I stand back, not wanting to take another step further into the chamber. Other hands have done this; they have dressed him in finery and assembled riches on the floor all around him: jewels that glitter in the firelight, great vases, a gleaming sword. I turn my head, a wave of dizziness swamping me for a moment. If I drew closer, I would see his face, see if they had laid a gold coin on his mouth, but I am too afraid to look. I do not know what she inflicted upon him. I last saw his face when I was a child, before he left for Aulis, set upon a war that would make him the greatest of all the Greeks. I wish I could muster the courage to look upon his face again, but a crawling dread in my stomach holds me back.
I cannot bring myself to come closer, to lay a lock of my hair beside him, to weep over his corpse. All of these years, most of my life that I can remember, I have imagined his homecoming. His face alight with triumph. His arms open to embrace me.
I turn away, abruptly. There is nothing in here for me, no comfort to be found, whatever the misguided fools who brought him here might have thought. The women who dressed his body and laid him here to be mourned must have felt this travesty, that Clytemnestra allows him to be buried with honour as though she is a grieving wife. I wish that he had known what she was, that he could have known to choke the life from her the moment he saw her again. I wish I could tell him to cast her body out into the hills. I wonder if she thought she might buy herself some shred of respectability, too late, in placing him here.
But I will not let her paint her filthy act of cowardice as something grand and heroic. I will not let her fool anyone into thinking her magnanimous by giving him the funeral rites owing to the king, as though she could atone for what she has done. What I know is that there is nothing in this great domed tomb for me: nothing but a body, insensible to feeling; a body that strode the Trojan plains and conquered the city, but now lies still and silent; a body that would not stir to my touch if I could bring myself to venture closer. So why would I stay and grieve beside it? This tomb is like everywhere I have known for ten years: devoid of my father, bereft of solace.
Out in the night air again, I look at my home. The moon has slunk out from behind the clouds, casting its silver glow across the acropolis. In the other direction, there is nothing but featureless darkness, stretching on forever. If I had been born a son to my father, I could walk in his footsteps. I could avenge him, as he avenged his father before him. I could give him what he is due. For a moment, I think of taking up the burning torches, tumbling them throughout the palace, letting them swallow up the tapestries and roar through the wood in ravenous flames, closing in on the murderers in a furious inferno.
If I could summon the courage to do it, I would turn away from the burning city and walk into the blackness beyond. Could I scratch out some kind of existence on the mountainside? Eat berries and burn twigs for warmth? I see myself for a moment, walking on until my feet blister and the skin peels away from the bone, until my body wastes away to nothing but the grey wraith I feel I am. But as much as I long to walk away, I fear the teeth and the claws that might be lurking on those hillsides; the ravenous beasts or desperate men who might be waiting for easy prey like me to wander their way. I shudder at the kind of fate I could meet out there, all alone in the void, and I know I cannot do it.
If I could descend to the Underworld swiftly and painlessly, then I would. I would gulp at the waters of the Lethe and let their soporific streams wash away every memory I possess. But I cannot.
I am so absorbed in my thoughts that I don’t hear the footsteps until he’s almost upon me: a man looming from the shadows. I think it must be one of Aegisthus’ men come to seize me, but the terror subsides as I see it’s Georgios. And then someone else draws out from the shadows to stand in the light spilling from the tomb. A skinny little figure, hugging his arms tightly about himself.
‘Orestes,’ I whisper.
‘Come out of the light,’ Georgios says, his voice low. A cold fear grips me. Aegisthus’ spies might be lurking nearby, hunting for us. So why has Georgios brought my little brother here, into danger?
‘Orestes,’ Georgios says. There is urgency in his tone, but my brother’s face is turned towards the tomb entrance, and I can see the longing in his gaze. Orestes has never even laid eyes upon our father.
‘Come here, Orestes,’ I say, and he comes towards us, into the protective cover of darkness. I put my arm about his little shoulders. ‘Why are you here?’ I ask Georgios. ‘Why would you risk this?’
‘The palace isn’t safe for your brother,’ Georgios answers. ‘I took him out of there as soon as I could, before . . .’ He does not need to finish the sentence, and I am grateful on Orestes’ behalf that he does not. Shame flashes through me. I gave my brother only a brief thought when I stole away, drawn here by the irresistible force of my grief.