Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

“No. I am not cold.” I stood where I was and commanded my body to stop its quivering.

  “Oh, Helen,” he murmured dazedly, running his hands across my shoulders and back. “My wife, my beauty.”

  I stood stiffly, letting him fire himself to such a peak that he would lose his ability to notice anything else. Soon he seemed utterly lost in the web of his own desire and anticipation. He shuffled toward the bed, that beckoning goal. Trying to keep his dignity, he first knelt on it, then attempted to draw me after him. He would not fall on it like an unbridled, impassioned youth. I let myself follow him.

  Safely—as he assumed—on the bed, he reached out for me. He plunged his thick and clumsy fingers into my hair, and for a moment I pitied him and would have left the thorn lying on its table, making do with ordinary ways of keeping him at bay. But he started kissing and biting my neck, lunging his thick body at me, and muttering insults about Paris. All these days in Troy, to have lived with the cowardly Paris . . . but now all was remedied. I should have been with him, Deiphobus, from the beginning.

  “From that first night in my father’s courtyard, I knew,” he breathed. He started sliding my gown from my shoulders, pressing up against me.

  “Pray, remove your tunic,” I teased him.

  “I need only raise it,” he said, panting.

  “That is what shepherds do in the fields,” I said. “It is not worthy of a prince of Troy. Is not your body that of a warrior? Then why hide it?”

  “I offer it to you,” he said eagerly, sitting up and stripping off his tunic, leaving his shoulders bare.

  Now! I reached over and plucked the stem of thorns. I dangled it before him. “This came from Sparta, my home. Our customs differ from yours. Yet I must honor them or feel that our union is not complete.”

  “Do what you must,” he murmured, not knowing what he said.

  “Very well.” I placed the branch carefully on his shoulder and drew it slowly down across his back. The little thorns dug in; tiny punctures wept a little blood, thin lines down his back.

  “If this makes you mine, and me yours, it is but a trifle.” He sighed with pleasure.

  “There,” I said, laying the branch aside. How long would it take to work? I must divert him for a little while. “Husband,” I said solemnly, “there is another ritual we observe in Sparta. We must intone the hymn to Hera as protector of marriage, and invoke her blessing.”

  “Very well.” A trace of impatience mixed in his voice, but the night was long and he could postpone his pleasure for a few moments, if by so doing he gained stature in his wife’s eyes.

  I had never memorized the entire prayer to Hera, which left me free to improvise and add verse after verse, which I hoped sounded authentic: “. . . the fruits of the earth and the great expanse of ocean, / and Poseidon and all his forces, grant us safe passage . . .”

  How much time had passed? I had no way of knowing. The coals in the brazier were dying, but that was no measure. It depended too much on the quantity and quality of the coals.

  “. . . and all Olympians—”

  “Must retire at last to Olympus,” he finished for me, firmly.

  Now it had come to this. He pulled off my gown—as he had the right to do—and gaped at my nakedness. Incoherent, he threw himself on me.

  A rush of sounds came from his mouth like bounding stags, but they were a confused mass of compliments and desire. He grabbed at my belly, cupped my thighs, my breasts, his stout fingers demanding a response. I tried to pretend, but my tepid flutterings were lost in his rush to consummate the union. He would conquer Helen, make her his at last.

  O let the drug have worked its disabling strength on him!

  “Oh! Oh!” he was crying out in pleasure—but it was a pleasure that could not go beyond those limits.

  I let loose a silent cry of thanks to the gods, and to Gelanor. I was spared.

  Bewilderment flooded him, then anger, then embarrassment. He fell away from me. He started to say something, then checked himself. He wondered if I knew what had happened.

  The pretense must only last a bit longer. Whatever served best to send him away and keep him from my bed: I would feign ignorance, and in so doing make his disappointment greater.

  “Deiphobus,” I whispered. I stroked his cheek. I forced myself to gaze upon him dreamily in what little light there was. “Thank you.”

  LXVIII

  What the Trojans thought of my “marriage,” I have no idea. Most likely they cared very little. Their appetite for and interest in my doings, or in any member of the royal family’s behavior, had shriveled like their bellies with the deprivations of the siege.

  I was safe from the predations of Deiphobus. A few times he made halfhearted attempts to overcome his mysterious malady—bolstering himself with drink, or inflaming himself with lascivious songs—but when the result continued the same, he slunk away. Before long I could leave my bedchamber door open with no fear of his trespassing.

  I worked at my loom, sadly completing the great pattern that had been empty and awaiting its final story. The edges, with Sparta, had been finished long ago, and within that, Paris and our voyage, but the center, with Troy, now must be filled in.

  The once proud and shining city was threadbare, stripped. The artworks had long ago been sold to raise money, the fountains were silent and filled with dust, the streets teeming with injured soldiers and widows and refugees, beggars and urchins. The fine horses were gone, and only a few bedraggled donkeys staggered under their packs. The lower city, which had formed an apron to the south below the main city, had been overrun by the Greeks, who trashed and burned the houses and workshops, stealing horses and wrecking gardens.

  The shining, sloping walls of Troy still held, and the towers still reared proudly over the enemy. They were impervious to the burning arrows and the stones the invaders aimed at them. As long as the walls of Troy held, Troy would stand.

  But oh! the walls guarded nothing but misery, encircled only pain and grief. From the outside it looked stout and snug, but inside all was abject. The only consolation lay in knowing our enemy could not see through the walls to what lay beyond.

  Of course, there were spies, always spies, on both sides. Doubtless the Greeks had hints of how badly things were going in Troy. They may even have heard about my “marriage” and undoubtedly they knew which of Troy’s best warriors survived—Deiphobus, and Aeneas, and Antimachus—and which were lost. They would have guessed that Priam and Hecuba were sunk in mourning and that the councils of war had deteriorated into laments and hopeless plans, and that Troy floundered, leaderless.

  But they, too, had lost leaders—Achilles, and Ajax, their two best warriors. Our spies told us that the survivors were disheartened and weary, and that to their eyes, the walls of Troy seemed untouched despite their years of effort. And then, a dreadful visitation of plague had ripped through their ranks. They prayed and asked the gods from whence it had come, and how had they offended.

  But it had not come from a god, so they received no answer. It had come from Gelanor’s mock treasure bundle, stuffed with the shirts from the temple of Apollo.

  “They have been reading entrails and bird flights like madmen,” Gelanor said. “But therein does not lie the answer they seek.” He was leaning over the wall, staring across the plain to the Greek camp. His voice echoed a grim satisfaction, tinged with sorrow. “It has worked as I thought it would.” He sighed. “As I hoped it would. But what an evil hope, to kill my countrymen.”

  I looked at him—so much older and worn than when I had first seen him. What had I done to him, to this honorable friend? My own journey had corrupted an upright man, to the point where he could poison his countrymen and call it a good day’s work. The sun was setting, and in the coming shadows I knew we were part of that darkness.

  It was left to the daughters of Priam and Hecuba to provide solace to their parents: Creusa, the wife of Aeneas, Polyxena, Laodice, Ilona, and Cassandra. They had been spared the arrows and spea
rs of the Greeks, but if the city fell, they would suffer worse than their dead brothers. In a conquered city, there were only two fates for women: the young ones would be raped and taken away into slavery, the old ones, deemed useless, killed outright. No one survived the sack of a city—not even the city itself. Achilles, the most ferocious ravisher, was gone and would not stride through our streets as he did through the home city of Andromache, destroying everything before him. But there were others—lesser imitators of their hero. They could mimic his cruelty easily enough, if they could not match his strength and prowess. Thus do cowards always.

  Our only hope was that the Greeks, exhausted and demoralized, might bow before the seeming invincibility of our massive walls and go home. As I said, they could not see through them, could not know how near the end we really were.

  I awoke crying. In the night I had had a strange vision, clear as a crystal splintering the sunlight. Even as I tried to grasp it, to retain it so I could convey it to others, it was fading, jumping, wavering, wriggling like shudders under the skin. I had seen something made of wood, huge, looming. I had seen it once before, even less clearly. But what was it? The image swam away from me. It harbored death. And I had also seen—could this be true?—Odysseus walking the streets of Troy, disguised. Taking our measure.

  He was wearing beggar’s rags. Had I seen such a person? But the streets of Troy were filled with beggars now. If Odysseus had managed to sneak in, he could have lost himself amongst them easily enough. And why would he have come? Had they no spies?

  Later he was to claim that I saw him, recognized him, helped him. But that is a lie. That man tells nothing but lies, whatever will serve his purpose. I pity Penelope, who waited for such a man!

  I cried because this hulking wooden thing—whatever it was, I had seen it but fleetingly—signaled the doom of Troy.

  I sat up. Daylight was nudging the shutters. The room around me was unchanged. Frescoes in red and blue showed the same serene flowers and birds. The polished floors gleamed, reflecting the fresh daylight. It seemed eternal, fixed. But the dream had shown it was all too vulnerable, living only on the sufferance of time.

  It could not vanish, it must abide. But that was an illusion. Everything vanished—Mother, Paris, my own youth. Why should this room be different? Why should Troy itself be different?

  “They are gone!” Evadne burst into the room, her spindly arms suddenly surging with strength as she flung the doors open. They flew out on either side of her, banging against the wall. The vases in their niches shuddered, trembled, but did not fall. “The Greeks have gone!”

  The dream . . . it must be tied in with the dream . . . I leapt up out of bed. “Did they leave anything behind?”

  She shook her head. “What matter what they left? They themselves are gone. Our sentries saw ship after ship sailing away, and then a brave lad confirmed it by going to their camp. It was deserted! And the spies report that they were so weakened by that mysterious plague they had not the manpower to continue the fight.” Her words rushed joyfully like a long-dammed stream suddenly free to tumble where it would.

  “Did they leave anything behind?” I repeated. I hated my own dampening words, but it was all that mattered.

  She inclined her head. “Dress yourself, my lady, and I shall tell you. I see your second sight did not vanish with the serpent.”

  * * *

  There was a horse, constructed of wood. From the camp a survivor had stumbled forth, claiming to have escaped the Greeks and their intended sacrifice of him by hiding in the forest. His name was Sinon, so he said. He told a pretty tale of their reasons for constructing the horse and leaving it behind.

  It was all lies. I knew it was all lies; my special knowledge told me. Yet the Trojans were so willing to believe him.

  There are those who hold that Trojans were far nobler than Greeks. They cite the fact that no sons of Troy claimed kinship with the gods, but fought as mortal men, their fates in their own hands, with no hope of Olympian reprieve. They speak of the high-mindedness of Priam in honoring the choice and marriage of his son Paris, refusing to surrender me, even though a more worldly king would have trussed me up and delivered me to the Greek camp, averting trouble.

  But a noble nature can blind a man to the motives of those who are not as he is, rendering himself helpless before them. Priam and his advisers did not practice deep duplicity, and credited their enemies with the nature they themselves possessed.

  Priam eagerly questioned Sinon and satisfied himself with his answers. His bruises, his cuts, argued for his veracity. Yet a clever enemy is willing to disguise himself in any way he deems efficacious. That never seemed to occur to Priam, in spite of the example of Hyllus. Hector would not do such a thing, therefore no one else would stoop to it.

  What if . . . what if . . . the Greeks had selected him to be their persuader, their spokesman, and he had undergone a few beatings and buffetings to make himself credible? I asked Priam to let me question him, as someone knowledgeable about Greeks and the Grecian language. He refused.

  Instead, he embraced the story Sinon told him. Here it is: The Greeks, eaten up by plague and realizing the walls of Troy were impregnable, had taken their leave of our shores after fruitless years of fighting. They had placated Athena—she who had urged their voyage here for her revenge on Paris and must be mollified before a return trip—with a horse of wood. Horses were special to Athena, and she must therefore look with favor upon it. Some seer of theirs had said that if the horse were carried into Troy itself, then Troy would stand forever, so they had purposely made it so large it would be difficult to drag through the gate and up to the temple of Athena. That way they could satisfy the goddess without endangering their own reputation, for if Troy stood untouched forever, then they had failed.

  “It is not like the Greeks to do this,” said Antimachus, circling the horse. I had dressed myself and come down, passing out the gates to inspect the large structure.

  There was something wrong. We both sensed it. A big wooden thing . . .

  He swung around and looked at me, knitting his brows. Tapping smartly on the horse with a rod, he muttered, “I like it not.”

  If three Antimachuses had stood on one another’s shoulders, the top one would have been able to reach out and touch the horse’s head. If five Antimachuses had stretched themselves in a line on the ground, they would have extended from one tip of the platform to another. The horse rested on a flat bed with logs underneath to make for easy rolling. It was made of green wood, hastily fashioned together. Its legs were tree trunks and the round part of its body bulged as if it were a pregnant mare. For eyes, it had two seashells. They looked down, unseeing.

  Cautious at first, a few curious people ventured out and inspected it. But soon hordes of Trojans streamed out and swarmed around the object, jabbering with glee. Pent up inside the walls for so long, their only excitement the daily ingress of the mangled and dead, this toy delighted them, as the sphinx had long ago. They stroked its legs and boys tried to clamber up to sit astride it. Women wove garlands of flowers to drape its neck, and tossed them up to their sons to festoon it. Pipers played flutes and people began dancing around it, crying with relief. It was over. The war was over.

  Priam and Hecuba emerged from the city and stood before it. Priam had arrayed himself in his most kingly robes, and Hecuba, still in black, wrapped herself in her cloak. Priam walked around it studiously, his dark eyes sweeping over it, taking in every detail—the fashioning of the planks, the size, the ugly white staring eyes. Then he turned back to regard the Scaean Gate.

  “It will just pass under it,” he said, measuring them both with his eyes.

  Again, that chill: it rippled over me, like wind stirring a barley field. It was constructed to do just that! It cannot fit just by chance.

  “We shall take it into our city, to protect us and fulfill the prophecy. Troy cannot fall if the horse passes through our walls.” His voice rose, almost to its former strength.


  No, this was wrong! “Dear father.” I stepped forward. “How do we know that is the prophecy? Sinon told us. But he is a Greek. Other than his words, we have no knowledge of what the horse betokens. And how comes it that they have fashioned it the exact size to pass through the gate? Surely they would have made it bigger if their true intent was to assure it remained outside Troy? As it is, they have invited you to bring it in. Think upon this.”

  Instead of answering, Priam stood dumbly staring up at the horse.

  Hecuba answered for him. “Do you, who brought all this upon us, now presume to warn us?”

  “I have lost the dearest thing in the world to me, but my loyalty is still to Troy,” I replied. “It always has been.”

  She flung back her hood. “You lost one person. We have lost many, including the one you loved. Our very city was threatened. You know the fate of vanquished cities—to be wiped from the face of the earth, left a smoldering mound of ashes. This was what the Greeks intended for us—because of you and Paris. Thousands of deaths for one kiss. If they had won, you would have switched your loyalty back to them quickly enough.”

  “Do you not yet know me?” I cried. It was as if she had struck me.

  “Into the city, into the city!” the people were chanting, swaying in the morning sunlight. “Drag it in!” And their cries drowned out Hecuba’s reply as she turned away.

  Suddenly Cassandra plucked at her mother’s arm. I had not seen her earlier, even though her red hair gleamed like a jewel amongst all the dull colors. “Helen speaks true,” she said. “There is evil here. Do not let it contaminate our city. Leave it here, out on the plain.”

  “Daughter of Priam, we all know of your frailty,” a man in the crowd yelled. “Go, stop speaking madness.”

  Laocoön, an outsized priest, came puffing toward us, two of his sons trotting to keep up with him. “Stop! Stop!” he cried. “Test it first!” He brandished a thrusting spear and flung it at the horse’s flanks, where it stuck and swayed. “Find something to penetrate it!” he cried. He looked around wildly. “Deiphobus? You have a bigger throwing spear. Let me have it. Let me pierce this horse’s hide and make the Greeks inside yell.”