I stand at a crossroads. Beside me, my husband and king luxuriates in a deep bath. Before long, he will rise, and I can take his hand and lead him to the feast being prepared in his honour, or perhaps to his chambers. I could step back into the life set out for me the day I said yes to Agamemnon’s proposal, because what else would I do? As careless a way to decide a future as tossing dice across the cobbles. If I abandoned the plan, would Aegisthus slink away into the shadows? Maybe he would raise a stand of his own: my betrayal would be exposed, and my husband would slaughter us both. This does not frighten me. But when I let my thoughts drift further, when I see myself standing amid the dim shadows before Hades, scouring the ghostly throng for my child, it is then that the cold shudder grips my spine. I cannot look into Iphigenia’s face without bringing her the news that I have avenged her at last.
‘Clytemnestra? Are you asleep?’ He sounds peevish even through a slight slur, the poppies in the wine taking effect. I had not even realised that my eyes were closed.
‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘Are you ready? Allow me to bring you your robe.’
He lies back in the water. This is the moment. I lean down to where I have placed it; the thick cloth slides through my hands like the smooth coils of a snake. Beneath it, hidden from Agamemnon’s view, I can feel the reassuringly sturdy shape of something else.
I shake out the robe and hold it before him as he stands, steam curling through the low light. He ducks his shaggy head and I settle the heavy brocade about his body. He twists to find the openings, suddenly trapped, stumbling and bewildered by his abrupt blindness in this impermeable net I have cast about him, dizzied by the wine I augmented.
He is disorientated and confused, engaged in a futile search for an escape from the robe, which I had so painstakingly sewn shut so that his hands will scrabble pointlessly for a sleeve. He pulls and yanks to try to free his head from the cloth that hangs heavy over him, the water adding weight to the lower half that is sunk in the bath, pulling him down still further. Now is the time for me to reach for the other object hidden at my feet.
The wood is solid in my hand. It fits smoothly against my palms as I wrap both hands around it and swing with all the strength I can summon, aiming right at the top of the lurching figure that is my husband.
It is darkly comical how ungainly he is, swathed in cloth, his feet sliding away beneath him as the sharp, gleaming metal edge of the axe hits him. Somewhere beneath the suffocating weight of the material, he bellows, but the sound is muffled, and I swing again. The noise it makes as it hits his skull is a dull, heavy thud. I don’t know if I have hit him hard enough to break through the bone, so I grit my teeth against the ache in my shoulders as I raise it up once more and bring it down upon him, again and again and again. His body tumbles beneath the flurry of blows; he collapses into the water, and I am still bludgeoning him with all the fury I have burning through me. I can still hear him spluttering, gasping somewhere under the stitched-up hood, and I aim there until I feel his head give way beneath the axe with a sickening collapse, and a splatter of gory liquid sprays from the bath, right across my face.
He goes limp, and the flurry of water calms around his still form. The stained petals drift on top of the dark water. I can feel the droplets of his blood sliding down my forehead, and it revives me, like rainfall on a parched field in the deadening heat of summer. My arms fall to my sides, and I hear the axe striking the tiles of the floor.
He doesn’t move. It strikes me as impossible, just as it did when I cradled Iphigenia’s corpse, that minutes ago he lived and now he is dead. I had expected a surge of emotion. Whenever I had pictured this moment, tears had swamped my vision unbidden. I had thought that exultation would seize me, that I would be flooded with a savage joy. I had thought it would rush over me, and Iphigenia too; that I would feel her gratitude from across the gulf that divides us and know she had satisfaction at last.
The silence of the room is as heavy as ever, unstirred by the cold breath of Hades. Agamemnon is nothing but butchered meat, lying slumped in the reddened water. No guards have charged in, no one seeks to drag me away in chains. The palace is mine, and I can walk from here, free and unimpeded, whenever I want.
Perhaps this is what Agamemnon felt when he walked away from Iphigenia into the light of that terrible dawn. I have murdered him, and there will be no retribution.
The thought of Elektra snakes into my mind, but I shake her away. There is nothing that she can do. This is a gift to her, though she does not know it yet.