Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  Priam, shrouded and tall, approached the pyre. He threw back his hood; the just-setting sun illuminated his lined face. His so wrinkled, Troilus’s so smooth—death was greedy, to want to consume only the fairest.

  “I call upon all the gods to avenge this cruel death,” he said. “I beg the lord and lady of the underworld to receive him kindly. Be gentle with him. He is not—he is not used to the dark.” His voice broke, and he turned away quickly to take the burning torch and thrust it into the wood to start the fire.

  Hecuba took his hand, then, and drew him away, and together, embracing, they watched the flames catch and the wood crackle. The fire burned quickly, high, and hot. It overcame the sun and blotted it out.

  “Now his soul is released,” said Paris. “It is freed from his body.” He wept. “But it had no wish to be freed! It was happy where it was!”

  The pyre would burn all night. In the morning we would go and extinguish the last of the smoldering fire with wine. Then, when the embers cooled, the bones would be collected and placed in an urn; the urn would be buried in the sacred tomb. In normal times there would be funeral games held in his honor. But these were not normal times.

  As we made our way back through the city, I saw red spots on the front of my bodice—drops that gleamed wetly. I touched one and my finger came away slick with what looked like blood. I tasted it and it was salty and metallic like blood. But had I cut myself? Then I remembered. The brooch! I had worn the hateful stone that Menelaus gave me, meaning to fling it into Troilus’s funeral pyre to rid myself of it and as a symbol that I repudiated the Greeks and their deed. Instead, overcome with sorrow about Troilus, I had forgotten, and now I still wore it.

  I touched it, expecting to find it had a sharp edge that had pricked me. There was nothing, but it was slippery with the blood. The blood seemed—but that was impossible—to be oozing from the stone itself.

  Returning to the palace and parting from the others, I quickly sought my chambers and stripped off the gown. Evadne would know how to remove the stains on the white wool. Evadne knew all such things. I would ask her, and—as I held the gown up to examine it, I could not see the stains. I turned the gown around, inside out. They were gone, and the wool as white as new.

  How could they vanish like that? I had felt the sticky stains, I had even tasted them. The brooch had been wet—

  The cursed brooch! Paris was right, it was evil! Menelaus had given it to me for some fell purpose of his own.

  As I was smoothing out the gown, studying it in bewilderment, Evadne slipped in.

  “That brooch—I was fool enough to wear it—I never should have touched it—but I wanted to have it consumed in flames, destroy it—”

  She clasped my hands and held them in hers, removing them from the gown I was still stroking. “Or destroy Menelaus?” she asked. “Destroy him in your own mind, purge him out of it?”

  “He isn’t in my mind—”

  “But he is in your past.”

  “Yes, of course, I know that!” What was her point?

  “And in your present.”

  “He’s here in Troy, yes.” Her words seemed absolutely aimless. “And this is the present. But he is not in my present, nor in my mind.”

  “He is in your future.”

  “No, that is impossible.”

  “It is written. And I see it. The brooch sees it.”

  I thrust the brooch into her hand, pushing it there. “Nothing is written unless I write it,” I said. “Take the foul thing, confine it in its box.”

  But in not ordering her to destroy it, did I not thereby confirm her words?

  * * *

  Troilus was holding a banquet—his funeral banquet. His bones had been gathered and placed in the urn and conveyed in yet another solemn procession through the streets of Troy to his hastily erected tomb. Now his spirit would preside as host at a feast on the third day after his death, as Trojan custom decreed.

  Because he was too young to have his own quarters, the banquet must be held in his father’s palace, which carried its own sorrow—he had never grown old enough to leave the house of his mother and father.

  As we filed into the great chamber, we must first be purified; Theano, the priestess of Athena, poured sacred water over our hands and washed away our inherent contamination from the funeral. Then we were directed to take our flower garlands. A basket of them was placed near the door. Paris and I bent to take them. The leaves and bright summer meadow flowers, gathered at peril outside the walls, seemed a fitting tribute for the boy who had lost his life in those very meadows.

  Priam was waiting to receive us. The fire was out in his hearth, but the solemn scent of myrrh, perfume of the dead, filled the air. By his side Hecuba stood rigidly, looking as lifeless and wooden as the Pallas Athena statue in the temple.

  All their children came to the feast. The ranking Trojans came, too. Priam beckoned us all to the long table, where we would sit according to rank. It was a rough wood one—or rather, several joined together, as no table existed that could serve so many people. He stood not at the place of honor but rather to one side.

  “I call upon my son Troilus to join us,” said Priam. His normally robust voice was faint. “Son, come from the fields of Asphodel, come from the shadows of Hades, which you have not yet passed so deeply into. We await you.” He indicated the empty chair at the place of honor.

  A profound and heavy presence filled the room. Priam closed his eyes. When he opened them, he held out his hands and said, “My dear family, and my most esteemed Trojans —I, Troilus, bid you seat yourselves as my guests.”

  In silence, we took our places. Slaves came bearing platters of fresh-roasted kid. Others followed with wine and pitchers of water to thin it. The funeral dish containing fruits and nuts and roasted asphodel roots was brought in. We would take it to the tomb later.

  Slowly people began to talk, although guardedly.

  “The memory of Troilus will live forever,” said Antenor, a few places down from me. His voice was soothing.

  “Troilus would have grown up to be as great a warrior as Hector,” said Panthous, the nervous councilor who knew more about the engineering of gates than of any other matter.

  “Troilus was unsurpassed,” said Antimachus, smiling. He raised his cup to him.

  “To the glory of Troilus!” cried Deiphobus, waving his arm and downing a cup of wine—not his first, all too obviously.

  “We must not speak ill of him,” said Paris to me. “He is present here, hence we can only praise him.” Suddenly he stood up and looked up and down the table. “You speak of the future of Troilus, what he would have been. But I say that is not necessary. He was perfect as he was. My younger brother, and I loved him.” He sat back down and tears swam in his eyes.

  “You speak true.” The high, distinctive voice of Hecuba. “There is no need to invoke what he might have been. Had the gods permitted it, we would have been content to have him forever as he was—a boy enveloped in sun and gladness.”

  But the gods had not permitted it, I cried to myself. They never do.

  The final dish was brought out, figs and pomegranate—precious offerings from our limited stores.

  Priam rose again, raised his helping. “Pomegranates are sacred to you, O dread lords of the realms of death. We offer you this sacrifice from our very substance, which cannot easily be replenished.”

  We all partook of the dish, the sweetness of the figs muting the astringent sting of the pomegranates.

  Priam took a smoking brazier and walked slowly around the great table. “Troilus, tears blind me, and I am loath to let you leave us. I would keep you here forever. But that would be cruel. We must release you to your new home, the home where we will join you. We will come to you, but you will not return to us. And so we must relinquish you to the gods below. Farewell, my dear son.” He wiped his hooded eyes with his bended arm and set the brazier down.

  Still silent, we followed Priam and Hecuba out of the palace in
to the street as they bore offerings to Troilus. Torches lit our way, and I was unable to see Priam placing the tributes on the tomb, so many people were crowding around it.

  The ceremony over, Hector suddenly addressed the company. “I bid you welcome to my home,” he said. “All is in readiness. I wish us to gather to further honor my lost brother.”

  Now, the shade of Troilus no longer actually amongst us, we hurried to Hector’s palace. Torches were blazing, servants were waiting to provide more substantial food, and wine was to flow unchecked. We removed our funeral garlands and laid them in the basket provided.

  Life thronged Hector’s chambers, replacing the death pacing Priam’s. We are still here, the company promised themselves. We are here to defend Troy, to rout our enemies. We must do whatever is required of us, but we must prevail. We cannot fail. We fight to protect our very lives, our survival, indeed, our very existence. The unspoken chorus was this: We have never had to defend ourselves thus, not in this fashion. Can we truly do this? Are we able?

  XLVIII

  Hector had prepared for the company; as the heir and Troilus’s oldest brother, it was his obligation. His palace was as he himself: traditional and strong. Before we had built ours, his was the finest on the citadel. It still would be considered in the best taste.

  “Tastes change,” Hector had said diplomatically when he first beheld ours. Andromache told me privately she liked it, and wished they might have a chamber or two without the dreary decorative warriors marching across the walls. Now she beckoned us into the megaron—one like every other megaron I had ever stood in.

  Show me a man’s wife, a man’s chariot, and a man’s house, and I can tell you everything about him, Gelanor had once claimed. Now I looked at Andromache and the megaron and thought, Yes, they reflect Hector: conventional but always tasteful. Hector would never be embarrassed by a wife’s behavior—he would not choose a wife capable of it.

  “We gather here in remembrance of our dear Troilus,” said Hector, holding his hands aloft. “A funeral feast requires special foods and time-honored rituals, and we have duly performed those. Now we gather together to comfort one another on our loss, in whatever manner deeply calls to us.” He indicated the slaves bearing cups, wine, and food. “These will be at the table for us to partake of as we wish.”

  Everyone moved toward the table, although none of us were likely to be hungry.

  Paris saw Polyxena standing momentarily alone and, tugging on my hand, drew near to her. She was standing very quietly, clutching a goblet—but more as something to hold than because she wished to drink the wine—and staring blankly at the company.

  “Polyxena,” said Paris, attempting to embrace her. “You saw what no one, least of all you, should have seen. It should have fallen on broader and older shoulders.”

  “In a dreadful way I am thankful I was there, although it will scar my memories forever.” Her voice was so soft I could barely hear it, but it drew me closer to her.

  “I should have been with him,” Paris said. “I should have been in your place.”

  She smiled, a very slight curve of her lips. “But why in the world would you have been? Troilus and I were companions and spent much time together. It was natural that I was the one there.”

  “As you say,” said Paris. “But I grieve for it.”

  “Do you think that, had you been there, you could have prevented it?” Her sweet voice twined itself around the words. “I tell you, he was waiting for Troilus. He meant to cut him down. It was a mission, not a chance happening. Somehow he knew we would be there . . .” Her voice trailed off. “And to what purpose?” she suddenly cried. “As if Troilus were any threat to anyone!”

  A shadowy presence appeared by our sides, as if drawn by our voices. It was Helenus, the peculiar twin of Cassandra. He had the same red hair, the same pale white skin, the same flat pitiless eyes. “I hear you speaking of Troilus,” he said. Even his voice, no doubt meant to be soothing and beguiling, sounded more like the soft sound a snake makes as it slides over rocks and pebbles—dry, rustling, menacing. Did he cultivate it as part of his stance as a seer?

  “It is natural we speak of him,” Paris said. “This gathering is in his honor, and we have just interred his bones.”

  “But I heard you ask something—or do my ears fail me?—about why Achilles would have determined to kill Troilus. There is—there was—this prophecy—”

  “Do not speak it!” Paris clamped down on Helenus’s shoulder. “It is over.”

  “Fulfilled,” said Helenus sadly. He breathed out heavily. “Luckily there are others. All must be fulfilled before Troy falls. Troy cannot fall unless the son of Achilles joins the expedition. After that—”

  “So one is fulfilled, then,” interrupted Polyxena.

  Helenus pursed his lips. “Yes, one. But still more stand between us and defeat. The arrows of Heracles, kept by Philoctetes, must be used against us, but Philoctetes has been left behind on the island of Lemnos because of an infected snakebite—thanks to the gods. He is not any immediate danger.”

  “What are the others?” asked Paris.

  Suddenly the garrulous Helenus glanced around, alarmed. “Perhaps I should not say. I trust you, but how did Achilles know about Troilus and the prophecy? It was a very private matter. I fear we have an informer in our very midst.”

  “Whisper in my ear, then,” said Paris.

  Helenus leaned over, brushing back his limp red hair, and murmured into Paris’s ear. I saw Paris frown. “I think these things will never come to pass,” he said. I knew I could ask him later in private what they were.

  The chamber was now humming with voices; they sounded like the swarming of bees on a warm summer’s day. Somewhere outside our walls people could still lie under a tree and listen to real bees. I wondered if Aeneas and his family could. He had been wise to leave Troy and return home to Dardania; they were still free in his land.

  A group of the older councilors and warriors were knotted together at the end of the table, and Paris made his way over to them, pulling me along. It was the old war mastiffs, Antimachus, Pandarus, Aesacus, and Panthous. I saw that Antenor, as one who advised peace and negotiations, was at the far corner of the chamber, excluded—or had he excluded himself?

  “And I tell you, we need to smash them where they sit, smash them in place. Set fire to their ships!” Antimachus was loud; no worry about spies on his part. “The moon will be full soon and we will have ample light. I say, strike!”

  Two sets eager for the full moon: lovers and soldiers. The flooding light could serve many purposes.

  Pandarus demurred. “How many could we take on a raiding mission? It is true, we might be able to score some surprise strikes, set fire to a few ships, but then we would be trapped in their camp.”

  Antimachus snorted. “Send a group, then, that does not expect to return, but can wreak havoc before they are cut down.” His feet were already spread wide in a defiant stance. “A well-timed raid can reverse everything,” he said. “Let us recruit a band of brave men willing to undertake this. They may save us from further war.”

  “You will never be able to persuade Priam,” said Aesacus.

  “Hector, then,” said Antimachus. “Let us approach him.”

  “Priam is still king. It is he who must direct the strategy.”

  “Strategy is not the province of old men.” Antimachus glared at the faces surrounding him as he tiptoed close to treason.

  “Old men have sight we may not have,” said Pandarus, pulling back from the rim. “We must honor that.”

  Antimachus shrugged. “Then I want you to remember this, in the days to come: Antimachus advised a quick and preemptive attack, to break their will and spirit.” He held up his wide hands. “Anything else is letting the enemy dictate the terms of fighting. It gives them the advantage. You know that siege warfare is ruinously expensive. Our neighbors to the east are experts in it. They use engineers, sappers, battering rams. That is an active siege.
The Greeks have not those means. They will resort to a passive siege—encircling us and starving us out. Already their presence has chased away the trade vessels that plied the Hellespont, and ended our trade fair. Do you wish to perish by such lackluster means? Fade away, defeated by a dull army that did nothing but camp in our fields? I say, smash them! And smash them now. They will turn tail and run home.”

  There was murmuring amongst them. His words made sense. Indeed, they were the essence of clever strategic planning. But he was not supreme commander. Hector was, and Hector in turn was subject to Priam. Paris reminded him of this.

  “Hector relies altogether too much on individual prowess and bravery,” said Antimachus. “I tell you, that is not the way to win wars. It is by outthinking the enemy, anticipating, and then attacking him—fairly or not—in his weakness, with your strength. There are those who say there is no glory in that. I say: Where is the glory in fighting bravely for a lost cause? Use your heads, men, as well as your sword arms!”

  Panthous shuffled forward. “I have been working on some new triggering mechanisms for our gates,” he told Antimachus. “When the enemy trips them, then the hot sand will pour down.”

  Antimachus actually laughed. “If the enemy gets inside the gates, it is a bit late. We need to go to their gates first. But I thank you, Panthous, for your efforts.”

  Panthous, in his bumbling fashion, looked perplexed. “But this is an innovative and clever plan,” he protested.

  “A plan for the timid, cowering behind their walls!” said Antimachus. “You are like a cart with a pair of dull, trained oxen, trained to stay within their old trodden path.” He looked around. “Such may be forgivable in a dull beast, with no thought or reason, but for a king, and a people—” He turned abruptly away. His rough words did not disguise his acute distress, his fear.

  Hector strode over, just as Antimachus was leaving. “What is it, my good soldiers? I hear dissent.”

  His very presence, his noble face, seemed to belie the concerns that Antimachus had raised. “What is it?” he pressed.