Elektra(78)

On the road, as we draw ever closer to Sparta, I start to think about what I will say to Helen when I see her. I have thought only of Orestes. Now a hundred other questions are mounting in my mind. I have not even resolved on how to begin, when the wagon rolls to a stop. I know that we are still some distance from the palace of Sparta, so that no one will be alerted to our arrival. I will steal in on foot, just like Aegisthus at Mycenae when all of this began. I step out into the gathering twilight, beside the bank of the wide Eurotas river. The air is still and quiet, a fragrance in it that takes me back so many years, and I am swamped at once by a wave of longing. A longing that is not just nostalgia for my childhood home, but for the time before war tore our lives apart; a time before suitors thronged our halls clamouring for Helen; a time when everything was inconsequential, and an afternoon could slip away unnoticed; when I could lie beside the river with my sister and talk of nothing that mattered at all.



When we reach the palace, I tell the guards to wait, concealed beyond its entrance whilst I go ahead. They shift uncomfortably, but I insist. I know this place; it was my home for many years. It is fortified well against invaders, but as an anonymous woman I can slip inside unnoticed, through the secret passages only someone who lived in the palace would know.

Night has fallen, but the palace is alive; torches burn and slaves bustle back and forth across the grounds. I can hear the distant whickering of horses in the stables, and from the heart of the palace, sounds of song and laughter drift across the breeze. I watch carefully, hidden within the folds of my cloak, and judge the moment when I can flit through the secret gap in the wall that I remember from our mischievous childhood excursions, which I’m so relieved to find is still here. Keeping my eyes lowered, looking like any slave, raising no one’s attention, I move swiftly across the courtyard and in through an open door. I have not set foot here in more than twenty years, but it feels as familiar as if it were only yesterday that Helen and I whispered our secrets in these corridors. I try to push down the rush of emotion I feel.

Whilst it is busy in the centre of the palace, and slaves swarm between the kitchens and the great hall, I stay where it is quiet and still. I know the way to the queen’s chambers; if I can make it there without being noticed, I can await my sister. Even if she stays up feasting and drinking until the early hours, I can wait. But, when I press my hand against the heavy wood of the door that once led to my mother’s private rooms, I hear that there is someone within.

I don’t feel afraid. I don’t stop to think it might be anyone other than Helen, and so when I push the door, I am entirely unsurprised to see her standing there, turned towards me. The same cannot be said of her; her face is bright with shock and disbelief.

‘Don’t call out,’ I say.

Her eyes dart across me, taking me in. ‘Of course I won’t.’ She stands still, frozen where she is. A low fire burns in the shallow bowl on the table beside her, and I see a bundle of herbs tied together and a small paring knife in her hand. ‘What – what are you doing here?’ she asks.

‘What do you think?’

She seems to shake herself out of a trance. ‘A visit – now? You risk your life to come and see me?’

My heart pounds. ‘Why not? Are you horrified? Do you want to turn me in to your husband?’

She laughs, a dazed kind of sound. ‘Of course not! I cannot believe it, though; I wonder if you are a dream! Come.’ And she drops the little knife and steps towards me, her arms open.

I don’t stop her from embracing me. Her hair is soft against my cheek. Menelaus lived in a humble tent on a foreign shore for ten years to have her in his arms again: men beyond number died for it; my husband murdered his own daughter for the privilege of winning Helen back. In these long years, she has become something other than herself, more than one woman could be. I can’t reconcile all that bloodshed with my sister.

‘But what are you doing here, really?’ she asks, stepping back. She looks intently into my face. ‘It is a dangerous place for you to come, so soon after . . .’

‘Wasn’t it dangerous for you, too?’ I ask. ‘To come back here? I didn’t know if Menelaus would bring you home, if he would even let you live. Where is he?’

‘He feasts in the great hall,’ she answers. ‘They are sharing stories again of Troy, becoming maudlin, as ever. It’s why I stole away.’

‘Won’t you be missed?’

She shrugs, languid and graceful. ‘I only intended to be gone a matter of moments.’ Her eyes flick to the table, the scatter of dried leaves there. ‘But Menelaus won’t question me if I am longer. And if you are discovered, I’m sure I can plead on your behalf.’ She smiles, and in the soft firelight she could be sixteen again, so confident and sure of herself. Helen of Sparta; a vast crowd of men jostling in our halls, ready to offer anything to have her. Marriage, motherhood, ten years of bitter siege and bloody battle and its aftermath – and still, nothing has changed for her. ‘Sit,’ she urges me. ‘I will send for wine.’

I sit on the soft couch whilst she pads to the door, and I hear her murmured instructions to a passing slave. I feel a twist of irritation, even when she comes back with a jug of wine, its rich sweetness fragrant in the air. I need her help, I remind myself. My son is what matters. The slave has brought bread too, the sight of it reminding me that I am hungry. I tear a piece off, wishing I had the strength of will to refuse her hospitality. As I eat, she picks up her knife again, chopping the herbs on her table swiftly and neatly, sweeping them into a little pouch that she ties on to her belt. Then she draws a stool closer and sits, facing me expectantly. The weight of everything I have to say feels at once overwhelming, and I cast about for something to delay. ‘The herbs?’ I ask.