by Jackie Rose
How could it have happened in one night with Menelaus, when neither Mynes nor Achilles had gotten me with child? Perhaps it was because we had both been waiting so long: Who knows how these things happen? Under Helen’s suspicious stare, I walked up to Menelaus in the great hall and asked if I could see him alone.
To my relief, his eyes shown at the news. “Perhaps it will be a son!” he exalted. “We will raise him as my heir.” That 'we' did not include me, I knew, but I knew, too, that my son would be a king.
As for Helen, she pretended not to notice what was happening to me until my time came. Then she insisted that I sit on her lap, so the baby would fall through her legs and thus be hers. Her hands tore into my shoulders with each wave of terrible, tearing pains, and I heard her echo my moans. I heard her cry of triumph, too, telling me what I had given her even before I opened my exhausted eyes to see the infant’s tiny spear.
Iphis helped me into my bed as Helen carried the child away to his wet nurse, not looking back at me. As I glimpsed the top of the tiny head beyond her arm, I struggled up and reached out helplessly to him. “Let me see him, in the gods’ name!” I cried. Iphis gently pushed me down again.
“What could you give him but a life of slavery?” she whispered urgently. “They will make him a king. Helen is his mother now,” she told me, while the blood of his birthing was still running down my legs.
“Will she really love him?” I demanded, through my tears.
“Menelaus will,” she assured me.
At least I was allowed to glimpse him, in his nurse’s arms, as I stood behind Helen at dinner. I heard her call him by his name, Megapenthes, as she occasionally turned to coo and cluck at him.
My own breasts swelled and ached for him. As I watched the nurse suckling him, I could barely keep my tears from pouring like my wasted milk. Helen would not have nursed him, I knew, even if he had been her own. But, as Iphis had said, he was Menelaus’ only son, and they would make him a king.
* * *
Ten years piled up the way my embroidery piled up on the shelves. Each piece emerged slowly and carefully from under my hands, but when they were finished, they formed a stack of gowns and tapestries that seemed to have always been there.
My greatest joy was seeing Megapenthes growing to be as handsome, strong and kind as his father. I dared not look for him too often for fear that he would see the truth in my eyes. Often enough, though, I glimpsed him and Menelaus going out hunting together, or sitting down to dinner. Those glimpses were as precious to me as water to a thirsty man.
And, I admit, I gave myself pleasure in other ways. Lying alone in the dark, I often used my forefinger to caress the secret place that Achilles had shown me, then thrust my middle finger into the sheath. As I pressed it in and out, I could imagine that it was Achilles’ spear inside me. At times I could even finish that way.
But my greatest joy came on the nights when I dreamed of Achilles. Always, I knew it was a dead man who came to my bed, but I feared only that someone would tell him so and he would have to leave me. Those dreams were enough to make me happy for an entire day or so.
One night, less happily, I dreamed that it was Polyxena who had married him and I had borne their son. In that dream, Achilles and I played happily with the child. Polyxena carefully turned away, so that she would not see us together while we, in turn, would not see the blood spurting out of her heart.
But Achilles himself, I admitted, could not have done any more for his child. Having declared him as his heir, the king easily arranged a marriage for Megapenthes with a great Spartan princess.
Knowing that Helen had not borne him, the boy was too well bred to ask either of his royal parents which slave woman had done that service for them. That was just as well for me: Helen would have burst into tears, taken to her bed, accused us both of upsetting her with our ingratitude and, of course, swallowed more of her calming medicine. She did that so often, there were times when I wondered if she could stop if she wanted to. But gifts kept arriving from Egypt, to be repaid by Trojan treasure, so she had no need to try.
If people wondered about it, they must have decided that Iphis had borne Helen’s son, because Helen seemed so fond of her. Iphis knew, though, that Helen was only fond of her skills with cosmetics and hair combs. They became more and more vital to Helen as the years passed. And, I admit, I took advantage of them as well.
* * *
Although Hermione had much less need of her talents, Helen insisted that Iphis must use them to beautify the girl for her wedding day. As we listened patiently to her prattling about her perfect sweetheart over her embroidery needle, I fought back tears, remembering that my sweetheart had been so much more than she could even imagine hers to be.
No one could have imagined the wild stories that started reaching us about him from Mycenae where he lived. The tales were brought by the jugglers, tumblers and bards who stopped by to entertain us. We even heard them from the army veterans who came asking Menelaus’ aid, never in vain. Whatever they asked for, his reply was always the same, that he owned them so much more than he could ever repay.
Wherever we heard those rumors, they were always essentially the same, and they always seemed too terrible to believe. Menelaus reproached the visitors who repeated them, so that soon we stopped hearing them at all.
When the heralds finally announced Orestes’ name and he strode into the great hall, we knew at once that some small part of those stories, at least, were true. He walked into this throne room with tangled hair, wild eyes, nails so long they almost curved into his palm and the rank smell of feces all over him.
We all knew, that is, except his sweetheart. Seeing only that he had traveled hard to reach her and that these filthy markings were the stains of his trip, she rose to greet him with her heart in her eyes. It was all her mother could do to grasp her arm and hold her back, sensing our danger.
Only Menelaus seemed calm, as he greeted his guest from his throne.
“Prince Orestes, you have come a long way,” he said. “No doubt you would like to bathe and rest before dinner.”
“My father is dead,” the boy replied.
Helen started forward to give him a consoling embrace. His next words stopped her in her tracks.
“My mother is, too.”
She fell back with a little scream that the other women echoed, believing all the stories at last. Before we could react any further, Orestes smiled with a skeleton’s show of teeth that I hope never to see again.
“I killed her,” he repeated cheerfully, in a horrible parody of fun. “She killed my father when he returned and his captive Cassandra, too. So naturally I had to kill my mother and her lover for revenge.”
“Is this true?” Menelaus asked, his voice shaking as he gripped the arm of his throne. “I refused to even listen to it before.”
But I had heard that family’s fate predicted in advance, I remembered, and from someone who always foretold the truth.
“Very true,” the boy assured us. Stunned, we barely noticed when he drew the long knife from his belt. Then we recoiled in terror as he advanced towards us.
“It wasn’t really her fault, though,” he said. “It was the woman who started all the trouble by taking him from us. It was her sister who is worse than she is: Helen of Troy.”
As he spat out the last insulting word, his head turned from one to the other of us—Helen, Diomede and me—then back again. We sat frozen with our embroidery forgotten in our hands beside Menelaus’ throne.
“Which of you is she?” he demanded. “I know that Helen has golden curls, but I see three ladies of that description. Which is she?”
“The ladies are going to their own rooms now,” Menelaus answered calmly. “You have frightened them enough.”
The madman answered with a harsh laugh as his eyes continued raking across our faces.
“Two will go,” he said. “One will lie dead at my feet.”
The king left his throne then, and stood be
fore us. As he shielded us with his folded arms, he stared straight into our enemy’s eyes.
“Ladies, leave us!” he ordered again, not taking his eyes from Orestes. “Go to your own rooms.”
Helen and Diomede scrambled towards the door, dragging Hermione after them, and Iphis quickly followed. I remained rooted in my seat.
The king turned his head briefly to see if he had been obeyed.
“You must go too,” he said to me.
Instead, I rose and walked towards him.
“No, my lord,” I answered. “I will not leave you with this madman.”
Clutching his knife more fiercely, Orestes strode towards me.
“You must be Helen,” he proclaimed. “You are the one who loves him.”
Chapter Ten
Orestes grew bigger and bigger as he sprang towards me, until that uncombed, unshaven creature, wielding his knife, filled my world. Then it was Menelaus’ face I saw, because he had leapt on top of the mad boy, knocking him to the ground.
They lay struggling there until Helen finally managed to start shrieking for the guards. They rushed in from the courtyard in time to overpower the intruder.
Hermione tried to rush towards him, but Helen held her back.
“In the name of all the gods, girl,” Helen wailed, “he’s gone mad.”
“Then I must care for him,” wept his bride.
“You must go to your room!” her father shouted. “How many times must I send you there?”
We all fled to Helen’s room, where the walls were, not surprisingly, covered with pictures of Helen. The centerpiece featured “Helen, Briseis, Diomede and Iphis leaving Troy with Menelaus.” He was, however, no place in the picture to be seen. Instead, the rest of us stood around her chair, admiring her. The painter had made her seem much more serene and regal than she looked now.
For once, I thought that Helen had earned the half-glass of calming medicine that she immediately poured for herself. Then she poured one for Hermione. The girl shook her head in refusal at first, but finally accepted the drug as her mother kept thrusting it towards her. She choked and sputtered at the foul taste, but fell asleep soon after drinking it, not being as accustomed as Helen was to its effects.
“She can’t marry him now, that’s for sure,” said Helen, as she looked down at her bed where her daughter lay asleep.
“I should hope not,” I agreed—forgetting to call her 'mistress', after the danger we had shared.
“Menelaus drove him away and good riddance,” she said. I nodded agreement, but still had the uneasy feeling that the affair was not yet over. Her next words did not quell my fears.
“Neoptolemus also wants to marry her,” she mused.
“Achilles’ son,” I said. I was amazed at the rush of memories Achilles’ name brought flooding back, even to the light licorice scent of the fennel he had bathed in.
“What was his father really like?” she asked. She tried to sound like a mother who naturally wanted to know about a son-in-law’s lineage. Instead, she sounded like a woman who still dreamed of the lover she had never met. And how strange it was, I realized: Achilles, the great hero and Helen, the great beauty, doomed never to meet, like shining roads running beside each other.
“Was he as beautiful as they say?”
“He was even more beautiful,” I answered, wondering how to explain it. “If you never saw him, you can’t believe how beautiful he was. But it was more than beauty—he lit up the world. He filled the world when you looked at him, and there was nothing else to see.”
“Men have said the same about me,” she answered, in a wistful tone. “I wish I had known him.”
“Forgive me, mistress, but I am glad you did not,” I responded. “Then he never would have looked at me.”
“I am not so sure of that,” she said, as her eyes grew cold. “Orestes said that you are the one who loves my husband. Perhaps that’s because he loves you.”
“Orestes is mad,” I reminded her quickly. “Perhaps he confused us. Your own husband did the same, on our one night together.”
“No,” she said, with even colder eyes. “There was no confusion, either time. I opened my mouth to answer, but she quickly silenced me. “In any event,” she said, “we agreed not to think about that, ever again.” But her gaze took on the same cold speculation that I had seen before, when she asked Menelaus to send me out to the flax fields.
“In any case, Achilles was a hero, and I do not like heroes,” she went on, leaning back in her chair, which was the same one shown in our portrait. “Menelaus is a hero, and Paris was not: That was our entire problem. But you worship heroes, much more than you worship Aphrodite. I suppose that pleases them, just as you are sure it will, which shows that you are as arrogant as they.”
And she regarded me even more coldly, through suddenly slitted eyes.
“But, mistress, not all heroes are like Theseus, who was no true hero at all.”
Her eyes blazed with anger as she answered too quickly, “I know nothing about Theseus, and I have no idea what you mean.”
Fortunately for me, on this occasion her calming medicine soon took hold, restoring her gentle smile. But I knew the resentment simmered beneath it.
She might have resented me even more bitterly, if she had known that Hermione would turn to me in her grief. She came into my room at night, clutching my hands and pleading with me to intercede with her father.
“They say your Achilles went mad, too,” she urged. “You stayed with him, and he recovered his wits. I know Orestes will recover, too. My father will believe that, if you tell him.”
Servant though I was, I pulled my hands away.
“Achilles never harmed a woman.” Then I remembered the female archer he had killed and added, “not knowingly. Now you are going to marry his son, and you should be grateful.”
At least, I thought, you should be grateful that you will not marry Orestes.
“But I love Orestes,” she insisted. “He loves me.”
“He killed his own mother,” I retorted, “or else he imagines he did, which could be even worse.”
Madmen often imagined things that they wished were true, I reminded her. Visitors had told us how Achilles’ poor old father wandered around saying that his son was now ruling a magical island, which the gods had created for him. At times, he even said that Thetis was a goddess herself. Those reports always drove me from the room in tears. If, instead of this merciful delusion, Orestes chose to imagine the horror of killing his mother, was there anyone he would not kill?
He could murder his sweetheart’s husband without flinching, I was sure now. I was the one who flinched, as the thought struck me. As cruel and childish as Neoptolemus had seemed to me, he was still Achilles’ only child.
The thought was almost enough to make me grant Hermione’s wish and beg Menelaus to cancel the marriage to Neoptolemus, for his own safety. Then I thought of Cassandra, whom no one had believed. I had no wish to be known as a madwoman.
It would have made no difference, in any case. Menelaus was determined now and sent his envoys to Thessaly with the happy news for Neoptolemus. That young man sent good news in return. He had kindly freed Andromache, he said, because the famed Trojan priest Helenus had asked to marry her. In this way, he was making sure that Hermione and Andromache would each have her own husband, rather than serving as first and second wives.
Secretly, I suspected that kindness was not his motive. Helenus was attracting a following, including both the survivors of Troy and the Argives who were repenting of their crimes there. Together, they were furnishing him with a fine temple. It would be graced by the presence of Hector’s widow, since even their former enemies were starting to say that he had been a great hero, while she was the very model of a devoted wife.
For good reason, then, Neoptolemus did not want either Helenus or Andromache praying against him, not to mention the thousands of veterans from both sides who admired them both.
In any event,
her rival’s new situation made no difference to Hermione. She kept weeping that she would have no one but Orestes, no matter how many wives he had. She stayed in her room wailing for him, until her father, in exasperation, charged up there with a leather belt in his hand, swearing that he would give her something to weep about. Helen and I both looked down silently, as we heard the leather striking her bare bottom with the resulting shrieks.
“She would not listen to reason,” Helen sighed, shaking her head, as we sat with our work forgotten in our hands. “So now she must be forced to obey.”
But I still did not know my goddess’ true power. It was Hermione who showed it to me.
She howled piteously all through her beating, and I well knew how much cause she had to do it. Still, she swore that she would only have Orestes, every time that she was able to stop crying long enough to speak. At last, her father was angry enough to shout that her mother, Helen, had married him for love, as the man of her own choosing, for all the good it had done them.
Hearing that, Helen and I both studied our embroidery more carefully than ever before. She was still staring down at a particularly complicated bird figure when she said, “I chose him because I knew he was the finest man I had ever seen, even if he was a hero.”
He might not have been so angry with his daughter, except for the tension of waiting for more news to come from his brother’s kingdom, telling him whether Orestes had raved in a mad fantasy or told the truth.
Helen’s medicine must have been very effective. She showed no horror or even grief when the messengers returned from Mycenae with the terrible news: Orestes had indeed done the dreadful deeds he had boasted of. She merely told Iphis to cut off one of her golden curls in the mourning ritual, being careful to take one from the back of her head, where it would not show.
“Can that medicine stop her from grieving for her murdered sister?” I asked Iphis.