Helen of Troy (74 page)

Others told us that Assos had been raided as well, and the shrine of Apollo at Chryse had been violated and the old priest’s daughter carried off, “like Hades did Persephone,” one said. But what of the king of Thebes? What had happened to him, and his queen, and his sons and daughters?

Then we heard: killed, all of them. In one day, all of Andromache’s family had been slain by Achilles himself. Her father King Etion had been killed in his courtyard, hacked down as he clutched the altar of his god, and he became the sacrifice before the stones where he himself had sacrificed for so many years. The seven brothers, peacefully tending their cattle and white sheep on the hills, were taken by surprise and died fighting the Myrmidons, but for each of them Achilles had driven in the bronze that killed them, and they fell in the meadows on the mountain flanks.

I rushed over to Hector’s palace through the throngs in the vestibule and courtyard to be with Andromache. Hector was just leaving the chamber when I arrived, and he was grim-faced. He was thankful I was there, he said, for she needed me, and they feared for the child with this shock. He could not linger now, he must be out on the ramparts.

Andromache was lying on her couch and looked dead herself. Her face was wan as unworked wool and her eyes, though open, seemed to be staring sightlessly. I touched her arm and it felt cold. I covered her more completely with blankets and asked that a brazier be brought closer. I rubbed her wrists and whispered her name. At length, very slowly, she turned her head and looked at me, and the look in her eyes froze me. There seemed almost to be no life there, and what little remained was pure sorrow.

“Helen,” she whispered. “I am slain.”

I took her hands and blew on them to warm them, to fan the flame of life. “No, you are here, and safe.” I kissed her cold forehead. “Safe within these walls of Troy, safe behind the shield of Hector, your husband.”

“Not only my husband but now my father and brother and mother as well,” she said, her voice so faint I had to lean over to hear it. “He is my only family now.”

“Not your only family,” I said. “You and Hector will soon have a child.”

“It will never live. Even if I live to bear it, Achilles will cut it down. And he will then honor it in death, a death he created. Do you know what he did?” She sat up, shakily, on her elbows, and stared wide-eyed like a hunted animal. “He gave my father a proper funeral.” Deep from within her throat a ghoulish laugh burst out, grew louder. “He dressed him properly in his royal robes and laid him respectfully on a pyre and then made his Myrmidons build a burial mound and even”—now her coughing, gasping laughter sounded demented—“had them plant a grove of elm trees around it. To make a sacred site. Oh, that is what the ceremonious warrior will do to Hector and to our child. He kills, then he bows before what he has killed to do it honor.”

“Achilles is mortal,” I said. “Mortals die as easily by accidents of nature as in battle. He cannot go on killing forever. I will say, he will never enter the gates of Troy.”

“You may say so, but it is only wishing.”

“Andromache, you waited so long for this child and desired it above all things. Now if you do not fight to put this sorrow from you, Achilles will have killed it without striking a blow, without ever coming near you. I say, take your strength from your father and your brothers—they left it for you. Take it up and put it on like a helmet, and be as strong as all of them put together. And rise up and give Troy this child.” I paused. Was she hearing any of this? “Perhaps he will avenge your family. Why assume he will die at Achilles’s hand? It could just as likely be the other way, and what a glorious revenge that would be.”

She sank back down again on the couch, closing her eyes. “I will think of them,” she murmured. “I will call each of them by name, and take their courage where they left it lying. It must not be left in the meadow, discarded like an old cloak.” She gave my hand a weak squeeze. “Thank you, Helen, for letting me see what they left behind for me.”

Shaken, I made sure that her attendants would tell me if there were any changes, and then I left the palace, where full-scale keening and mourning resounded in the public chambers I hurriedly passed. Outside, the crowds were surging through the streets like a herd of frightened cattle running madly from a lion. Unlike cattle in a meadow, there was no place for them to go, and so they rushed here and there, back and forth from one side of the city to the other, bound in by the walls.

They bellowed and cried out for Priam to come and address them. The old king should show himself, they demanded, else they would regard Hector as king instead. These shrill challenges brought Priam out onto his rooftop, which served as a podium for him to address the crowds. I could see the strain on his face, could see it in his eyes, hear it in the slight hesitation between words as he picked his way between them like a horse with a tender hoof treading a pebbled path.

Troy was in no danger, he assured them. Troy’s strength was shown by the fact that the enemy had not attacked her directly but was trying to sap her strength by attacking her friends.

“Then why does Troy not come to the aid of her friends?” a loud voice called. “Why does the friendship go only one way? The Dardanians and the Adrasteians must suffer for Troy, but Troy does not suffer for them!” A roar came from what presumably were the Dardanians and Adrasteians.

“You agreed to fight alongside us,” said Priam, raising his voice to be heard. “And for reward,” he added.

“We did not agree to have our towns attacked,” another voice called. “We agreed to send soldiers to fight, not have foreign soldiers descend on us and loot and kill.”

“We thought it was Troy that would be attacked, not us!” a quavering old man cried.

“Oh, so you were pleased enough if it was us!” Deiphobus suddenly appeared beside his father on the rooftop.

“Troy has high walls and towers,” the voices in the crowd cried. “She is built for it. We are not!”

“Ptah!” Deiphobus waved dismissively. “Now you are here, partaking of our hospitality.”

“Son, you speak out of turn.” Priam laid a strong hand on Deiphobus’s shoulder. “You do not speak for the king, nor for the honorable people of Troy.” Speaking louder, he approached the edge of the roof and held out his hands to the crowd. “We are grieved by your misfortune, and admit we did not anticipate it. What may we do to assure you of this?”

“Cattle! Gold!” yelled one man.

“Cattle cannot bring back my mother,” cried another.

“Good people, come into my palace tonight. It will be open, and I will feed you all and we shall talk.” It was not Priam who spoke this invitation, but Paris, who had appeared on the rooftop near Deiphobus.

A groan rippled through the crowd, until someone shouted, “It’s him! It’s the cause of it all! Paris! My fellows, your homes lie smoldering and your herds taken and your fathers dead because of
him
!”

Priam yanked Paris back, his face dark with anger. “I am shamed by my sons, who speak before they think,” he said, looking first at Paris and then at Deiphobus. “No, it is to my palace you must come. Tonight. The doors will be thrown open for you.”

Rumbling, the crowd dispersed, placated. I saw now how dangerous Troy could become in an instant once people were agitated. They were confined, like beasts in a cage, packed too close together, and everyone knew that several beasts in the same cage were prone to fighting. Now Troy was swamped with foreigners, volatile as dry tinder, and swarming with the wounded, Trojan and non-Trojan.

So Paris wanted to throw open the gates of our home to them? He must have taken leave of his senses. Or else his deep and lingering sorrow over Troilus made him think he could make amends this way. I was selfishly relieved that Priam had put a stop to it.

But I pitied Hecuba tonight.

With no time whatsoever to prepare, the king and queen of Troy must welcome hundreds of guests into their private domain. It would cost them dearly, depleting precious stores needed for the continuing siege. But we were at that stage of war when courtesies still could outweigh necessities.

The courtyard was blazing with torches—I had expected no less. Several oxen were roasting—again, as expected. Jugs of wine stood like little soldiers, five abreast and six lines deep, on long tables. Heaps of bread—hastily baked that afternoon—and baskets of precious dried figs and dates were spread out lavishly beside bowls of olives and apples.

I was alone. Paris had been nowhere to be found in our palace, and I knew that meant he did not wish to be found. Not only did he not care to share my bed, he did not care even to share my arm for a public occasion. He had meant what he said. He was finished with me. Paris and Helen were no more.

As I weaved my way through the crowd, seeing their wounds and knowing their losses, guilt and sorrow descended on me like a rain-sodden mantle. Guilt because they had suffered for nothing; if Paris and Helen were no more, then all their losses were for nothing—Troy need not have been attacked. And sorrow for myself, grief that Paris no longer loved me.

He had brought me giddy happiness, fulfillment, freedom. That made it all the harder to go back to the gray world without him, a world as gray as the flat Plain of Troy in winter, as gray as the rolling sea breaking against the pebbled shore of Gytheum. I had wanted to taste the flavors of ordinary life, had prayed to be released from my position as a near-goddess. Now I had my wish. Ordinary women were cast aside, ordinary women every day heard their husbands say, “I do not love you any longer.” Ordinary women went into a room alone. Ordinary women looked around that room for the face of one who would only turn away.

Welcome to the land of the ordinary, Helen. Do you like it?
A voice was whispering low in my ear, but no, it was not in my ear but in my mind. A voice I knew too well.
I did not think you would
.

“I have not had time to accustom myself to it yet,” I told her. “In time, I shall.”

I can make all things glow again,
she said.
I can change Paris back in an instant
.

Now I would have rounded on her, had she been visible. “We must now make our own way,” I told her. But there was a part of me that longed to say,
Yes, yes, cast your spell and make him mine again.
But I would not belittle either of us in that manner.

As you wish,
she said mockingly. Her light laugh echoed in my head.

The room seemed louder than ever, now that the hush and audience with the goddess in my head was over. I was overwhelmed by the noise of the milling people, the shoving and jostling to get near pieces of roasted ox being sliced and handed out. It was true, Priam had to welcome them in to honor their suffering, but it was a pity all he could do was provide earthly food and drink, when what they needed was something on another plane.

Deiphobus was looming just ahead, bobbing through the crowd. I turned aside. I had no wish to speak to him, even to acknowledge him. When the heart is sick, one does not encourage the carrion crows. In turning away from him, I bumped into that self-effacing lad Hyllus, who bowed and stuttered and smoothed at his cheeks. He made a few gasping compliments before melting away. I was alone in the crowd, pushed and shoved and heaved here and there. There was no one for me to talk to, unless I insisted on forcing someone to talk.

Alone in Troy. And yet, except for Paris, I had always been alone in Troy.

Now he had withdrawn and left me stranded, a stranger amongst strangers.

I would leave, slip away to my own home. I turned to do so. I only wanted to be alone, truly alone. I saw Gelanor at one end of the chamber and turned on my heel. He would seek out my company. But I wanted no company now, I felt only the burning need to escape.

He saw me! His face changed and he started to come toward me, but I pretended I did not see him and wended my way through the people. I was almost clear—I could feel the cool air from outside flowing between the pillars—when I heard him addressing the company.

At first I thought it could not be. Only the king, only the royal family could address the guests in the chamber. But no, it was his voice. Slowly the buzzing stopped, and all heads turned in his direction.

He was standing next to Priam. Priam’s arm was encircling his shoulder, giving royal sanction to whatever he would say. Priam was looking at him almost tenderly.

Gelanor spoke at length about the mysterious spy who had wormed his way into the innermost bastion of Troy. This spy, he said, had knowledge that only someone free to come and go, to listen and pass amongst us, would have. He—or she—had known of the scouting party to Dardanos and Abydos. He had known of the weak portion of the wall.

“And he knew of the prophecy about Troilus,” he said. “He knew only because it was spoken in his presence. Troilus trusted him; Troilus died for that trust.”

Now it was so silent it seemed the room was empty. I could not even hear any breathing.

“We call upon Hyllus to come forward.” Priam extended his arm: a royal command.

Nothing happened. No one stirred. Then, suddenly, there was a scrambling in the back of the room. Then a cry, and two strong men were dragging Hyllus forward. They flung him in a heap at Priam’s feet.

“Stand up.” Priam’s voice was cold as the snows that fall somewhere high on the peaks of Ida.

Still the bundle of clothes that were Hyllus shook and shivered at Priam’s feet. Two soldiers hauled him up.

Gelanor stepped forward and pulled away the waterfall of hair that hid Hyllus’s forehead, exposing the jagged scar. Roughly the soldiers turned him to face the people.

“A scar,” mused Gelanor. But I knew it was no idle musing. “A scar is always proof that someone is who he says he is. A thousand stories and songs attest to this. Enough to lull us, would you not agree? Enough so that when young Hyllus—or whoever he might be—returned to us lamenting his father Calchas’s defection, we merely noted that he had his disfiguring forehead scar and welcomed him back. So much had been made of that scar before he departed! And from the moment that boy entered into our gates, the enemy had mysterious knowledge of our whereabouts and concerns. How many deaths followed? Enough that I wanted to learn how distinctive a scar can be.” He held up his forearms. “Here is what I have learned. Scars can be duplicated. It is easy. Here are the distinguishing scars on my arms—all created by me.” The sleeves of his mantle fell away and three scars revealed themselves. Now I knew the purpose of his experiment with the clay and the ash and the soil.