Electra (7 page)

It was not at all amusing to be an Achaean woman. I resolved to stop doing this as soon as I could.

I had never ridden on a horse before. It was exhilarating, though I was still unsteady and I hadn't even dared to inspect my bruises. Orestes was interested in the conversation and looked well, though I kept listening for his cough. He had coughed all the time as a baby, until Neptha had declared that my mother would never raise him.

Banthos let me groom him. I found something very soothing in brushing the horse's coat, with a wisp of plaited straw, until it began to shine. It was as satisfying as raising gloss on worked leather, and the technique is the same, except that this was a living beast who enjoyed the attention. He turned around and nudged the hand to keep going even if the wrist was tired, which mine was.

I had become almost reconciled to poor mad Cassandra, who had been quite entertaining company during the day and very brave in the village, but then she suggested that I fetch water.

I just stared at her. She must have realised her error, because she went out herself. It probably isn't her fault - she is a barbarian, a stranger and a captive - but I didn't know what to say. Neither did Orestes. Slaves fetch water. Only slaves.

When she came back she seemed short of breath, but she didn't say anything, and we watered the horses. I found that Banthos could drink out of a dish, such a clever creature. That used up all the water, so Cassandra hoisted the amphora and went out again, unveiled. I heard silence fall in the square outside. This time she came slowly back, not hurrying at all.

'Didn't they stare at you?' I asked. She laughed.

'Oh, yes,' she said indifferently. 'I don't mind being stared at, as long as I can stare back, and not one of them would meet my eyes. Hecate is with me. They might have sensed that.'

'Hecate? You are a priestess of the Black Mother?' I pushed Orestes behind me. Hecate's worship includes human sacrifice.

'No. I was a priestess of Apollo - but I have belonged to the Gods since I was a child. The Gods of Troy are Gaia the Mother and Dionysos the Dancer. But the others are there if I need them,' she said, grimly pleased, and tipped some water into the dish to wash her face.

Diomenes and Eumides returned laden with bread and wine and a squashy basket which proved to be full of soft sheep's-milk cheese. We sat down on the floor and shared it out, and it was delicious. The wine was better than the night before and the bread was crisp and hot from the oven. I ate my share and gave Banthos a crust, which he took off my palm with great care. His lips were soft and he snuffled.

'Now, we're off to make spearheads,' Diomenes said. 'You can sleep, Maiden. Cassandra will watch.'

'So she will,' said Cassandra flatly. 'Be alert, friends, I don't like this place.'

'I'm coming too,' Orestes insisted.

'No, you'll stay here with me,' I said. He set his jaw and said, 'I am a man. I should be with the men.'

Diomenes knelt down until he was eye-to-eye with the boy. 'Possibly, little brother, but not this time. If you are lucky enough to travel with a prophetess, then it is wise to listen to her. She says this place is unsafe. Therefore, you will stay here with the women, on guard. You have your knife?'

Orestes nodded, one small hand to his hip. He had a dagger such as is used at feasts to cut one's meat. It was a present from the King; bronze work of Mycenae, set with running bulls. A pretty toy for a lady. A weapon for a boy.

Cassandra, noticing me vainly trying to order my hair, took the comb from me and in a few rapid strokes had it tamed and coiled. She divided it into three strands and began to plait it, quickly and without pulling. I wondered that someone who could not sew could be so deft.

'I used to plait my little sister's hair,' she said, looping the ends back through the tail.

'What was her name?'

'Polyxena. My doomed little sister.'

'What happened to her?'

'Agamemnon sacrificed her on the grave of Achilles.'

'Then we are bound together,' I reasoned.

'How?' She did not sound either friendly or unfriendly.

'The same man sacrificed my sister Iphigenia for a wind to Troy, and they told us that she was going to be married to Achilles. She died, like your sister.'

We did not say anything, but our hands crept out and clasped, warmly, in the darkness. We sat like that for a long time, then I lay down to sleep and she sat upright, watching, in the night.

The attack came without warning. I was jolted and rolled face down on the floor, breathing mud. I heard Cassandra shout a sentry's warning like a soldier. 'Ware enemies!' and there was a solid thud as her attacker hit the wall. I heard the grunt as he fell.

My assailant, strong and drunken, hauled me up and grappled me close to his sweating, stinking body. Wine fumes almost overcame me. I sagged, fainting, and he chuckled, 'Mine, stranger-woman.' I was powerless, sunk in horror, which stole what feeble strength I had.

He shoved me into the coign of two walls. His breath was on my face and I gagged. His hands tore the front of my chiton. I had no escape.

And I lost myself. I felt a shriek rip my throat. Thereafter I heard nothing and saw nothing until I was sitting in the sunlight in the square, with Cassandra bathing my face and hands.

The water in the dish was red with blood, but I seemed uninjured. Sound came back to me. Chryse Diomenes, tall as an offended God, shining in the new light, was reproving the elders of the village called Artemision. His face looked like an ivory carving, set in stern lines.

'You broke in to violate a guest, fracturing all the customs and rules of Achaea, where strangers are sacred,' he was saying. The elders looked sullenly at their feet. They were old men, as crooked as their shepherd's staffs. In a house on the opposite side I heard female voices raised in a lament for the dead. Their keening underlay Diomenes' words.

'You have been suitably rewarded. We would have given you gold for your hospitality and friendship, but you decided to take our women and our treasure by force. Truly it is said that in the land of the Argives there is neither honour nor trust.'

'One of us is dead,' muttered the oldest man.

'You are fortunate that the rest of you are alive. Don't you recognise the Goddess when you see her, blind men of Artemision?'

All eyes swung, not to me, but to Cassandra kneeling at my feet. Her hair was bright gold in the rising sun. She did not look at them, but turned her face away.

'Could a woman have so torn that man? Could a wild beast?

He was almost rent in half, disembowelled, by a slight maiden with no weapons. Only the Gods have such power. I am a priest of Asclepius the son of Apollo, from the Temple at Epidavros. My brothers were Macaon and Polidarius, my sister Hygeia. I was dedicated as a child and I have been to the slaughter at Troy, and yet I have never seen such injuries. You named this village after the Virgin Hunter, Artemis. You defile her worship by attempting rape. You are punished.

'We will tend our sister, possessed by Artemis. When we are sure that she is well enough to travel, we will leave. You will occupy yourself in prayer. A sacrifice must be made to the Divine Hunter, her temple must be cleaned and repaired, and you must fast for three days. No woman will work in that time, for you have offended Her.

'You will carry water, men of Artemision, and wear the veils of maidens. You will repent to the depths of your hearts, or the game will desert your slopes and this time next year men will say, "Here was Artemision, but it is empty now, except for the Iean corpses which the famine left." Signify your agreement.'

They all nodded and shuffled away. Cassandra emptied the bowl and refilled it. There was crusted blood all over me, from thumb to shoulder and all down my breast, but I felt no injury.

'Return to your hearth, husband!' shrieked a woman in the shuttered house. 'Go not to Styx, the cold river of the underworld. Aie!' she keened, and other voices joined her. 'Aie! Aie!' they wailed.

There was an odd edge of glee to this female chorus, which made me uncomfortable. 'What happened?' I asked.

Cassandra touched my wrist, felt my forehead and examined my eyes, then gave me a brisk pat on the cheek. 'Electra, you've come back. You don't remember anything?' I shook my head.

She continued, 'The villagers of Artemision tried to attack us in the night, first plying our escort with much wine. Three broke in. I flattened one and Orestes stabbed another in the thigh, which was as high as he could reach. He's a good boy,' she said, casting an approving glance at my brother, who was sitting on the edge of the well, being washed by Eumides. He was unhurt as far as I could see, though white and shaking. 'Then one attacked you and, before I could come to your rescue, you were possessed and you tore out his guts with your hands,' said Cassandra matter-of-factly. 'Of course, it wasn't necessary to kill him,' she added, sluicing clean water over the rest of the stains.

'Go and sit down on the bench and the wine-seller will give us warm wine and honey, then you must eat something. A maenad rage is very exhausting. Have you had them before?'

'Never.' I did as I was told and sipped at a cup handed to me by a man ludicrously draped in a woman's veil. My hand slipped a little on the kylix and he cringed away from my touch. I considered the implications of all that blood on me and the dead man being mourned, and delved for some feeling about it. I couldn't find anything.

'This tale will follow us to Corinth, with any luck. I think we may avoid attack in future,' commented Eumides, scrubbing my brother clean with someone's precious linen towel and throwing it down. 'There, boy, you did well, have some wine.' Orestes sat down at my feet, cradling his goblet. 'Lady sister, how fare you?' he asked formally.

'I fare well, my Lord brother,' I replied. 'Orestes, were you hurt?'

'No, Electra, but I was scared in the dark.'

'So was I,' I said, to comfort him. But I hadn't been. Something had taken control of me.

I drank more wine and was hungry enough to eat bread and cheese. Then I changed into a clean chiton and gave the bloody one to a hovering elder to wash.

Cassandra sat on the elders' bench, combing her golden hair and considering the veiled men coming to the well, like a well-fed fox watching grazing rabbits.

Captive in the cave of the Cyclops, I told him my name was Nobody, and thrust a fiery stake into his single eye. I led my shipwrecked and terrified men out as the giant howled in pain, and when the others asked what was wrong, the simpleton cried that Nobody had wounded him. Nobody had hurt him!

I obliged my crew to remember that I am Odysseus of the Nimble Word, when they asked how we had been saved.

'Wine, a talent for impersonating sheep and superior linguistic ability,' I told them.

Poseidon, Lord of the Sea, Earth-Shaker, take your hand from above me. Though you sink my ships and swallow my treasure, I will not beg for your mercy. You have none.

Making a mental note that I should never, never back the Princess Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, into a corner, I watched the shoemaker of Artemision as he fitted soft boots onto her dainty feet. She was small, like the figurines that they make in Tanagra, with delicate wrists, a tiny waist and little feet, still bruised and cut by thorns. How could such a diminutive woman, who did not look strong enough to harm a flea, have disembowelled a grown man fuelled by lust and wine?

It was impressive. I had heard her shrieking, then silence had fallen, except for certain revolting noises which I now understood and which rendered me unlikely to really relish red meat for the foreseeable future.

Eumides had brought the lamp into the melee when it was all over, and the floor had been swimming with blood. Wrist-deep in the victim's abdomen, Electra had frozen, seeming to be tranced, and had not resisted when I led her gently out of the house.

The man who had attempted to rape her was more comprehensively dead than any fallen soldier, and I did not know what to make of it. I had to unfold her fingers to make her release the unidentifiable piece of squashed tissue, which might have been his heart.

Chryse was sitting behind me and I leaned back against his warmth. I felt his heart beating.

'Are all Argive women subject to such rages?' I asked.

'No. I believe that it was a trance such as maids sometimes have, women who dance for the God Dionysos. It usually takes them three days of fasting and wine to work themselves up to this fury, and they have hunted men and killed them in mistake for deer, but always in a pack. Each one encourages the other. I have never seen it happen to one alone.'

'Perhaps it was the God,' I said in all seriousness, and he laughed.

'Lady, surely you do not believe in the Gods?'

'Lord, surely you don't disbelieve in them? They are all around.'

'I have only seen one God, and his name is Thanatos, Death. All other Gods are constructed by men, who wish desperately to explain the random workings of chance.'

'Chryse, look at me.' I shifted my position so I could look into his eyes. He seemed sincere. 'I have seen the Gods since I was a child. They are a fact. I do not need to believe in them, I can see them as clearly as I can see you.'

He laid his palm on my forehead. I held his hand between my own, compelling his attention.

'I have no fever and I am not mad. The Gods are there. They move men. I saw the Bright Lady distract my brother Hector in single combat, so that Achilles killed him. One is not mistaken about things like that.'

'Is one not?' he asked quietly. 'I cannot see them.'

'That is your way of seeing. Mine is different. But both are equally valid.'

'I cannot believe in the Gods, Lady, however much I love you.'

'You don't need to, as long as you have no objection to me doing so. Do you have colour-blindness among the Argives? In Troy it was always an affliction of men. A man who cannot see the difference between red and green is likely to deny that they exist, but that does not affect the existence of either red or green.'