'Where have you come from?'
She needed time to answer this, never having had to consider the matter before. But Iphigeneia gave her no time, repeating the question immediately to the people round her.
'She comes from the country below Mount Sipylus in Lydia,' the dealer said.
'I will call you by the name of that mountain,' the princess said gravely. In her determination to get the name right she stumbled and began again, so it came out with the first syllable doubled: 'Sisipyla'. And this, to general mirth – in which neither child shared – was hailed as the new name.
'I will give you one of my dresses,' Iphigeneia had said. 'I will dress your hair and give you a ribbon for it, a red ribbon. How old are you?'
She couldn't answer this, she didn't know. And now at last Iphigeneia smiled, the tension of excitement dissolving in joy. 'You are exactly the same age as me,' she said. 'This is our seventh spring, this is our birthday. That makes it perfect.'
Thus she was given a name and an age and a promise of clothing. The words about perfection she did not understand, having no clear idea at the time of what she looked like. She had a mirror of her own now, an oval of polished bronze with a rim of ivory, a gift from her mistress; but until coming to live at the palace she had never seen a clear reflection of her face. So it was only later that she understood: Iphigeneia had been excited by the resemblance between them. Not only in height and figure and colouring but in features too, both having the same shape of face and arch of brow, the same fullness of mouth, the same softly rounded moulding of cheekbone and chin.
She thought of this likeness again now. It was her fortune, the reason she had found favour in the princess's eyes. She had wanted to keep it, to stay within it, like a shelter. As a child, she had watched Iphigeneia's every slightest movement and tried to copy it exactly, the way of sitting and walking, the expressions of the face, the gestures of the hands. The passage of time and the differences in character and station had lessened the resemblance, though it was still noticeable to the most casual glance. That childish softness of feature was no more; both faces were sharper now, more clearly drawn. There were differences in the cheekbones and setting of the eyes. The expressions were different too. The habit of authority, the expectation of being deferred to, had given a quality of deliberateness to Iphigeneia's regard, as it had to her manner. She was certain of things. And this Sisipyla felt to be the greatest difference between them. The certainty made the princess seem calm; but it had something tightly coiled inside it, something Sisipyla recognized but could not name, showing fiercely in the eyes and voice when she was disturbed in her view of things. Sisipyla herself was quicker in her glances, she smiled more than her mistress and noticed more. She had a way of looking round with an air of slight anxiety, as if there might be something she hadn't quite taken into account.
What she felt for her mistress she had always called by the name of love. She had been jolted that morning by a fear or a presentiment; and the reaction to it now brought back pictures from the past in a way that had become rare with her. She saw herself as she must have looked on that day of her new name and her new life, mute and bewildered. She saw the bearded, laughing faces and the serious, radiant one level with her own. The questions she couldn't answer, the pleasure of ownership in the other face, the red dress with its tassels, and the gold at the waist, at the wrists, in the net that lay on the dark hair.
It had been early spring when she and her mother were taken. They and some other women had been outside the stockade of the village, at the stream side, washing clothes. Talking and laughing together, beating the wet clothes on flat stones, they had heard no sound of an approach. In the flooded plain there were white wading birds with plumed crests. She remembered them with sudden distinctness, their movements, awkward and delicate, the way they thrust their heads forward as they walked. All this in the moment before the raiding party sprang upon them, before their cries were stifled and they were dragged away. Or perhaps not that day, she thought. The plain was always flooded at that time of the year. Memories or inventions, the eagles in the sky, the loud sound of bees? Elsewhere in the standing water great masses of white flowers with yellow throats and a scent of sweetness. And the whole expanse stirring with bees. No, it was another day, the scent belonged to summer, those were flowers of the marshland... On that note of decision she got to her feet. It was time she returned to the palace. She gave a final glance down the hillside and at that moment she saw the riders come into view, riding single file on the road below. They were half obscured in the sun-shot dust cloud of their own making. But she thought she saw the lion standard of Mycenae held aloft in a clearer light for some moments before being again shrouded in the gilded haze. Whoever they were, one of them at least must be familiar with the ground; they had taken the rougher, shorter road, hardly more than a track, that led directly up to the citadel.
3.
When Macris had delivered the message at the palace, he made his way to his quarters and called a servant to bring him water. He washed and combed his hair and changed his tunic, sweated and dusty from the hunt, for a clean one. He wanted to make sure that the main gate and the sally-ports were properly manned and the men there decently turned out; and he could not do so looking unkempt himself. Despite the openness and apparent nonchalance of his manner, Macris was a reflective and practical young man, much given to considering his situation and prospects. He took very seriously the duties delegated to him by his father, as he did all duties, not because he saw any inherent virtue in doing so, but because such things were noticed, they gained a man credit. In the same spirit he sought always to follow the precepts of his father that one should strive, not just to command but to be a living proof of fitness to command. One should always be an example to others, always to the fore whenever there was hardship and danger and the prospect of spoils, just as one should take care to be clean and well turned out, with weapons in good order, when requiring these qualities in inferiors. Not to do so might get you a black mark, it might be remembered against you. However, though Macris loved his father, he knew that these precepts were not enough. His father, in fact, was a living proof that they were not enough. Years of danger and service, and he was left here as Agamemnon's man of trust, while everyone who counted was on the way to Troy to make his fortune. His father was too loyal – a fault, which Macris did not intend to let linger on into another generation. He wanted more than to be a man of trust, much more: he wanted fame, he wanted wealth, he wanted Iphigeneia.
He began at the main gate and adjoining guardhouse. There was a permanent guard of four men here, relieved every six hours. They took turns, in pairs, to do lookout duty at a roofed post outside the gate, beyond the bastion, from where the western approaches could be surveyed – this western limit of the citadel, though the highest in altitude, was the easiest to approach, the slopes being gentler. The guardroom was built against the wall and open on the side of the gate, but there was still a haze of smoke inside and a smell of frying oil. The men on guard, in company with the three resident hounds, had just eaten the midday meal of beans and eggs. With considerable severity Macris told them to clear out the dogs and make sure they were wearing helmets and carrying spears when they went to unbar the gate to the visitors. 'I've told you about these animals before,' he said. 'And I've told you to keep that lookout post manned at all times. If you fail in it again I'll put the lot of you on punishment drill. First impressions are extremely important. We don't yet know who these people are. I don't want them to see bareheaded guards stumbling about, with dogs underfoot. I don't mean to say you should wear your helmets at all times, I realize they are hot in this weather. But you must wear them when you are in public view, they are part of your equipment.'