I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
‘The foulness of his plot only made it more delicious to him. The more depraved his ideas, the more delightful they became, until no stirring of conscience or pity could restrain him. Overcome with the worst of his hideous fantasies, he seized his own infant son, slit the child’s throat, carved his flesh and boiled him up to serve as meat to test the gods’ omniscience when they visited his table.’
Instinctively, I clutched my baby a little tighter to me, trying to shake the image from my mind. ‘Surely they must have known.’ The gods couldn’t be fooled.
‘In an instant! All except for Demeter. She was so distracted by her grief for her daughter, Persephone, that she took a bite. But the other gods saw at once what Tantalus had done, and they were horrified. They restored the boy to life, Hephaestus himself carving a shoulder from ivory to replace what Demeter had eaten. In punishment, they hurled Tantalus into the deepest cavern of Tartarus, where he stands to this day, suffering an eternity of thirst in a lake from which he can never drink, a thirst that will never abate for even a moment’s relief.’
I had heard of the fate of Tantalus, but it had seemed fantastical and far away. Now, the stories she was telling felt like a web she wove around me, as though she was a spider, hunched and malevolent, spinning the words that would hold me fast. In the stifling gloom of the chamber, the ancient tale felt so close that I could almost hear Tantalus’ howls of agony echoing from the abyss. ‘And the boy?’ I whispered.
‘The boy grew up,’ she went on. ‘But he was tainted by his father’s blood.’
‘Pelops,’ I said, the memory of it resurfacing. I wondered why I hadn’t paid more attention back in Sparta. ‘That was his name – I know he killed a servant in a quarrel.’
She was shaking her head. ‘Worse than a quarrel. Pelops sought a bride, and plotted sabotage and murder to win her from a rival suitor. He bribed the other man’s servant, a man named Myrtilus, to be his accomplice and to replace the pins in the would-be husband’s chariot with wax. The chariot crashed and the suitor died, but Pelops had yet more treachery in his heart. Rather than reward the servant, as he had sworn to do, Pelops pushed Myrtilus from the cliff edge, on to the jagged rocks below. As he fell, the betrayed servant shrieked out a curse of vengeance, imploring the gods to punish Pelops and all his line who followed thereafter.’
‘But they were both murderers!’ I couldn’t contain myself, my voice louder than I intended. Iphigenia stirred and whimpered, and I jumped to my feet, patting her and rocking her, soothing myself as much as her. More softly, I went on. ‘Why would the gods punish Pelops’ innocent children?’
The woman raised an eyebrow at me. ‘The children of Pelops were far from innocent.’
I sat back down, baby in my arms, a feeling of defeat swamping me.
‘Untroubled by remorse, Pelops married the girl, and she bore him three sons: Chrysippus, Atreus and Thyestes. But the younger brothers were as brutal and faithless as their father, and his father before him. They nurtured a resentment against Chrysippus and together, they conspired to kill him and take the throne. But they couldn’t be satisfied with that, and it wasn’t long before they turned upon each other. Thyestes seduced Atreus’ wife and tried to take Mycenae for his own.’
Atreus was Agamemnon’s father. My baby’s grandfather. I wanted to stop her, to hear no more, but I was transfixed by the relentless rhythm of her tales, and I had to know. ‘What was Atreus’ revenge?’
The fire flickered, shadows jumping about the room, casting her face into darkness. ‘He drove them out of Mycenae, but it was not enough. For years, Atreus brooded on the punishment he owed his brother. He invited him back, pretended to hold a feast in reconciliation. And Thyestes was foolish enough to forget the banquet his grandfather had once held, and did not realise what was in Atreus’ heart.’
A monstrous circle; a hideous repetition.
‘Atreus butchered his brother’s sons himself and roasted their tender bodies. Thyestes never suspected what he had done, until the terrible moment after he swallowed the last bite, when Atreus whipped away the dome of the final serving dish to reveal his children’s heads, staring blankly up at him from the table.’
I had married this man’s son. The horror of it was dizzying.
‘Stunned by grief and devastation, Thyestes fled the city. But in his exile, he planned his revenge. He came back and murdered his brother, though some pity stirred his heart enough to spare the young Agamemnon and Menelaus. For a time, there was peace. Atreus was dead and Thyestes ruled. Another son was born to him, a boy he named Aegisthus, a comfort to his father, who still wept for the sons he had lost.’