Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  Achilles had made a frightening appearance as he descended on the field with fury. His speed was especially startling: he seemed almost to run without ever touching the earth, skimming above it, disdaining it. But Hector pointed out that it would be easy to ascribe outlandish characteristics to anyone who behaved unpredictably. The truth was that after a few encounters even the supposedly unpredictable became a known thing. Achilles was fast; we knew that now. He could not surprise us with it again.

  Priam’s council diverged in their advice about future preparations. Everyone agreed that we had acquitted ourselves well in our first encounter, but the true test was yet to come. At what point should we send for the allies? Now we were outnumbered by the Greeks but the allies would almost even things out. However, sending for them would require feeding and housing them, swelling the numbers within our walls. Were we ready for that?

  Priam’s sons began to quarrel amongst themselves. Hector was resolute that we should fight each battle as fate presented it, but not before its time. Deiphobus wanted to lead an attack on the Greeks before they finished building their defensive wall, to take the battle to them. Helenus advised caution, to respond only to direct provocation and perhaps negotiate before that. Young Troilus was eager to join the fighting, although Priam had forbidden him to. He was too young, his father said. He was the joy of the old age of his mother. And he needed to be protected, because . . . because of a prophecy about him which Priam kept a secret. Troilus, standing up in the assembly one day, challenged his father to reveal this prophecy that seemed to bar him from participating in the war. Priam refused. He said our enemies already knew too much, and as for himself, he would hold the prophecy close to his heart. Troilus had declared that that was unacceptable. Unacceptable or not, his father replied, that was the way it must be.

  * * *

  In the gloomy half-light of our megaron, in the time of year when to light the fire would make the chamber so hot it would drive us out, we spread ourselves around its dead hearth. I had ordered some stands of incense to provide a feeling of closeness without heat, and had had armloads of meadow flowers arranged in vases at the four corners of the great hearth, guarding each of the pillars. Paris was languishing on his chair; this idleness was killing him. He needed to be able to come and go, fight or not fight. Troilus sprawled at his feet.

  “I wish I were you,” he said, brushing his long straight hair off his forehead. “You were born just enough ahead of me that you are free.”

  Paris laughed. “The lament of the younger,” he said. “No one wants to be the younger, but in the end the younger is the best off.”

  “I cannot see how that could be so,” muttered Troilus. “There is nothing enviable about being younger. They always come last.”

  “Or first. The young ones always have a special place.”

  “Bah.” Troilus set his wine cup down. “There is nothing special about it.”

  “I am the youngest,” I said. “I always liked being youngest. I could watch my brothers and my sister and chart a different course. In a sense, they tried out different clothes for me and found which ones fit.”

  “None of their clothes—or lives—would have fit you,” said Troilus. “That is hardly a fair test.”

  “Troilus,” said Paris. “Keep yourself safe here. Why should you endanger yourself on account of my—my—actions?” Was he about to say folly?

  “Your actions are now beyond you. They involve us all.”

  A heavy silence descended. Troilus was right.

  Hyllus entered the megaron. He waved at us; he came and went cheer-fully, in spite of the fact that his father was hated here and his kinsfolk seemed to regard him as an evil omen. He joined us at the dead ashes of the hearth; indeed, he started drawing patterns in them with a stick.

  “Do you know the prophecy about me?” Troilus looked imploringly at Paris.

  “Yes,” said Paris.

  “Will you reveal it to me?”

  “No. It is a dreary one, and would sadden you.”

  “Nothing would sadden me more than having to flounder about blindly under the net of a prophecy I know not, but which others know all too well. Is it not an insult to me? Why should others know it and I, the focus of it, know it not?”

  “Often if someone knows a prophecy he for some reason brings it about,” said Paris.

  “Let me be free of it!” cried Troilus, leaping up. “I promise to avoid it, but first I must know it!” His freckled face grew red with anguish.

  “Very well, then,” said Paris. “The prophecy is that if Troilus reaches the age of twenty, Troy will never fall.”

  Troilus smiled. “Ah! I am fourteen already. So I should refrain from joining the fighting for another six years.”

  “Yes,” said Paris. “Is that so very much to ask?”

  “I want to fight! Must I wait six years?”

  “If you do not want to be the cause of your city’s downfall,” said Paris.

  “That is not fair!” he wailed. “I am not even a soldier yet. Why should the city’s fate rest on me?”

  “No reason,” I could not resist saying, as a person teased and dangled by the gods. “The gods do not use reason in making their vile demands upon us.”

  Troilus propped himself on his elbows, sprawling out before the hearth. His legs were very long, and he was still growing. He might turn out to be the tallest of all Priam’s sons. “We used to train the horses together,” he said to Paris. “Now it isn’t even safe to ride out on the plain,” he lamented. “All I can do is take the horses for a bit of exercise by the springhouse. Hardly any sport at all. I hate my life!”

  “Never say that,” said Paris. “It is evil to say that.” He paused, then leaned over and ruffled Troilus’s hair. “Troilus, be patient. This war cannot last long. As others have said, the Greeks will tire of camping by our seashore and go home by winter. Their attempts at a siege are pitiful; we still come and go from the side of Troy facing Mount Ida. It is not so bad.”

  Troilus sighed. “I suppose not, but still I hate it!”

  His words were so common for a young person I could not help but laugh. They all say they hate their lives, when what they really mean is that they cannot wait to step from the chamber of childhood into the arena of adulthood.

  After Troilus left—as a youngster he still lived in the palace of his parents, not having his own apartments yet—I set down my wine and embraced Paris from behind as he sat in his chair. He was only three years older than Troilus but seemed a completely different creature. Perhaps it was due to his responsibilities as a herdsman long before he came to the palace, when he had had to defend his herds with his life. Perhaps it was due to his grace in forgiving his father and mother for casting him out. Whatever it was, for all his seventeen years he was a man. And more of a man than Achilles, with his bulging muscles and special armor, although they were within a year or so of age.

  I turned his head around, slowly, to face mine. My love for him seemed boundless. He was the true treasure of Troy. He should succeed Priam as king. Of all Priam’s sons, he was the only one who had faced true adversity. I knew this was the voice of love speaking in my heart, but so be it.

  “Paris, my dearest,” I murmured, taking his face in my hands.

  He laughed nervously, glancing at Hyllus—so silent we hardly knew he was there.

  “I shall say good night,” said Hyllus, jumping up, embarrassed. Quickly he scurried out of the chamber, bowing before he left, stumbling on the doorstep.

  “Farewell,” said Paris, nodding toward him. He laughed. “Now our observer is gone,” he said. “He is so quiet, one forgets about him.”

  His words stirred a thought in me, but it was unformed. “Perhaps that is the purpose,” I said. I was uncomfortable in his presence, yet he seemed harmless. Perhaps I did not like any unnecessary persons about.

  “He is a sad boy,” said Paris. “He has abuse heaped on him because of his father, whose actions are hardly his faul
t.”

  I swung around and sat on his lap. “Do you know what your most noble trait is?” I asked him, kissing his cheeks, first one, then the other. “Your feeling for others.”

  He laughed. “That is hardly one of the known virtues of a warrior.”

  “I am not speaking of a warrior, but of the virtue of a man.”

  Safe within our lovely chamber, we clung together. There had been no question as to which bedchamber to seek. In defiance of custom, we had only one: ours. Unlike other Trojan palaces, there was no prince and princess’s bed-chambers, but only a single lovers’ retreat. The builders had complied with our odd request and we had never regretted it.

  “My love, had we those extra suite of chambers, we would never use them,” said Paris. “An unnecessary expense!”

  “I cannot bear to be apart from you,” I whispered in his ear. It was true. Paris illuminated my world, he lighted the corners of myself that had lain dark.

  “Nor I, you,” he murmured. “And we need never be parted.”

  To think that had I listened to reason, I might be still in Sparta and he here—I unable to reach out and touch him, unable to hear his voice, unable to see those glorious eyes, so young and shining and filled with joy.

  “Paris,” I murmured. “Let them vanish.”

  “Who?” he asked, his lips beneath mine.

  “All our enemies,” I said.

  “Then that is everyone,” he said. “But I care not. They are all misguided, or jealous, or meddlers, or stupid. Our love will live long after they have gone to dust.”

  I embraced him. It was for this I loved him. He was so jubilantly, so joyously of the moment. And the moment was all we—anyone—truly had: a succession of moments, a triumphal march of them, to create a life beyond compare.

  Troy remained quiet. The Greeks had seemingly melted away after that first encounter. It was beguiling to think that they were refitting their ships to depart, that the danger was past. Still the Trojans guarded the ramparts, and the strengthening of the western wall went forward.

  Inside the walls, in the heat of summer, we curdled like milk held too long. In the stifling houses quarrels brewed and then exploded out into the streets—personal quarrels that had nothing to do with the Greeks. People pent up too long in one another’s company, unless they be lovers, soon find it unbearable. The only people who thrived on the stillness were the old councilors, who shuffled through the streets every day to Priam’s council chamber, invigorated by a standstill that allowed them to play at war. When there is no action, all men are warriors.

  There comes a day each summer that whispers perfection, says, Remember me, and you do, deep in the winter. The sky is achingly blue, the wind kindly, the warmth pervasive and lulling. On such days you lean on a windowsill and surrender to the sun on your face, eyes closed. Sometimes this day comes early in the season, sometimes at its very end. This day in Troy visited us just as the crones had begun to speak of autumn.

  I had been showing several women my loom and the emerging pattern. Evadne had glided amongst us, showing us different qualities of the wools—how one was thick and wiry and used to best advantage to depict water or grass, another so fine and thin it could show hair or slender fingers. Andromache was there, and the sisters Laodice and Ilona. Polyxena was missing; near to Troilus in age, they kept company much of the time, although lately Hyllus had invited himself to be with them more than they liked. Still, they did not want to hurt his feelings, so they often included him.

  Cassandra was not interested in weaving, nor in women’s matters, and I never expected her to be there, but I missed little Polyxena, especially since she had helped me select the scarlet wool. I wondered where she was, but on such a lovely day she would naturally be out-of-doors.

  We found ourselves drawn to the window, leaving the looms. We, too, should go outdoors, or at least into the streets of Troy. I was longing to walk once more in the countryside, but that must wait. Below us the city lay, fawn-colored and quiet in the noonday sun.

  “Ladies, let us go to the highest path, the one circling the temple, and taste the sweet wind,” I said. “On such a day—”

  A piercing cry, seemingly from one of the courtyards, shattered the calm. It sounded as if someone had been impaled, had had a stake passed through his body. It rose to a scream, then whimpered away and vanished, as though the breath were sucked out into a final gasp.

  A horrible accident! Some child had fallen on his father’s spear, or tumbled from a rooftop and crashed onto a stone step. Now another wail. It was the mother, shrieking all the louder in the silence surrounding her child. I grabbed Andromache’s upper arm, as if that would make it not so, undo whatever had happened.

  Without a word, we all rushed for the steps. The screaming kept on, and now more voices joined the first one. Outside, we looked around at the empty streets—people were usually inside at noonday. Now that we were at the ground level, the voices seemed to be coming from lower down in the city, near the east gate. We hurried down, passing side streets and curious people, now drawn out to see what had happened.

  “Here, it’s here!” said Laodice, turning the corner where the street led down to the east gate. Now the sound had changed to a roar. We rounded the last house shielding us from the open space around the gate, and beheld Hecuba screaming, her hands on her face, kneeling by a still form, its legs splayed awkwardly. Bending over the person was little Polyxena, her rounded back shaking with sobs. Hyllus stood by, white-faced. Even as we approached, the crowd swelled, and high keening filled the air. Paris and Hector appeared, pushing people out of the way to get to their mother. I saw Hector bend down and look, then swiftly embrace Hecuba and try to turn her face away. Paris clasped Polyxena and tried to comfort her.

  Priam shoved his way through, parting the crowd, running the last few steps. His deep pain and anger was in the roar with which he met the fallen body. As he fell to his knees, we caught a glimpse of the face—that of Troilus—turned to the sky, his fair hair gleaming like gold under the sun.

  I stumbled toward him, closing and opening my eyes, hoping each time that when I opened them the sight would vanish, or Troilus would move. But he did not. His arms were flung out on either side, and Paris, weeping, straightened his legs and arranged them neatly. He clasped the feet and kissed them, then made a precious bundle of them and lay over them—as if he could warm them back into life.

  A dull red stain covered the front of his tunic. He had been speared, or stabbed. This was no accident.

  Polyxena gave mournful gasps as she fought for breath, and words tumbled out—he did it, he was waiting—

  Laodice embraced her. “Peace, peace,” she murmured. “Breathe slowly. Slowly. There, there.”

  “Who has done this?” Hector’s voice was as cold as the waters of the Styx.

  “It was that man, that Greek—” Hyllus stood trembling. “We went to the springhouse to water the horses, and—”

  “All three of you?” barked Hector. “Troilus took his sister? I thought we had forbidden even Troilus to go!”

  Polyxena’s voice rose faintly. “I wanted to go. I m-made him take me. I am so tired of staying inside the walls.”

  “You disobeyed.” Hecuba could barely form words, she was still shaking so hard. “Both of you. You knew you were not to go outside. And now . . .” She sank to her knees again and fell across Troilus, covering his bloody chest.

  “What man are you talking about?” Hector asked. “At the springhouse?”

  “That fierce one. He was waiting for us, hiding on one side of the spring-house. I filled a water jar, and Troilus was just leading his horses to the trough when he—he sprang out at us. He leapt like a panther, and Troilus dropped the reins of the horses and ran, but he caught him up and—” She burst into tears again, shaking her head.

  “That man? That fierce man?” Hector looked around. “Does no one know his name? Or do you know it and dare not speak it?”

  Oh, let it not be
Menelaus!

  “It was Achilles,” whispered Hyllus. Then he sank to his knees and, trembling, tenderly wiped the forehead of his slain friend.

  Overhead the perfect summer day looked down on the sacrifice, on the young man who loved horses and meadows and was cheated of all his summers to come, and even the rest of this day.

  The streets of Troy were silent in the dawn as we walked by the litter bearing the body of Troilus to the funeral bier. They would hold the customary rites outside the city walls, and woe be to any Greek who sought to interrupt them.

  “We will kill them to a man,” said Hector, his deep voice so low it sounded like the rumbling of carts over stones. A full contingent of armed men accompanied us, protecting us on all sides. They had already guarded the building of the great funeral pyre, which used some of our precious wood stored for winter, and as we approached it I could see it rearing up against the sky. Such a big mound for the slight young man.

  With all solemnity, he was taken gently from the litter and placed on the rough platform waiting on top. They folded his arms over his chest and arranged his robe. I saw his poor white feet, those feet that had rushed down the streets of Troy to be the first to greet Paris upon his return, sticking stiffly out from the platform, which was too short for him.

  It had been two days since his death. He had lain on a ceremonial bed, surrounded by ritual mourners singing funeral dirges for the first day. Those singers formed a procession to accompany the litter to the pyre, but now they melted away, their task done. The real mourning would be done by those of us who loved him, and it would not follow a ritual, but come and go in waves.

  The sacrificial sheep and dogs were slain at the pyre, their bodies laid around its base, their blood poured out. Then a basket was passed amongst us, and we put the locks of hair we had cut earlier into it, so that they might be placed on the pyre as well. Jars filled with honey and oil were set around the pyre. And I myself had brought something to add to the pyre, to be consumed as an offering and a penitence.