Helen of Sparta (21 page)

I rose from the bow. “I was always a good student, and Alcyoneus was a fi
ne tutor.”

“Perhaps she would do better as an ambassador to Egypt than your wife, my lord,” Ariston offered, a laugh in
his voice.

Theseus glowered at him. “And perhaps you would make a finer jester than a p
hysician.”

Ariston hid a smile with a bow. “As my king wishes, o
f course.”

“Come,” Theseus said to me, ignoring Ariston’s false courtesy. I wondered if the physician had spent too much time with Pirithous, or if returning home had made him bold. “I’m sure you’re tired. I’ll have you to the palace before the moon begins to set, and my mother will have a bath already filled
for you.”

Horses waited for us, and Theseus waved Ariston to a brow
n gelding.

“Go to your wife,” Theseus told him after we had mounted. “But do not whisper a word of Helen t
o anyone.”

“Yes, my lord. My thanks.” Ariston saluted his king in the Cretan way, fist to forehead, and then rode away. Even in the moonlight, he disappeared quickly into
the night.

Theseus glanced down at me in his lap and adjusted the hood of my cloak, tucking my hair beneath it again. “An Egyptian slave? And what shall I call you to keep the secret of y
our name?”

I ran my fingers through the horse’s mane, thinking.
“Miriam?”

“That isn’t very
Egyptian.”

“No,” I agreed. “It came from a Hebrew story Alcyoneus told me. He said there used to be thousands of them in Egypt, until their god told them
to leave.”

“Mmm.” Theseus kicked the horse into a trot. Piraeus slept as if Ariston had slipped the entire port one of his potions, but Theseus wasted no time passing through it. “What of Selene, since it seems you travel so much by m
oonlight?”

I smiled. “I suppose that will do just as well. And it is only proper that a slave be renamed something in her master’
s tongue.”

Theseus grimaced. “I do not wish to treat you as a slav
e, Helen.”

“Selene,” I corrected him. The road from Piraeus to Athens was well worn, and as quiet as the port had been. Few people traveled after the sun set, and at this time of night, even fewer would be awake at all. “And you need not pretend I am a slave unless someone sees us. Though I do not know how you will keep me hidden in the palace from your servants. There are not two women in Achaea with hair like mine. Better if w
e dye it.”

He sighed. “I had hoped to find ano
ther way.”

“Confine me to your roo
ms, then.”

“And how will I explain to the palace that the king no longer wishes to be served in his chambers?” He shook his head. “No. That would arouse nearly as much suspicion. Better to dye your hair and call you a slave until rumors of your abduct
ion fade.”

I bit my lip to keep from asking how many slaves he had kept in his bed. Some things were better left unsaid. “And will you wait that long to
marry me?”

“You’re determined, then, in spite of everything I’ve
told you?”

“I am.” I held my breath, waiting for him to refuse me after all the trouble I had caused him. One of his men had died because of me, and Aphrodite had nearly swept the rest of them into the sea. I would not have blamed him if he had changed his mind. My heart pounded i
n my ears.

“If it is to be done, it will be done right, and that will take time. I must make offerings to the gods and see the priests and the augurs to determine the most auspicious day. I will do everything in my power to ensure our marriage is blessed by the gods, for I cannot bear to bring my misfortune to you. Can you wait at least t
hat long?”

Even knowing his words promised delay, I felt relief beyond measure. If this was what he needed to be easy about our marriage, then I could accept it, a
nd gladly.

“In the meantime, perhaps I had better dye
my hair.”

He laughed, brushing a golden strand back beneath my hood. “I suppose you’re determined about t
hat, too.”

I rested my head against his shoulder, wishing it were not so dark and I could see more than just pale shadows of the land that would be my new home. Knowing Theseus would marry me gave me more peace than I had realized
I wanted.

I smiled and said nothing, for Athens was before us, and in the moonlight it was too beautiful
for words.

C
HAPTER NINETEEN

T
he palace rose up above the city, set atop a sheer cliff, walled in stone. Moonlight framed it from behind, casting long shadows over the houses and the path leading to the Rock. The buildings and homes, one and two stories tall, grew closer together as they neared the palace, until they sat on top of one another against the palace wall. Even from here, I could see parts of it were made of boulders rather than rocks, too immense to have been haul
ed by men.

“It is a legend in Athens that the walls were built by the Cyclopes,” Theseus said in my ear, reining in the horse so I could look my fill. “But you would have seen something similar in Mycenae,
I’m sure.”

“No,” I said, not taking my eyes from the fortress on the Rock. A switchback road snaked up the hill, and what might have been torchlight winked from the gate above. “Menelaus promised me once he would bring me to Mycenae, but we never went. Is it much the same
as this?”

I felt Theseus’s shrug at my back, and the horse stamped with impatience beneath us. “The walls are made of the same tremendous stones. Tomorrow, I will show you all of Athens in the sunlight so you can see he
r beauty.”

“It must rival the palaces
in Egypt.”

Theseus laughed. “How is it you have not even been to Mycenae but you know so much of the E
gyptians?”

I flushed beneath the kohl. “It is only that I have heard the pharaoh’s palace is very grand, and I can think of nothing grander t
han this.”

Except perhaps for the burning city of my dreams, but I did not want to dwell on that, nor would I mention it to Theseus now and tarnish th
is moment.

“You have not even seen inside,” he teased me. “But you are not wrong. It is a beautiful palace, and from the top you can see halfway to Troezen on a c
lear day.”

He gave the horse its head, and we moved on. The outer wall grew larger, and the palace on its plateau loome
d over us.

“Athens has never truly fallen to any siege,” he told me while we rode, answering my questions before I could frame them. “The Rock will always stand, no matter what comes. Armies break beneath it like cresting waves, tripping over themselves as they fall. Ares may have strength and lust for battle, but Athena has the greatest mind for strategy and
defense.”

“Surely you do not depend on the godde
ss alone?”

“Athena has never betrayed me. And when we have spoken, she has never misled me. I am king of Athens by her will more tha
n my own.”

“You speak of her as if she walks the
streets.”

He laughed. “Not the streets, perhaps, but the temples.” He fell silent for a moment. “She came to me in Sparta when I prayed for
guidance.”

He did not have to say what she had told him, and I knew we were both thinking of Zeus’s price. I felt I had paid him already with tears and terror inside the basket. But I wondered if it had truly been Athena who had spoken to Theseus or simply the priestess from the shrine. She was beautiful enough to be taken for a goddess, and I did not trust any message from Zeus not to be filled
with lies.

We passed through the outer wall without difficulty, for it stood unguarded. Knowing Theseus, I doubted it would remain so for much longer. He might not arm it with warriors, but he would keep watch for Mycena
e’s march.

The small whitewashed homes inside the walls were all dark, with even the dogs asleep on the doorsteps as we passed. Doors and lintels were painted with what would be bright colors in daylight, and some design I could not make out. Pens for animals adjoined the outer walls of the buildings, and goats and sheep and cows slept in th
eir sheds.

Theseus mumbled thanks to Athena under his breath when we reached the main gate of the palace; then he whistled softly. The massive wooden door groaned open, and it was too dark to see what had been painted upon it, but I would have guessed it was decorated with snakes and owls for thei
r goddess.

“Good lad,” Theseus said, and the horse trotted through into a dark
courtyard.

“Lad?”

“My first son by Phaedra, Demophon, at
the gate.”

A boy no more than eleven appeared out of the shadows, taking the horse by the bridle and stroking its nose. Even so young, the child had broad shoulders and the look of heigh
t to come.

Theseus lowered me to the ground and dismounted with the ease of a man who had spent years on horseback. Like Castor. My heart twisted with the reminder of my brother, lost to me, now, by the choices I
had made.

Theseus clapped the boy on the
shoulder.

“See him stabled, fed, and watered, and then find your own bed, Acamas. Not a word of this t
o anyone.”

Acamas glanced at me shyly. “Y
es, Papa.”

I stared again at the boy, grateful the kohl kept my expression hidden even if the moonlight did not. His second son, by Phaedra. Just a boy! Younger even than the one he might have killed in the wood. Theseus watched me, waiting for my
response.

Acamas led the horse away. A cold breeze tickled the back of my neck. Somehow I had never considered his other sons, though he had mentioned them i
n passing.

“I did not realize how young your children
would be.”

“Demophon is a year older than you, but Acamas was too young to remember his mothe
r at all.”

“Will they
hate me?”

He smiled. “Why sho
uld they?”

“I’ll be their stepmother. That cannot be easy
for them.”

He took my hand, his thumb caressing my knuckles. “They know their duty, and I cannot imagine you will treat them unkindly. But come. My mother waits to
meet you.”

I let him pull me toward the palace, where torches flickered on the porch, welcoming him home. He took me up the broad stairs, lifting one of the torches from the wall as we passed, and led me down an unlit hall painted with owls and olive trees. The flames danced over the images, giving the ow
ls flight.

He pushed open a heavy door engraved with a great bull and a group of dancers. I traced the shape of the largest figure, thinking of Pirithous’s story. Was this meant to be Theseus when he charmed the bulls
in Crete?

“This is my mother, Aethra,” Theseus said, drawing my attention from
the door.

She smiled, and though her pale skin held the lines of age, she wore them with the same grace and beauty as she did her fine gown, its layered skirt alternating blue and pomegranate red. With Theseus well into his forties, I did not dare to guess her age. Perhaps his own agelessness had come to him naturally after all, if his mother was so well
preserved.

I dropped into a deep bow. “My lady, I thank you for your hos
pitality.”

“Come now,” Aethra said, urging me to my feet. “You need not bend your knee to me. Theseus tells me you are to be treated as a queen when we are in private, and I assure you no one is eavesdropping in the king’s own chambers. He barely allows the slaves to
clean it.”

“The mother of the king deserves to be honored,” I said. “And the mother of Theseus, d
oubly so.”

“You must be eager to wash the kohl from your face, my dear, to say nothing of finding
your bed.”

I glanced back at Theseus when she drew me toward a door on the other side of th
e chamber.

He smiled, setting the torch into an empty bracket on the wall. “You are in better hands than mine,” he assured me. “Have your bath and sleep well. I pray it will be d
reamless.”

Dreamless. I swallowed the swell of panic and forced myself to follow Aethra, though I wanted nothing more than to snatch my hand free and run. Fire crawled over my skin at just the thought of what might come when I closed my eyes without the sound of Theseus’s heartbeat to distract my mind. The door shut behind us, and I fought
for calm.

The room had two small baths, red ceramic surrounded by pale blue tile set in even redder plaster. Both had been filled, but two large cauldrons heated over a small hearth, waiting to refresh the cooled water later. This was the king’s private bathing room, and unless I was mistaken, the door on the other side of the room led to the queen’s room. I studied the paintings on the walls to steady my thoughts. Cresting waves and leaping blue dolphins danced across the room, while hippocamps swam beneath. Castor and Pollux had painted the fish-tailed horses on their walls, too. The images blurred, and I lo
oked away.

“Theseus said you had a difficult voyage, though he did not explain how,” Aethra said. “Nor did he tell me your name, but I can guess. Trust my son to fall in love with such a woman. Tell me at least that he did not s
teal you?”

I shook my head, then laughed from my nerves. “I suppose he did, for my father thinks I am abducted in my sleep, but I left with Theseus of my own f
ree will.”

She raised an eyebrow, helping to remove my cloak. Her gaze fell on my hair, and her lip
s thinned.

“Helen of Sparta.” She sighed. “Well, what’s done is done, and if it brings war to Athens, I suppose it will give the younger men something to do with th
emselves.”

“I hope war will not come. At least not for some time. And it will be longer still if you will help me dye
my hair.”

“Dye it?” Aethra pursed her lips and pulled my shift ove
r my head.

I sighed to be free of the rough wool, along with the days of sweat and dirt trapped in the fabric. In the basket, Ariston had at least given me a clay pot to relieve myself, so I had not sat in my own filth, but the one bath I had managed in Troy had not been enough. I felt as though the dust from the road had ground itself into my skin, sticking to the salt fro
m the sea.

Aethra clucked her tongue at the state of my body. “I might have something, but it will wait until morning. I’m sure you’re exhausted, and Theseus would not forgive me if I kept you up later tha
n needed.”

I stepped into the tub and sank into the steaming water, submerging completely. Closing my eyes in the tub made me feel as though I were trapped inside the hold again. I sat up, gasping for breath. The sloshing of water in my ears was too much, sounding like the sea against the hull, and I grasped the edge of the bath with both hands to keep myself from leapin
g from it.

Aethra frowned. “Are you quite well,
my dear?”

“Yes,” I managed to say, staring at the fire until all I could see were bright smears of white flame when I blinked. White was better than black. My breathing slowed, and I relaxed my grip on the tub enough to lean forward and let Aethra scrub my back and scrape the dirt fro
m my skin.

Yes, I was tired, but I did not think sleep would come at all p
eacefully.

When the sun rose, painting the horizon with golds and oranges and reflecting rainbows off the whitewashed stone and red-roofed buildings of the city below, I was awake still, but I would have been sorrier to have missed my first sight of Theseus’s lands. I could only imagine what the palace might look like to those beneath
the Rock.

Attica was even more beautiful in daylight, and I stood, straining for every glimpse of it I could take from the shadows of the queen’s room, where Aethra had left me to sleep. Low shrubs and mountain pine covered the hills, so green that the orange of the morning sun turned them black. Where the light struck rock, it painted the limestone faces i
n sunsets.

All around the city, oaks, cypress, and olive trees reached dark limbs into the sky, some of the oak trunks stripped bare and red for the cork that would be used to seal jugs and amphorae. Lowing rose up as the cows woke, though I could not tell if it came from the palace or the city, and I thought I could see a trip of goats already climbing the hill beyond the city wall. More than anything, I wanted to step out upon the balcony and drink in the lands that were to be my
new home.

The door from the baths swung open, and I shrank back behind the heavy curtains of the balcony until I realized it was only Aethra. She glanced from the bedding at my feet to the richly carved bed, one perfectly painted eyebrow rising, but she did not ask if I had slept. I had tried, but the furs and blankets and cushions of the bed had been so thickly layered, I had felt myself suffocating, trapped in their cocoon. It was far, far too richly appointed for me to find any comfort, even if I had not feared my n
ightmares.

I bowed my head.
“My lady.”

“My dear, it is no wonder my son has been swept away. Poseidon himself must find you tempting, even if you are his niece.” She came forward to take my hands, pulling me into the light and looking me over with sharp eyes. “You are certainly as lovely as they claim. And t
hen some.”