Elektra(26)

He was gone before I could ask another question. Iphigenia and I shared a look of mutual confusion. ‘I am sure your father will be here as soon as he can,’ I offered weakly.

She went to pour some water from the jug into one of the cups, which she handed to me. I took it gratefully, hoping it would clear some of the buzzing in my head.

Where was Achilles? He should have been here to greet us, to lay eyes on his bride. I knew there was a war to fight, but could he not shrug it aside for one night to give us the most meagre offering that courtesy demanded?

Iphigenia had crossed the tent to unbuckle the thick leather straps on the wooden trunk we had brought with us from Mycenae. She yanked at the bonds and loosened the lid. As she raised it, the fragrance of crushed petals rose up and suffused the tent with their rich, intoxicating scent. She pulled out the saffron-yellow robe folded carefully within, shaking out its creases. The fine-woven linen was vivid as an egg-yolk, slipping through my daughter’s hands in rippling folds. Carefully, holding it with reverence, she draped it over the high back of one of the two chairs, and looked it over with a glimmer of pride shining in her eyes. She will be a thing of beauty tomorrow morning, I thought. When she stepped out before the soldiers, before her distracted father and mysteriously absent husband, she would take away their breath and make them regret their dismissive treatment of us tonight.

As the sun dipped and the rectangle of sky visible through the entrance to our tent slowly darkened, we could smell the fires burning across the camp, soon followed by the fragrance of roasting meat. The evening air brought no respite from the relentless heat, but I was a little revived by the wine and the water and the chance to rest. I stood up and peered out of the tent.

Ranked around us were indeed the guards that Odysseus had promised. They stood to attention, half a dozen of them flanking our tent. Each held a tall ash spear, its point glimmering sharp in the emerging moonlight. None looked at me.

From what danger did Agamemnon seek to protect us here? Surely, he did not trust his own soldiers so little as to think his wife and daughter at risk from attack in his very camp? But why else would he put an armed guard outside our tent?

‘When will we eat?’ I asked, directing my question at any of them, since none would catch my eye.

The foremost of them dipped his head. ‘Your meal will be brought to you,’ he answered.

‘And will your king be joining us?’ I asked, irritation fraying my voice.

He did not answer. I fumed for a moment, feeling all at once foolish and impotent as I stood there. At home, I had grown used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Here, in this strange place, with no sight of a familiar face or even one that seemed happy to see us, I felt wrong-footed and uncertain.

I let the tent flap fall, shrouding us again, and sat back. As promised, food did appear, a tray of meat and bread and fruit, brought to us by another silent and anonymous face. No sign of Agamemnon. I bit back my impatience, not wanting to cause Iphigenia any more upset.

‘We never eat alone together,’ she commented. She smiled at me, soothing my annoyance and the faint drumbeat of concern that pulsed away in the back of my mind. ‘No Chrysothemis, no Elektra, no servants . . .’

‘A rare occurrence,’ I agreed.

‘I wonder who will be my dining companions in Phthia,’ she said.

‘There is a war to be fought before that happens,’ I offered weakly. I did not like to think of her so far away, but when Achilles returned, he would inevitably claim his wife.

‘What do you know of him?’ she asked me. Her voice was low.

‘Just that he is a great soldier,’ I said. ‘He will be a great asset to your father in this war.’ I searched for more. ‘I know you must be afraid,’ I began.

She shook her head. ‘I am not afraid.’ She looked at me, her face soft and open in the flickering light. ‘There is an adventure ahead – a new land, new people.’

I remembered leaving Sparta, coming to Mycenae as Agamemnon’s bride. How frightening it was for everything to change, but that thrill too, of throwing up the dice in the air and seeing how they would land.

‘His mother is a sea-nymph,’ Iphigenia went on. ‘I wonder if I will meet her one day; what would that be like?’ Her voice gathered pace, a throb of excitement running through it. ‘I have heard that when he was a baby, she anointed him with ambrosia and set him on a pyre to burn away what was mortal within him and leave only the immortal. Only his father, Peleus, came in and stopped her, for fear that she would incinerate him whole and entire.’

‘Or that she dipped him in the River Styx by his heel to give him invulnerability,’ I suggested drily. ‘He is a man about whom many legends abound.’

‘I wonder what the truth of them might be,’ Iphigenia said, a little dreamily.

I caught a sigh in my throat. The stories about him made him sound fantastical; I hoped the reality would not be a disappointing one. ‘You will find out,’ I told her. ‘I do not suppose your father is coming tonight after all, so let us sleep. Tomorrow will be quite a day.’



I heard the movement outside the tent, waking me from a deep slumber. At my side, the bed was empty and rumpled. I sat up, searching the grey dark for Iphigenia. I could just make out her shape, pulling her dress over her head.

‘Can you hear them?’ she asked me softly.