The Trojan Princess (24 page)

           
Andromache knew that Helen had been questioned by Diephobus and the council when
she set eyes upon the golden widow a few days after she had informed Helenus
and his brother of the secret she could no longer keep to herself.

           
“May I speak with you?” Helen asked, approaching Andromache on the ramparts as
Andromache went out with her maids for her daily walk along them. She nodded.
“In private?” Helen asked, glancing to her maids.

           
Andromache dismissed them. Ilisa and Philomena left, giving Helen uncertain
glances, for neither yet shared Andromache’s compassion for the woman. When
they were alone and had walked together a short distance along the ramparts,
Helen stopped and turned to her.

           
“I am to understand that you spoke with the council?” she asked.

           
“I did so only for fear that you would not speak until it was too late,”
Andromache said, reading her meaning. “You carry an heir of Troy, you cannot
think to return to Menelaus.”

           
“You would risk continued war for the sake of my child?” Helen asked, and the
look upon her face was one of uncertainty, and Andromache knew that this woman
did not entirely trust her.

           
“I have long dreamed of an end to this war,” Andromache said. “But I cannot in
good conscience  allow an heir of Troy to be sent to his certain death,
which is the fate that would await him if you were to leave this city.”

           
“You did not even consider keeping quiet?” Helen asked, her scepticism
remaining.

           
“I considered it,” Andromache admitted. “But I asked myself what my beloved
Hector would have done, and he would never have allowed such a thing to
happen.”

           
“He was a great man,” Helen sighed.

           
Andromache shared a moment of silent commiseration for their losses.

           
“Has the council asked you of your child?” Andromache asked, breaking the
silence.

           
Helen nodded.

           
“Helenus and Diephobus have spoken with me,” she said, her voice indicating
that she did not wish to relive the memory of such a meeting. “They say there
is much to discuss.”

           
“Indeed, I am glad not to be a part of the council,” Andromache sighed. “It is
a difficult job to rule in times of war.”

           
Helen nodded, and they walked for a while longer, quiet but sharing in their
companionship. Andromache did not ask more of her meeting, nor of her feelings
on returning to King Menelaus or staying in the city, for she did not wish to
cause discomfort to the widow. Instead, she glanced over at the camps that
still ran along the shore, no sign of the enemy departing to their homelands.
She wondered, not for the first time since she had sought Helenus to divulge
Helen’s secret, that if she had kept quiet then the woman beside her might already
be gone from here and the war might already be at an end.

*
* *

           
With King Priam remaining closeted in his darkened chambers, inconsolable in
his grief, the rule of the city fell upon the remaining council members.
Helenus did not relish such a burden and knew that it was a dangerous time.
Nobody knew whether Priam would return or indeed if he was fit to rule, for
none had been allowed to see him except for the queen; and as such there was
much talk of heirs and succession.

           
Though he relied on the council, and knew that it must continue in Priam’s
absence, Helenus did not trust all of its members and feared that some would
seek to use the trouble and uncertainty that had arisen to their own ends.

           
“It is unconscionable that we consider keeping Helen here with us,” Polites
insisted, as talk turned, as it so often seemed to do, to talk of Helen’s
future. “King Menelaus must be contacted and a treaty negotiated so that we
might have peace once more.”

           
“Agreed,” Antimachus nodded fervently.

           
“We must not be too hasty,” Helenus insisted. “There is much we need to think
of.”

           
He had not yet told the council that Helen was carrying an heir, for Diephobus
had urged him that they should not be so quick to reveal such matters, for the
news would not be well received by some and it could put both Helen and the
child she carried in danger.

           
“We have spent too long thinking,” Polites snapped. “It is time that we act!”

           
“For a self-confessed scholar, you seem quick to dismiss the notion of
intellect,” Helenus rounded on his brother. Polites went quiet, but looked
mutinous. “It would not do to offer King Menelaus a truce if we have not given
it our full thought.”

           
“Polites is right, we have thought for long enough,” Antimachus said.

           
“I say we take a vote,” Laocoon suggested. “That is a democratic way of
resolving this matter, and, I believe, a way that Priam would have approved
of.”

           
“My father has never sought a vote of this council,” Helenus protested.

           
“And our father is not here,” Polites said. “We shall take a vote.”

           
Helenus groaned, as the others nodded their consent.

           
“I vote to seek negotiations with Menelaus,” Polites said at once. “With the
hope of having Helen returned to him at once, so that these invaders might be
gone at the first opportunity.”

           
“I second that,” Antimachus said, raising his hand.

           
“And I,” Laocoon nodded.

           
Helenus looked about him; Diephobus made no motion to agree, and nor did the
oldest of the councillors, Antenor, whose aged eyes darted about the room.

           
“What propose you then?” Polites groaned, realising that his vote had not
reached a majority, having only won three of six supporters.

           
“There are matters of which not all members of the council have been made
aware,” Diephobus said, stepping forward. Helenus’ breath caught in his throat.
“It has recently come to our attention that Helen, the dear widow, is carrying
the late Paris’ child and heir.”

           
Silence followed his words.

           
“We cannot send an heir into the hands of the Greeks,” Antenor said in a
rasping voice from his stool. “No, no, it is certain that Helen must stay under
our protection.”

           
“And what of the war?” Polites demanded. “Shall we let one unborn child bring
about the death of many soldiers?”

           
“We shall not consent to send Helen from the safety of this palace,” Diephobus
said. “She carries an heir, and she is the rightful queen of Sparta. She can be
of much use to us yet.”

           
Polites and Antimachus shook their heads, muttering dark thoughts. Helenus felt
a sense of unease at his brother’s words, for Diephobus had not spoken to him
at length of what these specific uses for Helen might be.

           
“You cannot seek to control us and speak as if you were head of our council!”
Laocoon protested.

           
“With the deaths of my beloved brothers, Hector and Paris, I am the next of the
king’s children in the line of succession,” Diephobus reminded them, glaring at
Laocoon.

           
“Yet Astyanax is the royal Heir Apparent,” Polites pointed out. “You are not.”

           
“Astyanax is but a boy,” Diephobus said.

           
“His mother will not agree with such a sentiment,” Polites argued. “Nor will
the king.”

           
“The king is not here,” Diephobus said. “Let us take another vote.”

           
Helenus reluctantly voted on the side of Diephobus, for though he distrusted
him, he did not wish to see Helen returned to King Menelaus. Antimachus,
Polites and Laocoon scowled, their hands firmly by their sides in objection.

           
Antenor, the eldest, put a shaking, withered hand into the air too, and a groan
went up, for once more it seemed the council was tied, unable to reach a
decision.

           
“We cannot reach a mutual decision,” Helenus said, before Diephobus could speak
and anger any more councillors. “Let us rest upon it, and discuss such matters
later.”

*
* *

           
It was with impatience that Andromache and the rest of Troy awaited the
decision as to what was to become of Helen, for it was not a widely known
secret that Helen was carrying an heir, a fact that Helenus had worked hard to
keep concealed. Andromache had listened to him as he spoke at length of how the
council could not reach any decision, for it was split between a desire for
peace, which meant sending Helen back to King Menelaus along with the child she
carried, or keeping her and the child safe in the Troy, which meant that the
war could never come to a peaceful end.

           
She felt for Helenus, for he looked strained as the council continued to
disagree on these matters, and she longed for King Priam’s return to health so
that he might regain rulership of the palace, the council and his city and
bring about an end to all of this indecision.

           
Andromache knew that nobody had seen Priam except for the queen, and so she
went to his chambers without hope to see him, though she wished to implore him
to return and control his grief so that he might prevent more war and more
suffering.

           
The guards did not let her pass and still Andromache waited in the corridor,
desperate that she should face the king and explain to him the dire situation
that was fast arising in the council and his city. The guards changed, and
still she had not seen the king.

           
Queen Hecuba did not look pleased at the sight of her and insisted that the
king did not wish to have visitors, and Andromache’s pleas for an audience fell
on deaf ears. When Queen Hecuba left again, Andromache was forced to return to
her own chambers.

           
The following day, Andromache once more tried and failed to meet with Priam. It
was on the third day that she finally got her chance to slip into his chambers
 when the guards were switching. She rushed to the doors and hurried
inside.

           
She found Priam sitting where she had left him at the window. His robes were
filthy and the smell of excrement and urine filled her nostrils at once, her
nose wrinkling in disgust. The king’s hair and beard were uncombed but he
seemed oblivious to his filthy state, his eyes looking out at the skies beyond
the window.

           
“King Priam, I beg of you, you must return to the council,” Andromache tried,
though she did not believe he would listen.

           
The king turned to look at her and she saw his eyes were glazed and he gave no
indication that he had listened to her words, or that he recognised who she
was. He began to laugh, softly at first, which rose, louder and more exuberant,
until he was crying, his laughter shaking his whole body, spittle dribbling from
his mouth.

           
Almost as soon as the laughter had started it stopped, turning to tears. The
sobs wracked his body and spittle pooled in his beard.

           
The door behind her opened and Queen Hecuba entered. She looked shocked to see
Andromache standing before the king.

           
“You should not be here,” Hecuba said, rushing forward.

           
“I wanted to tell the king –” Andromache trailed off, for there was no use in
telling King Priam anything, not when he was in such a state as this.

           
She made her excuses and fled the chambers, heart racing and fear swallowing
her, for she knew the extent of King Priam’s madness and there seemed no hope
that he would be fit to rule again. If the council could not reach a decision,
what would become of them all?

*
* *

           
“It is for the good of the city,” Diephobus assured the man, “As well as for my
own.”

           
Antenor, the eldest of the councillors, considered him. He had lived to be a
great age and he had served on the council for seventy years, and it was not
through blind obedience or bravery that he had survived so long nor gotten to
be so wealthy. He had learnt quickly that scheming was a crucial part of life
on the council and he had taken to it well.

           
It seemed Diephobus knew this, and also knew of Antenor’s easy acceptance of
bribes, for this was what he was now offered.

           
“I am a wise man,” Antenor said of Diephobus, as he took the proffered gold and
buried it in the folds of his robes. It was the second payment he had received
from the prince, for the first had been to ensure that he voted to keep Helen
in the city. “I do not believe that you seek to keep Helen in this city for the
sake of her welfare nor the child’s.”