Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  We left the small chamber and wandered out beneath the brightly painted inner portico whose zigzag reds, yellows, and blues made me blink. We passed through a small passageway and then out into an immense oblong courtyard with shady porches protecting each doorway.

  “Here is where all the sons and daughters of Priam live,” said Paris, sweeping his hand over the vista.

  It was as big as a city. I said so.

  “Indeed,” he admitted. “And we have all the trappings of a city—a ruler, power struggles, scandals, and bribes.”

  “And who is the ruler of this city, if it be not Priam?”

  “Hector, of course,” Paris said. “The most illustrious of the princes. It does not hurt that he is also the eldest. That eliminates quarrels about rank and worthiness. It is always convenient when those qualities keep company.”

  I thought of Agamemnon and his rank and worthiness. I hoped that Hector was more likable.

  “My quarters are halfway down the portico.”

  Rather than beneath the dim covered portico, we walked in the open courtyard, where potted plants made the semblance of a sacred grove. Their leaves rustled in the stiff breeze, making a dry sound.

  “Troy trades with many lands,” said Paris. “These plants were all bartered for other goods. Some of them are valuable, like these myrrh bushes. Others have flowers with unusual colors. Hector’s wife, Andromache, wanted a garden with flowers of every color. She has come close. Her collection is here.” He led me over to a dense grouping of pots. “She said she now has all the colors except black, and flowers do not come in black. But there is a legend that a black flower blooms on the banks of the River Styx. Is it true? Have you ever been to the Styx?”

  “No,” I said. There were so many places I had never been, even ones near my old home. “But I know that Persephone’s sacred groves have black poplars. I think she would claim a black flower as her own.” I looked over the flowers, seeing violet, red, pink, yellow, white, waving bravely in the wind. Happy colors. “Andromache would not want black,” I said. Just then a gust of wind blew dust in my face. How could it be so windy in this enclosed space? “Where does this wind come from?” I sputtered.

  Paris laughed. “Windy Troy. Have you not heard of our famous wind?”

  “Yes, but this seems a magical wind, to leap over a thick barrier like the apartments.” I clutched at my cloak.

  “It blows steadily from the north most of the year,” said Paris. “It makes a native Trojan easy to identify. He is the one who walks with a slant at all times. I must confess, I have not got used to it yet, so I still walk straight.”

  Attacked by the wind again, we ran for the portico, laughing as our clothes billowed out around us.

  Each doorway was painted a vibrant red and had fastenings of bronze, ceremonial bolts that artists had adorned with depictions of stags, boars, and lions.

  “Here are Hector’s former apartments, before he built his own palace,” said Paris, flicking his hand. Its glossy red door reflected my face; its gleaming bronze mirrored our movements. We passed it and then Paris said, “And here is the house of Helenus,” he said. “My brother the augur, the twin of Cassandra who also prophesies, but more understandably.”

  “Is he the one who interpreted the dream of Hecuba?” The dream that made her cast Paris away!

  “No. That was Aesacus. I could not endure being polite to Helenus had it been he. As it is, I do not have to see Aesacus very often.” He stopped in front of a door that looked identical to all the other doors.

  “Here!” He lifted the bronze bolt and opened the shining door. I stepped in, acutely aware of entering Paris’s home. I lifted my feet and crossed the threshold entirely of my own volition. There was no abduction, no rape, no force.

  The room seemed enormous—larger than Father’s throne room. Was everything in Troy, then, bigger and more spectacular than anyplace else on earth? The small apartments grander than a king’s megaron? “Oh!” I said, surveying it.

  The shaded windows at either end admitted dim filtered sunlight, robbed of its intensity. Stretching down the length of the chamber was another of those weavings, laid on the floor to be trampled on, or stepped upon, carelessly. Such was the wealth of Troy. What others hoarded and treasured was here trod underfoot.

  Paris raced through this large room and beckoned me on to the smaller ones. “This is where I truly live,” he said. He flung open a door; a chamber with high windows near the ceiling revealed itself to me.

  So this was where Paris felt most at home. The walls were washed with an earth color, and the floor was smooth stone, stained a deep red. Around the walls were stools with leather seats, and bows and arrows were strewn about the low shelf running along one wall. Off in an alcove was a bed, spread with a red and yellow weaving.

  Oh, this was a happy place. I felt it instantly. “Paris—we need not leave these rooms. We can make our home here.”

  He caught me up in his arms. “Never. For the fairest woman in the world, she needs the fairest quarters in the world.”

  “These rooms where you live are fair enough for me.” I meant it. They had his spirit, which drew me.

  “No, no,” he murmured. “I must build you something worthy of you. I cannot bring you here to live in my bachelor apartments.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Are you not trying to please me? Should I not be allowed to select the place where I shall live?”

  “No.” He smoothed the wind-mussed hair from my forehead. “No, for you have not seen the new rooms yet and cannot compare.”

  “Nor have you,” I said.

  “Ah, but I see them in my mind,” he said, “which you cannot do.”

  “Paris, you want to make me happy,” I said. “But I am happy just having found you.”

  “We are happy with one another just so,” he said. “But the others, they do not share our joy. And so we need a citadel, a fortress where we can barricade ourselves against their hostility. I am afraid, my love, that that is why we must have new apartments. To protect our love.”

  He spoke true. We were alone against the world, and its constant buffetings would wear us away, and these flimsy apartments, for all their glorious decorations, would not shield us. They were too near others.

  “Very well,” I said.

  “But in the meantime . . .” He led me to the tapestry-covered bed and drew me onto it. “It has been a long time since we held one another,” he said. “And we must not forget what that feels like.”

  Ah, Paris. To be loved by Paris was . . . to be loved for myself. If the gods could love, they would love you only for what you are. But the gods do not love. And so we seek for that one person who can love us as we all long to be loved.

  An announcement from Hecuba: we were to wait in the privacy of the family courtyard after sundown, and meet with all the family at once. In the meantime we were not to go out, and the passageway into the courtyard was to be shut tight. This was not the joyful homecoming Paris had hoped for.

  The summit of Troy was the last place where the sun lingered, but soon enough the rays ebbed, and the ruddy afterglow faded from our window. When the first of the stars became visible, I knew we must leave the apartment and go out into the courtyard, obeying Hecuba. I shivered, and not from the night air, although I did cloak myself against it.

  They were all already there: a vast throng of them. It was like the time the suitors had all descended on Father, except that these people had not come to seek my hand, but to inspect Paris’s folly. I braced myself for their hostility.

  “Paris!” A friendly tone. The braziers illuminated the face of Troilus. He gripped Paris’s arm. “You said you would tell us everything. Is that why Mother has summoned us?”

  “One reason,” said Paris. “One never knows with Mother.”

  “Well, well.” A man with a handsome face and a sour expression came up behind Troilus. “So our wayward brother has returned. Why must the queen call a council about it?” He barely
glanced at me.

  “My brother Deiphobus,” said Paris.

  Now the surly man looked at me as if he were granting me a favor. “And you are?” he asked.

  “The wife of Paris,” I said.

  Deiphobus laughed. “So he’s finally got himself married! Found something better than that water nymph, eh? Where do you come from?” He waited, and when I said nothing, he said, “Didn’t he tell you about the water nymph? It’s very sad, she’s pining away, but she really didn’t belong in the palace. Now you, yes, you’ll adapt well . . .”

  I turned my back on the condescending man. I would have liked to see the expression on his face at that. From his manner, I would guess it did not happen often.

  I found myself facing a pretty girl with large, fine dark eyes. Her hood hid her hair, but I could see traces of shiny dark curls around her cheeks. “Welcome home, Paris,” she said, and her voice was as soft and pleasing as her eyes.

  “Laodice,” he said. “It is always good to see you. This is my sister, still unmarried.”

  “Not for want of Mother and Father’s trying,” she said. “Did you hear, they were speaking with someone from Thrace about it—can you imagine, Thrace! Those people with ugly topknots on their heads. Perhaps they all think they are kings, and want to wear turrets on their heads for crowns.”

  The poor girl, in the midst of marriage negotiations. How dreadful it always was.

  More and more people gathered in the courtyard, and I could feel the massed might in such a large family. Priam presided over a clan, whereas poor Father had only his four children, and two of them women.

  “How many brothers do you have?” I asked Paris.

  “Nine full ones,” he said. “And they say, thirty half-brothers. I am not sure of that. Father claims he has fifty sons but I think he just likes the sound of ‘fifty sons.’ He may not actually have them. He has some by his first wife and many others by various women about the court.”

  “And your mother does not find this difficult?”

  “No. Why should she? It is custom.”

  That was another way the Trojans were unlike us, then. Our rulers might have bastards but they were not paraded out in pride, or accepted by the true wife. Priam must have been quite a desirable man in his prime. Even now he was impressive in his forceful strength.

  There was a rustling and people parted to make way for Priam and Hecuba. Two torchbearers preceded them, and the flaming tips bobbed along, showing us where they walked. When they reached the middle of the courtyard they stopped, and a space opened up around them.

  They had added cloaks to their attire, in deference to the night’s chill. Hecuba had covered her head and thrust her hands inside her cloak, yet she still shivered.

  “My dear children,” said Priam, holding up his hands. “All of you are dear to me.” As his deep voice rang out, the gathering fell silent. “I take pride in you all, and would not lose a single hair from the head of any of my offspring. Yea, rather than that, I would sacrifice my life.”

  Feet began to shuffle. What was the king leading up to?

  “Were any of you in danger, I would set out to rescue and ransom you, though you be held in the farthest regions, to the west to the Hesperides, or the north from whence the fine amber comes and the daylight never ends.”

  More foot-shuffling. Had someone been captured?

  “My dear son Paris, one of my eldest, yet my newest-known, has returned to Troy after a perilous journey. He went amongst the Greeks, those treacherous people!” He looked around, his head held high, his eyes searching the crowd. “Do not argue the point!” he cried. “They took away my sister and have yet to release her. Dishonor! Who can trust a Greek?”

  Hecuba reached out to touch his sleeve, as if to moderate him, but he had decided on his approach and was not to be deflected.

  “In his journey, Paris happened upon the court of King Menelaus of Sparta. You have heard of him, have you not? The brother of Agamemnon.” He pushed off his head covering and cupped his ear. “Oh, let me not hear that you are ignorant of that dreadful house, with its unspeakable curse? Cursed thrice, in three generations! They have such things upon them as cannabalism, incest, murder of children by parents, oh! let us not even name the abominations! And into this . . . nest . . . strode Paris, innocent of what he was entering into. And there he rescued the wife of Menelaus, who longed to be delivered from the curse of that family, a family she had been forced to marry into!”

  Oh, he had imagination and nerve. What a clever approach! I could almost congratulate him, except that it was all lies.

  “This poor princess has sought our protection against the foul family she flees. What pure soul would not wish to be delivered from its vileness? She has thrown herself upon our mercy. We must protect her, in the name of decency and all the gods, who abhor murder and corruption.”

  He left his place and walked toward me. He held out his hands and took mine, drawing me into the empty space in the midst of the courtyard. “This is Helen, Helen of Sparta. She wishes to repudiate her former marriage and become the wife of Paris. Will we accept her as one of us?”

  His strong arm encircled me.

  “Hold your head up so they can look at you,” he ordered me, his voice rough and nothing like the smooth, placating one he had used at full volume.

  I obeyed, and looked out at the gathering. Beyond the scraping of feet and a few coughs, they were silent.

  Priam jabbed me in the ribs in a manner that no one could see. “Speak!” he hissed in my ear. “Only you can win them now.”

  I was in sore need of the help of the gods. But there was no time to send up a prayer. The crowd was looking expectantly at me.

  “Sons and daughters of Priam,” I began, weakly, to gain a moment. “I have long dreamed of standing on the heights of Troy, to have my cloak blown free by the famous winds of your city. In faraway Sparta we heard of your glories and as a child I hoped to behold them myself someday.”

  Where had that come from? I had thought little of Troy, and certainly never as a child. I plunged ahead.

  “Now I have come, not in the way I would have imagined, but the gods lead us on surprising paths. I, who was a queen, am a stranger in a foreign city. I come to lay aside the life I lived elsewhere. By my side is my companion in the new life, Paris, who also lived another life before coming to you. We have been born anew; we are no longer who we were earlier, but stand on the rim of a new world. Pray grant us entry.”

  I knew these thoughts came from a god, for they were not mine. But they described our plight well. We stood before the gates of Troy, knocking. We could enter only hand in hand, for our new selves had been created by one another, springing from our own desires and destiny.

  The silence slid into sighs and murmurs of approval. Priam cried, “Do you grant her entrance?”

  The family cried out, “Yes! Yes!”

  “What new name do you take for yourself, daughter?” asked Priam. “Paris took the name Alexandros—although we still may call him Paris.”

  A new name . . . had I ever longed for a new name?

  “Swan,” I finally said.

  “As befits your lovely long white neck.” Hecuba was suddenly beside Priam. Her voice sounded more like the caw of a raven. Did she know about the swan story? Was she being deliberately provocative? “For that, we may call you Cycna, my dear.”

  “She and Paris have declared themselves to be a new couple entering upon a new world. Once Troy itself was new, and into it came the Pallas Athena, our protective statue, which rained down upon us from heaven. Let them pledge themselves to their new life before her, the patron of all Troy!” Priam cried. “Follow us out to her temple.” He whispered an aside to some of the servants, then turned back to the crowd. “Afterward we will celebrate.”

  Paris took my hand. “They accept us,” he whispered. “They have allowed us in. That was brilliant, what you said. It won them over. However did you think of it? We had never talked about i
t.”

  “It came to me,” I said quietly. “It is true.”

  Beyond the courtyard, we were surrounded by the people of Troy and all private conversation was obliged to cease. The torchbearers took their places beside us, and we passed through the great gate of the palace, and approached the temple I had seen earlier.

  In the dim light it was hard for me to see, but the stones seemed to be white—limestone or marble. We entered into the darkness of the building, and now I wished there were more than two torchbearers. I could not see to the end—the dark recess seemed to stretch on forever, a great swallowing blackness.

  Ahead of us Priam and Hecuba walked slowly, but not hesitantly. They knew their way. I tried to follow them exactly.

  A hint of a sweet scent came to me from the void. It was a flower, a flower I had known, but what was it? The scent was light and teasing as a whisper. A white flower . . . that was all I could remember.

  Suddenly Priam and Hecuba stopped and bowed. The flickering torches showed a life-sized statue of a female with glaring eyes. Her right hand held a spear, and her left a distaff and spindle. This Athena was crudely made and had no grace about her—a strange thing, since the statue was made by the goddess herself.

  “Our great protector, the Pallas Athena, now looks down upon you, child.” Priam took my hand, led me close to the statue, and addressed the goddess. “Great one, she has come to Troy seeking a safe haven. Grant it to her. And confer your blessings on the union between my son and this new daughter of Troy.” Paris took his place beside me.

  Suddenly I saw the white flowers at the base of the statue; their perfume enveloped me. But the statue had no feet. She had no legs, either.

  “Before taking Paris as your husband, and Troy as your city, you must renounce your former ones,” said Priam. “Is there something from Sparta that you can offer up here to Athena?”

  I knew what I longed to be free of. All along the voyage I had thought of flinging it into the sea, but the waste of that had stayed my hand. Now I could separate myself from it. I did not know why I had brought it in the first place, except that in my leaving I had not thought clearly.