Troy: A Brand of Fire
Page 16
*
After that, the visit to Menestheus in Athens was all but meaningless, though the new king did make a concession.
“I’ll talk to Agamemnon,” he promised. “I can’t say I’m happy at the way this has dragged on. Women are abducted all the time, of course; we kings couldn’t stop that even if we tried. Too many pirates. But Hesione comes from an old lineage, and that matters.”
Too many of the pirates were Greek kings, with cloths tied over their faces so they could deny having been there. This wasn’t the time to mention that. “Will Agamemnon listen?”
“Probably not,” Menestheus conceded. He stroked his dark goatee beard. “But we might be able to work something out. Perhaps if I traded something to Telamon, in exchange for Hesione… I might be able to persuade him, if the High King helps. A couple of servant girls and some Attican wine… or better yet an engraved shield from Egypt. Something he can show off to visitors.”
“How would this help?”
“Well, because I could then hand Hesione back to Troy.” Menestheus looked faintly surprised that Antenor hadn’t understood at once. “It wouldn’t hurt my pride… and I could use lower tariffs on the Trojan Road.”
Antenor was amazed. This was the first time a reasonable suggestion had been made by an Argive, any Argive, in nearly twenty years of constant talk. More, it sounded as though it might actually work. If Telamon had a shield or some such he could boast about how he’d extracted it as a price for the woman he gave up, and so his pride would be assuaged. He’d have two pretty bed girls as well, assuming he was still capable of doing anything with them, fat and old as he was.
“If you could do this,” he said, “Attican merchants would reap the benefits, I can promise you that.”
He meant it, and he was sure Priam would agree. The king longed for his sister’s return so badly, he wouldn’t hesitate to award a lower duty on the goods of the country which had delivered her. Not that Attica was doing badly. There was a huge mural painted in the megaron of men leaping a bull, the famous sport of Minoan Crete painted in the style of that people; the bull brown and white, the dancers tanned golden against the white sand. One each side of the scene stood a man wearing a strange headdress, set against a crimson background that didn’t match the bull scene at all.
Perhaps the standing men were not part of the main image. Antenor didn’t know enough about Minoan art to say. It seemed that Attica was as modern as Nestor had promised though.
But in truth, Antenor struggled to keep his mind on business, even that of Hesione, all through the two days he spent in Menestheus’ palace in Athens. Or on art. He couldn’t keep it on anything, except for the memory of a woman with violet eyes and a voice that might have come from Aphrodite herself.
Helen.