Electra (6 page)

We came without harm through the ruin of the small village and I wondered how many more would lie between us and the Isthmus of Corinth. Eumides took my hand as we rode along narrow paths.

'I owe you my life,' he said. I patted his unshaven, olive-tinted cheek.

'And I owe you mine. That Queen of Mycenae was going to kill me.'

'Oh, those eyes - those hawk's eyes - yes, she would have killed us all,' he shuddered.

I changed the subject. I was curious about our travelling companion. 'Eumides, what do they say about Argive women?'

'That they are so lustful and uncontrollable that their husbands lock them in their houses and chain a big dog across the stairs to discourage adulterers. Seduction is punished by death. Achaean women are never allowed out, not even to go to the market, not even to fetch water if there is a slave to do it for them.'

'That sounds more like the husband's fears than the wife's unfaithfulness,' I commented.

'Yes, I never believed it, and the maiden Electra is proof - cold as ice. She squeals at the slightest approach. You're a living affront to her, Lady.'

'Me? Why?'

'You are Trojan, Lady, and Trojans are free women,' he said patiently. 'Achaean women don't even see each other, except at festivals. They never see another man, only their fathers and brothers and husbands. There was an Argive once whose friends told him that his breath was foul and bade him clean his mouth. He went home angrily to his wife and demanded to know why she hadn't told him. She said, "I thought all men smelt like that".'

We had come up to the others, and they heard this anecdote.

'She was a good wife,' commented Princess Electra approvingly, silencing my incredulous laughter.

'Because she had never been near another man?' I asked.

'Yes. I was never in the presence of a young man except my brother until I travelled with you,' she said. 'All my life I have lived with women, my family and the slaves. But I used to look out of the window into the city sometimes, though it was forbidden.'

'Oh, Electra,' I said, filled with pity. No wonder she was narrow, prudish and uneducated. 'The Trojans believe that there is no virtue in ignorance.'

'Chryseis was the same,' said Diomenes, then fell silent.

'Who is Chryseis?' I asked, after we had clopped along mutely for some time.

'My wife. Palamedes gave her to me. She is dead,' he said, and we did not talk any more until Orestes demanded first a drink and then to get down, so we stopped at a convenient stream which leapt down the cliff.

It was snow water, chill and delicious. Chryse and I spoke, almost together.

'Don't drink it too fast or,' we stopped and looked at each other. 'You'll get cramps,' we concluded.

'Don't get sick on this journey, Orestes,' said Eumides. 'We have two healers, and they'll probably quarrel about the treatment.'

'Tell me about Trojan medicine,' said Chryse. He seemed unsettled since the mention of his wife. I wondered if he had loved her, this human reward whom someone had given him, who cannot have seen him before she lay with him, and to whom 'consent' was only a word. I began to ransack my knowledge of herbs, identifying them from horseback. I saw a cluster of familiar dark leaves.

'
Solanos
,' I said, and he said, 'Nightshade.'

'Poisonous and to be used in the last resort,' I continued. 'Used for malignant fevers and the ague. Brings down a terminal fever.'

'Causes a terminal fever,' he argued. 'Treatment if ingested; induce vomiting with mustard and water.'

'Or
Lychnis
. Aloe is good, too.'

'Yes,' he agreed, 'If you can get the patient to swallow it. What's
Lychnis
?'

'There's some, growing next to the
Mentha
near that stream.'

'Soap-leaf, growing next to mint,' he corrected me. 'Do you use Heracles' herb?'

'What's that?' I asked. He pointed to a tall plant with pea-shaped pink and white flowers. 'Oh, you mean wound-leaf.'

'This will be ongoing for the whole journey,' said Eumides. 'You're going to arrive at Delphi an expert on herbs, boy.'

'It's interesting,' responded Orestes. I looked at him properly for the first time. He was a thin child, with alert eyes, solemn and slightly frail, as though he might have been ill as a baby. I smiled at him and he smiled back, an enchanting, innocent smile which lit up his whole face and made his uncanny golden eyes shine.

'We used Eye-in-the-Grass for bleeding noses,' offered Electra.

'Yes, that's periwinkle. It's used in love potions, too,' said Chryse, smiling. It was an unwise thing to say, for the princess went straight back into her shell.

'I call it Vinea,' I said coldly, annoyed with him. He shot me a wary look.

'What about these?' He leaned from the horse and plucked a flower, which he handed to me with a flourish. 'We call it
Orchis
.'

'We also. We use it for scabies and cradle cap in babies - and for love potions, as well. But I've never seen
Orchis
this colour before. We used to go out and gather them in spring on the slopes of…'

A lump rose in my throat, cutting off speech. I would never see that mountain again. Troy was destroyed. The Lord Agamemnon had seen to that. The very stones of the city were scattered.

'The
Orchis
will bloom there again, Lady,' said Eumides. 'They grow fast on the bones of the Argive dead.'

'Yes, I saw them, a carpet of little wine-red points on the burial mounds,' said Chryse. 'Troy is avenged.'

'Avenged or unavenged, Troy is gone,' I said. 'Soon all who remember the city will be dead, and no one will speak her tongue again. We have been absorbed, swallowed.'

'You should not have stolen Elene,' said Orestes.

There was a silence. They were leaving it to me to explain, even Eumides, who was as Trojan as I was.

'We never had her, Orestes. My brother Pariki ran away with her from Sparta. It was a most dishonourable act, though I believe that she wanted to escape from Menelaus. She never entered the city of Troy and you have my oath on it. If we had had her, don't you think my father King Priam would have given her up to save the city?'

'Then, my father and my uncle must not have believed that you didn't have her,' he reasoned.

'They neither believed nor cared. They wanted the wealth of Troy, and they now have it. They wanted to obliterate Troy, and it has been wiped off the face of Earth as though it had never been.'

I was not going to tell this little son of Atreus that Troas, daughter of Troy was, I hoped, flourishing with those who had escaped long before the city was sacked. Little sons of Atreus grow up into monsters. Perhaps even this docile child would fall under the curse which had eaten the male issue of that most bloody of families.

'So it was just.' His brow was wrinkled. 'What my father and his brother did was just.'

'I think the Lady Cassandra has answered enough questions,' said Chryse.

'No, it was not just, Orestes. There are no just wars. only death and loss,' I said, and my vision blurred, though not with tears. The Gods were with me again. Not Hecate or the Maiden, that the Argives call Persephone, but Gaia the Earth, patient and generous.

'Daughter,' was all she said, but I was as suddenly cool as if I had bathed in spring water. I was soothed as though some ointment had been applied to my pine-cone nerves. I smelt woodbine.

When I was aware again, the others were discussing a place to rest.

'There is a village not too far from here - we have a reason for returning,' said Eumides. 'It is called Artemision. There we should also ask about other travellers.'

'We have heard nothing behind us,' objected Electra, looking nervously back.

'There are faster ways than the road. A runner on foot could be before us. Perhaps I should just ride into Artemision and see if there's any trouble,' he said airily, and then galloped off before we could stop him.

'Curse this Trojan courage,' fumed Chryse.

'We'd better wait here,' I decided, and drew Electra's horse off the road. It instantly dipped its head and began grazing, and I barely dismounted in time to snatch a nightshade plant from its hungry mouth.

'Foolish beast, that is poisonous,' I scolded, and Electra said, 'Banthos! I'm surprised at you.'

She was getting the idea about horse management, because Banthos knew her voice. He raised his head and looked at her, before returning to his ingestion of anything edible in the immediate area. He was the greediest horse I had ever met.

'You must have been bred from King Diomedes' stable,' she said, referring to the famous flesh-eating mares which Heracles had tamed.

'Oh, yes, this is Heracles' country, isn't it? I learnt about his labours from my nurse.'

'Was she an Argive?' asked Electra.

'Yes. She told my twin and me many tales about Heracles and his adventures. He must have walked this road,' I said, tugging at the spiritual cord which bound Eleni and me together.

It was thinned to spider web now, but he felt me and thought of me, as I thought of him.

'Heracles is bound up with Troy, too. My nurse Neptha told me of how he killed the sea monster and then, when the Trojans would not pay, he killed the King's family, all except one boy,' Electra replied.

'Whom Hesione, the Princess, ransomed with her maidenhead. Priamos, the ransomed one, they called him,' I explained. 'He was my father, King Priam the Old.'

'I miss Neptha,' she added, and Orestes said, 'Don't be sad, Electra.'

'I'm not sad.' She gulped and made herself smile. 'See? I'm smiling. Do you want another story, Orestes? I'll tell you about Heracles' first labour, the slaying of the Nemean Lion.'

I was very pleased when Eumides returned, because we had run out of the labours of even that indefatigable hero.

'Old Neleus has dug up some wine for us, in exchange for some metal work on the village's weapons,' he said. 'They're expecting trouble, it seems. He won't lodge our women with his women, he says, as they might get foreign ideas, but he's lent us his brother's house, which is new and empty. Don't look at me like that, Lady Cassandra, I am merely repeating the ignorant words of a stubborn Argive peasant, which do not reflect my own opinions.' He managed a creditable bow and kissed my hand.

We rode into Artemision. There are eleven villages called Artemision in the Argolid. It's very confusing, though devout, and I am sure that Artemis appreciates it.

One description will do for all. Artemision has a central square, with slightly-wobbly brick houses all around. The occasional house is of stone, but stone is usually reserved for temples to Artemis, of which there is always one; and sometimes a subsidiary temple to Zeus, Poseidon or Athena.

There is a well in the square, with a bucket and windlass, and a trough for washing (unless there is a river). There are benches made of wood outside a wine seller's shop, and there is some sort of storehouse for grain, olives and whatever the village sells collectively to Mycenae, Argos or Tiryns. Add to this a few dogs, the odd lost goat or ass, and a few females who vanish under their veils as soon as a stranger arrives, and you have all of the villages called Artemision. The predominant smell is of cooking beans, sour milk, and dung or burned dust, depending on the weather and the prosperity of the particular Artemision.

This one was nervous but not hungry. My stomach growled as we rode in. In response to the Lady Electra's imploring looks, I had pulled a corner of my mantle over my face and head, so I saw little as I was ushered inside the new house. I could smell bread baking and I was suddenly very hungry.

'The horses stay with us,' I said. Chryse asked, 'Travel sense or intuition?'

'Intuition,' I told him. Chryse nodded and lifted Electra down from the saddle. She was so muffled in wrappings that it would have taken a seer to identify her.

'No one's looking,' said the Asclepid patiently. Electra shed a few ells of peplos and shook her head. 'Oh, I'm so stiff!' she complained.

'Horses always come first,' I said. Diomenes and Eumides went out and shut the door behind them, leaving only two small openings to shed light on the interior, which was entirely empty and newly whitewashed. The floor was of beaten earth and I knew that horse dung and water was mixed with it to make a hard surface which can be swept. Our mounts added considerable flooring material as I taught Electra and Orestes how to unsaddle and rub down the beasts.

'You must always clean out the hoof,' I demonstrated, picking up
Nefos
' back foot. He did not like this but he had been tended before and was resigned to it - as long as I didn't extend the process unduly. 'Just pick out any mud or stones, and watch the creature's reaction. See, look at
Nefos
. His skin is twitching and his ears are laid flat. If I don't give him his hoof back, he's going to kick.'

He did, but I dodged, and the hoof hit the door, which boomed.

'Instructive,' said Electra. 'Now,
Banthos
, you're not going to kick me, are you?' She put her arms round the horse's neck and he lowered his muzzle and snuffled her hair. Being
Banthos
, he might have thought it was edible. But Electra was touched and proceeded to groom him to a gloss which the Amazon cavalry might have appreciated.

Orestes was willing, but not strong. Once we finished with the horses, our next need was water.

An amphora stood inside the door. I hefted it. It was almost empty.

'Will you go for water, or shall I?' I asked. Electra blushed fiery red, as though I had offered her a terrible insult.

'I will not,' she managed to say. Orestes was also staring at me. Deciding that all Argives were quite mad, I lifted the water jug to my hip.

'Take my veil,' she offered, draping it over my head. My arms were full of terracotta so I let it stay, walked into the square, and filled the jug from the well. There were ten men in the square, shepherds and farmers. They followed my every move, some levering themselves off their bench to try and stare through my veil. They talked about me as though I was not there, though luckily their dialect was so thick that I could not understand all the words. They seemed to be discussing my childbearing potential. They stared at me, those peasants, as though I was carrion and they were crows. Comforting myself with the reflection that I could kill any one of them with a single arrow, I paced back to the house and Electra let me in.