Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy (3 page)

Clytemnestra rose, gesturing to her maids to adjust the folds of her peplos. “He hasn’t married yet,” she replied. “Though many women are drawn to such a man—how could they not be? A girl named Oenone, the daughter of a fountain nymph, was always seen with him. They say that the two used to hunt and tend their flocks together.”

“More of a sister than a lover, then?” Helen asked, sounding relieved.

“I can’t say for sure,” Clytemnestra replied, giving my mother a sharp look.

We started back to the palace as darkness gathered around us like a soft blanket. Pleisthenes sagged in my arms, and I set him down, whispering that he must walk a little. He pouted, just like his mother. When a slave girl tried to pick him up, he began to wail, and I ended up carrying him anyway, while he clung to my neck.

Torches had been lighted, and in the megaron a troupe of traveling musicians was entertaining the men with songs of ancient heroes. We sat down to listen, though nothing sounded as enthralling as the story Clytemnestra had just told us. Pleisthenes crawled into my lap and fell asleep. Our mother seemed not to notice, and after a time his nurse lifted the drowsy boy from my arms and carried him away. Not long afterward my eyes, too, felt heavy. I wandered off to the sleeping quarters, curled up on the thick fleeces piled on my low bed, and was soon sleeping soundly.

As Dawn stretched her rosy fingers into the vault of the sky the next day, our two families boarded several flat-bottomed royal barges and small papyrus boats tied up along the muddy banks of the River Eurotas. We floated downriver to Gythion, where the river meets the sea and Agamemnon’s great ship lay at anchor. The weather was fine. A steady breeze promised smooth sailing to Mycenae.

Clytemnestra embraced my mother. “You must tell me all about the visit from the Trojan prince,” she said. “Promise you’ll leave nothing out!”

My mother laughed and gave her word. Orestes flashed his winning smile at me, and Iphigenia said she hoped I’d come to visit her soon, though I didn’t feel she really meant it. Her older sisters ignored me, as usual. After making sacrifices at a local shrine to Aeolus, god of the four winds, Agamemnon’s family boarded their ship. We watched from the beach as the anchor stones were hauled up and oarsmen rowed the ship away from the shore. The square sail billowed with a steady breeze, carrying the ship toward the horizon. When it had shrunk to a speck in the distance, we returned to our boats, and our slaves rowed us up the river to Sparta.

“The harvest will soon be over,” my mother observed that evening. She was sitting beside my father and twisting a lock of her shining golden hair around her finger. I thought she looked almost happy. “And then we’ll have another visitor! How splendid, Menelaus! We must show our guest a good time.”

My father smiled indulgently. He’d give Helen anything she wanted. After all, he was the fortunate husband of the most beautiful woman in the world.

3

HELEN, WHO HAD BEEN
drifting through the long, dull summer days as though half-asleep, now suddenly awoke from her trance and threw herself into planning for the visit of the Trojan prince. We must have new furniture, she told my father: a larger table for banquets, and more couches. The fleeces for the beds should be replaced. She needed a new peplos, maybe several. My mother thought my clothes were shabby—Clytemnestra had said so, reminding her that even a young princess should not be dressing in a short chiton. It wasn’t something that Helen would notice otherwise. Animals must be slaughtered, my mother continued, feasts prepared, entertainments arranged. So much still to be done, and the harvest was almost over!

As the moon neared the end of its fourth quarter, Menelaus sent a number of servants downriver to the small island of Kranai, near Gythion. They were instructed to set up a camp on the lovely stretch of beach, ready to greet Prince Paris when his fleet reached the shallows. A messenger would bring word to Sparta of the Trojan prince’s arrival at Kranai.

Everything went as planned. The harvest had been completed; grain and olive oil and wine filled row upon row of clay amphoras standing in the royal storehouse. The fattest sheep and cattle were slaughtered, loaves of bread baked, figs soaked in honey and spices. Extra musicians were hired. My mother arranged the new furniture and tried on her new gowns. A luxurious bedroom was prepared for the prince, and female servants were assigned to bathe him and rub his skin with scented oil. I noticed that my mother gave this task only to older, homelier women. Now we waited eagerly for the prince we’d heard so much about.

“Did you see Paris’s ship with your own eyes?” Menelaus asked the messenger who came at last, and the messenger described a carving of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, holding her son, the little winged Eros, on the prow of the prince’s ship. Menelaus listened to the report and nodded, satisfied. The royal barge was dispatched to fetch Paris.

I was nearly as excited as my mother. We were both by the river’s edge when the barge arrived and Paris stepped off. I was not disappointed. I thought I had never seen such a handsome man. I could not help but admire the prince’s dazzling smile, his thick dark hair curling over his neck, his long legs and strong shoulders, and, most striking of all, his golden eyes, gleaming like a cat’s.

The moment my mother saw him, their eyes locked. Neither seemed able to look away. I wondered,
What does Father think?

But Menelaus was oblivious. He didn’t seem to notice a thing. While Paris stared at Helen with open admiration—I would even say adoration—my father launched into his usual speech about the honor of receiving such a distinguished guest. Helen and Paris continued to devour each other with hungry looks.

I held my breath to see what would happen next. But nothing did—at least, not then.

My brother and I were introduced to Paris, who flicked a glance and a brief smile in our direction before turning his attention back to Helen. Musicians with wooden flutes, lyres, and drums made of animal skins escorted us up the broad stone path to the palace. Little boys scattered herbs to be crushed under our feet. When we reached the gates, Menelaus ordered them flung open, crying out, “Enter here, great friend! My house is your house!”

Paris took Menelaus at his word.

For nine days my father and his honored guest hunted together, often with my mother joining them, for Helen was a keen shot. Each evening there was a banquet with the finest roasted meats and delicious wines, rich cheeses and delicate cakes dripping with honey. Paris described to us the palace in Troy, where he and his brothers lived in quarters hung with colorful silks from the Orient, ate and drank from plates and goblets of hammered gold, lounged on benches inlaid with ebony and ivory brought from distant places. I was entranced by what he told us.

But I was also distracted. You would have had to be blind not to see that Paris had fallen madly in love with my mother. He gazed at her, sighing, as she plucked the strings of her golden lyre. If she set down her wine goblet, Paris reached for it and deliberately drank from the very spot where her lips had touched the rim, his eyes on her to make sure she saw what he was doing. He could scarcely bear to leave her side. Once, when we had gone walking along the riverbank, I saw him pick up a stick and scratch a message in the sand. I stepped close enough to read it and gasped.

Helen, I love you.

My mother hurriedly scuffed the letters with her sandal. “You will cause me no end of trouble!” she hissed at Paris, who merely flashed his most seductive smile and reached for her hand, right under my father’s nose. Helen jerked her hand away.

How could my father not see what was happening right in front of him? In fact, his mind was somewhere else. Menelaus was busy preparing to leave for Crete, to take part in funeral rites for his grandfather. The obligation had come up suddenly, and he couldn’t refuse.

“My deepest apologies, dear friend,” he said to Paris. “But it’s my responsibility to attend the obsequies. I’m sure you understand.”

Paris assured Menelaus that he understood completely: one’s duty to one’s family, and so on.

“Until I’m able to return, my esteemed wife will see that you receive the greatest hospitality our kingdom has to offer.” He turned to my mother. “Won’t you, dearest Helen?”

“With pleasure, my lord,” replied my mother, her gaze modestly lowered. Or maybe she just didn’t want my father to look into her eyes and read the truth.

With the sun high overhead, Menelaus boarded a small, fast boat for his journey downriver to the gulf, where his ship lay provisioned and ready to sail. I begged to go with him as far as the mouth of the river, thinking that I might be able to say something, to whisper a word or two of caution about what I saw plainly and he plainly did not.

“Stay with your mother and our guest, Hermione,” he said, fondly running his hand over my shock of red curls that so closely matched his own. “I’ll be back before the next full moon, and you can tell me all about it.”

Menelaus kissed Helen and my little brother and me, promising to order a signal fire to be lighted on Mount Koumaros when he entered the gulf. And then he was gone.

THE BANQUET THAT NIGHT
was smaller and quieter without the presence of the king. No reciting, no singing, though my mother did play a little on her golden lyre. Everyone wanted to retire early. Maybe after nine nights of feasting and drinking and music and storytelling, they were all tired. My eyes were also heavy, but I was determined not to go to bed before the others. My mother began to yawn. She wished us all a good night. “Don’t stay up too late, Hermione,” she said, and I promised I would not. She scarcely glanced at her honored guest, which I thought was odd.

Not long after Helen had gone off to the bedroom she always shared with my father, Paris, too, made a show of yawning and stretching. When he left the megaron, on impulse I followed him, silently slipping along the corridors leading to the guest quarters. I hid myself behind a stout pillar until his door was closed and the bolt shot into place. Crouching on the cold stone floor, I waited. The servants, left to clean up after the banquet, finished their work and went off to their quarters. The palace fell silent. Not a sound. I pinched myself to stay awake and as the night grew cool wished I had brought a woolen shawl with me.

I’m being stupid,
I told myself.
Nothing is going to happen.
But still I didn’t move.

My head had drooped down on my knees by the time I heard the bolt on Paris’s door slide back. The hinges squeaked as the door opened and closed again, followed by the sound of soft footsteps. I breathed lightly and wished my heart did not pound so loudly. Paris hurried past my hiding place without seeing me. Suspecting that he was making his way to my mother’s bedroom, I decided to go there by another way, making it less likely that he would sense my presence.

I ran along the open passageway. As I was about to pass my little brother’s room, I noticed that his door stood ajar and peeked inside, expecting to see his nurse asleep on her pallet and Pleisthenes’ golden curls spilling across his pillow.

No one was there. No child, no nurse. No longer caring if anyone heard me, I rushed to my mother’s bedroom.

Empty. I stared in confusion.
Where are they?

I flew across the columned portico and through the great hall and the anteroom. Guards standing rigidly by the entrance seemed not to notice me as I raced by, bound for the riverbank. The queen’s barge was not tied up at its usual place, the boatman gone.

I tried to call out to my mother, even though I suspected she was nowhere near. What could I do? If I found another boatman, I’d insist that he take me down to the gulf, where Paris had left his fleet, his ship with the carving of Aphrodite and Eros. I felt sure that Helen must have gone there with him. But even if I found them, how could I, just a child, coax her to come back? Would she even listen to me? I didn’t think so.

I started back up the stone path to the palace, passing on the way the enormous storehouse where the wine, oil, and grain were kept. Behind it was the smaller treasury where my father locked up his gold—plates, vases and cups, diadems, bracelets, necklaces and rings—and also his weapons and shields. Something felt strange. The usual treasury guards were on duty, but they stood by as though in a trance. I marched up to one of them and put my face close to his.

“Guard!” I shouted. He didn’t even blink. I slapped him, hard. Still nothing. What was wrong with him? I spun around and looked carefully at the others. It was as if someone had put them under a spell.

Seeing that the treasury door, armored in bronze, stood ajar, I pushed it open and stepped inside. A narrow blade of moonlight cut across the bare floor. Except for a few dusty trunks bound with leather, the vault was empty, my father’s treasure gone.

Not only my mother and the treasure were missing, but Pleisthenes was missing too. That hurt me deeply, maybe more than anything. My brother loved me, and I loved him. Helen never paid as much attention to him as I did, yet it seemed she had taken him with her. But why hadn’t she taken
me?
Didn’t she love me? Or would I simply have been in the way? A nuisance to her and Paris, reminding her that what she was doing was wrong! I didn’t want to leave my father. But I didn’t want Helen to go without me, to leave me here.

My mother had abandoned me for handsome, charming Paris.

My anger grew—not only at Helen and Paris, but also at my father for being so blind, for leaving the two of them here together, alone. How could he not have seen what was going on? Or hadn’t he
wanted
to see?

I hated them all. And I had no idea what would happen now.

4

THE GREAT HALL, WHERE
we had enjoyed so many banquets, was deserted. I took one of the flickering torches down from the wall and carried it with me while I searched the palace. First I returned to my mother’s bedroom. Her gowns, her jewels—nearly everything—was gone, except for her loom, which stood empty against the wall, and her silver spindle, which was lying on her bed. I didn’t know if she’d forgotten the spindle or left it for me, but I took it to my room and hid it there.