Elektra(34)

‘Clytemnestra.’ His voice was low, soft in the shadows.

I whipped around. For a second, I thought it must be Agamemnon; that, somehow, he could have returned without me even knowing the war had ended. I was not prepared; no chain of flaming beacons had lit the darkness to give me warning. I drew back, curled my fingers into my palm, my breath sharp in my lungs. We stood by a low wall: the palace overlooked a steep drop, and the rocks below would be enough. Fear mingled with exhilaration; I could taste blood, sour and metallic, in my throat.

‘Please do not fear me; I mean you no harm.’

He spoke at odds, it was not me who had anything to fear, I thought confusedly. But then he stepped forward, and I saw it was not my husband at all. A younger man, lit dimly by the beam of moonlight falling between the pillars. He was thin, taller than Agamemnon, but awkward-looking, as though he had grown too quickly and did not know what to do with his height. That I would fear someone so nervous struck me as absurd, and when the bark of laughter that escaped me made him startle, it was more ludicrous still.

‘A palace of guards will run in our direction if I scream,’ I told him. Defending the palace had been one of my first priorities, and we had recruited men from neighbouring provinces to do the job. Men with no loyalty to Agamemnon. Men who had known only me as ruler. ‘You do not look equal to even one of my men.’ He does not look equal to me, I thought.

‘I know that,’ he answered. He held my eyes steadily, despite the anxiety I could sense rising from him. ‘Your husband’s guards have chased me from this palace before.’

‘Then you are a fool to return,’ I said. I was in no mood to entertain whatever entreaty he was ready to make. To scream for the guards, though, seemed a ridiculous idea. He was an irritation, not a threat. I wanted him gone, but could not summon the energy to create a scene.

‘Do you see something familiar in me?’ he was asking.

I couldn’t imagine why he thought I would care enough to look closely. ‘See what?’ I heard myself ask.

He took a step forward and I felt myself stiffen further. It was only that he looked more hunted than hunter that still kept me quiet. I don’t think it was pity, though. Maybe a flicker of interest, despite myself.

‘I thought my blood would mark me out,’ he said softly. ‘As though the curse of Atreus would be emblazoned upon my face like a scar for all to see. But I walked through your palace doors with no notice; your servants gave me sanctuary when I asked, with no question.’

‘What?’ The heavy blooms of the flowers that entwined the pillars out here nodded sleepily in the dark air, releasing a sweep of fragrance, and dimly I remembered a conversation with Agamemnon once, in the honeyed air of a Spartan evening so very long ago. At the riverside, we had spoken of the worth of a child’s life. At once, the pieces fell into place. ‘Aegisthus?’ I breathed.

I could not see it. No stamp of Agamemnon’s heavy features in the narrow, anxious face before me. His hair hung limp, not thickly curled, and his eyes were shadowed and wary.

‘I am,’ he answered. ‘Your husband – my cousin – he killed my father here, in this palace. He drove me from this city when I was a boy and cast me out alone.’

My mouth was dry. Since my return from Aulis, I had thought the world empty of surprise. To be surprised, you had to have a belief that the world would follow its rhythms and patterns as it had always done. I had burned my daughter’s body on a strange shore and found the man I had married had a rotten soul. I thought myself immune to any surprise at all. But this revelation took me aback.

‘That was my husband, indeed,’ I said. The words rasped and I was annoyed to sound weaker than I was. I breathed in, stood straighter. ‘But he is in Troy, fighting his war. If you seek to settle your score with him, you will be disappointed.’ I eyed him more closely, seeking out any sign of a weapon. ‘If you plan to avenge yourself on his wife and children in his absence,’ I went on, my voice hardening, ‘you will find there is little point in doing so. He is no husband or father; you cannot wound a man by harming what he weighs so lightly as Agamemnon values us.’

At this, Aegisthus relaxed a little. ‘I had hoped you would say as much,’ he said. He stepped closer, closing the gap between us. I could see the sheen on his forehead, pale and damp in the moonlight. I felt a strange clutching in my chest, an almost protective urge. ‘There was no one in this world,’ he continued, ‘with more reason to hate that man than me – until he committed a more abominable murder than I would have thought him capable of worthless jackal as he is.’

A thrill ran through me. Hardly anyone dared to speak of Agamemnon’s act. Women I had known my whole time in Mycenae would dart away from me, dissolve into crowds or disappear around corners rather than look into my face and see my pain. But I knew how it was spoken of away from me. A sacrifice, they would call it. An agony beyond imagining, a torturous dilemma: his beloved daughter set against his kingdom and country; one girl’s life versus the ambition of all of Greece. Behind my back, they would say his deed was a noble one, that Artemis set her terrible price and of all the men in his army, only Agamemnon had the courage to pay it.

‘When I heard that he had murdered Iphigenia . . .’ Aegisthus said.

No one said her name any more. Not the slave-girls of the palace who had loved her; even her own sisters would not say it aloud. To hear it now, in this stranger’s mouth, was like the shock of cold water on burning skin. ‘Go on,’ I whispered.