Helen of Troy (85 page)

T
hey lodged with us. I would not have the Amazons stay elsewhere. Paris had summoned them, and we would find room for them, despite the refugees crowded into our open spaces, sleeping on the floor. Our new guests seemed relieved to escape the sorrow and darkness of Hector’s chambers, and once they were with us, they smiled and laughed and celebrated their long journey, recounting its perils and tediousness.

“Such a journey—one is either fighting for one’s life or bored to death. It is either furious and fast or so slow one feels buried by the sands,” Penthesileia said, putting down her goblet still half filled with good wine. She looked hard at Paris. “We were pleased to answer your plea and come.” Now her voice grew from its quiet timbre to a militant tone. “Achilles must be stopped.” She held up her hands to ward off any interruptions. “It is disgraceful that he could rout an entire army. No man has that power. You Trojans gave it to him.”

“He is the son of a goddess,” said Paris, almost timidly.

“Oh?” Penthesileia glared at him. “And I am the daughter of Ares, the war god himself. What goddess does he come from?” she snapped her fingers. “Thetis! An almost-unknown sea nymph. We must put all this aside. He has ridden a wave of fear and unearned reputation to your shores. Prophecies, legends—all foolishness. What was the word of your Hector about omens? ‘Fight for your country—that is the best and only omen.’ You have been unnerved by that man. He is just a man. I shall kill him,” she said matter-of-factly. “The great Hector was cut down. But one such victory does not make an invincible warrior. Do not give him that power over you. Someone here will kill him. If not I, then one of you.” She looked around at the company. “Achilles will lie in the dust, choking and fighting for breath, and you will see—and believe—that he is mortal. Then you will cease to fear him, but you should fling that fear away before he lies sprawled and dead. Do it now!”

Paris retired to our bedchamber, and we found sleeping accommodations for the company of Penthesileia’s warriors. I could not help thinking there were not many of them, but she assured me these were the commanders, and the regular soldiers were fending for themselves in the regular quarters with other soldiers. “We need no special treatment!” she all but bellowed.

I waited for Paris to retire to sleep. I wanted so badly to talk privately to Penthesileia. There is a time when we need to shed ourselves of our men and speak from the heart to other women.

I admired her so much I worried that I would not be able to find words to speak to her. I myself hated grovelers. (
Oh, my Helen, you rob me of vision! I
cannot speak, I am struck dumb!
) Such people are tiresome, and I did not wish to join their company. But she and the other Amazons had made themselves feared as warriors throughout the world, and hearsay had it that they tolerated no men in their villages. I remembered speaking to the Amazon ambassador, and we had exchanged lighthearted jests about the value of men, but now I burned with curiosity about Penthesileia and her life.

I was in luck. She was still up, staring moodily into the brazier fire, her strong arms hanging loosely over her knees. She looked up sharply at the (I thought) silence of my approach.

“Who’s there?” she called, reaching for her sword. She had not divested herself of it, keeping it strapped by her side even at darkest night.

“Only Helen,” I assured her, stepping out into the dim firelight.

“ ‘Only Helen!’ ” she exclaimed, relaxing her grip on her sword. “The immortal Helen! Let us finally study the faces of one another.”

I seated myself on a stool beside her. In the dim light I leaned forward to truly see her. “I have so long admired you,” I said.

“And I have for so long wished to glimpse you. They have a saying in my land,
Her face caused a fleet of ships to sail the Aegean.
So let me look at it.” She grasped my chin and stared at me, turning my face this way and that. “Well,” she said. “Perhaps it could be true. If I were a man, I could pronounce it true or not. As it is, I cannot say. I do see a crease here and there.” She released my face.

“As have I.” Lately in the polished bronze mirror in my chamber I had thought I had seen tiny lines, creases, but in the poor wavering reflection I could not be sure.

“You need not worry, I shall not tell anyone!” She laughed. “Although perhaps if they knew, down at the Greek lines, they would sail home.
Helen
has little lines around her eyes!
they might shout, and hoist their sails. Then my job would be done by time itself.”

What she spoke of had worried me. Not because I feared to age as mortals did, but did it disprove the claim that Zeus was my father? And if he was not, what mortal was? I thought of the refined Antenor and his visit to Sparta and just as quickly shut that door.

“Forget me. How do you live in your land, without men? Are there no men at all?”

“We do have some men,” she said. “They arrive with the hunting seasons. We bed down with them—you know of what I speak—and it is pleasurable, but nothing to bind us, any more than the buzzing of wine in our heads would make us servants to wine.” She looked hard at me. “For to subjugate ourselves for a pleasure would be slavery,” she said. “Or to subjugate ourselves for anything else. We need children. Men are useful for that. But once they have done that duty, what use do we have for them?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

“Do not children need fathers?” My question seemed pitifully weak.

“What for?”

“To teach them—”

“To teach them what?”

“How to be men, how to behave as men.” I had had a daughter, but I knew sons needed fathers. I thought of poor Astyanax.

“But we have no boys, so no need for fathers,” she said briskly.

“What do you do with the boys?” I had to ask, although I suspected the answer.

“We expose them on the mountainside to perish, of course,” she said. “Who needs boys?”

Early the next morning I watched her arm. She let me stand with her attendants and even hand her her greaves, which she quickly fastened with silver ankle clips on her shapely calves. Unlike Hector, she seemed to relish all tasks on the battlefield. “You are brave,” I said. I thought of all the things I had wished to ask her, about who her mother was, how Ares had intertwined himself with her, how she had risen to be queen. Even about the breasts.

She saw me watching closely as she put on her breastplate. “We keep our breasts,” she said quickly. “As you know from your own life, many stories arise when someone is different. I know
you
did not truly hatch from an egg, my lady!”

Stories. I wondered what Hermione had been taught about me, what sort of a young woman she was growing into. Would that she had had a guide as stalwart as Penthesileia. Did Clytemnestra serve for this?

“Return safely,” I said, touching her arm.

She looked at me with surprise. “That is not the goal,” she said. “Defeating Achilles is.”

The Greek camp had been quiet for the funerals, but when the Amazons left the city, making for the ships, they stirred. Soon we could see the line of the Greek soldiers advancing to meet Penthesileia and her warriors, and then the dust that announced their clash.

In the busy fighting, she and her women routed the Greeks and drove Achilles himself from the field. Their return through the city gates was jubilant. All of Troy met them, rejoicing for the first time in months. They had come at our darkest hour and infused new strength into us.

“They were taken by surprise,” she told Paris and me in private. “But next time it will not be so. We will not have that advantage.”

“Achilles—” Paris began.

“I knew him by his armor, but otherwise he did not seem any more formidable than any other warrior,” said Penthesileia. “He fought little. Then he returned to his lines.”

So she had not yet taken his measure. He had watched, then retired. The engagement was yet to come. My apprehension returned in full force.

There were two more battles, each bravely led by Penthesileia. Both times the Greeks were driven back, even with Achilles mustering his Myrmidons to resist them. Penthesileia met him on foot and they exchanged blows, but Achilles seemingly melted away and she could not find him.

The spirits of Troy rose higher, and at each triumphal return the cries of delight rang to the heavens.

The Amazons took one day of rest to repair weapons and armor and replace horses lost in the fighting. Paris offered them the best in his stable, including his favorite, named Ocypete, “swift wing,” for Penthesileia. She leapt up onto his back in one motion, testing him in a gallop around the walls. Pronouncing herself pleased with his performance, she gratefully accepted him.

This time all the Trojan forces would join the Amazons and the allies. Our commanders would take the field alongside Penthesileia: Paris, Helenus, Deiphobus, Helicaon, Glaucus of the Lycians. I helped Paris arm as I had many times before, hearing him vow that Achilles would not leave the field alive.

The day was cloudless and warm; summer was on its way. How many summers had passed in this war? It seemed we had been pent up within the walls for years—was time enchanted, expanding or shrinking in some mysterious way? The lines around my eyes and the tiny creases on my hands—did they testify to an unnatural passage of time?

I saw the vast assembled forces on the plain, making for the Greeks. This time I had no need of Evadne’s help to see it. Paris would be my eyes and ears when he returned. I stood trembling, watching him depart. I felt I could see him even in the midst of a thousand.

From inside the Trojan walls, all battles looked the same; only if they were fought right under our battlements could we detect what was happening. I felt no alarm as I watched the dust moving and finally lock with the other cloud of dust as the armies engaged. Even from where I stood I could hear the clash of arms, the unmistakable ring of bronze against bronze, and the cries of the wounded, sounding the same whether the victim was Trojan or Greek.

It went on forever. The freshness of the early morning blended into the clarity of midday when the shadows are short, and then the sun was slanting its rays across the plain as it set. Light lingered for a little while, and still the armies fought on.

Gradually the dimness deepened, night creeping out to cover the plain. Frantic with worry, I rushed down to the walls, as if that would bestow some knowledge of the outcome. I cared not for the hostile stares of the Trojans. I cared for nothing but the safety of Paris and of Penthesileia

The crowd was moaning and swaying. So much depended on this battle; so many hopes had been set upon it. They could not endure another defeat; their trampled spirits could not surmount it.

The stars were fully visible; true night had come. No army could fight at night. They would be returning. The battle was over.

Torches finally flickered from the field. Still we could see nothing. Only as they approached the gates was the extent of the Trojan force revealed. All had returned.

My heart leapt up. They were safe. They had prevailed! I leaned over the battlements, the better to see. Why were they so glum? Tiredness, I thought hurriedly. Exhaustion. Even a victorious soldier cannot smile if he has given his all.

Then I saw the horse with a body slung across it. I saw the legs I had admired in Penthesileia’s chamber only a few days ago. Her feet swayed and swung in the loose way of the feet of the dead.

I clapped my hand over my mouth and shrieked. No! I rushed to help open the gates, and stood back as Paris, leading the horse with its dreadful burden, was the first through them.

He was safe! She was dead! My heart was torn both in rejoicing and in mourning.

He looked over at me, his eyes dull.

“Paris!” I hurried to his side, embraced him. I tried not to look at Penthesileia, but her body draped across the horse commanded me to see.

“At least we saved her body,” he said, reaching out to touch it as if to make sure.

I was walking alongside him, but the noise of the crowd made it difficult to hear. “Will you take her to the palace?” I asked.

“Yes. We will lay her out there.” His face had a frozen look.

Behind him the other commanders were marching.

“So long a battle—did you score any successes?”

“Penthesileia killed many Greeks. She fought so bravely that . . .” He turned away, his eyes filling with tears.

Priam met them halfway up to the citadel. He betrayed no emotion, his face like the wooden Zeus in his courtyard. “My sons,” was all he said, welcoming them all back. “A great warrior.” He nodded toward Penthesileia. “All the rites, of course . . .” He turned away.

Her countrymen took her body to prepare it. It would lie in state in our hall. The Amazons did not build funeral pyres, but rather buried their dead in stone-lined tombs after a three-day mourning period.

Safely within our rooms, Paris removed his armor and sank down on a stool. The dusty arms did not even gleam in the lamplight, as if they mourned with us. Carefully I measured out a cup of wine, preparing it with spices and grated cheese as he liked, diluting it with clear water from Mount Ida’s springs. I let him lift it and drink, and waited until it had begun its blessed healing of the mind. He drained it and set it down, then stared oddly at the wall as if he were seeing something horrible.

“Now you must tell me,” I said.

“No! No, I cannot live it again!” His voice trembled as if in terror.

“I must know!” I said. “Please, please—!”

“More wine,” he said. “I cannot speak until more is soothed within me.”

Only when he had finished the second cup did he speak. “We fought well,” he whispered. “There were so many of us, with the Amazons and all the allies. It was like . . . like the beginning of the war, when we were strong. Penthesileia fought fiercely and killed many of their leaders. When they fell, the Greeks drew back and regrouped. But it seemed to invigorate Achilles. Perhaps only killing can stir his blood. If his own are killed, it drives him into a fury; if he kills, it sets off a fever within him for more killing.”