A Thousand Ships

by Natalie Haynes

  ‘Of course they did,’ Hecabe spat.

  ‘I am only telling you what happened,’ Helen said. ‘Because you asked. Kings and princes travelled across Greece to ask my father for my hand in marriage. He soon realized that war might ensue, given that he would have to disappoint all but one of them. That’s why he made them swear the oath that bound them all to defend whoever married me. If Aphrodite had given your son any other woman as his prize, the war would not have happened. Your grudge is with the goddess, it is not with me.’

  Hecabe opened her mouth to respond, but Cassandra suddenly let out a curdling howl. ‘Be quiet,’ her mother hissed, raising her hand to slap her daughter across the face. Cassandra was blind to her, staring along the coast, where the light was already fading. Two Greek soldiers were walking back towards their camp, towards the women, carrying something heavy between them on a litter. Although Cassandra already knew that it was not something, but someone.

  17

  Aphrodite, Hera, Athene

  The three goddesses would have said they had nothing in common, but each one had the same overwhelming dislike of any social occasion which did not revolve around her. And each had the same incapacity to conceal her disdain. So their collective ill-temper on the day of the wedding of Thetis and Peleus was assured before the sun embarked on his journey across the sky.

  Of the three, it was perhaps Hera whose ill-temper was least appropriate. The goddess stood tall and stately, a small frown blighting her beautiful clear face, her huge brown eyes fixed somewhere above the hubbub which surrounded her. Thetis was a mere sea nymph, scarcely worthy of resentment from the queen of the Olympians. Not only that but Thetis had done that rarest of things, and rejected the overtures of Hera’s husband, Zeus. Hera’s usual reason for loathing someone – nymph, goddess or mortal – was Zeus’ spree of infidelities. There were days when she thought he must have threatened or cajoled every person he had ever seen into his bed. And after a while, this had become annoying: demi-gods popping up all over the place, each one claiming Zeus as a father. It was the discourtesy, the vulgarity of it all which she minded most. And while she punished her husband as best she could, there were limits to the revenge which could be taken against the king of the gods. Zeus simply was more powerful than his wife, and there was little she could do about that. So she punished the girls, the mortal ones especially, tricking and torturing them whenever the opportunity arose. Even when Zeus had sworn to protect them, he rarely gave them his full attention for long, not least because his eye was caught by the next beautiful young creature. Hera’s eye was not so easily distracted. But still, Thetis had done nothing to warrant her disapproval. When Zeus had shown his predictable enthusiasm for her, she had fled.

  It was perhaps this rejection, more than the prophecy, which had persuaded Zeus to act. He had insisted on Thetis, against her will and beneath her status, marrying a mortal man. Hera could not even remember his name, some Greek king from whichever island they were currently on. It was impossible to keep track of every corner of the archipelago. If they didn’t have a temple with a large, flattering statue of her inside it, Hera made no effort to remember them at all.

  But the prophecy was the reason which was being murmured behind their hands: Zeus had been told, so the gods were saying, that Thetis’ son would one day be greater than his father. It was what every man should wish for, and what every god should dread. In particular, the god who occupied the highest throne on Olympus after overthrowing his own father, Cronos, who had once overthrown his father, Ouranos. Fathering a son who would be marked with such a great and alarming destiny was not a risk that the all-powerful Zeus was willing to take. So it was decided that Thetis’ son would be half-mortal, confining his greatness to be relative to that of a mere man. The risk was cauterized, and Thetis’ unhappiness with the marital arrangements made no difference to anyone but herself.

  Aphrodite, on the other hand, saw every wedding as a small defeat. She prized love, but not the marital kind. Never the marital kind. What kind of love was that: companionship? The precursor to children? It was all she could do not to snort. What was companionship, when you could feel all-consuming passion? Who would not exchange a husband for a lover who would thrill rather than comfort? Who would not prefer to have her child slink unnoticed from a room if it meant her lover could sneak in through another door? It was impossible to believe that anyone would choose marital love over the kind of single-minded desire which Aphrodite called her own. People always said they prized their spouses, their offspring (indeed Aphrodite had a son of her own, whom she liked perfectly well), but she knew the truth. In the small hours of the morning, when men and women whispered their secret prayers, they were to her. They begged not for health and long life, as they did during daylight hours. They begged for the blinding, deafening force of lust to be visited upon them, and they begged for reciprocation. Everything else – wealth, power, status – was just furniture placed around the thing they truly wanted, to obstruct or disguise it. And that had nothing to do with marriage. You could see it today, in that poor fool’s face, as he gazed across at his bride-to-be, desperately trying to make eye contact and failing. He knew what it was to feel that desire. And he knew that marriage would do nothing to quench it. He would take Thetis to his bed but her disdain would corrupt any pleasure he might have felt with her. A nymph could love a mortal (Aphrodite ran through a brief mental list of nymphs who had done so: Merope, Callirhoe, Oenone . . .) but not Thetis, who showed nothing but contempt for this Greek.

  For Athene, arriving late behind Aphrodite, weddings were always a source of irritation. The grey-eyed goddess was not as tall as Hera, but she usually wore a helmet tilted back on her head to give her the height she did not possess. Athene loathed standing close to Aphrodite, who made her feel like she was nothing but elbows and knees. Aphrodite’s hair flowed into perfect locks which stroked her back, her peplos clung to her body as though it were wet. Athene looked down to see her own dress – hanging shapelessly from shoulder to ankle – and wondered how Aphrodite could look so different in what was essentially the same garment. Aphrodite always seemed strangely, desirably liquid: her eyes were the dark blue-green of the sea, her skin smelled faintly of salt. She curved beneath her dress like a dolphin or a seal, arcing through the surface of water. Athene wondered how it was possible to despise someone and desire them at the same time. She longed both to edge away from the goddess who caused her such discomfort, and to be enveloped by her. She gripped her spear more tightly, reminding everyone that her passion was for the cerebral and the martial. Men and women alike prayed to her for her skills and her wisdom. They did not pray to her with their yearnings for love or children or better health. They prayed to her for advice in their wars, for her strategy, for her deftness. So she carried her spear and wore her helmet, the better to convey that she had no interest in the things which enchanted most women. Like weddings. And she dismissed the thought of the Ithacan – a clever young man with a complex destiny ahead of him – who roused in her the feelings which other women spoke of when their menfolk were absent. Odysseus had eyes only for his new bride, his Penelope, at the moment. But Athene was clever in more than just matters of war, and she knew he would roam one day. All she had to do was make sure that she was in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. In, if required, the appropriate disguise.

  The three goddesses had resigned themselves to a day of boredom and irritation: every Olympian was present for the wedding, they could not slip away. But as her fellow nymphs swarmed around Thetis, and Peleus looked at the thronging immortals wondering just how far out of his depth he was, each goddess quietly cursed the marriage. The distaste was largely mutual: for her part, Thetis would have preferred none of them be present. She would have preferred not to be marrying Peleus at all, but he had struck some bargain with Zeus, and the sea-nymph knew better than to issue a flat refusal in this situation. She would take advantage of Zeus’ guilt (for surely the god must feel some
thing like remorse, pairing her with this clod of a man) in the future, when she needed something. She would not forget.

  But if she had to marry today, she could have done without the glowering face of Hera, who would look so much better if she would simply erase the perpetual expression of disapproval from her face. She could have been perfectly happy if Athene – accompanied everywhere by some squawking owl, as though she lived in some oversized nest – had chosen to absent herself. And no woman, immortal or not, wanted the sulking, pouting Aphrodite at her wedding. Every eye – even that of Thetis’ groom – was drawn in her direction. Thetis had arrived in her most beautiful sea-green peplos, and her husband-to-be had scarcely noticed, so busy had he been gazing at the foam-born goddess. Thetis longed for the three of them to disappear into the sea, but her wishes held no weight today.

  She turned her back on them all, determined to ignore them. She looked across the sandy shores of the low island of Aegina, where Zeus had decreed the wedding should be held. She saw all the gods and nymphs flocking together and felt a brief surge of anger that so many had come to witness her humiliation. She wished she could have her revenge upon them all.

  But revenge, when it came, came from another quarter altogether, and it rolled out onto the ground, gleaming and golden.

  *

  Aphrodite did not notice, when it first touched her foot. She was used to people, animals and gods finding reasons to touch her, however spurious: even the trees would sometimes drop their branches to try and snag themselves in her hair. It was sometime later – when a cup-bearer hastened towards her to offer her ambrosia, before offering it to the bride, the groom, or any of the other gods – that she stepped forward to take the cup, and saw the bright sheen of metal, pushed by her sandal as it rolled away again.

  Her mind was already on gold, because of Thetis’ earrings. Even Aphrodite knew that it would be unfortunate behaviour to approach the groom at his own wedding and ask if she could have the earrings he was about to give to his bride. She had considered it, nonetheless. They were so lovely: a two-headed snake forming a perfect hoop around a pair of seated golden monkeys. Strings of dark carnelian beads surrounded the circle, each one finished with a tiny golden bird. How beautiful they would look, nestled beneath her own ears. They would be lost in Thetis’ dark, seaweed locks. It was really absurd that they should belong to her and not to Aphrodite.

  She was about to reach down and pick up the golden sphere, but Athene, always so sharp-eyed and grabby, snatched it first. Aphrodite had practically kicked it into her heel when she took the nectar cup.

  ‘That’s mine,’ Aphrodite said.

  Athene looked from left to right in mock-innocence. ‘I don’t think so,’ she replied. ‘It just rolled into my foot, so I think that makes it mine.’

  ‘Give it to me,’ said Aphrodite. Her mouth was set into a petulant line, but both goddesses knew that this was her starting point. In a moment, she could turn on the full force of her persuasion and Athene would have to hand over the ball, no matter how much she tried to resist. No one could keep something from Aphrodite if she wanted it. No one except Hera.

  ‘What are you two arguing about?’ she hissed.

  ‘Athene has stolen my toy,’ Aphrodite said. ‘And I demand its return.’

  ‘It isn’t hers,’ said Athene. ‘It’s mine. Someone threw it at my feet.’

  ‘No one did anything of the kind. I dropped it and it rolled down the sand to you. That doesn’t make it yours.’ Aphrodite turned to Hera. ‘It doesn’t make it hers,’ she said.

  ‘Let me see.’ Hera reached for the ball and smirked as Athene’s hand closed over it reflexively. ‘I said to let me see it.’ Hera grabbed Athene’s fist with both hands, and prised the sphere from it. Athene tried to stop her, but as she was simultaneously trying to hold her spear, she could not.

  ‘It’s my ball,’ she said again. The other gods were beginning to notice that something was going on. Never averse to a good fight, they began to gather around.

  ‘It’s not a ball,’ Hera replied. ‘Look.’ She held up a perfect golden apple. It was almost spherical, but widened towards the top, beneath a tiny golden stalk. An indentation at the bottom allowed it to fit neatly between finger and thumb.

  ‘It’s still mine,’ Athene said.

  ‘Something’s written on it,’ said Hera, as she turned the apple in her hand. ‘Te kalliste.’

  ‘I told you it was mine,’ Aphrodite shrugged. ‘Who else could it possibly mean?’

  There was a momentary pause. ‘Perhaps it’s mine,’ Hera said. ‘Did either of you consider that?’

  ‘Give it back,’ said Athene. ‘Papa!’

  The gods looked around and eventually behind them to see the tall, bearded figure of Zeus, walking quickly out of earshot.

  ‘We can all see you sneaking off,’ Hera snapped. Zeus paused. A sigh shuddered through him. Somewhere thunder grumbled in a cloudless sky and men ran to his temples to placate him. He turned back to face his wife.

  ‘Did you have a question for me?’ he asked. ‘Or were you sorting things out among yourselves?’

  Golden-haired Apollo nudged his sister Artemis in the ribs. These goddesses were incapable of agreeing on anything and it provided them with endless enjoyment.

  ‘This apple has the words “For the most beautiful” inscribed upon it,’ Hera explained. ‘There is some debate over whom it might belong to.’

  ‘There really isn’t,’ said Aphrodite.

  ‘There is,’ Athene said.

  ‘There is only one answer to the conundrum.’ Hera spoke over them both. ‘Someone must decide which of us should have it.’ She looked out over the sea of gods before her.

  Those who had pushed their way to the front of the crowd found themselves suddenly and bitterly regretful. They fixed their eyes on the ground, as though each grain of sand must be counted. ‘And that should really be you, husband,’ Hera continued.

  Zeus looked at his wife, her expression one of irritated entitlement, and his daughter, a mask of plaintive injury. His other daughter was as perfect as always, but only a fool would think that she expected him to choose either of the other two. Or that she would forgive him if he did.

  ‘It cannot be me,’ he said. ‘How could I choose between my wife and my daughters? No husband or father could do such a thing.’

  ‘Then give me my ball,’ said Aphrodite, her tiny shell-like teeth gritted.

  ‘It’s an apple,’ Athene said. ‘And it’s mine.’

  ‘How presumptuous you both are,’ Hera said. ‘I’m holding it.’

  ‘Because you snatched it away from me!’ Athene cried.

  There was a shimmering and the goddesses felt the sands shift beneath them. Had Poseidon, the Earth-Shaker, joined the debate? The gods were no longer crowded around them. Rather, they saw they were surrounded by bright cloud, and then felt new, rockier ground beneath their feet. The cloud thinned, and they found themselves on a hillside, dark green pines all around and above them.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Aphrodite.

  ‘Mount Ida, I think,’ replied Athene, as she looked around her and noticed the towers of a citadel across the plains beneath the mountain. ‘Isn’t that Troy?’

  Hera shrugged. Who cared about Troy?

  *

  The young man appeared in front of them as though they had dreamed him into existence. Locks of black hair framed his forehead and his pointed cap sat slightly to one side, giving him a disreputable air.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Hera.

  ‘Paris, son of Priam,’ the man replied. His tone almost hid the confusion he felt in an environment both familiar and alien. Moments earlier he had been tending his herd in the meadows which skirted the bottom of Mount Ida. Now, unaccountably, he was in a dark glade which he had never noticed before. And from the view, he was near the top of the mountain, except that the air was too warm for that to be true. And now three women – slightly too big, and glowing faintly golden, as t
hough lit from within – were staring at him. He knew they must be goddesses.

  ‘You are to be our judge,’ said Aphrodite. She had no doubt that a mortal man would think her the most beautiful. And if he didn’t, she would destroy him in a beat of his pitiful human heart.

  ‘Judge? What am I to judge, madam?’ said Paris.

  ‘This apple says it is for the most beautiful,’ Athene said, jabbing her finger at the apple in Hera’s grasp. ‘Give it to him,’ she said. ‘It’s what Zeus has decided.’

  Hera sighed and beckoned the boy towards her. ‘Here,’ she said, tossing the apple into his hands. ‘You must decide to whom the apple rightfully belongs.’

  ‘Me?’ said Paris. For a moment, he had been wondering if his cattle were safe, unguarded on the slopes beneath him. But now if he’d heard the roar of mountain lions or the howl of wolves, he wouldn’t have moved a muscle. He turned the apple round, admiring its gleaming warmth. No wonder they were arguing over such a lovely, solid trinket. He saw the letters engraved on its flesh: ‘For the most beautiful’. He felt a brief spasm of sadness that the writer had used the feminine ending: ‘kalliste’. Had it read ‘kallisto’, he would certainly have kept it for himself.

  ‘Yes,’ said Aphrodite, who recognized desire when she saw it. ‘It is very pretty, isn’t it?’

  ‘As are you three ladies,’ Paris said, with practised gallantry.

  ‘We’ve heard it,’ said Athene. ‘Now choose.’

  Paris looked from one face to the other in genuine perplexity. Aphrodite, of course, was utterly beautiful, as everyone had always told him. Her clothes seemed to strain over her breasts, clinging to her flesh in such a way that his eye was drawn down from her perfect face, no matter how much he wanted to gaze at it. He could imagine wrapping his hand in her honeyed hair, and feeling her body pressed against his own, her mouth opening beneath him, and then he could imagine nothing else. Of course he would give the apple to her. She was astonishing.