Helen of Troy (89 page)

“You know what happens to defeated cities. They are always put to the torch, razed to the ground.”

That vision, that horrible vision I had had of fire, and the Greeks . . . and the towers—that odd phrase that had come to me long ago. I shut my eyes, yet the vision was not outside me but inside.

“I cannot comprehend it,” I said.

He waved his hands as if to dismiss the whole subject, then settled them quietly on the table before him. Quietly, when he was looking across the room, I laid mine beside his. They were a very close match.

* * *

The enemy was on the march. How strange that this day does not resonate in my memory, preserve itself sharply. Instead, it fades and blurs in its normalcy. I rose at the usual time. I watched Paris as he opened his eyes, as always feeling that strange little jolt of unbelief and excitement as I beheld him.

When he comes into a room, you give a little gasp, deep inside, far inside,
someone once said when trying to describe what it meant to love. And it was true: when I looked at Paris, I felt it as if for the first time. As when I first beheld him in my hall in Sparta.

We took our early breakfast together, a simple meal of barley gruel and cheese. He said he must attend the morning meeting at Antimachus’s headquarters. Still I thought little of it; it was too ordinary.

Paris returned and said he must arm. Spies reported that the Greeks were ready to mount an assault, and Philoctetes had been healed of his debilitating wound. Still I made light of it. I walled off the image of the wounded Paris, as if walling it off would destroy it. I helped to fasten his armor on him. I tied the fastenings of the linen undercorselet myself, and fetched his sword and his quiver. His young attendant did the rest: presented the breastplate, the greaves, the helmet, the bow. Together we stood back and admired him in his militant glory.

I leaned forward and ran my fingers over his lips, barely exposed by the cheekplates of the helmet. They were soft and curved.

“Go,” I whispered. “Though I would keep you here.” Oh, I was so very weary of these thoughts and deeds, but resigned to them, like a ritual, thinking they would continue this way forever: Paris arming, me bidding him farewell. Though others fell around us, we never would. This was eternal—his going forth, my staying.

“This I know full well,” he said. This time he put his hand on my shoulder. When they ask me,
Was anything different?
I can only say,
This time he put
his hand on my shoulder.
But of what moment was that? It was just a gesture, a careless gesture. Afterward we search for messages, meanings, as if the departed knew in advance what would happen and wanted to leave something behind for us.

He rode out through the warriors’ gate, the Scaean Gate. He stood proudly in his chariot, facing the enemy, his face turned toward them. They advanced in groups, chariots and soldiers, spears bristling. They seemed to spread out across the entire plain, far too numerous after all their casualties.

The flanks of the two armies met and clashed; bellowing war cries resounded even up to where we stood on the walls. I had taken my place beside the women of Troy; I no longer slunk back and hid in the shadows. Hector had fallen and my Paris was now the foremost son of Priam.

The women on either side of me did not acknowledge me, but kept their gazes straight ahead, stick-straight. I felt their hostility seeping into me. I had killed their dear ones. In their place, I would have felt the same way. Yet to honor Paris I must stand beside them.

There were cries and yells as one confrontation gave way to another, and still another, but the armies held fast, locked together on the plain. Slashing swords caught the sun and came to us as winks of light; spears twisted and turned in their flight and, spinning, streaked like meteors. But who was winning?

Gradually the Trojans fell back, dogged foot by foot, giving ground. Then, suddenly, the lines broke and they rushed for the gates, the Greeks in heated pursuit. The Trojan army turned into a mob pouring into the city. Where was Paris? Some time ago I had seen him abandon the cumbersome chariot and fight his way into the melee. Now he disappeared, while his compatriots rushed back through the safety of the gates.

The Trojan ranks thinned, and it almost seemed they bleated like a herd of frightened goats as they pushed and shoved through the gates, the weak and ill-trained soldiers crumpling before the assault. Then the gates swung closed, groaning in the sockets, and bolts were shot to secure them. The seasoned Trojans who had chosen to remain and fight the Greeks were cut off from retreat. They fought on alone, as Hector had done before them. Now I saw Paris by himself, wheeling around to face three Greeks who were advancing on him. No matter which way he turned, his back was exposed to an enemy.

I could not help myself. I leaned forward, screamed, “Paris, no! Paris, come inside!”

He could not hear me; even if he could, he would not have fled like a coward. He rushed upon one of the Greeks, sword raised, spear at the ready. He looked so formidable, the image seared itself on my mind—this is a true warrior, the noblest of Trojans.

As he raised his sword against the nameless Greek and felled him, a chariot wheeled up, and a bowman took aim, sending an arrow flying toward Paris. It grazed only his forearm, and he fought on, slaying his second opponent. Next he turned to the third man rushing at him from the right side, and slashed him as well. Only then did he look for his adversary in the chariot, but the man had wheeled away out of range. Paris glanced down at his arm and rubbed it, shaking it as if to test it. Then he wrenched his spear from the fallen Greek and turned to help another Trojan who was battling two Greeks.

The Greeks on the front lines found themselves deserted as their compatriots withdrew behind them. Slowly they melted back, and the victorious remaining Trojans wearily returned to the city, proudly and slowly, not routed like their fellows who sheepishly cheered them as they entered.

“It is nothing,” Paris said jubilantly, waving his arm as the crowds greeted him. The wound was slight; it was barely bleeding. “A child’s wound,” he said, laughing, removing his helmet and waving it. But after the salutations, the celebrations, the goblets raised in tribute, the child’s wound began to throb, at first only a tingle.

In the privacy of our chamber, after he had removed the rest of his dusty armor and called for water to wash, he examined the wound. Angry red streaks now surrounded it, and it felt hot to the touch. When I laid a finger near the swelling open cut, he gave a cry of pain, so sharp it frightened me. He gasped and grasped his elbow, as if to stop the pain there. “It feels like liquid fire,” he said.

“Shall I call a physician?” I asked.

“No, no.” He attempted to laugh. “There are many truly wounded men they must see to. It was a nasty battle.”

In the dim light I could not be sure, but it seemed the wounded forearm was turning purple, and as I watched, the skin stretched and became shiny and taut. At the same time, sweat broke out all over his face and he suddenly muttered, “I feel dizzy—sick—” and he gave a shudder and turned his head away.

Despite his reluctance, I cried out for an attendant to summon a physician. While we waited, the arm swelled even more, until it looked like it would burst, and then the discoloration seeped down into the fingers and over the shoulder onto his chest. Now his lips started chattering and his limbs began contracting, making him writhe like a fish landed on dry land.

“My stomach is eaten away,” he moaned, clutching it. “It is consuming me!” The physician arrived and stared down at him, pulling away the clothes to see his abdomen. But there was no mark on it. Then he laid his hand on Paris’s forehead and jerked it away.

“He is on fire!”

Fire . . . burning . . . entrails consumed . . . Oh, had that been Philoctetes in the chariot who had struck him? The Hydra’s poison was said to smite its victim just so.

“Who struck you?”

“This arrow—it came out of nowhere,” he said. “I do not—” he gasped and clenched his jaw in pain. “I do not know who loosed it. I did not see the man’s face.”

If indeed it was Philoctetes, let him not know. The will can be as potent as the gods, and unless he believed it was from Philoctetes, it might not prove dangerous.

“Rest, my love,” I said. “Our foremost physician is here to attend you.”

He gave a smile, contorted by a grimace as the pain tore through him. “Whenever it is said that the foremost physician will attend you, it means the situation is serious.”

I forced myself to smile. “Or it means you are a prince of Troy, and entitled to the foremost physician even for a scratch.”

He grasped the shoulder of my gown with surprising strength, using his other arm. “Do not lie to me, Helen. You above all, do not lie to me. I cannot bear it!”

I looked down upon him, not wanting to feel that I was so doing—that I, strong and well, gazed upon a stricken Paris. “Paris, you are wounded. But wounds are commonplace in war. You yourself wounded Machaon, but he has recovered. So has Odysseus.”

“Not all wounds are the same,” he gasped out, clutching his swollen arm.

“Don’t touch it!” ordered the physician, grabbing his hand. “Here, I have a draught that should help—”

“I am afraid to take it until I know what has caused this. It might make it worse.” Paris could barely get the words out through his clenched lips.

“An antidote!” I cried. “Is there no antidote?”

The physician spoke quietly to me over Paris’s head. “There can be no antidote until we know what it is. The prince is right. The wrong antidote can intensify the venom’s strength.”

“Venom. Is that what you think this is?”

“Clearly the arrow was poisoned,” he said. “But with what?”

The Hydra’s blood, I thought. But I would not say it.

Suddenly Paris opened his eyes. Had he heard us? He looked at me, sadly, slowly, shaking his head. “Helen.” He coughed. “So many years—I want them all, I brought you here so we might have them—no, it cannot be—” His head lolled to one side, but not before he breathed, “All ended, over . . . we will visit Egypt . . .” His eyes glazed, the eyes that had still been bright when he had just said, “Helen.” Now they faded.

But he could not be dead. No, he could not. It could not end like this, so quickly, so simply, with the droop of a head and fixed eyes. This love was to be eternal. Not ended.

He still breathed. The poison had closed his eyes—now I was sure it was the Hydra’s poison; nothing else could have made a surface wound so potent—but not stilled his heart.

“Help! Help!” I cried, cradling his head. Someone must know how to reverse this. It was a poison, and all poisons had antidotes.

In those final hours, even she will beg me to save you.
The words flitted and played in my memory, like sunlight chasing shadows. Someone who knew about poisons. Someone who had loved Paris. Someone who knew the day would come when she held the keys to life and death for him. Someone who hated me.

Oenone
.

LXIV

I
must go to her. Where was she? Even if Paris knew, he could barely speak. He was writhing on the bed, by turns arching his back and falling back limply onto the blanket, clawing at his chest.

“My blood is bubbling inside, like a cauldron,” he muttered, rousing, his unseeing eyes rolling backward. He grimaced so hard his face contorted.

“My prince, if you can take an infusion of leaves of dittany of Crete . . .” The physician was bending over him.

“Oenone,” I whispered in his ear, his burning ear. “Where does she live?”

He turned, his eyes opening to slits. “Mount Ida,” he said. “Not the spur near the hot springs.” He drew in his breath. “The one nearest the long waterfall.”

But there were hot springs all around Mount Ida, and many waterfalls, some seasonal with melting snow, others year-round. “Dearest, is this waterfall called by any name?”

He only gave a grunt and a shudder, turning away and squeezing the coverlet.

It was night, but I could not wait for dawn. The poison was spreading too quickly. I ordered two chariots and my heavy mantle, as well as torches and guards. Then I rushed across to Hector’s palace, stepping over the displaced people sleeping on the ground around it. The doors were shut fast, but I beat on them, crying out to be admitted. One of them creaked open and I tumbled in, calling, “Andromache! Andromache!” to the startled guard.