Elektra(59)

He emerges from the darkness of the hut, his brow creased in confusion, his eyes squinting with sleep. ‘Elektra?’

‘Georgios, he’s coming back! The war is over!’

‘It is?’

I throw myself against him and he jolts backwards, startled. I’ve never embraced him before. He pushes me away slightly and puts his hands on my shoulders. I can’t stop smiling.

‘How do you know?’ he asks. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Beacons,’ I say. ‘Beacons lit in a great chain, as far as I could see.’

He’s shaking his head before I even finish the sentence. ‘Even if it is the end of the war, how can you know the Greeks have won?’

‘Of course the Greeks have won,’ I say slowly. I step backwards, out of his grip. I can’t look at him.

‘Of course,’ he says quickly. ‘I didn’t mean – of course, the Greeks have won. I only thought – just in case . . .’

‘This day has been coming for ten years.’ My voice is harsher than I mean it to be. ‘We’ve always known it would happen, and now it has.’

He’s nodding hastily, trying to take back his moment of doubt. ‘Your father is the greatest hero the world has ever known,’ he says, and the sincerity in his voice mollifies me a little. ‘Mycenae has suffered whilst he has been away. Now he’s coming back, this is wonderful for us all.’

I pause. ‘Not quite everyone.’

Georgios laughs. ‘You aren’t worried for Aegisthus now, are you?’

‘Of course not!’ I look away. I don’t know how to voice the feelings squirming away against my happiness.

I hear his sigh. ‘She has betrayed him.’

She has done a terrible thing; she knows the price as well as Georgios knows it, as well as I know it, as well as everyone in Mycenae knows it. But she is my mother – however passionately I might sometimes wish that she wasn’t.

‘Perhaps, when he’s punished Aegisthus,’ Georgios says, ‘he might show mercy to her.’

‘She doesn’t deserve it.’

She wasn’t forced by Aegisthus. What she’s done, she’s done of her own free will. She and Helen both, architects of their own disaster. I wonder what Menelaus will do to Helen, what he might have done already. I don’t care so much about that. Helen robbed me of my father for ten years. But I can’t help feeling a twist of anxiety for Clytemnestra, deserving or not.

‘You can ask him to spare her,’ Georgios suggests. ‘Maybe for you, he might. If that’s what you want.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, I do. Agamemnon is a good king, a good man. My father always said so.’

‘I know that’s true.’

‘Mycenae prospered when he reclaimed it,’ Georgios goes on. ‘And he united Achaeans from all over to follow him to war. He’s a great leader. Whatever he does, it will be the right thing.’

These words are a soothing balm. Poised on the edge of a thousand surging emotions, I blink back tears of sudden and unexpected gratitude. Georgios has always been there alongside me, always ready with something kind to say, always constant in his faith in Agamemnon.

I wonder, now that my father is coming home, what will happen to our friendship. When normal order is restored here, I’m not sure what the leader of all of Greece will think about his daughter sneaking out and talking unsupervised to a humble farmer.

That doesn’t matter, though. What matters is that he’s coming back.



The palace has come to life whilst I’ve been outside. News of the beacons has energised everyone, sent the slaves scurrying and chatter bubbling everywhere. I see the elders of the court, the old men who have submitted to my mother and Aegisthus all this time, hastening to the throne room, their eyes full of confusion.

She’s there, of course, calm and composed, holding forth in the centre of them all. Aegisthus is nowhere to be seen, and I wonder with a burst of exultation if he might have fled – but then I spot him, lurking beside the furthest wall.

‘The war is ended,’ she is declaring. ‘But it will take many weeks for the fleet to sail home. We must be prepared. I have watchmen waiting all the way from the palace to the gulf; they will send word as soon as the ships are sighted.’

I clutch her words to my chest. The hope is almost painful. We are so close to an end to this.

She’s giving directions, telling everyone of the great feast that will be held, of the plans to make in anticipation of the king’s arrival. I wonder if anyone will dare to ask her what she intends to do, but no one does.

The beacons stay aflame for days. I stare out at their glow every night until they burn out and there is nothing but the star-strewn darkness to look upon. I imagine his ships sailing closer with the emergence of every dawn, picture Eos trailing her rosy fingers through the sky above us both, every morning another day closer to the day he comes back. Of all the years I’ve waited, it’s these final weeks that are the slowest, these last days when my impatience is ravenous, when it gnaws away at my peace of mind and shreds any semblance of calm I might have.

But however excruciating the wait might be, there is a sweetness in its sting, a euphoria in the anticipation. Day by day, the time passes, and every fresh dawn brings him nearer to me.