Helen of Troy (101 page)

Embarrassed, Nestor continued. “And this fair daughter of Priam, Laodice?”

A man I did not recognize claimed her. Next came Ilona, and another unknown man asked for her.

“And now the former queen of Sparta.” Menelaus’s voice rang out. “Let us hear of her crimes before remanding her to her rightful owner. After all, we have all left our homes, fought, and suffered many years for her crime. Why? Because you are honorable men, and upheld your vows over the sacrificial horse so long ago, at great cost to yourselves. And now look at the horses strewn across the plain of Troy. This war began with a sacrificial horse and it has ended with many sacrificial horses—a great wooden one and herds of Trojan beauties.” He strode over and stood eye to eye with me.

Had I ever looked into those eyes with love? Had it truly ever been so?

“Let me recite her abominations!” he said gleefully. “First, she—”

“Let me spare you the trouble,” I said. I could not bear to listen to his rehearsed self-glorification. “Let me recite them, for I know well what you are going to say. This way I can answer them at the same time, and have the whole business over more quickly. For we know how it will end, with all this but a ceremony.”

Had Menelaus ever truly known me, he would have expected just those words from me. But the poor man was rendered speechless, as I had intended. I stepped forward and stood before the whole company. A hundred eyes stared hungrily at me. “First, as Menelaus started to say, I stole away from my home in Sparta with the prince of Troy, Paris. I went willingly, I was not abducted—as some tried to claim. I did not take treasure with me—as others tried to claim—but a few goods of my rightful ownership, and only in my haste and confusion. I did not use them to enrich myself but dedicated them to Athena in Troy and gave the rest to Priam.” I stopped to draw a breath. It was so quiet that that breath sounded very loud.

“The only crime I committed,” I continued, “and which no one here has the power either to punish or to forgive, was leaving my daughter. For that crime I have grieved and only she can pronounce judgment upon me for it. When I face her, I will beg her forgiveness.”

Now Menelaus came to life. “She will never forgive you! She hates you! She has told me many times how she despises you, and hopes that I kill you when finally I lay hands on you.”

He probably spoke true. Menelaus had never been a liar, unless all these years with Odysseus had tainted him. “I will submit to whatever she decides,” I said.

“You’ll have no choice, you adulterous bitch!”

I looked past him to the audience. “I must ask why any man who calls himself a man would want an adulterous bitch for his wife.” That made them laugh, as I knew it would. Menelaus could stand anything but being laughed at.

“I never said I wanted you for a wife, but for a prisoner. And that’s how you shall return to Sparta.”

I preferred being his prisoner to being his wife. But that did not make me safe from his attentions. “Does my father still live?” I had to know to what I was returning. There must be something there, something.

“Yes. Who do you think has been ruling all these years?”

“And what of Mycenae? And Pylos, and Ithaca?” All those kings away—who ruled in their places? Orestes and Telemachus had been only children at the time, and all the sons of Nestor had gone with him to Troy. What had happened in Greece while they were gone?

“We don’t know!” cried Odysseus, sounding suddenly threatened. “Messages are few—the distance—we will not know, truly, until we land.”

“So you’ll sail with us and be surprised along with all of us at what awaits,” said Menelaus. “Happy homecoming, you shameless whore.”

I stepped to one side to address the men. “Again, I must ask you, what man of honor would want—”

Menelaus grabbed my shoulders and shook me so hard one of my hair bindings came off. “A whore in a bloodstained dress, stained with the blood of the men you have killed, a murderess as well as everything else. I shall tell you, lady, I shall tell you: a man bent on revenge!” Now he turned to face his men. “And I’ll have it, I’ll have it back in Greece, where she’ll stand before the people who suffered because we all had to come here—”

“So you have become a liar after all!” I cried. “I have murdered no one. If thousands have lost their lives, they died for your pitiful hurt pride. And as for the blood on my gown, it is symbolic blood—a part of one drop for each ten lives. But see, it washes clean—I have tried it, and that is when I knew it was not true blood but magical blood—clean as your hands will never be! The true blood does not wash away!”

I watched his face stiffen with his struggle to control his anger. Finally, jerking his head down, he said, “Take her into the house with the others.”

I was dragged into the dark interior of that structure, where I could just make out the huddled forms of the captive women. The house smelled musty, dank, and was poorly lit. As my eyes adjusted, I could see a bedstand and several sagging benches, along with chests. The only kept-up thing in the room was a pedestal with a tunic draped over it, a gold ring and knife laid carefully on top of it.

I heard gentle sobbing from the women; not desperate, not keening, just a tired sadness. Not enough life-force remained for them to grieve loudly. The fall of Troy had sucked it all away—or so I thought.

“This vile, stinking house! Kept as a shrine to Achilles!” Hecuba spat. “
He
lived here, therefore it is holy. And to think my Priam came here, sat here, to beg for the body of Hector. Oh, Priam! You looked upon these ugly walls, too!”

“What is this stupid thing?” the usually mild Laodice said, kicking at the pedestal.

“It is their way of worshiping him,” said Cassandra. “This is his tunic. This must be his ring and knife.”

“Ladies.” A discreet male voice interrupted us. “Queens and princesses.” How polite, to announce his presence and warn us, although whatever we said could hardly alter our fates.

He stepped forward. He was not young, although his voice was. “I am Philoctetes,” he said. “I am sent here to . . .”

I heard nothing more. Philoctetes. The man who had killed Paris. He was of medium height, with a sturdy body, well-muscled arms, and a dignified stance.

I felt myself gasping for breath, trying to steady myself. Where were his arrows, his deadly arrows? His poison? His quiver? His bow? The arrow that he had aimed at Paris had only scratched him, but it was immeasurably deadly.

“Where are your weapons?” I asked. My voice was so low I thought I would have to repeat my words.

“Lady Helen,” he said. “I can say nothing beyond war is war. At least I was an enemy. To meet death at the hands of an ally or companion is even worse. I know;
they
left me alone to perish. Only when they needed me did they come for me.”

“The vile Greeks!” I cried. “Truth and honor are not among them!”

“But I was bound to them. I could not join the Trojans. And so—”

A wild idea entered my head. I would take one of his arrows, scratch myself with it, die as Paris had. “But your deadly gear,” I said. “Where have you put it?”

“Safely away,” he said. “The arrows of Heracles must be kept from harming innocent people.”

If only I could lay my hands on them. And as for who was innocent—how could he determine that?

“Put such thoughts far from you, lady,” he said. “Many seek those arrows to do much mischief. I regret the day I lit that pyre and inherited them from Heracles. What an intolerable burden he gave me.”

LXXIII

I
now realized that I would have to enchant one of my captors if I had any hope of escape. Could I do it with Philoctetes? But my being rebelled. I could not cajole my husband’s murderer.

The door flew open, and Andromache stumbled in. Right behind her was Neoptolemus, shoving and laughing.

For the first time I could behold his face unobscured by a helmet. His eyes were a muddy color—in this dim light I could not discern whether they were brown or blue, but whatever they were, they were not vibrant. Like his body, his face was presentable, passable but forgettable. He had not inherited his father’s fierce grandeur.

“My new slave!” he cried. “The widow of Hector!”

Andromache turned on him. “I am too old for you,” she said. Her voice was low.

“Yes!” I said, coming to her side. I encircled her shoulders in an embrace. “I am here,” I whispered. Then I turned to Neoptolemus. “You do not want a woman old enough to be your mother.”

“What care I for that? I care more for who was upon her before I.” Neoptolemus sneered. “I will wipe him from her memory. In that obliteration I have my glory.”

“You have no glory, little boy,” said Andromache. “You have killed my son and I despise you forever.”

Astyanax! What had he done?

“He killed my son, Helen.” There was no expression at all in her voice. She turned to me, ignoring Neoptolemus. “He took him from my arms and flung him from the walls of Troy—no! there were no walls of Troy left, he flung him from the smoldering heaps into a tumbled mass of stones, but death came just as surely.” The words, dull and low, marched in orderly fashion from her lips.

“Astyanax!” I wept. Her beloved only son, so eagerly sought. The night on Mount Ida . . .

“The baby snake must die,” said Neoptolemus. “It cannot live to slither into the ruins of Troy and start the Trojan menace all over again. The seed of Hector must be destroyed.”

All heirs of Troy obliterated! But Aphrodite said Aeneas had escaped. No matter, we could not know. “Oh, sister.” I embraced her and we sobbed together. For the first time I was glad Paris and I had no child. It would have perished as all else in Troy.

“You shall return to Greece with me,” said Neoptolemus to Andromache. “Perhaps not as my main wife, for it is true, you are a bit old for me. Occasional relief or diversion in bed you shall grant me. But I think I deserve a princess of Greece. I think your daughter Hermione is more to my taste, lady Helen. I have already spoken to your husband about it and he has granted permission. I shall be your son-in-law.” He chortled and leaned forward, kissing my cheek. “Mother!” he giggled.

I slapped his face; I could not help myself. “If my daughter is anything of mine, she will reject you.”

He laughed. “But she may not be of you; she may be her father’s child, or entirely of her own thinking.” He drew himself up. “She may want the son of the mighty Achilles. Many women will.”

“Then go find them, and spare my daughter.”

“Your daughter may be amongst them,” he said. “It is most likely.” He laughed softly. “But I must speak not of what is likely, but required.” He turned from Andromache and me as things of no import, and addressed the women who were gathered at the back of the house.

“My father has sought me out of late,” he said. “He has spoken to me in dreams and portents.”

“How odd!” I cried. “He did not know you as a baby, as a boy, and now he speaks to you!”

He whirled around to me. “The gods do not necessarily speak to their children until they please,” he said.

“So Achilles is now a god?” I said. “Strange, when I first saw him he was but a nasty, meddlesome child.”

“Shut your mouth, whore of Troy!” he cried.

“The surest answer from someone who has no answer.” I spoke to the women. “Insults. But that is no true response, it is the desperation of those who have nothing else to call upon. What does your illustrious father—if indeed he
is
your father—command you?”

“He demands blood. He needs a sacrifice in order to let us sail from Troy.”

“Whose?” Hecuba stepped forward. “It must, in all justice, be mine.”

“No,” said Neoptolemus. “It is your next youngest daughter’s, Polyxena’s.”

“What?” Hecuba choked, clutching her throat. Suddenly she was not the withered old woman, shuffling toward death, she had affected to be. She seemed to grow even as I watched her, until she stood eye to eye with Neoptolemus. It was an illusion, of course, but even Neoptolemus felt it. He stepped back. “Why?”

“My father fancied her,” he said.

“How could he? He had never seen her!”

“Yes, he had,” said Neoptolemus. “He saw her at the springhouse.”