Goddess of Yesterday: A Tale of Troy

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “Paris just wants to get to know his enemy before he attacks,” said Kinados. “Lord, at table you came close to mortal insult.”

  “And yet he laughed, didn't he?” said Menelaus patiently. “Is that the mark of a dangerous man?”

  “Didn't you hear him tell the queen what a fine warrior he is? That he lives for the joy of throwing the lance?”

  “He's no warrior, Kinados. We all bathed together after the hunt. You and I have seen every inch of his body. If Paris loves battle, he loves it from a distance. No spear tip, no arrow, not even a fist has ever touched that skin. Paris just wants a good hunt followed by a good party.”

  “Amyklai is what he wants!” snapped Kinados. “And after that, Sparta. And then all your kingdom. And when he has gotten us, he goes to Salamis to get his aunt Hesione.”

  “Send a messenger to Salamis, then. Let King Telamon know that an overgrown playboy named Paris frightens you. But bother me no more.” Menelaus walked away.

  His soldiers were so angry they could not at first follow him.

  “The king is a good man,” said one, trying to find an excuse.

  “In a king,” said Kinados grimly, “that is a flaw.”

  I did not go to the keeping-track room after all. I had so many thoughts in my head I could not keep track of anything.

  “I don't trust Paris,” said Hermione.

  The hour was very late. Most of the palace was asleep. Hermione's nurse Bia and the maids were snoring on the porch. Hermione and I were sitting on her bed whispering. I had first pulled back the window curtains and then opened the hall door in hopes of a cool draft. None came. “Why not?” I asked.

  “Father taunted Paris,” she said. “I think that was a mistake. I think Paris has a plan and Father does not.”

  I was impressed. Hermione thought like a seasoned captain. I, however, agreed with Menelaus, not Kinados. Paris was just watching himself shine. He had no plans. He had only parties and laughter.

  “If I were a general or an admiral,” said Hermione, “Father would listen to me. But when I told him that Paris is a danger to the kingdom, Father just patted my head.”

  I loved Menelaus. His captain criticized, his wife scolded, and now his daughter was correcting him. I changed the subject. “Did you see the tusks from that boar?” I said.

  “Aethiolas and Maraphius were bragging about that old boar. I don't think Father really let them anywhere near it. I bet Paris didn't get near it either. Everyone is joking about his smooth skin.”

  “How old do you think Paris is?”

  “Twenty-five?” she guessed.

  “How old is your mother?”

  “Twenty-eight. Last year was a very sacred year for her, because twenty-seven is nine threes. She was sure something important would happen, but it didn't.”

  I thought of that ninth day when I returned to the sacred olive tree. It was only weeks ago, yet Siphnos seemed as distant as the mountains from the sea. Hermione and I leaned close, and the night wore on, and still we whispered.

  And so when all the household slept except the guards at the gate, we were awake when Paris of Troy walked barefoot down the hall and Helen met him at her door.

  I was too shocked to breathe. If a queen is with a man not her husband, it is treason, for if she should bear a child, it will not be the king's. A stranger's blood and history will step into the royal family and defile it.

  Hermione and I climbed off the bed and stepped out into the hall and looked down toward Helen's room. The two red marble dogs stared back, their black eyes glittering.

  “I will kill them,” said Hermione.

  The days passed.

  The number of people who knew what Hermione and I knew grew larger. The secret filled the palace like the stench of rotting meat, stinking in our hearts.

  But Menelaus arranged competitions for the pleasure of our guests, not knowing that one guest was enjoying a different sort of pleasure.

  We rooted for runners in quarter-mile and half-mile footraces; we screamed as chariots tipped over on the turn; we cheered for sweating wrestlers and long-throwing ball players. Harpists vied for a prize and bards sang new songs.

  On the eighth day of Paris' visit, I woke to the soft clink of stones. From Hermione's window, I watched two men and a boy as they laid a new slate roof on the low granary beyond the women's garden. How neatly each stone slice lay, like fish scales.

  How well men put together a roof. How poorly they put together their lives.

  I was exactly what Helen accused me of: a girl of lead, not a princess of gold.

  What was I to do about this life I had stolen? For among such cruel gods, such stern kings, I felt a dread fate before me.

  That morning, a messenger brought news from Crete, largest island in the Sea. It has ninety cities. I tried and failed to imagine ninety places like Gythion and Amyklai all on one isle. While visiting the king of Crete, the messenger told us, the grandfather of Menelaus had died in his sleep. Crete was holding off the funeral games until Menelaus arrived.

  Suddenly Amyklai was buzzing and active, Menelaus' closest companions assembling to escort him to the funeral. Helen's much older brothers, Castor and Pollux, came from Sparta. They would attend in honor of the old king. It was decided that Aethiolas and Maraphius would go, too.

  “Boys always get adventure,” said Hermione. “Girls always stay home. You are so lucky, Callisto. You have had adventure.”

  Priests arrived and choirs sang songs of mourning for the grandfather. Captain Kinados put together the honor guard. The treasury was opened and Helen and Menelaus chose the funeral offerings. Menelaus decided to bring two of his best smiths as his gift to the king of Crete. These men forged bronze, but one of them had worked the new metal, iron. The smiths were obedient and prepared to live forever in a strange land, but their wives were heartbroken and full of fear.

  Menelaus turned suddenly to the queen. “Helen, you must honor my grandfather. Cut off your hair. I will place it on the fire of his bones.”

  Helen was aghast. Cut off her beautiful hair like a common woman? How could Menelaus ask such a thing of Helen, daughter of a god?

  Menelaus pulled his dagger out of its sheath, flipped it in his hand, and passed it to her handle-first. For a moment, the blade lay in his palm. So sharp. So stained by blood. Into how many hearts had that been plunged?

  Helen wore her hair that day in an intricate pile of braids and curls. One by one she pulled out the pins. How long and thick was her honey gold braid. She tossed her head so that the braid swung and she caught the braid in her left hand. In her right, she held the knife as if she would rather slit her throat.

  Her eyes moved around the room, summoning affection. The room loved her. The room resented Menelaus for such an untoward demand.

  A handmaiden held a silver salver to catch the falling braid.

  Helen swung the knife.

  From the curling tip at the bottom of the braid, she cut half an inch of hair. Half an inch is contempt. You are nothing to me.

  Menelaus said not a word. The high color in his face said it for him. The queen returned the knife blade-first and for a moment the knife balanced between them, aimed at her husband's heart.

  Paris smiled at the ceiling.

  “Don't go to Crete!” cried Hermione suddenly, her child's voice as piercing as the flute that guides the ship. “Father, I don't think you should go. Please stay here.”

  He patted her head. “I'll bring you a present,” he said. “Paris, my priests will proceed with the ceremony to release your blood debt. Feast and hunt until my return. The weather is perfect and the sail to Crete should not take more than two or three days. I expect to be back in a week or two.”

  Paris smiled at the ceiling.

  At dawn the slim ships of Menelaus would sail the winedark sea, and still the king had no idea why Paris smiled.

  Hermione almost told him. But she could not do it. Nor could any man or woman at Amyklai. They loved Hel
en and Menelaus both.

  “My goddess of yesterday travels with you,” I said to my king, and Menelaus patted my head too. “I'll bring you another magic jar, Callisto.”

  It is you who need magic, my king, I thought sadly.

  Aeneas accompanied Menelaus all the way from Amyklai to the shore. I felt a little better. No one can ensure a safe journey better than a guest-friend. Aethiolas and Maraphius twittered like sparrows in their joy. I spotted Tenedos carrying the little princes' baggage and I was glad for him. Funeral games on the great rich isle of Crete would be exciting.

  The soldiers and servants of Menelaus raised a cloud of dust under their sandals as they marched to Gythion. Even when we could no longer make them out, we could see their dust. Finally they vanished into the darkness called forest.

  Bia her nurse told Hermione they would weave together, as it was high time the princess acquired more skill.

  Rhodea his nurse told Pleis that he would nap.

  “Perhaps you and I will also nap, my swan,” said Paris to Helen.

  I saw now what had made Helen's hands flutter in the megaron. What had gone through that beautiful body like mountain wind. What had pierced a heart as bleached as marble.

  It was love.

  The heat of the day passed and the sun went down.

  The dusk turned to dark and the moon rose, dropping silver light on the great walls.

  My thoughts were too sad for sleep.

  I climbed a long stone stair to the battlements and sought answers in the first stars. Not only did the people of Sparta name their stars, they were planning keeping-track lines for each star.

  From the parapet I looked down upon the snarling lions over the gate. The gate was open. Menelaus had left open the gate of his marriage, too.

  The air stood still, thinking its own thoughts. Every distant mountain peak, every deep ravine, seemed as infinite and dangerous as the gods.

  Far away and very low in the sky traveled an unusual row of flickering stars. Hundreds were colliding and flaring, then vanishing like wicks of oil lamps being blown out. I knew of no such stars in the sky.

  Time passed.

  No guard walked by me.

  No night watch closed the Lion Gate.

  One by one, much nearer now, the strange stars appeared again.

  I stood alone at the battlements, a child in the dark, and said to myself, “Surely not.”

  But yet I knew the truth. Not stars—but torches in the hands of men.

  Briefly I had seen them. Then they had entered the black forest and disappeared and now were out of it, and fast approaching Amyklai. It is risky to walk at night—wild beasts, bad footing and evil spirits. But with hundreds of torches, these men were safe from robbers and wolves.

  Aeneas the cousin of Paris had not spent the night in Gythion. As soon as Menelaus and Kinados had sailed away, Aeneas had gathered the very warriors Kinados had feared and the Trojan army was marching upon Amyklai by night.

  Aeneas' men were the robbers and wolves.

  I ran to warn the queen. Clattering down stone steps, racing across courtyards, throwing open one door after another, to the women's wing I sped. I flung myself toward the barred wooden door of her bedroom, to beat my fists against it until she came.

  But the door was open and in her fragrant well-lit room, Helen admired herself in a silver mirror.

  “O queen! They have broken their guest-friendship,” I cried. “The Trojans come armed with Aeneas as their general. You must protect yourself. Paris is your enemy, not your friend. In your husband's stead, you must call out your soldiers. I have seen what pirates can do. You must—”

  “Paris is not my enemy.”

  “He is, O queen. I know you do not trust me. I beg you to trust me now. For the sake of your children. For your own dear sake. The Trojans have come for Amyklai.”

  “No,” said Helen, angling the mirror and smiling at what she saw. “The Trojans have come for me.”

  SIX DOORS STOOD BETWEEN Helen and the treasure of a kingdom.

  She unlocked them herself, sliding the narrow curved arms of the key tree into the slot, and turning it carefully to catch the edge of the bar within. Paris stood beside her, breathing deeply, his laughter waiting inside his chest until he heard the bar scrape upward.

  “How dare she!” breathed Hermione. The little princess was trembling with fury.

  I was not sure which of the many things Helen should not dare to do that Hermione was thinking of. I was stunned at how easily Helen dealt with her own soldiers, the soldiers of Menelaus. She spoke not one word. White arms bare, her hair bound up with a golden veil, Helen dismissed her own men from their posts. With her fingertips, she touched the lips of a guard about to argue, and he hung his head and said nothing. She took the hand of the soldier trying to block a door and gently guided him and he let her. Sweetly she shook her head when another guard stepped forward, and she waited until he had stepped back.

  It was treason.

  Helen was the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Sister-in-law of Agamemnon, lord of lords. Mother of three princes, heirs to Amyklai.

  Yet, just as she might toss grain to a singing bird in a cage, Helen tossed the wealth of her kingdom to the enemy.

  The nobles of Amyklai were in their own homes, asleep behind their own barred doors, and they did not emerge. A dozen soldiers of Menelaus allowed themselves to be tied up. The Trojans barely knotted the ropes, as if Menelaus' men were a joke. A dozen more allowed the Trojans to herd them into a room and lock them there. A dozen more surrendered weapons without using them.

  Paris and his companions swaggered, as pirates do when they capture beautiful women. But the tips of the spears with which they saluted one another were unblooded.

  Hermione was a phantom, all staring eyes and white shocked face. “Mother,” she whispered, “the Trojans will take you as slave. Just the way Castor and Pollux so long ago took Aethra. The way Telamon of old took Hesione. The way Callisto's mother Petra was taken.”

  Helen neither saw nor heard her daughter. She swung the final door and held it open for Paris, guest-friend of her husband.

  “My men have commandeered every cart and donkey,” Paris said, waving his troops into the glittering storeroom. “Aeneas, meanwhile, is removing the temple gold.”

  “The temple gold!” cried Hermione. “Mother! Prevent this! Apollo attacked our kingdom with plague for two years! Father has only just rescued us from disease! What will Apollo do when we let foreigners carry off his honors?”

  “We are not foreigners, little princess,” said Paris, smiling. “We are Apollo's own children. We are taking his gold back where it belongs. Troy.” Standing on the threshold of Menelaus' storeroom, Paris kissed Helen. “We'll be in Gythion by tomorrow night, my swan, and the following day, we will sail for Troy.”

  Hermione bunched up her muscles to hurl herself against Paris, but in the end, she did nothing either. The Trojans would laugh at her and her own mother would not bother to look. I dragged Hermione into the shadows.

  “The gold veil on her hair?” said Hermione, jabbing a finger toward Helen. “It was a wedding gift. My mother is wearing her wedding veil to loot her own palace.”

  I felt weak and hopeless. How Helen hated Menelaus.

  “I will kill her,” said Hermione.

  I could think of only one thing worse than a queen handing her kingdom over to the enemy. The murder of that queen by her daughter.

  “No, Hermione,” I said, although I understood. I had wanted to kill a pirate once and Helen deserved to die as much as that backstabber. In fact, she was a backstabber, kicking Menelaus as that pirate had kicked my king. O my kings, my kings. “I cannot let you commit that crime, Hermione. Come, return to the women's wing. Something will set these men off, ours or theirs, and fighting will begin. We must be sure your baby brother is safe.”

  I knew that little Pleis was safe. Rhodea and Bia were no fools; they would bar the doors. It was Hermione I had to
keep safe.

  We emerged in the largest courtyard. The moon still crossed a black sky. It may take years to build a palace and fill a treasury, but in one small part of a night, it may all be destroyed.

  Hermione wanted to storm across the wide space but I held her back. We would work our way from shadow to shadow. In the end, the Trojans were nothing but pirates after loot, and in the end, a princess is the best loot of all.

  By the flickering light of torches, we saw Pyros storming up to a squadron of the enemy. I had not seen the overseer since we arrived in Amyklai. He carried only his mule whip. “Stop this, you Trojans!” the overseer shouted. “I demand that you cease!”

  My heart found room for Pyros, whom I disliked. He alone on that black night placed his loyalty with his king. But an overseer is not himself free. Pyros might be feared by other slaves, but he evoked no fear in the soldiers of Troy.

  “You have been welcome guests in the palace of Menelaus!” yelled Pyros, lifting his mule whip. “You have broken his bread and drunk his wine. Behave yourselves!”

  The Trojans laughed and shoved a spear through his belly. When the spear was yanked back out so the soldier could use it again, the guts came with it, spooling onto the grass. Pyros tried to stuff his intestines back in, but the dogs got there first and ate eagerly.

  I put my hand over Hermione's mouth, to stifle her scream. We must not let these Trojans see her next. They had tasted blood. Hermione tried to bite me.

  Fifty steps away, Helen and Paris reached the doorway we had come out of.

  From the ground, the dying Pyros raised up on one elbow. “Helen of Sparta!” he shouted. “I curse you! You ordered the gates to be left open! You are a traitor to the king your husband! May the gods eat your belly! May you—”

  Paris left Helen's side and jogged forward. Snatching a spear from one of his men, the prince finished Pyros off. Then he thrust his spear tip skyward in the jagged fist action of victory, as if he had risked his life; as if this had been a well-armed hero, a man on his feet, not a slave three quarters dead on the ground.