by Amanda Elyot
Love and Beauty, Lust and Desire are almost as old as the world. The memory of my mother’s words enveloped me like Theseus’s strong arms. My lover entered me gently, covering my mouth with kisses when I gasped at the first experience of that extraordinary commingling of pleasure and pain. With another kiss, Theseus assured me that the initial sting would never again interrupt my enjoyment of the most glorious gift known to man. Our tongues danced as our bodies coupled. I wound my arms around his neck, drawing him closer, deeper, matching my rhythms to his until we approached rapture like two wild horses racing head-to-head and collapsed in each other’s arms, releasing our ecstatic cries into the still night air.
“I hope the servants sleep more soundly than you do!” I whispered after a moment or two, gazing into Theseus’s shining eyes.
He rolled onto his back and raised his right arm to welcome me into his embrace. Eagerly, I nestled beside him, enjoying the warmth of his lean, powerful body. I traced the smooth planes of his chest with the tip of my finger, and he brought my hand to his lips and kissed each fingertip, placing a final kiss in the hollow of my palm. “Such pretty hands,” he murmured, enfolding me in his arms and entwining his fingers with mine. “My sweet, sweet little Helen.” He held me close while we both began to drift toward a bittersweet sleep.
“I will always love you,” I whispered to him as a single salty tear fell from my eye and landed upon his breast.
The gentle light of Eos woke me. I was still sheltered in the warmth of Theseus’s body, his arm lazily draped across my bare breasts. “Good morning,” he murmured in my ear.
I rolled over and kissed his soft lips. “Thank you.”
“Are you mad? Thank you.” Theseus hugged me closer. I could have remained in that embrace forever, but I realized that I had to return to my room to bathe and dress for the new day. I redonned the blue silk chiton, fastened the girdle, and ran my fingers through my tangled hair with limited success in taming it. After a reluctant good-bye, I left Theseus’s chamber for my own, only to discover that the door had been barred. Aethra must have awakened during my absence and wanted to ensure that we would discuss it upon my eventual return.
Shame had ultimately been my mother’s murderer; after her death, I vowed never to admit it into my life. With head held high, I took a breath and rapped gently on the heavy wooden door. Aethra opened it and turned her woeful gaze on me. Her expression was full of the disapproval I had overheard her express to Theseus. There was no mistaking her comprehension of where I had passed the night.
“If it puts your mind at ease, you can believe that it was my destiny to share your son’s bed,” I told Aethra. Nothing would rob me of the joys I had experienced, nor attempt to diminish the memory as anything less than blissful. Aethra was in a religious tangle. To admit that it was in fact my choice to visit Theseus was to acknowledge the limited role of fate in one’s life. “I wish to bathe,” I said, and summoned the servants to fetch the water. Aethra helped me disrobe, clucking her disapproving tongue like an annoying mother hen. She had been prescient in acknowledging that through my sexual awakening I would discover the vastness of my own power. Already, only a few hours a woman, I began to feel its strength and to wield it like a flaming sword.
As I relaxed in my bath and mused upon my changed state, an alarm sounded, indicating an imminent danger. Theseus pounded on my door, ordering Aethra and me to dress and prepare ourselves for a journey. All was confusion as we hastily packed my textiles, cosmetics, and jewels into two large chests. I descended the stairs to find Theseus issuing abrupt commands to the palace guard. “What’s happening?” I asked him. So soon had my happiness turned to despair.
“This was not what we had arranged,” he growled, but upon seeing my anguished expression, relented and took me into his confidence. “The Dioscuri have brought more than the one hundred talents of gold we had agreed upon as your ransom. They have brought a small regiment and are spoiling for a fight. You and my mother must leave the acropolis for safer ground. I have summoned a chariot to bring you to Aphidnae.”
“But where . . . ?”
“It’s on the outskirts of the city, but well within Attica’s borders. You will be protected there.”
These were not the brothers I knew. Never would I believe that Castor and Polydeuces would break a treaty. I refused to accept Theseus’s explanation of events. “No! What if I decline to leave you? What if you tell my brothers that I am happy here in Athens and no longer wish to go home?” But well I knew, despite the passion we had shared only hours earlier, that I was not destined—or chosen—to be Theseus’s bride. If I could not permanently remain in Attica, at least I could do everything in my power to protect his life and his throne.
“You must go,” Theseus insisted. “This is no time for heroics.”
“Let me speak to them. My brothers are adventurers, like you; they are not warriors by nature. If they disdain a sister’s pleas, then I will go to Aphidnae with Aethra. For my sake, welcome them as you would any honored guests.”
Reluctantly he agreed, although the chariot, filled with my possessions, was kept at the ready. I watched as Theseus greeted the twins, who did indeed behave as though they were spoiling for a fight. As guests, however, their role, as well as their host’s, was sacred, and they could not instigate trouble or it would have been a tremendous breach of hospitality. Later that day, a lavish dinner was prepared and libations poured in their honor. Theseus sent Aethra to bring me down to the Great Hall so that my brothers could see that I had been well cared for. I entered the columned room, resplendent in a snow-white chiton twice girdled about my waist and breasts, with a simple gold circlet in my hair. I could not have appeared sweeter or more virginal to them. When they questioned me about my treatment at the hands of my abductor, I assured them, with gentle voice and modest demeanor, that Theseus could not have been kinder or more courtly and that his own mother had been my constant companion and chaperone. Every word I uttered was the truth. Polydeuces remained tight-lipped. Clearly, and to my immense dismay, he would have preferred to find me looking starved and ravaged so he could throw the first punch.
The Dioscuri had another surprise for Theseus. Oh, they had indeed brought the one hundred gold talents and had begrudgingly parted with them, but they had also located a young exile named Me-nestheus, son of Peteus, and had escorted him to Athens under their protection in the hope that he would challenge Theseus for the right to sit on the Athenian throne. This was their revenge for my abduction.
I grew tearful and defensive; Theseus became vitriolic, and it was all he could do to observe the proprieties of hospitality. He ordered me to depart immediately for Aphidnae. He would finish his business with Menestheus and the Spartan princes after I was safely in the countryside.
I had lost everything. It was ridiculous for me to imagine that I could continue to protect Theseus, the only man with whom I had ever known love. My adored brothers had betrayed me for their own ends. I had no way of knowing whether Tyndareus had sanctioned their attempt to topple Theseus’s reign by delivering the would-be usurper Menestheus from exile. Perhaps this was yet another of their adventures, which in my girlish imagination I had once believed were glorious achievements of derring-do, not bloodthirsty conspiracies.
I asked only one favor of the men: that I be permitted a private moment with Theseus to bid him farewell. We stepped outside onto the pergamos. The evening was cool and breezy, our final parting infused with the scent of jasmine in the air. Suddenly, he no longer looked boyish. The smile creases, always evident even in his darkest moments, had disappeared from his face. Sobbing uncontrollably, I wrapped my arms around him, staining his tunic with my hot tears. Several moments passed before I could summon words to my trembling lips. “Be well,” was all I could muster.
Theseus held me close and tenderly stroked my hair. “I will,” he assured me. “And so will you. One day, sweet Helen, you will find someone who loves you as much as you love them.”
&
nbsp; “And may the gods be with you then,” added Aethra, emerging from the shadows.
EIGHT
Theseus had instructed us to wait at Aphidnae until word arrived that it was safe to depart for Sparta. Word from whom, I had no idea. But I knew, somehow, that he and I would never see each other again. I remained inconsolable for weeks, cooped up in a remote and rugged outpost with Aethra, deprived of the ability to bathe daily, except in the chilly waters of a nearby mountain stream, or to properly dress and adorn myself as had become my custom in Athens. This was no better than life in Laconia, although at least Theseus and I were not separated by the waters of the Aegean. However, I knew that his life was in danger while my brothers and Menestheus sought to dislodge him from the Athenian throne. The magnificent Theseus would not go down without a fight.
My new host, Aphidnus, was a kindly man, ill-disposed to asserting his authority over us. Unheeded by sky god believers, Aethra recommenced her Goddess worship. I felt like the philomel I had once kept as a pet: neither fully caged nor truly free. Like Niobe, I was all tears, incapable of controlling my emotions. I gained weight, although I ate little. And naturally, I suspected it was all due to my heartrending separation from Theseus and my hasty departure from Athens. “Did my brothers come to take me home or to conquer Athens?” I asked Aphidnus. “I don’t intend to malign your hospitality, but I am more than resigned to my fate and am as ready to leave for Sparta as I was a month ago, yet they remain in the city.” The old man shrugged for lack of an answer.
Another new moon passed and we heard no word of either Theseus or the Dioscuri. I was given a loom, but I had no interest in weaving. Aethra expressed her concern that neither my mind nor my body were being suitably employed in useful occupations. I took long walks in the rugged hillside until my feet bled. I rarely spoke, except when addressed. I craved extravagances such as sesame seeds mixed with honey, which were of course unavailable to the remote Aphidnaeans, and when none were forthcoming, I behaved like a spoiled child.
My monthly courses had ceased, which I attributed to my anxiety about Theseus’s safety, the fear that my brothers would never come for me, and that I would end up spending the remainder of my days in isolated Aphidnae. To coax the menstrual blood from my recalcitrant body, Aethra applied warm lambskins to my abdomen. When her efforts proved unsuccessful, she redoubled them through the hodos—a foul practice intended to lure the womb back to its proper place. I was made to inhale repugnant odors while a pleasantly scented concoction of aromatic herbs was applied between my legs. This, too, induced nothing but nausea.
Unable to sleep regularly or comfortably, I took to walking the uneven ramparts of the citadel that served as my temporary home. I looked south toward Athens and wept for love of Theseus. One night, Aethra joined me. She tugged on my woolen cloak to gain my attention and urged me to sit beside her. “You are carrying his child,” she said, and proceeded to explain that many of the symptoms of what I believed was lovesickness were equally attributable to the early signs of pregnancy.
“If my brothers discover this, they will kill all of us,” I warned. “They are not the men I knew them to be when I was a girl. We must return to Sparta before I grow too big.” But how could a message be sent to the Dioscuri to hurry to Aphidnae without arousing suspicion? We resolved to wait two more weeks and if they had not come for me by then, we would have to ask Aphidnus to dispatch a runner to Athens with word that I was unwell and then hope for the best.
The twins arrived at the end of my third month in Aphidnae. I was relieved to learn from their lips that Theseus lived. He was demoralized, but otherwise unharmed. Castor and Polydeuces had left him and Menestheus to battle it out for the Athenian throne. I thanked the gods that my belly was not yet swollen enough to betray my secret. Yet there was another who could. I insisted that Aethra return to Sparta with us as my handmaid.
My brothers hastily assured me that Aethra would not quit my side; they were taking her as a captive, to be my slave. Though this angered me, I understood the diplomatic reasons for their actions, for Theseus had schooled me well. The debasement of the Athenian king’s own mother was a double punishment and served a dual purpose: It continued to oblige the weakened Theseus to Sparta as he would want his mother to be well treated, and it reinforced Spartan superiority to have taken their enemy’s mother—the highest-ranking female Athenian—into bondage.
Our journey was to be prolonged once again, however. Rather than head to the seacoast off the Euboean Strait, we traveled south instead. In repentance for waging war on Theseus, my brothers desired to be cleansed through the initiation rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient cult centered in the coastal city of Eleusis. Aethra and I were not privy to the rituals enacted at each station on the way to Eleusis. My brothers refused to speak to me of the ceremonies, which were related in some way to the annual abduction and return of the goddess Persephone and to the worship of Dionysus, god of wine and revelry. Another new moon came and went before we set sail for Sparta.
I was not as intrepid a sailor as I had been aboard the Minotaur. Every dip and swell of the sea sent me running for the bulwark. So ill was I, so green with nausea, that I feared expelling my unborn child through extended regurgitation. I swaddled myself in a great cloak to disguise my burgeoning form from the prying eyes of those who could not wait to step over their threshold and tell their mothers, wives, and children that they had seen the beauteous Helen and that she was not the sylph of whom the bards sang.
Aethra gazed longingly at the rocky coast off Troezen, her homeland. There she had given birth to Theseus. Did she, too, know somehow that she would never see him again? I believe I felt her loss as keenly as she did.
And still, we were less than halfway home. Polydeuces teased me mercilessly for being such a dreadful sailor, but I was in no humor to entertain his jests. Even if I had been well, he and Castor had lost my trust, and they would need to do much to regain it.
Finally, we sighted Gythium, and soon we had beached the boat and waded ashore. I declined any offer of assistance, fearing that another jest might be made about my weight. Having survived the sea voyage, my next test of endurance was the horseback ride to the Spartan palace. With a bit of effort, I mounted Castor’s milk-white steed and rode in front of him. Clearly, my brother had greatly missed his favorite stallion and kept urging him on to an ever wilder pace. I had never before feared galloping with him at such speed—had adored it, in fact—so there was little I could say that would convince him to slow down without giving him cause for suspicion. Finally, I pleaded a general weariness, and he begrudged me a canter.
By the time I stumbled into the tiled courtyard outside the gynaeceum, entered my room, and collapsed upon my bed, I had been away for nearly seven full moons.
Tyndareus let me alone so that I could get a full night’s rest, but the following morning, I was summoned to the Great Hall. I wrapped myself in a cloak and pleaded illness from the arduous journey, but I could not escape my stepfather’s anger. He thoroughly castigated me for bringing shame to the House of Tyndareus and for costing him a hundred talents of gold—nearly emptying his treasury, he raged. Fire blazed in his eyes when he demanded that I earn it back. It was time to see me married.
“She is quite a handful,” Aethra said to him, boldly introducing herself. “And despite her beauty would make a groom a miserable man. She is still a willful child and should first learn how to be an obedient woman before she can become a pliant wife.” Tyndareus took the bait. He could not have agreed more with Aethra’s generously offered wisdom. “A half year of solitude and repentance for causing such an uproar within the Spartan kingdom would not be insufficient,” Aethra added. “Deny her the privilege of appearing at your feasts and festivals. I will see to it myself that she is forbidden to enjoy the company of her friends and denied the adoring gaze of the public.” I feared that one more word would plant a suspicious seed in Tyndareus’s mind, but he proved as bendable to her will as they would have
me be to that of my stepfather and of an eventual husband. Tyndareus was happy not to have me grace his rooms. As I grew older and lovelier, there was less and less that could be said, even by the most fatuous of flatterers, about any familial resemblance we bore to each other.
When we returned to the gynaeceum, I knelt and kissed the hem of Aethra’s cloak. Certainly there had been many moments when I wished I could strangle her with my girdle, but there was no denying her cleverness and quick wit. And, lacking a mother’s tenderness and guidance, I relied upon her to be Leda’s surrogate as well as my confidante, tutor, nurse, and eventual midwife. She was a prickly woman who did not like to be crossed—something I often did—but I had to love her as the mother of Theseus and the granddam of the babe I carried within me.
Before my enforced confinement began, I did receive Polyxo, who was positively enormous with child, having married her sweetheart Tlepolemus shortly after I had been abducted. Since we had been together that afternoon, it was all the convincing her father needed to see her married promptly, lest she fall victim to marauders, as though pirates abducted only unwed virgins.
Little moonfaced Polyxo, who had resembled an ovoid prior to her pregnancy, was even more spherical now. I teased her about it, and she warned me, “Just wait until it happens to you. You won’t be so quick to laugh!” For the first part of our visit, Polyxo tut-tutted about how unhappy she was that I had missed her wedding and what an extravagance it was for her family, but that her father had received a bride-price of a dozen goats and a newborn calf, which pleased him greatly. After that, she did little but talk of being pregnant: how swollen her ankles had become, how her fingers resembled stuffed dates, how she felt like a giant storage amphora, how she craved unusual foodstuffs that poor Tlepolemus was at pains to deliver, sending him all the way to Rhodes to suit her fancies. I listened intently, absorbing everything she said, particularly about the changes in her body, all the while pretending to wear a patient smile as though I was simply being polite, having not the least care in my head about the woes of an expectant woman. I spoke little, allowing Polyxo to give free rein to her tongue. Finally, she said, “But we never heard news of you while you were in Athens! Tell me, tell me everything that happened.”