Helen of Troy

by Margaret George

  “You almost knock me over,” he said. “But it is a sweet assault. Dear Helen.” He reached out and took a lock of my hair in his fingers and smoothed it against his palm.

  As we lay on our bed together, I traced his face more than I was wont. Visitations, god-induced encounters, visions—however fleeting, they are real when they occur. Children result from them—I myself, if Mother entertained the swan as she would have it, rather than Antenor in an ordinary, ugly way—O let me not think upon that! I must believe that it had all happened, that Troy was real, that Aphrodite as she appeared in the cave was real.

  Tales were filled with women who consorted with ghost lovers and spirits and gods. So be it. The vision fled in the morning light. But in the night it was real enough: perhaps the only reality. A reality that followed them into their old age, that faded last of all. When their memories dimmed and their husbands and children were sucked up into the mist of oblivion, that one divine encounter lived on.

  “Paris,” I whispered, “let us have one more divine encounter.”

  “One more?”

  “Yes, and perhaps this one will grant us the child we long for. I have never given up hope.”

  “Nor I,” he said.

  He slept, I kept from sleep. Dreams were cheap. I wanted to be able to reach out and stroke his cheek, to bend my head and listen to his breathing as he slept.

  The chamber was still, unearthly still. I did not hear the call of birds outside, nor the stir of air puffing against our curtains. On the floor the late-rising waning moon traced its light and brought the shadows of the windows to dance across the floor.

  I lay safe and happy and drowsy in the circle of Paris’s strong arms. I knew such things were not proof against danger, but deep down we feel that they are—that a warrior’s arms bestow immunity from harm.

  Then it came: the hateful vision. I had questioned whether my second sight, the one conferred on me by the sacred snakes, was still alive. Oh, this answered me, but I would have wished the vision never to have come.

  Paris lay dead. He had been slain but I did not see by whom—only that it was by an arrow.

  I screamed and bolted upright. Immediately Paris was awake as well. “What is it?” Muddled with sleep, he clutched at my shoulders. “A bad dream,” he muttered. “Turn on your other side. That way the dream will not continue.”

  This was no dream, and it went on, stamping itself on my heart, and I saw it all: Paris lying white and unmoving. The fall of Troy—the high towers toppling. Slaughter and blood running in the streets. A great wooden . . . something. Disarming, misleading. The Greeks conquer.

  In pain, I tumbled from the bed.

  Paris slept on, and I crept back near him, trembling. I dared not touch him for fear of waking him; if he waked, he would surely see what I had seen. But I needed to be beside him, to protect him in the futile way a wife feels she can protect her husband from all evil.

  LXIII

  It was true. After many months, the Greeks were stirring again, rousing themselves like a bear from its den after a winter’s sleep. Our spies soon told us why: Philoctetes had indeed arrived from his island exile, and Odysseus and Diomedes had fetched the son of Achilles from his mother, the princess Deïdameia, in Scyros. She had been reluctant to let him go, but when they had come upon him he was practicing with spear and sword, driving a chariot, and was eager to come to Troy and leave the placid safety of his mother’s court. Perhaps she had wept and bewailed the loss of Achilles from her life too ardently and for too long. The young do not tolerate that. They want to be doing, not reminiscing. So the Greeks were busy trying to bring about the three prophecies which either Calchas or Helenus had revealed.

  Philoctetes was far from well; his wound still festered and he was weak. He was being treated by Machaon but until he recovered he could not fight.

  “But you wounded Machaon!” I said to Paris.

  “Not mortally, obviously,” he said glumly. “My arrows are not the potent ones of Heracles.”

  “I do not understand about the arrows of Heracles,” I said, more to distract myself from the horrid vision I had had of Paris wounded and dead than to ask a question. “If Philoctetes has had them since he was a boy, and he used them to hunt food for years on the island, how many can remain? A quiver does not hold many arrows!”

  “Perhaps he has a little vial of Hydra poison to dip new arrowheads in,” said Paris. “That way he could keep replenishing the store of lethal arrows.”

  “There is nothing in the story to say that Heracles collected the poison of the dying Hydra,” I said. “Only that he washed his arrow tips in her blood. He must have stuck them under her spouting neck—”

  Paris smiled. “My dear Helen, you are too literal. You should know—being the subject of them—that stories twist what truly happened. We do not know what passed between Heracles and the Hydra in her cave. Any more than anyone knows what passed between us on Cranae.”

  At that memory he made me smile, as he knew he could. “Only we know that,” I said. Oh, the precious memory!

  “Nonetheless, your point is well taken,” he said. “There will be no flying arrows until Philoctetes recovers, and who knows when that will be?”

  It was summer again. Truly time seemed bent and folded, for it had been autumn only—days?—before. But the trees and their broad, dark leaves, the continual winds from northeast, all shouted that it was summer. Let the gods do what they would. They wanted it to be summer: therefore it was summer.

  We sweltered in Troy—proof enough that it was true summer. The sun beat down on the stones of the city with such intensity that the heat penetrated the soles of our sandals and came near to blistering our feet. To wear armor in such heat was deadly in itself, causing our soldiers to collapse and crumple as they practiced in the drilling field to the south of the city. But they were a ragtag band; so many able-bodied men had lost their lives, and now the ranks of the soldiers were swelled with the too-young and the too-old. Little boys who had been forbidden to fight, shriveled old men whose grandchildren sternly told them not to go, now could take up arms. In vain Priam ordered them only to man the walls and attend to the warriors. Let the wounded do that, they retorted, hobbling out to try to protect Troy.

  Seeing the pitiful men trying to defend Troy, women wanted to join in as well. They did not aspire to fight like the Amazons, but they could do as well as the old men and little boys, they said. Theano tried to dissuade them, but they argued that no priestess of Athena could do that, as Athena herself was a goddess of warfare. So they served as lookouts on the walls, ready to lob insect bombs and heated sand down below if needed.

  Troy itself had become as shabby as its army. Stones had been pried from the once-proud streets to mend damaged walls, and the fountains were dry. The sphinx down in the lower marketplace was awash in trash and dust around its base. Men came there to sell their belongings in order to get food, which was running low—the grains were moldy and the fine wines sour. Clothes were soiled and stained; no one could squander precious water within the city for laundry, and the springs outside were unreachable. Our brief respite of relief had passed, and the Greeks were besieging us again.

  Sometime in all this, I consulted with Antenor, who was still trying to arrange some sort of honorable settlement to the war.

  “But we have waited too late,” he said. “The Greeks sense that we are desperate, and now they need only to keep doing what they are doing—and wait.”

  “Antenor—what do you think will happen? Truly?”

  “I would like to think that we hang on in here until the Greeks give up. But that would take either a decisive defeat, a catastrophic incident, such as a massive plague, or bitter quarrels between their leaders. Thus far, the loss of Achilles has not stopped them, nor the plague that visited them earlier, and as for bitter quarrels—that is all they have done since before they left Greece.”

  “And otherwise?”

  “You know what happens to defeat
ed cities. They are always put to the torch, razed to the ground.”

  That vision, that horrible vision I had had of fire, and the Greeks . . . and the towers—that odd phrase that had come to me long ago. I shut my eyes, yet the vision was not outside me but inside.

  “I cannot comprehend it,” I said.

  He waved his hands as if to dismiss the whole subject, then settled them quietly on the table before him. Quietly, when he was looking across the room, I laid mine beside his. They were a very close match.

  * * *

  The enemy was on the march. How strange that this day does not resonate in my memory, preserve itself sharply. Instead, it fades and blurs in its normalcy. I rose at the usual time. I watched Paris as he opened his eyes, as always feeling that strange little jolt of unbelief and excitement as I beheld him.

  When he comes into a room, you give a little gasp, deep inside, far inside, someone once said when trying to describe what it meant to love. And it was true: when I looked at Paris, I felt it as if for the first time. As when I first beheld him in my hall in Sparta.

  We took our early breakfast together, a simple meal of barley gruel and cheese. He said he must attend the morning meeting at Antimachus’s headquarters. Still I thought little of it; it was too ordinary.

  Paris returned and said he must arm. Spies reported that the Greeks were ready to mount an assault, and Philoctetes had been healed of his debilitating wound. Still I made light of it. I walled off the image of the wounded Paris, as if walling it off would destroy it. I helped to fasten his armor on him. I tied the fastenings of the linen undercorselet myself, and fetched his sword and his quiver. His young attendant did the rest: presented the breastplate, the greaves, the helmet, the bow. Together we stood back and admired him in his militant glory.

  I leaned forward and ran my fingers over his lips, barely exposed by the cheekplates of the helmet. They were soft and curved.

  “Go,” I whispered. “Though I would keep you here.” Oh, I was so very weary of these thoughts and deeds, but resigned to them, like a ritual, thinking they would continue this way forever: Paris arming, me bidding him farewell. Though others fell around us, we never would. This was eternal—his going forth, my staying.

  “This I know full well,” he said. This time he put his hand on my shoulder. When they ask me, Was anything different? I can only say, This time he put his hand on my shoulder. But of what moment was that? It was just a gesture, a careless gesture. Afterward we search for messages, meanings, as if the departed knew in advance what would happen and wanted to leave something behind for us.

  He rode out through the warriors’ gate, the Scaean Gate. He stood proudly in his chariot, facing the enemy, his face turned toward them. They advanced in groups, chariots and soldiers, spears bristling. They seemed to spread out across the entire plain, far too numerous after all their casualties.

  The flanks of the two armies met and clashed; bellowing war cries resounded even up to where we stood on the walls. I had taken my place beside the women of Troy; I no longer slunk back and hid in the shadows. Hector had fallen and my Paris was now the foremost son of Priam.

  The women on either side of me did not acknowledge me, but kept their gazes straight ahead, stick-straight. I felt their hostility seeping into me. I had killed their dear ones. In their place, I would have felt the same way. Yet to honor Paris I must stand beside them.

  There were cries and yells as one confrontation gave way to another, and still another, but the armies held fast, locked together on the plain. Slashing swords caught the sun and came to us as winks of light; spears twisted and turned in their flight and, spinning, streaked like meteors. But who was winning?

  Gradually the Trojans fell back, dogged foot by foot, giving ground. Then, suddenly, the lines broke and they rushed for the gates, the Greeks in heated pursuit. The Trojan army turned into a mob pouring into the city. Where was Paris? Some time ago I had seen him abandon the cumbersome chariot and fight his way into the melee. Now he disappeared, while his compatriots rushed back through the safety of the gates.

  The Trojan ranks thinned, and it almost seemed they bleated like a herd of frightened goats as they pushed and shoved through the gates, the weak and ill-trained soldiers crumpling before the assault. Then the gates swung closed, groaning in the sockets, and bolts were shot to secure them. The seasoned Trojans who had chosen to remain and fight the Greeks were cut off from retreat. They fought on alone, as Hector had done before them. Now I saw Paris by himself, wheeling around to face three Greeks who were advancing on him. No matter which way he turned, his back was exposed to an enemy.

  I could not help myself. I leaned forward, screamed, “Paris, no! Paris, come inside!”

  He could not hear me; even if he could, he would not have fled like a coward. He rushed upon one of the Greeks, sword raised, spear at the ready. He looked so formidable, the image seared itself on my mind—this is a true warrior, the noblest of Trojans.

  As he raised his sword against the nameless Greek and felled him, a chariot wheeled up, and a bowman took aim, sending an arrow flying toward Paris. It grazed only his forearm, and he fought on, slaying his second opponent. Next he turned to the third man rushing at him from the right side, and slashed him as well. Only then did he look for his adversary in the chariot, but the man had wheeled away out of range. Paris glanced down at his arm and rubbed it, shaking it as if to test it. Then he wrenched his spear from the fallen Greek and turned to help another Trojan who was battling two Greeks.

  The Greeks on the front lines found themselves deserted as their compatriots withdrew behind them. Slowly they melted back, and the victorious remaining Trojans wearily returned to the city, proudly and slowly, not routed like their fellows who sheepishly cheered them as they entered.

  “It is nothing,” Paris said jubilantly, waving his arm as the crowds greeted him. The wound was slight; it was barely bleeding. “A child’s wound,” he said, laughing, removing his helmet and waving it. But after the salutations, the celebrations, the goblets raised in tribute, the child’s wound began to throb, at first only a tingle.

  In the privacy of our chamber, after he had removed the rest of his dusty armor and called for water to wash, he examined the wound. Angry red streaks now surrounded it, and it felt hot to the touch. When I laid a finger near the swelling open cut, he gave a cry of pain, so sharp it frightened me. He gasped and grasped his elbow, as if to stop the pain there. “It feels like liquid fire,” he said.

  “Shall I call a physician?” I asked.

  “No, no.” He attempted to laugh. “There are many truly wounded men they must see to. It was a nasty battle.”

  In the dim light I could not be sure, but it seemed the wounded forearm was turning purple, and as I watched, the skin stretched and became shiny and taut. At the same time, sweat broke out all over his face and he suddenly muttered, “I feel dizzy—sick—” and he gave a shudder and turned his head away.

  Despite his reluctance, I cried out for an attendant to summon a physician. While we waited, the arm swelled even more, until it looked like it would burst, and then the discoloration seeped down into the fingers and over the shoulder onto his chest. Now his lips started chattering and his limbs began contracting, making him writhe like a fish landed on dry land.

  “My stomach is eaten away,” he moaned, clutching it. “It is consuming me!” The physician arrived and stared down at him, pulling away the clothes to see his abdomen. But there was no mark on it. Then he laid his hand on Paris’s forehead and jerked it away.

  “He is on fire!”

  Fire . . . burning . . . entrails consumed . . . Oh, had that been Philoctetes in the chariot who had struck him? The Hydra’s poison was said to smite its victim just so.

  “Who struck you?”

  “This arrow—it came out of nowhere,” he said. “I do not—” he gasped and clenched his jaw in pain. “I do not know who loosed it. I did not see the man’s face.”

  If indeed it wa
s Philoctetes, let him not know. The will can be as potent as the gods, and unless he believed it was from Philoctetes, it might not prove dangerous.

  “Rest, my love,” I said. “Our foremost physician is here to attend you.”

  He gave a smile, contorted by a grimace as the pain tore through him. “Whenever it is said that the foremost physician will attend you, it means the situation is serious.”

  I forced myself to smile. “Or it means you are a prince of Troy, and entitled to the foremost physician even for a scratch.”

  He grasped the shoulder of my gown with surprising strength, using his other arm. “Do not lie to me, Helen. You above all, do not lie to me. I cannot bear it!”

  I looked down upon him, not wanting to feel that I was so doing—that I, strong and well, gazed upon a stricken Paris. “Paris, you are wounded. But wounds are commonplace in war. You yourself wounded Machaon, but he has recovered. So has Odysseus.”

  “Not all wounds are the same,” he gasped out, clutching his swollen arm.

  “Don’t touch it!” ordered the physician, grabbing his hand. “Here, I have a draught that should help—”

  “I am afraid to take it until I know what has caused this. It might make it worse.” Paris could barely get the words out through his clenched lips.

  “An antidote!” I cried. “Is there no antidote?”

  The physician spoke quietly to me over Paris’s head. “There can be no antidote until we know what it is. The prince is right. The wrong antidote can intensify the venom’s strength.”

  “Venom. Is that what you think this is?”

  “Clearly the arrow was poisoned,” he said. “But with what?”

  The Hydra’s blood, I thought. But I would not say it.