The Warrior, page 10
part #3 of Orestes Series
I stared at the liquid in the cup. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve never watched what happens to the men after they drink the wine she serves them?” Leaning closer, Aethiolas dropped his voice. “Mother’s like that sorceress in Odysseus’s story—what’s her name, Circe? She has an Egyptian narcotic powder that she sprinkles into their drink. It numbs them so deeply that they forget all their cares.”
His description struck a chord in me. I knew such a drug, one so potent that it wiped away one’s memories, and one’s mortal capacity to experience emotion. “Is it called nepenthe?” Aethiolas nodded. “Then I know what it does. She sent it to me at Delphi.”
Aethiolas drew in a sharp breath. “It’s terrible stuff.”
“Has she used it with you?”
He nodded again. “It was right after she and Father returned. I didn’t want her gifts. I’m a man of simple tastes, but she loaded me with lavish trinkets and garments, and made it plain that she recalled nothing about me, who was her own son. So she began to drug my wine, to make me numb, and ease my bitterness toward her. I take neither food nor drink from her now.”
I frowned. “What about Hermione?”
“Mother deals differently with her,” Aethiolas replied. “Be careful. Helen weaves webs and deals in strange herbs. She’s not to be trusted.”
Returning to the palace before nightfall, we found the palace women abuzz with excitement. Menelaus caught a passing maidservant by the arm, and demanded an explanation.
“Why, my lord king,” she exclaimed, “the princess is with child!”
But Chrysothemis’s pregnancy was old news. “What princess is this?” I interjected.
“Princess Hermione, my lord.”
Menelaus roared joyfully and released the woman; he dismissed me with a shooing gesture. “Go on, young man!”
I barreled through the palace. Ignoring my strained thigh muscles, and climbing the stairs two at a time, I dashed up the light well where the servants lighting the lamps. Reaching the second landing, the level of the royal apartments, I slowed my stride, straightened my clothing, which was still soiled from the hunt, and approached Hermione’s apartment.
Ladies of the court, idle maidservants, and the priestesses thronging the doorway and outer chamber twittered and stared at my sudden appearance, while forming a makeshift aisle to let me pass.
Hermione was in her bedchamber, dressed in a plain white gown, and seated at her dressing table; she looked pale and bewildered, even as Helen combed out her loose hair. I recognized the elderly high priestess who had conducted the wedding rites; she held in her hands a red-and-white-painted kourotrophos, a mother-child figurine that watched over pregnant women. I knew the talisman from the collection Elektra had amassed over the course of her five pregnancies. At least a dozen more kourotrophoi, wreathed in blue clouds of incense, occupied Hermione’s private altar.
Hermione flushed pink when she saw me. I did not wait for her to speak, but stepped forward and swept her into my embrace, kissing her firmly on the mouth. “Is it true?”
She flung her arms around my neck. “He will be born at midwinter.”
“King Orestes,” the old priestess said solemnly. “Mother Dia has blessed your queen with a sacred seed. This is the season for tilling the earth, for sowing the man-seed...”
Yes, yes. I had no need for the priestess’s praise-chanting. Men had their own rituals for thanking the goddess, and I would observe them tomorrow in the megaron. Right now, I desired time alone with my wife. “You may leave us, ladies.”
Chrysothemis bubbled with elation as she withdrew with the court matrons and her women. Helen lingered longest, her expression taut with disapproval; she waited until the high priestess departed and Hermione’s handmaidens stepped into the outer chamber to speak. “King Orestes, this is no time to tax your wife with your amorous attentions. I will send you a woman if you absolutely must have one.”
“Mother!” Hermione cried.
“Queen Helen,” I said tightly. “Am I a man or a satyr?”
A winged eyebrow arched delicately. “I have no idea what acrobatic feats you prefer in bed.”
“As you can see, we are not in bed.” I maintained my hold on Hermione, to shield her from her mother’s criticism, and to emphasize that she was mine. “We will have a moment alone with our wife to ask after her health, and the child’s.”
Hermione heaved an exasperated sigh. “He isn’t going to ravish me, Mother. Please, leave us.”
Ignoring me, Helen addressed her daughter. “I expect you to come downstairs and eat something.”
At last, that irksome woman left us, and the outer door shut behind her. I breathed a sigh of relief, then turned back to my wife and kissed her again, this time longer and harder. It was not for lust I did this, but for her sensual ripeness and the gratifying knowledge that motherhood would make her a queen in the truest sense.
My nose twitched with the cloying, variegated fragrances the ladies had worn. I buried my face in Hermione’s hair, drinking in her sweet scent. I could feel her curves through her woolen dress, and her soft breasts crushed against my chest; she was tempting enough to eat. “I brought you venison.”
“I have no appetite.”
I drew back from the embrace, held her at arm’s length. “Are you unwell?”
“I was sick this morning.” Hermione caught my alarm, and hastened to allay it. “It’s a natural thing, a sign from Eleuthia that I am with child.”
“Had I known, I would have stayed home.”
Hermione dismissed that statement as so much nonsense. “All you would have done was to get in the way.” Then she kissed my cheek. “Did you have a good time?”
I escorted her downstairs to the megaron, where the servants had dressed cubes of venison with olive oil and herbs to roast on skewers over the fire, and had the veal marinating in milk with salt and rosemary to season it. Yet to my annoyance, Helen ordered Hermione whipped eggs and gruel, which was hardly nourishing fare for the queen of Mycenae and the child growing in her belly.
Not surprisingly, Hermione turned aside the unappetizing mash. “Stop fussing, Mother. I’m not an invalid.”
Helen nevertheless kept shoveling eggs onto her plate. “You need to keep up your strength.”
“Then stop feeding her slops.” I speared a slice of braised veal on my knife and offered it to Hermione, who, shaking her head, rejected that also.
“Ugh!” Chrysothemis turned up her nose at the veal as though it had been meant for her. “Orestes, don’t be foolish. Hermione doesn’t want meat when she’ll be sick again in the morning. Just give her a little mulled wine or some tea.”
“She’s my wife,” I insisted. “I know what’s best for her.”
Menelaus issued an amiable rumble, “Settle down. It’s always better when men leave these matters for the women.”
My proprietary interest in my wife’s health distracted me from a larger dilemma. I was to become a father. At midwinter, a child would be born into the House of Atreus. I wanted Mycenae to resound with the joyful sound of children, and yet...
Why must there always be some pause, or hesitation? And yet, why not? Mycenae’s blood-soaked history cast such a long and ominous shadow that my natural response was nothing less than a persistent foreboding. Hermione could die in childbed, the child might be stillborn, or deformed, or twisted, a physical manifestation of his father’s miasma. Yes, I had atoned for my crimes, had received purification, and been released from the generations-old curse that had haunted my family, yet could not help but wonder whether that would hold true for my descendants.
That night, Hermione wanted me to lie down beside her, to enfold her in my embrace, and to kiss and stroke her; she asked without grasping what such intimacy did to a man. I could not hold her, enjoy her soft curves, and inhale her scent without growing erect, and that was inappropriate. She had been ill that day, and had hardly eaten a thing.
At last, frustrated by my lukewarm response, she shoved me away. “Are you going to tiptoe around me for the next eight months?” she demanded. “Women have babies all the time.”
Hermione knew better than that, though, because she was no ordinary woman, and I was afraid for her, and too abashed to meet her gaze. “The gods can be so cruel, playing games with us mortals,” I replied, staring at the wall, “giving us what we most desire, then snatching it away again.”
I heard her expel a heavy sigh, then felt her arms as she flung them around my shoulders. “Here I am,” she grumbled, “blessed by the goddess after fearing I was barren, and all you can do is mope.”
“I have a great talent for that.”
Her hand with its long elegant fingers slid under my chin, urging me to face her. And when I did, she kissed me lightly on the lips. “Let us choose a name for our son.”
It was soon for that. Our child was a mere seed; we could not know whether it was a son or daughter, and I had not yet made a thanksgiving offering. Mother Dia or Eleuthia might resent such presumption. “Let us wait,” I said, “until we go home.”
*~*~*~*
Hermione was confined to her apartment while her maidservants and mother packed her belongings. Although I gave thanks to the goddesses of fertility and quickening, I privately wished she had not conceived so soon. We had been wed less than two months, and her womb had not quickened with her first husband, so I had neither planned for nor expected an early pregnancy. At least she was not showing, which meant she could still travel; any nausea and discomfort would be mistaken for seasickness. There was no need to broadcast her condition to the sailors, who had their own peculiar superstitions about pregnant women at sea.
Menelaus canceled the feast scheduled to mark the eve of our departure in order that Hermione might rest before the voyage; there would be ample opportunity for celebration once we reached Mycenae.
When morning came, Helen and her women bundled Hermione into a mule cart, and we set out for Helas. But Hermione refused to lie down like an obedient wife; she insisted on opening the goatskin flap and taking in the fresh air and sunshine. “I am going to spend the next five days seasick,” she said irritably, when I tried to admonish her. “Go away and let me enjoy the view.”
All along our route, people noticed the banners of Sparta and Mycenae, and flocked to the roadside to watch the procession. They called out to their king and the royal kinsmen, and saluted Hermione. Children ran alongside the cart and the chariots, risking sharp rebukes from the guards.
Hermione acknowledged their greetings with a bittersweet smile. Was it my imagination or was she holding back tears? I would see an end to her homesickness before it consumed her. A message to Pylades would ensure that thousands of Mycenaeans gathered to welcome and salute their new queen. Children would toss flowers before her. She would find contentment taking charge of the altars and household.
We reached Helas in the afternoon. Hermione retired to the guest chamber prepared for her in the governor’s residence, while Menelaus and I inspected our ships and set the crews to work loading the cargo and corralling the goats and bull calves for the next morning’s sacrifice.
Nephos had found a Spartan ship’s boy to replace the one sacrificed to Poseidon. While he congratulated me on my marriage, his demeanor betrayed his reservations about allowing a woman aboard. I indicated the mercantile vessel drawn up to the dock; her deeper draft would better accommodate Hermione’s furnishings and household goods, and offer her and her women suitable shelter. “Guarding her will be your charge,” I told him.
Nephos nodded crisply. “No one in my crew will harass or disrespect her, you have my word. As for any pirate that ventures close enough to set his eyes on her, he won’t have his eyes for much longer.”
I found Menelaus exhorting his captain in tones heated enough to make the grizzled old salt blush like a youth. “You guard the princess as you guard your balls. Lose one, and I’ll take the other.”
In the late afternoon, before we dined with the governor of Helas, I escorted Hermione as she took her exercise along the circuit wall. She looked well enough, and admitted she had not been ill all that day. I thanked the gods, praying that her improved health was a sign for the coming voyage.
“Look there.” I indicated my four ships, their crewmen moving like ants on the beach down below, above the tidemark. “And those five pentekonters next to them belong to your father.”
Hermione did not share my interest in ships or sailing, nor did she find much comfort in the fact that she would be traveling aboard the most comfortable merchant vessel I could provide. I curtailed my explanation about the various preparations and stages of the voyage; there was no need to tax her with a lengthy discussion of water currents, winds, and defensive measures against pirates. Poseidon’s domain was not, after all, the business of women.
Excellent sailing weather saw us to Argolis before the week was out. Poseidon blessed the currents, even sent dolphins to cavort in the waves churned up in our wake, and Artemis turned the wind to our advantage, for there was not a gray cloud on the horizon. Often, I turned my gaze toward the merchant vessel to catch a glimpse of Hermione when she ventured on deck. I saw her sometimes, spinning wool with her women in the sternsheets, but had to wait until we beached the ships at sunset to speak with and embrace her. Not once did she complain, not about the cramped accommodations, or the lack of facilities, or even her health, which, to judge from her pallor, must have suffered.
“I’m not as ill as you think,” she replied. “Mother gave me something to dull the morning sickness. It seems to be working for the seasickness, too.”
“Then why aren’t you eating?” She had refused the fresh goat meat I offered from my own skewer, and all else but dried figs. As my queen and the mother of my heirs, she needed meat on her bones, otherwise she would waste away to nothing.
“Mother’s herbs kill my appetite.”
I had a powerful urge to throw away whatever Helen had given her; it was sorcerous and unnatural. If I refrained, it was only because the alternative might have been worse.
Hermione burrowed into the fleece I had tucked around her shoulders. Spring nights by the sea were cold. “I’ve never been a good sailor,” she confessed. “Poseidon does not seem to like me.”
At night, I kept her beside me in my tent, and each morning sacrificed to the Father of the Sea and the Mistress of the Winds. Menelaus pitched his tent a mere ten paces from mine, as it did Hermione much good to have her father nearby.
On the sixth day, we entered the Gulf of Argolis, and an hour before sunset beached our ships under Tiryns’s massive walls. I waded ashore to meet the officials who came down from the citadel. As Sea Nymph’s sail was emblazoned with the double lions of the House of Atreus, to signify that the king was aboard, and these men knew perfectly well who Agamemnon’s red-headed son was, I did not bother giving my name. Yet as my father-in-law thrust his way through the foaming waves to join me on dry land, I announced him. “King Menelaus Atreides of Sparta accompanies us as our most honored guest.”
Menelaus did not wait for the herald to acknowledge him. The moment he reached the shore, he sank heavily to his knees, and, praising the gods, bent to press his face against the wet sand in thanksgiving for allowing him to set foot once more in the land of his birth.
Chapter Eight
To my dismay, Cylarabes was once more in residence. “King Orestes, how we have awaited your return all these many weeks!” he exclaimed. Despite his ingratiating smile, I caught the meaning between the words: he and his kinsman were displeased with the delay which had kept me from making my obeisance to them before the Argive assembly.
“We have now returned.”
Cylarabes dripped courtesies and feigned delighted surprise when I presented Hermione to him as my queen, and straightaway appointed his own aging wife to wait upon her. When faced with Menelaus, however, he shut his mouth and affected a subordinate demeanor.
I observed his mind working, assessing, and scheming, and knew that Menelaus and I must make our move quickly, before he and the Argive assembly could recover their bearings. Menelaus agreed, adding, “Let it be within the week. I’m willing to forego a day’s hunting or feasting.”
No sooner were we directed to our lodgings than I sent Pylades orders to have Mycenae ready to receive us by midday tomorrow. Normally, I would have waited, as Father had done upon his return from Troy, to give the palace stewards and servants sufficient time to decorate the house and prepare the feast, but I needed Hermione installed as queen as soon as possible so I could attend to the Argive question. At least Hermione did not hold unreasonable expectations; she wanted nothing more than to simply reach Mycenae where she could settle in and begin her work as mistress of the house.
“Thank the gods we’re leaving tomorrow,” she said crossly, that evening while we rested in the guest apartment, “or I would have to box that woman’s ears. I’m not made of eggshells.”
She meant the warden’s wife, a nervous, graying creature worn out from childbearing. “Your father wants you to ride in a litter,” I said. In fact, at that very moment, Menelaus was going to great trouble to procure a suitable conveyance for his daughter’s entrance into Mycenae.
A shame, then, that Hermione would have none of it. “Tell him I mean to ride with him in his chariot like a proper queen.”
Without a sunshade, she would burn her skin like a peasant woman’s, and with nowhere to recline, she would strain her back. Yet she was right in the sense that Mycenae’s royal women did not hide behind diaphanous draperies or loll about on cushions like indolent foreign concubines; they made themselves visible, potent, and sacred.
“You could always ride with me,” I suggested. If she was so fixated upon displaying herself as Mycenae’s queen and paramount high priestess, then let her arrive beside her lord and husband.
