by Jackie Rose
“From what she tells me,” Iphis answered, “that medicine could stop you from grieving if your mother and father had both been murdered on the same day.” And, I thought, it keeps Helen from grieving over her shame.
Not that it always succeeded. There were nights when we heard her shrieking that the Furies were coming for her, to avenge the dead at Troy. She always kept a glass of medicine at her bedside, to drive the Furies away. Secretly, I suspected that the same medicine was bringing them there instead. Such drugs were meant to dull the pain of the body, not the soul.
Instead of her medicine, Helen shared her theory with me. “There is a curse on their whole family, you know,” she confided, as we sat working together. She spoke as calmly as though she had been saying that their hair was red. That terrible calm warned me again to avoid her medicine, even if she offered it. “The gods hate them.”
But the gods showed mercy to Menelaus, I thought, because he showed mercy to you. I wondered, once again, how she could have failed to love and appreciate him.
* * *
Thinking of that, I was in no mood to resist him that night, when he came to my bedroom wearing only his linen shirt. He was as grimly determined as he had been when he gave his daughter to Neoptolemus.
“Death can come quickly, even for a king,” he said, as he stood over me. “I learned that today from Orestes. We must enjoy what life give us.”
I opened my mouth to ask him to leave, to remind him that his life had given him the world’s most beautiful woman. He cut me short by saying, “Orestes said that you are the one who loves me.”
“Orestes is mad,” I reminded him.
“There are times when madmen see the truth,” he retorted.
While I searched for the words to deny it, he climbed into my bed.
Grasping my hands in one of his, he held them above my head while his free hand lifted my skirt to my waist. My legs spread wide as my body arched up to greet him and his spear thrust deeper and deeper into me.
Now, in peacetime, he smelled of scented oil, with a fragrance like leather rather than flowers, so faint and subtle that I knew how expensive it had to be. And he was Menelaus now, not just a man who was not Achilles. Now I loved him for himself, and mad Orestes had known it before we did.
* * *
If Helen knew where he had spent the night, she gave no sign the next morning. She smiled at me more warmly than ever as I joined her with my embroidery. For a moment, I wondered if the medicine had truly stolen her wits.
She showed how sharp her wits still were when the visitor came from Ithaca.
I disliked Telemachus on sight, because he reminded me so strongly of his father Odysseus. He, too, pretended to be a shambling simpleton, but this was belied by the anger and malice that peered out from under those shaggy brows. But he was also thin, angular and awkward, like Orestes, of whom he also reminded me, in some subtle and dangerous way.
Because he was a stranger, he dined alone with Menelaus while we ate in the women’s hall. When we came down to join them after dinner, Helen recognized him at once as Odysseus’ son and raced towards him with arms outstretched. She owed his father so much, she simpered, for having rescued her from Troy. Standing in our usual places behind her, Iphis and I were careful to avoid looking at each other, for fear that we might burst into unseemly laughter.
To further celebrate the visit, Helen had brought her medicine to spice the wine.
She pointed out chairs for her attendants, knowing that we could not have remained standing, once the drugs had done their work, and knowing too that we were not free to refuse them. And it proved to be blessed work indeed. The great hall seemed like an enchanted place. Helen was the queen of the enchantment, Aphrodite herself, bringing down her blessings to us.
There was a way to repay his father now, Telemachus said, if it wasn’t too much to ask. Menelaus did not hesitate before insisting that he owed Telemachus’ father more than he could ever repay. He had said the same to every veteran or veteran’s orphan who came here asking for help, he reminded us, so how could he say any less to Odysseus’ son?
With the same great show of reluctance, Telemachus said that his father had not yet come home. Helen asked how his poor mother was bearing up.
This was just the opening that he and Helen had waited for. It fitted his needs so perfectly, I have often wondered since then if they had planned the whole scene in advance, starting with the drugged wine that addled our judgment.
Unwanted suitors from all over Argos tormented his mother, he said. They ate all her foot, drank all her wine and kept the palace in a constant uproar, while demanding that she choose one of them as her husband.
Half rising from his chair, Menelaus exclaimed that he would send his army to drive them away. Helen reached over and put a placating hand on his arm. Before starting another war, she asked gently, would it not be better to send a trusted servant there, to see how bad the situation really was.
Then she gazed at me with a helpless appeal in her great blue eyes, and I knew who the trusted servant would be. Please leave us alone together, her eyes were pleading: I know that Orestes spoke the truth, I know that you love my husband, but please give me a chance to be his wife again.
Once more, I felt the need to help and protect her, because I was the only one who could. I knew by now that this was the true power of Aphrodite, and I submitted to the goddess’ will.
“May I go with Telemachus, my lord?” I asked. Before the king could refuse me, Telemachus was chiming in that he would be eternally grateful to Menelaus. Believing that he owed so much to the boy’s father, Menelaus found it impossible to refuse.
This plan seemed even more brilliant to me. So far from harming me, those noble drugs had made the trip to Ithaca suddenly seem to be a wonderful idea to us all. I would enjoy a sea voyage, visit a new city and come safely back to tell my monarchs what I had seen. The medicine had made the whole project seem not only easy but also exciting, allowing me, at last, to play a heroic role.
What’s more, I could stand against a man who had disgraced the name of hero. You will not harm Helen any more, dead Theseus, I vowed: Achilles’ woman, who knew a true hero, stands against you. The time would come when I would stand against an even more famous hero, who was all too much alive. Now, however, I could hardly wait to be off for Ithaca so my adventure could begin. Menelaus’ dreamlike smile showed that he felt the same way.
* * *
Next morning, when Menelaus’ head was clear, he came to the women’s hall at breakfast. He had sent for Megapenthes, he said, to bid me farewell.
“But we thought it was best that they not see each other,” Helen protested, dropping the grapes from her hand. “We said it would be too confusing for him.”
“Megapenthes will say farewell to Briseis,” he answered. “She is going to Ithaca in order to pay our family debt.”
And so, at last, in the great hall of Sparta, surrounded by the painted lions, I came face to face with my son.
He was sitting beside his father as I approached them.
“Megapenthes, we are sending our Briseis to Ithaca,” Menelaus said. “I want you to wish her well on her journey.”
If he wondered why he was being told to say farewell to his mother’s attendant, he was, as always, too well bred to ask.
“Have a safe journey, Briseis,” he said. And then, perhaps fearing that he might lose his opportunity forever, he let his curiosity get the better of him.
“Briseis?” he asked softly. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course, my lord Megapenthes,” I answered, with a smile, realizing that he would ask the same question I had heard so many times before.
“What sort of man was Achilles, really?”
Usually, I tried in vain to explain how great and beautiful he was. This time, my answer came much more easily. “He was a great hero, but your father is a better man.”
When I was packing for my travels, Menelaus came to see m
e for a private farewell.
“Thank you for your kind words to my son,” he said. “I am sorry they are not true.”
“But they are, my lord Menelaus,” I insisted.
“They are not, but they will be,” he said. His hands dug into my arms as he pulled me away from my packing to face him. “When you return, I will declare that you are the mother of the heir, as I should have done on the day he was born. I would tell the world so on this very day, but you must be able to move among Odysseus’ people freely, without your own servants and guards calling attention to you.”
“But Helen is your queen!” I protested.
“And she may go on being so,” he said, “but you will sit beside me as my wife.”
Part III: Odysseus, My Foe
Chapter Eleven
Hours after landing in Ithaca, I was ready to go right back to Sparta, make my report to Menelaus and take my place as his second wife. Things were even worse than Telemachus had said, and his mother was in urgent need of rescue.
In that cool but bright afternoon, the courtyard was full of young men practicing their marksmanship by hurling javelins at the stone lion above the palace gate that Telemachus had pulled shut behind him. They seldom managed to hit him, but were constantly chipping the yellow stone walls below.
Turning towards Telemachus, I wondered why he was not trying to stop them. Instead, I saw him race through the palace gates without a backwards glance at me as they hooted at him. After letting Menelaus believe that he would protect me, Telemachus was leaving me to face these rowdies alone at the first sign of danger to himself. How very like his father, I thought. What’s more, he was carrying my traveling box, leading me to wonder if I would ever see my jewels and garments again.
As that pack of bullies turned towards me, I pounded on the palace gate.
“Please, someone, let me in!” I shouted.
“Please let me in,” one of them mimicked, coming towards me in a sickening wave of floral bath oil. “Please let me into your cunt, pretty lady.”
Turning towards my tormenter, I both saw and smelled the fragrant oil gleaming on his curly black hair. Ignoring him as best I could, I kept pounding on the door as he approached me and squeezed my breast. As I screamed and drew backwards, one of his cohorts seized my rear, sending them all into gales of laughter. In tears of humiliation and pain, I pressed myself against the wall, screaming, “Help me, someone, please help me!”
At last the door swung open and a lady came outside. Even through her white veil, I could see the sadness on her white face beneath her heavy black brows, reminding me too clearly of Andromache. The crowd of men fell back before her, telling me clearly who she was.
“Please come inside, mistress,” she said to me. With a bitter smile, she added, “I don’t think you will want to linger out here.”
I was afraid to move for fear that it would set them off again. She firmly put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me after her through the door.
“We’ll come in soon to join you for dinner, dearest Penelope,” my tormenter assured her.
“Is there any way to keep you out?” she asked. They laughed as though she had made a joke.
“Are those the men who want to marry you?” I asked, as she guided me into the great hall.
“A charming lot, are they not?” she asked, with the same sad smile.
‘Do you think King Menelaus will believe it?”
“How did you know that Menelaus sent me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” she demanded. “Telemachus went to Sparta to find help, he came back today and you were with him. Judging by your fine clothing, you are not some slave or peasant girl he found along the way.”
And you, Queen Penelope, are as shrewd as your husband, I thought.
“You are partly right,” I said ruefully, looking down at my pink cotton gown. “I am Queen Helen’s attendant.” More proudly, I went on, “Before that, I belonged to my lord Achilles. I am Briseis.”
Most strangers were rather impressed by that.
It was a sign of her desperation that, instead, she looked quickly around, afraid that someone had heard.
“In the gods’ names, don’t tell anyone else that,” she warned me. “If they are so hot for Odysseus’ woman, what will they do to Achilles’, even if she has no treasure for them to steal. What is your given name?”
“Hippodamia,” I answered reluctantly, having happily forgotten it during those years as Briseis.
“Well, Hippodamia, you had better stay close to me,” she said. “They will not behave too badly as long as I am with you. Will you play the role of my servant?”
“Gladly! But I ask one favor, my queen. Will you remind your son to return my traveling box? He must have forgotten that he had it.”
“Of course,” she replied, with an even sadder smile. “Just as you say, he must have forgotten to return it to you.”
Even as queen and servant girl, we were no better off inside the palace than we had been outside. More of the vandals were throwing darts at the painted murals in the great hall, using both the hound and the boar as targets. Penelope tried to hurry past them, but one blocked the door to the women’s hall. He leaned his elbow against the frame as he stood smiling down at me.
His vague resemblance to Achilles, with his blond shock of hair, made his behavior all the harder to bear. He was Achilles with neither beauty nor grace, with only a hawk’s beaked nose in a thin face and an insolent swaggering pose even as he stood still.
“Let us by, Antinoos,” Penelope sighed patiently. Her tone made it obvious that she had said the same thing many times before.
“Oh, mistress, you take things too seriously,” a girl’s voice chimed in from the great hall behind us, where she had started to set the dinner table. “You should be kinder to your suitors.”
“You are kind enough for both of us, Melantho,” the queen answered, in the same resigned tone. The girl merrily refused to be ashamed as she came towards us. She seemed made for merriment, with her plump little body, her cherry cheeks framed by tousled black curls and a smile so broad it reminded me of Chryseis in her happiest days. I would have found her much less amusing if I had known that she would soon be standing beside me while we fought for our lives.
“You get back to work, girl, and stop bothering the queen,” an elderly woman cackled as she hobbled up to us. Melantho did as she was told, but stuck her tongue out as soon as the old woman’s back was turned. The young men laughed at the sight, and I admit that I had to bite my own lip to keep from smiling. Antinoos’ sly smile told me that he had seen my gesture.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to this new girl, Penelope?” he asked.
“She is Queen Penelope,” I reminded him in outrage.
He grinned, his smile cold on his thin hawk’s face. “Oh, no, she is my sweetheart. She is going to marry me, aren’t you?”
Swaggering towards her, he grasped her wrist, to show that he would soon be leading her in marriage. She slapped his hand away.
“With your delightful manner, how could she resist you?” I retorted.
He turned to me with new interest.
“Well, she is a bold little creature, isn’t she?” he demand. “And what might your name be, girl?”
“My new servant is named Hippodamia,” the queen responded carefully.
The young man’s eyes narrowed, showing an intelligence I had not expected to find there.
“Hippodamia,” he said slowly. “The given name of the great Achilles’ favorite slave girl. They say she had wild blond curls like yours.”
He wound one of them around his fingers. I pulled away, not minding that I was pulling my hair in the process.
“Lout!” I snapped. I barely stopped myself from demanding to know how he dared even mention Achilles’ name, let alone use such filthy words about us.
“You really should teach her some manners,” he told the queen. “Doesn’t she know that my friends and I are princes f
rom the finest families?”
“Then I would hate to see the worst!” I retorted, knowing that I was only setting him on again but unable to stop myself.
“Let us go, Hippodamia!” the queen said sharply and walked straight towards him as though he had not been there. At the last moment, he stood aside with a mocking bow, but I felt his blue eyes burning into my back as I walked away.
* * *
Now the women’s hall became a prison, as it had never been even for Agamemnon’s captives. They had always been free to wander about as they chose, in and out of the ships. Now we dared not open the door, for fear that those gallants (as we ironically called them) would burst inside. Whenever I ventured beyond the door, they stopped me with their sneering voices and grasping hands. Whether they did it to amuse themselves or because they suspected I would go for help if they let me slip outside, the effect was the same. I was effectively imprisoned upstairs. If this was the modern world, I thought, I preferred the old days.
So instead of taking our work downstairs, as the women had done in Menelaus’ house, we now sat upstairs all day with our weaving and embroidery. The only visitors we admitted were the palace cats, who came up to rub against our legs after getting their milk in the kitchen.
At dinner, the queen kept Melantho and me on either side, as her only protection. Her face was always veiled then, and I thought of how disgraceful it was that she had to hide herself in her own home as though she had been out on the street.
The saddest thing of all, though, was the way the poor woman kept talking about her husband as though he were still alive and likely to come through the front door at any moment, driving the suitors away. It reminded me of poor Peleus, talking about Achilles’ magical island. Perhaps I am more fortunate that she is, I thought, because I know my lord is dead. Until it was almost too late for me, I pitied her for giving way to this fantasy. I only wished her husband had been more worthy of her faith.
Our only amusement was Melantho. At least she amused me with her bold joking, just as Chryseis had done. The queen seemed to endure her cheerful insolence only because she had no choice.