Clytemnestra, p.36
Clytemnestra, page 36
“Sometimes, yes. But Aegisthus will start to love you, because you are strong and beautiful, and then he will always want to be by your side.”
He already does.
“You are saying that I will never get rid of him because he loves me?”
Aileen smooths back her own hair. It is tied in a long plait, but some rebellious strands fall down on her cheeks. She nods hesitantly. Clytemnestra thinks it through while Aileen rests her head back to enjoy the cold sun on her pale skin. Sometimes she glances at her queen, and Clytemnestra can’t help but notice how her eyes are like the sky above them and her hair rich like the earth under their feet.
***
At dinner, she calls for Orestes. The long table is empty—she has ordered everyone to stay away.
“What is it, Mother?” Orestes says. “Did news come from Troy?” He is studying her face, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth.
“I have slept with Aegisthus,” she says. Sooner or later, he would know anyway. Better from her than from someone else. She watches the blow fall as he puts down the cloth and fills his cup to the brim.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because people will talk soon, and you must not believe them.”
“Why did you do it?”
“To control him better,” she lies.
He pours some wine for her too. “Whatever you do, Mother, I trust you. I never listen to idle gossip.”
“This time you must. I want you to listen to what everyone says in the palace—servants, soldiers, children, elders. If you hear anyone speak treason, you tell me.”
Someone will betray her for this, she knows it. And she will have to handle it. She thinks of Leon’s hurt, disappointed face when he finds out. You are the queen. He has no say in deciding whom you sleep with. You owe him nothing.
Orestes sits back and his voice breaks through her thoughts. “The elders won’t like it.”
“They don’t like me already, so I doubt this will change anything.”
“They will have a reason to plot against you now.”
She smiles, takes his hand in hers. “Which will finally give me a reason to get rid of them.”
***
When she goes back to her room, Aegisthus is standing by the window, sharpening his dagger against a piece of stone. She kisses his neck from behind, but he stiffens, his muscles pulled taut.
“That servant of yours,” he says, “the one with red hair.”
“What about her?”
“I think I recognize her. She was here when my father was king, wasn’t she?”
Clytemnestra watches as he feels the tip of the dagger with his fingers. “She was.”
“I saved her,” he rasps.
“She is grateful for what you did.”
“I have shown my weakness. When others come to know about it, they will destroy me.”
“Aileen is faithful to me and won’t speak of the past if I order her not to.”
He looks around, the dagger tight in his hand. His body is always tense, his face always shifting. She takes the blade, puts it aside.
“The gods crush those who show their weakness,” he says. “Atreus said that when I was young. Love breeds weakness.”
“You’re not weak,” she says. Her words are butterfly’s wings, folding and unfolding in the semidarkness.
He yanks away from her and sits on the bed. Clytemnestra waits for him to come back to her, for the anger to fade. After a long moment, she moves toward him.
“Do you hear me? You are not weak,” she repeats.
The frost in his eyes slowly melts, like ice in spring. He leans forward. She can almost feel his lips on hers when someone knocks at the door. She startles. It is getting dark outside. Something bad must have happened if her men disturb her.
When she opens, Leon is on the other side. He looks at her, then at Aegisthus sitting on the bed. She is aware of her bare arms and loose hair.
“They told me, but I didn’t believe it,” Leon says quietly.
She stares at him as he grows pale, breathless. She hasn’t seen him so agitated in a long time.
“I warned you that he is dangerous,” he says, speaking of Aegisthus as if he weren’t a few feet from them.
“You did. And I thank you for your counsel.”
“You let him in here!” he shouts. “You disgrace yourself.”
“You will not speak to me like that,” she says. “Or I will doubt your loyalty.”
He tightens his fists. “My loyalty… This man murdered his uncle so he could rule Mycenae,” he spits out. “You believe he won’t do the same to you?”
Aegisthus stands but Clytemnestra stops him. “Leave,” she tells Leon.
“How can you trust him?”
“I said leave. I will see you in the megaron in the morning.”
“You are wrong about this. I just hope you will see it before it’s too late.”
His tall figure disappears in the dim light of the corridor, though his steps echo for a long time.
She closes the door behind her, controlling her movements as one does with the strings of a puppet. She lies down on the bed before Aegisthus can speak to her and pretends to sleep.
***
The news flows as fast as spring rivers. If no one dared speak of it before, now that the queen’s closest adviser has complained, everyone in the palace gathers to comment on the affair. A traitor and a queen. A cursed man and a “single-minded” woman. What will the king say when he comes back from the war? Will he burn Aegisthus alive, just like he did his father? And if he doesn’t come back at all? Will Clytemnestra marry Aegisthus? Will Aegisthus have her murdered and take the throne for himself?
The palace whispers, and the whispers reach the elders, flying like little birds. Clytemnestra calls for a gathering in the megaron before the elders can call for one without her.
She is sitting in her room, Aileen polishing the gold circlet in her hair, when Orestes comes in. “I have news, Mother,” he says, as she hoped he would.
She stands and Aileen wraps a boar skin around her shoulders. Orestes wipes his forehead; his curls fall messily at the sides.
“The servant heard Polydamas speak to another elder in an alley close to the artists’ quarter. They were spreading the news that you are unfit to rule. They want to make you surrender the throne.”
“To whom?”
He stares at her. “To me.”
She steps closer to him, cups her hand around his face. “Polydamas and who else?” she asks.
“Lycomedes.” She is not surprised. Lycomedes is usually silent, but whenever he speaks, he opposes her. He rarely even looks her in the eye.
“Where is this servant now?”
“In my room.”
“Good. Let him stay there.”
“Should I guard him myself?”
“Let some of your men do it. You are coming to the megaron with me.”
When they enter the high-roofed hall, the elders are already inside, whispering in groups. At the sight of her, they fall quiet and make space. Polydamas stays apart from the others, brooding. Cadmus stands closer to the throne, wringing his hands nervously. It makes her think of an ant moving its front legs.
She climbs onto the throne and lets Orestes sit on the high chair next to it. Aegisthus wanted to take the place beside her, but she has forbidden it. No one will respect her if she lets a man sit there—they will look at him for a decision. And it is obvious what the elders will think of Aegisthus’s decisions. With Orestes, though, she can show them that she is still queen. If the elders see that her son, strong and charming, always looks for her judgment and respects her decisions, then who are they to refuse to do the same?
Next to the throne, Leon stands as still as stone, his hand on his sword. He will watch and see what happens to those who betray her.
“I have called you here to discuss my affair with Aegisthus before you can gather and discuss it among yourselves, behind my back,” she says calmly.
Some elders look down, awkward. Others straight at her.
“You told us you had a plan,” Cadmus starts. “That you would take care of Aegisthus yourself.”
“What did you think that was?” she asks. “That I would poison him at dinner?”
“Not this. We didn’t expect this,” Lycomedes intervenes. He is hunched, pale and fearful, and his lips are cracked, like baked earth.
“Agamemnon, your king, is in Troy,” she says.
They nod with reverence, as always when her husband is mentioned.
“I imagine he is fighting like a true hero, taking enemies down one by one during the day.”
“Of course,” Lycomedes says. She wishes he would do something about his lips: the sight is annoying her.
“And during the night,” she continues, “fucking his little war prizes.”
Lycomedes looks down and so do a few others. Polydamas, of course, keeps his chin up, his face impenetrable.
“Among all the news we discuss from Troy, we never speak of this. Though if I have heard of it, I am sure you have too. How did the plague begin? Because your king took a virgin priestess to his bed and refused to give her back to her father. And when he finally relented, he took another, the slave of the hero Achilles, causing him to abandon the army and lose battle after battle.
“Agamemnon sleeps with young girls with no regard to the consequences that his choices have on his army and his war. Still, you bear him no ill will. You don’t even speak of it.” She smiles at them. “I, on the other hand, take one man to my bed for reasons you don’t know and shouldn’t care to know, and we have to gather here to talk about how wrong my choice is.”
“Aegisthus is the enemy,” Cadmus says.
“So are the slave girls. Aren’t they Trojan?”
Lycomedes’s pale face breaks into red blotches. This must be his angry look. “Warriors take prizes when they win battles. It is their privilege to do so. Your choice of bringing the traitor Aegisthus to your room has consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?”
He looks to her right, at Orestes. With a low but clear voice, he says, “Why should we follow you, a woman who sleeps with the enemy, when your son is of age to command us until your husband returns?”
“I trust my mother’s choices,” Orestes says. “And you should trust your queen.”
A few men nod. No one replies. She looks at Leon’s profile, rigid and quiet in the bright light. Then she turns to her right, where Polydamas is standing in the shadow by the frescoes of the running lions.
“Polydamas, you are quiet,” she says. “Do you agree with Lycomedes?”
“If a man sleeps with a queen,” he says in his screeching voice, “he will soon expect to be king. This is how alliances are formed and power is acquired. With marriages.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I do not need power. I already have it.”
“Aegisthus will claim the throne,” he says, coming out of the shadows. “Lycomedes speaks true. Your choices do not make you the right ruler.”
She stands and walks down the steps of the throne, fixing the boar skin around her shoulders. On her left, Lycomedes darts his tongue across his lips. “I wonder,” she says, “what a right ruler would do with traitors?”
“Imprison them,” Lycomedes says. “Kill them.”
She smiles. “I am glad we agree on this.”
Lycomedes opens his mouth, then closes it stupidly. But Polydamas can smell mischief.
“It depends on the type of treason,” he says. “Some are for the good of the kingdom. Others are not.”
You have an answer for everything, don’t you? He told her she was like the plague, but he is infecting everyone around him with conspiracy.
“I would love to discuss types of treason with you, Polydamas,” she says. He raises his eyebrow, just slightly. She looks him straight in the eye and adds, “But unfortunately, a crowd is gathering by the Lion Gate to watch your execution.”
Lycomedes makes a sound like choking. The other elders shift. The movement is like wind among leaves, barely audible.
“I do not understand,” Polydamas says calmly.
“You conspired against the throne. You and Lycomedes spread whispers that your queen wasn’t fit to rule Mycenae. A fit ruler, as you say, doesn’t let treason go unpunished.”
Lycomedes drops to his knees. “We didn’t conspire, my queen.” He gulps the last two words. She looks away from his cracked lips.
Polydamas holds his ground. “I follow the orders of the king, not yours.”
“That is unfortunate, because the guards do. And even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because I will kill you myself.”
Lycomedes starts sobbing. It is a pitiful sight. Cadmus reaches out and clasps his hunched shoulder, forcing him upward.
“You don’t have to do this,” Polydamas says. His voice scratches the air, like nails against stone. She wishes he would beg for mercy, not Lycomedes. But that isn’t Polydamas’s way.
“My father always said that a ruler has to effect the punishment himself, or his people won’t respect him.”
“Your father was a wise man, I am sure,” he says. “He would have listened to his elders, not killed them.”
She scoffs. “You didn’t know Tyndareus. He never listened to the elders. I have listened to you, to your insults and treachery, for nine years. I am tired of listening now.”
***
She has them dragged to the Lion Gate under the cold sun. People are gathered in the streets, watching and whispering, mothers’ hands on their children’s shoulders, men’s eyes on Polydamas and Lycomedes, like a herd looking at its weakest members. She sees an old woman with a chicken under her arm, two boys pushing through the crowd to get a better view. Dogs bark, men yell, women sigh.
Outside the Lion Gate, her guards make space, pushing the two prisoners to the middle of the path. People are also coming from the villages at the foot of the mountain, baskets and rags in hand, their heads cocked with curiosity.
Clytemnestra stands in front of Polydamas and Lycomedes, Leon on her right, Orestes on her left. Dust from the alleys has clung to Lycomedes’s tunic and he brushes it away. She thinks of Iphigenia, who couldn’t brush sand from her dress before she was murdered. She clears her throat and turns to the people around her.
“These men stand accused of treason and conspiracy.” The crowd is quiet, and a hundred eyes watch her, as big as eggs.
“They walked around the citadel to spread the word that their queen wasn’t the rightful ruler of this city. They called me a plague upon Mycenae and conspired to make my son king while my husband fights in Troy.”
Lycomedes is mumbling, his pale forehead sweating despite the cold. The wind cuts across their cheeks like ice. Polydamas stares at her, his tunic rich and clean. His wife and daughters must be somewhere in the crowd. Still, no one pleads for him.
“I believe mercy can be shown to those who repent, but these men had many chances to do so and never took them. Their disrespect shan’t go unpunished.”
Polydamas’s face is like stone. She can hear the silence around her and Orestes’s breathing next to her as if it were her own. She is glad Electra and Chrysothemis aren’t here. Her hand goes to her mother’s jeweled dagger as she turns to the elders.
“Your treacherous words have caused your own death.”
Lycomedes’s knees tremble and he bends forward, praying to the gods. See how the gods listen. See how they care about us.
Polydamas looks at him, then back at her coldly. He spits on the dusty ground, a small wet smack at her feet. His voice as loud as thunder, he says, “You are no queen of mine.”
Her dagger flies, and with one single movement, she cuts their soft throats.
31
Landslide
Every choice one makes has consequences, like a rock that falls from the top of the mountain.
Perhaps as it rolls down, it will take only a few trees in its path.
Maybe it will cause other stones to fall and turn into a landslide.
Right now, standing by her chair in the high-roofed dining hall, Clytemnestra watches the stone she has thrown. Leon is pacing the room, madness and disbelief spreading in his eyes. He didn’t move as Polydamas and Lycomedes choked and wriggled on the dusty path, but she could see the fire on his face, consuming him from the inside. “You would kill your advisers so,” he says.
“They were not loyal advisers. They were traitors.” Their blood is still on her hands, and she tries to wipe it away with a cloth.
“Then you would do the same to me if I opposed you?”
“You haven’t opposed me so far.”
His face twists. He grabs a ewer, and for a moment, she thinks he will fling it aside. But he puts it down, controlling himself, his hand shaking.
“You did this for Aegisthus? You plotted with a traitor?”
“I plotted nothing with him.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me of your decision? I am your guard and protector!”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you anymore,” she says simply. “You showed me no respect when you came to my room and insulted my relationship with Aegisthus.”
“Your relationship with Aegisthus,” he repeats bitterly.
She wishes she could sit and eat something. But Leon walks closer to her, his face looking as ugly as she has ever seen it. He has always been incapable of hiding his feelings: everything is written upon him and easily read.
“Aegisthus wasn’t there when your daughter was murdered. He wasn’t there to bring you back to Mycenae from the camp. He wasn’t there when the soldiers in Aulis wanted to beat you.” He is breathless, spitting each word. “I was there. I was beaten again and again to prevent them from touching you. I was there on the road back when you wanted to take your life and again in the palace when you wouldn’t rule. Did you use me for pleasure? Am I nothing more than a tool thrown aside now that you have another?”
