Helen of Troy (84 page)

“I will release the body of Hector!” he cried. “But only for a ransom of his weight in gold. Your old king did not bring enough. More is needed!” Now the second wagon rumbled into view. It held some device which servants unloaded, and then—the horror of it—someone hoisted the body of Hector onto one side of it.

He was still Hector—uncorrupted, his face and form preserved—by the gods?

“Gold to balance the weight of Hector!” Achilles screamed. “His body is heavy, even without my armor that he stole! I got it back, but I no longer need it. I have new armor, forged in one night to protect me. The gods love me! The gods love me!” he screamed.

“Now,” muttered Paris. “Now I kill him.” But his deadly bow and arrows were lying harmless back in the palace. He started to go fetch them.

I touched his arm. “It is too late,” I said. “Stay.”

Priam climbed slowly down from his wagon. Even from where I stood I could see the anguish on his face. “Release my son! Release him!” he cried. “You agreed to release him. Last night, you swore you would. Keep your word!”

“Only with enough gold, old man. You brought too little. Do you not know how much your son weighs? Did you not even figure on the armor? I shall count it, add Trojan gold for every bit of my armor.”

“He is not wearing armor now!” yelled Deiphobus.

“No, he wouldn’t, would he? The dead do not wear armor!” He pointed at the empty pan of the huge scale. “Gold in here! Let us see if you can afford this corpse!”

“Oh, Trojans! Help redeem your prince!” cried Priam. There was a long, agonizing pause, while Priam stood with bare, bowed head, until attendants came through the gate with armloads of gold. They heaped it up in the pan, but the body of Hector on the opposite pan did not budge.

“More gold!” cried Priam. “Oh, I beg you!”

In a sad procession, people came out onto the field, offering plates and cups and what jewelry they had left—small things. They heaped it all onto the pan. Hector moved a little, but not enough.

“My son, my son!” Priam wept. “Oh, redeem him!”

But the rest of the Trojan gold had been spent, and replenishments from the sale of our treasures to the Phrygians had not yet been realized.

“Yes, Father.” A small clear voice sounded from the wall. “I will give what I have.” Polyxena leaned over the wall and threw bracelets and earrings to her father waiting below. He clasped them in his shaking hands and placed them on the pan, and it began to move. Slowly the body of Hector rose and the pan with the gold dropped.

Achilles was staring at her, dumbstruck. “A noble princess,” he said. The pan continued to rise until Hector was higher than the heap of gold. “Very well.” He sounded angry. “Take him!” With a jerk of the reins, he drove off, back to the Greeks.

With a cry, the Trojans rushed out of the city and surrounded Priam and the body of Hector on the wagon, and, with exultation, escorted them back in to safety.

The funeral of Hector. Now we could have it. Not only the funeral of Hector, but the brutal Achilles had agreed to a twelve-day truce in which each side could gather their dead and hold funeral rites.

Hector’s funeral pyre was built on the southern side of Troy, beyond the lower city, on the side that faced Mount Ida. We did not want the Greeks to see the flames. All around it were scattered the pyres of other fallen warriors. The entire city would do homage to Hector and then the private funerals would follow.

As was the custom, the pyre was lit late in the day. From early morning the rites had been under way—the solemn procession with the washed and anointed Hector borne on a funeral cart surrounded by mourners singing dirges and weeping. All night long he had lain in ceremonial repose until the whispers about how untouched and perfect he appeared reached a humming buzz. So many days dead and yet he looked as if he merely slept. Eight days of being dragged behind a chariot and not a scratch or a bruise upon him. But the gods do what they will—had not Paris and I spoken of just this?

I looked down the row of royal mourners and felt the huge gap that Hector left. Priam, his eyes dim with grief, was old and broken, Hecuba devastated. She had lost her dearest child. Deiphobus was not the warrior Hector was, no, nor the man, either. Helenus, the next eldest, was a slinking and elusive man. Polites was still a child. Paris was clearly the most gifted and should take his place alongside Priam as his new heir, but Priam showed little interest in him. There was Aeneas and his family, but they were not in direct line for the throne. As for the others dutifully standing with us—Antimachus, Antenor and his son Helicaon, Aesacus, and Glaucus—were they any match for our adversary? Our enemy had lost no valuable man except Patroclus. After all this fighting, no one lost but him! Whereas we had lost Sarpedon, and Rhesus, and now Hector.

Three women were to speak laments over the body of Hector: his widow, his mother, and I. I knew not why I was chosen, but Antenor had whispered to me that I was last. Andromache stepped forward and clasped Hector’s hands where he still lay on the wagon, and spoke of all she was bereft of—her life with her husband, their days to come, and the loss to Troy. But her loss was bitterest of all, for she was cheated of his last words, something he might have murmured in their bed that she could cherish all her life.

Her face looking whiter and deader than Hector’s, she stepped back and wrapped herself in a dark hooded mantle. Hecuba crept forward. Hunched over, trembling, she reached out and stroked Hector’s forehead. “I loved you best of all my sons!” she cried. “And you were not the first that Achilles took from me. But all the days of your life, the gods loved you, and I can see they have not deserted you now. They have returned you to me as fresh as the first time I held you in my arms.” I waited for her to say more—how can a mother ever say all she feels at such a time? But perhaps because it was impossible, she clamped her mouth shut and stepped aside.

A long pause. Now I must speak. But what could I say, and what right did I have to speak, compared to Andromache and Hecuba?

No one else moved. I took a step, then another, approaching Hector. How stern and immutable his face was, his mouth set in a straight line, his eyes closed. It seemed impossible that he, with all his strength, was gone from us, yet he had foreseen it. He had used that strength in gentleness amongst us.

I raised my head and spoke, but only to Hector. “You, my dear Hector, I loved the best of all my Trojan brothers, nearest to my own brothers far away. You alone were kind to me at all times, making a shelter for me from the stones and stares of others. Hector, it was your born nobility that made you courteous and kind, and allowed you to welcome such a stranger as I. Now, without you, the winds blow cold in Troy.”

Too late, I thought I should have sung innocuous praises to Hector and said nothing of myself and him. But I was Helen, notorious Helen, and the war that had brought him to lie on this bier was ignited by me. It would have been cowardly to let that pass in silence, disrespectful to Hector.

I stepped back and the ritual continued—the hair cutting, the offerings and blood libations poured on the great pyre, the chanting, the call of, “Hector! Hector!” by Antenor before he touched the torch to the wood.

As the fire consuming Hector blazed, other fires were lit, and the whole plain became a field of bonfires, lighting the night skies and sending sparks swirling heavenward.

The next morning, gray-cloaked Trojans gathered the bones of their men from the smoking ashes of many fires. Priam insisted on doing it himself, clambering over the remains of the fire, stepping carefully to avoid the glowing coals. Paris, Deiphobus, and Helenus stood by to receive them. As the most prominent, they could stand side by side and look at one another out of the corners of their eyes, knowing themselves as rivals. Lesser children of Hecuba—Polites, the boy who kept signal watch outside the walls, Pammon, and Antiphus—stood behind them, flanked by the seer Aesacus, child of Priam’s first wife. He still had sons, but as he gathered the white bones of Hector it was clear he had lost his only true child, the child of his deepest heart. All around the giant pyre of Hector other families were gathering their sad relics. The sky was gray as the ashes, as if to be clear and bright would have slain them all with cruelty.

Though our stores were low, Priam gave orders for a funeral feast. Nothing would be spared to send Hector in style and splendor to the gods.

Hector’s feast was held in his expansive hall, directly after the bones had been gathered. Even with the large crowd, without Hector it seemed empty. As if to confirm the words I had spoken over him, the rest of the family did not address me, but talked only to one another. Andromache was seated, like a queen—and here she was indeed queen of the dead—and others knelt before her, kissing one hand. With the other she held Astyanax. Hector’s helmet lay at her feet. Priam announced that they would build a shrine to it.

“In ages to come, men will honor Hector,” he promised her. “They will stand in awe of this helmet that once graced his head.” He stooped and picked it up. “How strong a neck, to have carried this weight,” he sighed.

I clasped Paris’s hand. Priam had living sons and he must now open his eyes to them. He must!

The old king was still mumbling and setting the helmet back in its place with trembling hands when with a rustle someone pushed forward to stand before him. He stopped caressing the helmet and let his eyes move slowly to the sandaled feet and then up the muscled legs. His head tilted back and he rose to see a comely woman of immense strength. Laughing, she picked up the helmet as easily as if it were made of fine cloth, and put it on.

“Take it off!” Priam ordered her. “Sacrilege!”

She just laughed again and plucked it off, handing it back to him; he sagged with the weight. “Mine is heavier,” she said, shrugging. “How fortunate you do not have to lift it.” She spun hers, which she had been holding easily in her other hand.

Priam stared at her, as did we all. He was forming the words
Who are you?
when he suddenly realized. “Penthesileia!”

“None other,” she replied. “And my warriors.” She gestured to the entrance, where a company of women were standing—we could just glimpse them. “Come, my companions!” At that, they marched in, sandals tromping. “There are more, of course. These are my officers.”

“You had such a distance to come,” said Paris, stepping over to Penthesileia. “I sent for you, never hoping you could be here so soon.”

“Not soon enough, I am sorrowed to see,” she said. “I am grieved that you have lost Hector.” She sighed. “I had looked forward to fighting alongside him.”

Priam took a deep breath, most likely to prevent himself from saying,
No
one is fit to fight alongside Hector. Hector is always in front. The others follow—
even the Amazon queen and commander, daughter of Ares himself.
Instead he just said, “He would have welcomed it.” On hearing his words, Andromache rose and left the chamber.

Her warriors crowded in, surrounding Penthesileia. All were as tall as men; all had youthful skin sheathing muscles that did not bulge as men’s did but swelled with smooth power beneath. They were carrying shields and armor that were as heavy as Hector’s, but they did not droop under them, standing proudly erect.

“I pray you, put your burdensome armor down.” It was Paris who spoke, taking Hector’s place. “We welcome you as allies, and you will be fighting no one in this hall.”

“Women, do so,” Penthesileia ordered them. They obeyed. Now, much lighter, they turned to meet us.

“You have traveled from a land to the east,” stated Priam flatly. “I remember your warriors, when the battle beyond Phrygia was joined in my youth.”

“We are even better fighters now,” said Penthesileia. “We train with superior weapons, and we begin our training earlier. All girls at the age of seven must report for testing on the field. We select only the most promising from the start. The strength and ability to be a warrior is present from the beginning. It is given, not bestowed by the will. Then the joyful part begins! Riding, swordsmanship—or, in our case, swordswomanship—spearing. Oh, it makes the heart sing!”

Her warriors all nodded. My eyes traveled down their tunics and I saw nothing that would indicate they had cut off their right breasts to enable their fighting arms better to slash, as hearsay had it.

“Achilles,” hissed Penthesileia. “It is time to end his scourge.”

LX