Andromakhe: An Epic Novel of Troy and a Woman's Valor

A new scream ripped through the air, more agonized yet, and I jumped, tears stinging my eyes as I envisioned the blood pouring out of my mother while she writhed on the birthing chair. How many times had I felt so terrified, waiting at the births of my younger brothers? Trembling like a leaf on the wind, I was standing at a window in my father’s palace, watching tall masts spearing the blue sky above the farthest olive groves. Those masts, playground for noisy seagulls, tilted gently as water lapped against the stone quay of our port-town.
Strangled by helplessness, I had had to flee from the screaming—my mother’s.
Another scream exploded, like the howl of an animal, sending me racing for the doorway. I paused there as my father’s field-boots thudded up the stairs and along to the birth-room.
Moving softly, I looked out and observed with terror that he was about to break taboo by entering that room. I crept down the stairs, sped to a dark corner of the Hall near the entrance, and crouched down.
A harshly efficient female voice struck my ears, “Stop worrying, Lord! There is olive on the front door, isn’t there? No evil spirits are about; the pitch is safely on the lintel, isn’t it? You hurry and make those sacrifices, Lord! I’m busy.” Having had her say, Nurse Mykale whipped the door to his face, its noise striking me like a sling-stone.
Rising on tiptoes, heart thumping in my throat, I took a few steps, craning my neck to get a better look. In the center of the Hall, Father was pacing around the firepit. Now he paused, a gigantic, kind-faced, red-hair and bearded man with sea-blue eyes, King Êetiôn, ruling from holy Thébé, south of Troia and Mount Ida, resting a scarred hand on the family altar beside the firepit.
When he let out a ragged sigh and blinked rapidly, I suspected tears. I burned to offer comfort, but did not dare; he would not want me to see him so vulnerable.
After a frozen moment, he regained momentum, strode past me without seeing me and out through the door, hurrying to the shrine atop Plakos Hill, as bidden. A warm smell of loam lingered in his wake; he had been out with his men at the plow. Now he must beseech the Goddess to protect his beloved wife. Once again, terror grasped my shoulders, shaking me violently. Nurse Mykale had often grumbled that this pregnancy was not as normal as all the previous six had been. Was the Goddess indeed angry? I knew well about divine anger because of my own horoscope. It had been foretold at my birth that I must beware of a blessing that would bring a tragedy upon me.
Footsteps from an inside passageway announced Althaia, a thin, dark-haired, servant girl. She was carrying my brother Thoon on the crook of one arm, a large purple bruise on his little white rear. He was only just out of swaddlings and getting into trouble as he crawled around or tried to stand up on his own.
Althaia stood him beside me. “Everything male must get out of here or your mother’s pains will get worse!” she screamed, “Take him away and chase out all the dogs and ganders—and your brothers, too, if you see them. They’re to be no closer than the outer courtyard.”
Hurrying to the hearth, Althaia bent and retrieved a ceremonial pot of silver. She then scrambled back to where she had come from, without another glance.
I ambled to my feet with clenched fists, determined to protect my mother. Her agonized screams were filling the palace again. Oh, Holy Ilythia, Goddess of Childbirth! Help her! Mother was going to be killed by the dangerous process of giving life!
Thoon howled his protest as I grabbed his pudgy little hand, dragging him as fast as I could, into the courtyard. Anger mingled with fear as I struggled with my tiny brother through the doorway—anger that I was not allowed to see and comfort, Mother. With only thirteen summers to my credit, I was not yet old enough to trap the child’s spirit in my womb. Really, Mykale was a tyrant, always asserting her rights as the Queen’s nurse from her childhood days in Miletos.
Dragging Thoon into the bright sunlight of the inner court, I scowled up at the smiling Helios, Sungod, riding the noon sky in his chariot; hah, he need not be so cheerful.
I then came upon my oldest brother, eighteen-year old, redheaded, freckled Andros, absorbed in training a clumsily playful puppy to heel, with little success.
“The taboo, Andros!” I cried, “The males of everything have to leave immediately! Go, go now!”
One terrible scream silenced me and paralyzed my brother.
I streaked back to the door, leaving little Thoon to wrestle with the play-barking puppy.
At last, an ominous silence was followed by the tentative cry of a newborn.
I dropped to my knees. “Oh, thank you, Goddess!” Glory be, my mother had performed another miracle with Her help.
Streaks of reddish light tingled through my arms and fingers, and I smiled triumphantly on Mother’s behalf: Nothing could be more wonderful than being female, and giving new life.