Chapter 4 Klytemnestra
‘Goddess! Goddess deliver me!’ Cassandra crawls on bloody floors, her knees and elbows soiled and slipping.
She doesn’t spare a glance for Agamemnon’s quickly cooling body in the bathtub – nor for my knife.
Her eyes are on the black-clad apparition, this alien goddess who has now breached the palace of Mycenae’s halls. My halls.
The goddess neither lends a helping hand nor casts aside her supplicant.
Only remains unmoving, her head slightly tilted back like an assessing raven, her eyes narrowed.
Cassandra inches near the raven’s skirts, arms raised in prayer, blubbering strings of syllables in that boorish language of the Trojans, that barbarian birdsong.
Why would a Trojan goddess show up now, when the war is won?
Where was she when Troy’s altars were being trampled down by Agamemnon’s army, when her priestesses were brought to bed or to the sword?
And why appear now, when my own gods have graciously stood aside and allowed me to harvest all the mutiny, all the murder I was owed, drop by bloody drop?
Who is she to try and spoil what’s mine?
What fleeting fear I might have felt seconds ago turns into fury.
Determined, I stride closer. I grab Cassandra by the shoulder, shoving her aside. My fingers flex around my knife, but now it’s not Cassandra’s neck I’m thirsting for. I already killed a man many considered godlike. Let’s see if this supposed goddess is of sturdier cloth.
I take another step, daring her to stop me with divine force. All she does is glare at me, her eyes greener than a forest, her pupils black like Erebos. Finally her pursed little mouth opens, croaking that same, foreign word from earlier. ‘Claret …’
I never thought I’d hear a god addressing me directly – for all my prayers these ten long years, all I’ve received is silence.
Whatever ‘claret’ may mean, be it a curse or warning, her voice admittedly holds power; like pointy thorns all wrapped in petals, deceptive in their softness.
But not enough to bring me to my knees. Nothing will ever do that now, ever again.
‘If that is your divine decree, I’m not impressed. Do better,’ I say. ‘You want me to submit? Make me.’
The goddess blinks as I approach. Taking her all in, no, she doesn’t look like anything worth praying to.
A nest of black hair – or is it feathers – sprawled around a neck too slender for its own good.
Tall like a tree but with skin so pale, as if she’s bathed in milk so much it’s left a mark on her.
Like all her colour has been washed out.
If I touched her, would she ripple? Would those proud shoulders be soft and pliant?
Would that long neck pulse under my bloodied palms?
And would I leave too permanent a mark on that milk-white skin of hers?
A strange, warm itch pools on my fingers, my murder-sated hunger from before awakening and kicking in my stomach, starving for something I can’t name.
I raise my unarmed hand to touch her … and then stop myself.
What could have brought on these impulses, when I was thinking only of her neck, and my knife, and how the two should kiss?
Perhaps this is some kind of witchcraft; some savage, Trojan thrall she’s put me under. Perhaps Cassandra is a stronger conjurer than I expected; this goddess is her way of fighting back. Still, nothing like beating enemy gods to break enemies’ spirits.
I smile, showing the goddess all my teeth, and raise my other hand instead; the one that holds my trusted knife. She takes two steps back, her shoulders almost engulfed by that outlandish golden glow surrounding her shape.
One should not gaze directly upon gods, the elders of my court have always warned.
Yet, what kind of goddess cowers before human wrath?
I have the sudden urge to find out.
‘I will admit this much,’ I tell her, ‘I always believed waging that wretched war was wrong. Achaeans had no right invading Troy; my husband had no right sacrificing our daughter for the weather. But both these crimes are done now. I can’t undo them.’
She seems terrified, ready to flee. No wonder the Trojans lost the war, if this was their defence.
Emboldened, I take another step, crossing the threshold.
There is no door frame made of wood or stone that’s opened, no precise border between ‘here’ and ‘other’.
Only a chasm of light. My foot is lost to it.
‘What I can do, though,’ I continue through gritted teeth, ‘is make sure such crimes don’t take place under my rule.
’ My heart beats like thunder, warning me not to go further, not to step into this goddess’s strange realm.
I ignore my heart, stupid muscle that it is.
I need to prove my point here; show my strength.
‘But make no mistake, my rule is absolute. No foreign phantom coming to my house to steal from me shall find me to be a pleasant host.’
I press my knife into the goddess’s soft neck, forcing her to retreat further into the light.
And then, because I cannot help myself, I follow her.