Elektra(64)

As I turn away from her hollow face, they are entangled in my mind, my daughter and this stranger. Iphigenia’s face is blurred and faded in my memory, though my body remembers the soft weight of her cradled in my arms, a baby with a future, bright and open, ahead of her. I think of how this young Trojan woman, this Cassandra, was loved and cherished, and how it has all been torn from her as well. I wonder where her mother is, the proud Queen of Troy who will never see her children again, and I wonder if this mother feels the same as I do – that if we could go back and see our babies’ trusting faces lost in sleep against our breasts once more, we would jump from our highest towers with the child clasped close, so that they never knew their terrible fate. So that we could spare them all the suffering to come.

But, inside the palace, the source of all our pain awaits his reward for what he has done. And it is in my hands, and mine alone, to deliver it.

My pounding pulse slows to a steady beat. I do not tremble, and I do not look back as I walk inside.





25


Elektra

I’ve been staring through the narrow gap of the window, my knuckles white against the stone, as though I could push down these walls with the force of my pain. I can picture it, a vast wave surging through me, tearing down everything in its path. But the walls stay strong, and all I can do is stare at this strip of sky.

I hear their approach. By straining up on tiptoes as high as I can, I see a flash of their heads as they ascend the slope, and my heart pounds painfully in my chest.

Which one is he? Is he leading them all, or do heralds go in front of him, other soldiers clearing his path? I don’t know. I’ve imagined this every day for a lifetime, but I don’t know what a returning procession looks like; I don’t know what my father would choose. I don’t know anything at all.

Useless tears squeeze out of my eyes as I twist and crane my neck, desperate to see more. The bobbing heads, flashing helmets and swaying plumes vanish altogether as they pass through the gate, and I grip even tighter to the edges of the wall, because now they will be making their way along the straight path and turning off towards the entrance to the palace itself, and that’s when they’ll come more fully into view. I press myself against the stone and stare, not wanting to blink.

They look more tired, more grim, more ragged than I would have expected: not a striding, triumphant army. They pass across the tiny strip that I can see, so quickly that I can’t make out their faces. My breath is coming fast and uneven, my palms are slick, and the desperate frustration overwhelms me as I search for just a fleeting glimpse of my father.

It’s so fast, I don’t have time to take it in. A swish of rich, deep purple, a cloak flowing from his shoulders, a cluster of dark curls and he’s gone. I don’t know what to do with myself. It must be him, but I didn’t even see his face. As I stare at the space where he was, I see her. A woman, I can tell by the loose hair that streams out around her. She’s slower than the men, but she’s walking right behind Agamemnon.

I think of Briseis, the slave-girl that Achilles demanded from him. Not her, though – my father gave her back. Another then, perhaps taken from Troy. I’m motionless as I think about that, and then I slam my hands hard against the walls. The shock of it reverberates through my wrists, but I don’t care, drawing them back and hitting out, again and again. She’s walking with him, she’s shared his journey home, Clytemnestra will be waiting at the door, and I’m in here, locked away. The lowliest slave in the world has what I can’t have, and my mother has penned me in like an animal, like I’m nothing at all. Fury consumes me: rage at my mother, rage at this Trojan woman and everyone who stands between me and my father.

And, in between the pulses of rage, the red raw edge of it, there is panic. Clytemnestra isn’t going to go back to being Agamemnon’s wife. If she was, I wouldn’t be trapped in here. They’re going to attack him, she and Aegisthus: that must be what they’re planning. And, whilst I know Agamemnon is strong and brave, victor of the Trojan war, I’m afraid of her cunning.

I scrabble under my bed, tugging at the bundle of cloth and pulling out the lion dagger, the last thing he touched before he left me. I remember the last words he spoke to me as I stare at it, the echo of his voice from so many years ago. Its blade is dull: it’s no weapon, just an ornament. There is nothing I can do with it, even if I could get out of this chamber.

And then I’m screaming again, choking on the harsh scrape of my own howls, back at the locked door. There’s nothing I can do but hope that he hears me, hope she doesn’t somehow manage to cut him down outside the palace before he even gets inside. I scream as long and loud as I can, pounding against the door in the desperate hope that he’ll hear my warnings, but my voice is swallowed up by the solid oak, and no one comes.





26


Clytemnestra

He is waiting in the bath chamber. The heavy fragrance hangs in the dim air as he leans closer to the wall, studying the painted figures. Any fear I might have had of rousing his suspicion has dissipated in the warm, stuporous breath wafting from the velvety blooms. He is wearing a silly, complacent little smile that sharpens the edge of my intent. I have thought of little else for ten years, but even so, I’m not sure if I expected to enjoy it like this. It was my duty, what I owed to my daughter. Now, with the image of the Trojan woman’s haunted eyes staring sightlessly ahead as she followed my husband, I see it as a service to the world. Something that it will be my pleasure to bring about.