Chapter Text
Death is less lonely when someone else shares your tomb.
At least, that was what I believed at first. But Clytemnestra has gone again. I do not know when she left, nor when she will return. Down here, time no longer moves as it once did. There are no dawns or dusks, no changing seasons. Only the stone above my head, the stone beneath my feet.
Once, I used to count her absences. I no longer do. What difference is there between a single day and a hundred years? I know only that sometimes she is here, and sometimes she is not. When she leaves, the silence grows heavier. Not because I miss her company—at least, that is what I tell myself. The dead have no need of company, any more than they have need of food or sleep.
Clytemnestra has never known peace. She never stopped following her son’s trail. She searches for him, accuses him, curses him. I do not know whether the Furies still listen to her, whether they still pursue him. I do not even know if Orestes is alive. The dead learn to go on with ignorance.
As for me, I do not follow her. I remain here, stretched out beneath the centre of the stone dome. There is something strangely reassuring about it, once you grow accustomed to it. It rises around me in endless rings that disappear into darkness. There are no corners, nothing to interrupt the curve of the walls. The weight of the earth settles over me without crushing me. It holds me, enfolds me, seals me within itself. There is some comfort in resting here, in the embrace of the Argive soil, beneath the Mycenae that raised me and led me to my ruin.
To pass the silence, I remember. I summon the palace of my childhood, only a few paces above my head. The vibrant colours on the hand-painted walls, the glow of torchlight in the narrow corridors, the chill of stone beneath my bare feet. I remember a young man laughing as he lifted me onto his shoulders and pointed toward the thin line of sea beyond the walls. I remember his strong hands gripping my ankles, the crack in his voice that had deepened so suddenly that summer, his long black hair stirring in the breeze.
In those days, Agamemnon seemed a god to me. I loved watching him train in the wrestling yard with the other young men. He always found a way to throw his opponent to the ground, not because he was more skilful but simply because he was stronger. I watched the muscles shift beneath his sun-darkened skin, the sweat running from his brow, the dust clinging to his calves, and tried to commit every movement to memory, so that I might one day repeat it myself.
I was still far too young for such things, of course. Even Menelaus, who was ten years older than I, still had much to learn from the more seasoned warriors. Had you not known they were brothers, you would scarcely have believed it. Menelaus’ fair skin, freckles and auburn hair bore no resemblance to Agamemnon’s dark colouring and striking features. Greater still was the difference in the way they carried themselves. Where Agamemnon was forceful and commanding, Menelaus was calm and gentle. He smiled more readily, his voice was softer and, unfortunately for him, his knees were far more acquainted with the packed earth of the wrestling yard.
Standing beside King Atreus, however, there could be no doubt whose son he was. The same pale complexion, the same icy blue eyes, the same auburn hair, which Atreus wore in long braids that lashed like whips as he turned his head sharply. And yet whenever the king passed the wrestling yard, his gaze always settled upon his eldest son. He watched the exercises in silence, his hands clasped behind his back, rarely speaking a word. But whenever Agamemnon landed a fine blow or sent an opponent crashing to the ground, the corners of his mouth would lift imperceptibly. It was the closest thing to a smile I can ever remember seeing upon his face.
It was Menelaus who first taught me that Atreus could be terrifying. He had a young hunting dog, a large white animal with brown patches upon its ears. He had raised it from a puppy, and it followed him everywhere: through the courtyard, into the stables, even through the halls of the palace, until the servants chased it away with muttered complaints.
One day, despite his father’s explicit command, Menelaus took the dog hunting with him. I never learned exactly what happened. Some said the animal charged too soon and startled the game. Others claimed it attacked one of the king’s hounds. Whatever the truth, Atreus returned to the palace beside himself with rage. Menelaus stood motionless in the middle of the courtyard. The dog sat happily beside him, tongue lolling, tail thumping against the paving stones.
Atreus did not raise his voice. He merely told Menelaus to bring the animal to him. Menelaus obeyed at once. The king knelt, rested his hand for a brief moment upon the dog’s head, and then drew the knife from his belt. No one had time to react. I remember the animal collapsing onto the stones, the blood running in narrow streams between the paving slabs, Menelaus staring in stunned silence.
Atreus wiped the blade clean on a servant’s tunic.
“Next time,” he said calmly, “you will remember to obey.”
Menelaus did not weep while his father was still present. He waited until the courtyard had emptied. Only then did he kneel beside the dead dog, burying his face in its blood-soaked fur to muffle the sound of his sobs.
Of course, I was not a son of Atreus, at least not in the way Agamemnon and Menelaus were. The story of how I came to be found was known to everyone in the palace. I had heard it so many times that, as I grew older, I almost came to believe I remembered it myself. A goatherd found me in a goatfold upon the low hills outside Mycenae. I was still an infant. According to his account, a she-goat was nursing me alongside her own kid. When he approached, the animal did not flee. It remained standing over me, as though guarding me.
They named me Aegisthus. Goat-fed. A name drawn from the only thing anyone knew about me. People are fond of stories, and I do not know how much of it was true. I know only that a bronze sword was found beside me. It had been fashioned by skilful hands, its hilt was studded with golden rivets, and the blade bore patterns no humble goatherd could ever have owned. The infant and the sword were brought together to Mycenae. No one ever discovered who my parents were. Or at least, so I believed then.
Atreus decided to keep me in his palace. I grew up alongside his sons, ate at his table, learned from the same tutors, and ran through the same courtyards. Most regarded me as the king’s foster son. Some claimed my discovery had been a sign from the gods. Others believed the sword was proof that I had been born of noble blood.
I questioned none of it. I was simply grateful. In a world where unwanted infants were abandoned at crossroads or left for wild dogs to tear apart, the king of Mycenae had taken me into his household. For many years, I believed he had done so out of kindness. Perhaps I should have realised sooner that kindness was not a virtue in abundant supply within that house.
Many years later, after I had children of my own, I came to understand how much of a child’s world is occupied by its mother. Agamemnon and Menelaus never spoke of theirs. At the time, it did not strike me as odd. I was still a child, and the palace was my entire world. It would be years before I realised that something was missing.
There was no queen in Mycenae. No woman sat beside Atreus upon the throne during feasts, oversaw the weavers, or managed the goods stored within the palace granaries. There were only servants and nurses, who lowered their voices whenever the king drew near.
The first time I heard anyone speak of her, I was six years old. Two servant women were carrying baskets of wool and had not noticed me standing behind one of the columns.
“Did you bring her food?” one asked.
The other cast a hurried glance around the corridor.
“Hush.”
“I wasn’t speaking loudly.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
For a few moments they walked on in silence. The baskets creaked against their arms as they made their way down the corridor. I remained behind the column, repeating their words in my mind. Somewhere within the palace there was a woman, someone brought her food, and no one wished to speak of her.
That evening, I found Agamemnon in the wrestling yard. The servants had already lit the torches. Their flames threw long shadows across the packed earth where the young men had trained throughout the day. Most had already gone inside to wash before supper, but Agamemnon remained. He stood bare to the waist, his shoulders gleaming with sweat as he drove a heavy stone up above his head before lowering it slowly once more.
“There you are,” he said, setting the stone aside when he noticed me. “I thought you’d gone missing.”
He bent, slipped his hands beneath my arms and lifted me effortlessly into the air. I laughed as my feet left the ground.
“You’ve grown heavier.”
“I have not.”
“No?” He raised me higher, his arms fully outstretched now. “Then perhaps I’ve grown weaker.”
“You haven’t.”
“I should hope not.”
He lowered me until my feet nearly touched the earth before lifting me again. The movement was so smooth that it felt like flying. I laughed harder, kicking my legs uselessly while he grinned up at me.
“There,” he said at last, setting me back upon the ground. “Another year or two and I’ll have to find a bigger stone.”
I stood catching my breath.
“Agamemnon?”
“What is it?”
I hesitated only for a moment.
“Is there a woman hidden somewhere in the palace?”
The smile disappeared from his face. For an instant he simply looked at me.
“Who told you that?”
“No one.”
“You heard something.”
“I heard the servants talking.”
He turned away and reached for the cloth lying beside the stone. Slowly, he wiped the sweat from his forearms.
“You shouldn’t listen to servants.”
“But is there?”
He looked back at me. His expression had hardened in a way I had never seen before.
“No.”
“They said…”
“There are things that do not concern you.”
I stared at him, uncertain what I had done wrong.
“I’m sorry.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then his face softened a little. He rested one hand briefly upon my head, ruffling my hair as he often did.
“Run along,” he said. “They’ll be serving supper soon.”
Over the following days, I tried to forget the hidden woman, but I could not. The harder I tried not to think about what I had overheard, the more often it returned to my mind. So I began to watch. Before long, I noticed that every morning, shortly before midday, an elderly servant woman appeared in the kitchens. She would fill a tray with bread, cheese, olives and a jug of water, then disappear into the corridors of the palace.
The first time I tried to follow her, she noticed me almost at once.
“Shouldn’t you be with your tutor?” she asked.
I fled before she could say another word.
The second time, a servant caught hold of me and sent me to carry water to the stables. The third, I lost sight of her in one of the palace’s inner corridors. The fourth, I stumbled on a step, overturned a basket of wool, and spent the rest of the morning gathering the fleeces that had scattered across the floor.
I did not give up. Each day I watched for the moment she arrived at the kitchens. Each day I searched for a better hiding place. Sometimes behind columns, sometimes behind great storage jars, sometimes inside storerooms where the smell of oil and grain hung so heavily in the air that it made me sneeze.
Weeks passed. Then, one morning, fortune finally chose to favour me. The old servant emerged from the kitchens carrying her usual tray. I followed silently as she made her way along a corridor that was seldom used. She crossed a small courtyard and continued toward the northernmost end of the palace. The farther we walked, the fewer voices I heard. The sounds of the courtyard faded behind us. Even the servants became scarce.
The old woman disappeared through a narrow doorway that I had never noticed before. A few moments later she emerged carrying the empty tray. She closed the door behind her, glanced once along the corridor, and walked back the way she had come. I remained hidden behind the corner until her footsteps had faded completely.
Then, I crept forward. Beyond the doorway lay a narrow flight of stone steps that climbed between two walls. I had lived in the palace for as long as I could remember, yet I had never set foot there before. At the top, another corridor stretched ahead of me, far narrower than those below. Small windows pierced the outer wall, filling the passage with pale morning light. Through them I caught glimpses of the Argive plain spreading away beneath the citadel, the fields already shimmering in the heat.
I was tiptoeing up the stairs when I heard it. A woman was singing. The melody was unlike any I had ever heard. It rose and fell softly, almost like a lullaby, yet the words meant nothing to me. They flowed together in unfamiliar sounds that seemed as though they belonged to another land entirely.
Following the sound, I made my way along the narrow corridor. At its end stood a half-open door; the song was coming from within. I took another step and the voice fell silent. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Someone was standing behind that door, and now they knew I was there.
I did not wait to see what would happen next. I turned and ran. I tumbled down the steps, burst through the narrow doorway, and did not stop until I found myself once more among the voices and bustle of the courtyard.