Tisamenos took the food gratefully, and smiled at his father. The cell was gloomy, but his father’s features were distinct, lit by a small patch of sunlight. The wrinkles on his face appeared deep, the sadness in his eyes deeper. Nevertheless he held out his hand and grasped Tisamenos, and lifted him gently, leading him through the cell door out towards the trial chamber.

‘I’ve done terrible, terrible things,’ said Orestes as they came to the great stone door. Tisamenos knew. He had seen his father, barely older than he himself was now, gripped by terror in the courtyard of the kinghouse, facing the murderers of Agamemnon. ‘We all act in ways that we think are right. It is this accursed family.’ He paused, and gripped his son by the shoulder. His body heaved with a shudder, and Tisamenos grasped him back. He had the stones now, where his father hadn’t. He would be strong.

They went in. The hall was huge and dark, with a circle of watching people, all fluttering fans and talking behind their hands, eating from gold and silver bowls of dates and grapes as if this were a piece of entertainment. Seated, veiled, on a wooden chair, whispering into the ear of a tall, grey-haired rhetor, was Erigone. Tisamenos knew that the rhetor was Erigone’s cousin. Orestes, ignoring her, paced slowly to his throne at the top of a small dais at the far end of the room, where he sat, shrouded in shadows.

The entire concentration of the court turned to Tisamenos as he walked to the centre of the hall. His head was ringing, the stones now giving him strength.

There was another rhetor in the chamber, young and calm, standing by himself.

All too soon the proceedings began. Erigone’s rhetor cleared his throat, and addressed Orestes in rounded, mellifluous tones, speaking lengthily about how the poison had been found in Tisamenos’s room, and that Erigone had been told of it. The same slave was produced, who swore he had seen him put the silver garment into his chest, ‘with my own two eyes’.

The watchers gasped, and Orestes frowned.

The rhetor bowed to Orestes, and then went to stand by Erigone, who clasped his hand.

The young rhetor took his place. He had a sweet, calm voice that penetrated the depths of the hall. Tisamenos was young, said the rhetor; he was full of misguided energy, and should be shown mercy. He finished abruptly, as if there was more that he wanted to say; but that was the sum total of his speech, and he took his place unhurriedly. He had been paid, thought Tisamenos, by Erigone.

With heavy voice, Orestes thanked the rhetors. He stood slowly, his hand placed on the hilt of his sword, which hung at his hip. He looked around the room, until everyone was silent.

‘What do you have to say, child?’