The old woman nodded and walked away down the corridor. Orestes drew close to Hermione as the handmaids were dressing him and pouring perfume on his hair. He touched her cheek with a light caress. ‘If you were not already promised,’ he said, ‘I’d ask for you myself.’
The girl started slightly. ‘Do you mean that?’ she asked.
The prince answered with a look worth more than many words. He remained silent, contemplating her, and then said: ‘Have you ever seen him?’
‘No,’ said the girl. ‘But if we want to win this war, his strength is indispensable. That’s what my father the king says.’
‘We’ll win in any case,’ said Orestes. ‘We have justice on our side.’
‘If Pyrrhus fights with us, the conflict will be shorter. The king believes that we can also thus prevent others from convincing him to join them against us. The scale will be tipped in favour of whoever he takes sides with. Those who have seen him fight say he is an invincible fury. Like his father,’ she said, her voice growing softer, ‘but. . fiercer, more cruel.’
Orestes took her hand and clasped it between his own. ‘I would treasure you like a precious gem,’ he said, ‘like ripe grapes in the vineyard. .’
Hermione’s gaze trembled, her dark, shiny eyes became moist. ‘If the war is shorter, there will be fewer losses, less blood spilt, understand? Too much has already been shed.’
Orestes tried to say something else, but his voice died in his throat. Hermione pulled back her hand, gently, and went towards the door that led to her apartments. Before disappearing, she turned back towards him and bade him farewell with a look. In the uncertain light of the lamps, the prince thought he saw a tear glittering on her ivory cheek.
‘He won’t have you,’ he said.
The king himself, Menelaus the Atreid, came to receive him at the door of the great hall. He was flanked by two warriors from the army of Ilium, for they were the only ones he trusted.
The king strode towards him and greeted him with a warm embrace, then preceded him into the banquet room. Marpessa reappeared and gave orders to bring tables and food, and the prince began to eat eagerly, because he hadn’t stopped during the day and the bath had made him hungry.
‘Prince Pylades is with me,’ he said. ‘He will lead the Phocian army at our side.’
‘Excellent,’ said the king. ‘He will be a welcome guest in Hippasus’s house tonight; they will see to the plan of battle. King Nestor of Pylus will be sending the warriors who fought at Ilium under the command of Pisistratus, the strongest of his sons. Another allied army is descending from Epirus; it is led by the son of Achilles, Pyrrhus, who has sworn to help us. You will lead the chariot charge with me, if they dare to challenge us on an open field.’ Orestes listened, but his eyes seemed to drift away at times. When they had finished dinner, the king had the tables cleared but had them leave the wine.
‘Your aunt, the queen,’ said Menelaus, ‘regrets that she was not with me to receive you at the door, but she will be joining us soon.’
Orestes seemed disconcerted; a troubled look crossed his eyes, an ill-concealed embarrassment.
‘I understand,’ said the king, ‘I know what you are thinking. .’
‘My sister Iphigeneia. . and my father died because of her,’ said the prince, a sudden chill in his voice.
‘It’s not the way you think,’ said the king. ‘And it is time that you know the truth. That’s why I had you come.’
The queen entered at that moment and greeted him: ‘Welcome to this house, son.’ But Orestes barely managed to bow his head. Her presence obviously created deep discomfort in the boy.
‘The tunic of my beloved brother fits you well,’ observed the queen. Her gaze was veiled with sadness and regret.
‘Helen was not the cause,’ said Menelaus. ‘She was, instead, one of the combatants. Perhaps the most formidable of us all.’
The youth gave the queen an astonished look. She seemed not to notice, lowered herself into a chair and put her feet up on an elegant ivory-adorned stool.
The prince shook his head, bewildered. The king rose, poured wine into the young man’s cup and waited until he had drunk it, then said: ‘Get up and come with me.’
Orestes followed him without understanding what was happening. Before starting down the corridor, he turned back a moment to see the queen sitting there, as lovely as a goddess; she smiled at him. They soon reached a sort of gallery, closed off by screened shutters.
‘Come,’ said the king. ‘Look.’
Orestes neared the screen from which a reddish glow filtered. The room he saw was illuminated; there was a girl there, playing a lyre and singing, while others around her spun wool of beautiful colours. At the centre, sitting at a large loom, was a woman whose head was covered with a light blue veil. He could only see her hands, her long, delicate fingers flying swiftly over the weft, passing the reel back and forth. Woven into the top part of the cloth was a peaceful scene, a shepherd guiding his sheep to a blue-watered spring. Green meadows surrounded them. The lower part showed a scene of war: a ship leaving port with warriors seated at the thwarts, manning the oars; they were departing to wreak destruction across the sea. Weeping women waved at them from the beach, their heads covered by black veils as if they were following a funeral litter.
The lyre suddenly stopped, the woman’s sweet voice fell still and the lights dimmed. The woman sitting at the loom rose to her feet and turned around: it was Helen of Sparta, the bride of Menelaus the Atreid.
‘Helen never went to Ilium,’ said the king behind him. ‘She never left the land of the Achaeans. The whole time we were at war she was hidden away at Delos, protected by an impenetrable secret.’
‘I. . I cannot believe what I see,’ said the prince, and his eyes were full of stupor. ‘How can this be? Is it a prodigy of the gods? A trick. . an illusion for the eyes?’
‘She is as you see her,’ said the king. And he returned on his steps. Orestes, still as stone, couldn’t take his eyes off the queen, her soft, proud step as she crossed the shadowy room, as the oil that the handmaids had poured into the lamps was consumed. A moment later, the divine Helen disappeared into a dark corridor. Her maidservants followed her as the lamps went out, one by one. The last one remained lit for a while, illuminating the marvellous weaving. The quivering light licked at the lamenting women and in the silence that enveloped the great house, the young prince thought he heard weeping.
They returned to the banquet hall and the prince approached the woman who was still sitting there. She held a golden cup that the handmaids had brought her in her hands; it was full of wine.
‘This is the woman who followed Paris to Ilium,’ said Menelaus behind him. Orestes drew nearer until he was very close. Her gaze was unperturbed, her lips curling in a slight smile, her forehead very smooth and perfectly white. She touched his face with a caress and said: ‘Welcome to our home, son.’
‘But. . but this is the same person,’ stammered the prince.
‘No,’ said the king. ‘Look, the mole she has on her right shoulder has been tattooed. A priest from Asia came all this way to do it. No one here in the land of the Achaeans knows this art.’ He brushed it with his fingers. ‘See? It is not a mole, it is perfectly flat. Otherwise she is the very portrait of your aunt.’
‘But that can’t be. . the gods cannot have created the most beautiful woman in the world twice.’
‘I saw her by chance among a group of slaves that a Ponikjo ship had unloaded at the market on the seashore. She was dirty and ragged, her hands were black and her nails broken. She was full of bruises and wounds and yet I was awed by her beauty and, above all, by how much she resembled the queen. I couldn’t understand why she was in such a sorry state. Even the stupidest of merchants realizes that a slave in those conditions isn’t worth half her real price.