Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy (17 page)

The inhabitants watched us warily, unsure how to respond to this stranger who announced himself as Pyrrhus, king of Phthia. No one rushed out to bow or to clasp his hands.

Pyrrhus’s face darkened. “Has no one told them their king has come home at last?”

“They’ve been too long without a ruler,” I said, hoping to tame his growing anger. “It will take a little time for them to get used to having a king again.”

We reached the top of the steep, winding path to the citadel. “So far from the sea!” Hippodameia exclaimed, breathless from the climb.

“My grandmother, Thetis, lived here with Peleus,” Pyrrhus growled. “She was born of the sea, and yet she made this her home for many years. And my father was born here!”

Achilles had indeed been born in Pharsalos, but as a boy he’d been sent by Thetis to live in the palace of the king of Skyros. Achilles had not yet reached full manhood when he lay with the king’s daughter, and Pyrrhus was the result of that union. Pyrrhus grew up in Skyros; he had never before seen Pharsalos, and the people of Pharsalos had never seen
him.

We wandered through the moldering chambers of the palace. Small animals had taken up residence in nearly every room; birds fluttered from their nests near the ceiling. Sheepherders had no doubt used the place as their own and kept their flocks here with them. I’m not sure what I expected, but certainly not this. Compared with Agamemnon’s magnificent citadel at Mycenae and Menelaus’s beautiful palace at Sparta, this was not much better than the tents and crude huts in which we’d lived on the beaches of Troy.

“Welcome to your new home, Hermione,” Pyrrhus said sourly. He was surely disappointed too, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to show it.

I wanted to weep, but I’d learned that tears were usually pointless and accomplished nothing. Instead, the next day I sent for workers from the town to clean out the birds’ nests and dung piles. The sleeping fleeces were infested with vermin and had to be taken out and burned; fortunately, there were plenty of sheep to provide fresh ones. Most of the cooking pots had been stolen from the kitchens. I found clay bowls and the two-handled drinking cups piled on shelves thick with mouse droppings. The bowls were chipped and cracked, and many of the cups were missing one handle.

I took a few cups to show to my husband, who was sucking marrow from a bone pulled from the previous night’s fire in what had once been the megaron. He had spent the morning having the donkey carts unloaded and the goods put into one of the storage rooms that could be secured.

“These cups are not usable,” I pointed out. “Perhaps there are some silver goblets among your treasure.” The image of my half of the beautiful wedding goblet floated into my mind, and I brushed it away.

Pyrrhus snatched a damaged cup from my hands and knocked it sharply against the wall, breaking off the second handle. “Good enough now, I think,” he said, and handed it to me with a smirk.

If this was to be my home, then I would do whatever was possible to transform this crumbling heap of stone, this maze of dismal rooms, dark corridors, and gloomy halls, and make it livable. I asked Pyrrhus to hire masons from the town to repair the damaged walls. “Helenus can oversee the work,” I said, and grudgingly my husband agreed.

But no one in the city of Pharsalos, or in the kingdom of Phthia, seemed to know anything about the proper decoration of a royal palace. I doubted that I could find artists who knew how to paint wet plaster with the scenes I remembered from my home in Sparta, or artisans skilled in laying tiles on the floors and finishing the wooden columns of the great hall—even if I could convince Pyrrhus to pay for it.

Long ago my mother had ordered tables and chairs and couches when she was expecting Prince Paris to visit Sparta. Remembering that, I ventured down to the lower town with Ardeste, my new maidservant. Ardeste had grown up in Pharsalos; she knew the town well and found craftsmen for me. When I explained what I wanted, they bowed and smiled, but they had no idea how to do those things. I had to settle for something much simpler, much cruder.

Sometimes I blamed poor Ardeste for not finding the kind of craftsmen I wanted. Sometimes I took out my frustration on some unlucky fellow who had never built anything more elaborate than a sheepfold.

And I argued constantly with Pyrrhus.

“Are you mad, Hermione?” he shouted at me. “You are no longer living the luxurious life of the spoiled daughter of a rich king, thinking you have only to snap your fingers and whatever you want will be yours!”

“Who are you to talk?” I shouted back at him. “You took your share of the Trojan treasury, and I know that Menelaus handed over part of the spoils as my dowry. So please don’t tell me that I have to live like a pig farmer’s wife!”

My efforts to improve the palace and make it livable helped me to forget, if only briefly, that I loathed my husband. Pyrrhus was no better than I’d expected him to be. We settled into a cool but practical relationship in which I saw to the running of his household, with the assistance of Hippodameia. He was free to swagger around as king of Phthia with his faithful horde of Myrmidons, terrorizing the villages and exacting tribute from the villagers. I had found not one scrap of affection in my heart for Pyrrhus. We had as little to do with each other as possible. I was quite happy that Andromache shared his bed, but on those nights when he was not with her or one of his other concubines, he came to my bed and I received him. It was my duty to provide him with sons.

Then Andromache announced that she was expecting a child.

No doubt I should have foreseen this. In the beginning, after Hector was killed by Achilles, I had felt enormous pity for Andromache. As if her husband’s death weren’t terrible enough, Pyrrhus had flung their little son to his death on the rocks below the walls of Troy. Pyrrhus brutally compounded the savagery by seizing Andromache as his concubine, dooming her to whatever misery he chose to inflict. I’d seen the bruises on her body and the marks made by her shackles. Who would not have pitied such an unfortunate woman?

Now she was carrying a child. She seemed pleased—almost content.

“Pyrrhus could not be happier,” Hippodameia told me when Andromache gave birth to a son. To my own surprise I suffered pangs of jealousy.

I, too, wanted a child, but not Pyrrhus’s child—Orestes’. When I was alone, I took my half of our wedding goblet from the place where I’d hidden it. I could not imagine that I would ever forget him, and painful as it was, I vowed that I would not. Every day, I touched my lips to the rim where his lips had once been and renewed my vow:
Someday, Orestes, we will be together again. We will marry, and we will have a child.

Hippodameia sensed my yearning. “Andromache has had a life marked by tragedy, but I think she has prayed to the goddesses to deny you a baby.”

“Do you believe it could be so?” I thought Andromache and I were friends, and it hadn’t occurred to me that she might turn against me.

“Oh, yes,” Hippodameia said. “I do.”

“Why would she want to deny me a baby?”

“So that she can replace you as Pyrrhus’s wife.”

“But surely she doesn’t love him! It’s not possible! She once swore to me that she’d kill him if she ever had the chance!”

“Andromache doesn’t love him,” Hippodameia said, “but she does want to be queen.”

From then on I was highly suspicious of everything Andromache said and did. I watched her closely. She was only a concubine, yet after the birth of her baby boy I noticed that she occupied a special position in the royal household. She had given Pyrrhus a son, and I had given him none. I was ready to blame her.

Then I received another shock: Hippodameia was pregnant. Her belly was already swelling.

“Who?” I asked. “Who is the father?” I hoped she’d say it was Helenus.

But she looked away, avoiding my eye. I knew the answer.

20

PYRRHUS AND HIS MYRMIDONS
had left Phthia, marching west. Helenus had made a prophecy, and Pyrrhus had decided to consult the oracle at Zeus’s shrine at Dodona to learn what it meant. They’d been gone for nearly three months. Life in the cheerless palace was more tolerable without Pyrrhus. One day when I’d retired to my bedroom to escape the wails of infants that were not mine, I was at my loom when Ardeste announced the arrival of a visitor. Visitors were rare, and I was eager to learn who had found his way to the citadel of Pharsalos.

“He doesn’t wish to give his name, mistress. But he sends you this.” Ardeste held in her palm a small wooden carving of a horse, a miniature of the huge wooden horse at Troy.
Zethus!
Could it be? I dropped my shuttle and, without bothering to see to the condition of my hair or my well-worn peplos, ran to greet him in the anteroom.

Zethus strode toward me, his hands outstretched in greeting. I was so pleased to see him that I wanted to embrace him, but I stopped myself and welcomed him in the formal manner our positions required.

“Let me call for refreshments, Zethus, and then you can tell me what brings you here.” I reminded myself to be patient and wait before plying him with the questions I ached to ask.

Ardeste and one of the young serving girls set down a platter of sesame cakes and a jar of wine mixed with water and herbs. When the serving girl paused to clean up a few drops of spilled wine, Ardeste hurried her away, glancing curiously over her shoulder for another look at Zethus.

Finally we were alone.

“I was afraid you were dead, Zethus! I imagined you lying murdered in the streets of Troy!”

“But as you see, mistress, I am very much alive,” Zethus said. “I had no idea where you were, but if one asks enough questions, one eventually finds out what one needs to know. That’s how I learned you had married Pyrrhus of Phthia.”

“You can be sure I had nothing to say about it! My marriage was the will of King Menelaus and Queen Helen. My father promised me to Pyrrhus without my knowledge.” I sipped some wine. “How
did
you find me, Zethus?”

“Fate surely had a hand in it. I left Troy with Orestes in Agamemnon’s fleet, but Fate later separated us, and after I had wandered for months it brought me to Iolkos. There I heard reports of a red-haired princess, the bride of Pyrrhus, who had passed through the port on her way to the faraway city of Pharsalos. This red-haired princess was sending messengers far and wide in search of rare woven carpets and finely wrought furniture with inlays of ebony and ivory. You can find such elegant work in the area of the Mycenaeans and equally well-made goods in other parts of the country too, but”—Zethus hesitated and then continued—“it’s not well understood by the less artistically talented Myrmidons.”

“It’s true,” I agreed. “The Myrmidons can build a strong wall of immense boulders and hammer out every kind of bronze weaponry on their stone anvils. Do you remember Achilles’ spear, so heavy that he was the only one who could lift it? But their craftsmen lack the skill to paint a glorious scene on the wall they’ve built or to hammer a delicate golden goblet.”

I was thinking, of course, of the wedding goblet Zethus had made for Orestes and me. Happy as I was to see Zethus, I wanted news of Orestes far more than I wanted a discussion of walls and weapons, but I checked my impatience and waited for the right moment to ask.

“That’s one reason I’ve come here—to offer my services as an overseer,” Zethus was saying. “I know artisans who can make exactly what you want, or I can guide craftsmen who have talent but lack experience. And, if you’ll allow me, I can do some of the work myself.”

I felt as though I’d just been offered a desirable gift, but I doubted Pyrrhus would be pleased if I accepted it. “My husband already complains that I spend too much,” I confessed.

I’d begun thinking of how I was going to introduce Zethus and his plans to Pyrrhus when Zethus leaned forward with a serious, almost regretful, expression. “That’s only an excuse for coming here, Hermione. I’ve brought news that may not yet have reached you.”

The sudden change in his mood put me on guard. “What news is that, Zethus?”

He shifted uneasily and sighed. “Agamemnon is dead. Clytemnestra, too.”

“Agamemnon and Clytemnestra dead? How can this be? What happened?” I sank back, stunned, afraid to ask the next question. “And Orestes?” I whispered. “He, also?”

Zethus shook his head, and I was weak with relief.

“Orestes is alive. But I believe he wishes with all his heart he were dead.”

I poured more wine into our goblets, my hands trembling so much that I spilled some. “Tell me, Zethus.”

“Allow me to begin at the beginning. Orestes didn’t sail from Troy on Agamemnon’s ship, but on another ship in his father’s fleet,” Zethus said. “Everything happened very quickly—he wanted to find you, but his father kept him engaged. Then he asked me to come with him, and I was willing. We left at once and managed to avoid the storm that tormented the rest of you. As we were nearing the Greek mainland, Orestes bribed the captain of our ship to change course and take us to Gythion. There we found a boat to take us up the river to Sparta. Orestes wanted to ask Menelaus’s permission to marry you. He expected to find you there with your parents.

“The royal palace at Sparta was nearly deserted. No one greeted us. A white-bearded servant told us he’d heard that Menelaus’s ship had been blown off course. The servant was hopeful that Menelaus and Queen Helen would arrive soon. We thought you were with them, and Orestes was prepared to wait. Every day, he sent a boatman to Gythion to ask for news of Menelaus and Helen—and of his beloved Hermione.

“The little news we had was discouraging. Many of those returning from Troy had been lost in the tempests. At last, two seamen who’d survived the voyage told us that Menelaus and Helen had escaped the worst of the storms and landed safely in Egypt. Orestes still assumed you were with them, and he rejoiced. But the seamen added that you had married Pyrrhus and gone with him to Phthia. The rejoicing turned to grief. The next day Orestes left Sparta—just walked away. I went with him.

“Slowly we made our way toward Mycenae, staying among the shepherds in the hills, sleeping on the ground, sharing their simple meals. His disappointment at losing you was hard to bear. Then, when we reached the city of Tiryns, we met a troupe of traveling bards and musicians. Not recognizing Orestes, they recited the story of Agamemnon’s murder by his wife and her lover.”