Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  In the privacy of our apartments, Paris looked around wistfully and said, “I thought his hearth stools most attractive. We will have so many hearths in our new home.”

  The Trojans seemed to favor much richer surroundings than we had in Sparta. Even Paris, for all his simple upbringing in a herdsman’s hut, wanted them. Perhaps it was something in the blood. “Your father was most . . . generous.” I wanted to say extravagant but did not wish to criticize.

  “He sees himself as father of Troy, and wants his children to be happy.”

  How indulgent. The thought of Father and his stinginess flashed through my mind. Father . . . what had he done when he awoke that morning and I was gone? Had he . . . was there any possibility he had summoned the suitors, tried to rally them? And Mother . . . and Hermione . . . I ached to hold them both, and they were so far away, unreachable. I had rejected Idomeneus because I did not want to be separated from my family by a sea, and now I was.

  “You look sad,” said Paris, coming over to me.

  “I was thinking of my family, and especially my daughter.”

  “We knew it would be difficult,” he said.

  “I did not know how difficult, and how painful,” I admitted. It is impossible to experience loss in advance. “Paris, would you like a child?”

  “Yes, of course. Our child. But it could never be Hermione. Each child is different, as all of Father’s are. I am not Deiphobus, nor Deiphobus, Hector.”

  “I know that!” His answer, meant to be soothing, increased my pain. “But it could bring us joy.” Joy that would exist side by side with loss.

  “Then let us hope the gods send us a son or daughter,” he said.

  Forgive me, Hermione, I begged her in my mind. I do not seek to replace you, for I know that is impossible. I seek only to find a way to remain a mother.

  The next morning I received a summons, disguised as an invitation, to join Hecuba and her daughters in the women’s quarters of the palace. I was apprehensive at the same time as I was flattered, pleased to be included. The queen had never called upon me nor invited me to call upon her since I had arrived in Troy. I said as much to Paris.

  “Be careful what you promise her,” he said. “She may want something.”

  My suspicions were confirmed, then, although that took the pleasure from the invitation. “I shall be on my guard,” I assured him.

  Hecuba was already surrounded by her daughters when I arrived at the specified time; obviously they had gathered earlier. She was standing in their midst and I instantly thought of the proud Niobe and her seven lovely daughters. The tallest was not her own daughter but Andromache, who was as stately and graceful as a tall poplar. But all the rest were hers, and they clustered around her like flowers of the field, differing greatly in coloring but all with clear complexions and shining eyes. There was one I had not seen before, younger than the others, about the same age as . . . Hermione. Envy of Hecuba swept over me, but I forced myself to smile and ask the little one, “What is your name? I haven’t seen you before.”

  “Philomena,” she said politely.

  “My youngest daughter,” Hecuba said. “She has seen ten Trojan winters.

  One with snow!” She gestured around her. “You know the rest?”

  Some better than others, but none well. Creusa was rarely apart from Aeneas, so the times I saw him I also saw her. Cassandra, with her red hair, was easy to recognize. Laodice—the one who had spoken of marriage—yes, I remembered her, but I had seen little of her since that first night in the courtyard. There was another girl whose looks were unusual but memorable. Her nose was too large, her lips too thin and straight, her forehead too broad, but somehow all these elements came together in a haunting face not easily forgotten—one I would remember when more perfect ones had faded from my memory. Just as I was thinking that, Hecuba encircled her shoulders protectively and kissed her cheek. “Polyxena,” she said. “Just twelve.”

  The last, a slender dark girl with haunting beauty, introduced as Ilona, merely stared and said little. I could not tell if her quietness was from shyness or hostility. In the beginning, it is impossible to know.

  The girls fell away from their mother’s side, like a colorful knot untying itself. I noticed how they all wore a different color, and I marveled at the array of choices in Troy. A table to one side was listing under bolts of cloth with more colors.

  “Now that you are a daughter of Troy, it is only fitting that you should join with the others,” said Hecuba, assessing me. “I have been remiss not to have included you earlier.”

  “It was lonely, being the only one not born of Hecuba. Although, of course, she has been like a mother to me,” Andromache hastened to add.

  “It is time some of my other sons married,” said Hecuba, shaking her head. “And some of my other daughters, as well. Only Creusa, alone of all my dear ones, has been so fortunate as to wed. We will remedy that. That is what we are here for.” She turned to me. “You had that suitors’ contest, the one you . . . told me about. Do you think we should have such a one in Troy?” Her eyes were searching, inquisitive.

  I looked around at her daughters. What a dreadful thing to endure! “No,” I said. “Such a contest is tedious, embarrassing, and expensive.”

  “And then you ran off with someone who didn’t even come to the contest.” Laodice giggled. “Isn’t that funny?”

  Hecuba gave her a cold look. “Funny is not the word I should choose.”

  “Oh, but I think it’s wonderful—and brave!” Laodice kept on, despite her mother.

  “I hope you are not planning to do the same thing,” Hecuba said.

  “I might, if you persist in your idea about marrying me to a Thracian. Mother, I don’t want to leave Troy. Don’t send me there!”

  “It’s true, Trojans usually marry each other,” said Creusa. “Even Aeneas can pass for a Trojan, he’s so closely related to us.”

  “Oh, yes, Dardanians don’t count as foreigners. Laodice, would you consider someone from Dardania?”

  “It’s better than Thrace, but it’s still not Troy.”

  “What’s wrong with all of you?” said Hecuba. “When I was younger than you, Laodice, I left Phrygia to come here as Priam’s bride. I didn’t snivel about leaving my mother and father. Why, even my boys don’t seem to want to marry!”

  “It’s just too merry here in the children’s quarters—I mean, the apartments,” said Laodice.

  “Yes, it is! Don’t leave us!” said little Philomena.

  “Whatever shall I do with you?” said Hecuba. “At least Hector finally married, and now Paris . . . Helen, you tell them. You did not shrink from marriage when the time came.”

  I looked around at the faces, wanting to say something pleasing, but I was not sure what that something would be. So all I could do was speak honestly. “I did not wish to leave home, either, and so I chose . . . perhaps partly, anyway . . . someone who would not take me away.”

  “Well, that wasn’t Paris!” Ilona spoke, and her voice revealed that, after all, she was hostile. One question answered.

  “No,” I agreed. “That was not Paris. I chose my first husband, but the gods chose my second.”

  “Let’s choose my wedding gown first,” said Laodice, pointing to the cloth. “Perhaps if I’ve already selected the attire . . .”

  Chattering, the girls turned with relief to the material, while Hecuba waited beside me.

  “You don’t wish to give an opinion?” she asked.

  “Laodice looks good in any color, so she cannot make a wrong choice.”

  Hecuba shrugged. “You speak more for yourself than for her. She cannot wear red, or brown.”

  No matter what I said, she would argue with it or refute it. It was wearisome. Why had she truly invited me?

  “Now that we are family,” she said, “it is good for the girls to get to know you better.” She paused. “Things that are forbidden become more alluring. I fear that already Laodice admires you more than i
s good for her. While I cannot reject the wife of Paris, I would be less than honest if I pretended I wished any of my daughters to imitate you.”

  “Honesty is such a virtue,” I said, letting the sting remain in my voice. So is kindness, I wanted to add, and sometimes they war with one another. Out of kindness I will restrict the honest answer I could give about you and your ways.

  “We understand each other,” she said.

  In truth, we did not. I still could not read the depths of her character, and I felt that she knew little of me, and did not wish to.

  “Are you with child yet?” she suddenly asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘yet’?”

  “I meant that I had assumed that was behind your hasty flight and rush away from Sparta.”

  “If that were so, you could see it for yourself by now.” Truly, the woman was offensive in her bluntness and assumptions.

  “Pity,” she said. “Give Paris a son, or he’ll be sorry he ever ran off with you.” She nodded smugly. “I know.”

  “You know very little about him,” I said. “In fact, you barely know him at all.”

  “It’s you who doesn’t know him,” she said. “The gods blind us that way.”

  “Mother!” cried Laodice, rushing over with a pale yellow bolt of linen. She held it up under her chin. “This is the one! Now all we have to do is find a man to go with it!”

  XXXVI

  At last the time of the great trade gathering on the Plain of Troy drew near. For a few weeks at the end of summer thousands came to the meadows at the foot of the citadel before the seas closed again for the winter. They came from Babylon, from Tyre and Sidon, from Egypt, from Arabia and Ethiopia. They spread out their goods for all to see and buy, and for a short glorious time Troy was the center of the world.

  Do you want to hire a tutor in Accadian? Surely there will be someone there who is expert in that tongue. Do you want to buy a length of cloth so light it floats? It will be there. What of a delicacy made of whipped almond paste? It will be there, you may be sure of it. And for each day’s transactions, Priam took a fee. His agents were everywhere, noting the merchants and collecting his due. People paid gladly, for the site was so situated that they could never find a better. Here at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, East and West, Troy sat as queen of the world.

  Paris and I strolled through the grounds late one afternoon, when the sun’s shadows were already slanting. All around us a cacophony of languages rose, and I reveled in it. Unknown tongues made me invisible; I passed through them like a shade of the underworld. I saw the tempting and curious products spread out on bright cloths: chunks of unworked mottled amber, heaps of wool carpets, sweet-scented curling bark, dried octopus, axes of a dull-colored metal, lumps of raw frankincense, bags of rare turquoise from the desert of Egypt.

  Then, suddenly, as we were inspecting a litter of baby leopards for sale by a merchant from Nubia, I heard the sound of Greek. Spartan Greek. Its sweet melody, its cadences, wafted across the air like the spices spread out on a nearby blanket. Spartan Greek! I clutched Paris’s hand and dragged him away from the leopards, following the sound like a child drawn by a flute.

  “Spartans!” I said. “There are Spartans here!”

  “Perhaps you should not go,” said Paris. “Or if you must, cover your face.”

  Oh, yes. Of course. I had become careless about that, as I was so free amongst the Trojans.

  We approached the merchants. There were three of them. The oldest, thinnest one was clearly the leader. He directed the others in replenishing the wares, and bossed the bargaining. I saw jars of dried wild olives from the foothills of Taygetus, a local delicacy, and the distinctive honey from Eurotas’s meadows. Instantly I was hungry for them. They also had some finely worked gold earrings. I probably knew the craftsman who had fashioned them.

  I edged closer and nudged Paris to barter for some of the honey. The less I spoke, the better. As he offered Paris different-sized jars, I heard the other two—one young, heavy, and one with a beard like a he-goat’s—say they had arrived late because most of the Greek ships had been commandeered by Menelaus and Agamemnon; ordinary merchants had been stripped of their vessels.

  “Yes, there is hardly a ship in Greece,” said the burly one. “This one I had hidden around the lee side of the island off Gytheum, otherwise it would have been taken.”

  “Taken for what?” Paris asked.

  They looked at us, wide-eyed. “Why, for the great fleet Agamemnon is assembling. He has called on all of Greece to supply men and arms and ships. Families draw lots; they are required only to send one son, and that is hard enough. Some would rather pay their fine to keep their son and be out of it.”

  “But . . . for what reason is he assembling this . . . this army on water?”

  “What, do you live in a cocoon here? Because the sister of Agamemnon’s wife has been stolen by a Trojan. Or so they say. Others say she went away willingly enough. But long ago there was some sort of oath sworn about this woman, or her marriage, or something. In any case, Agamemnon has called on all the men who swore the oath, as well as many others. He means to fight the abductors and recover the woman.” The man laughed. “What woman would be worth all that? None, I say. But if she comes with a city like Troy, then there’ll be a lasting prize from it all. So we want to trade here as fast as we can, then leave.”

  His words stunned me. Why had we heard nothing of this? Agamemnon!

  “Is this a secret?” Paris asked.

  “Hardly,” said the man. “But plans still unfinished are often not reported—what is there to report, after all? Many a plan comes to nothing.” He flopped out his rugs of rough wool, still smelling like sheep. “I think what fired them on was the death of the lady’s mother. She killed herself out of shame—hanged herself in her bedchamber. The old king and Menelaus were so sorrowed, so shamed themselves, that they must do something.”

  “The queen—the queen of Sparta—killed herself?” I could barely say the words, forgetting I meant not to speak.

  “The old queen—the former queen. The present queen, that’s her daughter, that’s the one run away to Troy.”

  Mother! I would have stuffed my fist into my mouth to stop myself from crying out, but no sound would come.

  “Will they attack directly? No embassy first, no attempts to solve this by diplomacy?” Paris asked the practical question.

  “I heard that they already sent an embassy and that Priam lied. So perhaps the time for embassies is past. I don’t know. I’m only a merchant, and thankful Menelaus didn’t seize my boat. That woman—the queen—why are they in such a pother about her? Let her go, I say. A faithless woman isn’t worth a spit.”

  I felt myself about to faint. I sagged against Paris. He supported me and I heard him saying, “The sun. She is with child,” before leading me away.

  “In this heat, she should not cover her face like that,” the merchant said. “But I know some of you people from the East are used to it.”

  I staggered along, leaning against Paris. Mother. Mother had killed herself! An army was coming! “I must . . . please, Paris, take me back to our chambers!” I was not sure I could even walk that far; hot and cold shivers and shakes had overtaken me. My legs buckled.

  “I will hold you,” he said. We made our slow way out of the thronging merchant area and through the dry clumps of grass in the open field. The walls of Troy seemed a long way off.

  Trembling and weak, I sank down. I would only rest; I would rise again shortly. I bowed my head and stared at the ground and swaying weeds around me. They rustled a little, making dry little rubbing sounds. Then I saw a slight movement at their base, although I could not discern what it was. I stared harder and still saw nothing; all the colors blended. Then, suddenly, it moved again and I saw the tortoise, its brown and yellow markings now visible against the green grass. It was like one of Hermione’s. Hermione. Hermione . . .

  I gave a moan and felt pain beyond any that I had ev
er felt before. It ripped through me. And all the while the tortoise was regarding me with curious black eyes, free of all judgment. They grew larger and larger until they filled my vision; then I saw nothing more and darkness took me away.

  “What happened to her?” Gelanor was asking. I heard his voice from far away. I could not move. Was I dead? Was my spirit just hovering above my body, listening before it flitted away? I could not open my eyes; my arms lay at my side like carved wood. I could utter no sound.

  “We were walking through the fields.” Paris’s voice rose with a tremulous quaver of fear. “She sat down to rest. She fainted.”

  “Is she with child?” Evadne spoke.

  “No. I told the merchants that, but it isn’t true. She was—we were—desperate to get away.”

  “Why?” Gelanor again.

  Because we heard about Agamemnon, I tried to say. But nothing came out. Menelaus. My mother! My mother!

  “Some merchants there—at the fair—they told us—they told us—dreadful things!” Paris’s voice rose to a shriek.

  “Calm yourself!” Gelanor was shaking a prince of Troy. “Gather your thoughts. Whatever it was, we can confront it.”

  “An army. That’s what we will have to confront!” Paris cried. “Agamemnon has gathered an army, and commandeered ships, and Menelaus has enforced the oath Helen’s suitors took, and they are coming, coming to Troy!” His voice rose so high he sounded like a eunuch.

  “When?” Gelanor’s voice was sharp.

  “I don’t know—they didn’t say—”

  “Why didn’t you find out?”

  Because they were saying other things as well, coming at us like a flock of birds, filling the sky, and each one streaked past, and then they were telling me about my mother—Why could I not speak? Was I . . . could I truly be . . . dead?

  “I don’t know—I don’t know—we couldn’t think—”

  “When you ran away with Helen, did you not think something like this might happen?” Gelanor pressed. “Had you not even considered it?”