Helen of Troy (65 page)

T
he wine did not really clear our heads of troubles, but it masked them under a soft haze, blurring around the edges of our cares. Andromache tried gamely to recreate the camaraderie of other gatherings in the time before the coming of the Greeks. But the enemy had penetrated into the very chamber itself.

Paris and I walked slowly and dispiritedly back to our home. Then, thinking of Paris, of my love for him, I slid under the smooth linen sheet, feeling its cool caress under my back, and held out my arms to him.

“Come, my love,” I said. “Let us mock the enemy.”

The sun sent his first probes into our bedroom, but the stout shutters Paris had designed repelled them. Then, as the sun rose higher, he beat down mercilessly on the Plain of Troy, making the withered ground send back heat waves, so that the sea wavered before our eyes when we leaned over the walls and tried to sight the shoreline. It was very still; the usual north wind had dropped away, leaving us held under a heavy hand of air.

Paris and I were trying to make out the Greek camp, but the heat waves, dancing and distorting everything, made us unsure what we were seeing. Just then Priam and Hecuba joined us, leading an elderly blind man by the elbows to the edge of the wall. Priam spoke to the blind man and then stepped back. The man grasped the edge of the parapet and stared out, unseeing, across the plain. Then he raised one thin, flapping-skinned arm. “Hear me, stones!” He ran his other hand along the top of the wall. “Hear me, great wall! Hear me, high towers! I bless you and bind you to protect Troy.”

A rumble of voices from the watching Trojans repeated the words. Then he held his arm out over the wall. “Hear me, soil of the plain! Hear me, the sounding sea! Hear me, you enemy hoards! I place today a binding curse upon you, if you think to harm Troy or touch its people. Your tongues will dry up and cleave to the roof of your mouths, your soil will harden and never let grass spring forth upon it again, your waves will turn to poison.” He clapped his hands loudly. “Thus do I curse the enemy of Troy, and all things which might give them aid.”

A roar of approval filled the heavy air, and Priam embraced the man. They then sought the shade indoors.

Hector strode over to us and shook his head. “They say a blind man has the power to put binding curses on an enemy, if he speaks from the city walls. I, for one, do not believe it, but I would be pleased if it were so.”

“Eh.” Aesacus had come up behind him. “People believe too many of these things. It’s all nonsense.” He was a weedy little man—the sort who usually believed in magic and forces stronger than himself, if only because he could use help. But, surprisingly, Aesacus sneered at such crutches.

Hector was squinting out across the plain. “In any case, I believe it came too late to hobble the Greeks. They have already set out.”

Was that a haze of dust rising from near the ships?

“No,” I murmured, looking where he indicated. But I did see something stirring, although I could not tell what.

“Arm yourselves!” Hector cried to the men on the wall. “Arm! I will call the rest,” he told Paris.

Paris turned to me quickly. “My armor. It is time.”

Must it be? Must he put it on at last? I wanted it to lie, the bronze slowly turning green, the leather stiffening, locked away in its chest forever.

“Yes,” he said. “Come with me. Quickly.”

We hurried toward our home and without looking back Paris mounted the steps inside to the highest room, the one that overlooked all of Troy and its plain. There, far below us, I could now see the army moving toward the city. Paris’s new armor was stored here, and he yanked it out and shook it. It clanked, its metal pieces settling against one another.

“Here, help me,” he barked, quite unlike himself. “Hurry.” He had summoned his attendant, but the boy had not appeared. “I cannot wait.” Trembling, I fastened the buckles and the straps, performing the rites of a war companion. Bit by bit the Paris I knew disappeared behind a wall of bronze and leather.

He was so young. No, you cannot go, I cried inside. I remembered, oh, so long ago, when I was choosing a husband from the suitors, I had ruled out anyone younger. I had said he would defer too much to me, and would know less than I. Now I knew that was false, and his youth was so precious I could not bear to sacrifice it, no matter the reason, before its time. It shone like a star. Now its light was dimmed beneath his helmet.

“Do not go,” I heard myself saying. But I did not think he would hear.

The newly unknown man before me waited a moment before answering. “You of all people should not say that,” was all he said. He bent over and gave me a metallic embrace.

The Greeks were in full attack, marching resolutely toward the walls of Troy. They seemed to fill the whole plain, swarming like insects, and as they marched, their armor, from a distance, made a dry rustling sound like the rubbing of locusts’ legs.

“Man your positions,” said Priam, directing the older men to take their stations by the piles of stones; the younger archers were to mount the towers ready for enemies approaching within bowshot.

The soldiers filed out through the Scaean Gate, under the gaze of the Great Tower of Ilium, bristling with archers. Still the Greeks came on and on. Now they were yelling and charging toward the walls, screaming and bellowing.

“Helen, get back!” Hecuba grabbed my shoulder and tried to pull me away. “We must leave the walls!”

Priam had fallen back, gathering his old councilors around him, shrinking away. “It lies with the young now,” he said, hurrying toward the summit, where he could watch from his rooftop.

The Trojans charged out, rushing from the entrance, but they were badly outnumbered by the locustlike Greeks. I cringed watching them; bravery gives glory, but it cannot prevail over overwhelming odds. I got away from Hecuba and returned to the walls; I could not bear to leave. Down below me I saw the company of Trojans but not Paris amongst them. From the towers the defenders were firing covering arrows to keep the attackers at bay; from far back in the Greek ranks slingers were launching stones over our walls. They arced through the sky and then fell sharply just inside the walls, causing damage that an arrow, with a different path of flight, could not. Trojans groaned and fell where they stood, felled by the flying stones.

A company of Greeks approached the Great Tower and Scaean Gate, but there was something curiously slow about them. The Trojans rallied and sent volleys of arrows toward them, but the Greeks never came close enough to be hit. On the eastern side of the city I could hear cries; the walls were under assault there, too.

Just then a bloodcurdling cry rang out from close at hand, and I heard shrieks from everyone around me. A grinning face appeared over the wall, and a man leapt over. He was quickly subdued, but others swarmed after him.

“The western wall!” one of the guards cried. “They are at the western wall!”

At least ten Greek soldiers clambered over the side of the western wall before being slain by the waiting Trojans. But behind them were hundreds, eagerly finding hand- and footholds on the loose stones of the weakest stretch of the walls of Troy. A roar of excitement welled up from the ground.

I climbed up on a pile of stones and peered down below, from a point of safety. The Trojans had turned to fight the Greeks at the base of the western wall, trying to drive them back. Our defenders from above were flinging stones on the adversaries, while our warriors battled them hand to hand.

Gelanor came running with a covered cart, trundling it through the street. “Here! Here!” he cried. A group of guards surrounded him and they hustled toward the wall. They yanked the cover off to reveal a pile of sand, which they began scooping up with clay pots and dumping over the side of the wall. Heated sand—heated blistering hot, so that it would sting and scald between the chinks of armor. As it hit its victims, howls resounded all the way up to the heavens.

Gradually the Greeks fell back, leaving the western wall. I could make out some of the Trojans now, could see Hector striding beside the big oak that grew near the Scaean Gate. With the retreat of the Greeks, the Trojans scattered. I still could not see Paris.

Suddenly I saw a figure running toward the oak, making for Hector. He moved at an astonishing speed, bounding and leaping like an animal, even though fully armored. Almost before Hector could sight him, he was bearing down upon him, brandishing a formidable spear. Hector turned and fell back to gain his footing, the other man almost on top of him. The man threw his spear and missed by a hair’s breadth, rushed to retrieve it and aim again. In that instant Hector dodged and moved and was able to escape the next throw, which went wide. Now the assailant was without a spear, and he grabbed for his sword, advancing on Hector. Hector raised his shield and then, straining at full height, cast his own spear. It whizzed past the man’s helmet, so close it surely must have made a whisper in his ear as it passed. For an instant the man turned to see where it fell so he could capture it, and in that pause Hector escaped, making for the Scaean Gate, hastily opened for him. It clanged shut after he was inside, just as his adversary beat his fists upon it and cried out, “Coward! Coward!” The fists must have been made of metal, they battered the thick wooden doors so. Later I saw that they had actually dented them—a series of depressions in the bronze-sheathed wood showed where the knotted fists had struck.

Hector, eyes bulging, yanked off his helmet. His face was streaming with sweat, his chest heaving. “I see now,” he muttered, “what they say of him is true.”

“Who? Who?” I asked one of the guards surrounding Hector.

“Achilles,” the guard said. “That demon was Achilles.”

“They say he can outrun even a stag,” said Hector. “I had heard it, but thought it was just an expression. Now I know it is not. He is beyond any human warrior I have ever seen.”

“Coward! Coward!” The words were still ringing.

Hector shook his head as if to shut them out. “No man has ever called me that,” he muttered.

“Nor are you,” said Priam, who had come rushing from the summit, his robes flapping out behind him.

I peered down over the wall to see where Achilles was. His cries and poundings had ceased, and he was turning away from the gate, shouldering his spear. Beneath the plates that shielded his cheeks and the long nose guard, I saw his thin lips drawn in a tight line. His armor was splendid, decorated with scenes worked in the breastplate and shield. No one else had anything remotely like it; even his greaves winked silver from their clasps. This was the boy who had insisted on racing the tired Menelaus up the hill, the boy hiding his muscled arms under a girl’s tunic on Scyros. So he was still, at the age of eighteen or so, a swift runner, but it seemed he was running only to carry out the bidding of Menelaus. Just then he jerked his head up and saw me.

“Helen!” he shouted. “So you are indeed there in Troy! Do you come out to watch your kin? To gloat at us? See, men, here she is!” Achilles motioned to his cohorts, pointing at me.

“I told you not to stand at the walls!” Hecuba jerked me back. “You can cause great harm by being visible!”

That had been my curse all my life.

“We must make sure you are safe,” said Hecuba crisply. “It is our duty to protect you.”

Our warriors were pouring back into the city; the encounter was over. They were welcomed with shouts and roars of approval. Later the old councilors and the commanders would confer about the mistakes made, the weak points in the Trojan defense, and how to correct them. But for now, it was enough that the men had returned safely and the attack on the western wall had been repelled. Several Greek soldiers lay dead at the bottom of the wall, crushed by stones flung on them or killed by toppling to the ground.

There was no official celebration, but spirits were high and that night many bands of young men, fresh from their first brief foray out in war, caroused through the streets, singing and drinking. Paris and I could hear their voices echoing from wall to wall in the streets, but we shuddered in our chamber. Paris had been only too glad to shed his armor, which now lay in a heap in the wooden trunk, and kept saying, “They mean it. They mean it. They are here to fight a war.” He acted as though he only just now believed it.

“Where were you? I did not see you,” I said. I had asked him to lie flat on the bed, so that I could soothe his back with scented oil. Several torches flickered on the walls, but still the light was poor and the room shadowy.

“You should not have been looking,” he said. It was hard to hear his words with his face down. “It was dangerous.”

“So your mother told me,” I said. “Nonetheless, I was able to watch for a while, before I had to draw back.”

“I was on the eastern side of the city. They had attacked that gate as well,” he murmured. “Ah, that feels delightful.” I was massaging the muscles under his shoulder blades, kneading the tenseness out of them. “I fear nonetheless I shall be sore tomorrow, as I’m not used to heaving a heavy shield about. It strained my left arm.”

“Did you see . . . ?”

“I recognized no one. They were all strangers to me.” He stretched and arched his back. “It is odd, how they knew about the weakness in the western wall,” he mused. “Ordinarily one would not expect an attack there, as it is so close to the Scaean Gate and the Great Tower. Not unless they somehow knew of the vulnerability there.”

“As if someone told them,” I said.

“It is not visible from the other side,” he said. “No one would have reason to suspect it is thin and weak there. Perhaps a seer—”

“Or perhaps something less than a seer, just an ordinary traitor,” I said. “Were any Trojans captured today?”

“None that I know of,” said Paris.

“Good. For a man does not have to be a traitor to tell what he knows, if he is tortured enough.”

Paris slid out from under my hands and sat up. “Torture? Do your countrymen torture captives?”

“They claim they do not, but why, then, do the prisoners we capture often kill themselves?”

“Let no Trojan fall into their hands, then,” he finally said.