Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  “What about poisonous snakes?” I asked.

  “Yes, the snake has perfected that. But I know of no one who has been able to tame snakes and teach them to kill. And I know of no one who has been able to milk a snake to extract the poison. If he could”—Gelanor’s face lit up—“then all he would have to do is smear a drop or two on a cut of the victim. Did you know that you could drink a cup of snake poison and walk away as sound as ever?”

  “How can that be?” I asked.

  “Swallowing it does not harm you,” he said. “Only if it gets into a wound. So the snake creates its own wound to make sure. Therefore I think we can discount these other poisons, although anything is possible. But food and drink are the most likely. Continue to watch them.”

  Once I began to suspect people, everyone began to seem dangerous. There was the man who brought jugs of heated water to fill the bathtub—was it ordinary water? There was the man who perfumed the oil that went into the tub, which floated in shiny, sinister, drops upon the water. The scent—of lilies—had always pleased me. Now it seemed a death odor. Perhaps Gelanor was right in saying that poisoning by bathing was not likely—but was it impossible?

  Or perhaps it was on the wooden combs my attendants used to comb through my hair? And lately—they had pricked me several times when fastening my bronze shoulder brooch.

  Dressing, I slid my feet into my goatskin sandals and noticed how slick the leather was—could it be polished with some poisonous substance? I stared at it, trying to see any suspicious powder.

  As for the food, I could no longer eat any of it, and I asked Menelaus himself to fetch me water from the spring so that I would have my own supply.

  Menelaus was the only person I could be sure of. At the same time, I had to pretend that I was eating and drinking as usual, which entailed so much deception I did not know how long I could go on with it. Spitting out the wine when no one was looking, moving food around on the plate to make it look as if I had eaten, were not easy to do convincingly.

  “Menelaus, I am ready to do as your physician so wisely suggested some time ago. I must go to Asclepius!” I had to get out of the palace.

  “Yes, my dear, I can see that you have not improved. And . . . these demands of yours, about the water . . . ?” He looked so eager that for an instant I thought, Is it you? And then realized that he was hoping this all meant I was with child again.

  “I must go so that what we hope . . . can happen,” I assured him.

  “Will you take Nomia and Eurybia?”

  “No!” I must get away from them. From everyone here. “It is—I have been told I must go alone.”

  “By whom?”

  “By Apollo,” I lied. Menelaus would not argue with a god, as he would with Gelanor. Apollo, as everyone knew, could cause sudden illness with his arrows. Perhaps he was in back of this—or so Menelaus might think.

  “I will take a bodyguard of soldiers,” I said. “I shall be safe enough.” I regretted that I could not confide in Menelaus. Once I had thought I could, that he would be my true friend as well as my husband, but he had turned out to be only my husband, and I did not now want to invite him to raise a premature alarm.

  Gelanor would stay behind, observing. I had left him enough samples of food and drink and ointment to keep him busy. He had also fabricated an arrow-testing experiment for Menelaus’s archers that would provide an excuse for him to be on the palace grounds at odd hours.

  As I made ready to go out to the waiting chariot, he grasped my forearm. “Be careful. Keep your senses about you, even as you sleep, if possible.” His usual smile had faded, revealing the worry in his eyes.

  “I shall,” I assured him.

  Now, after a long dusty journey, I stood in the dimly lit stone hall where the altar to Asclepius stood. Before it were offerings left by supplicants seeking help from this god of healing. The sacred serpents, companions to Asclepius, coiled around its base. Tame, fed by the priests, they only betrayed their life by an occasional movement.

  I was almost too weak to stand erect; I could feel my knees trembling, and when I held up my hands, my arms ached. But I raised them higher and spoke directly to Asclepius, that man whose gift not only of healing but even of bringing back the dead had angered Zeus and Hades, as he was intruding on their domains. So Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt and here he lay, in Epidaurus. Even his bones had power, however, and he continued to heal from the grave.

  “Restore me,” I whispered. “Reveal to me what I must know to recover.” I bent down and added my offerings to the others heaped about.

  One of the priests came over to me, moving as silently as one of the sacred snakes.

  “Helen? Helen of Sparta?” he whispered. He had recognized me. Even in my present ravaged state, I could not pass as just another suppliant.

  I nodded in assent. “I have come to seek a cure,” I said.

  “The other patients will retire to sleep outside,” the priest said. “But you should remain here, near the god’s altar. Wait, and he will come to you.”

  The floor was hard stone, but I felt safety and peace here at the foot of the altar.

  The dim light gradually faded completely and the great stone chamber grew dark as a moonless sky; small votive lamps here and there provided only twinkles of light, like stars.

  Creeping as close to the altar as possible, I stretched out on my thick traveling cloak and lay still. The soft pulsing of the little lamps seemed to keep time with my own heartbeats, and I fell asleep.

  I felt a cold current. It was coming in two streams, twining themselves around me. I swam up through layers of sleep and fought to open my eyes, but they were being held shut. There was something cool and scaly over them. Then I felt it move, sliding forward. I felt my ears being touched, being tickled by something flicking against them. I dared not move. Was all this part of a dream?

  A hard rounded object was burrowing against the opening of my right ear, while the other ear was being—caressed, soothed, licked. Cautiously I moved my right arm up behind my back where something heavy was lying on it, and felt the rounded body of a snake.

  The sacred snakes! The sacred snakes had come to me and were curling about my head . . . licking my ears with their tiny darting tongues.

  This must be a message, must be symbolic. I was honored that they would come to me. Asclepius had answered my plea, but how? I could not understand the snakes, if they were trying to tell me something.

  They coiled around me a long time, and only slithered away when the hint of footsteps vibrated across the floor. Dawn must be coming; the priests must be making ready to come inside.

  Raising my head up slowly, I watched the serpents retreating back to the unhewn stone altar, their pale backs glistening in the faint light from the few oil lamps that had not burned out. I lay there with racing heart, unsure of what exactly had happened.

  When the unmistakable sounds of morning flooded into the shrine, I knew I would have to rise. I folded my cloak and stood up. There were two priests already at the altar. They were setting out dishes of milk for the snakes.

  I went over to them. I wanted to tell them what had happened, so perhaps they could explain it. At the same time, I did not want to betray the secret meeting between the snakes and me—if it was a secret. Perhaps it wasn’t. I did not know. I did not want to make a mistake.

  “They came to you,” the first priest said.

  How did he know?

  “It was revealed to me. I know them, and they know me. Daughter, do you know what it means?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “With the permission of Asclepius, they have transmitted three gifts to you.” He paused. “Now you must discover what they are.”

  XVIII

  All the way back to Sparta, in the bumping and jouncing chariot, I felt light-headed. I kept clutching my head, as if I could rattle it and have answers come tumbling out like dice. What gifts had the serpents bequeathed to me? How would I recognize them?
In what form would they manifest themselves?

  As I held my hands over my temples, I felt the sparseness of my once-abundant hair. The gifts of the serpents were not to be spurned, but the reason I had come to Asclepius, my weakness, was more pressing. I had received no knowledge about it, but in spite of my dizziness, I did feel somewhat better. The trembling in my arms and legs was due to excitement, not weakness. It was not such an effort to stand erect.

  The countryside passed before me, but I barely saw it—I, who had so longed to see beyond my circumscribed world of Sparta. Now I was so shaken and preoccupied, I was unable to feast my eyes upon it and was only dimly aware of the rocky hills, the high-tinkling bells of the sheep, the sweet sound of the rushing streams. From the heights I spied the sparkling sea, which I could never see from Sparta, but it meant little to me now.

  Instead, I was consumed to know what Gelanor had discovered in my absence. What a relief it would be if he had pinpointed the source of the poison and discovered the culprit. If only it were so!

  We arrived back in Sparta late on the third day of traveling. Menelaus, Mother, Father, all rushed to greet me and all but drag me from the chariot.

  “You look better,” Mother pronounced. “Your color has returned.”

  “Yes!” Father concurred.

  Menelaus encircled me with his arm and, murmuring endearments, steered me toward our apartments.

  Suddenly there was a shout from the chariot. The grooms, taking the reins of the horses and removing the mantles and floor covering, let out a yelp.

  “Serpent! Serpent!”

  Pushing Menelaus aside, I rushed back to the chariot. There, coiled in one of the mantles, was a small pale snake—a baby. It reared its head, looked at me, and flicked its tongue.

  “This must be one from the sacred precinct,” I said. “Somehow it entered our chariot when we left it standing beside the building at night, and hid itself there.” It was as if we had been given our own sacred snake. “It belongs near our family altar,” I said. “I will assume its care.”

  I followed Menelaus back to his chamber, but quickly asked if Hermione was well. He assured me that she was.

  “And you, sweetheart, you do look better,” he said. “The roses are back in your cheeks.”

  I went into the nursery and picked up Hermione; she slept so soundly that the movement did not awaken her. Yes, they were right. She seemed healthy and her color was good.

  “Oh, thank all the gods!” I said.

  “Apollo has spared her,” said Menelaus solemnly.

  Not Apollo, I wanted to say. My enemy, whoever he or she is.

  It was not until the next day that I had an opportunity to speak to Gelanor in private. I had spent the time resting in my chamber, the curtains drawn to keep the glaring light of noon out. I let the food the attendants brought sit; eventually the flies found it and that was my excuse for not eating it.

  He came into the darkened chamber and took a seat on the little bench by the shaded window.

  “You look better,” he said, echoing the others.

  “I feel stronger,” I said.

  Instead of ascribing my cure to Asclepius as all the others had done, he said, “That means you have not been exposed to the means of the poison for at least six days.” He shook his head. “I am sorry to report that I have been unable to discover the source of the poison. I tested all the foods you gave me, all the ointments, and the obliging animals I gave them to are as frisky as ever. I wiped the shoes and took the flowers from the vases and inspected the incense burners. I even tested the fleeces on the bed and the bedding and your robes. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “The combs? Did you test them?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “The points of my brooches?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But it is somewhere! We know that. And once I was away from it—wherever it might be concealed—I began to recover.”

  “I am at my wits’ end,” he admitted. “I cannot think of anything I have not inspected or tested.”

  My attendants were especially high-spirited as they dressed me on my second morning back.

  “While you were away I thought of this fillet for your hair,” Cissia said. “It will grace your forehead and lift your hair.” She slipped the cold metal around my head and it felt like a band of death. But nothing stung.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “And these new robes,” Anippe said. “This dye is such a pale pink, like the inside of a seashell, and you always favored that color.” The robe was fastened around me and I felt nothing.

  “Your bracelet,” said Eurybia, waving my favorite bright gold snake bracelet. She twined it around my upper arm. I thought of the other snakes, the real ones, and their twining.

  “Thank you,” I said. I had always been fond of that bracelet; now I knew why, now I knew my affinity for the creatures, and they for me.

  The next day I did not feel so well, and the day after that I had slipped back even further. I prayed to Asclepius to renew his cure, asking him to extend his power beyond his burial place at Epidaurus, and I made sure the snake was well looked after at our family altar. But it was all to no avail—day by day I felt the weakness creeping up upon me, leaching me.

  I forced myself to dress every day and go out, if only to anger my enemy. Every day that he or she saw me walking about the palace grounds (oh! what willpower it took to do that, and do it without shaking) would arouse anger, and possibly carelessness and desperation. Then the poisoner might become bolder, and easier to detect. If only I might survive the boldness!

  Gelanor visited me at the time of twilight, when I was lying listlessly on my couch. I could barely hold up my head. In fact, I could not, and rested it on the pillow.

  “Forgive me for my rudeness in not sitting up,” I said. Even my voice sounded shadowy to me. I tried to raise my arm in greeting and found it difficult. Tremblingly, I peeled the arm bracelet off, as if that would lighten my arm enough to make a difference. I laid it on a tray, where it rocked back and forth, the gold glinting, the carved scales of the snake catching the shadows and the light. They were very realistic. I marveled at it.

  Gelanor was tense and looked worried. “I cannot seem to find the means to stop this,” he said.

  In the dark hours of the night I was terrified, but now I wished to at least appear brave. “It may be beyond our ability to find,” I said.

  He looked around the room. “What can it be? It must be something you come in contact with. It should be obvious—something that rubs up against you. But I have tested the bedding and the clothes—” His eyes suddenly came to rest on the snake bracelet. “Did you take this with you to Epidaurus?” he asked.

  “No. I did not want to wear jewelry before the god, and it is foolish to travel with anything valuable.”

  “Hmm.” He picked it up and held it this way and that, letting it catch the light. “How many days were you free from wearing it?”

  “At least seven.”

  He rose suddenly. “I am taking it. That will assure you don’t wear it tomorrow. If anyone asks, tell them you must have lost it. Then look to see who searches for it the hardest.”

  He hurried from the chamber clutching the bracelet.

  The sun stole into my chamber. I watched as the light threw long fingers across the floor and gradually made the curtains glow with power.

  But I had no power. I was as drained as an empty wine flagon and my arms hung limply over the side of the bed. My eyes could still discern the lovely light patterns and my mind could think upon them, but my body was all but useless.

  Who would want to do this to me? For I did not believe it was a god. It was another person.

  It must be someone who was envious of me. I was a queen, I was—rumored to be—daughter of Zeus. And the eyes of others who beheld me reflected their belief that my beauty was unnatural and disturbing. I was imprisoned by my own good fortune, my unasked-for gifts, and made a target for others�
�� discontent.

  But this was all their fancy. Had anyone lost anything because of me? Anyone who was near to me? I could not think of anyone.

  And the things they could easily see did not reveal the lacks in my life as Menelaus’s wife.

  My attendants, chattering and happy, trooped in to dress me. Philyra swirled the gowns around in the air. Dirce made a show of selecting the proper sandals. And Nomia looked through the jewelry box.

  “These earrings, I think, the ones with amethyst,” she said. She held them up, dangling them.

  “And your favorite, the gold snake,” said Eurybia. She poked around searching for it. Finally she looked up. “It does not seem to be here. Did you lay it down somewhere?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said casually, noticing her concern.

  I watched as she began methodically searching the box, and then the surfaces in the chamber.

  “Oh, it does not matter, Eurybia,” I said.

  “I am only looking hard because I know how fond you are of it,” she assured me.

  “Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself,” I said.

  That afternoon, on my slow but determined walk, I chanced upon a campfire where shepherds were roasting meat. I asked them for some—for I knew they could not be involved—and had the first meal free of worry I had had in a great long time. The burned lamb was the most delicious meat I had ever tasted. It was free of evil.

  When I awoke the next morning, my arms were not so limp and I felt a bit stronger. During the day I made a point of seeking out the shepherds again, and eating as much as I could, so that I could decline the offerings at our palace meal.

  Again, the next morning, I was stronger. Some fallen hair still covered the pillow, but my arms and legs were no longer tremulous.

  I went to my loom. I had become quite a good weaver, creating new patterns to tell stories. A repeating abstract pattern could be lovely, but how much better to illustrate a tale. I was depicting one of the labors of Heracles—the one in which he confronted the Hydra of Lerna, the many-headed monster with one immortal head. The twisting necks gave a pleasing symmetry, enabling me to make a better picture than using another popular motif, the octopus. The octopus had only eight arms, whereas the Hydra had a hundred heads. Weavers shied away from the Hydra because she was evil, but as an artistic pattern, she was superb.