The War At Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  ‘As is the better part of Argive royalty -- eating your food and emptying your wine-cellar while you and your brother dither over your daughters’ futures.’

  Odysseus sighed impatiently now. ‘Penelope wants only me for her husband. She wants me as certainly as Helen wants Menelaus, and if you and Icarius wish to sleep easier in your beds at night you would both do well to let your daughters have their way.’

  But Tyndareus merely scowled. ‘This is all the solution you have? I had expected something more ingenious.’

  ‘That is part of it,’ said Odysseus, smiling again, ‘but not the whole. The rest I keep to myself till you agree to plead my cause with Icarius.’

  Tyndareus studied the irrepressible sea-rover across from him. He guessed that Odysseus had already been in conference with Menelaus and Agamemnon and that they knew what he was about right now. He guessed that he’d discussed this business with Helen too, and that all three had felt what he was feeling: that something about this guileful rogue inspired one’s confidence, even if you weren’t quite sure you could trust him.

  ‘What do you want me to say,’ he sighed.

  ‘It’s simple enough,’ Odysseus answered. ‘Tell him that you’ve been thinking things over and that you’ve decided that the only sensible thing for a father to do in such a pass is to leave his daughter free to choose for herself. Tell him that’s what you will let Helen do, and that if he cares for his own daughter’s happiness, he should do the same for Penelope. Tell him Odysseus has been at pains to mend his fortune for his daughter’s sake, and that not only does he love Penelope with undying passion, he’s also a far more resourceful and reliable fellow than the scoundrel that Icarius mistakes him for. Tell him what you know to be true -- that Penelope loves me and will continue to make his life a misery until he consents to this marriage.’

  ‘And if I agree,’ said Tyndareus, hearing nothing there that would come hard to his lips, ‘shall I tell him that the resourceful Odysseus has helped me find a way out of my difficulties?’

  ‘You shall.’

  ‘And that way is?’

  ‘Do we have a bargain?’ Odysseus held out his hand. When Tyndareus nodded and took it, the Ithacan smiled. ‘Tomorrow is the day when the King Horse must be sacrificed to Poseidon, is it not?’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Here is what you must do. Assemble all the suitors in the sacred precinct and tell them that with so many proud princes to choose among, you have been unable to see any other way than to leave Helen free to make the decision for herself. Tell them that is how it will be. But also tell them that before her choice is announced you will require every man present to swear a vow that he will defend her chosen husband against anyone who challenges his right to have her.’

  Tyndareus sat back in his chair, stroking his beard. After a moment he said, ‘Men have been known to break their oaths.’ Again Odysseus grinned. ‘I have an oath in mind so terrible,’ he said, ‘that not one of them will dare to break it.’

  The King Horse was brought in from his pasture at dawn the next day. With his mane and tail braided and garlanded, and his hooves painted gold, the sleek white stallion was led into the sacred precinct where the bronze statue of Poseidon brandished his trident fish-spear. There the stallion was offered to the god before all the assembled suitors. But the great beast did not go easily to the sacrifice. It was as if his nostrils already smelled death coming to him. He snorted and whinnied with rolling eyes. His ears were laid back and hooves restive as Tyndareus invoked the blue-haired god who moves both earth and sea. It took four men straining with all their weight against his rawhide tethers to keep the powerful animal in place.

  The old king lacked the strength to ensure a clean kill, so it was his son-in-law, Agamemnon, acting as his surrogate, who took the sacred cleaver in hand and smote the sinews of the horse’s neck, severing the windpipe with a single blow. Wide-eyed, screaming his grief and rage, the King Horse reared back against the tethers, flailing bright hooves against the air. He seemed to hang there for a long time as though gathering the force to trample death beneath him, then he frothed out his last gasps of breath before collapsing in his death throes at Agamemnon’s feet. Blood spurted from the torn white flesh into a silver salver. Steam rose in the morning heat, and as flies began to gather, the men who had restrained the horse took cleavers of their own and began to joint the carcass till the once majestic animal lay in raw and bloody pieces on the precinct’s holy ground.

  Only then did Tyndareus announce to the suitors the terms of the oath that Odysseus had devised for them. Before his daughter declared the name of he who was to be the happy recipient of her hand, each of these mighty princes was required to stand with one foot on a portion of the great white stallion that had been offered to Poseidon, and ask that the god should visit ruin and destruction on his lands if he failed to defend the right of the successful candidate to hold Helen alone and unchallenged for the rest of his days.

  For a few moments while they took in the gravity of what was being asked of them, the assembled princes stood in silence. A stir and murmur passed through the throng as they recalled the terrible havoc that had been wrought in living memory by angry shrugs of the Earthshaker’s shoulders in Knossos and in Troy. Tyndareus glanced uncertainly at Odysseus, who merely smiled and gave a reassuring nod. ‘Come, gentlemen,’ said Agamemnon, ‘is not so dreadful an oath warranted by so fair a prize?’

  Young Palamedes spoke up first. ‘I for one will gladly make this pledge -- though I confess I would rather have played dice for Helen’s hand!’ An uneasy laugh rippled among the suitors. Then Palamedes said, ‘But should not he who devised so dreadful an oath be the first to utter it?’

  Unprepared for this, Odysseus took in the general murmur of agreement. ‘All men know that I am not a contender here,’ he prevaricated.

  ‘No more am I,’ said Agamemnon, eager to move things on, ‘but I too will gladly swear. Come, Lord Odysseus, show us how the thing is done.’

  So Odysseus found himself with no choice but to untie his sandal and stand with his bare foot pressed against a portion of the horse’s thigh to put his honour and the fate of his island at the mercy of Earthshaker Poseidon.

  Agamemnon was next to take the oath. Then Diomedes, eager to display his love for Helen, stepped forward. Menelaus, Palamedes and the handsome Prince of Crete were quick to join them. One by one, with fear of the god heavy on their tongues, the others followed. Only when all the princes had sworn did Helen step forth in her bridal gown, holding the wreath she had made for this sacred occasion, and place it over the flowing red hair of Menelaus, who stood, beaming with joy, among the rivals he had bested.

  ‘The gods are just,’ he cried, with tears starting at his eyes. ‘My thanks go forth to Divine Athena for guiding the choice of my betrothed.’ Then looking at the number and quality of the men around him, and the glower of envy and disappointment in their eyes, he turned to the statue of the god. ‘Hear my praises, Great Poseidon, Ruler of Horses and Shaker of Cities, for granting your divine protection to this union.’

  Helen told herself again that Menelaus had always been her friend. Now he would be her safe haven in the turmoil of the world, and if, as a girl, she had ever dreamed of passion, she was glad to let go of such dreams. She wanted to believe that when she gave her body to Menelaus that night, the act would allay the curse of her beauty for ever. She wanted to believe it with all her heart. But the heart is a prophetic organ and can, for a time, keep secrets even from the one inside whose breast it beats.

  Meanwhile, Tyndareus opened his arms to give the younger son of Atreus his blessing. He watched Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra gather Menelaus and Helen into their embrace, brother to brother and sister to sister. And as he did so, the weary old king was reflecting on the day many years earlier when, in sacrificing to the gods, he had foolishly neglected to make an offering to Aphrodite, and the Golden One had sworn to take her revenge by making sure that both his daught
ers would one day prove to be faithless wives.

  The Supplicant

  Within the year Tyndareus was found dead in his chamber. Already ruler in all but name, Menelaus ascended to the Lacadaemonian throne of Sparta, and shortly afterwards his beloved wife gave birth to a daughter. Helen’s labour was so long and hard that there was a time when Aethra feared that the struggle might kill her, yet the infant Hermione emerged from those birth-pangs with so much of her mother’s exquisite beauty that Menelaus felt more than ever blessed in the marriage he had made.

  Helen too was strengthened by the marriage. With the long ordeal of being the object of every man’s desire now over, her confidence returned. She took a new purchase on life, responding well to the pleasures and challenges of being a wife, a mother and a queen. In dealing with the affairs of a kingdom whose customs she knew and understood far better than he did, Menelaus often sought her counsel. This was the first time that anyone had ever valued her judgement, and she thrived on it, discovering a larger interest in public life. They drew up new plans for their palace together, extending both the state rooms and their private apartments, and making skilful use at her suggestion of the finely mottled porphyry from local quarries. The results so impressed her sister that Clytaemnestra ordered large quantities of Spartan stone for the refurbishment of her own gloomy palace in Mycenae.

  Helen also took delight in redesigning the gardens around their home so that the tranquil hours that she and her adoring husband spent together with their child might be filled with fragrance and colour and the sound of water.

  At such times they could look down from their palace beneath the Bronze House of Athena across a broad fertile plain ringed by its steep defending hills, on to a future in which their contentment seemed assured. For if there was little passion in their life together there was a great deal of affection, and Sparta was prospering around them. Already plans were laid for the day when Hermione would marry her cousin Orestes, the first-born child of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, thus uniting the thrones of Sparta and Mycenae for ever. The gods, it seemed, were kind.

  Almost four years after the birth of Hermione, Menelaus received an urgent message from his brother. Agamemnon required his presence at the court of King Telamon on Salamis, where their joint show of strength would offer support to the king in the latest round of a long-standing wrangle with Troy.

  Dismayed by the prospect of this first separation from her husband, Helen demanded to know why such a mission should be necessary.

  ‘It’s an old quarrel,’ Menelaus explained. ‘Telamon and Heracles captured Troy about thirty years ago and as part of his share in the spoils Telamon was given the Trojan King’s daughter Hesione. She’s been kept on Salamis against her will ever since and wants nothing more than to go home. When Priam first succeeded to his father’s throne he was too weak to help his sister. These days he’s one of the most powerful kings in the east, and he’s determined to release her, but Telamon has turned down every offer of ransom.’

  Firmly Helen said, ‘I was once held captive in a strange land and I know the pain of it. If Hesione is miserable on Salamis, Telamon should let her go.’

  Menelaus grunted and looked away.

  ‘Why won’t he?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because he’s a hot-headed old war-horse who thinks he’s the last of the heroes since Heracles and Theseus died. Sometimes I think he’d watch Salamis burn sooner than give up his rightful prize.’

  ‘But that’s just foolishness,’ Helen protested. ‘And anyway, I don’t see how any of this concerns Sparta.’

  ‘Telamon has asked for Agamemnon’s support. Agamemnon has asked for mine. He’s my brother. I have to go.’

  He spoke as if that should be the end of the matter but Helen refused to be deterred. ‘Don’t you agree that it would be for the best if Hesione was given her wish and returned to her home in Troy?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Menelaus frowned. ‘But we can’t just let the Trojans take her or they’ll begin to think that Argos is weak.’

  She said, ‘That sounds more like your brother than yourself.’

  He gave her a reassuring smile that puckered the scar at his lip. ‘But I’m not my brother, and that’s why it’s important that I go to Salamis. It should be possible to sort this quarrel out without violence, and I think I might be able to act as a moderating influence.’

  Uncertainly Helen nodded, hoping that he was right.

  Meanwhile in Troy, King Priam had become so exasperated by Telamon’s rejection of his many generous offers to ransom Hesione that he was ready to threaten war over the issue. His counsellor Antenor, firm in his conviction that Troy’s interests were best served by peace, was opposed to such a dangerous course and called for support in his caution from Priam’s cousin Anchises, the blind King of the Dardanians. Anchises reminded Priam of the disaster that had ensued the last time Troy came into conflict with the Argives. And since Agamemnon had been declared High King, those warlike tribes were no longer fighting each other. If Priam invaded Salamis, all Argos might come down about his ears.

  Though he listened impatiently, Priam could hear the sense of it and reluctantly agreed that it would be wise not to resort to arms until all hope of a diplomatic solution was exhausted. So Anchises and Antenor were sent as his ambassadors to Salamis with a fresh, and final, demand for Hesione’s return.

  Menelaus arrived on the island two days after the Trojan legation and found his brother Agamemnon already there. Fortified by the presence of allies, Telamon, who was now well into his fifties and had put on a great deal of weight, called a council at which he invited Anchises and Antenor to state their case. Having heard them without interest, he turned to Agamemnon with a dismissive gesture. ‘Every year I must listen to such wheedling and bluster. Since they got fat and rich the Trojans have turned into moaning old women -- though I don’t recall hearing Priam complain when -- out of a generosity of spirit I’ve since come to regret -- I allowed Hesione to ransom his life. Don’t you agree it’s time this nonsense was settled once and for all?’

  Agamemnon nodded, ‘Hesione was justly taken. Laomedon broke his word -- as Troy has been prone to do. His perfidy cost him his city and all its spoils. There can be no question but that the woman is rightfully yours.’

  Telamon’s sons agreed. Menelaus said nothing until Agamemnon glanced towards him, when he too nodded, though with less vehement conviction.

  Telamon turned to Antenor with a shrug. ‘You see. The High King of Argos and his brother the King of Sparta are with me. Go home and tell Priam that both he and his sister would have been dead a long time ago if it wasn’t for the merciful gallantry shown to them by myself and Heracles. They should both be thankful rather than testing our patience like this.’

  ‘King Priam’s patience also has limits,’ said Anchises quietly. ‘So a deaf king sends us a blind king as his ambassador!’ Telamon glanced at Agamemnon with a mirthless chuckle, and then turned his smirk on the Trojan legation. ‘If Priam wants his sister back so badly, he should come and fetch her for himself. Meanwhile I shall use her as I choose.’

  ‘Is there not room for compromise here?’ Menelaus put in quickly. ‘Perhaps Hesione might be allowed to visit her brother for a time?’

  Agamemnon glowered at his brother. Telamon firmly shook his head. ‘Let her out of my sight and I’d never see her again. Her place is here with me.’

  ‘And why should Salamis trust the word of Troy when history counsels otherwise?’ Agamemnon put in. ‘Telamon won Hesione by right of arms. Should he choose to keep her that way, he can rely on our support.’

  Shortly afterwards, having suggested that Telamon would be wise to seek more measured counsel than that of the ambitious King of Mycenae, Antenor and Anchises returned gloomily to Troy.

  Menelaus also came back from Salamis with a heavy heart, only to find that during his absence pestilence had struck Sparta. Helen had done everything she could to keep the people in good heart, entreating the
gods on their behalf and offering help and advice from her wise woman Polydamna. But the first terrible death was followed by another, and soon the contagion began to spread throughout the poorer quarters of the city. Fearful both for his family and for the welfare of his kingdom, Menelaus imposed quarantine around the citadel and sent messengers to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi asking what remedy might be found for the plague that now threatened to ravage his country. After several days the answer came back that the king must seek out the tombs of a wolf and a goat that were brothers, and offer sacrifices there.

  For some time the priests and counsellors of the kingdom puzzled over the answer. How could a wolf and a goat possibly be brothers, and why would either be buried in a tomb? At last, after many hours spent poring over the clay tablets in the temple archives, a young scholar-priest emerged with a story to tell. In ancient times, the priest declared, Prometheus, benefactor of men -- he who had dared to steal fire from heaven and given to mankind a portion of the qualities possessed by all the other animals -- had once fathered two sons on the Harpy Celaeno. The names she gave to them were Lycus and Chimaerus, the wolf and the he-goat. They had been servants of Apollo Smintheus -- Apollo of the mice -- the god who brought, and who might also cure, pestilence.

  ‘Where are the tombs of these brothers to be found?’ demanded Menelaus.

  ‘Across the Aegean Sea,’ he was told, ‘at Sminthe, in the kingdom of Troy.’

  Menelaus threw his hands in the air. ‘Sometimes I wonder if the gods are toying with us. This is no good time to be going cap in hand to Troy.’

  On the night after the oracle was interpreted, he turned in his bed for so long that Helen too was kept from sleep. ‘Shall I ask Polydamna to prepare you a sleeping-draught?’ she murmured at last.

  ‘No,’ he shook his head and turned again. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you. I have much on my mind.’