The Songs of the Kings (15 page)

5.

By virtue of his father's rank, Macris was seated in the upper part of the hall, in the area above the libation stone. Clytemnestra occupied the King's place in his absence, with the honored guest Diomedes at her right hand. Macris did not sit with his father, however, but lower down, as became his youth and relative obscurity. He was content with the place; from here he could observe and listen without anything much being required from him. Observing and listening were what he had vowed himself to, once the first shock of the news had passed. It was as near to action as he could come; and action, a refusal to languish or turn in on himself, was always his way of dealing with distress, had been so from his earliest years. Violent physical action, preferably; many were the setbacks and disappointments he had outrun, outwrestled, exhausted through the exhausting of his body.

This was not possible now. He did not want to combat his feelings because Iphigeneia was at the heart of them. But he could cultivate hostility for others, which was still better than lamenting and mooning about. Much better. Achilles first, the absent threat. The heart could not but falter at such a rival, so celebrated for his beauty and fleetness of foot and prowess in battle. Only a few years older than himself and so many killings and lootings to his credit.

Of course, a good part of this must be exaggeration; a lot depended on who had the ear of the Singer. This invulnerability business, for example—it was obviously something put about to scare people. Achilles had a heart and a belly and a gizzard, just like anyone else. I would be ready to put it to the test, he thought. At the drop of a hat. Then there was this matter of divine birth. Easy to say you had a sea goddess for a mother, but what about the proof? His own mother was Leucippa of Dendra. Anyone wanting to check up on him could go to Dendra and find her there, looking after the estates while her husband did his turn of service here. She would vouch for his birth, and woe betide any who doubted it. But how could anyone go looking for Thetis in her palace under the sea? What kind of an address was that?

He glanced across at Clytemnestra, who had calculated her effects well this evening, and looked spectacularly funereal among the festively dressed people round her, white-faced and raven-haired, with shadowed eyelids, in a black gown, the bodice tight and open down the front to show the dark borders of her nipples and the splendid depth of her cleavage. Pleasure at the news had warmed her face and softened the usual bitterness and hunger of her mouth. She had made the speech of welcome to the guests and poured the first libation, bearing the bowl herself to the altar. Seated on her left, across from Diomedes, was the mysterious Aegisthus, son of Thyestes and cousin to Agamemnon. His fair beard and florid complexion were in sharp contrast with the white-faced queen. He had arrived at the court almost as soon as the King had left it, and stories about him were rife. He was said to be the product of an incestuous union between his father and his half-sister Pelopia, to have been abandoned as a child and suckled by a goat. There were those who said, when they were sure of their company, that he was the killer of Atreus, Agamemnon's father, whose body had been found in a lonely place on the seashore, bearing many stab wounds upon it. But there were no stories, not yet at any rate, only insinuations, as to why, in Agamemnon's absence, he had received such a welcome at the Mycenaean court, why he lingered there, why the Queen kept him so constantly by her side.

Macris was glad for the wine, but he had small appetite for the soup of lentils flavored with cumin that was placed before him, still less for the quail's eggs and roast hare that followed. Nonetheless, he attacked the courses as they came with every appearance of gusto, in accordance with his principle of positive action. He saw Iphigeneia rise to take wine to the guest of honor. She was flushed and serious, conscious of being looked at as one about to change her state. Macris watched the tension of care in her movements as she poured out the wine, saw how intent she was on her duties, saw—with an insight unusual in him, born of his wretchedness—that she suffered, must always have suffered, at the fear of not getting things right, not being as she should. He had thought of her often, her face, her form, what it would be like to have her naked beneath him, the status and dignity it would confer on him to have her as his wife, how fertile she would be, whether she would bear sons. But it had not, until now that he was going to lose her, occurred to him to wonder what she might feel or think about things. He thought, She is one for whom nothing will ever be quite good enough, nothing will ever come up to the mark. As she stood before Diomedes waiting for the customary compliments, he thought he had never seen her look so beautiful, in her short-sleeved blue-and-silver bodice and long pleated skirt. A tress of her hair had been carried across the crown of her head and secured by gold pins.

Diomedes finished his words and drank, and Iphigeneia moved away. Aegisthus leaned his face forward to speak, the torchlight glinting on his fair brows. The Queen's eyes were lowered, she showed no sign of listening. She had thanked Diomedes in her speech of welcome, declared herself and the kingdom of Mycenae honored by the choice of such an ambassador. Achilles had sent his closest friend to show the value he placed on her daughter and on the alliance with the House of Atreus.

Was it Diomedes who had told her of this close friendship? It sounded to Macris like one more exaggeration. Hardly likely, he thought, that the two would have met before coming together at Aulis. Achilles was lord of Phthia on the borders of Thessaly, whereas Diomedes was an Argive. There was no story that connected them, none that he knew of. It was true that friendship could take quick root among men about to embark on war; but it was Agamemnon that Diomedes was more likely to be close to, they were neighbors, they had clan ties, they were close associates and allies in the war.

It was time now for the third libation. Iphigeneia rose and stood at her place and a silence fell among the people. She raised her head and chanted the words honoring her absent father, Agamemnon. Her voice was not strong but it was clear and pleasing. Macris watched the movements of her throat and the pauses in her breathing and saw that she was moved. When she ended and bowed her head there was a rustle of approbation among the seated guests. Diomedes took the shallow, two-handled cup to the altar, bearing it with both hands. He prayed to Zeus the Guardian for blessing on the house, and poured the wine over the stone slab. There was silence while they waited for the prayer and the scent of the wine to reach the abode of the god, which was the time required for the offering to run along the grooves in the altar stone and down into the circular basin at the foot. Then, at a signal from Clytemnestra, the flute players began again and talk was resumed.

Macris's eye lighted on his father, Amphidamas, who was saying something to Phylakos seated near to him. The contrast between the two faces was striking, his father's good-humored, with something mobile and expressive in the play of the features, the other's harsh and cold, with eyes that seemed always to be aiming, calculating distances. There was no doubt which was the better face. Macris felt an affectionate pride in his father, but it came accompanied, as usual nowadays, by a certain caution. He had vowed not to be any more like his father than he was already and could not help; he would not emulate a career that had consisted entirely of obedience to the dictates of duty and fidelity, to the dues of military service, to the toilsome patrimony of steep hillsides and narrow valleys. He had a better face than Phylakos, certainly; but it seemed a small reward. His father was fond of saying that a man should give a good account of himself. But Macris had felt increasingly of late that he wanted to be in that much smaller group to whom the accounts were offered. Duty and fidelity were for apprentices. It was like the drill movements in swordplay: feint, thrust, side-step, disengage, once you know how to do it, you could use it or not, you could find your own rhythm, you passed into the zone of distinction. Macris liked this phrase and repeated it often to himself. His father did not know the zone existed, and this seemed to Macris like a mark of arrested development. One had to reach out, to go beyond . . .

This made him think again of Achilles, who must have entered the zone long ago. Where and when had he met Iphigeneia? In the time he himself had been at Mycenae Achilles had not been a visitor and Iphigeneia had not been away. If they had set eyes on each other before that, the princess must have been no more than a child. A sudden passion, after such a long interval, was always possible, but it seemed unlikely. It was more probably a political matter, a move to strengthen ties with the powerful kingdom of Mycenae. But in that case the proposal seemed oddly precipitate, lacking in ceremony, a hasty wedding far from home, on the eve of battle.

Then there was the delegation itself. Diomedes was a good choice as ambassador, he carried weight, he was a friend of her father's whom she might have seen at home sometimes. But who else was there? Half the escort were in the service of Diomedes and not from Mycenae at all; the rest were all members of the elite palace guard, personally chosen by Agamemnon and vowed to his service. Surely someone that really cared about the princess would have sent at least one or two people she knew well to accompany her, someone like Abas, who had been her singing master, or Penthes the gardener, who loved her and had pretended for years to comply with her instructions, generally wrong, for the cultivation of his vines and strawberries and walnut trees. Both men devoted to the family, who had volunteered for Troy when they might have stayed.

The princess would naturally want to take Sisipyla with her, and probably some other women. But where was the man she could completely trust, who would stay by her side? There was the long journey by land and sea, the unfamiliar atmosphere of a military camp. She would not even have the company of her mother—Clytemnestra had expressed her regret that the security of the kingdom would require her presence at Mycenae. The security of Aegisthus, more like it, he thought. Of course, once there she would be all right, her father would take care of her and supervise the preparations for the wedding.

He glanced again towards Iphigeneia, and in the moment that he did so Phylakos turned his head and the eyes of the two men met and locked into a stare, which for a moment neither was willing to break. There was dislike on both sides expressed in this, something which had been there before, but which the encounter at the gate had quickened. After some moments the older man looked away with a deliberate slowness, clearly contemptuous in intent. Something stirred in Macris, too vague to be called suspicion, a sense of incongruity, of elements that did not quite match up. By contrast, the words that formed now in his mind had a crystalline clarity and purity:
I will be that man.

An amazing sense of freedom came to him with this resolve. He would be the man of trust. He would protect the princess's person and her interests. My own too, he thought, rather belatedly remembering the zone of distinction. It will get me to Troy, for one thing. Agamemnon will be grateful for my care of her, and remember it. And much can happen on a journey, she will see my worth . . . With or without his father's permission he would go. It would be easier with permission, so he would try to obtain this, urging the princess's need for protection—an argument likely to appeal to his father. If it failed, he would wait for them somewhere on the road below. He would take some of his own people, in case he met with any trouble, men who had come with him to Mycenae and would follow him to Aulis at a word—or anywhere else for that matter.

6.

It was not until the evening of the next day, when the face of the early summer moon was already showing, that Sisipyla was able to talk alone with her mistress. The princess had stayed late at the banquet, obliged to wait on the pleasure of her mother, who was noted for late nights and late mornings, and she had been too tired to talk by the time she got back to her apartments. And almost from the moment of waking next morning, Sisipyla had been anxiously occupied in seeing to the practical arrangements for the sacrifice, which were largely her responsibility. The ceremony at the time of the full moon, in honor of Artemis, was the most important of those that Iphigeneia had to conduct.

Sisipyla had been running here and there, making sure that all was ready, that those escorting the procession had their garlands at hand, that the water bearers and the flute players knew their duties. The two girls who between them were to carry the incense burner had not done it before, and they had to be carefully instructed. Then there were the men who would lift up the goat at the altar; this had to be done in just the right way so that Iphigeneia could have free play with the knife. The throat had to be cut in one movement, and Sisipyla knew from experience that any botching in this department roused the princess's ire. So it was important that these men knew their business well; they would have to do the skinning and butchering afterwards and see to the roasting of the joints. The chosen animal she had prepared herself, gilding its horns and marking its face with henna and twining white ribbons in its coat. When, this done, she returned to the women's quarters by way of the south staircase, she found Iphigeneia waiting for her.

“What kept you so long?” the princess said. “I've been calling you, I've got some important news.”

Sisipyla excused herself, but briefly, not wanting to delay the news or add to the princess's evident impatience. Iphigeneia expected her to be there when she was called, and no amount of explanation could absolve her from the fault, self-evident and beyond appeal, of having been absent.

“I wanted to tell you that my mother has given permission for you to go with me.”

“That is wonderful news.” She was not really surprised, however; it was what she had expected. She glanced quickly at Iphigeneia's face, which had returned to calm now, the news delivered. A kind of calm at least; something of the exaltation of the night before, when she had come between the torchbearers with the news of the proposal, still remained. Sisipyla looked always for the light in the princess's face—her moods were expressed in light rather than changes of feature. Vexation dimmed her, happiness or pride was a radiance. It seemed the very quality of royalty to Sisipyla, this stillness of face—she was conscious of how quickly her own eyes glanced aside, how the corners of her mouth moved at any slightest thing. She thought, I was the first to be told, I will be the one closest to her of all who go there with her. “Then we will come back here, won't we?” she said, the words issuing, it seemed, before any intention had been formed to utter them.

“So I would suppose,” Iphigeneia said. “What else should we do? They will hardly want us to go to Troy with them.”

Sisipyla looked down, conscious that she had been in some way sloppy and unfocused again. From the moment she had heard of the proposal it had been her consolation that they would return, that Iphigeneia would not be taken from her. Achilles would go away to the war. People said the war would be over in no time once the army got there, but it might take much longer than anyone thought. And then, anything could happen in a war. Meanwhile she and Iphigeneia would return here and life would go on as before. In her gratitude for this, she had not much considered the feelings of Achilles, except to think it strange that a wind coming from the wrong direction should be the cause of his offer; he could not have intended it when he set out. Being forced to wait there, she thought vaguely, the desire of his heart had risen to the surface—she saw it as a silver fish in a dark pool, glimmering up to the light. And Iphigeneia had accepted, without a moment's hesitation, just one scoop . . .

“You have no doubts,” she dared to say now, in the tone of a question, and saw an immediate shadow come to Iphigeneia's face.

“Doubts? Apart from being famous and well connected and fantastic-looking, Achilles is one of the richest men in Greece. Did you know that? No, you didn't, I can tell. He is a copper magnate, he owns at least six copper mines in the region of Lamia. But that's not the main thing, not for me anyway. Through his mother he enjoys special protection and my family are in great need of that protection. There is a curse on us. You don't know the story of the House of Atreus, do you?”

“Well . . .”

The shadow on Iphigeneia's face deepened. “You can't possibly know it. No one outside the family knows it. No one is allowed to speak of it. It is not known to any Singer. I learned of it by accident, when I was very little, before the time I was due to be told.”

The quantity of things Iphigeneia herself didn't know still sometimes surprised Sisipyla. The story was common knowledge, a matter of gossip, not only among the servants of the palace, the sweepers and washerwomen, but even in the town below the walls, among those who came with eggs and honey and cheese to sell. “I would very much like to hear the story,” she said.

“Promise you won't tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

“The founder of the line was Tantalus and he had three children, Pelops, Niobe and Broteas. He got this idea of testing the omniscience of the gods. You don't know that word, do you? No, it's no use, I can tell from your face that you don't. It means knowing everything that there is to know. Tantalus invited the gods to a feast and he served them up with his own son Pelops.”

She paused a moment, looking sternly at Sisipyla. “All mashed up in a stew, you know, and heavily disguised with spices, so no one should know what they were eating. It was his idea of a joke. Well, he was obviously unhinged. Of course, the guests saw through this trick at once, all but Demeter, she absentmindedly ate a piece of one shoulder. They were all highly offended, in fact they were furious. Well, wouldn't you be? They condemned Tantalus to starve and thirst in Hades forever, with all sorts of delicious things just out of his reach. That is where he is now, at this moment, all chained up.”

Iphigeneia remained silent for some moments and Sisipyla saw that she was waiting for a question to spur the narrative forward. “That was the end of Pelops then?”

“No, they brought Pelops back to life.”

“That must have been a difficult job when he was all chopped up like that. What about the shoulder?” She had not heard about the shoulder before and it had appealed to her imagination. “How could they put his shoulder in place when it had been partly eaten?”

“I've really no idea,” Iphigeneia said impatiently. “You always seem to fasten on these unimportant details. Pelops went to another part of the country, Pisa, on the borders of Elis, and got married there to someone called Hippodameia. Her father didn't want anyone to marry her. I think he was, you know, keen on her himself. So Pelops had to kill him.”

“How did he do that?”

“He bribed the king's charioteer, whose name was Myrtilus, to take the wooden pins out of one of the chariot wheels and put wax ones there instead. He promised Myrtilus half the kingdom and a night in bed with Hippodameia. Then he got into some sort of chariot race with the king and the wheel fell off and the king was thrown out and got entangled in the reins and Pelops killed him and then galloped away with Hippodameia by his side.”

“What about Myrtilus?”

“Well, of course he lost no time in claiming his reward. But Pelops had no intention of keeping his promises now he had got what he wanted. He lured Myrtilus onto a boat and pushed him overboard somewhere near the harbor of Elis. Before he drowned this charioteer invoked a curse on the descendants of Pelops. This was the first curse that was put on our family, and it soon started to take effect. Pelops and Hippodameia had two sons, Atreus and Thyestes. Atreus was the rightful king of Mycenae but Thyestes tried to get the throne from him, so they quarreled, but then Atreus pretended that he wanted to make it up and he invited his brother to dinner.”

Iphigeneia widened her eyes and stared solemnly at Sisipyla. “Guess what happened then,” she said. “He did exactly the same thing, except that it was not his own children but his brother's three sons that he killed and served up to their father in a stew. It was history repeating itself.”

“Three sons,” Sisipyla said. “It must have been an enormous meal.”

“When he had finished, Atreus showed him the heads and hands of his children, you know, just to drive the point home. Thyestes laid a curse on Atreus and his descendants, then fled into exile, taking his remaining son Aegisthus with him. That was the second curse. It is the same Aegisthus who has turned up again now and is being entertained by my mother as a guest here. No one knows where his father is. Someone sent a messenger to Atreus to say Thyestes had been killed—the man had a bloodied sword to prove it. Atreus was delighted. He went off alone to make a thanksgiving sacrifice and he was found dead next day with stab wounds all over him. Nobody knows who did it. The messenger can't be found. Atreus had two sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus, my father and my uncle. That curse is still lying on them and all of us.”

Sisipyla nodded. There were voices that named Aegisthus himself as the killer of Atreus, but she said nothing of this. Lots of stories went around. There were even those who said that Thyestes had raped his own daughter, Pelopia, and that Aegisthus was the child of this rape. She saw from Iphigeneia's fixity of expression and the thinning of her mouth that the princess had been affected by the grim story in telling it. It was hard to think of words of comfort. “It's always the children who suffer, isn't it?” she said.

“That's one thing,” Iphigeneia said. “The other is tricks. Did you notice? These two things run through all the story. A chariot race, a boat trip, an invitation to dinner, a sword with blood on it. There's always a trick, and the trick always ends in a murder.”

Sisipyla felt a return of anxiety about the sacrifice due soon to take place. It was late, darkness was falling. Those with parts to play in the procession would be already assembling in the courtyard below the main staircase. She and Iphigeneia would have to start getting ready soon. “What was the accident?” she said.

“Accident?”

“You said you only learned the story by accident.”

“Oh yes, it was told me by a nurse when I was very little, before you came. She told me stories while she was bathing me and getting me ready for bed. All kinds of stories, but this was her favorite. Heaven knows how she found out about it. She had these huge eyes—or so they seemed to me then. She must have known she was frightening me. She made it seem like a secret, something just between the two of us; but I had nightmares, I used to wake up screaming, and so it all came out.”

“What happened to the nurse?”

“She was sent away. Or so I was told—I never saw her again. But I still remember those eyes of hers and her mouth moving.” She shook her head and her face relaxed a little from its former fixity of expression. “We are all the victims of stories in one way or another,” she said, “even if we are not in them, even if we are not born yet. I wasn't born then, but Thyestes cursed me too.”

“There might be curses we don't know about,” Sisipyla said. “Then things would happen, terrible things, and we wouldn't even know why.” As always, it was the unexpected that troubled her imagination most, the monster in the dark cave, waiting to pounce on the unwary traveler. If you knew about the curse, at least you could be on your guard. For some moments it had seemed to her that she shared the memory of the cruel nurse's face, but of course that was impossible. Just a memory of unkindness, she thought. Any face would do for that. She had not expected much from the story of the double curse, being already quite familiar with it; but then this new story of the nurse and the nightmares had sprung out from inside the old one. “Princess, we must prepare for the sacrifice,” she said. “They will be waiting below.”

“Yes, it is time.” Iphigeneia made no move for the moment, however, but remained standing where she was, in the middle of the room. “The same things happen over and over,” she said. “Did you notice? The story goes off in all directions, but it is always the same story. There is the trick and the shedding of blood and the outrage to Zeus the Guardian, protector of guests and hosts. Atreus is dead, but my father is alive, the curse is on him too. But I can save him.” Her voice had slowed and deepened a little and her eyes were shining. “By marrying Achilles, I can save my father, I can lift this curse from the whole family. Achilles is a great hero, there is no darkness on his name, he is under the special protection of his goddess mother, Thetis, and so of Zeus—it's no secret that Zeus has always had a soft spot for her. Even if Achilles is killed in the war and I am left a widow, it won't make that much difference, he can still use his influence from the Isles of the Blessed, he is certain to go there, being so well connected, you know, and they keep their bodily forms and all their faculties there, not like those poor shadows in Hades. I went to the shrine of Artemis this morning to make a votive offering and I just stood on my own there and I felt she was in favor and understood my reasons.”

Devotion can still include irony towards the subject, and it did not escape Sisipyla that her loved mistress talked as if she had had the luxury of a yes or no, whereas, given the wishes of her parents, it could only have been a choice between accepting gladly and accepting reluctantly. As they went together into the short passage that led to the vestibule where their ceremonial clothes were kept, Sisipyla wondered if wanting to do what you in any case had to do was a sort of choice. No one would ever wonder about her in that way; no one would ever care whether she did things willingly or not, so long as nothing showed on her face. How marvelous and strange to be part of a family, even one with a curse on it, to have a father to save, to feel directed by the gods.