Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  Then the silvery notes died away.

  The listeners roared their approval of his song.

  As he made his way out, we stopped him. “You were right,” I said. “About both yourself and the other singer.”

  Just beyond the tent a man was holding forth to a crowd of interested onlookers. He held up a wooden box with a handle on it.

  “It works! It works!” he proclaimed. “No more mice!”

  “A house snake is better,” someone said.

  “Oh, it’s true.” His face broke into a smile. “Nothing beats a snake for ridding you of mice. But can you keep a snake? He’s here one day, vanished the next. When you most need him, he’s slithered away.” He patted his box. “Now, this is always waiting. You bait it like this”—he lifted the door and put a morsel on it—“and the trap works like this.” He touched it with a twig and the door slammed shut. “Take two!” He held another aloft.

  But no one bought his wares, and the man trudged to another group.

  “Tell me, friend, have you been at this long?” Menelaus asked, falling in beside him.

  “Only a year or so,” he said. “Before that, I was—I had a most unpleasant job.”

  “Can you tell me what that was?”

  “I was the one who took the babies to the Taygetus Mountains.”

  The Spartan babies deemed not worthy to live—whether because of weakness or disease or merely a bad prophecy—the ones who were put out to die of exposure on the slopes of the mountains. No wonder he had changed to making mouse-catchers.

  “Did you ever . . . try to save them?” I asked.

  “Twice or thrice,” he said. “If the baby was doomed only because of a prophecy, and if there were shepherds or hunters about who could take it home and care for it. But that happened seldom.”

  “What about those stories of bears and wolves suckling the babies?” I asked. Everyone had heard them.

  He shook his head. “A she-wolf would eat them. A she-bear would probably kill them with a swat. That’s all they are—stories.”

  “Who does that duty now?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Someone. They always find someone.”

  Shuddering, we turned aside. We did not have far to seek for another pull at our attention as we reached the edge of the athletic field.

  A panting group of young men had just crossed the finish line of a race and now they reeled on the grass, tumbling and gasping. The sun hit their glistening bodies, the sweat marking out every muscle, shining it like buffed stone. Against the green of the new grass, their youth seemed eternal, fixed, guaranteed forever.

  Mocking that was an older man leaning on a staff nearby, watching them. He was massaging his knee, then swinging it to and fro to loosen the stiff joint.

  “Oh,” he muttered. “Oh, that hurts!” He smacked the knee. “Damn ointment-sellers, charlatans!” He bent over and sniffed the knee. “It stinks, but it doesn’t work!” He picked up a little clay pot at his feet and thrust it at us. “Take a whiff!” he commanded.

  Menelaus sniffed at it and winced. “Friend, you are right. What a stench! Reeks like rotten goat guts.”

  “It probably is,” the man grumbled. “They sold it as ground pearls and oil of narcissus, and so it smelled the first day, but now . . .” With a hiss, the man threw it over his shoulder. It flew far, surprisingly far.

  He glanced back at the young athletes. “As they are now, so once was I,” he said knowingly. “Don’t believe me? My javelin arm is still strong, and once I could have raced any one of these lads into the ground. Twenty years ago, back when Agamemnon was first born.” He paused, thought a moment. “Well, more like thirty years ago,” he admitted.

  “That is better,” said Menelaus. “For my brother Agamemnon is nearer thirty than twenty. Even I am nearer thirty than twenty.”

  “Menelaus! Forgive me, I should have recognized you.” The man bowed from the waist.

  “Tell me, friend,” said Menelaus, “you say you were a famous athlete thirty years ago. Where did you run? Against whom?”

  “I ran for Sparta in many races, as far away as Argos and Nauplia,” he said. “I even beat Callippus of Athens in the double stadia twice. My fans carried me through the city on their shoulders.” His voice first swelled with pride and then grew soft at the cherished memory of a vanished time and a vanished strength. “I boxed, too,” he said. “Won a few bouts. Paid for it, too.” He indicated his scarred ears, peeking out from under his graying hair. “I was a better runner,” he admitted.

  “Tell us your name,” I said.

  “Eudelus,” he said.

  “Eudelus, Sparta should be proud of its son,” Menelaus said.

  “It was—once,” he said. He looked over at the athletes on the field, up on their feet now, drinking refreshing water and carrying the winner about on their shoulders. A crown of meadow flowers hung askew on his head.

  “Save that crown,” he said. “My lad, save that crown.”

  We mingled with the crowds and as darkness fell, the crowds began to thin, leaving a smaller group to gather around the fires and eat more, then linger to hear the bards, who never seemed to tire. But the artisans, the mouse-catcher-sellers, the fortune-tellers, and the athletes disappeared, and just as the moon rose, the royal party returned to the palace, the new contingent of soldiers accompanying us. The walk back up the hill was a pleasant one in the early evening, lit by torches and caressed by the wind whispering as it passed over us.

  Father and Mother paused before we went our ways to our separate quarters.

  “Behold your kingdom!” Father said. “Today you took stock of it and it took stock of you. Did you like what you saw?”

  “Indeed,” said Menelaus. But his response sounded oddly distant.

  “I liked being able to see it, at long last,” I said.

  “Little Cygnet, now you may glide on the waters all you like,” said Mother.

  Back in our chambers, lamps had already been lit, and sweet-scented herbs had been crushed in a dish to make the air fragrant. I was happy and excited; surely now that excitement would carry me through, lift me aloft on a tide of desire, as the athlete had been carried on the shoulders of his fellows. The events of the day would propel me into Menelaus’s arms and straight into the sun of his desire. My coldness would melt in that sun.

  But it did not happen; the moon, that cold goddess, looked down on our silver bed through the window and her chill air banished love.

  XVI

  And now my life was beginning—or was it over? I had so longed to be free, and that happy day down by the Eurotas I thought that time had come, but Menelaus, in opening the door to one cage, had merely ushered me into another. I could not help but think of the mouse-catcher and his traps. Menelaus, who had appeared at first so strong and uncomplicated, now seemed taciturn and mysterious to me, keeping his thoughts locked up inside himself. He spoke, but he did not speak of anything vital; he was pleasant, but in a remote way. I had thought he would be my friend; instead I had a protective and stolid companion. A friend can be a companion, but a companion is not necessarily a friend, as I was discovering.

  Artemis, the cold virgin goddess who guides the moon, had looked down upon us in our chamber after that lovely day in the meadows and must have taken pity on us. She somehow must have persuaded the gracious Demeter, who presides over fertility and loves the house of Tyndareus, to grant us her blessings in spite of the absence of Aphrodite in our bed. She was able to do so because passion is not needed for fecundity, nor does fertility invoke desire—although the two usually keep company.

  Three months after the marriage, I was with child.

  No one thought I was too young. I would be sixteen when the baby was born, as Mother had been when she bore Clytemnestra, nearly as old as Clytemnestra was when she bore Iphigenia. Even I did not think I was too young. It seemed entirely natural to me that I could suddenly become a mother. It did not require wisdom, it only required love and strength.
Or so I—and everyone else—believed.

  Now the door of my cage slammed shut in earnest. Menelaus treated me as a fragile bird whose nest could blow away in a day’s breeze. He forbade me to wander the slopes of the Taygetus Mountains alone, warned me not to run fast, and as for playing and wrestling with Castor and Polydeuces, who still involved me when their wine was not watered enough, he was adamant that that must cease immediately. I was to be protected and quiet. Those were his orders. Only the smile and gentle tone in his voice when he spoke of it betrayed how pleased he was.

  * * *

  Mother was fluttering and flustered, as if the idea of a new grandchild were both thrilling and unsettling. It meant she was older; it also meant that her lineage would go on. At times she was solemn, warning me about all the dangers of birth and infancy. At others she was giggly and giddy. “Zeus,” she burst out one day, “is to become a grandfather!” She clapped her hands to her mouth and laughed. I did, too.

  “Mother . . .” I chose my words carefully. “I know I am mortal. And so must my child be. But do you think . . . do you believe . . . that Zeus might bestow a special blessing? The truth is, I know nothing of how the gods treat their grandchildren.”

  “I fear they lose interest in them,” she said sadly. “Just as they do with mortals they have . . . been temporarily taken with. But the glory of the gods remains in the lineage. That, little Cygnet, cannot be taken away. It is ours forever. Our reward, if you will, for risking ourselves.” Then, briskly, “Let us think about names . . . and you need a midwife, the finest that Sparta can offer . . . they know many things, things I do not. There’s a woman—she has magic hands, she’s never lost a child, nor a mother . . . I’ll send for her.”

  Nor a mother. Stark words, a stark reminder that I was not like a tree, a peaceful tree that never yet died of bringing forth a pear or an apple.

  “Call me Piele, ‘plump,’ ” the bulb-nosed woman pronounced. “Everyone else does.” She put her hands on her hips and inspected me. “I saw you once already,’ ” she said as a disclaimer. “I watched that maidens’ race. So don’t think to blind me with your beauty. I’m not concerned with your face, but with your inner organs. And I’ll warrant they are the same as anyone else’s. In any case, we can’t see them.” She paused to take a breath. “The question is: are they working properly? That’s all we need be concerned with. Lie down here on this bench and let me inspect!”

  Dutifully I stretched myself out and let her knead with her fingers and put her ear against my belly. Her hands were gentle, even if her manner was not.

  “All seems to be in order,” she said, grunting as she lurched back up to her feet. “You say you expect the babe in the depths of winter?”

  “No, more toward the end of it.”

  “Good. I could not struggle up the hill were it covered in ice.” She sighed and settled herself down on the bench next to me. “Now, my child, you must be sure to eat only the foods that ensure water, not the ones that are fiery and might incite early labor. That means no leeks, no vinegar. Sorry, it means a very dull plate.” She shrugged. “But what you want is a dull labor. A very dull labor. Well.” She stood up. “Send for me whenever you have any questions.” Leaning near my face, she whispered as if it were a secret, “Most people know nothing about birth or babies. Do not listen to their foolishness! Always ask me!”

  Piele was a godsend, and patience itself when it came to answering my many questions about childbirth. But on the most important question of all—why my silhouette had not changed—she could only answer, “It varies, my dear, it varies.”

  But I wondered if it was the goddess part of me that was keeping me slender for so long. And I wondered, too, if it was possible for a woman with any goddess in her to die in childbirth. Did it protect against that? And I could not ask her that, as she would have no experience with it.

  Menelaus acted more like an old woman than my mother did, fussing and fidgeting and warning me against dangers. He draped his arm protectively about me whenever we were together. Once he even tried to make me wear the dreadful heavy gold marriage chain as if for protection, but I made him leave it in its box. I could not bear its weight.

  Next he began to collect arms and armor for what he assumed would be a son. “He’ll be a warrior,” he said, holding up a newly worked bronze shield and sword, presenting them proudly.

  I ran my hands over the finely inlaid surface of the sword hilt—depicting warriors chasing a lion, in gold and silver. It gleamed in the early morning light. All swords gleam beautifully when you first see them, before they are used for their deadly business.

  “And what shall we name . . . him?” I asked.

  “I have the name already!” he said proudly. “Nicostratus! It means ‘victorious army.’ ”

  “I know what it means,” I said. “But must he bear the weight of such a name?”

  Menelaus looked downcast. “I can think of no higher honor.”

  “What if it is a daughter?”

  He shrugged. “Then she should be named after something pretty—a flower, a nymph.”

  “I was thinking of Hermione.”

  “‘Pillar-queen’ ? Why?” He laughed.

  “Because I want her to be strong. The sort of woman others look to for support. A great ruler.”

  “Who says she would rule at all? No woman rules alone.” He seemed petulant as he packed the sword and shield away.

  * * *

  Menelaus withdrew after that, and seldom called for me to join him in his bedchamber. He said it was out of care for the child, that he wanted me to be alone so it would not be harmed, but I wondered what he was doing when he was by himself all those nights. He seemed morose; at times I would find him wandering in the halls of the palace, looking pensive. He always gave a wistful smile as he brushed by me.

  After a time I grew more awkward and bulky and felt more and more constrained, but my puzzlement about Menelaus grew as well. He was not happy, so it seemed, but I did not know why. He had wanted to marry me, had performed that spectacular feat to win me, and now was about to have an heir. He would inherit the throne of Sparta. Yet he walked in gloom. It could not be the lack of passion in our marriage, surely. A man would not notice its lack as much as a woman.

  No, I concluded. It had to be something else.

  Perhaps he had found life with us the same as life with Agamemnon, always following behind. Father was king here, and what was Menelaus to do? Had he no purpose other than to order new armor and wait for Father to die? That would break a proud man like Menelaus, faster since he was also a kind man and would never consider speeding along his inheritance.

  But if I spoke to Father, asked him if he might be willing to share the throne, even as a formality . . . perhaps he might consider it. And that could go a long way toward freeing Menelaus from the grip of his dolor.

  I sought him out one afternoon as he was just dismissing foreign merchants from Gytheum. Leaving the palace, they chattered and clutched the gifts Father had presented to them as they descended the hill, their bright robes making them easy to see even from a distance.

  “Syrians,” Father said. “They are always so loud—both their voices and their garments. No wonder they wanted to make arrangements to procure some of the purple dye from our shores. But I am not sure I wish to deal with them. I can get a higher price from the Egyptians.”

  “Oh, Father, always looking for the highest price!” He would never change; one thing I admired about Menelaus was that he seemed unconcerned with such things.

  He smiled and held out his hands to welcome me. “Would you prefer that I look for the lowest one?” He laughed. “That is no way for a king to think.”

  “It’s being a king that I have come to talk to you about,” I said. He had made it easy for me.

  “How so? You can never be one, dear, so you needn’t concern yourself with the duties of kingship.” He drew himself up. “And I myself am healthy, so you have no worries there.” He did l
ook strong and vital, younger than his years.

  “I am grateful to see that with my own eyes. No, Father, it’s Menelaus I wish to discuss. He’s young and healthy, too, and yet is forced to be idle. It is eating at his spirits, I fear.”

  Father gave a snort. “He needs a war! What else is a young man to occupy himself with? A warrior needs a war. This peace is what’s distressing him. That’s only natural.”

  “Peace is a blessing.”

  “To women and farmers, but not to men,” said Father. “Men need action. Without it they wither away. Now, me, I’ve had my wars and my fights, and now can rest content in the megaron and listen to bards. But Menelaus—find him a war.”

  “I can’t create a war.”

  “I’ll listen and see if I hear of any battles nearby he can indulge himself in. All the Greeks do is fight—there’s sure to be one going on this very moment.”

  “Let him share some of the duties of being a king with you,” I said. “That would be better than a war.”

  “I am not sure a man is fit to be king if he hasn’t fought in a war.”

  “Menelaus has fought, in battles around Mycenae,” I reminded him. “Oh, could you not make him a co-ruler?”

  He looked at me gravely. “You must truly care for this man,” he said.

  “He is my husband,” I said. “I want to help him.”

  “I will consider it, but I make no promises,” he said. “And I warn you, the consideration may require a very long time.”

  My slenderness was gradually replaced by fullness, but it was a rounded and graceful fullness. As the year revolved, as each crop and beast followed its appointed time—the ewes dropped their kids, the olive trees bore their fruit—I felt cupped in the hand of our Demeter, watched over by that benevolent goddess of the crops. When she began to grieve because her daughter had departed from the warm earth, I prepared myself for her absence. But by that time I had learned what I needed from the midwife, had gathered all the things necessary for the care of the baby, and surrounded myself with all the people who loved me. I need not fear the goddess’s abandonment.