If it were me, I’d sleep, thought Stavia. Not dance or eat. Just sleep. She yawned, turning the page.
ACHILLES (Descending the stair) If Polyxena won’t attend on me, I’ll set myself some other likely game. Are you Iphigenia, maiden child of mighty Agamemnon?
IPHIGENIA Well I was.
ACHILLES Why then, we are betrothed!
IPHIGENIA (Laughing) Don’t play the fool, Achilles!
ACHILLES Odysseus bid you come to Aulis to wed me, did he not?
IPHIGENIA Pure trickery to get me there, Achilles. They didn’t call Odysseus the fox for nothing! I curse him as I curse my father. You knew nothing of betrothal then. When my mother greeted you as my betrothed, you thought her daft!
ACHILLES That’s true, but later on I agreed it was not a bad match. You were Agamemnon’s daughter, after all. I offered to defend you.
IPHIGENIA (With shrill laughter, which echoes from the battlements as though from a horde of female spirits) Oh, Achilles, Achilles…. (Declaims)
After I died, you said that you admired my courage, though courage it was not! Anger it was, at all you murderous men. Anger which steeled me not to shame myself!
Some poet, hearing of your fatuous words composed a song about the bloody deed, and not content with truth, embroidered it with fulsome lies and patent sentiments. What really happened was, you hid yourself, and stayed in hiding until I was dead.
ACHILLES It wasn’t you who died. Artemis sent a hind to take your place. Everyone knows….
IPHIGENIA What people know is what they want to know.
That was a late-come hind, great warrior, for I was there and never saw it come! Artemis sent no hind. Artemis had more urgent business in some other place. It was my blood spurting upon the stones each time my heart’s fist clenched, it was my brain afire with pain, my voice gone dumb, my eyes turned into dimming orbs of sand-worn glass, their youthful luster lost forevermore. Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s child, died on that bloody stone, not some poor hind.
ANDROMACHE Oh pity. Pity.
IPHIGENIA And though by now all poets gloss it o’er to make it seem a different, kinder thing, there was no great Achilles at my side, no goddess-given hind to take my place. I made no offer of myself as sacrifice, though all the songs in Hellas say I did.
HECUBA What are you saying, spirit?
IPHIGENIA I am attempting to explain to the warrior that those who took my life murdered me, though every poet in Hellas sings it otherwise.
“Halloo there,” said a voice in Stavia’s ear.
“Hah!” Stavia grunted, jolted out of a half doze. “Who… what… what’s it?”
“Joshua, Stavvy. What are you doing up here, falling asleep, getting yourself sunburned?”
“Josh? I didn’t mean to fall asleep, though every poet in Hellas says I did….” Her voice trailed away, not yet awake. “When did you get back?”
“An hour or so ago. Nobody was home. I went to the hospital and your mother said you were having lunch or a nap, but I thought I’d find you here. Though, from the looks of you, you ought to be in bed.” He sat down on the parapet and gave her a hard stare, the light behind him making his gray braid shine like a silver rope across his shoulder. The lines around his eyes were squeezed deep in concentration. “It was really bad, Stavvy?”
“Well, I knew how it would feel, but then I lied to myself a lot,” she confessed, as she would have confessed to no one except Joshua or Corrig. “I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about Dawid, wondering what I might have done differently. Remembering when I was a kid, when things started. You know. How did you find me? You couldn’t see me from down there.” The words were out before she thought, then she flushed. Of course he had known where she would be.
Joshua took the book from her lap, scanning the section of the play she had been marking with her finger. “Stavvy, you knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that boy would do anything but what he did. Think of Achilles. That’s Dawid. T can’t offend my friends, but you won’t really die, mommy. Athena will send a hind.’ Warriors all think like that or they wouldn’t stay in the garrison. The trouble is with you, you’ve been creating playlets in your head. ‘Dawid’s change of heart.’ ‘Dawid overcoming his heritage and environment.’ ‘Dawid being blinded by the holy light.’ Come on, Stavvy.” He turned away from her, and she, seeing the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching, realized that he was trying to keep her from seeing the broken expression on his face. So. Despite his harsh words, he had loved Dawid, too, just as he had loved Jerby and Habby and Byram. He had hoped, too.
“I wish you’d been here to talk some sense into me before I went down there,” she said softly. “Or after.”
“I wasn’t here for very good reason, as you know. Now quit breaking yourself up over Dawid. He may be half yours, girl, but it’s the wrong half. Come on, I’ll take you to lunch.”
He half dragged her to the sausage shop, settling his face into a cheerful expression, giving evidence of enjoyment at a plate of mutton links heavy with basil and garlic and a dish of rare, wonderful rice. Around mouthfuls of sausage he told her stories, making her almost laugh. When he had eaten half of what was before him, he asked, “Why are you studying old Iphi?”
Stavia, who was only playing with a salad of early lettuce, looked down at the dog-eared book. “I’m doing the lead this summer. Morgot has refused to do it again, and they’re all very flattering. They tell me I’m the only Council member who can look convincingly girlish. Don’t laugh. I know what I look like today. Morgot told me.”
“Summer’s quite
