The Warrior, page 19
part #3 of Orestes Series
Blessed Eleuthia, I thought fervently, safeguard my wife and our child. Smile upon them, and grant them your favor.
Pylades thrust a steaming cup of mulled wine in my face. “Drink, Orestes. There’s nothing you can do now but wait.”
“We need a priestess to bring out the goddess,” I said, “so we can make offerings.”
Overhearing me, High Priest Nireus shook his head. “All the idols,” he explained, “should already be with the queen.”
Eteokles returned a second time, wearing a chastened expression to match the angry welt across his face; all those who saw him chortled and snickered. Pylades mumbled an invective about his wife’s temper.
But the venture had been successful. “The queen is in good health and spirits,” Eteokles reported, “though she hasn’t yet been brought to bed. All the midwives and priestesses are attending her.”
That was good news, then. I allowed myself to drink and converse with the noblemen, and even listen when the bard Kretheus sang an episode from the Song of Perseus. Hot bread and soup appeared, and Eteokles brought Hermes downstairs to stretch out beside the warmth of the hearth. I drew comfort from scratching the old shepherd dog’s ears, and from my nephews who came indoors with their friends; the occasion, plus the inclement weather, meant there was no exercising in the palaestra that day.
“Mother won’t let us stay upstairs,” young Strophius sulked. “It’s not fair. Antiklea gets to stay.”
Pylades tousled his son’s hair. “That’s because she’s a girl. Now, tell me what Triopas taught you this morning.”
I had no heart for listening to my nephew’s recitation of the towns and citadels that had sent men and ships to Troy. Suddenly, the megaron had become too crowded and close. I felt the sweat on my forehead, and under my clothing. The stone seat on which I sat now seemed unbearably hard, and my legs were restless, twitchy. Fresh air was what I needed.
All conversation in the hall momentarily ceased as I stood and stepped down from the dais to make my escape through the curtains. Retainers and councilors alike called after me, but I did not stop to answer.
A sideways wind blew rain into the aithousa, and a steady downpour was saturating the court. Despite the wet chill, I flung my fur-lined cloak into the vestibule, loosened my embroidered outer tunic while drinking in the air, and started to pace. Phemios and Aglaos joined the sentries at the door, and between their legs I glimpsed faithful Hermes tilting his head at his master’s baffling conduct. “Go inside, boy!” I hissed, but he ignored the command.
Pacing back and forth, ignoring the wind-driven rain soaking my hair and face, I tried to sort out my jumbled emotions. Women bore children all the time—it was the most natural thing in the world—yet the gods appeared to enjoy making a game of granting me what I most desired, then cruelly snatching it away again. Who knew what unpardonable sins I might have committed in the last year? The Erinyes might not be finished with me, or my mother’s vengeful shade might yet haunt the shadows of the queen’s chamber, waiting to do my wife and child harm. Perhaps I had done what Elektra cautioned against during my vigil, and roused my mother’s unquenchable malice and hunger.
Gods, give me flesh and blood enemies to fight, over these phantoms! A mortal man was no match for such demons, whether a peasant or the king of Mycenae. This helplessness was intolerable!
Then the guards shifted their stance, allowing Pylades, who shielded his head from the rain with his cloak, to step out onto the aithousa and gently take my arm. “Come inside where it’s warm and dry,” he urged. “It does you no good, staying out here.”
Everyone crowded around as we went indoors. “Fetch the king some mulled wine!” Nearchos ordered.
“He’s new to fatherhood,” a steward observed.
“All nerves.”
“Wait till he sires a dozen more children. Then this waiting will be nothing to him.”
I shuffled through the crowd to accept the hearthside footstool that Kretheus vacated on my behalf. Hermes prodded my chin with a wet nose before settling at my feet. Pylades handed me hot mulled wine, and urged me to drink. “You should eat something, too.”
The wine burned my tongue. Setting it on the hearth curb to cool, I nudged my brother-in-law’s elbow. “Pylades, find me a priestess to accept our offerings to Eleuthia.”
He did not question the unorthodox command, simply directed one of his followers to carry it out. Yet when Arisbas returned, he brought not the requested priestess, but three crones from the weaving house who knew and observed all the women’s mysteries. I gave the eldest my seat, and mulled wine for her trouble, and ordered additional stools and cups for her companions.
Like the three Fates, the weaving women gamely played their role. “Bless the king!” they exclaimed collectively. “Great goddess, don’t keep him waiting for his firstborn.”
“Tell her we will give her splendid gifts,” I said. “Gold, silver, ivory, jars of wine, and the finest animals. Twenty bulls, sixteen ewes, and eighteen rams already await the axe.”
“Hush, young man!” the eldest crone scolded, much to my surprise, and the merriment of the court. “Let us tell her.”
“Yes!” the second echoed. “Let us tell her.”
The eldest, named Helike, stood and raised her spindly arms toward the fire. “Great goddess, there’s pretty gold, silver, and ivory trinkets for you, and jars of wine, and fine bulls, rams, and ewes ready to spill their blood—all that, if you’ll let the king’s wife have an easy birth. Calm his nerves, great Lady, we beseech you. Grant him a son!”
“Grant him a son, great Lady!” her companions cried in unison. “Grant him a son!”
Helike continued, “Mother Dia, let Eleuthia come into the queen’s chamber! Queen Hermione and her women are praying to you already, and giving you fine gifts. Come to Mycenae, goddess, where you are honored, and fill the king’s house with the laughter of children!”
All three had brought little homemade amulets, ceramic figurines such as the common folk treasured; the women poured wine upon them, and blessed them with prayers, before casting them into the flames. One carried within her robe a non-venomous snake, listless from hibernation, which she stroked and spoke reverently to, and set upon the hearth curb where it was warm. “Wake from your winter sleep,” she urged, “and let the goddess see how the men honor her.”
Said men were alarmed by the serpent’s presence, where they would not have flinched at a snake that they found coiled in a ditch or slithering across the road. Consecrated snakes, however, were a women’s mystery, and belonged in the sanctuary, yet this was a special occasion; it would not do to offend the goddess who would determine the future of the Atreid royal line, depending on how well she was appeased. So as long as the crone kept the serpent close, and did not ask me to handle it, I could abide its presence.
The crones remained hunched on their stools close to the fire, basking in the uncommon privilege they had been accorded, and doing their duty by communing with the goddess, offering her tidbits of food and wine the men brought her throughout the day. Even young Strophius and bashful Medon—the latter at his father’s strident urging—approached them with gifts; the crones took their offerings of wine to splash onto the hearthstones.
As usual, Strophius had many questions, this time about the sacred ways of the goddess, but Pylades cut him short, and called him and his brother back to the dais. “Tonight, those women are servants of the god, and have no time to entertain your curiosity.”
Time inched by, and the rain continued to sleet down. I grew drowsy in the megaron’s stale, fuggy air, and closed my eyes. Had the weather been kinder, a morning’s session in the palaestra would have alleviated much of the monotony. Yes. The primal violence of boxing and wrestling were what I craved, not this enforced idleness.
Then the first groans and cries drifted down from the upstairs gallery, which opened onto the corridor leading to the royal apartments. Startled, I bolted upright, my drowsiness banished in an instant. Around me, all conversation and merriment ceased; the men’s faces betrayed their alarm.
A fierce urge to dash upstairs was quenched by a flash of reason. I could not prevent Hermione’s ordeal, only offer gifts, libations, and prayers that she and the child survived.
I groped for Eteokles’ arm. “Go to my chambers. Bring me some worthy offering from among my things.” My gaze strayed to the hearth, where my councilors and several other men had begun petitioning the goddess anew, this time in greater earnest. “Something I can cast into the fire.”
Presently, Eteokles returned with a band of scarlet and yellow embroidery shot through with gold thread, the work of my wife’s hands. “No news,” he said apologetically.
Taking the band, I rose, and on stiff joints approached the crones again; the courtiers respectfully stood aside. “Here is precious women’s work to please the goddess.” I held out the offering. Helike snatched it her gnarled hand and without preamble flung it into the hearth.
“Listen, goddess!” the second crone chanted. “Queen Hermione labors to bring forth her child. Hear her women chanting your name, asking your blessings. Come into the house where it’s warm and snug, oh great goddess, and sit beside your daughter. Show her how it’s done!”
Pylades summoned musicians to play, but the atmosphere in the megaron was tense, anticipatory. Evening had fallen, and the rain continued unabated. I gave Strophius and Medon leave to withdraw with their pedagogue, and take their rest in his quarters, away from the noise. It had been half a day already, as Eteokles informed me, since Hermione’s labor began, and it might last all night. Had the gods ever devised a more excruciating torment for a man than to have to wait helplessly while his wife strove to bring forth life?
I must have dozed again, and invited Mother Dia to inhabit my dreams, for it was a woman’s sharp, commanding voice that jolted me to full consciousness. “Wake, Orestes!” A goddess, tall and terrible, stood silhouetted against the hearth, with the crones huddled around her like macabre handmaids. Then the sleepiness cleared from my eyes, the glamour dissipated, and I found myself blinking at my sister. Elektra had thrown on a flounced skirt and jewelry, but had not dressed her hair, and her face was painted with lines of exhaustion. Yet she might as well have been a goddess, for she compelled the attention of every man in the megaron.
All was silent except for the drumming of the rain upon the roof and the rattling of the wind. For Elektra to come down wearing such raiment meant that Hermione’s travail must have ended. I sat up straighter. “What is it?”
Elektra lifted her chin, and her eyes were shining with excitement. “You have a son.”
“Are you certain?” I swallowed hard. Had Hermione been right about the oracle’s prediction, after all?
“The infant has a tiny rod and balls, so, yes, it’s a boy.” Elektra’s familiar exasperation drew laughter from the men. “He also has your red hair, and isn’t at all pleased about being thrust into the world on a rainy winter’s night. You ought to hear him scream.”
I leaned forward. “And how is the queen?” Had there been some disaster, Elektra would have curbed her wit, yet nevertheless, I needed to hear it from her own mouth that Hermione was all right.
Elektra crooked a smile. “Your queen awaits you upstairs.”
Her invitation could not have come soon enough. I shoved through the congratulatory press of courtiers to reach the service entrance inside the vestibule, bounded down the narrow corridor, and raced up the stairs two at a time to reach the royal apartments. Noblewomen, midwives, and female servants thronged the hallway, the queen’s outer chamber; it was all I could not to jostle them aside in my haste to see my wife and newborn son.
Congealing blood, sharp sweat, and the mingling of herbs and incense soured the air; Elektra’s chambers had smelled the same after her confinements. Kourotrophoi littered every available surface. Half a dozen chalk-faced priestesses greeted my appearance with a hair-raising ululating cry that found a response in an infant’s wail of protest. Mycenae’s newest prince, it seemed, liked these women’s mysteries no better than his father did.
Hermione’s strained pallor stood in stark contrast against the bright hair tumbled across the pillows. Her eyes were closed, but her handmaiden Monime whispered something in her air, and she opened them, managing an exhausted little smile. “Orestes,” she whispered hoarsely.
Lying beside her amid the fleeces, swaddled in gold-shot purple wool, was our son: a wrinkled, red-faced creature whose half-shell eyelids were screwed shut. Tisamenus. How small and delicate he was, this little mite, this future High King of Mycenae, Sparta, and—if I had my way—Argos. Elektra gently lifted him from the mattress, and handed him to me to hold for the very first time. Although he was barely an hour old, Tisamenus sensed the separation from his mother, and squirmed and whimpered in protest.
“There, now,” I murmured against his scalp. “You’re a handsome young fellow, aren’t you?” He smelled like mother’s milk and the scented oil a midwife had rubbed into his skin.
“He has your red hair,” Hermione mumbled, as though to reaffirm that she had been right all along. She was ashen from exhaustion, and her eyelids were drooping.
“But does he have my blue eyes?” I asked lightly. Tisamenus’s rosebud mouth pursed, and he fussed. I kissed the ginger wisps of hair clinging to his scalp. “I’m sure he does.”
“He’s hungry again.” Elektra reclaimed the infant, and gave him to a sturdy-looking peasant woman who was already opening her smock to suckle him. Everyone else, apart from my wife’s two handmaidens, she banished from the bedchamber.
Hermione had already fallen asleep, before I could compliment her on our magnificent son. Her women tucked warm fleeces and blankets around her, while my sister led me into the outer chamber, which was a debris field littered with plates, wine cups, and discarded amulets and ribbons. “Go to sleep, Orestes,” she urged. “I will see to the rest.”
Pylades and Eteokles awaited me outside with my companions. “Hopefully, the rain will end tonight,” Pylades commented, “so the sacrifices can go to the altar tomorrow. That dappled black bull you selected the other day will certainly please the goddess.”
I stifled a yawn inside my fist, weary despite the sudden excitement. “Don’t let me forget anything.”
A cold wind rattled the shutters in my bedchamber. Eteokles lit the brazier, turned down the fleeces, and helped me undress. But I could not sleep, not with my firstborn son sleeping in his swaddling clothes beside his mother right next door. And where the citadel should have been silent in the small hours of the morning, I swore I could hear the muffled echo of a woman’s voice coming from downstairs. Elektra as high priestess must have taken the cult idol of Mother Dia to the megaron, in order to praise the goddess.
The rain abated by morning, which allowed for the customary thanksgiving offerings. Together with Pylades and my retainers, I drove the sacrificial animals through the Lion Gate to the Perseid altar, and slew them with the sacred labrys; it was allowed, when the king honored Eleuthia after the birth of a royal child. Elektra acted again as the high priestess, sprinkling the barley upon each offering’s head, sanctifying the double axe before each sacrifice, and calling upon the goddess to attend the bloodletting done in her name. A second priestess held the goddess’s kourotrophos.
Word had gone out before dawn, in spite of the raging storm, and now the townspeople thronged the space before the Lion Gate to call out their good wishes. Elektra accompanied me up to the bastion once the thigh meats were roasting upon the altar, and displayed the bloodied labrys while I called out, “A son for the House of Atreus! Praise blessed Eleuthia, Father Zeus, and the Two Ladies, who have granted Mycenae a prince!”
A brisk wind was blowing atop the citadel mount, driving away the last, wispy rainclouds, when I returned to the palace to bathe away the sacrificial blood. The court would feast tonight upon roast sirloin and rib meats, and drink the thirty-year-old Laconian wine Menelaus had sent in anticipation of the event. Elektra, still in her priestess robes, left my side to make certain the cooks set aside the most nourishing portion of red meat for the queen.
Eteokles went upstairs to inquire after my wife; he returned with news that she was awake, had eaten something, and was well, though she was not yet ready to appear downstairs. So I visited her, taking special care in choosing my raiment and jewelry before entering the queen’s apartment.
I found Hermione working wool with her women; the wet nurse watched over Tisamenus, sleeping in the splendid inlaid cradle that had belonged to Pylades and Elektra. Hermione’s grayish pallor had vanished, and her eyes glowed with pleasure when she saw me; she dismissed her women with a gesture, so that we might be alone together with our son.
Tisamenus might prefer to sleep, but now that he had arrived, my firstborn son and heir, I could not help but want to hold him again. This time, he squirmed and protested little; the wet nurse had done her job. “Are you well?” I asked Hermione.
“I’m still a bit tired,” she admitted, setting her spindle aside, “but much better than before.”
As he nestled against my shoulder, I rubbed Tisamenus’s back. “I want you to rest, Hermione. Elektra made all the offerings last night and this morning, and she’s already agreed to oversee the preparations for the naming day feast. You don’t have to do anything.” Tisamenus snuffled contentedly; he knew who his father was. “We’re going to have a splendid celebration. There must be at least seven days of games, feasting, and sacrifices.”
“It’ll ruin us.” As always, she was thinking about practicalities, except in this instance I did not wish to be practical.
I claimed the chair beside her. Tisamenus whimpered a bit, but I continued rubbing him, soothing his distress, and kissed the tawny fuzz atop his scalp. When his eyes opened, they would surely be Atreid blue. “Our son is worth it,” I said. “He’s a blessing from the gods, after all our troubles.”
