Helen of Troy (67 page)

I must not forget. I must capture it all now, for in the morning it would fade, and it was so clear now. I fumbled for the pieces of broken pottery we kept for such use, and in the dim light of a dying oil lamp I traced out the design, the design that would knit the broken pieces of Helen into a whole.

Sunlight and a gentle touch on my shoulder woke me. Paris was standing beside me in the early morning.

“I am here,” he said. He did not say,
Do not grieve,
or
Put it from your
mind.
He knew me so perfectly he knew that would be impossible.

XLVII

F
or the following days, all was quiet. The Greeks disappeared behind their line of ships—where our spies reported they were building a defensive wall—and it would have been easy to pretend they were not there. But the days of pretending were over.

Priam called many assemblies, and let everyone speak freely. One or two voices were raised questioning what the Greeks seemed to be aware of. How did they know about the party en route to Dardanos? How did they know about the weak spots in the western wall? Spies must have penetrated.

Priam directed workmen to strengthen the western wall immediately. We had been spared a dreadful fate that would have been due to our earlier neglect.

Everyone agreed that the heated sand had worked impressively well, and that the archers in the towers had taken a toll on the enemy. Gelanor reported that his work on insect bombs was proceeding well. He expected to have clay and straw containers full of bees, wasps, scorpions, and stinging ants ready to fling at the adversary soon.

Achilles had made a frightening appearance as he descended on the field with fury. His speed was especially startling: he seemed almost to run without ever touching the earth, skimming above it, disdaining it. But Hector pointed out that it would be easy to ascribe outlandish characteristics to anyone who behaved unpredictably. The truth was that after a few encounters even the supposedly unpredictable became a known thing. Achilles was fast; we knew that now. He could not surprise us with it again.

Priam’s council diverged in their advice about future preparations. Everyone agreed that we had acquitted ourselves well in our first encounter, but the true test was yet to come. At what point should we send for the allies? Now we were outnumbered by the Greeks but the allies would almost even things out. However, sending for them would require feeding and housing them, swelling the numbers within our walls. Were we ready for that?

Priam’s sons began to quarrel amongst themselves. Hector was resolute that we should fight each battle as fate presented it, but not before its time. Deiphobus wanted to lead an attack on the Greeks before they finished building their defensive wall, to take the battle to them. Helenus advised caution, to respond only to direct provocation and perhaps negotiate before that. Young Troilus was eager to join the fighting, although Priam had forbidden him to. He was too young, his father said. He was the joy of the old age of his mother. And he needed to be protected, because . . . because of a prophecy about him which Priam kept a secret. Troilus, standing up in the assembly one day, challenged his father to reveal this prophecy that seemed to bar him from participating in the war. Priam refused. He said our enemies already knew too much, and as for himself, he would hold the prophecy close to his heart. Troilus had declared that that was unacceptable. Unacceptable or not, his father replied, that was the way it must be.

* * *

In the gloomy half-light of our megaron, in the time of year when to light the fire would make the chamber so hot it would drive us out, we spread ourselves around its dead hearth. I had ordered some stands of incense to provide a feeling of closeness without heat, and had had armloads of meadow flowers arranged in vases at the four corners of the great hearth, guarding each of the pillars. Paris was languishing on his chair; this idleness was killing him. He needed to be able to come and go, fight or not fight. Troilus sprawled at his feet.

“I wish I were you,” he said, brushing his long straight hair off his forehead. “You were born just enough ahead of me that you are free.”

Paris laughed. “The lament of the younger,” he said. “No one wants to be the younger, but in the end the younger is the best off.”

“I cannot see how that could be so,” muttered Troilus. “There is nothing enviable about being younger. They always come last.”

“Or first. The young ones always have a special place.”

“Bah.” Troilus set his wine cup down. “There is nothing special about it.”

“I am the youngest,” I said. “I always liked being youngest. I could watch my brothers and my sister and chart a different course. In a sense, they tried out different clothes for me and found which ones fit.”

“None of their clothes—or lives—would have fit you,” said Troilus. “That is hardly a fair test.”

“Troilus,” said Paris. “Keep yourself safe here. Why should you endanger yourself on account of my—my—actions?” Was he about to say
folly
?

“Your actions are now beyond you. They involve us all.”

A heavy silence descended. Troilus was right.

Hyllus entered the megaron. He waved at us; he came and went cheer-fully, in spite of the fact that his father was hated here and his kinsfolk seemed to regard him as an evil omen. He joined us at the dead ashes of the hearth; indeed, he started drawing patterns in them with a stick.

“Do you know the prophecy about me?” Troilus looked imploringly at Paris.

“Yes,” said Paris.

“Will you reveal it to me?”

“No. It is a dreary one, and would sadden you.”

“Nothing would sadden me more than having to flounder about blindly under the net of a prophecy I know not, but which others know all too well. Is it not an insult to me? Why should others know it and I, the focus of it, know it not?”

“Often if someone knows a prophecy he for some reason brings it about,” said Paris.

“Let me be free of it!” cried Troilus, leaping up. “I promise to avoid it, but first I must know it!” His freckled face grew red with anguish.

“Very well, then,” said Paris. “The prophecy is that if Troilus reaches the age of twenty, Troy will never fall.”

Troilus smiled. “Ah! I am fourteen already. So I should refrain from joining the fighting for another six years.”

“Yes,” said Paris. “Is that so very much to ask?”

“I want to fight! Must I wait six years?”

“If you do not want to be the cause of your city’s downfall,” said Paris.

“That is not fair!” he wailed. “I am not even a soldier yet. Why should the city’s fate rest on me?”

“No reason,” I could not resist saying, as a person teased and dangled by the gods. “The gods do not use reason in making their vile demands upon us.”

Troilus propped himself on his elbows, sprawling out before the hearth. His legs were very long, and he was still growing. He might turn out to be the tallest of all Priam’s sons. “We used to train the horses together,” he said to Paris. “Now it isn’t even safe to ride out on the plain,” he lamented. “All I can do is take the horses for a bit of exercise by the springhouse. Hardly any sport at all. I hate my life!”

“Never say that,” said Paris. “It is evil to say that.” He paused, then leaned over and ruffled Troilus’s hair. “Troilus, be patient. This war cannot last long. As others have said, the Greeks will tire of camping by our seashore and go home by winter. Their attempts at a siege are pitiful; we still come and go from the side of Troy facing Mount Ida. It is not so bad.”

Troilus sighed. “I suppose not, but still I hate it!”

His words were so common for a young person I could not help but laugh. They all say they hate their lives, when what they really mean is that they cannot wait to step from the chamber of childhood into the arena of adulthood.

After Troilus left—as a youngster he still lived in the palace of his parents, not having his own apartments yet—I set down my wine and embraced Paris from behind as he sat in his chair. He was only three years older than Troilus but seemed a completely different creature. Perhaps it was due to his responsibilities as a herdsman long before he came to the palace, when he had had to defend his herds with his life. Perhaps it was due to his grace in forgiving his father and mother for casting him out. Whatever it was, for all his seventeen years he was a man. And more of a man than Achilles, with his bulging muscles and special armor, although they were within a year or so of age.

I turned his head around, slowly, to face mine. My love for him seemed boundless. He was the true treasure of Troy. He should succeed Priam as king. Of all Priam’s sons, he was the only one who had faced true adversity. I knew this was the voice of love speaking in my heart, but so be it.

“Paris, my dearest,” I murmured, taking his face in my hands.

He laughed nervously, glancing at Hyllus—so silent we hardly knew he was there.

“I shall say good night,” said Hyllus, jumping up, embarrassed. Quickly he scurried out of the chamber, bowing before he left, stumbling on the doorstep.

“Farewell,” said Paris, nodding toward him. He laughed. “Now our observer is gone,” he said. “He is so quiet, one forgets about him.”

His words stirred a thought in me, but it was unformed. “Perhaps that is the purpose,” I said. I was uncomfortable in his presence, yet he seemed harmless. Perhaps I did not like any unnecessary persons about.

“He is a sad boy,” said Paris. “He has abuse heaped on him because of his father, whose actions are hardly his fault.”

I swung around and sat on his lap. “Do you know what your most noble trait is?” I asked him, kissing his cheeks, first one, then the other. “Your feeling for others.”

He laughed. “That is hardly one of the known virtues of a warrior.”

“I am not speaking of a warrior, but of the virtue of a man.”

Safe within our lovely chamber, we clung together. There had been no question as to which bedchamber to seek. In defiance of custom, we had only one: ours. Unlike other Trojan palaces, there was no prince and princess’s bed-chambers, but only a single lovers’ retreat. The builders had complied with our odd request and we had never regretted it.

“My love, had we those extra suite of chambers, we would never use them,” said Paris. “An unnecessary expense!”

“I cannot bear to be apart from you,” I whispered in his ear. It was true. Paris illuminated my world, he lighted the corners of myself that had lain dark.

“Nor I, you,” he murmured. “And we need never be parted.”

To think that had I listened to reason, I might be still in Sparta and he here—I unable to reach out and touch him, unable to hear his voice, unable to see those glorious eyes, so young and shining and filled with joy.

“Paris,” I murmured. “Let them vanish.”

“Who?” he asked, his lips beneath mine.

“All our enemies,” I said.

“Then that is everyone,” he said. “But I care not. They are all misguided, or jealous, or meddlers, or stupid. Our love will live long after they have gone to dust.”

I embraced him. It was for this I loved him. He was so jubilantly, so joyously of the moment. And the moment was all we—anyone—truly had: a succession of moments, a triumphal march of them, to create a life beyond compare.

Troy remained quiet. The Greeks had seemingly melted away after that first encounter. It was beguiling to think that they were refitting their ships to depart, that the danger was past. Still the Trojans guarded the ramparts, and the strengthening of the western wall went forward.

Inside the walls, in the heat of summer, we curdled like milk held too long. In the stifling houses quarrels brewed and then exploded out into the streets—personal quarrels that had nothing to do with the Greeks. People pent up too long in one another’s company, unless they be lovers, soon find it unbearable. The only people who thrived on the stillness were the old councilors, who shuffled through the streets every day to Priam’s council chamber, invigorated by a standstill that allowed them to play at war. When there is no action, all men are warriors.

There comes a day each summer that whispers perfection, says,
Remember me,
and you do, deep in the winter. The sky is achingly blue, the wind kindly, the warmth pervasive and lulling. On such days you lean on a windowsill and surrender to the sun on your face, eyes closed. Sometimes this day comes early in the season, sometimes at its very end. This day in Troy visited us just as the crones had begun to speak of autumn.