The Warrior, page 12
part #3 of Orestes Series
“Tell me about it.”
Gods, why did she want to know the specifics, and why did she have to ask about them now? To seek out such terrors was to poke the beast. I should have made some excuse, invoked the oath I had sworn to keep the mystery private, as I had done with everyone else, and, forbidding her to ever mention it again, set the subject to rest. So why did I violate that dreadful oath now, that sworn silence, for her, and why so easily?
Because facing death and the Erinyes had left me with a burden too terrible to bear alone; it swelled within like a pig’s bladder, straining against my very being, until it seemed I must burst. Hermione had always been my talisman, my guiding light in the darkness. She was a high priestess, a goddess-on-earth, and she had never judged my failings.
Therefore, it should have been easy to confide in her, to relate the details of the ordeal—the fasting, the journey into the sacred cave, where the stalagmites dripped like melting wax from the ceiling, and half-formed faces leered out from the rocks—but I shuddered with dread at the memories my words conjured, and suddenly I was there again, experiencing the intense cold, the smothering blackness, and the fear churning in my empty belly as though for the first time.
I expected to feel my breath smoke with every exhalation. “The priests left me lying on a sheepskin near the altar, with my ankle tethered to a ring in the floor to keep me from wandering in the dark and injuring myself. They left me in total darkness, naked and cold, waiting for the earth to open up and swallow me.
“As I lay there listening to the air moving through the cavern, I heard voices, and then those voices began whispering, accusing me. I imagined horrors in the dark, demons and vengeful shades crowding around me. I smelled the decay seeping through the walls.” Hermione lay silently in my arms, her warmth and rising and falling breathing the only reassurance that she was not deadweight. I reflexively tightened my embrace, both for the comfort of having another human being beside me, and from a sudden, irrational fear that I might lose her.
“I called out, tried to drown the whispers with my own voice, but the darkness devoured my echoes. I felt small and weak, like one of the tribute children left to die in Minos’s labyrinth.” There was a soft rustle as Hermione moved, rubbed her cheek and silken hair against my chest, then the moist touch of her lips over my heart. I wanted to rekindle the lamps, hold her in the light until dawn came, and forget about Delphi, the ordeal, the Erinyes. “All I could do was submit and admit my guilt.”
“How long were you down there?” she whispered.
“An entire day and night.” An owl’s mournful hoot broke the silence. A sign from Athena, a warning to say no more. I disengaged myself from my wife in self-disgust, and turned onto my side. “She was old. I murdered an old woman.”
The sound of snuffling breath and an inquisitive whimper alerted me to a third presence in the room. Extending my arm toward the edge of the bed, I encountered Hermes’ wet tongue.
Hermione draped her warmth across my back. “Orestes,” she said softly, “you had no choice.”
I rolled toward her again, wrapped an arm around her waist, while Hermes plopped down beside the bed. “I swore to let her take her own life,” I admitted quietly, “to avoid all this, but it was too late. I killed Aegisthus first. I was covered in his blood, and raging with blood-madness. It was too late.” I reached out to caress my wife’s face in the darkness. “Never leave me, Hermione.” My fingertips brushed her mouth. “My world would be nothing without you.”
Chapter Nine
That was the first and last time I brought Hermione into my personal darkness. When Menelaus and I visited the tombs of Atreus and Agamemnon the following morning to lay down wreaths and make the customary drink offerings, she did not accompany us. When she visited my apartment in the evenings, I made certain that a dozen lamps were burning; she had been made for the sunlight and springtime. We laughed and played in the great bed, engaged in the vacuous talk of newlyweds, talked about inconsequential things. I would not have her frown or worry or cry, lest it distress the child.
And I took especial care that the ceremonies surrounding the public announcement of her pregnancy were worthy of her splendid pedigree and that of the child she carried.
There was no established custom to follow, but most previous queens had confined their rites of thanksgiving to the citadel. “When Mother was carrying you,” Elektra told me, “she stood under her canopy on the walls, and Father had Talthybius announce the news from the bastion at the Lion Gate. Then she went to the cult house with Iphigenia, and her women, and said the prayers.”
An image of Mother, standing cool and remote in her high priestess garb under her golden canopy, leapt unbidden to my mind before I banished it. Of course, no one had ever told me so outright, except in my nightmares, but I knew she had not wanted me.
As for relegating my queen to the citadel walls, divorced from the people, that would not do. All must witness Hermione’s fecundity and share in the blessings. Menelaus’s paternal pride must be satisfied, and word must travel back to Sparta that Mycenae honored its sacred daughter as queen and symbol of abundance
Eteokles had far better luck than Menelaus had days earlier at Tiryns, and managed to procure a litter of gilded cedar with scarlet draperies; my queen was not going to walk to the sanctuary like a common woman. I assigned her an honor guard hand-selected by Arkados, Mycenae’s Captain and Master of Arms.
It was a women’s procession, the queen’s progress to the town sanctuary: a celebration in which the devotees clapped their hands, stomped their bare feet on the pavement, and chanted paeans to the goddess who had blessed the queen’s womb. Hermione rode in the litter, while Elektra walked on ahead in her role as the high priestess, imposing in her round headdress with two serpents, the symbols of rebirth, twined around her plump arms.
Women in the crowd called out to them; the guards prevented the boldest from getting too close. Bright flowers landed in the litter, and on the ground where the dancing maidens trod them underfoot, releasing their sweet fragrance.
The litter halted before the sanctuary. Hermione’s two handmaidens parted the curtains, and the guards brought a wooden block so she could step down. How magnificent she looked in her tall crown, her luscious breasts framed by her open lavender bodice! She took Elektra’s serpents into her hands; they coiled like bracelets around her wrists as she raised her arms.
Menelaus and I observed from a distance, for husbands and father exercised no part in these women’s rites of thanksgiving, and most certainly never entered Mother Dia’s sanctuary. While the priestesses observed the mysteries within, we remained outside among the celebrants and honor guard.
Perhaps Hermione would stand naked before the altar. Her handmaidens would undress her, peeling away her finery so she could receive purification, and when they poured the cool spring water over her shoulders, the droplets would stream down her back and torso, cling to her rosy nipples, her shapely buttocks...
Sacrilegious thoughts. I expelled them from my mind, and concentrated instead on the crowd, and conversing with my father-in-law. “The entire town has come to celebrate,” I observed.
Menelaus nodded approvingly. “I haven’t seen so many greet a queen’s pregnancy with such enthusiasm,” he commented, “since Helen conceived Hermione. I remember how they came from miles around to honor her fertility and pray for a daughter. Ah, and how radiant she looked that day!”
Menelaus was still besotted with Helen, after thirty years and the deaths of thousands. How nauseating. “I’m glad Hermione feels well enough this morning to make the offering.”
Again, he nodded. “I don’t envy the hardships women face in bringing forth children. Give me a spear and a worthy foe any day, but, gods, don’t make me a woman!”
“Elektra will look after her when the time comes,” I said. “My sister is worth fifty midwives.”
A triton sounded, commanding an immediate hush from the crowd. In the ensuing silence, Hermione emerged from the sanctuary, to stand barefoot on the wide aithousa with her hands clasped over her belly: a sign to the people that Eleuthia had blessed her with a child. Her gold-shot veil was gone, along with all her jewels except her tall crown; she must have left them at the goddess’s altar, to adorn the cult statue with. A collective shout went up. The women swarmed toward the steps to touch her bare feet and her gown’s hem. I tensed, fearing they would knock her over with their fervor, but then Elektra’s red head and broad shoulders appeared, stolid as a bulwark, beside my wife. Her formidable presence alone guaranteed the clearing of a path from the steps to the litter, where Hermione found a measure of safety behind the scarlet curtains. Arkados shouted a command. The litter-bearers hefted their precious cargo onto their shoulders and followed the Captain of the Guard’s lead. Arkados set a comfortable pace for the short journey back to the palace. Menelaus and I, with our companions, brought up the rear in our chariots.
I sent Hermione to her chamber to rest, while the men made the traditional offerings in the megaron. I sacrificed a young she-goat before a hearth crowded with kourotrophoi, then let Elektra, the high priestess, mix the blood with wine, and pour it into the libation channel. “Eleuthia, great goddess of quickening,” she intoned, “receive this gift in thanksgiving for the seed you have planted in the womb of Hermione, daughter of King Menelaus of Sparta, and wife of King Orestes of Mycenae. May she ripen and bear fruit.”
After the offering, servants entered the megaron with inlaid three-legged tables for the men of the court, scented water for washing, and a first course of warm bread, cheese, olives, and fresh oysters brought up from Nauplia. Wine was mixed in the communal krater. Elektra assumed the high priestess’s place of honor on a footstool beside the hearth, where she took the tidbits of roast meat, bread, and wine that pious well-wishers brought her and set them before the kourotrophoi; men were fools who attempted to handle or approach the talismans of Mother Dia without a female intermediary.
Eteokles brought me the finest ceramic plate heaped with choice cuts of meat, bread, and dainties to take over to Elektra. “High Priestess, here is the best from my hearth. Give the goddess the portion you deem appropriate,” I told her, “and accept the rest for your own nourishment.”
Elektra browsed through the meat with her fingers. “From Eleuthia’s mouth to your wife’s belly,” she said, giving the ritual response, and set a cube of braised beef before the kourotrophos. “But send a plate upstairs. The goddess grants her blessings in her own time, and not according to a mortal woman’s hunger.”
“Was the goddess pleased with the offerings in the sanctuary this morning?” I asked.
A mischievous smile creased her painted mouth. “Are you trying to pry into the sacred mysteries, Brother?”
“Never,” I vowed.
Menelaus also took choice meats and fruits to the hearth, and exchanged comments with his niece. “Ask the goddess to grant the babe his grandfather’s red hair and strong right arm.”
Elektra tilted her head with an air of exasperation. “You are assuming the child will be male.”
Her answer brought him up short. “Well, then,” he sputtered, “whatever the goddess grants, as long as the babe and his mother are healthy.”
He was doing it again, without realizing his mistake. This time, Elektra merely shook her head, and made the offering. “King Menelaus of Sparta prays for a grandson with his red hair and strong right arm, but, as a pious man, he will accept whatever the goddess grants him, and be grateful.”
I welcomed him back to the high table with a chuckle and fresh cup of wine. “Take care asking the gods for anything. They may grant you a granddaughter with flaming red hair built like a wrestling champion.” At that, Menelaus glanced over his shoulder, toward Elektra, and snorted. I laughed with him. “Speaking of wrestling, tomorrow we are hosting games.”
Menelaus’s shaggy eyebrows peaked with interest. “Are you competing?”
In Sparta, he had thrown athletic matches and hunts for ritual, in order to demonstrate my fitness to be his successor. Here, he showed his true mettle during morning exercises in the palaestra; anyone who assumed that his middle age, increasing girth, and old battle scars denoted his decrepitude sorely underestimated him, as I could well attest. He showed me no mercy. “Perhaps I will consider it,” I answered, deciding it was best to keep him guessing.
Menelaus caught on with a laugh. “Yes, we will.”
Having been an observer at the athletic games celebrating my accession, and having had no chance to do so since, I seized this opportunity to flaunt my physical prowess to the Mycenaeans. I entered the javelin competition to honor Father, yet my fourth place finish would not have impressed his shade at all.
On the other hand, I was a boxing champion. My strength and size offered advantages in close-quarter combat, whether I fought with an axe, sword, or my fists, though I was not alone in possessing those qualities.
Late in the competition, a burly Nemean landed a substantial blow on my right shoulder, where my collarbone joined my arm. I had no time to think about the discomfort, or even the livid bruise his fist would leave. When a man had the right training and spirit, Ares took away his pain, replaced it with raw instinct. I pivoted, drove my right fist into the Nemean’s cheek, and felt his cheekbone shatter under my knuckles; the blow landed him unconscious in the dust, and blood flowed from his mouth.
The Nemean’s friends rushed onto the sand and bore him away. I ordered an amphora of strong dark wine and his second-place prize of a sturdy donkey to be delivered to him. Hermione was not impressed with my win, and rather succinctly explained why, “Breaking that man’s bones was a waste of a good fighter, and his wounds weren’t even earned in battle.”
I adjusted the victor’s olive crown upon my head, and shrugged. “That’s why women don’t box.”
Menelaus and I both entered the wrestling contest, but the gods somehow contrived for him to lose early so that we never faced each other on the sand. That was just as well, for by the time I advanced to the penultimate round, my bruised shoulder gave such trouble that I could not lift my opponent, and thus lost the match.
Menelaus also entered the chariot race. Again, he did not win. Much later, after the sun set, and we sat down to feast, he regaled us with the story of his chariot race during the funeral games Achilles had held for dead Patroklos. “Agamemnon lent me his own swift mare Aithe,” he said. “I hitched her alongside my steadfast Podargos, and raced them down the course Achilles selected. I would have won that contest, had the course run a bit longer. Aithe always needed go a little distance to build up to her full speed, and her a mare. Ah!” Menelaus sat up straighter in his chair, and gesticulated with one finger. “I recall now. What truly undid me was neither the course nor the team but that young rascal Antilochos, son of Nestor. He cut his team right in front of me, even though he and his father, and anyone with the right breeding knows that’s not how you do it. He cheated, and he knew it.”
Hermione edged close enough to whisper, “I’ve heard that tale a dozen times.”
“Antilochos shamed me,” Menelaus continued, “but thank the gods he saw his error and apologized, and we exchanged gifts. Antilochos perished not long after, that brave youth. I remember the battle well. He threw himself between Ethiopian Memnon’s spear and his dear father, and fell from Nestor’s chariot.” A sympathetic groan passed among the men; it was a noble way to die.
Menelaus’s reminiscences did not change, only the heaviness with which he related them. In Argolis, he seemed more congenial and content, and less burdened by the cost of the war. Helen was, it seemed, a yoke which bent his back, a constant reminder of the destruction and loss her abduction had brought about. I wondered yet again whether he truly believed that she had been taken by force, or whether a lie was simply easier for him to bear.
The day after the game, he rode out with me into the surrounding countryside. At last, I had an excuse to visit my estate at Midea, and inspect the fields, groves, and storehouses, while he pointed out certain landmarks where my father or grandfather had done or said a particular thing.
“You see that blasted oak on the ridge?” Menelaus indicated the blackened remains of a tree where local folk left offerings. “Agamemnon and I saw Zeus strike it with his thunderbolt. Yes, we witnessed a direct sign from the gods.” He nodded. “It was the darkest night, and the rain came down in sheets so thick you could have parted them with an axe, but we saw the white flash of light from the kitchen doorway, then heard the roaring boom and a hiss like the sizzle of cooking meat, and a far-off crash. When the storm cleared the very next morning, Agamemnon insisted on dragging me up to see what Father Zeus had blasted in his anger.” Menelaus shook his head, shuddering. “Your grandfather was furious at us for intruding on the sacred site, but—hah!—that didn’t stop him from having a look around when he came down from Eurystheus’s court to scold us.”
Timon, my deceased pedagogue, had always warned me to run directly indoors and cover my head when Zeus hurled his thunderbolts, and not to stray too close afterwards, lest the god return and take offense. “Atreus came down here just to scold you?”
Menelaus laughed heartily. “No, of course not! He had other business, but the Fates arranged his thread and ours so he would come at the most opportune time. You see, when he went to inspect the site, he found lion tracks. It was two beasts, in fact, a lion and lioness, to judge from the size of the prints. Atreus sent word straightaway to Mycenae, urging the king to come and bring the royal kinsmen for the hunt, but Eurystheus never had the stomach for lion. Why do you think he sent Herakles to deal with that menace in Nemea?” He snorted contemptuously. “Ah, but the two lions weren’t meant for him, anyway. They were a sign from Zeus that the House of Atreus was ascending because it was in that very year—within six months, in fact—that Eurystheus and his sons were slain by the Herakleidai at Megara, and Atreus became king. Why else do you think we bear the double lion as our royal badge?” Menelaus thumped his chest. “Because we are lions!”
