He scowled at her; but at that moment a cry came from the lookout in the bow that land had been sighted. Agamemnon went forward and soon returned to say that they had indeed reached Egypt.
Some of the men were sent ashore and eventually returned, bearing an invitation from Pharaoh to dine at the palace. Kassandra had hoped to lie alone in the tent, simply enjoying the cessation of the sea’s motion, but it was not to be. Agamemnon drew from his chests an assortment of silken robes.
“Wear any one of these that pleases you, my dear; and I will send one of the women to dress you and braid your hair with jewels; you must be beautiful—yes, as beautiful as Helen herself—to honor me at the court of Pharaoh.”
For the first time, she pleaded with him. “Oh, no, I beg of you: I am ill—do not ask it of me. I have sought nothing from you, but for the sake of the child I am to bear you, spare me this. It will be easy to tell them that I am ill; do not parade me as a slave before this foreign monarch.”
“I have told you again and again,” he said, sounding less angry than sorrowful, “that you are not slave but my consort. Klytemnestra has never pleased me, and when you bear my son you shall be my Queen.”
She wept in despair; he argued, cajoled and finally stormed out of the room, saying in a tone of command, “I’ll not argue with you further; dress yourself at once, and I’ll send a woman to you.”
She lay helplessly weeping, and roused only when the woman who had been Hecuba’s midwife came into the tent.
“Now, now, Princess, you mustn’t go on crying like this, you’ll hurt the baby. I’ve brought you this.” She held out a clay cup with a potion that steamed with fragrance. “Drink it; it’ll settle your stomach, and you’ll be beautiful to dine at the palace.”
“You are a wicked woman,” Kassandra flung at her. “Why should Agamemnon have his way always? Why have you come to be his most loyal servant? Can’t you give me something that would make me so sick that even he knows I cannot go?”
The woman looked shocked.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that; the King would be very angry,” she said. “Mustn’t make the King angry, mistress.”
Enraged, but knowing there was no help for it, Kassandra let the woman dress her; she refused to choose a gown and let the woman put her into a striped dress of crimson and gold silk which she had seen her mother wear at palace banquets. She drank the potion, which did make her feel better—or maybe it was only her anger. Let Agamemnon parade his captive princess; what did it matter? If Pharaoh—who, she had heard, had well over a hundred wives—knew anything about the fall of Troy, he would know she was not here of her own free will; and if not, it would not matter.
18
“THERE IS no relying on the winds at this season,” said the bald man who called himself Pharaoh, and was regarded as a God incarnate by his court. “It would please us if you remained as our guest until the seasons change and the winds can be depended on to bear you to Mykenae, or wherever you wish to go.”
“The Lord of the Two Lands is gracious,” Agamemnon demurred, “but I had hoped to make my way home before that.”
“Pharaoh gave this advice to the noble Odysseus, when he guested with us, and Odysseus ignored it,” said one of the courtiers. “Now word has come that bits and pieces of Odysseus’ ship have been cast up on the rocks of Aeaea; he will never be heard from again.”
“Well, well, I suppose it is better to come late home than to arrive early on the shores of nowhere,” said Agamemnon, “and I accept your gracious invitation, for myself and my men.” Kassandra knew he was annoyed; this meant that he would have to ransack his chests of worthy guest-gifts for Pharaoh, and if they stayed too long he would not get any of his plunder home at all. They were not the first from Troy to be cast on these shores; Pharaoh’s hall already displayed recognizable spoils from the city, including the statue of the Sun Lord from the shrine.
In the next few days Kassandra discovered that a few of the priests and priestesses of the Temple of Apollo had taken refuge here, though none of her closest friends to whom she might have appealed. She would have been overjoyed to know that Phyllida, or even Chryseis, was alive.
Egypt was hot and dry, and filled with bitter winds from the desert, which could wipe out all signs of life if people did not take shelter at once; even in Pharaoh’s great stone palace the damage could be seen.
Nevertheless, at least it was on land, and better than being daily battered by wind and sea.
Kassandra was glad of the respite. The Egyptians gossiped about Agamemnon, and one of the waiting-women told her secretly that everyone in Egypt knew that after the death of Iphigenia, Klytemnestra had sworn vengeance and had openly taken a lover, a cousin of hers named Aegisthos, and was living with him in the palace at Mykenae.
Kassandra’s attitude was simply “Well, why shouldn’t she? Agamemnon, away in Troy, was no good to her as a husband.”
But these Egyptians also worshiped male Gods and felt a man’s wife must do what he bade her, and that the worst thing that could happen was for a wife to lie with anyone but her husband. If it was a King’s wife, then the Queen’s behavior brought disgrace upon the whole country. Kassandra could only hope that Agamemnon would not hear the story and have another grievance. He spoke often of putting Klytemnestra away and making Kassandra his lawful Queen, and that was the last thing Kassandra wanted.
She even heard that Klytemnestra, feeling young again when she had taken Aegisthos to her bed, had to all purposes disinherited her remaining daughter, Elektra, by marrying her off to a lowborn man who had been the palace’s swineherd or something of that sort. People who venerated Queens generally felt that a Queen past the age of child-bearing should abdicate in favor of her daughter—and the people of Mykenae accordingly believed that Klytemnestra should have married Elektra to Aegisthos and allowed Elektra to take her place as Queen. It was agreed by everyone that Elektra’s marriage was to a man no one could possibly have accepted as King.
Agamemnon finally heard the story—not about Klytemnestra’s lover; everyone was careful that no breath of that should reach his ears—but about Elektra’s marriage. And about that he was angry.
“Klytemnestra had no right to do that; it was as if she had presumed my death. Elektra’s marriage was mine to make, a dynastic marriage which would have brought me allies. Odysseus had spoken of marrying her to his son Telemachus, and now that Odysseus’ ship is lost, Telemachus will need powerful allies if he is to hold Ithaca against those who would like to take it,” he said.
“Or I might have married her to the son of Akhilles—he was never formally married to his cousin Deidameia, but I heard he seduced the girl and she bore him a son after he went to fight in Troy. Well, when I come home, Klytemnestra will learn that I mean to set my house in order and that her rule is at an end,” he said. “Elektra as a widow will be just as valuable a marriage pawn; the girl cannot be more than fifteen or so. And it is your son and not Klytemnestra’s son Orestes who will sit on the Lion Throne when I am gone.”
Kassandra had noted that the Akhaians thought much of their sons’ coming after them; it seemed to be how they coped with the thought of death, for they seemed to have no concept of an afterlife. No wonder they had no code of decency; they seemed not to believe their Gods would hold them responsible in the next life for anything they did in this one.
THE DAYS in the calm Egyptian land were all so much alike that Kassandra was hardly aware of the passing of time; only by the growth of the child within her did she have any awareness of the days that were hastening by. At last the season was sufficiently advanced that Pharaoh said they might set sail; but that very night Kassandra fell into labor, and at sunrise the next morning she gave birth to a small male child.
“My son,” Agamemnon said, picking up the baby and looking carefully at him. “He is very small.”
“But he is healthy and strong,” said the midwife eagerly. “Truly, Lord Agamemnon, such small children often grow up as big a
s those who are larger at birth. And the princess is a narrow woman; it would have gone hard with her to bear a son of a proper size to be yours.”
Agamemnon smiled at that and kissed the baby. “My son,” he said to Kassandra; but she looked away from him and said, “Or Ajax’s.”
He scowled, not liking to be reminded of that possibility, and said, “No; I think he has a look of me.”
Well, I hope you enjoy thinking so, she thought; it will not make the poor child prettier.
“Shall we name him Priam for your father, then? A Priam on the Lion Throne?”
She said, “It is for you to say.”
“Well, I will give it thought,” Agamemnon said. “You are a prophetess; perhaps we can think of a name full of good omen.” He stooped and laid the baby back to her breast.
But there are no good omens for a son of Agamemnon, she thought, remembering that Klytemnestra and her new King awaited Agamemnon at home. This son, no more than Klytemnestra’s son Orestes, would never sit on the Lion Throne of Mykenae.
She felt a familiar far-off humming in her head, and the sun blinded her eyes. The child seemed to weigh less in her arms—or was it that her arms had released him? She had believed the Sight was gone from her forever; she had not managed to save her people or her loved ones with her prophecy, and had thought herself free of it at last.
Now she saw the great double-bladed ax that cleft the head of the great bulls in Crete, and Agamemnon staggering, with his eyes full of blood.
She clasped her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.
“Blood,” she whispered, “like one of the bulls of Crete. Go not to the sacrifice. . . .”
He leaned down to stroke her hair.
“What did you say? A bull? Well, for this fine gift no doubt I should give a bull to Zeus Thunderer. But not here in Egypt; we will wait for that till we reach my country, where I have bulls in plenty and need not pay the outrageous amounts of gold the priests here demand for sacrificial animals. I think Zeus can wait till then for the proper sacrifices; but when you can get up you may take a couple of doves to their Earth Mother in thanksgiving for this fine son.”
Maybe that was all I saw, she thought, a sacrifice somehow gone wrong—but all at once her malice was gone; she had hated and despised him, but now she saw him among the dead and wondered if after death he must face all the men he had slain in battle. Hector had said that when he crossed the gate of death he was first greeted by Patroklos. But it would be different for Agamemnon, as it had been somehow different, she knew, for Akhilles.
She lingered abed, knowing that as soon as she could walk, Agamemnon would set sail for the port of Mykenae. And she had been so sick every day of the voyage which had brought them here that now she was in terror of the sea.
She finally decided to call her son Agathon. Before his birth, she could not imagine loving a child conceived like this one, and she had begun to suspect that a good part of her sickness during pregnancy was just revulsion against the very thought that this parasite of rape had fastened on her from within and would not be cast forth. If he had turned out to have been poisoned by her loathing, with two heads or a marred face, she would have thought it only fitting.
And yet he lay on her breast so small and innocent, and she could not see anything about him that was like Agamemnon. He was just like any other newborn child, very small indeed, but everything about him was perfectly formed, down to hands with exquisite little fingernails, and a tiny toenail on each toe.
How strange to think that this soft little being, who could lie at the center of his father’s great shield and leave room for a good-sized dog, might grow up to bring down a mighty city. But for now he was all softness and milky fragrance, and when he nuzzled at her breast she could not help thinking of Honey helpless in her arms. Why should this perfect little creature be blamed for what his father had done?
But she knew that just as Klytemnestra had done, she would be sure to send this son away so that Agamemnon could not school him in king-craft. She found no pleasure in the thought that her son might one day sit on the Lion Throne. She did not wish her son to be brought up as the Akhaians brought up their sons.
She supposed that Helen by now had borne Paris’ last son, and she wondered if Menelaus had carried out his threat to expose the child. It was the sort of thing he would do; these Akhaians seemed to care only for their own sons, as if a child could be anyone’s except the mother’s who bore it.
Even Agamemnon had no knowledge whether this child was his or Ajax’s—or, for that matter, Aeneas’. She would take care not to remind him again of that. This was her son, and no man’s. But she would hold her peace and let Agamemnon think it his if he wished, for its safety.
She gathered the babe up in the swaddling clothes that had been provided in Pharaoh’s palace, and went through the streets of the city with one of the women of the royal household who had borne a child the day before. In the Temple of the Goddess—a repulsive statue of a woman with huge breasts like a cow, and the head of a crocodile—she sacrificed a pair of young doves, and kneeling before the statue, tried to pray.
She was a stranger in this land and a stranger to this Goddess. She supposed there was not so much difference between the Goddess of crocodiles and the Goddess of snakes; but no prayer would come, nor could she look even a little way into the future and see whether it would be well with her child.
She should seek the Sun Lord’s house; here in Egypt, the Sun Lord was the greatest God, and He was called by the name of Re. But she still mistrusted the God who had been unable—or unwilling—to save her city, and would not approach Him.
If He could not save us, He is not a God; if He could and would not, what sort of God is He?
The next day Agamemnon’s goods were prepared and loaded, he gave final guest-gifts to Pharaoh, and they departed.
Kassandra had been in terror of renewed seasickness; but this time she felt only a little queasy the first night the crew lifted anchor. The next morning she felt perfectly well. She ate fruit and the hard ship’s bread with good appetite, and sat on deck with the baby at her breast. The illness, then, had been a side effect of her head injury and then of her pregnancy.
She knew nothing of ships and sailing, but Agamemnon seemed pleased with the strong winds that day after day drove them across the clear blue waters. The baby proved as good a sailor as his father. He suckled strongly, and it seemed that she could see him growing every day, his small hands becoming more formed, his nose and chin, from mere blobs, taking a real shape. She felt that perhaps, considering the shape of his chin, he might be Agamemnon’s child after all. His father liked to hold him and joggle him in his arms, trying to make him laugh. This was the last thing she had expected. Well, Hector and even Paris had enjoyed playing with their children. Painful as it was to admit it, Akhaians were not greatly different from other men.
One morning, just as it was getting light, she had gone on deck to rinse the child’s swaddlings in a bucket of seawater and spread them to dry. The ship was silent except for a single steersman at the stern, for the winds were strong enough that the rowers were not needed except for maneuvering at close quarters to land.
She looked from horizon to horizon; the sea was peaceful, and they were passing between two shores. One was a high mountain rising steeply above them, its shadow reaching almost to the ship itself. On the other side was a long, low, treeless headland. Suddenly on the side of the mountain a streak of fire flared upward to the sky, like a flower of flame blooming there. The steersman let out a shout of exultation and yelled for one of his fellows to come and steer.
Agamemnon appeared on deck and shouted to the crew, “There it is, my brave lads! The beacon on our own headland! After all these years, we’ve come home at last! A bull to Zeus Thunderer!”
The sunlight glinted in his eyes—as red as blood, Kassandra thought. Her own eyes felt strained and dry, and it struck her that he should hardly be so overjoyed at coming home: who k
new what he would find there?
She came to the rail, the child in her arms, and stood beside him.
“What is it?”
“When I left home,” he said, “I gave orders that a great pile of wood should be made on the headland, and a watchman kept there at all times. When I set sail, I sent a message by a swift courier that a watch should be kept for my ship. Now we have been sighted, and word will be sent to the palace; a feast and a welcome will be prepared for us.
“It will be good to be home again. I am eager to show you my country and the palace where you will be Queen, Kassandra.” He took the child from her, bending over the little face and saying, “Your country, my son; your father’s throne. You are silent, Kassandra.”
“It is not my country,” she said, “and it is certain Klytemnestra will have no joyful welcome for me, eager as she may be to see you again. And I am afraid for my child: Klytemnestra—”
“You need not fear anything like that,” he said arrogantly. “Among the Akhaians, our women are dutiful wives. She will not dare say a word of protest. She has had a free rein while I was away; she will soon learn what I expect of her, and she will do as she is told or be the worse for it, believe me.”
“It is cold,” she said. “I must go and fetch my cloak.”
“It seems warm and fine to me,” he said, “but perhaps it is because this is the port of my native city. Look, now you can see the palace on the hill, and the walls, built by Titans centuries ago. The port here is called Nauplia.”
She went to fetch a cloak and stood beside Agamemnon at the prow, letting the woman who had been her mother’s midwife take the baby.
The great sail had been lowered, and the rowers had taken their places to maneuver the ship in the harbor; it glided smoothly along inside the sheltered waters in the lee of the headland.
Now she could see a number of people collecting along the pier. As the ship drew in close, one man raised a cheer, and Agamemnon’s soldiers, clustered along the side of the ship, began waving and yelling to people they recognized on shore.