There is another shout from the armies, and it swells fit to drown me at my post. Priam and Hecuba wait, their hearts in their eyes, not daring to ask me what has happened. I cannot catch my breath—I cannot breathe—
Andromache
The battle rages towards Troy. For a moment I fear what will happen if the walls are breached, one of those absurd irrelevant thoughts that occurs when the mind needs to distract itself. I cannot think about the battle, though it occurs beneath my feet. I cannot think of my husband in his bronze armor while he fights desperately below me.
Achilles—for I know it to be him—is strong, brave, ruthless. He chases Hector into the ground and attacks him at his own gates. But Hector too is strong, and he fears nothing. The bronze armor flashes as the gold closes, two metals swirling into one dreadful, breathless blur—
There is a roaring in my ears, and I think at first that it is just me. But the Argive mouths are open, and the blur of bronze and gold armor is gone. I need to move. But it is such an effort, when I cannot feel my legs. I cannot feel anything at all.
When I reach the throne room, Helen looks to me in mute appeal. And so it falls to me to pronounce the words—Hector is dead.
Hecuba wails, Priam rends his robe, Helen weeps her cursed beautiful tears. I—
I am overwhelmed with sorrow but cannot weep. I am mortally wounded but cannot feel.
I cannot be strong any longer.
I fall.
Paris
It is mid-afternoon when I wake to the sound of shouting. I roll over, irritable that the damned Argives are disturbing yet another thing in my life. I plunge my head back under my pillow, hoping that the padding will muffle the sound of battle. It does little to block the noise, so I quit my bed in a foul mood and don a robe, seeking the quiet of an inner room.
As I round a corner, Helen runs straight into me. I push her aside, bent on achieving quiet solitude, and she crumples in a small white heap. My heart softens a little when I see that she is weeping. I help her from the floor with soft words of comfort. But she does not stop weeping. I cannot imagine that I have hurt her, but though I alternately wheedle and threaten her, she will not tell me what the trouble is. When I release her, she falls again to her knees. Exasperated, I stalk down the hall, away from her miserable form.
It is not until I am nearly gone that a single choked word stops me. I turn, thinking I have misheard. She cannot hear me above her sobs when I beg for repetition, cannot see me as I approach her. Blind in her sorrow, she gasps out the broken word—Hector…
I flee from her, not daring to look back lest I see her face and make it true. The marble corridors echo the slap of my feet as I fly. These quiet halls where so lately I sought refuge are unbearably close, a prison narrowing in on me and resounding my guilt. Did you make a harlot of Menelaus’ wife and condemn your people to war? Did you allow your brother to fight your battles for you while you enjoyed a woman who was not yours? Did you really sleep while your brother died?
I did, I did, I did, reply my steps.
Andromache
The world is a reeling abyss of black, laced with bronze sparks. In and out of vision glide a golden man, a golden goddess, a child born in golden morning. Evil, all. I thrust them away from me, but the blackness binds my eyes and I struggle to make clumsy contact.
My hands are white and red with blood, the crimson blood coating the golden man’s armor. Wherever did he come by so much blood? He touches my cheeks with his finger and they sting with the sear of murder.
Whose blood is it, Zeus? Oh tell me, golden Athena. Pallas Athena, whose blood?
She bathes my face with her bitter weeping. It ought to have been my blood, sweet sister. It ought to have been my sacrifice. She speaks to the child: Look upon your mother. She has torn her beautiful face in grief, and I am the cause. Oh, that it were my blood and not hers!
The child looks on me with accusing eyes. Why did you not cling to my father and keep him from going? Why did you stand on your pride and show him a tearless visage?
You are both fools and are paying for your sins.
Beware the punishment that is to come.
Paris
I can hear them even in this chamber, though it is in the depths of the palace and has no windows. I hear them, and I know they are coming. They will not stop coming this time.
I hope that my family has fled. Perhaps they have even had the grace to take Helen with them, I do not know. All noise I might have heard of my family is drowned by the battle.
If they have not fled, I cannot imagine the horror in store.
The walls reverberate Argive shouting. They have breached the walls now, they are coming. I cover my ears but I cannot block out the din.
Will they let Helen live? Who will they kill, who take into captivity and bondage? Whose head, living or severed, will be their trophy tonight?
The noise is maddening. I can no longer hide here. I will arm myself with my bow and seek the privacy of my bedchamber. Surely it is peaceful there.
I open the door of my hiding place and unleash the full voice of the Argive army. For a moment I am staggered by the sound. Then my heart shrinks in me and I am afraid.
Helen stands before me, fists raw from pounding at the door. I recoil from her as from a leper. Paris, help me! she cries, stretching out her hands in supplication. Even in her terror, she is beautiful.
I dodge her hands. If she does not touch me, perhaps I can avoid sharing the stain of her iniquity. Help me! She is hysterical in her fear.
No. That word bursts from me, defense against her panic. I forsake her for the refuge of a safer room, there to deny to any who ask that I am Paris and that I ever sought Helen the golden-haired as my wife.
The Argives
Based on Homer’s Iliad
Briseis
A finger of light illuminates the rank shadows of the tent, and I know that at last it is dawn. I rise from my pallet slowly, silently, careful lest I disturb the unwelcome sleeper still within. My hands are sure in the uncertain dusk as they pour wine into a shallow goblet. Not a drop spills as I raise it and steal out of the tent.
The sun’s brow crests the waves as I raise the tent flap. I breathe deeply of the fluid air, its eddies a welcome change from the stagnation of the tent. Dawn makes a new world every morning, heartbreaking in its perfection.
The sand is a velvet rasp on my feet as I walk to the water’s edge, the goblet still full, still holy. The waves gather in frothy frills around my ankles, licking in my abandoned footsteps. I close my eyes and surrender to the purity of wind, of worship, and wonder if there is a difference between the two.
The heft of the goblet feels natural in my outstretched arms, as the habits of childhood rejoice in their renewal. My mother taught me the ancient prayer to the morning, to Aurora, keeper of men’s hearts at the break of day. The wine, libation long overdue though the heart was faithful, spills sacred drops onto the sea’s thirsty tongue. With a rush of light, the sun lifts free and pours ponderous joy over skin and sea.
A harsh voice trespasses on the peace of the dawn, a rough hand across my fragile skin. I close my eyes to blot out the transgressed reverence as he seizes my hair and drags me over sand and stone. The goblet is gone, lost, the pitiful stolen sacrifice of a captive woman. I ride with it along the surf, far from the destruction of my body, soul cupping water. I am wine on waves.
Perhaps the gods will look kindly on my poor offering and show some small mercy.
Perhaps they can do nothing at all.
Agamemnon
My sleep is fitful, haunted by dreams and the ghosts of dreams. There is nowhere in the realm of Morpheus that I can go to escape the look in her eyes, my darling Iphigenia, as the knife fell—
I wake into a world of shifting grey circumscribed by a thin rim of gold. It must be dawn. Cursed dreams! I know that my sleep is broken and Hypnos has flown to a more peaceful subject. The grey forms around me, sodden with sleep, writhe in the inexorab
le dawn. I groan, careless of the woman still sleeping beside me. If I cannot sleep, then no one else can sleep.
I turn on my side with the intent of waking her and discharging my wrath. But the bed is empty of her body, and only a cool hollow remains where she lay. I revile her, rising, and don clothes before raising the tent flap. My eyes sting in the new light, as though Aurora too has determined to make this day wretchedly uncomfortable for me. With a bitter word, I begin my search for the Lyrnessian slave.
Her footsteps are all too plain in the fine sand, and with each one my anger mounts. She will know the fully fury of the wrath of Agamemnon!
She stands in the water, her long hair unbound and her arms upraised. For a moment I am moved by her rich communion. But a vision of another girl, hair braided as a bride, laid upon an altar, overtakes me, and I rush at Briseis with a cry of rage. No religion shall be practiced by me or anyone in my household! The gods are damning, taking more than they give with no care for the dearness of sacrifice.
I seize her by her hair and drag her back toward my tent, beating her for her disobedience. Her sobs are no deterrent; indeed, I can hardly hear them as I lay blow upon blow. By the time we gain the camp square, her cheeks are bruised and her lip is split and bloody. Curious faces appear at tent flaps, desiring to know who disturbs their morning rest.
She weeps, but I cannot stop for fear that I will never force religion out of her. I beat her until a gentle hand stays mine, and my brother’s voice whispers that she is not Iphigenia.
Achilles
Her broken sobs catch in my throat, and my breast heaves with righteous sorrow. I close my eyes against the unkind crack of light at the door and restore myself to the gloom of daybreak in the tent. But Apollo is relentless, and I move to snap the tent flap shut. Let me bear my burden in silence, unseen.
A sudden breeze catches the fabric from my hand, and unbidden I glimpse the glint of golden hair, the gleam of a bedewed blue eye. She knows I am here and in her pain fixes on the one place in this camp where she has been happy. I long to rush out into the square, take her in my arms, and bandage her wounds in the flimsy protection of my tent. But I cannot, for how can four cloth walls save her from the fury of Agamemnon? And who would defend her against his trickery while I am in battle?
I set my heart against her and close the tent, ignoring her final pleading look. I will not enter that wide square, despite Agamemnon’s temptation. I am the ruler of the Myrmidons, and I cannot save a woman. As I stoop again to my pallet, my cousin Patroclus offers a look of compassion. But he is wise to my ways and does not speak to me, having found it useless in past days to attempt to lighten my spirits through words. Words do not move me. It is actions that haunt my days.
I lie on my bed and vainly call upon sleep. Behind my eyelids hover flickering images of changeable light, victims of night caught by dawn and doomed to perish. Her stifled weeping stabs at every nerve, one after another after another. Patroclus quietly resumes his duties around the tent, for I have forbidden him from looking at the Argive camp.
I cannot help her now. But I will not help the Argives until she is returned to me.
Menelaus
My sleep is the sleep of the sick at heart. Every night it rests heavily on my chest, bearing me down until I feel the chill of the river Styx and realize that Hypnos and Thánatos are twins. This morning I am borne up from the somnolent depths by a sorrowful sound, as of a woman keening for a lost love. As I break through the thin shell of slumber, her voice changes. No longer mourning for another—she mourns for herself, tears dredged up not of pity but despair.
I rise from the tangle of sleep and part the tent flaps. A noble woman sprawls in the sand, her golden hair unbound and her dress torn. Over her stands a man with his fist raised. My heart contracts, and I open my mouth in involuntary alarm, for I cannot bear to see anything happen to this woman: Stay your hand! Then the man turns, and I see that it is my brother and a captive woman, not Helen at all. She raises her face from the dust, and I am embarrassed by her grave gaze. I did not do this for you at all.
She rises to her knees, her long hair falling across her face, and the sun strikes it just so
Her eyes glitter with mischief, though it is still early and her old husband is content to laze away the wee hours in bed. The moon, nearly full, bathes the white bedchamber in radiant light. She creeps over to my side and lays her beautiful head on my chest, a hand slipped under her cheek, so she can feel my heart beat. She is a goddess, disheveled and lovely by moonlight.
A month of marriage has dispelled her fear of stern Menelaus, and, as she shifts to better hear my heart, I am glad. I have never been so happy.
Helen stirs, though I long to hold that moment static forever. With a kiss she whispers her love, and the gleam in her eye returns as she coaxes me for a midnight swim. I can deny her nothing, bar no fancy, and I sweep her up into my arms and, laughing, carry her down towards the sea.
I blink, and the sea is warm and blue. My words hover on the air, just spoken, and I wish I could catch back my moment of weakness and let my brother beat Helen—the captive—just as he does in my nightmares.
Patroclus
He bows his head, and I, who am closer than a brother, can see the muscles in his neck tremble with the effort of holding back emotion, his knuckles grow white with clenching. And though no tear bedews his eye, his gaze beholds nothing of the tent where he sits.
He would reject a consoling word, and a touch would undo him. I offer only a look to this man who has borne so much. He receives my sympathy with leaden eyes and resumes his pallet. I wish I had something to stop up his ears so that he could not hear her weeping, or a sleeping draught to send him into oblivion. I can only hope that Hypnos will be kind to my cousin, my brother.
When his breathing is measured and low, I gather a few things into a bag and cinch its mouth closed. If Achilles awakens, I will give the pretext of disposing of garbage, an unavoidable trip out of the tent. The vials clank in the bag, and the herbs and bandages do little to muffle the sharp sound. But Achilles does not stir, and I believe that at last sleep has found him.
As I slip out of the tent into the morning, I am overcome by exhilaration. It has been many days since I have reveled in the morning light, still more since Achilles has breathed its air. But the weight of my sack recalls the sad errand I have, and the guilt that accompanies it.
My shoulders are young but broad enough to bear the guilt I have brought upon myself. How could I have acted aught, though, when I saw her weeping? Such a beautiful woman, sobbing as though her heart had broken. I knelt to comfort her, the Lyrnessian princess, stroked her hair and whispered those words of comfort that never wax faithless. She clung to me as though I was her last hope. But I could not help her. So I promised her the best and brightest star on my horizon, my cousin Achilles, to shield and protect against the bitter judgments of war.
Such a husband would buy her security, I thought, as I pledged to host the wedding feast. Only my most wistful hopes dreamt of the love that would arise between her and my cousin. Doubly bitter was the blow, then, when Agamemnon seized her as his prize after Apollo claimed Chryseis.
It is my fault that Achilles will not fight. It is therefore my fault that the tide of war is against us. It will be my fault if we are utterly destroyed.
Oh gods, show me what I must do to save Achilles.
Briseis
He leaves me in the square, meaning to shame me as flies come to feast on my blood, dogs on my sweat. I draw the remnants of my gown around me, for his abuse has left me exposed and vulnerable. A trickle of spit trails down my cheek, mingling with blood. To whom shall I turn now?
A soft word turns me from my weeping, and I find myself gazing upon Patroclus, cousin to Achilles. He crosses to my side, hushing my tears with murmured comfort, as a mother her babe. From a sack he produces flasks of ointment, soothing herbs, and bandages. In the broad light of day, and defying Achilles and Agamemnon, he tends to my
wounds, soothing me when the pain of healing is too great to bear silently and holding me when the despair grows overwhelming.
He has nearly finished when Agamemnon storms out of the tent. I cringe, for who can face without fear the man who has lately oppressed her? His lip is curled, baring his teeth in a snarl. Patroclus rises from the dust in time to intercept the torrent of vituperation showered freely over us. When Agamemnon turns to blows, Patroclus accepts them too, shielding me from a second beating. I cannot help but weep for the quiet courage of this man. Who else would defend a woman such as me?
Now it is I who, with stiff fingers, tend to his bruises. There is nothing to recommend me to him, not even the promise of pleasure, that he should bear the cost of befriending me. He himself pledged me to his cousin Achilles, asking nothing for himself in return. I wish there was a way to repay him, but one cannot easily compensate for a life saved.
At length, he stands, dusty limbs streaked with old blood. Without a backwards glance he walks towards Achilles’ tent, there to concoct some lie for his cousin about how he has not encountered the Argives at all.
Agamemnon
In the sand beyond my tent I hear a soft, purposeful scuffle. My ears are keen in the close silence of the tent, fabric walls muffling thought and breath. Sand grates on sand, grains sprayed by a clumsy foot and the crunch of kneeling. A stopper leaves a bottle, old fabric tears. Softly, oh! softly! The air is so still that I hear the hand scythe blood, tears, and dust from her cheek. His voice is low, comforting. As she whispers her pain, it thrills with sympathy and disbelief at the daring of his own actions. And well he should fear, for he creeps outside the tent of Agamemnon, commander of the Argives! With a word I can silence him, him and all his men, forever.
Troy Page 7
