by Kate Quinn
As my vision adjusts to the darkness, it’s clear business has not been good lately. The overgrown walkways spill over with unsold clay charms—some in the form of the goddess’ shield, others in the shape of her owl—sold for beseeching the goddess in the hopes of her wisdom and guidance. Behind them are lined-up rows of small shrine goddesses and statues of household gods for use in the home. On the ends are large, magnificent marble replicas of the temple’s main statue of Athena, likely destined for the gardens of the rich. My teeth clench as I realize I have not seen any fakes of the Palladion. Is it too sacred for them to copy and sell to the faithful? That would complicate everything.
Finally, there, in the very back, I see what I was hoping to find—lines of roughly cast duplicates of the sacred statue. They seem about the right size, though slightly smaller than the original. The colors are different. The goddess’ cloak is painted red instead of blue. My hope, though, is that Athena’s servants are so accustomed to their ancient statue they won’t notice the difference until I’m well away. With any luck, they may not even notice the change at all, for we humans are creatures of habit and see only what we expect to see.
I grab one of the fakes from the farthest back, where I’m sure no one will miss it. The house of priests fairly vibrates with snores as I move past them and out to the temple. Keeping to the shadows, I sidle up the marble steps like a cat, my heart pounding in my ears.
Goddess protect me. This is the moment I dread—entering the sacred sanctuary. No one but the sanctified servants of the god may step inside a temple. But then I remember: I am king of Ithaca, which sanctifies me by rights, but that will not save me if I am caught. Murmuring a prayer, I enter the silent inner chamber. I make a quick obeisance at the large statue, marveling at the beauty of her gleaming shield, then move directly to the niche. Again Athena must be watching over me, for there is not even a wobble when I make the switch and place the fake statue in the Palladion’s place.
I wrap my prize in my dirty cloak, begging the goddess’ forgiveness for the slight.
As I slink out of the inner sanctuary, every muscle is screaming, RUN! RUN! But I dare not lest my quick action awakens anyone. A sense of almost giddy exhilaration moves through me like a wave, and I know it is the goddess laughing along with me.
Yes, and why wouldn’t she? She is the goddess of wisdom and warfare. And warfare, not just warfare. Which means she values cunning just as much as she honors blood victory on the battlefield. When most look upon her image, all they see is her helmet and shield, but I see her canny intelligence. Surely, she must appreciate victory won with brilliance and not just brawn! If she does, if she blesses me and I get out of this alive, I will know then that she is my true patron goddess.
As if Athena herself whispers into my ear, my attention is drawn to the dying altar fire. If any of the supplicants wake to find it this way, they will become alarmed and seek out the priestess, find her drugged, and raise the alarm. The longer no one realizes I’ve replaced their goddess with a fake, the greater my chances of making it out. So I feed and stoke the fire in its gleaming bronze bowl until it flares and crackles and takes hold for good.
A sleeping supplicant turns over and mumbles as I pass but just as quickly stills. In a square outside the temple complex, I pause to get my bearings. There! The Scaean Gate—just as tall and imposing from inside the city as from outside. My heart pounds at being this close to it, for here—here—is the reason we have not succeeded in ending this terrible war. If we could only get past them. This tired, grieving city is more than ripe to be taken.
To my surprise, only two men guard the gate. Two. How is that possible? Then I remind myself, Earth-Shaker Poseidon and the Bringer of Light Apollo built the gate. And those high walls. Just look at them. It would take a giant to tumble them. Truly, they are a marvel of power and engineering. Two men could lay toe to head along the thickness of the immense doors alone.
Troy only needs two sleepy men at the gate because the gate’s construction guards itself.
It must be opened from the inside if we are to take the city. For a wild moment, I think about running straight down to the gate, dispatching the guards, and forcing the vast doors open, screaming for my men to attack.
But of course, none of our warriors await. It would do nothing but ensure my instant death. And yet there has to be a way to get a large force inside quickly, without being seen advancing across the broad plain. But how? How?
I become aware of people in the street stirring, the hiss of fires flaring in the dark, hoarse coughing and murmured conversations—the sounds of slaves rising to prepare for the day—and I realize dawn must be approaching. Gods, I’ve spent too much time staring at the gate.
The sound of tinkling fountains behind courtyard walls lets me know I’ve exited into a higher class of neighborhood. The streets are cleaner. And wider. And then I understand why—the broader causeway is likely for accommodating royal processions from the palace. I must be near Priam’s fortress. Which means I need to get myself to the poorer section of the city as quickly as possible. There are likely to be more guards on this end of the city.
As inconspicuously as possible, I begin hurrying, crouching low over my prize, checking to make sure my cloak covers it completely. The newly lit torches of predawn risers make me unsure of the time. Normally, I can sense how far we are from sunrise by the slight changes in the sky, but the city’s many fires confuse me. I peek up, trying to read the stars when I barrel into a wall of flesh and I’m thrown back, landing on my ass on the rough-cobbled pathway.
Thankfully, the statue remains safe in my arms, but without thinking, I curse in the dialect of my people.
A musical voice murmurs, “How interesting. I haven’t heard an accent like that in years.”
Staring past the royal guard who purposefully knocked me down—while noting that his sword is drawn—I see a veiled woman covered in jewels and shimmering in a cloth of gold hovering behind him. For a moment, I think it’s the goddess come to avenge me for the insult of taking her statue, but Penelope’s Eris pun flashes into memory, and I know exactly who stands before me.
“Despite the attempt at subterfuge,” the woman in gold continues. “I know only one man capable of making up curses about the improper use of long Ithacan rocks,” she says blandly.
“Odysseus of Ithaca, if I am not mistaken.”
“Helen of Sparta.” I look her in the face, my disguise useless. How could this be happening? Of all the people inside this city, it’s Eris herself who stops me? I was so close! The gods must be laughing at me. But I must stay calm. Think, think. Do not let her know you are rattled. But all I can manage is, “How strange to find you outside the palace at this hour.”
“It is Helen of Troy now,” she says in a low, purring rebuke. “And I visit the temple of Athena in the purple light of predawn so that I can speak to my goddess-aunt undisturbed and unseen.”
Choosing not to laugh aloud at her declaration that she is Athena’s blood relation—no matter what the stories say or she claims, I have never believed Menelaus’ former queen hatched from Zeus’ egg—I look around, trying to judge my next move. While I have a dagger, her guard has a very sharp spear. I can’t release the Palladion, nor can I let them know exactly what I have in my arms. If she commands her guard to take me, there will be nothing for it—swordless or not, I will fight to the death, for I will under no any circumstance become a prisoner of this woman or of this tired kingdom. The dishonor would be unbearable.
A chuckle escapes me as I straighten and dust myself off, still cradling my covered prize. So it appears my sense of honor has found its demarcation line. This point and no further. I am, then, not so very different than Achilles and Diomedes, after all. Only my line for dishonor is different than theirs. More, shall we say, practical.
“Leave us,” Helen commands her guard, and I raise an eyebrow.
“But this filthy beggar—“ the guard begins.
“Leave us,” she repeats,
and the ice in her voice could cut through a bronze shield.
The guard stares at her with surprise, but he obeys, stepping away from me and melting into the shadow of the dark alley. He will not go very far—my neck will always be well within reach of his spear, I know—but at least I don’t have to see him.
Soundlessly, she glides to the herm at the crossroads, signaling me to follow. The shrine provides scant privacy, but it is better than being in the middle of the lane.
“So, King of Ithaca,” Helen says, turning to me, trampling on dried flowers long ago left there by those seeking protection from the god of crossroads. Flicking her gaze at the bundle in my arms, her lips quirk. “You have been hunting, I suppose?”
With a cold sinking of my stomach, I realize she is well aware of what I have in my arms. And why. She must have heard of Hellenus’ prophecy. Word spreads fast in wartime. But then why has she not called an alarm? “How come you to be sure of my identity?” I ask, pretending casualness. “Surely, my accent isn’t that distinctive.”
Helen stares at me with the impassivity of a goddess. “I saw the boar hunt scar on your leg when you fell,” she says. “You bragged on it quite a lot in your youth. And I have an excellent memory for detail.”
I bet you do.
Her eyes take in my bruised face and dirtied appearance, but she says nothing. We stare at each other like wrestlers circling on the sand. What game is she playing? One word from her and the guard will take my head. Why does she pause? To discomfit her, I raise an eyebrow and smirk. She breaks first.
“I have a message for you to take to my husband,” she says.
“Paris? But he’s dead. Oh, you mean Deiphobus—“
“No, Menelaus,” she says slowly, closing her eyes for a moment, and it’s clear, under the surface calm, she is bone weary. “The husband from whom I was stolen.”
Her audacity astounds me.
She does not meet my eyes but busies herself removing a circlet from her arm. Handing it to me, she adds, “Tell him that I did not leave his house willingly.”
I stare at the golden bangle carved with the three stripes of the House of Menelaus. Idly, I wonder how she hid its presence from not one but now two Trojan husbands. Gods, she is sly. The bitch is hedging her bets.
Laughing, I shake my head. “You, my dear, will outlast us all.”
“Oh, I have no doubt I will outlast all the Achaean ‘heroes’ who pretend to fight for my honor but really seek to enrich themselves with Trojan gold at my expense. Certainly, I have outlasted those who sought to protect Troy—Paris, Hector, poor Penthesilea... ” she trails off, giving a brief, bitter glance at some ugly inner vision, but she pulls herself quickly back to the matter at hand.
“You will deliver the message?” she asks.
For a brief moment, I imagine pulling my dagger and slashing her throat. Finish this. Finish her. But her death would do nothing to end this conflict, no more than Hector’s did. Or Paris’. Or Achilles’. Not now. One of us—the god-born of Troy or the sea-wolves of the Achaean lands—must fall. And it must not be us Achaeans.
Should I blame her for wanting to survive the coming catastrophe, even if she caused it?
“Yes, I will deliver your message.” I turn, then pause, give her my most winning smile, and say, “You know, Helen, I used to wonder if you were an evil, lying, vain, chaos-inducing, harpy. But now I know.”
“Dear Odysseus, I am but a lowly woman,” she says without missing a beat. “And yet I suspect that if you were as devoid of freedom and power as I have been, you wouldn’t have lasted half as long—nor with half as much wealth and style.”
With that, she floats past me as silent, mysterious, and perfumed as a queen’s funeral barge.
Swallowing a bark of laughter, I shove her bracelet into the pouch hanging from my belt and set off without another glance. I wind my way down the city’s narrow circular alleys as quickly as I can without drawing attention to myself, for even at this hour, people are stumbling about this strange, smelly, overcrowded city. In my sleepy kingdom, only the guards—those watching the sea for invaders—are awake at this hour. Suppressing a shiver, I know in my bones what my future nightmares will look like: me, lost and alone forever in the filthy, stinking labyrinthine streets of Troy.
Just make it out. Go, go, go.
At the sight of a familiar pathway, I pause as if the goddess herself bade me, noticing a small bundle curled up on the doorstep of the lilting stacked house I passed earlier.
Something propels me to move toward the shape in the dark. As if in a dream, all goes quiet save for the sound of my own breathing.
It is the child from before, as I suspected. He has sneaked out again to wait for his beloved father despite his mother’s entreaties. My throat grows thick and tight at his sweet determination.
Ah, my son. Are you, too, waiting for me on the other side of the world? Watching the seas for my ships?
The sleeping child stirs, slowly sits up, blinking, as if I’d spoken aloud. Perhaps I had.
“Abba?” He stares at me through dream-filled, unseeing eyes, then grins, wide and sweet. “I told her you’d come for me,” he murmurs. “I told her.”
A chill slithers up my spine. My heart aches for the child, but I am also confused. Under what spell has heavy-eyed Hypnos placed him that he talks yet still sleeps?
This child is younger than my own boy. I know this. Yet in my heart and in my dreams, this is the age in which he comes to me, chubby-cheeked and soft-limbed, plump with milky innocence.
“I am here, my son,” I manage.
“Take me with you,” the child begs. “I miss you.”
Swallowing hard, I breathe out, “I can only visit you in your dreams.”
His face crumples in despair, and I fear he may wail, but it almost instantly transforms into an expression of delight. “Did you see how I fixed it?” the child whispers.
I blink, looking around, unsure of what he means.
He reaches behind him and holds out a small toy. A warped little wooden horse on wheels, black paint chipping along the flanks, fading yellow marks and holes outlining the harness and trace of what must have been an accompanying toy chariot.
I don’t dare ask what he has “fixed.” Maybe in his strange sleep he imagines that the missing doll-sized chariot and warrior are still attached? A worn and dirty gray strip of linen winds around the horse’s middle. Maybe the toy had a hole in it. But none of that matters. It is clear he seeks only his father’s affirmation. “Yes, well done, my son.”
He grins again, eyes closed. A strange warmth and dread fills my chest. Is it possible that the gods have me talking to my own son through this child? That bright-eyed Athena rewards me with this strange, precious moment with my boy across the sea?
“Take it,” the child says.
“What?”
“I sacrifice it to you,” the boy says with the deep solemnity of a young child, and I remember the sacrifice of a horse that bound the suitors of Helen to support each other in war. So many years ago. So many deaths ago.
Afraid he will awake from the strange spell if I do not obey, I pluck the toy from his small hands.
He leans forward over his knees and whispers, “The treasure is all there.”
I look down at it. It is so old. Perhaps it was once his father’s. Thrusting it back to the child—I do not want to take his only toy—I see that he has curled up on his side again, a smile of relief and satisfaction twitching on his tiny mouth as he murmurs nonsense words to his dead father in his sleep.
I know then that I must take it. He must feel and see that he has done a son’s duty to his father, as he’d promised. If he wakes and finds the toy he sacrificed to his father beside him—that it was all a dream and his father had not returned to the underworld with his gift—he will be crushed.
I turn to leave but cannot. Not knowing why, I feel compelled to add, “Child, you must protect your mother.”
Do you hear me, my son
across the sea?
“I am the big man now,” the child murmurs, as if his mother had said the very thing to him.
“Yes, you are,” I whisper. Then, as if Athena herself speaks through me, I add, “Leave the city. Take your mother and go into the hills. Soon. Do you promise?”
More unintelligible mumbling.
Still unsure why I need to, I push. “Do you hear me, Son? Leave the city with your mother. Tell her I have commanded it. Give me your oath. Swear on the soul of your father.”
“Yes, Abba. I swear.”
Air escapes my clogged throat in a slow, tight wheeze. I put my palm gently on the child’s crown of curls and whisper the ancient blessing of fathers to sons.
“Good-bye, Abba,” the child murmurs, releasing a sigh so deep he seems half his size in the expelling.
When I remove my hand, I suddenly come back to myself. What am I doing? How much time has passed? I scurry away, head down, trailing prayers for the safekeeping of that child and his mother, and for my own son and wife.
Hurry.
Just as I reach the crumbling section of wall where I gained entry, a man steps out of a dark doorway in front of me, dagger glinting, “Give me everything you’ve looted, old man. Now.”
For fuck’s sake, I don’t have time for this. Instantly, I switch the Palladion and the child’s toy under one arm and punch the man hard in the throat with the other. He goes down to his knees, dropping his dagger, wheezing, eyes wide at the surprising strength of the “old man” he tried to rob.. To keep him quiet, I slam my elbow down on his head, and he drops bonelessly to the worn paving stones.
A woman in a dingy doorway watches us, but she scurries away the moment I look at her. Too many people about. No time to spare. On the other side of the wall, I make a low, soft owl hoot, letting Diomedes know that I have arrived with my prize. I hear a grunt and a thud and know that he has knocked out the old guard so that I can pass. As I rush through, I see that Diomedes has cut the man’s throat. I had told him not to kill—to only knock him out. Now his replacement guard will call the alarm. Idiot.