And then his face was against mine again and I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t make a sound. His fingers moved to unfasten the ribbons that held my hair, to slide down the bare skin of my arms, to the bronze clasp at my shoulder that held my robes, the sacred robes of Apollo’s virgin priestess. His gift was not free. I realised the price he wanted to take.
I was frozen, confused and terrified. Only one thought was coherent in my mind. That in becoming a priestess of his temple, I had given myself, pure and untouched. I knew what would happen to me if I broke the oath of virginity, even if it was to lie with Apollo himself. I would be cast out from the temple, the only place in my city that felt like home.
Frantically, I jerked my head, side to side, searching for escape. ‘No,’ I croaked. ‘Please, no.’
His great brows drew together, his golden eyes darkening. His hands tightened like iron bracelets around my arms; his face was so close to mine I could feel the impossible softness of his perfect skin and the sweetness of his breath in my mouth. I thought he would force me down, but he did not kiss me.
I heard the hiss of it, felt the droplets in my throat as he spat. The burn of his saliva in my mouth; the ragged traces of it dripping down my tongue, seeming to writhe and twist as he clamped my lips together with his hand. The heat of his eyes driving into mine; the inflexible power of his divine will.
I swallowed. It was like molten fire. And then he was gone, as suddenly as he had appeared.
I sank to the floor, my legs as useless as the seaweed I had seen rippling in the foamy water when I had walked the shore that morning, a whole lifetime ago. I knew he was truly gone; the air felt empty around me. I did not know why he had left me unhurt.
It wasn’t until the other priestesses came that I realised. I told them the truth, and, when they didn’t believe me, I told them everything I could see, the visions coming in a flurry. Their lives, their hopes, their fates all opened up to me, and I clutched at their arms, at their robes identical to mine, and I told them all of it in my frenzy.
Apollo had blessed me with his gift, and the truth of the world belonged to me. But the other girls, who loved him just as ardently as I did, did not recognise the words I spoke. Their eyes slid across me, met each other’s doubtful stares; they shook their heads almost imperceptibly, and when I saw what he had done, I howled and howled, and I tore at my own flesh until others came and stronger hands restrained me, carried me to my chamber and locked the door on my screams.
I truly had the gift of prophecy, breathed into my mouth by Apollo himself. But no one would ever believe another word I said.
5
Clytemnestra
My farewell to Sparta was emblazoned on my memory; an image burned against the darkness when I shut my eyes. I built it over and over in my head through the first nights at Mycenae, conjuring the details I had not known I noticed at the time: the tang of salt in the air and the screeching of the gulls overhead; the way the sun struck against the surface of the water, making rainbows in the spray; the white of Menelaus’ knuckles as he clung so tightly to Helen’s arm, as though she might fall and be swept away by the ocean tides if he did not hold her fast.
My arrival at Mycenae, in contrast, was a tumultuous blur of sights and sounds and confusion. I remembered the huge blocks of stone built into a mighty wall around the palace, so vast they could not have been moved by mortal men. Cyclopes had built it, Agamemnon assured me: that brutal and half-wild race of one-eyed giants to whom the lifting of an enormous boulder was no more effort than shifting a sack of barley. He glowed with pride, clasping my hand tightly in his. Beneath his stern demeanour, I could see his delight. I thought it was for me; his joy in showing his newly won kingdom to his newly won bride.
In Sparta, we had lived in the valley with mountains rising to three sides, like friendly guardians overlooking us. Here, the palace was built on high ground, towering above the neighbouring hills, and it felt as though the whole world lay at our feet.
Past the thick stone walls, we entered through a monumental gateway and into the palace itself.
I did not exult in the deep-painted columns, the vivid colours of the frescoes and the gleam of gold, ivory and jewelled adornments everywhere I looked. I could not relish the warm sunlight that poured through the light well in the roof above us, illuminating the great megaron, the throne room from which Agamemnon would rule. In those early days, I felt little but a hollow sickness in my stomach as I yearned for the familiar simplicity of Sparta.
When I had been back at home, just a girl laughing with my sister, I had dismissed the legendary curse upon the House of Atreus. Now, shaken from my roots, I could not stop the thought rustling in the back of my mind, like the stirring of dry leaves swept up in the first chill of autumn. Cursed or not, this was a palace where father had murdered son, where brothers had drawn swords against one another, where Agamemnon had drawn his dagger across his uncle’s throat and let the blood drain across the fragmented tile of the mosaic floor. I knew the slaves had scrubbed it clean, but if you looked closely, you could trace the bloom of the stain where it had spread. Now that I knew where it lay, I could not prevent my eyes from being drawn to it, could not keep myself from picturing Agamemnon in the full blaze of his avenging fury. I could not quite reconcile that image with the man who shared my bed.