A Thousand Ships

by Natalie Haynes

  ‘The commander will wish to see his wife, his son and his daughter,’ Clytemnestra declared to the men who bustled past carrying animal feed and weapons. But no one slowed down to listen. The queen of Mycenae was not important here.

  Knowing her mother’s temper was unlikely to improve, Iphigenia took her little brother away for a while, down to the rock pools so that he could prod for crabs with a small stick he had picked up on the journey, and she could inspect her reflection. Although she did not look her best when seen from below, which tricked her into thinking she had acquired a double-chin. She stood back and angled her neck to get a better view. Her dark hair was parted down the centre, its kinked rows pinned tightly along her scalp before foaming into extravagant curls at the crown of her head. It flowed down her back, and she knew it would be set off perfectly by the saffron wedding dress. But none of the soldiers she could see – talking and play-fighting with one another, testing their strength and guile – wanted to pay her any attention at all. Were they all so afraid of her groom that they would not flirt with a princess, and one sitting so prettily in the afternoon sun?

  She had thought that Achilles would wish to present himself to her – officially, at her mother’s tent, or approaching her here in private, while Orestes busied himself with the soft red arms of a starfish which curved up like flower petals when he touched them – but he did not. Perhaps he was nervous, she thought. Though he could not be a coward, this hero about whom she had heard such things.

  When she took Orestes back to their tent, she found Clytemnestra in a slightly better temper, after a brief meeting with Agamemnon and Menelaus. Her mother was still vexed that no one had greeted their party, but she had been mollified by the suggestion that they had travelled more quickly than the men had imagined would be possible. Clytemnestra was a vain woman, and few things gave her more pleasure than men admiring her for having achieved something in the way a man might have done it. She considered herself a queen rather than a wife, and she never wished to be compared to other women, unless it was for the purpose of demonstrating her vast superiority to the rest of her sex.

  ‘The wedding will be tomorrow at first light,’ she told Iphigenia, who nodded happily. She did not share her mother’s disdain for womanish things and hunted through her belongings for the make-up she wished to wear the next morning: red discs on her forehead and cheeks, each one surrounded by a little cluster of red dots, like tiny suns. A thick black line encasing each eye, and darkening her solid brows. She had delicate gold chains to wear threaded through her hair. When the wedding ceremony began, she would be ready. The perfect bride.

  Before dawn, by the smoky light of a torch, Iphigenia prepared herself. She painted the lines and the circles, tied the sparkling metal strands into her carefully plaited locks. A servant arranged her hair exactly as she wished, making her glad that they had rehearsed the style at the end of every day’s travel. This was the moment when everything had to be flawless. She had the slave examine her work, lifting her chin and tilting it left, then right, to be certain that the dots she had placed on each cheek were level, before she filled them out to the neat circles she desired. Her mother did not paint her own face, but she wore a bright red dress which Iphigenia had never seen before, and the two of them smiled, clutching hands for a moment.

  ‘I look beautiful,’ Iphigenia said. She could not quite bring herself to phrase it as a question.

  ‘You do. The most beautiful bride these men will have ever seen, no matter which part of Greece they have travelled from,’ her mother said. ‘Here.’ She produced a small pot of thickly perfumed oil, and Iphigenia smoothed the scent of crushed flowers onto her hands and then into her glistening hair. ‘Perfect,’ her mother said. ‘You will make me proud today. My first daughter, married to the greatest warrior among all the Greeks.’

  They heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside, and a small, low cry. The soldiers were here to accompany her to the altar on the shore. Orestes was still asleep and Clytemnestra vacillated for a moment about waking him to accompany her, so the prince of Mycenae would see its princess become queen of the Myrmidons. But the thought of a fractious infant was more than she could bear, and she left him behind with the slaves. They opened the flap of the tent to see a motley assortment of soldiers waiting for them.

  ‘This is hardly the honour guard we might have expected,’ Clytemnestra said. ‘Do you not have more respect for Agamemnon and his family?’

  The men mumbled their apologies but there was no sincerity in their voices. They were waiting to go to war, Iphigenia thought. They had not the least inclination to attend a wedding between a man most of them had never seen fight, and the daughter of the man who commanded them, but not yet in battle. It was too soon for pride and honour. Her mother could not see it.

  The soldiers waited for her to adjust her sandal so the strap didn’t rub, and then began the short walk towards the sea. She walked beside Clytemnestra in silence, imagining how she must look in profile with her perfectly straight neck. For just a moment, she wished her father was there to tell her everything would be alright. But he had not returned to their tent after she had missed him the previous day. Still, as they came around the high dunes near the shore, she could see him ahead of her, standing by a makeshift altar.

  There were so many men lined up in front of the water, so many tall ships drawn up behind them. The city of Troy would never withstand such a force. Iphigenia felt a brief spasm of sadness, that her husband would be unable to distinguish himself in such a short-lived conflict. Perhaps there would be other wars. She continued to walk towards her father, so grand in his ritual garments, standing beside an ornately dressed priest. And as she felt the sand scratching the skin between her toes, she realized something was wrong.

  The sails of the ships were completely still. It was too early to be hot, but there was a solidity to the air which stifled her. She had thought the same yesterday, when she was watching her brother play in the rock pools, but she had dismissed the oddity: they were in a sheltered part of the shore. But here were all these men, all these ships, and yet nothing was rippling in the breeze: every sail lay limp. The air was never so still this close to water. Was it an omen? She felt her breathing quicken. Were the gods warning her off this marriage? Or was it the opposite: they had calmed the winds in honour of the ceremony? She wished that she could ask her mother, but Clytemnestra had not noticed anything unusual. She marched forward as though walking to her own wedding. She seemed almost surprised when the soldiers placed themselves between her and her daughter, several of them leading Clytemnestra off to the side while four men continued towards the altar with Iphigenia.

  It wasn’t just the windless sky which was worrying Iphigenia now. There was something else. She knew men were not perhaps so interested in weddings as their wives and sisters might have been. But the atmosphere was not at all celebratory, and she thought the prospect of a few wineskins later on would have been enough to provoke a little joy. Instead of which, the men seemed closed off, from each other as well as her. They frowned as she passed them, staring at the ground rather than revelling in her beauty. For a terrible moment, she thought she must have done something wrong: worn an ugly dress or applied her make-up inappropriately. But her mother’s slaves had been unanimous in their praise of her. She was correctly attired for a wedding.

  And then she saw the glint of her father’s knife in the morning sun and she understood everything in a rush, as though a god had put the words into her mind. The treacherous stillness in the air was divinely sent. Artemis had been affronted by something her father had done, and now she demanded a sacrifice or the ships would not sail. So there would be no marriage, no husband for Iphigenia. Not today and not ever. She had perfect clarity of thought, even as her senses became blurred. She heard her mother’s cry of rage, but distantly, as though it were echoing off the walls of a cave. The men stopped at the foot of the altar, and she climbed its three rickety steps towards her father. He
looked like someone she had never met.

  She knelt in silence before Agamemnon. Tears streamed into his beard, but he held the knife just the same. Her uncle stood behind him, his red hair glowing in the morning sun. She sensed his hand reach out to her father, offering strength for the ordeal he was about to undergo. She looked out across a sea of leather armour and wondered which of them was Achilles. On Iphigenia’s right she could see her mother, mouth gaping in a savage scream, but a buzzing sound had filled her ears, so she could not hear the words. She saw Clytemnestra was being restrained by five men, one of whom eventually forced his arm around her throat. Still her mother did not fall limply into their arms. She continued shouting and flailing, long after she could have had air left in her lungs.

  Many of the men in the front ranks looked away when the knife came down. And even those who did not blanch rarely spoke afterwards of what they had seen. One soldier was sure that in the crucial moment, the girl had been spirited away and replaced with a deer. But no one listened to him, because even the men (the young ones who had not fought in many battles, and the fathers of daughters who had fought in too many) who had looked away as the blade cut – who had shut their eyes rather than see her blood pouring from her neck – even those men had seen her white, lifeless body lying at her own father’s feet. And then they had felt the gentle breeze wrap itself around them.

  16

  The Trojan Women

  That evening, it became clear that the Greeks intended to stay on the Trojan peninsula for one or two more days, as they distributed their illicitly won gains and divided up the last of the women. Many of them had been taken already, and now only the royal family – Hecabe, her daughters, her daughters-in-law – remained to be split among the men who regarded themselves as heroes.

  As the sun began to drop again, two Greek soldiers appeared behind the women, half-shoving, half-dragging another woman between them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she spat. ‘Take me to Menelaus.’ The men ignored her, laughing as they pushed her one last time into the circle of Trojan women.

  ‘Menelaus will come and find you in the morning,’ said one of the guards. ‘When he finds out you’re here. But until then, you can spend the night with the Trojans you like so much.’ They hurried away to their camp, knowing that none of the other Greeks were likely to notice them in the half-light and that none of the women would be able to identify them the next day.

  Cassandra focused her attention on making the fire burn more vigorously, now the air was turning cool. Even Hecabe, quick to deride her daughter’s uselessness, had to admit that the priestess had always had a gift for fire. Armed with her foreknowledge, Cassandra still dreaded the encounter she was about to witness. But even after all these years, she could not look away from the impossible beauty of the woman who lost none of her poise when she was abused by these Greeks.

  Helen looked no different today than she had ten years earlier, when she stepped into the city beside Paris, who had returned with her from Sparta, declaring her his wife and Troy her home. They made a beautiful couple: him so dark with his perfumed black hair, and her so tall and fair that she seemed like a swan among ordinary birds. People said she had hatched from an egg, the daughter of Zeus and Leda. Poor Tyndareus, cuckolded by a god in the form of a swan. And there was something inhuman about her golden hair, her pale skin, her dark eyes, her shimmering clothes. She was hard to describe in her absence, as though the mortal gaze could not retain the memory of such perfection. It had long been a feature of life in the royal palace, that people would find excuses to be in the same room as her. Not just the men – although of course there were always men; they sniffed the air hungrily whenever she passed – but the women, too. Even the ones who loathed her – which was most of the Trojan mothers, wives and daughters – still could not bear to be away from her for long. They had to rest their eyes on her while they despised her.

  ‘The Trojan whore: is that what they’re calling you now?’ Hecabe asked, her mouth twisting in disdain.

  ‘I would think so,’ Helen replied. ‘They’ve never been a very imaginative group of people, my husband’s soldiers. And Agamemnon’s men are certainly no better. So let’s say the answer to your question is yes.’

  ‘I thought Menelaus would be clamouring for your return,’ Hecabe said. ‘It seems impossible that he could want to spend another night apart from you. After all these years.’

  ‘I’m sure he will be able to wait until tomorrow. All he has ever wanted is to have Helen as his wife. He had her, he lost her, and now he has her again. My presence is scarcely required at all, so long as it cannot be said that I am with someone else.’

  ‘You expect sympathy for having a boorish husband?’ Hecabe snapped. ‘You?’

  ‘I, who destroy everything I touch, polluting and ruining with my very existence?’ Helen said, eyebrows arched in annoyance. ‘No, I expect no sympathy and nor do I want it. I was simply answering your question about Menelaus’ indifference.’

  ‘None of the Greeks seem to want you back,’ Hecabe said.

  ‘Why would they?’ Helen replied. ‘They blame me for the war just like you do.’

  ‘Of course they blame you.’ Andromache spoke so quietly that Cassandra could barely hear her over the sound of the waves. ‘Everyone blames you, and Paris.’

  ‘At least you don’t make me the sole culprit,’ Helen said. Hector had loathed Paris, but he and Andromache had always been kind to their unexpected sister-in-law. Andromache shook her head.

  ‘I do,’ Hecabe said. ‘I blame you. Paris is a . . .’ She paused. ‘Was an immoral fool. But you were a married woman. You should have refused him.’

  ‘Paris was a married man,’ Helen said. ‘Why does everyone always forget that?’

  ‘He was married to a nymph,’ Hecabe replied. ‘She was hardly likely to besiege our city for his safe return.’

  Helen looked around at the rocks and chose one, seaweed-strewn and jagged. She took a few steps and sat upon it. In that moment, it looked like a throne. The falling sun should have been in her eyes, but he did not dare.

  ‘So why do you single me out for blame?’ Helen asked. ‘Paris came to me, remember? He came to Sparta, and to the palace of Menelaus, for one purpose only: to seduce me.’

  ‘And your crime was to be seduced.’

  ‘Yes,’ Helen sighed. ‘That was my crime. To give your handsome son everything he asked for, like everyone else did, because he was pretty and sweet and he enjoyed it so much.’

  Hecabe was silenced by the truth. She had indulged Paris as a young man, because he was so easily pleased, his delicate face so ready to break into a smile. Her other sons had worked harder and been more dutiful, but she had loved Paris like a pet. No one could resist him, and so he was always spoiled. Had Priam even questioned him, when he announced that he needed a ship to sail to Greece? Had anyone asked him where he was going or why? Blood suffused her creased cheeks: she knew that no one had. They had recoiled when he arrived back in Troy with Helen, and his hazy smile – she would never forget it – had morphed into a petulant confusion. Paris was perplexed that his family did not rush to welcome him and his new wife home. He was less perplexed when the Greek fleet arrived in the bay, but still seemed to believe that the Trojans were withholding their approval from some malicious cause rather than a genuine horror at his behaviour and its consequences. Even as he watched his brothers, friends and neighbours fight and die in a war he had begun, he never offered an apology, never claimed responsibility. For Paris, the problem was not his behaviour but Menelaus’ reaction which was, to him, entirely inexplicable. Everyone had always allowed him, encouraged him even, to take whatever he wanted. He had done that, and then suddenly there was a war.

  ‘Why did Menelaus even accept Paris into his home?’ Hecabe asked. ‘What sort of man leaves another man alone with his wife?’

  Helen rolled her eyes. ‘A man like Menelaus,’ she replied, ‘who would never seduce another man’s
wife, so can’t imagine that another person might behave differently. A man who would dutifully welcome a stranger into his home, but would soon tire of his perfumed hair, his effete clothes, his soft voice. A man who would not wish to offend the gods by asking the stranger to leave, but would be unable to face spending another day in his company. A man who would go on a hunting trip, begging his wife’s pardon for burdening her with the tedious guest, promising to return in a few days when the coast is clear. A man who would not see the way his wife and her guest are looking at one another and realize that the hunt is taking place at home while he is away with his hounds.’

  ‘But you could have refused Paris,’ Hecabe said. ‘To abandon your husband, your daughter . . .’

  Helen shrugged. ‘Which of us can refuse Aphrodite?’ she asked. ‘A god’s power is far greater than mine. When she urged me to accompany him to Troy, I tried to resist. But she gave me no choice. She told me what I must do and then she withdrew, and in her absence, I heard a high-pitched noise, a distant scream. From the moment Paris entered our halls, it was constant. I thought I was going mad: no one else could hear it and it would not cease. I put wax in my ears but it did not block out the sound. Then when Paris kissed me and I took him to my bed, the shrieking grew fainter. When I stepped onto his boat, it disappeared altogether. That is what it means to refuse a god, it is to be driven mad.’

  Hecabe gazed unblinking at Cassandra, who was scratching something into the sand with the end of a small stick, one sign on top of another, until the pattern was all churned up, illegible. ‘Whatever you say.’ She turned back to look at Helen. ‘But if you had refused to accompany him, the noise might have disappeared of its own accord. Besides, if Menelaus was as unthinking as you imply, why did he marshal all these Greeks for your return?’

  ‘Because my father Tyndareus had made them all swear,’ Helen said. ‘When the time came for me to marry, every man in Greece wanted to be my husband.’