I felt shame spread through me. She was the queen of Troy; I would never be. I had older brothers who would rule our city and the wife of whichever of them became king would take my mother’s place. Perhaps this woman would receive the queen’s visions then, the dreams Apollo sent for the greater good of Troy. I felt so small and so stupid that I wished I could disappear. ‘I didn’t mean—’ I began, but my mother was shaking her head. The conversation was over without me knowing how to say what I’d meant in the first place.
‘Go and play, Cassandra,’ she said firmly, and I went.
But no one wanted me near, not really. All the other girls seemed so sure, so certain of themselves. I felt like a reed swaying in the wind, never daring to say what I thought aloud, not wanting to face scorn or laughter. Hecabe’s dream, though, and the seer – that I was certain of. Perhaps she preferred to remember it differently, but I would never forget that night; it was seared into my very bones.
I could never make myself understood, even then, and my mother was a busy woman. She had no time to try to understand me. If she had seen what I was to become, seen a vision of me and not just Paris, I feel sure she would have hurled my infant form on to the rocks herself. But no one peered into ashes to divine my future. No one intervened to try to stop me from becoming what I became.
3
Clytemnestra
Whilst the Atreidae were gone, I was consumed with restlessness. The days, which had always been so easy to fill, now seemed to drag, especially the afternoons.
Penelope was gone already to the rocks and goats of Ithaca with Odysseus. But Helen remained, and we had passed the previous sixteen years together companionably enough. I couldn’t see what had changed. I supposed it was the flurry of excitement there had been for a time: the arrival of the Atreidae at our shores to seek our hospitality, then the gathering of Helen’s suitors, and, of course, the weddings of both my cousin and my twin. Perhaps things were bound to feel a little flat after all that was done.
Becoming a wife hadn’t changed my sister. She seemed remarkably unperturbed by her husband’s absence, and it frustrated me that it was I who seemed to fret the most with the brothers on their way to Mycenae to topple their usurping uncle.
‘Sparta’s finest men are at their back,’ Helen said, dismissing my worries as she lay in the sunshine by the river, shading her eyes from the white glare of light reflected on the water. ‘They will return victorious soon enough.’
‘Don’t you worry for Menelaus, though?’ I propped myself up on my elbow to look at her. ‘Thyestes has soldiers; he took the throne from Atreus. He will try to defend it. What if Menelaus is killed?’
I wanted to see the smooth skin of her forehead wrinkle, to see consternation in her laughing eyes. I loved my sister more than anything, and had she come to me to say she feared for Menelaus’ life, I would have gone to any lengths to reassure her. But her serenity annoyed me, especially in comparison to my own rumpled state of mind, and I was desperate all at once to see her crack.
She only smiled. ‘He will return,’ she said. ‘I have no doubt.’
I slumped back down. The sun shone too brightly and the mountains that ringed us on three sides seemed suddenly to press too close. I shut my eyes. I longed for it to be evening, for the endless afternoon to finally be over. Once night fell, I knew I would yearn for dawn.
‘And when the brothers do come back,’ she said, a teasing note in her voice, ‘do you know that Father has plans for you and Agamemnon?’
She had no fear in asking her questions directly. Her charm was in her openness, her daring, and nothing she said ever seemed too impertinent or shocking. Perhaps it was the laughter that always bubbled in the back of her voice and the sparkle in her eyes that made everything she said seem light and airy. She never feared a rebuff or a sharp word. She certainly never minded prodding me.
I picked up a pebble from the riverbank. Its smooth curves fitted neatly into my palm, and I turned it over and over. ‘I hope he and Menelaus right the injustice that has been done to them.’ I hadn’t told her about the odd, abrupt conversation I’d had with Agamemnon out by the river on the night of her wedding. There had never been a topic of conversation off limits between us, but she was a married woman, and I was still a girl. I felt an unaccustomed shyness.
‘Go on,’ she coaxed. ‘What do you think of him?’
With Penelope and Helen wed in such quick succession, I knew it was only a matter of time before Tyndareus found a husband for me. He was a benevolent father, happy to let Helen have her choice, and I had never feared the day in my future when he would speak of my marriage. My sister and my cousin seemed satisfied with their lot, and I had always expected to feel the same. But now, when I thought of a visiting prince arriving in our halls for me, I no longer felt that pleasant fizz of anticipation. What if I were to be taken to a far-off land, somewhere strange and removed from everything I had known? What if this man did not care about what I thought and said, only about my birth and blood and the wealth my father could give him?
Agamemnon and his brother had a glamour about them, I couldn’t deny it, arriving from their unjust exile and heading off bravely to take back what belonged to them.
Also, Helen had chosen Menelaus from a hundred men. If she were happy with him, perhaps I could trust that I might find the same with his brother. It would be better than pinning my faith on the kindness of an unknown stranger, surely?
‘Just think,’ she went on, ‘how nice it would be if we sisters were married to brothers.’
I watched the river flowing on, out to sea. I didn’t have Helen’s confidence that the future would always be as sunny as the past.
But what if Father’s plans didn’t come to anything? I pictured my future then. Would every afternoon stretch on like this one, a monotonous roll of days until a different suitor stepped off a ship and offered for me?
Helen had unleashed a flood of questions in my mind. I scanned the winding sweep of the river down to the distant southern harbour every day, waiting for the sight of the brothers’ ship.
The weeks rolled by, until at last, one morning, the shout went up and echoed the length of the river as the watchmen called out from post to post. ‘The Atreidae have returned!’
Helen and I exchanged a quick, panicked glance, my self-possessed sister unbalanced for a moment. We hurried to the palace gates to wait for them, and she caught up my hand in hers.
And then there they were, striding along the river towards us. The sun glinted off the reddish tints of Menelaus’ hair, and I was reminded of the first time we had met. Except that now, Agamemnon did not glower at the floor, but looked up towards us, his face open and clear.
The reunion of Helen and Menelaus was a joyous one and I stood back from their embrace. Our father was close behind us, taking Agamemnon’s hand, a flurry of words and welcome and congratulations abounding.
Agamemnon’s face was transformed. No seriousness, no scowling. It was quite the difference to see him with the weight shrugged from his shoulders. ‘Thyestes is dead,’ he said, a note of quiet exultation running through his words. ‘But his son, Aegisthus, lives.’ He glanced at me as he spoke. ‘The gods can be pleased that no innocent blood was spilled.’
Perhaps that was it. The curse that plagued his family, lifted at last. Perhaps that explained the difference in him.