

  He walked along in silence for a while, then something between a sigh and a groan came from him. “There would be some danger to her life,” he said. “But that is not the main thing—they would avoid harm to her if they could. It is that even with the advantage of surprise the odds are heavily against us. And if we fail we die, and her last hope dies with us.”

  It was what she had expected. She heard it in his voice. He would not make the attempt, the chances of success were too slight. In the night, in the desolation after her weeping, the knowledge had come to her, sum of what she sensed and surmised about him. He was brave enough and resolute, and he wanted Iphigeneia; but he would always be one to weigh up the odds. He would take a calculated risk, but he would not stake everything—for Iphigeneia or anyone. She had intended him to begin, she had hoped for this note of discouragement. It would make him the more ready to listen to her, perhaps remove some of the distrust he might feel for the plan of a servant. She had arranged this conversation carefully in her mind, lying near her mistress through the terrible sleepless hours.

  She said, “Iphigeneia and I have the same height and the same figure. The general shape of the face is the same in both of us. When we were little we were so alike, everyone remarked on it. It was the reason I was given to her. Over the years there have come differences, but the general likeness is still there.”

  “It’s true, there is a likeness,” Macris said, it seemed reluctantly.

  “You won’t have been so aware of it because you see royalty in her face and you see your desires mirrored in it. This gives a different cast to the features. Forgive me, I speak in a way that I shouldn’t, but I want you to see that the likeness is closer than you have been used to thinking. At a distance, dressed in the same way, it wouldn’t be possible to tell us apart. Walking to the altar, wearing the robe of the victim, everyone would believe it was Iphigeneia.”

  Macris stopped dead and turned to look down at her from his considerably greater height. “What are you saying?” His tone was angry almost, and a kind of wondering surprise had come to his face.

  “It wouldn’t be Iphigeneia, it would be me.”

  “You would die in her place?”

  There was disbelief in his voice; and Sisipyla saw suddenly now that her first task would not be, as she had thought, to convince him that her plan was sound, but to persuade a man who thought first of the odds that she was firm enough of purpose to carry it out.

  She turned to look out across the water, at the low hills that rose above the opposite shore. They were paling as the sun climbed overhead, every day the noon sun stole their color and gave it to the sky, a deep burning blue now, cloudless to the horizon. Above them, in the coarse sand above the shingle, there were thistles with pale blue flowers that stirred as she watched in a sudden breeze, soon spent. She saw tiny newborn crabs, the color of cinnamon, scuttle for cover. She paused a moment longer, as if to gather all this, the air of the morning, the clear light, the movement and the stillness, gather it into herself and gain power to make herself believed.

  “I was given to her,” she said. “My life belongs to her. Everything I have and am I owe to her. My life has no meaning without her. How can I explain? If I die she continues to be Iphigeneia. If she dies there is no person called Sisipyla.” For the first time her voice trembled and her eyes were threatened with tears.

  Macris nodded but there was no real comprehension on his face. He could not imagine the fear of abandonment, of being left alone in a dark place, like the straw children, the eyeless doll in the box of old playthings. A simpler explanation would work better with one who had never questioned his right to exist. “I am her slave, she is my mistress,” she said. “She became the owner of my life when she became the owner of my body. It is only right that I should save her body with my own.”

  “Yes, you are right, it is your duty,” Macris said. Duty he understood well, and also that it could take different forms. “They will know it is not the princess,” he said. “All eyes will be on her. Those nearest the altar will know her face well. Calchas, who makes the cut, he knows her. Chasimenos also. Her own father . . . Before you ever get to the altar people will see through the deception. A royal princess has a way of walking, a carriage of the head.”

  “Do you think I have not seen Iphigeneia walking? I walk behind her every day. She keeps her head up and her back straight and any girl who is not ill made can do the same.”

  She was speaking too hastily, too bluntly, she knew that. It would seem shocking to a young man of family to imply that the head and back of a princess were much like anyone else’s. But she was indifferent to his sense of propriety, such things were no longer important; and somewhere within her there was a sort of surprise at this indifference of hers, something she had never felt before, which had grown with the growing of her plan. “No one will know it is not Iphigeneia,” she said. “The victim will be wearing a mask.”

  She told him then what she had told Odysseus earlier, the white clay, the moon mask covering the features, so that the priestess of Artemis could walk with the goddess. “They have agreed,” she said, “they have given permission. Iphigeneia will make up my face with the paste. When they come for her, I will be the one with the white mask and the saffron robe. Iphigeneia will be dressed in the clothes of Sisipyla, the slave girl. When they are taking me out she will hide her face in grief. No one will pay any attention to her. When we begin the procession towards the altar, the people will be flocking to see me die, the camp will be deserted. The princess will make her way down here, to the shore, where you will have a boat waiting.”

  “But afterwards, when your . . . when they wash the body to prepare it for burial, when the chalk is washed away, Agamemnon will know, he will see it is not his daughter.”

  “A face so changed in death, after such loss of blood? How well does Agamemnon know his daughter’s face? How much time has he spent with her in these recent years? Besides, even if so, what will he do?”

  This too she had mulled over, lying on her back straight and still, hands by her sides for concentration, a habit of childhood, while the light slowly strengthened and the first songs of the birds sounded from the hillsides all round the camp. She said, “Iphigeneia will be safe by then, you will be at her side, she will depend on you for support. And Agamemnon will be looking down at my dead face. The fleet is ready to sail, success awaits him, he has satisfied all the conditions.”

  She paused, aware that her heart had quickened, aware of the need to breathe deeply. It was exhilaration she felt, not doubt or dismay; and still that same surprise at her indifference to everything but his agreement. Never had she spoken words so unhesitating, in such clear order. She was not the person she had been, at the altar she would die a different person. “What will he do?” she said again. “Will he declare to the army that there has been a mistake, that the wrong person has been sacrificed? He will keep the knowledge buried in his heart. And how can there be a wrong person, in any case? Surely it will be enough for Zeus that Agamemnon believed it was his daughter at the time of the killing. It is not a matter of bodies. My mistress and I are the same age, our bodies are the same. It is the belief of the King that matters.”

  “That is true.” A light had come to Macris’s face. “It’s the thought that counts,” he said. But the light had not come on
ly from this comforting truth. He would be the princess’s savior and protector. He would stand alone with her against the world. She would be grateful to him. There were no rivals now. The day would come when Agamemnon too would be grateful for this substitution, grateful to the man who at a single stroke had confirmed him in his command and saved him from the shedding of a daughter’s blood. And with the gratitude of kings there came very tangible benefits. “Yes,” he said, “yes, it could work. We could be across to the other side in no time. The current runs that way, I noticed it yesterday when we came off the ship. Yes, I will do my part, I will wait with the boat.”

  He stood still a little while, looking down at her in silence. Perhaps it was her closeness to childhood that moved him at this moment—she was not yet full-grown. He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You are made of good metal,” he said. “The goddess will be with you, she will make things easier.”

  On this she left him, returning alone. She was armed with two assurances now. Macris believed in the scheme, he would see to the boat; Odysseus had swallowed the idea of the moon mask. She found Iphigeneia alone—Odysseus had just left, promising to return shortly.

  “He gives me no rest,” the princess said. “He tells me constantly that my death is certain, that I must turn it to account, that it must not be a death wasted.” She was dry-eyed now, and seemed composed, but the voice was toneless and she held her lower lip folded inward as if to keep the mouth firm. “He says the deaths of great persons must not be wasted, their deaths must be in keeping with their greatness.”

  “Odysseus is clever,” Sisipyla said. “I felt it when he spoke to me. But he is wrong when he says the princess’s death is certain.”

  With this, in a voice not much louder than a whisper, taking great care to get everything in order, she began to outline the plan, whose marvelous simplicity had come to her, a shaft from Artemis, in the dawn of that morning. It was a better plan now for the double assurance contained in it. She had no way of knowing, as she spoke, how Iphigeneia was taking it, because the princess, after the first look of fixity, kept her face averted.