Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  “Perhaps it should, but it does not.” He pointedly put on his helmet. Now his face was encircled with bronze; only his tight lips showed beneath it. “You choose an odd time to be tender-hearted, lady,” he said. “You are the cause of all this. You should revel in it. You cannot undo it, so you should embrace it.”

  “I would have done everything I could to stop it, but some unknown enemy prevented me.”

  He laughed, and the laugh echoed oddly within the bronze of the helmet. “Oh, Helen, do not seek to shift your guilt that way.” He fastened the strap under his chin. “It is only a pity that it is Paris you chose . . . but women are fickle, and nothing is forever.”

  I turned away, but only because I was speechless. There could be no clever retort, no response, to such an insult.

  The Plain of Troy was empty. After their first heady dash across the flats to our walls, where they spent themselves like foaming but futile waves, the Greeks withdrew.

  A walled city was difficult to assault. Did not Agamemnon know this better than anyone, snug behind his walls at Mycenae? He must search his mind, think of how someone might exploit Mycenae’s weaknesses to be victorious, and then translate that into a plan for Troy.

  The odd suspension of activity unnerved the Trojans, as the enemy had seemingly melted away. Our spies reported that they had beached their ships in rows upon the shore, with the last row bobbing in the water, held by stone anchors at their bows and cables at their sterns. We had succeeded in placing a number of spies in their midst already, and the wave of Gelanor-trained prostitutes were soon to follow. He thought that we should allow the lust of the men to grow outsized before we provided for their relief.

  “They are milling around down by the shore,” said one of the spies. “The ships have been drawn up in a special order, with the warrior known as Achilles on one end, a huge chunk of a man called Ajax on the other, and one known as Odysseus in the middle.”

  “So those are the real leaders,” said Priam. “And where, in all this, is Agamemnon? And his brother Menelaus?”

  “Tucked away somewhere along the row,” said the spy. “But you are right, Achilles, Odysseus, and Ajax seem to be the tent poles. Achilles is reputed to be a warrior of supernatural prowess, Odysseus is clever and devious, and Ajax is simply huge and immovable.”

  Achilles! But he had been on Scyros, disguised as a girl. How came he here to Troy? “How can Achilles be such a great warrior?” I cried. “As for the other two, Ajax is dumb as a well bucket, and Odysseus fights with his wits rather than his sword.”

  “Achilles is lauded as their foremost warrior,” insisted the spy. “I do not know on what basis they have decided this.”

  “Sometimes one just knows,” said Priam. He shook his head. “I have heard that Achilles has a goddess mother. We cannot match that. We in Troy are mortals. All are born of a human father and a human mother.”

  “That will assure that defeating him adds even more to our glory,” said Hector, who strode into the room. He looked around at all of us. “Huddling like a group of old women at a well? That is what it looks like.” He ripped his helmet off and tossed it into a corner, where it clanged mournfully, as if protesting. “I do not give much credence to the ‘son of a goddess’ whispers. There is agreement on Olympus that the gods will not rescue their offspring, lest they challenge fate, so what difference can it make?” He laughed, a glorious ringing laugh. “I pit the sons of man against the sons of a god any day,” he said. “We have no unrealistic ideas of being rescued, and that inspires a man to fight at the top of his powers.”

  Paris and I had returned to our palace when we were summoned by Antenor to meet him at his house. It was located midway down the slope of the city, a fine dwelling with latticed windows. Inside, it was spacious and airy; there were few objects to clutter the surroundings. He ushered us in and then led us to a smaller chamber, shutting the door behind us.

  “My dear prince and princess,” he said, pulling at the place where his brooch held his deep brown mantle in place. As always, it was impeccable and did not need adjusting. But he was most concerned about his appearance—he liked being known as the most tasteful man in Troy. “I now gaze upon that face which Menelaus and Odysseus longed to.”

  I spread my hands. “As you know, we were forcibly prevented from being present when they arrived in Troy.”

  Antenor came close and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Nonetheless, they left something for you.” He turned and clasped a small box, then handed it to me. “It is safe. I examined it.”

  I lifted the carved lid slowly. Inside lay an ornamental piece of jewelry—a deep red stone held by bright shining gold. It was meant to be worn as a brooch, or as a pendant, strung on a golden loop. I ran my finger over the smooth stone.

  “Menelaus said to give it to you,” said Antenor. “He wished you to have it.”

  At once, it struck me as odd. Why would Menelaus present me with a jewel, when he claimed I had plundered his palace? And it did not resemble anything he might have fancied; his taste in jewels ran to the heavy and ostentatious.

  Still, perhaps it was a sign that his heart was not entirely hardened toward me. There might be hope, some means of sending a message, arranging another meeting.

  I drew it out of the box, but Paris grabbed my wrist. “Don’t put it on! Don’t even touch it! It might be poisoned. Or cursed.”

  Slowly I laid it back on its wrappings. I hated to think that, but I must be cautious. “What exactly did he say when he gave it to you?” I asked Antenor.

  Antenor smoothed his silver hair. “He said, in a choking voice, ‘For Helen, my wife, that she may count the cost of her love.’ ” “All the more reason not to wear it,” said Paris. “He seeks to steal you back silently by way of this—this toy.”

  “That cannot be,” I said. But it looked so paltry, compared to the treasures of Troy, as it lay there in its little box, I was touched. Stop this! I told myself sternly. “How was he? How did he appear?” I asked Antenor. That was of more concern to me than his gift.

  “Worn down and weary,” said Antenor. He stopped short of saying, His heart was broken. “He kept looking toward the door of the council chamber, expecting you. When you did not appear, when the messengers returned saying that you were nowhere to be found, he crumpled up.”

  “What do you mean, ‘crumpled up’?” demanded Paris.

  “He seemed to grow smaller even as I watched him. Soon he was the size of Odysseus.”

  This was painful to hear. My hatred of the enemy who had locked me up churned inside me. “He needs to be told—I should explain—perhaps if I went there, to the ships—”

  “No!” Both Paris and Antenor cried in unison. “The time for that is past,” said Antenor. “Even if they captured you and sailed away with you back to Sparta, it is too late. The rest of the Greeks would stay here and attack us nonetheless. They did not come all this way for nothing, and—begging your pardon, my lady—I see now they did not come all this way just to retrieve you. Menelaus would be content with that, the rest would not. This expedition was a monumental expense. They must recoup their costs.”

  “Better they should turn and leave, for Troy will never recompense their losses!” cried Paris.

  “Take the jewel,” said Antenor. “I want it out of my house.” He thrust the box at me, and despite Paris’s warning, I took it.

  For a time it was quiet. The great Plain of Troy was empty and in our innocence it would be easy to think all was the same, and venture down there to play and sport as before. But the shoreline had changed; instead of a clear line where the sea met the sand, dark rows of ships now lay.

  After a time—it was midsummer now—groups of soldiers began moving across the green fields and encamping. At first there were only a few of them, and Priam sent out men to harass and attack them, driving some back, but then more came, and soon they formed a semicircle around the northern side of Troy, the side overlooking the Hellespont. As their numbers grew
, they started trying to block our gates and prevent anyone from entering or leaving Troy. But they left the southern side of the city unguarded, and Trojans were still able to come and go freely from those gates. They fanned out, bringing in more wood, torches, and grain, and taking the time to construct a shield over the drain conduit, so that no one could sneak into the city that way.

  Aeneas took advantage of the lull to return to his kingdom of Dardania, which lay to the immediate east of us. He gave formal notice to Priam, promising to return swiftly if he was needed, but felt he should guard his own people now.

  “For when the Greeks grow bored and weary of trying to subdue Troy by siege, and their morale suffers and their supplies dwindle, they will seek victims elsewhere. They will turn their eyes toward Dardania and Adrasteia and Phrygia,” he said as he took his leave of Paris and me. “Priam was unhappy that I must take your sister Creusa away with me, but she is my wife,” he told Paris. “And my father Anchises must be anxious about me.”

  “As you wish,” said Paris. He was pacing in the megaron of our palace, around and around the cold hearth in its center. “But, oh, my friend, my cousin, I shall miss you!” He embraced Aeneas, holding him close for a moment, then letting him go. Their two profiles, clean and sharp, mirrored one another’s.

  “And I, you,” Aeneas said quietly.

  Aeneas, gone. I, too, would miss him, as I had first beheld him along with Paris, and that moment was forever seared into my mind, the two of them part and parcel of my fate.

  Paris was eager to have his armor fitted. He had ordered a new suit of it, and the armor smiths visited him in his chambers, bringing linen versions of what would later be forged in bronze. “I want a breastplate with a raised design showing the walls of Troy,” he said. They measured his chest and arms and shoulders, cooing about his fine proportions. Then they began to demur about the time it would take to complete the armor and the quality of the bronze. They complained about the purity of the tin they had received from the far north, and said it was not up to the usual standard. Paris also wanted greaves for his shins and a thicker helmet of bronze, with a chin strap of pliant leather. “And on top of it all I shall wear my panther skin,” he pronounced. “It is my special insignia.”

  The craftsmen bowed and retreated, while Paris fretted. “I do not think it will be ready in time,” he said. “I should have attended to this earlier.”

  “No battles have yet occurred, except for the skirmish when they first landed,” I reminded him. “I am sure your armor will be ready in good time. But pray you may never have to use it. Then we can hang it in our halls and show our children their father’s glorious armor.”

  He sighed. Our children . . . would there ever be any? But we seldom spoke of it now, as our disappointment deepened and hopes faded. “Perhaps it will be necessary that I fight Menelaus for you. Man to man. I have it in my mind to do so. Why should these armies clash and kill, when it is really just a duel between two men?”

  “No, you must not!” It was not that I feared he would be injured, oh, no, I could not even think that—but if Menelaus won, even if Paris was spared, I would have to go with him. I would have to let him claim me, hold me, touch me, take me away. His hands would be on my shoulders, stroking my face, he would take me to his bed, his cold, dead bed.

  “Why, do you have so little faith in me?” he asked. His face showed a drained white hurt.

  “It is not that,” I said. “But the gods are deceitful, and may betray you.”

  Evadne and I sat quietly in the inmost chamber. I always found her calming, wise. My other attendants were cheerful and chattering, but served mainly to distract me. As always, she carried her hedgehog skin and a bag of uncarded wool, and as she sank down on her stool she drew out the tangled, matted wool and began drawing it across the hedgehog bristles, stretching out its fibers. Her arms spread wide, the dun-colored wool grew into long strands, and a great peace descended on us.

  “Paris is out, my lady?” she asked finally.

  “Yes. He has gone to inspect his store of arrows and have more made.” Some thought anyone who killed from afar was a coward, not daring to stand up and face his enemy. “Hector says that the best omen is to fight for one’s country, to die for it. It seems to me that the best omen is to make the soldiers on the other side die for their country.” Even if it was with arrows.

  Evadne laughed. “It would be better if women determined the course of war,” she said. “It would then proceed on common sense.” She drew out another gob of unworked wool, dark and messy.

  “Paris spoke of a duel between him and Menelaus.”

  “That is sensible,” she said. “After all, it is really between the two of them. No need to involve thousands.”

  “But I cannot go with Menelaus!” I cried. “Even if he won, I would run away!”

  I swung around and shoved the box with the brooch toward Evadne. “He had the audacity to bring me this!” I said. “A jewel! Surely he did not expect me to wear it!” I took it out and swung it between my fingers.

  “Oh, do not!” she said. She reached out and touched it lightly. “There is more to it than just a pretty gem.” She shook her head. “Where did he acquire it? And why would he give you a gift?”

  I put the brooch back in its box. As I drew my fingers away, I noticed that my fingertips were slightly red. I wiped them on a cloth, but the cloth stayed white.

  “It weeps,” said Evadne in wonder. “Perhaps as Menelaus himself.”

  “Tears are not red, “ I said. “This is something else.”

  Priam’s store of weapons was growing. He had two supply depots for them—one in the lower city, where larger items such as chariot parts, shields, unfinished wood shafts for spears, and breastplates could be stored, and another in the upper city, to house the spears, swords, daggers, bows, arrows, and quivers. Large piles of rocks were heaped up inside the walls to throw down upon the enemy, should he attempt to storm them.

  Antimachus, the truculent old warrior, seemed to relish the idea of the enemy daring to attack our walls. “Their pitiful scaling ladders will be death traps for them,” he said, and snorted, striding back and forth before a pile of rocks. His nostrils flared in his sunburnt face. “In order to climb, they have to place them close to the base of the walls and climb straight up, wearing armor. Oh, I’ve heard of the shield straps that allow them to sling their shields over their backs, turning themselves into turtles, but it’s so clumsy that half of them will lose their balance and fall. The rest—we’ll take care of the rest!” He bent down and picked up a large rock, so easily it might have been made of wool. His forearm bulged with muscle, the veins standing out. He laughed, and heaved the stone over the wall. A moment later a loud thud signaled its landing.

  “And, most exalted king, whom will you deploy to lead the soldiers when the fighting is done on the plain?” he asked Priam, overseeing his defenses.

  “Oh, that I could lead them myself!” said Priam. He seemed younger since the Greeks had landed; he drew vigor from the coming war. “I would put a fear into them, into all of them, even their Achilles and Agamemnon!” He exhaled, said goodbye to his dream. “But Hector will be the supreme commander.” Priam indicated the doorway of the palace. “Come, let us go inside.” He did not wish to speak of what he knew in the streets. A rumble of disappointment arose in the watching crowd that had followed him and his party from the walls.

  Once in the courtyard, Priam ordered us to take our places according to our station. Soldiers were to stand on his left, his sons and their families in the center, and councilors and advisors on his right. “I value all your opinions, but it is easier for me, at my age”—he made a little bow, as if inviting contradiction—“to know from what quarter attacks are coming.”

  No one argued; no one said, What do you mean, ‘at my age’—why, you are a warrior still! He waited, but finally he had to continue. “My clever advisor, the man who came with Helen to Troy, has succeeded in placing spies amon
gst the Greeks.”

  I looked around the company, but Gelanor was nowhere to be seen. I whispered to Paris that we must summon him, and Paris sent someone to find him.

  “It seems the ships are drawn up in several lines, some pulled far up on the beach, and the late-comers still bobbing in the water. There are far too many of them to be beached at once. They are using the ships as a sort of headquarters, with each end secured by their strongest fighters.”

  “We knew of their positions from the beginning,” scoffed Deiphobus. “What is new about that?”

  “If a battle is coming, best to meet it prepared,” maintained Priam. “Every morsel of knowledge about the enemy is invaluable, old or new.”

  After the gathering dispersed, Priam shuffled toward his altar. “Oh, Zeus,” he murmured, “give me strength.” He knelt down and clasped the pedestal holding the peculiar wooden three-eyed Zeus, closed his eyes, and prayed.

  Paris, Hector, Deiphobus, and Gelanor—late arrived—and I were the only ones still lingering.

  “There is more we can do,” said Gelanor. “Priam has spoken only of the offensive—troops, commanders, weapons. But we as the attacked must also fight defensively. We live here, and have advantages an army camping on foreign shores does not.”

  “What,” asked Hector, “beyond the bravery and strength of our warriors?”

  Gelanor looked at him oddly, almost pityingly. “Oh, there is so much more. Is your aim to win this war, or is it to be noble? They are not the same.”

  “Let us win it,” said Priam, returning from his appeal to Zeus. “We can dress it in nobility later. After the victory.”

  Gelanor reached out and touched Priam’s shoulder. “Your age does beget wisdom,” he said. “Very well, then. There are many things we can do to defend ourselves. We must harness nature.” He looked pointedly at Deiphobus and Hector. “I know you disdain anything but swelling muscles wielding a spear, and the human spirit driving that spear,” he said. “But our friends amongst the animals and the plants are eager to lend us a hand. We must not insult them by ignoring them.” He suddenly whipped out an arrow. “An arrow can carry death. Guaranteed death. If it is dipped in snake poison, it can dispatch the foe forthwith.