Electra (3 page)

Yes. The memory was becoming clear. I do not like memory and try to avoid it if I can. But here it was. A sunny day, and the procession of cured ones are coming, led by a boy no taller than me, a boy with straight golden hair and tired eyes. Diomenes. They called him Chryse, 'golden', and he was made a healer priest because of that battle with the plague of Apollo on the hills outside Mycenae.

I winced and said, 'Chryse?'

'Princess,' said the golden man. 'Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, you know me. I am Diomenes, called Chryse the Healer, Priest of Asclepius. This is my friend Eumides, who was once a slave in this very city. We must enter. Help us, or at least do not call the soldiers.'

I stood in thought, rasping my palm over the clean edge of the tiled wall. They stared up at me, the dark man and the golden. I was powerful. I could scream - it was my duty to scream - and even amid the rejoicing the armed men would run to my aid, bronze weapons clattering on marble, and cut the intruders down on my order.

I exclaimed in pain. A sharp edge of tile had cut my hand. A little blood dropped onto the stone. It was an omen.

I did not speak but stepped away from the wall. The grappling hook flicked up, grounded, scraped and held under the weight of two climbing men.

They were over the wall in an instant, the agile Eumides hauling Diomenes up by the arm. They were taller than they had seemed on the ground. They loomed over me and I backed up until I came flat against a wall. The usual draperies were gone to furnish the Triumph, and the stone was very cold. The sun had not reached the megaron yet.

'Princess,' said Chryse, 'allow me.' He took my hand and turned it to examine the palm. There was a thin cut, already closing. His touch did not disgust as much as that of men usually did. His hands were deft, and he bound my wound with a strip of linen from his bag.

'Maiden,' begun Eumides hurriedly, 'we must find the Trojan prisoner Cassandra, daughter of Priam.'

'The captives will be brought to the Great King's hall, the audience chamber. Who is this Princess? Has my father taken a concubine?'

'Not if Princess Cassandra had anything to do with it,' grinned Eumides. I flinched away from his knowing smile.

Chryse Diomenes noticed this and said gently, 'She is a Priestess and has prophesied the death of Agamemnon your father. She has spoken truly for all of her life and she said in the gateway that a woman would kill both her and the King.'

'How do you know?'

'We heard her. We've followed the army from Troy, travelling among the traders. Watching all the way, looking for a chance at rescue,' said Eumides impatiently. 'We won't fail now, eh, brother?' Chryse took the offered hand and held it and I perceived that they were close - very close. Speech came to me in a rush. For some reason I wanted to help them.

'The King goes to bathe. I will show you the place. There's a server's door in a narrow passage, I know how it can be done. They'll bring the Trojan slave there to be purified if she's lain with the King. There will be no one else there, just my mother; she said she would tend him herself and she's sent all the slaves away. You can take her, this Trojan Princess. We don't need Trojan women here; Troy has fallen and is dust.'

They said nothing. The knowledge I had suppressed smashed through the barriers that guard me against feeling. This prophetess was telling the truth - they said she always did. My mother was going to murder my father. I froze, trying to find words, then gabbled, 'Save my father, Healer, you must save him.' I pleaded with him, even touching his shoulder in the suppliant's gesture.

A line of pain divided his smooth brow. 'We can try, Princess, but Cassandra prophesies truly, and we may not succeed.'

'We have to try, come, hurry!' I said. I ran through the maze of the women's quarters and they followed me, too slowly.

The palace of Mycenae may not have a labyrinth, like the fabled Palace of Minos, but it has been added to by successive kings since Perseus, and it is said that no one can find their way through unless they were born here.

The passages are unlit, except by occasional light wells. They dip below ground at unpredictable intervals, have distracting flights of stairs which seem to lead nowhere and odd corridors which conduct the poor lost ones out of their way and then strand them in the wine cellar. Without my help the men panting behind me would have been utterly confounded, but I had been playing in the mazes of the city since I was a child, and knew them like my own hand.

I slid to a halt before the water-carrier's door. I heard voices, one calm and one cold.

'Come, Princess,' said the cold voice, 'Will you not walk on the cloths? My Lord does so. Is it for his slave to disobey?'

'I will not walk on the sacred tapestries,' said the other voice. I heard in it exhaustion and determination. This was a woman who knew she was going to die, had accepted it, and would not be further compromised. If she said she would not do something, then she would not do it.

Eumides and Diomenes leaned forward, listening. On both faces was an identical eagerness and joy, so that for the first time they looked alike. They loved her, this Trojan slave who was my Royal Father's concubine. I shivered and tasted metal in my mouth. The corridor was musty and damp and stank of mould.

'My Lord, will you not order your slave to tread in your footsteps?' insinuated Clytemnestra the Queen, my mother. I could imagine the flush of malice on her cheek, my beautiful mother with the long ringlets of ebony hair, the pale, skilled, pink-tipped fingers. There was a time when I thought her more beautiful than Elene, wife of Menelaus of Sparta.

I found the catch and allowed the door to open a little way. Eumides and Diomenes pressed against me, and I had no room to recoil from their warmth.

Three figures were standing on the steps leading up to the great bath. There was my mother and there was my father, armour removed, clad in a stained tunic.

He was not a giant as I remembered. He was an ordinary man, man-sized, an old man sagging at the belly. His black beard and hair were streaked with grey. I could not see his face.

'Enough, woman, let the slave do as she likes,' he grunted. Then I knew it was indeed my father. Just so had he grumbled if his wine was too hot, or his favourite horse had been badly groomed. I think I almost smiled at the memory.

He was standing on the sacred tapestries, brought out only on festivals, which only the priests were allowed to handle. She had tempted him into blasphemy. The Gods would never forgive her. Neither would I.

If I could have reached her, I would have killed her then.

The slave stepped back, allowing the King and then the Queen to pass up the stair to the bath. The Queen was a tall woman of no particular beauty. Her hair hung loose like a maiden's and her face was as still and white as a statue before the painter has applied the tincts of nature. She looked like a Kore, Persephone the Maiden, in a green chiton, laden with gold jewellery.

I heard Eumides and Chryse draw in a breath when they saw her. She raised her head and cried out in an unknown tongue.

Eumides shoved the door open and plunged onto the stair. I followed and Diomenes came behind.

The King was plodding up, oblivious.

At that moment Clytemnestra turned her head and saw us. Her black eyes raked us, cataloguing each person: golden man, dark man, Trojan prisoner, her own daughter, with equal calculation. I could almost hear what she was thinking. She had not expected witnesses to her dreadful act. However, if she stepped down to kill us, she would lose her main prey, my father. Like a hawk who lets four mice escape in favour of a hare for which it has whetted its beak, she held us all for a long moment and then released us, turning back to the King.

Eumides, one arm across his face to fend off those Gorgon's eyes, seized Cassandra by the shoulder and she came to him. She seemed to be tranced, for she said no word as they pulled her through the doorway, pushing me before them.

'Father!' I screamed, struggling past them and gaining the stair. 'Help! Help!'

There was a thud and a great cry, and then another thud.

Diomenes lifted me, flung me through the water-carrier's door, shoved it shut and leaned on it.

'Let me go!' I struggled frantically, ripping at his face with my fingernails. He trapped my arms by my sides in a wrestler's grip and clapped a hand over my mouth.

Cassandra the slave came close, so close I could smell perfume and wine on her, and said, 'He is dead, Electra.'

Her eyes were unfocused, as if she was dreaming, or saw things other than with sight. She stilled me. I was not resigned or calm, I was boiling with fury and loss, but I could think again. All my thoughts were of revenge for blood.

'We must leave,' said Diomenes shakily. 'Now, before the murder is known and the gates are shut.'

'Good counsel,' agreed the sailor, one arm around Cassandra and one around his friend. He seemed to be dizzy.

Cassandra began retracing my journey, which was fortunate for I had lost my way. I did not recognise any landmarks. I groped along in an ocean of darkness. I heard the unsteady steps of Eumides and the steady pace of Diomenes, burdened with his friend. After a while he recovered and walked on his own. I watched the sure feet of the Trojan slave, moving like a dancer.

We skirted guards, avoided pitfalls, doubled back and went on after the fluttering green chiton and the faultless pace. She did not pause until we were back in the megaron. She stopped suddenly and fell. Diomenes caught her as she crumpled in a jingle of gold.

'Cassandra,' he said, and shook her almost roughly, so that the jewellery rang like bells. 'This is not time for a prophetic swoon! Wake, Lady, we are in deadly danger.'

'Princess,' said Eumides gently, 'Wake and smile, Lady, on your suppliants.'

'Oh, my dears,' she said. She slid an arm around each neck and drew their faces down to hers. 'Oh, my golden ones. My most faithful. I had given up hope. Did you follow the army all the way from Troy?'

'Every weary step, though we did some trading on the road. Come, can you stand?' Eumides encouraged.

'I don't know.' They lifted her and she shook her draperies into place with one brisk, cat-like movement.

'Princess Electra,' she said. 'Come with us.'

'Why?' I hung back from her warmth, stubborn and shocked.

'Because your mother may find your presence inconvenient,' said Eumides grimly. 'She kills people who inconvenience her. The boy, too - the son of Agamemnon - what is his name?'

'Orestes,' I said numbly.

'Do you think he will survive the death of his father?'

'The death of his father?' I repeated stupidly.

'Come or stay, Princess. We are leaving,' said Eumides, unwinding the plaited line from his waist and balancing the grappling hook.

'Where are you going?' I asked.

'Delphi. If you are coming, fetch the boy and bring some provisions for a journey; and change your sandals, they aren't fitted for the road. And hurry!' he shouted after me as I ran from the room.

I found Orestes, gathered his clothes into a bundle and thrust him before me into my room, all without a word. I clawed three chitons from my chest, rolled them in a blanket, and stuffed a handful of gold inside. At the last moment, I took my doll Pallas and laid her in the bundle as well as the sandals my father had given me.

I left all my remaining possessions on my bed for Neptha. Small things, but precious to me, hard to leave. Neptha would understand. I dressed for a journey and took Orestes' hand.

We climbed down the wall, unnoticed, and picked our way across the rocky slopes. It was getting dark. A chill wind struck and numbed all exposed skin. With held breath we drifted through the market traders and the ox-carts and continued through the undergrowth.

I saw that Cassandra was unveiled, wrapped in Eumides' cloak and openly holding his hand like a whore. I heard the noise of running water, the stream beside the road.

I was leaving Mycenae and my father was dead.

The wine from the attack on Ismarus was good, but the Cicones had contested possession of it and their wives and livestock. I would not have attacked them, but my coarse and brutal crew had to be pleased with the spoil. We had buried our dead in the bosom of Poseidon, who hates me.

I, Odysseus, Sacker of Cities, The Sly One, Odysseus of the Nimble Tongue, Wise and Much-Enduring, Odysseus of Cunning Counsel, I won the battle, broke the siege, and destroyed Troy, his city. A terrible gale struck the Ionian ships, driven along before the wind under the flapping rags of the sails.

A God's hatred is a heavy burden, but heavier to leave the land of the lotus eaters, who sup on honeyed fruit on those pleasant shores. The men wept as I compelled them back to their ships, calling them weaklings and scoundrels. I chained them to the oars as we rowed out.

Penelope, my wife, and Telemachus, my baby son, are waiting at home for me now as my ships approach Kriti. And I am Prince of Ithaca. I will return, though Poseidon blows me all over the world.

There is no cover on Spider Mountain. Though the scrub is dense and hardy, it is only half of my height; barely thigh-high to tall Cassandra and Diomenes. I was cold. Orestes had not spoken, not even a question. He dragged at my hand, stones turned under my feet, and even on the path we stumbled and lagged.

My sandals were made to glide over the marble floor of the Palace of Mycenae, not to walk the road like a common market-trader. I had never been so far from the women's quarters on foot in my life; and of course, as a Princess, I was unused to walking. Only female slaves and whores walk.

Slaves, whores, escaping prisoners and exiles walk.

I grasped my chiton and mantle in one hand and pulled Orestes along. It seemed as dark as the inside of a fish and I listened for other feet on the beaten earth.

As my eyes got used to the night I began to pick out images. Ahead of me was a strange, starfish-shaped monster, and I stopped in horror.

It halted also, broke up, and pieces of it came back towards me. I caught Orestes close and stifled a scream. Then I realised that the creature had been three people walking with their arms shamelessly around each other. I heard them laughing.