Electra (2 page)

Later I was glad that he had denied me that sight. We sent my sister Iphigenia, my gentle, beautiful sister, out of the gate of the lions, with rejoicing and the music of bells, for her marriage with the hero Achilles. Instead she had been espoused by Thanatos who is Death, the Dark Angel. She was sacrificed on the altar of Boreas, the north wind, so that my father's ships could sail to Troy; so that the revenge of the sons of Atreus for the kidnapping of the faithless Elene should fall on that stone city.

The nightmare began the night we heard of her death.

My mother Clytemnestra did not scream or cry. No tears fell from eyes that became more and more stony as the days went by. She did not speak or eat for three days, then she arose and stalked the walls. She stared out, towards the sea, towards Tiryns where Dikaios the Just ruled. I did not know what she was looking for.

Now, ten years later, I know. The beacons were blazing for the return of the king. My mother's order, my mother's fire, whipped on by her will. From Lemnos to Athos, Makistos to Messapion across Euripos, Kithairon to the Gorgon's Eye, burning Ida to the Black Widow's mountain, Spider Peak above Mycenae, which always threatens to topple but never falls.

The cloth was laid for the sacrifice; the double axe was in my mother's hands. I shivered in the chill light of dawn, looking out over the silvery olive groves, my hands on the balustrade thawing the ice-rimmed stone, and listened to the morning noises.

A cock crowed 'Kou kou ra kou!' I could hear Orestes, my dearest brother, singing the morning song to Eos who is the dawn. Somewhere a man was whistling on the cold hills; a goatherd was piping calling-tunes to his herd. Running feet, well shod, sounded in the chill courts of Mycenae and I smelled hearth smoke and the scent of baking bread. But there was a misplaced sound among the morning noises, a regular, gritty sliding sound just behind me.

With mountain stone and virgin oil, Clytemnestra was whetting the axe.

The bearers stopped for breath at the foot of a steep gravel path in the middle of what seemed to be a market. I looked out of the litter, in which I was tethered by a chain about my neck. A captive of Lord Agamemnon must not be allowed to escape. She might be valuable; especially if she is, was, a Princess of Troy.

The traders carried firewood and skewers of meat and sandals and tripods. I could smell dust and roasted flesh and charcoal fires, unwashed humans, pine trees, wine and amber oil. Now that the religious hush which greeted the return of the Great King had passed, the noise of the crowd hurt my ears.

I looked up to a narrow gate, surmounted with two lionesses carved out of grey granite. For a moment I flinched. The massive walls seemed about to fall and crush me. The road wound past the feet of the Cyclopean walls and curved up the hill. The bronze doors were open.

Above us the city rang with harping and singing, and some enthusiast was hooting through a bronze trumpet. Long strips of delicate weaving, blue and black and crimson, fluttered from the walls and flapped in the chill breeze. Mycenae was evidently pleased that Agamemnon was home in triumph from Troy.

I was part of his triumph. A most unwilling part.

I had seen the city - my city - sacked and burned. Agamemnon's army had slaughtered my brothers and taken my sisters as slaves. He had taken me also, disgraced Priestess of Bright Apollo, torn me from my twin Eleni, who was closer than any lover.

Agamemnon was bringing Cassandra, daughter of Priam, home to his queen and his city, to draw water for his horses for the rest of my days. I listened to the sea-sound of wind in the olives, remembering Ocean, and the buzzing of flesh-flies in the pines.

I had almost escaped. The priest of Asclepius, Diomenes called Chryse, and the Trojan ex-slave, Eumides, had fished me out of the water. Agamemnon, however, had not drunk any of the drugged wine with which I had put my ship to sleep.

We heard a bull's roar over the water, 'Find Cassandra!' I had slipped back into the ocean, to avoid compromising my friends. Even then I swam quite a way to shore before they caught me.

Chryse and Eumides had sworn, in hurried whispers, that they would follow and rescue me, but I had seen nothing of them on the long road. I did not expect help from them. I trusted their good hearts, but anything might have happened to them - storms at sea had scattered the fleet, several ships had been lost, and we had been repeatedly attacked by bandits on the long road from Navplion.

I recalled the chain of little hot lights, fire speeding across the mountains to announce the return of the Sons of Atreus. King Agamemnon had sighted them too, far out on the wrinkled sea, flat as a plate, the seamen grunting at the oars.

'There goes the message of my victory,' he said, and grinned.

I hated him. Big as a bull, strong, coarse, brutal, cunning king. He had tried to rape me the night of my recapture, but I had called on the black aspect of Gaia the Mother, the Goddess Hecate, Drinker of Dog's Blood, and the proud phallus had shrunk and fallen under her black regard, the snake-haired one.

For disgraced or not, captive or not, exiled or at home, I am still Cassandra, daughter of Priam of the Royal House of Troy, Priestess of Apollo, and I can call on the Gods. They owe this to me, who have wounded me almost beyond bearing.

Agamemnon had attempted violation again the next night, when I was seasick; perhaps he thought that I would have less power if I was retching helplessly. The other women had urged me to co-operate, saying that he would beat me, but I would not. He disgusted me, his matted chest, filthy skin still smeared with Trojan blood, and his grasping, sweaty hands.

And when he shoved me down and knelt again between my thighs to no effect, he did not beat me. He got up clumsily, made the sign against evil - and evil was certainly there in that loot-filled cabin - and pushed me out to sleep with the captives.

Thereafter he did not speak to me. If I looked at him, he avoided my gaze.

Slaves have but small triumphs.

The journey from the port was slow, because Agamemnon's treasure had to be transported, loaded on every horse and mule in the Argolid. The loot from Apollo's temple alone burdened ten ox-carts.

Oh, Ilium, all that remains of you is golden vessels and the frail flesh of your children, and how long will we last? Gold melts and flesh dies. In a generation all memory of Troy will be gone. No one will speak of it except to say, 'This was Troy, once a great city, which the Sons of Atreus destroyed because of faithless Argive Elene.'

Yet, it was not Elene. We never had her. It was greed that destroyed Troy, all its wisdom and wealth spilled on that blood-soaked plain, because the Argives did not like to pay our tolls for passing the Hellespont. Eight years of piracy and two years of siege, and now the treasuries of Agamemnon brim with our gold.

And Troy is gone, gone utterly.

Oh my twin, my lost Eleni, taken by the son of Achilles. My arms ached for him, my mind sought constantly for the spark of his mind. It was there - a flicker, just a flicker. A desperately miserable and humiliated Eleni lit a small corner of my mind. I hoped that he could not feel my rage, my burning fury. I would not add to his burdens. He was a slave and I was a slave. But we were in good company.

The women of Troy are valuable throughout the world. They call us the well-skilled women. In the baggage train there were almost a hundred of us - spinners, weavers, two jewellery-makers, a dozen house-builders and the best potters in the city. Our skills would not die, provided we were allowed to teach them to another. For we worked and moved and even breathed now at the behest of our masters, and we had not been slaves before. We talked when we could, to comfort each other. Perhaps half were resigned enough to settle in their new lives, but three had already been murdered by their Achaean masters for being insufficiently meek.

I did not hold out great hopes for the rest.

The happiest of Ilium are the dead, and there are so many dead. Hector, my brother, tall as a tree, sun-golden, with his great beard. My mother and father, my brothers, all dead, all gone. I could feel Eleni, my twin, by our God-given consciousness. He was just existing, but he was still alive, the last son of Priam.

Eleni was still alive and I was about to die.

By the God's vision I knew. I was certain. If I went up that hill I was going to share Agamemnon's death. The woman was waiting for him. She would strike once across the belly and then as the guts spilled and he bowed before her, with a skilled woodsman's stroke she was going to cut off his head.

And mine.

I heard my own dying cry and smelt blood so strongly that I choked. The water of the bath lapped like a red tide. I clutched at my throat, cleared my voice and cried, 'Stop!'

My bearers, both Achaeans, looked around inquiringly. Achaeans are infallibly curious. It is their only charming characteristic.

'Why did you say "Stop!", Lady?' one asked.

'If you take me up into the city I will die,' I said. They were sorry for me, and the left one patted my hand soothingly.

'Slavery is not good; no one desires it. But in life there is hope,' he said.

'I mean, soldier, if I go up into the Palace I will be killed,' I elaborated.

The patted me again and said, 'Lady, we are ordered to take you up into the city.'

'Listen, idiots, don't you understand me? I thought I spoke clear grammatical Achaean!' They stared at me stupidly. 'There's a lake of blood up there. I can smell it so strongly that I can hardly bear the stink. I am a Priestess of Apollo and he gave me clear sight and I tell you, the king must die - will die - I can see the manner of his death now as clearly as I see you. If you take me there she will kill me too, so put the litter down.'

'The Lady is distraught,' said one.

'Women, even priestesses, are excitable,' said the other, lifting his end of the litter so that I was flung backwards by the length of my chain.

'The Priestess is overcome by the horror of her situation,' said the first, hoisting his end to a muscular shoulder.

We jolted up the steep path to the Lion Gate and I occupied myself in prayer. Not to the new cruel Gods, Apollo or Artemis or Hera, but to the familiar Lords of my destroyed city: Gaia the Earth, Mistress of Animals; and Dionysos the Dancer. I shut off the vision of blood and recalled, instead, sitting on Hector's shoulders with my twin Eleni, hands clasped across his golden head, while he argued with a ship's crew about a missing amphora of honey from Kriti. I closed my eyes.

He was coming home, my magnificent father, victorious and bringing captives and treasure, and I wanted to rush out to meet him. He would render justice to me, roast Aegisthus over a slow fire, kill the unrighteous queen.

I dressed in my finest chiton, of delicate rose with a blue mantle, coloured my lips and cheeks with cherry juice and outlined my eyes with Egyptian kohl. I brushed my dark hair until it shone. I laced on my best sandals, a present from my father and too small for me, but decorated with little bronze rosettes. My nurse, Neptha, showed me my face in the bronze mirror and told me I was beautiful. I heard the trumpets and the drums. The Great King was returning.

Then my nerve failed. As others had turned from friends to monsters in a moment, might not my father change as well? My trust wavered. I could not just leap into his arms as I had once. I was not his little daughter any more. I was flustered, confused and afraid. My golden eyes, which had once been as clear as water, were not innocent. I knew things, I held secrets.

So I crept, not to the main wall, but to the women's quarters, under the mountain called Spider. I saw the baggage train gleaming with gold, heard horses neighing and men shouting and wooden wheels groaning on the uneven road. I smelt dust and roasted meat and a waft of wine and swallowed tears, tasting salt. The Triumph was filling the flat space before the city and overflowing up the hills on either side, a confusion of animals and people. There was a hush as a bronze-clad man walked proudly and alone up the path. His helmet was plumed with bright feathers, he clanked as he moved, but I could not see his face.

Then my father passed out of sight and the noise came back.

Surely she did not really mean to kill him. She was just sharpening the axe for the sacrifice of the bull to welcome the king. Surely she could not manage to kill him, so tall and magnificent, so strong?

I could see all the way across the valley to the mountains beyond. Grey-green with white stones knuckling through thin earth, that is Mycenae. The wind always blows here.

Two young men looked up as I looked down. They were a contrast. One was a sailor, by the look of him. Curly dark hair, dark eyes, gold rings in his ears which glinted as he moved; compact and strong, like an oarsman. The other was taller, slimmer and chryselephantine. Ivory and gold. His skin was pale and smooth and his hair was as bright as the sun, like a statue of a God. He did not smile but looked at me gravely, and I did not retreat. He did not feel threatening.

The dark one was equipped with a long plaited line with a grappling hook on one end, dangling from his hand. They were actually attempting to climb into the women's quarters.

'The penalty for what you are intending is death,' I informed the golden man.

'The penalty for living is death,' he replied evenly. 'It is a common fate.'

'But not so surely or so soon,' I told him.

I should have called the guard, but they were all at the Triumph, welcoming my father back into the city.

'We have to get into Mycenae,' said the golden man.

'Why?' I asked, surprising myself. Ordinarily I never speak to men.

'It's a long story and this is an exposed place for tales. Let us in, maiden, and we'll tell you all about it,' said the golden man calmly.

I did not know what to do. A memory was trying to surface in my mind. I had seen that golden hair, that cool profile, somewhere before. A long time ago. When?

I had been waiting at the gate of the city with my mother and my sisters when Iphigenia was alive, when I first saw Argive Elene, the most beautiful woman in the world, or so she seemed to me, a little girl. We were handing out coins and bread to those who had survived the plague. There had been a very riotous bard called Arion, and a bearded Master of Epidavros called Glaucus. Prince Odysseus, who had just left, had brought me a sea-shell the colour of sunset from a shore on the other side of the Pillars of Heracles.