His gaze was already veiled with death and the heat of life was rapidly abandoning his limbs. He raised his head with great difficulty to meet the eyes of the victor who stood tall before him. ‘You are the king of Mycenae now,’ he said. ‘The king of the Achaean kings. . and Hermione is yours as well. Have mercy, if you believe in the gods. .’ His adolescent’s face, dripping with rain, was as white as wax.
‘What do you want from the king of Mycenae?’ asked Orestes, and his soul filled with vague dismay.
‘Have my body taken to old Peleus, in Phthia, among the Myrmidons. Ask him to accept me. . I beg of you.’ He brought his hand to the wide wound and held it out to Orestes, full of blood. ‘This blood. . he will have pity perhaps on this blood.’
He reclined his head on his chest and breathed his last breath. The evening wind gathered up his soul and carried it away down the valley of the tombs to the sea, to the promontory of Taenarum where the entrance to the world of the dead lies, and to the dark houses of Hades.
Menelaus and Pisistratus ran to embrace him, but Orestes trained his gaze towards the city and towards the tower of the chasm, where a figure cloaked in black stood out against the leaden sky.
‘Before nightfall,’ he said, ‘fate must be fulfilled.’
Menelaus bowed his head. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘your father has been avenged. You have slain Aegisthus. No one can blame you if you spare your mother.’
‘No,’ said Orestes. ‘Agamemnon’s shade will have no peace until the guilty have paid. And she is the most guilty of all.’
He walked towards the city while the last claps of thunder died out over the sea. The bastions were deserted and the Gate of Lions was wide open. He advanced along the great ramp, passed before the tombs of the Perseid kings topped by rainwashed steles, and reached the courtyard of the palace where he had played as a child, where he had watched his father mount his battle chariot and leave for war.
There were neither servants nor handmaids in the courtyard or under the porticoes, nor guards posted in the atrium. The door yawned into the darkness. Orestes drew his sword and entered, and the silence immediately swallowed up the sound of his steps which faded away into the deserted house.
The clouds slowly parted at the horizon, towards the sea, revealing for a few moments the golden eye of the setting sun. Flocks of crows and of doves descended on to the walls and towers of the city to find shelter for the night. But just then a scream of pain from the depths of the palace rent the silence and made the birds take fright and scatter off with a swift beating of wings. They sailed round the bastions as the echo of that scream drifted off over the valley. But before it had faded completely, another cry, even louder, more crazed and desperate, rose towards the dark sky; it pursued the first and joined with it like some mournful choir, and then the two voices plunged together into the chasm, dying on the bottom like a hollow lament.
The doves settled then, one by one, on the walls and rooftops of the city, looking for their nests. Only the crows remained aloft, flying in wide circles over the palace, filling the sky with their shrieks.
16
Anchialus wasn’t brought into the presence of King Menelaus until two days after the great battle of Mycenae. That same night, the king had sent word that Anchialus should remain his guest in the tent he had had prepared for him until he was summoned. And then the king had gone in the dead of night to the palace of Mycenae: Orestes had not returned.
There was no trace of the prince in the palace; when Menelaus entered all he found was Clytemnestra’s body. She was wearing the gown of the ancient queens that bared her breasts: a deep wound lay between them. Her blood had flowed so copiously that it stained the steps before the throne. It was said that the queen had dressed in that way to welcome her son, certain that he would not dare to sink his blade into the breasts that had nursed him as a baby.
Menelaus’s men toiled until late that night to put out the fire that the Epirotes had set in the quarter of Mycenae that rose outside the walls. Everything had been destroyed, and the houses had been reduced to ashes by the flames.
The king waited at length for Orestes, in vain. He finally asked Prince Pylades to send his Phocians to search for him. They looked high and low, guided by the light of the fire that had devastated the undefended quarter of the city. They carried torches into the corridors and underground rooms of the palace, searched the city’s houses one by one and inspected the valley of the tombs as well.
That was where they found Electra, sitting in silence on the stone that covered the grave of her father. They brought her to Menelaus, who held her long in his arms as she cried all her tears. When she finally found the strength to speak, she told him that her brother had left; she said that the execution of their mother had ravaged his mind and his heart. Pursued by her restless shade, he had gone to a distant sanctuary to seek purification for the blood he had shed. Only when he was healed would he return.
Prince Pylades slept in the palace, on the floor outside of Electra’s room on a bearskin, to assist her if she needed help that dreadful night. Menelaus departed immediately, for that city called up only bitter memories for him. He ordered that the body of his brother Agamemnon be exhumed and buried in the grandiose tomb excavated in the valley, after dressing his body in his armour and his golden mask, as befitted a great king. He ordered that a tomb be reserved for queen Clytemnestra as well. He knew that no matter how evil men seem to be, they are still subject to the inescapable will of Fate, and he knew that death unites all men, and makes them all the same. Thus he also ordered that the body of Pyrrhus be bathed and embalmed and transported by ship to Phthia and the land of the Myrmidons, so he could receive funeral rites from Peleus.
The next day Menelaus marched towards Argos, where he arranged for the city to be blockaded on the west and the north, while Pisistratus set sail with his fleet; that evening, he landed his warriors at the bay of Temenium, closing the city off to the south. It was there that Anchialus was summoned to the king’s presence.
As soon as he saw Menelaus, he threw himself at his feet and kissed his hand: ‘Do you recognize me, wanax?’
‘I do,’ said the king, considering the pale bristly-bearded man before him. ‘You are the man who threw the sword to Prince Orestes that saved his life. I am in your debt. Ask and I shall give you everything I can.’
‘No, wanax, before then, in the fields of Ilium, don’t you remember? In Diomedes’s tent. I am Anchialus, son of Iasus. It was there that we met.’
The king stood and held out his hand, helping Anchialus to his feet. He felt like weeping, and his voice trembled. ‘That cursed war,’ he said. ‘What grief! And yet now that I see you I am cheered to recall those times, the comfort and warmth of friendship. Tell me, of what was that awesome sword crafted? How did you get it?’
‘Oh wanax, this is the reason I’ve come here. When King Diomedes realized that the queen had taken power in the city and was plotting to kill him, he decided to take to the seas and seek a new kingdom for himself, instead of unleashing a new war. Many of us followed him and we sailed the western sea at the height of winter towards the Land of Evening. But one day, as we were attacking a village to carry off food and women, we saw an immense horde descending from the mountains. There were thousands and thousands of them, and they brought their women and children and their old people with them. An entire people, in migration. We barely managed to survive their attack, and many of our comrades were lost. King Diomedes confronted their chieftain in single combat and risked his life; the man was armed with a sword similar to the one I gave Prince Orestes, and like him all the other warriors of his race. Their weapons are made of a formidable metal, as tough as bronze but as hard as stone; nothing can withstand it.