Helen of Troy (68 page)

I had been showing several women my loom and the emerging pattern. Evadne had glided amongst us, showing us different qualities of the wools—how one was thick and wiry and used to best advantage to depict water or grass, another so fine and thin it could show hair or slender fingers. Andromache was there, and the sisters Laodice and Ilona. Polyxena was missing; near to Troilus in age, they kept company much of the time, although lately Hyllus had invited himself to be with them more than they liked. Still, they did not want to hurt his feelings, so they often included him.

Cassandra was not interested in weaving, nor in women’s matters, and I never expected her to be there, but I missed little Polyxena, especially since she had helped me select the scarlet wool. I wondered where she was, but on such a lovely day she would naturally be out-of-doors.

We found ourselves drawn to the window, leaving the looms. We, too, should go outdoors, or at least into the streets of Troy. I was longing to walk once more in the countryside, but that must wait. Below us the city lay, fawn-colored and quiet in the noonday sun.

“Ladies, let us go to the highest path, the one circling the temple, and taste the sweet wind,” I said. “On such a day—”

A piercing cry, seemingly from one of the courtyards, shattered the calm. It sounded as if someone had been impaled, had had a stake passed through his body. It rose to a scream, then whimpered away and vanished, as though the breath were sucked out into a final gasp.

A horrible accident! Some child had fallen on his father’s spear, or tumbled from a rooftop and crashed onto a stone step. Now another wail. It was the mother, shrieking all the louder in the silence surrounding her child. I grabbed Andromache’s upper arm, as if that would make it not so, undo whatever had happened.

Without a word, we all rushed for the steps. The screaming kept on, and now more voices joined the first one. Outside, we looked around at the empty streets—people were usually inside at noonday. Now that we were at the ground level, the voices seemed to be coming from lower down in the city, near the east gate. We hurried down, passing side streets and curious people, now drawn out to see what had happened.

“Here, it’s here!” said Laodice, turning the corner where the street led down to the east gate. Now the sound had changed to a roar. We rounded the last house shielding us from the open space around the gate, and beheld Hecuba screaming, her hands on her face, kneeling by a still form, its legs splayed awkwardly. Bending over the person was little Polyxena, her rounded back shaking with sobs. Hyllus stood by, white-faced. Even as we approached, the crowd swelled, and high keening filled the air. Paris and Hector appeared, pushing people out of the way to get to their mother. I saw Hector bend down and look, then swiftly embrace Hecuba and try to turn her face away. Paris clasped Polyxena and tried to comfort her.

Priam shoved his way through, parting the crowd, running the last few steps. His deep pain and anger was in the roar with which he met the fallen body. As he fell to his knees, we caught a glimpse of the face—that of Troilus—turned to the sky, his fair hair gleaming like gold under the sun.

I stumbled toward him, closing and opening my eyes, hoping each time that when I opened them the sight would vanish, or Troilus would move. But he did not. His arms were flung out on either side, and Paris, weeping, straightened his legs and arranged them neatly. He clasped the feet and kissed them, then made a precious bundle of them and lay over them—as if he could warm them back into life.

A dull red stain covered the front of his tunic. He had been speared, or stabbed. This was no accident.

Polyxena gave mournful gasps as she fought for breath, and words tumbled out—
he did it, he was waiting
—

Laodice embraced her. “Peace, peace,” she murmured. “Breathe slowly. Slowly. There, there.”

“Who has done this?” Hector’s voice was as cold as the waters of the Styx.

“It was that man, that Greek—” Hyllus stood trembling. “We went to the springhouse to water the horses, and—”

“All three of you?” barked Hector. “Troilus took his sister? I thought we had forbidden even Troilus to go!”

Polyxena’s voice rose faintly. “I wanted to go. I m-made him take me. I am so tired of staying inside the walls.”

“You disobeyed.” Hecuba could barely form words, she was still shaking so hard. “Both of you. You knew you were not to go outside. And now . . .” She sank to her knees again and fell across Troilus, covering his bloody chest.

“What man are you talking about?” Hector asked. “At the springhouse?”

“That fierce one. He was waiting for us, hiding on one side of the spring-house. I filled a water jar, and Troilus was just leading his horses to the trough when he—he sprang out at us. He leapt like a panther, and Troilus dropped the reins of the horses and ran, but he caught him up and—” She burst into tears again, shaking her head.

“That man? That fierce man?” Hector looked around. “Does no one know his name? Or do you know it and dare not speak it?”

Oh, let it not be Menelaus!

“It was Achilles,” whispered Hyllus. Then he sank to his knees and, trembling, tenderly wiped the forehead of his slain friend.

Overhead the perfect summer day looked down on the sacrifice, on the young man who loved horses and meadows and was cheated of all his summers to come, and even the rest of this day.

The streets of Troy were silent in the dawn as we walked by the litter bearing the body of Troilus to the funeral bier. They would hold the customary rites outside the city walls, and woe be to any Greek who sought to interrupt them.

“We will kill them to a man,” said Hector, his deep voice so low it sounded like the rumbling of carts over stones. A full contingent of armed men accompanied us, protecting us on all sides. They had already guarded the building of the great funeral pyre, which used some of our precious wood stored for winter, and as we approached it I could see it rearing up against the sky. Such a big mound for the slight young man.

With all solemnity, he was taken gently from the litter and placed on the rough platform waiting on top. They folded his arms over his chest and arranged his robe. I saw his poor white feet, those feet that had rushed down the streets of Troy to be the first to greet Paris upon his return, sticking stiffly out from the platform, which was too short for him.

It had been two days since his death. He had lain on a ceremonial bed, surrounded by ritual mourners singing funeral dirges for the first day. Those singers formed a procession to accompany the litter to the pyre, but now they melted away, their task done. The real mourning would be done by those of us who loved him, and it would not follow a ritual, but come and go in waves.

The sacrificial sheep and dogs were slain at the pyre, their bodies laid around its base, their blood poured out. Then a basket was passed amongst us, and we put the locks of hair we had cut earlier into it, so that they might be placed on the pyre as well. Jars filled with honey and oil were set around the pyre. And I myself had brought something to add to the pyre, to be consumed as an offering and a penitence.

Priam, shrouded and tall, approached the pyre. He threw back his hood; the just-setting sun illuminated his lined face. His so wrinkled, Troilus’s so smooth—death was greedy, to want to consume only the fairest.

“I call upon all the gods to avenge this cruel death,” he said. “I beg the lord and lady of the underworld to receive him kindly. Be gentle with him. He is not—he is not used to the dark.” His voice broke, and he turned away quickly to take the burning torch and thrust it into the wood to start the fire.

Hecuba took his hand, then, and drew him away, and together, embracing, they watched the flames catch and the wood crackle. The fire burned quickly, high, and hot. It overcame the sun and blotted it out.

“Now his soul is released,” said Paris. “It is freed from his body.” He wept. “But it had no wish to be freed! It was happy where it was!”

The pyre would burn all night. In the morning we would go and extinguish the last of the smoldering fire with wine. Then, when the embers cooled, the bones would be collected and placed in an urn; the urn would be buried in the sacred tomb. In normal times there would be funeral games held in his honor. But these were not normal times.

As we made our way back through the city, I saw red spots on the front of my bodice—drops that gleamed wetly. I touched one and my finger came away slick with what looked like blood. I tasted it and it was salty and metallic like blood. But had I cut myself? Then I remembered. The brooch! I had worn the hateful stone that Menelaus gave me, meaning to fling it into Troilus’s funeral pyre to rid myself of it and as a symbol that I repudiated the Greeks and their deed. Instead, overcome with sorrow about Troilus, I had forgotten, and now I still wore it.

I touched it, expecting to find it had a sharp edge that had pricked me. There was nothing, but it was slippery with the blood. The blood seemed—but that was impossible—to be oozing from the stone itself.

Returning to the palace and parting from the others, I quickly sought my chambers and stripped off the gown. Evadne would know how to remove the stains on the white wool. Evadne knew all such things. I would ask her, and—as I held the gown up to examine it, I could not see the stains. I turned the gown around, inside out. They were gone, and the wool as white as new.

How could they vanish like that? I had felt the sticky stains, I had even tasted them. The brooch had been wet—

The cursed brooch! Paris was right, it was evil! Menelaus had given it to me for some fell purpose of his own.

As I was smoothing out the gown, studying it in bewilderment, Evadne slipped in.

“That brooch—I was fool enough to wear it—I never should have touched it—but I wanted to have it consumed in flames, destroy it—”

She clasped my hands and held them in hers, removing them from the gown I was still stroking. “Or destroy Menelaus?” she asked. “Destroy him in your own mind, purge him out of it?”

“He isn’t in my mind—”

“But he is in your past.”

“Yes, of course, I know that!” What was her point?

“And in your present.”

“He’s here in Troy, yes.” Her words seemed absolutely aimless. “And this is the present. But he is not in
my
present, nor in my mind.”

“He is in your future.”

“No, that is impossible.”

“It is written. And I see it. The brooch sees it.”

I thrust the brooch into her hand, pushing it there. “Nothing is written unless I write it,” I said. “Take the foul thing, confine it in its box.”

But in not ordering her to destroy it, did I not thereby confirm her words?

* * *

Troilus was holding a banquet—his funeral banquet. His bones had been gathered and placed in the urn and conveyed in yet another solemn procession through the streets of Troy to his hastily erected tomb. Now his spirit would preside as host at a feast on the third day after his death, as Trojan custom decreed.

Because he was too young to have his own quarters, the banquet must be held in his father’s palace, which carried its own sorrow—he had never grown old enough to leave the house of his mother and father.

As we filed into the great chamber, we must first be purified; Theano, the priestess of Athena, poured sacred water over our hands and washed away our inherent contamination from the funeral. Then we were directed to take our flower garlands. A basket of them was placed near the door. Paris and I bent to take them. The leaves and bright summer meadow flowers, gathered at peril outside the walls, seemed a fitting tribute for the boy who had lost his life in those very meadows.

Priam was waiting to receive us. The fire was out in his hearth, but the solemn scent of myrrh, perfume of the dead, filled the air. By his side Hecuba stood rigidly, looking as lifeless and wooden as the Pallas Athena statue in the temple.

All their children came to the feast. The ranking Trojans came, too. Priam beckoned us all to the long table, where we would sit according to rank. It was a rough wood one—or rather, several joined together, as no table existed that could serve so many people. He stood not at the place of honor but rather to one side.

“I call upon my son Troilus to join us,” said Priam. His normally robust voice was faint. “Son, come from the fields of Asphodel, come from the shadows of Hades, which you have not yet passed so deeply into. We await you.” He indicated the empty chair at the place of honor.

A profound and heavy presence filled the room. Priam closed his eyes. When he opened them, he held out his hands and said, “My dear family, and my most esteemed Trojans —I, Troilus, bid you seat yourselves as my guests.”

In silence, we took our places. Slaves came bearing platters of fresh-roasted kid. Others followed with wine and pitchers of water to thin it. The funeral dish containing fruits and nuts and roasted asphodel roots was brought in. We would take it to the tomb later.

Slowly people began to talk, although guardedly.

“The memory of Troilus will live forever,” said Antenor, a few places down from me. His voice was soothing.

“Troilus would have grown up to be as great a warrior as Hector,” said Panthous, the nervous councilor who knew more about the engineering of gates than of any other matter.

“Troilus was unsurpassed,” said Antimachus, smiling. He raised his cup to him.

“To the glory of Troilus!” cried Deiphobus, waving his arm and downing a cup of wine—not his first, all too obviously.

“We must not speak ill of him,” said Paris to me. “He is present here, hence we can only praise him.” Suddenly he stood up and looked up and down the table. “You speak of the future of Troilus, what he would have been. But I say that is not necessary. He was perfect as he was. My younger brother, and I loved him.” He sat back down and tears swam in his eyes.

“You speak true.” The high, distinctive voice of Hecuba. “There is no need to invoke what he might have been. Had the gods permitted it, we would have been content to have him forever as he was—a boy enveloped in sun and gladness.”