Elektra(79)

‘A soothing blend,’ she says. ‘Dissolved in wine, they lift the spirits, help the drinker to forget his sadness.’

I imagine Menelaus, weeping at the feast for all he lost at Troy. I look at the pouch dangling at Helen’s waist and suck in my breath. ‘Why did you go?’ I blurt out. I wasn’t sure I ever intended to ask the question, to show my weakness by asking what everyone must long to ask her, but I am just as desperate to know.

‘Why do you ask?’ Her eyes are steady on me. ‘Do you think our armies would never have sailed to Troy if I hadn’t?’

I don’t answer.

‘Those who came home returned on ships laden with spoils and women. The bards sing each night of their bravery, their glories, the fame they won there. And Troy, the city everyone thought impermeable, is razed to nothing. Do you really believe that those thousand ships carried men who wanted only to restore one wife to her husband?’ She laughs. ‘I watched from Troy’s towers every day. The battlefield was full of mighty warriors. Everyone said that the gods strode alongside their chosen heroes.’

‘The bards sing of you, too.’ One woman, daughter of Zeus, at the heart of their story. Troy was about one woman, for me at least. My daughter, the first of them all to die. I don’t want to say her name, not here in this room, where my mother used to dress, and Helen and I would play together, what seems like a dozen lifetimes ago or more.

‘I’m sure they do. But did you come here just to ask me that?’

I sigh. Plenty of sons of Zeus fought on that battlefield, earning their place in the legends. What was his daughter supposed to do? If it had been my choice, I would have left her there. If it were up to me, no mother would have lost her children. Helen could have stayed across the ocean forever. ‘My son, Orestes, he was born just after – just after the Greeks left for Troy. Now he has vanished. I hoped he had come here.’

She is already shaking her head. ‘We have had no word of Orestes.’

My stomach drops. ‘Nothing at all?’

‘No.’ She pauses. ‘We heard of what happened to Agamemnon, of course. But your son has sought no sanctuary with us. I would not hide it from you if he did, not for a single heartbeat.’

I look away from her. Tears are burning in my eyes, and I am determined not to let them fall. Could he have died on the journey here? Of course he could. Brigands, beasts, anyone loyal to Aegisthus, any opportunistic thief or false friends ready to betray him for gold or favour. He could have been buried hastily at the roadside, flung into the sea or left on the ground for the crows, anywhere between Mycenae and Sparta.

Or he could have been spirited away elsewhere, anywhere in the vast world beyond here. He could be hidden on the smallest island or tucked away in the most sprawling city. Where will I find one child in the whole of Greece?

‘Wherever he has gone, we will hear of it,’ Helen is saying. ‘Take heart; we will find out in time.’

I nod dully. ‘If he comes here, he will not want you to tell me.’

‘I won’t let him know about this. But I will get a message to you the moment I hear anything of your son, I promise.’ She takes my hand. ‘It is likely he will come here, to seek his father’s brother. But I can tell you, Menelaus has no appetite for fighting any more. Not to avenge Agamemnon. I can speak for you, if Orestes arrives here: he will hear your cause.’ She hesitates. ‘When I heard you had borne a son, I thought of my daughter – that the two of them could marry one day, join our houses closer again.’

I try to imagine that. Helen can so easily sketch out a future, seeing years ahead how things might fall to our advantage. Since Aulis, I have only made one plan, and that is done. I do not have the heart to look to what might come; I do not have the faith to envision that it will be in my favour.

‘My guards are waiting, outside the palace walls,’ I say. I pull my hand from hers and stand. ‘I have what I came for – I must return before they come to find me.’

‘I’m glad you came,’ she says softly. ‘It was brave of you to risk it.’

I bite my tongue. ‘You go back to the feast,’ I say. ‘I will slip out, the same way I came in.’

She stands. ‘I will seek news of Orestes. I will tell you anything I discover.’

I let her embrace me. I needed to come here, to see for myself. I am sure she isn’t lying, that she knows nothing of my son, but the urgency that brought me here has all drained away, and I feel nothing but a great, weary disappointment.

‘Farewell,’ she whispers in my ear, and then she slips out of the room.

I watch from her door to make sure there is no one around. I jump at the sound of a voice, but it isn’t the booming sound of Menelaus; it is a soft and girlish tone.

‘Mother,’ she says, and I see a young woman step out and catch Helen’s arm at the end of the corridor.

‘Hermione, have you come to find me?’ I watch as she slips her arm through her daughter’s, pulling her close as they walk on together, their chatter dying away as they disappear.

Hermione, the daughter that Helen left behind. Still here in Sparta, waiting for her mother all those years since Helen walked away from her. Fury blooms inside me, though I know rage will do me no good. Why rail against my sister’s good fortune? It will not bring any of my children home to me.