Electra (34 page)

'These are men, and my concern is with justice.

'Urged on by Apollo, by his much-abused sister, Electra, and, yes, by his own sense of horror at her deeds, Orestes murdered his mother.'

The Furies surged forward, and only the golden spear kept them at bay.

'I say that he has been punished, and should be freed. The Erinyes belong to an earlier time, before my Lord Zeus ruled mortals and imposed the law.'

Zeus smiled at his daughter.

'Well, Athene Parthenos, you have made a case for the removal of the Furies, and the acquittal of Orestes. But the Erinyes are here. What would you have me do with them?'

'Lord Zeus, this argument strikes at the roots of all propriety,' protested Hecate.

'Lord Zeus,' hissed Tisiphone, 'if we have no justice here and are prevented from punishing this evildoer-'

'We shall loose our venom on the earth,' said Megaera.

'Demeter's mourning for her daughter, Persephone, will be nothing to the winter we shall bring,' said Alecko.

'Pestilence and ruin,' hissed Megaera.

'Waste and disease. Nothing shall grow again,' spat Tisiphone.

'Your little mortals will wither, starve, die,' Alecko screamed.

'Not a blade of grass shall penetrate the barren ground.'

'They will eat their goats, then their seed grain, then their children. They will curse all the Gods. Law or no law.'

'And the race of men shall vanish from the earth. Their pitiful little palaces will crumble and fall.'

'And the unjust Gods will have no men to play their games,' concluded Alecko.

'They call you Erinyes,' said Athene, thinking deeply. She strode a pace forward, putting Orestes behind her. 'I would have you change your names.'

'Keep back, daughter of Zeus. Your brightness offends our darkness,' they muttered.

'You see that the law has other enforcers. My Lord Zeus makes the laws, and he sees that they are kept. You are hated, women of darkness. Would you not rather be loved?'

The air crackled with dark lightnings as the Furies laughed.

'You are aspects of Demeter, Mother of All. Your nature can be changed. Instead of hunting frail mortals across the Earth, would you not rather be hearth-guardians, women of the home and the harvest? Would you not rather follow the Thesmorphoria, preside over the hay-carts lurching home across the rich furrows? Would you rather inhabit the peaks and the barren salt flats, or the warm meadows where lambs bleat in autumn; smell not despair and fear-sweat, but the scent of baking bread and drying hay?

'Your altars would be well tended, harvest-mothers; fertile, not sterile, warm, not cold. Men would sacrifice to you as the guardians of the home, gentle in repose, but as dangerous when attacked as a mother wolf in defense of her cubs. I offer you rest and a new task, Erinyes. They will call you the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones, and they will still fear you, as men fear desperately to lose what men desire. A home, children, peace.'

The Erinyes wavered, sliding forward to attack, then retreating, confused.

Hecate smiled grimly. 'You offer to bribe my hounds with a bowl of broth and a nice comfortable collar and chain?'

'Blood,' the Furies howled.

'You shall have blood,' said Athene Grey-Eyed. 'If you try to poison the earth, envenomed hags, then I and my sister Artemis will hunt you, I and my brother Apollo will burn you. Down we will drive you, hags, down and deeper down, until Hades' kingdom is above your heads. To the deepest pit, monsters, will you go and there I will seal you until the end of time. Never to fly again, on winged or wingless flight. All the blood which is spilled on earth, every drop, will drain into that pool, and there you will glut your cavernous appetites until you die, drowned in murder.'

There was silence. Orestes dared to peer out from behind the Goddess, to see the Erinyes who had tormented him so long look at each other and at the Black Mother, uncertain.

'You have punished me,' he said to them. 'I suffered and learned. I will never kill thoughtlessly again; never take a life except in defence. You want my blood. Take it.'

With his bronze knife, he stabbed his left palm, holding out his hand until it filled with blood. Into this the Erinyes, approaching warily, dipped their snakes' tongues, sipping with relish as though they were tasting honeyed wine.

'Release me,' he said gently. 'Be satisfied with my pain.'

There was a pause. The divine sun of Olympus poured down gold on the weary face and the scarred shoulders of the matricide.

'I release you,' said Tisiphone.

'I release you,' said Megaera.

'I do not release you,' said Alecko.

Athene raised the spear to strike, but Hecate fended her off with her staff.

'You, speak,' she said roughly. 'The others have forgiven him, what of you? Will you be destroyed?'

'I do not believe him,' said Alecko. 'Not wholly. My sisters will change their nature, guard the hearths and homes of men.

'But this Orestes I will follow - only him, perhaps - and I will do no harm to the earth which is our Mother's breast. When he is dead - and I will not hound him to it, Mistress, I swear - then I, too, will leave hatred and revenge and lie down with my sisters. I will not let him forget, but I will not poison his life.'

'Just,' said Zeus the Father, striking the marble floor with his golden staff. 'Harmony is achieved. Orestes, do you accept the verdict?'

'Lord,' said Orestes. 'I accept. Zeus Father, Lord of Lightnings, I ask a favour.'

'Speak,' said Zeus, a little amused.

'I would establish the worship of the grey-eyed one, Athene, Mistress of Justice, in Mycenae when I come there.'

'Granted.'

'And, Lord Father, another word?' Orestes said with great daring.

'Mortal?'

'The Lord Apollo made a promise to Cassandra, daughter of Priam, that he would tell her her heart's desire if she brought me alive to be judged. She has been valiant, Lord, and faithful. I would have died without her. I would not have that promise forgotten.'

'I will tell not her but another,' said Apollo, not pleased at being reminded; but under his father's eye, 'This I promised.'

A bell sounded. As Orestes was carried away in the arms of a silver man with winged heels, he saw two of the Furies melting and changing. The dog's teeth retreated into their jaws, the snakes changed into hair, the black rags were transformed into flowery garments, spotted with gold and purple. But the eyes were the same; ancient, alert, holding the promise of retribution.

The Erinyes were Eumenides, but were still not to be offended.

It was almost dark when I sighted a blur of flesh in the dusk and saw a naked man come walking along the path. He was straight and tall, and I thought he was a God, until he came closer and I saw the bruised body, the curly dark hair.

'Orestes!' cried Electra, and ran towards him. He embraced her and she led him into our camp, where Pylades wrapped him in a cloak and sat him down beside the fire.

'Orestes, how fared you?' he asked anxiously, though we could all see the difference. The once-bowed head was held aloft, the distracted eyes were clear of doubt, and his only wound appeared to be a deep puncture in the palm of his hand and two blistered fingers.

Chryse anointed and bound the injuries and Orestes did not even seem to feel the bite of the stonecrop ointment (which he will insist on using on broken skin). We heated some soup and he drank it, still glowing with that unearthly radiance, still scented with the honey and woodbine of the Gods.

'Orestes, what happened?' Eumides asked, unable to be patient any longer.

All the boy said was, 'I have been acquitted and set free. And Apollo will keep his promise to you, Cassandra.'

Then he fell asleep where he sat, and we heard no more from Orestes that night, though we lay all huddled together because of the cold.

Orestes, the next morning, was dazed, bruised, and freed by the Gods.

After breakfast - we were getting tired of peasant pottage - we realised that our next destination lay along the same road.

Epirus was ruled by Neoptelemus, son of Achilles, who had married Orestes' betrothed, Hermione, and who held Andromache and my twin, Elene, as slaves. We journeyed together to free them.

The journey to Dodona was difficult. The misery of Eleni was eating at my courage, and I found it hard to sleep. The clans of wild men in the hills avoided us, and we did not molest them. But we passed through their muddy villages sometimes, once interrupting a drive of sacred swine, once staying to celebrate a wedding. The bride, we found, was required to lie with every man in the village - there were ten of them - and she was young and frightened. In order to avoid joining in this mass rape, Chryse explained that he was dedicated to a different God, Pylades feigned illness, and even Eumides, a little green, swore devotion to a virgin deity and said no word about lustful hill-women for three days after. The customs of the Epirotes are barbarous.

We met Selli, priests of Dodona, occasionally, and once one of the Nomads, the original inhabitants. A man in a white loincloth walked unhurriedly to our fire one night, sat down as if he had been expected, and held out a wooden cup for wine.

Eumides filled the cup. We stared at the visitor. He smiled sweetly, showing stubs of teeth. He was shaven, no hair or beard or even eyebrows. His hands, wrists and mouth were stained purple, not, as we found later, with wine, but with cherry-juice. He sat smiling gummily, either unable to speak or bound by some oath to be mute, and we slept uneasily around the fire in his company.

The next day he accepted some bread, which he spread with a strong smelling fruit paste. When he had eaten, he broke an oak-twig, peeled off the bark, and proceeded to deliver what might have been a prophecy, except that even Chryse, who has the best ear for language, could only pick out one word in ten. As he spoke he twisted the bark around his stained fingers.

'He says something, I think, about blue and green, the name Molossos, an autumn child, and two golden twins,' Chryse translated.

Without a farewell, the Nomad washed his wooden cup in the stream, smiled at us again, and walked away, straight into the pathless hills.

We had other visitors, less pleasant.

One night, near Trikka, we heard Racer barking and a neighing plunge from Nefos, always a touchy horse. When we made a light, we found a horse thief with a hoof mark on his chest trying to strangle Racer, who was making a spirited attempt to tear out his arm by the roots.

We called off the bitch and allowed the thief to leave, which he did in some haste. The next man who tried to steal the horses heard the combined snap of canine and equine teeth and decided against it, leaving a rather good tether behind him, as well as a few rags which Racer had torn out of his tunic.

Trikka, when we came to it, was a pleasant, well-built, well-planned place, with a temple of Asclepius with golden pillars. Chryse, who slept the night there, had some dream which he would not share, saying that it was merely his own mind attempting to frighten him. By the look of his pale face and the fervour with which he burrowed into our bed, his mind had scared him most efficiently.

Epirus was poor and dirty and primitive. Not exotic, like Libya, where men are black-skinned and live in grass palaces. The women were secluded, hungry and ill-treated, the men sullen, overworked and aged. The soil was occasionally rich but mostly poor and the rain did not improve the roads.

We stayed in one village, forsaken by all known Gods, for three nights as we all suffered through a violent flux, brought on, I was convinced, by bad meat. The villagers were not familiar with the use of herbs, and Chryse dragged himself out to pick what we needed. I compounded it as he collapsed, and we recovered as fast as we could. There was no incentive to stay in that mud hut with the lice.

On another comfortless night we woke to the frenzied baying of the hound and found ourselves surrounded by huge men - Cyclops, wandering masons and builders. We could not speak to them, for no one knows their language. They considered us with flat, animal eyes. They were heavily armed and they looked hungry.

I knew that my bow was out of reach. In any case, they might just pluck out the feathered dart and laugh. The moment poised on a knife's edge. Orestes gathered Racer and held her mouth in case she attacked them and was killed.

Then Chryse stood up very slowly, untying the thong around his neck. Moving cautiously, he held it up to the Cyclop. The massive hand took the pendant gently and it was passed from hand to hand around the circle.

Then they returned it without a word and vanished. For such bulk they moved as quietly as Egyptian cats.

'An old favour,' was all Chryse would say when we begged for an explanation. But we did not sleep well in Epirus.

We were all exhausted before we finally left the mountains and came down into the cleft which houses the Oracle.

Dodona is a polis, a city. Here the King of the Epirotes - as far as that loose collection of squabbling clans can be said to acknowledge a king - has his palace. It is stone-built for the most part, fairly well ordered and old - older than Corinth, the Epirotes say.

The Oracle is of Zeus, though they call him Naios Phregonaios, Zeus of the Oak Tree, and his consort is Naia, whom the Argives call Hera. A priest who, like all the Dodona Selli, made a religion of never washing holy soil from his feet, told us that a sacred dove flew from Olympus to Dodona and perched in an oak, speaking with the voice of men, and demanded that an Oracle be established there. The Thesproti, the sacred clan, became sacred by obeying the dove and building the first shrine, a crumbling clay building now enclosed in the new stone temple. Their Zeus lives in the ground, which made me wonder if they were actually talking about the same God who rules the Argive skies and strikes mortals with thunderbolts.

However, religions are religions and there is no reasoning with them. If they wanted to worship a subterranean Zeus whose sacred animals are pigs, doves and the newborn, all of them attributes of the Great Mother, Gaia, in civilised places like Troy, then it was not for me to argue. We purchased a tripod, made an offering of doves, and asked the Sellos if there were words for us out of the earth.