Elektra(60)

And at last, as I lie awake, watching the window from my bed, the darkness of yet another night softens into ghostly grey skies, and a shout echoes from watchman to watchman across the hills. I sit bolt upright, hardly daring to believe I can truly hear it. But it’s unmistakable. This is it: the news we’ve been waiting for. The fleet has landed, safe on our shores. I feel it surging in my chest, the sweet realisation, an exquisite moment of pure elation, and then I’m alive with energy, my soul awakened from a long winter. I jump up and dress in the soft light. I’ll see my father at last; he’s home, really and truly home. I wonder what I’ll look like to him. Will he recognise me? My fingers fumble. I yank at the fabric, not caring if I pull the fine wool out of shape. Or perhaps I should care. My appearance hasn’t mattered for years, but Agamemnon will see me for the first time since I was a little girl. I want him to be proud of me. I force myself to slow down, to calm my shaking hands. I smooth my hair, taking the longest breaths that I can draw.

It’s busier in the palace than the day the beacons were lit. They’ve been rehearsing for this morning ever since, and the action is smooth and coordinated. Slave-girls hasten to drape magnificent cloths threaded with gold across the walls, encircling the wooden columns with ferns and flowers twisted intricately together, laying gleaming bowls and goblets at the long tables, and piling soft, luxurious cushions on the benches. Fatigue from my sleepless night makes me sway, briefly dis-orientated by it all. It’s really happening, I think to myself, and the elation swells again inside me.

I catch a glimpse of Clytemnestra sweeping through the wide entrance to the throne room, tall and straight-backed as ever, no sign of concern or fear. She hasn’t fled, she isn’t shrinking away. I waver; could the news be bad after all? But then, what is everyone preparing for if not my father’s return? She’s brazening it out, like she has done all along, I think, and in this moment, I admire how fierce she is. Maybe she does have a plan to get through this. Maybe once my father is home, we’ll be a family again.

I follow her. ‘What is this?’ I ask her, and we stare at each other. I can feel it, so close to us, opening up before us, something we have never shared before.

But then her eyes darken. Whatever was about to open up closes off, and before I can take it in, arms clamp around me. A hand presses over my mouth and I’m gagging, bile rising up in my throat, as she gives the order.

‘Bar her chamber door,’ she tells them, and I can’t scream at her, I can’t make any sound at all, and they’re pulling me away, their bruising grip suffocating me, until they hurl me into my chamber, the stone floor cracking my knees as I fall. Now I’m gasping the air into my lungs, shrieking at the closed door, throwing myself against it until the sound of my own howls makes me think my head will split apart.

No one comes.

Spent and exhausted, I turn around, my back sliding down the solid door until I’m on the ground again, the taste of blood in my mouth and useless tears spilling down my face.

I know what she must be planning. And there is no way out of my room; no way that I can stop her.





22


Clytemnestra

As they bolt the door behind Elektra, her screams muffled by the wood and iron, my breath escapes, weak and shaky, from my lungs and I pass a hand across my eyes. For a moment, I let myself feel it, the pain that radiated from her, and then I gather myself again and push it down into the rage that ferments in my belly. Something else to fuel me, to stiffen my resolve and strengthen my arm. It may have been me who gave the orders to Aegisthus’ guards, but my daughter’s suffering is not my fault. I cannot allow Elektra to ruin this. And whilst she may rage against me, I am protecting her. Iphigenia trusted her father, and look what happened. One day, Elektra will be grateful for what I plan to do, what I have to do for us all.

I am ready. I have rehearsed this so many times in my head, night after night after night. My movements are smooth, calm, streamlined perfection. I feel like a girl again, swimming at Sparta, just my sister and me, kicking through the crystal-clear waters. That silent, solitary marine world beneath the waves was like a secret, a place where I could roll and twist, a place where I was free and utterly myself until my head broke the surface. The sinuous shadows of the palace remind me of it, but this time, when I emerge, it will be into another world entirely. One I shape myself.

One where even a king knows justice.

The years collapse in upon themselves; it could be yesterday that I held her hand in mine and saw her wide eyes luminous with innocence in the dim pre-dawn, moments before we stepped outside and I lost her forever.

And then Iphigenia merges with Elektra in my mind, and I push away the image of my youngest daughter standing before me in the throne room, transformed with a kind of radiance I had not seen in her before, a softness in her stance and a vulnerability so raw in her face that it makes me shudder, as though her fleeting hope pressed hard on a wound that I did not know still hurt. Then the terror in her eyes crystallising when they seized her, this time at my command; how she held me in her gaze. I still feel myself pinioned by her stare, flayed by her accusation. Not now – I won’t think of it.

I won’t allow the heightening of my emotions, so close to Agamemnon’s return. I can’t let them knock me off balance just as I need all of my poise, all of my calm. I cannot afford to be shaken, not when everything I have dreamed of for a decade stands so close before me, at last within my grasp. Everything is ready. When I go into the bath chamber, the scene is set. Nothing has moved in here, nothing has changed. I breathe in the heady fragrance of the flowers, the heavy perfume spilling from their lolling heads. I cut them myself, I bring them here every day, examining each bloom for any sign of wilting. Every petal is thick and velvety, every flower ripe and bursting with eager longing. Every polished marble surface in the room is crowded with them, a dizzying array set to overwhelm the senses. In dishes interspersed among them, oil gleams, and the crushed petals suspended in the dark golden liquid give off yet more scent, which drifts in unseen clouds throughout the chamber. Only a small bowl of fire burns in one corner, casting a dim light, so the shadows loom large and flickering on the far wall, the only space in here that is not lined with ledges of flowers. It is left clear so that anyone reclining in the low, deep bath set beside it can lie back and appreciate the fresco painted upon it.