Excerpt from House of Names by Colm Toibin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You must come by chariot," his message said. "It will take three days. And do not spare anything in your preparations for her wedding. Bring Orestes with you. He is old enough now to savor the sight of soldiers in the days before a battle and to witness the wedding of his sister to a man as noble as Achilles.

"And you must put power in the hands of Electra when you are away, and tell her to remember her father and use power well. The men I have left, the ones too old to fight, will advise her, they will surround her with their care and wisdom until her mother returns with her sister and her brother. She must listen to the elders in the same way her mother does in my absence.

"Then, when we return from war, power will return to its proper source. After triumph, there will be stability. The gods are on our side. I have been assured that the gods are on our side."

I believed him. I found Iphigenia and told her that she would come with me on a journey to her father's camp and she would be married to a warrior. I told her that we would have the seamstresses work all day and all night to prepare the clothes for her that we would carry with us. I added my words to the words of Agamemnon. I told my daughter that Achilles, her husband-to-be, was soft-spoken. And I added other words too, words that are bitter to me now, words filled now with shame. That he was brave, admired, and that his charm had not grown rough despite his strength.

I was saying more when Electra came into the room and asked us why we were whispering. I told Electra that Iphigenia, older than she by one year, was to be married, and she smiled and clasped her sister's hands when I said that word of Iphigenia's beauty had spread, that it was known about in many places now, and Achilles would be waiting for her, and her father was certain that in times to come there would be stories told of the bride on her wedding day, and of the sky itself bright and the sun high in the sky and the gods smiling and the soldiers in the days before battle made brave and steely by the light of love.

Yes, I said love, I said light, I said the gods, I said bride. I said soldiers steely before battle. I said his name and her name. Iphigenia, Achilles. And then I called in the dressmakers so the work could begin to prepare for my daughter a robe that would match her own radiance, which on the day of her wedding would match the radiance of the sun. And I told Electra that her father trusted her enough to be left here with the elders, that her sharp wit and skill at noticing and remembering made her father proud. And some weeks later, on a golden morning, with some of our women, we set out.

*

When we arrived, Agamemnon was waiting for us. He came slowly towards us with an expression on his face that I had never seen before. His face, I thought, showed sorrow, but also surprise and relief. Maybe other things too, but they were what I noticed then. Sorrow, I thought, because he had missed us, he had been away a long time, and he was giving away his daughter; and surprise, because he had spent so much time imagining us and now we were here, all flesh, all real, and Orestes, at the age of eight, had grown beyond his father's dreams as Iphigenia, at sixteen, had blossomed. And he exuded relief, I thought, that we were safe and he was safe and we could be with each other. When he came to embrace me, I felt a pained warmth from him, but when he stood back and surveyed the soldiers who had come with him, I saw the power in him, the power of the leader prepared for battle, his mind on strategy, decisions. Agamemnon, with his men, was an image of pure will. I remember when we married first being carried away by that image of will I saw even more intensely that day.

Also I saw how, unlike other men of his kind, he was ready to listen, as I felt he was now, or would be when I was alone with him.

Excerpted from House of Names by Colm Toibin. Copyright © 2017 by Colm Toibin. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.