A Thousand Ships(75)

She stood up, and waved her hands at her slave women. ‘Lay the tapestries down,’ she said. ‘My husband will enter his home on a stream of red, the blood of the barbarians he has crushed.’

The women surged forward, laying the glistening red tapestries on the ground.

‘What are you doing, woman?’ Agamemnon looked around him, to see if his men were shocked by this fawning display. Their faces remained still and it made him pause. Was it not such a peculiar thing his wife was doing? ‘Only gods would walk on such brocade,’ he hissed. ‘Men must walk on the sandy earth.’

‘You would walk on them if a god ordered it,’ she said. A silent shudder seemed to pass over them all, as though Poseidon had tapped his trident on the ground, feather-light.

Agamemnon looked at his wife’s impassive face to see if she intended the meaning he had just heard. He had sacrificed their daughter because Artemis ordered it. No one would ever be able to call him impious: he obeyed the gods even when they demanded terrible things of him. Even when they demanded his eldest child, he did not hesitate to do as the priests instructed. It was Zeus’ will that Troy should fall, everyone knew it. And if the price was his daughter, then his only choice was to sacrifice her himself, or let someone else do it. He had done the courageous thing, but he found himself wondering if his wife realized that. Perhaps she would have preferred it if some other Argive had taken his knife to the girl.

‘I would do anything the gods ordered,’ he said. ‘As would all wise men.’

‘If the message was given to you by a priest?’ she asked.

Again, he searched her face, looking for the signs of contempt around her mouth. But her eyes were fixed modestly on the ground, and he could see no trace of her feelings.

‘Yes,’ he answered. The priest, Calchas, had delivered the message that his daughter must be sacrificed. Agamemnon had raged at him, threatened to cut him down or at least lock him up, but Menelaus had reasoned with his brother, explained that someone must take the girl’s life. He even offered to do it himself – Agamemnon still thought well of his brother for this kindness – but in the end, it had not been necessary.

‘And what do you think Priam would have done in your position?’ she asked.

Priam had never been in his position. The old man had lost his war, lost his city and lost his life. Dragged screaming from an altar, someone had told Agamemnon. Pitiful old creature. After all those years of war, Agamemnon thought the Trojan king would have had the courage to die like a warrior instead of crawling on the ground like an insect.

‘He would have marched upon the purple weave, likening himself to the gods,’ he replied.

‘So he did not fear the comparison with a god, in the way that you do?’ she asked.

‘He was an arrogant man.’

‘Kings are often arrogant men,’ Clytemnestra said. ‘It is what reminds the rest of us that they are kings. Walk on the tapestries, now we have laid them out for you so carefully. Reward us for our gratitude that you have returned. Do as we beg of you, so we know that you are gracious in victory, as you have never had to be in defeat.’

Agamemnon sighed and looked down at his feet. He gestured at the slave women who had placed their beautiful crimson burdens on the ground. ‘Not in these old boots, at any rate,’ he said. ‘One of you help me to take them off. If I am to walk on the blood of my enemies, I shall do it with my feet bare, in honour of the gods.’

The women looked over to their queen, who nodded. They rushed to the feet of their king, and unlaced his old leather boots. It was impossible to say what colour they had once been: red, brown, tan? The mud of the Trojan peninsula had soaked into them, and the sand of the Trojan shore had worn them away.

A moment later, the king stood in front of his ancestral palace, in front of his men, in front of his wife. His nut-brown legs ended with strangely pale feet, like creatures that had lived only in the dark. The king looked down and laughed at the incongruity. ‘There was never a good time to take boots off in Troy,’ he said, looking around at his men for agreement. They were beginning to disperse, peeling off from the edges of the group to rejoin their own families. Agamemnon gave a small nod, convincing himself that he was granting them permission to leave.

Clytemnestra opened her arms and gestured at the carpet. ‘Walk, king,’ she said. ‘Walk on the blood of your enemies, trample them into the ground. Walk on the wealth you have won for your house. Walk on the tides of blood which sailed with you back from Troy. Walk.’

And Agamemnon crossed the crimson ground and disappeared into the palace.

*

‘You too,’ Clytemnestra said to the priestess. ‘Come inside.’ The girl did not respond. The queen turned to one of her maidservants. ‘What did he say she was called?’

‘He didn’t say.’

Clytemnestra clicked her tongue against her teeth. ‘Not the king. The messenger who told us the king was on his way.’

The maidservant thought for a moment, but could not find an answer.

‘Go ahead,’ Clytemnestra said. ‘Heat the water for the king’s bath.’

‘Yes, madam.’ The girl ran into the palace.

‘The rest of you, take these inside and place them back where they belong,’ Clytemnestra said. ‘Don’t forget to brush off the dust.’