Helen of Troy (99 page)

Hecuba rushed at Neoptolemus and tried to claw his eyes out, but she was even weaker than Priam and he flung her aside easily, so that she hit her head on the altar base and lay stretched out beside her husband. Polyxena fell to her knees and embraced her mother and father. Neoptolemus bent down and pulled her up, jerking her head back by the hair.

“Which one are you, did you say?” he hissed. “Old Priam had so many sons and daughters, did he even name them? Well, what of it? To what avail his fifty sons, his twelve daughters? Not one will resound to the ages with the fame of Peleus’s one son, my father. Nor of me, my father’s only son!”

“Pitiful braggart!” Polyxena cried. “No one will remember your name. No one can even pronounce it. Even mine will ring longer and louder than yours.”

Grinning like an old skull, Neoptolemus pinned her arms. “Oh, I’ll see to that!” He signaled to one of his men to truss her up. “To the ships!” he ordered.

The body of Polites lay in a pool of blood. Priam’s was spreading, still seeping from his neck; it reached out to his son’s like fingers and the two touched and blended, becoming one.

I dared not move. There was nothing I could do to help Hecuba and her daughters until Neoptolemus left them. If he saw me, he might capture me and send me to the ships, too. The leaves of the bush I was hiding behind trembled. Had it not been dark and had Neoptolemus been more wary, he would have seen me. As it was, I crouched and prayed for him to be gone.

In that odd moment I felt a brushing against my shoulder, a smoothing of my hair. I am betrayed! They have discovered me! I thought, terrified. But the touch was gentle. I looked up and saw a shadowy form. I could not be sure of what I saw, and as I reached out my hand, it passed through air. But the touch had been real.

My child.
The voice whispered in my ear, even while the courtyard was filled with yelling. Somehow I heard it above—or below—the ugly sounds around me.

Yes, I said in my mind. I am here. Your servant is here.

Not my servant but my child.

My father? Zeus?

A soft laugh.
Only in a manner of speaking are you my child. I adopted you. Aeneas is the child of my body, but you are the child of my essence, my being.

“Aphrodite?” I whispered.

Yes. I am here to gainsay your safety. I have already directed Aeneas to leave
Troy, now I guide you. Leave this place of killing, find your way to the ships. You
two alone will survive the fall of Troy without hurt. I vouchsafe my own!

I will not go to the Greeks, I said again in my mind. I will not go to the ships!

Dear child, in a short time all of Troy will buckle, blaze, and fall. If you
hope to live, you must flee its walls. If you choose to die, so be it. Mortals always
have that choice. Sometimes they embrace it. I do not understand this, but they
are free to do so.

Hecuba was muttering, rolling over, bringing herself to her elbows in the lake of blood. Laodice pulled her up, clasping her mother to her. She turned her mother’s head so she would not see what she had lain beside, and shielded her eyes.

The warriors came pouring in; Neoptolemus’s orders had held them back only a short time. They fell on everything in sight, swinging at the potted plants and the benches as if they were enemy soldiers. Hecuba, the altar, and her daughters vanished beneath the surge of people.

I crawled away, still shielded by the plants. I saw some of them blazing, some urns overturned, and knew that Andromache’s prized assemblage was gone. But her heart must have left them for greater matters long ago.

By the time I reached it, the outer courtyard was already piled with looted goods: upended three-legged tables, bronze cauldrons, wooden chests, ivory game boards, bedsteads. I half crawled, half scurried between the stacks of booty and fled the palace. Gasping, I stood at the gates and saw the conflagration before me.

The citadel was on fire. Hector’s palace flamed, as did mine and the temple of Athena. Even the horse had caught fire. The flames licked up its sturdy legs and crackled around its belly—the belly that had delivered death to Troy.

I rushed down the street leading down into the city. These houses were still intact, but the street was filled with screaming people.

“This way, this way!” one man called, trying to direct the crowd. “Proceed in an orderly fashion!” His eyes were dull, unseeing of what was truly happening.

A well-dressed woman came out of her house, adjusting her veil. “What is all this confusion?” she asked, puzzled. “Good people, return to your beds.” She turned and said, “You should not miss your sleep. It is not good to be awake when the sky is dark.” Smoothly, she turned and went back inside. “I have tried my best,” she said. Her eyes were fixed, uncomprehending. A shrill laugh followed her, floating on the air.

I was almost pushed down as I rushed through the street. I heard a scream as someone leapt from the top of the temple and landed in a pit of flame. Athena had not saved him or her. Why should I think Aphrodite could save me?

More people leapt off the walls and vanished into the darkness and flames. A Trojan strode down the street, shoving others with his shield, but he was dead already, completely unresponsive to what was happening around him. No sound or cry caught his attention. Step by step he advanced, like a statue.

I looked back to see a trio of people leaping directly into the flames from one of the towers, singing, holding hands. Were they one family, or fast friends? The singing stopped, replaced by screams as they hit the fire. It flared up briefly as it digested them. Then it collapsed in a ball.

“Down here, down here.” Two men were directing people toward the lower city. “Take the gate out, and make for Mount Ida.” They bowed to me. “Good evening, my lady,” they said, smiling.

“Flee!” I cried. “Abandon this!”

“Someone must direct,” one of them said. “It is important.”

“You will die!” I cried.

“We will all die,” he said. “It is only a question of how, and with what honor.”

“The Greeks will grant you no honor,” I said, hurrying past them.

“It is not for them to grant it,” he said. “We must grant it to ourselves.” He turned his head. “Down here, down here,” he continued directing those behind me. Thus the honor and civilization of Troy flickered bravely in its last moments before it was extinguished forever.

Farther down in the city, the houses still untorched, people were running in terror. Some were on their roofs, flinging tiles. Others were making a last stand, fighting madly against the Greek soldiers and whatever else stood in their way. Some used objects as weapons, rushing out of their houses swinging furniture, goblets, firewood to strike at their enemies. The Greeks easily parried them aside and slew them, swinging madly, lopping off limbs and heads, whatever they could reach. The maimed crawled away and were trampled, and the headless ones lay spurting in the street, making the stones slippery.

The flames rose higher on the citadel, and from this great distance, over the walls, I could see the fire reflected in the strait, the water turned sunset-red. But now the flames were starting in the middle part of the city as well, and people were staggering out of their houses, choking from dust mixed with smoke, only to be slain as soon as they emerged. The buildings, much smaller and flimsier than those of stone on the summit, began collapsing almost immediately, and wails from within told what was happening to those hiding inside. The flickering red flames bathed the brick walls of these modest houses in a bloody hue, as if they glowed from within.

I must leave the city, I must escape! But I was being pounded and pushed from all sides, carried along with a crowd that was dashing itself against walls and houses like one of Poseidon’s mighty waves. The noise was overwhelming. We think of fire as a quiet thing, but it created a great roaring sound like a sea dragon, and the groans of collapsing buildings drowned out even the cries of the wounded.

Down, down, into the lower rings of the inner city. I was borne along past a dwelling that looked as if nothing had befallen it. Its outer door was holding fast, and there were as yet no singe marks upon it. Suddenly it jerked open and an elegantly dressed woman emerged, holding her mantle daintily, keeping it from dragging in the street dirt. She looked this way and that, wrinkling up her nose. Then she lurched out into the crowd and disappeared. She clearly was in a state of utter shock.

Did she have children inside? Had she left them? I had a glimpse of the dark deep interior, but could see nothing. I tore away from the imprisonment of the bodies around me, bearing me along like a helpless piece of floating wood, and tumbled into the house. I landed on my knees in the forecourt, and could see nothing. But I could smell the smoke. There was a fire in the back; the house was not unscathed after all.

“Is anyone here?” I called in my best Trojan dialect. “I am here to help!” If there were children inside, they might be sheltering under a table or cowering under their beds, thinking they could hide from the fire or the soldiers. “You must tell me. It is not safe to stay where you are!”

Now I was on my feet, stumbling blindly through the megaron, feeling the heat of the fire just outside the walls. All was yet dark within. “Are you here? Please, I come to help your mother!”

Just then I heard a faint scrambling. Then it stopped. It could be rats, or a pet dog. “Children!” I cried. “Please, call out to me! Help me to find you!”

Again there was a slight noise. But it could be anything, even the fire itself. Just then part of the roof collapsed, and a mass of bricks poured down in front of me, barely missing me. Dust rose in a choking cloud. The flames sucked loudly, happy to find an easier way to draw breath.

For a moment there was light—hideous light, coming from the fire. But I saw a body sprawled next to a table, its legs splayed out, the soles of its feet turned upward. It was a man. The woman’s husband? He still clutched a bowl of wine, but its surface was clouded with dust and trickles of blood ran into it, mixing with the drink. Had he been entertaining friends when the horror of an earlier collapse fell upon them? Now in the shadows I saw other bodies.

“Would that it had been poison,” I whispered. “It would have been kinder.” Smoldering beams lay across the bodies where they had fallen from the collapsed roof. So the woman had survived, only to stumble dully out into the streets. But were there children?

“Are you there?” I called again, skirting the ruined chamber and penetrating farther back into the house. I dared not go much deeper, for the entire structure was unsafe.

A little squeak of a voice came to me, then a scurrying, and two little children crawled out in the dim light. “Mother! Mother!” they whimpered. I could not even tell if they were boys or girls, they were so hunched and begrimed. They clasped my legs.

“She is outside,” I said. “Outside.” I embraced them both and turned them toward the entrance. “Are any more of you hidden?”

“No,” one of them sobbed. I hurried them in the direction of the door, but suddenly a great roar shook the building; the walls shuddered and fell inward. The children were torn from my hands, lost beneath the rubble. My hands were pinned beneath the gush of stones and I was trapped. The children were somewhere within it, but I could not see or hear them.

I did not think of myself, equally trapped but able to breathe and see. Instead I screamed for them. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Aphrodite? She said I would survive the fall of Troy. Was she here to protect me? I turned and saw the face of Menelaus.

Menelaus! I dreaded him more than the fire!

“Here you are!” he cried. “Now I have you!” He was towering over me, delighting in his capture. “I saw you dash inside. And here I thought I had lost you.” He yanked at my arms. “Firmly in here, I see.” He looked up at the roof. “Ready to collapse, I also see.” He knelt down and began digging at the rubble imprisoning me. Then he stopped and stood up. “You would have died like a dog in here had I not followed you in,” he said.

“The children have already done so,” I said. I wished it had been me instead. I could not believe Menelaus was here—a dreadful apparition. All I could think of was the two children, so close to escape and then dead. And I as well—so close and now dead in his grasp.

“They are better off so,” he said brusquely. “A life of slavery is no life at all, and that is what they would have faced.”

Now it was what I faced.

He grunted as he extracted my arms and hands. “We must flee!” He yanked me with him and we rushed from the house just as it collapsed in an explosion of dust and flames and wood and bricks.

Outside, the panic was raging around us. He grabbed me and pushed me ahead of him, propelling me down the winding street. “Outside this time, far from the walls, and to the ships.” He was shaking his arm up and down in pain and I saw that blood was streaming from it. In extricating me he had injured himself.

LXXII