A Thousand Ships

by Natalie Haynes

  And she nodded, as though she believed him. ‘You must promise me something more,’ she said.

  ‘Anything,’ he replied.

  ‘You must promise not to be first,’ she said. His pretty brow – the thing she had loved about him from the beginning, the slight crease between his eyes – was the only sign of his confusion. His mouth continued to make soft, calming sounds, as though he were placating a scared horse.

  ‘I mean it.’ She wanted to tell him to stop stroking her arms and pay attention to her words. But the torchlight glittered on his golden skin, and she found she could barely pay attention to them herself. ‘You must let your ship lag behind the others, when you land at Troy. Yours must not be the first to make its mooring.’

  ‘I doubt I will be at the helm of the ship, my love,’ he replied. He felt her stiffen beside him. ‘But I will ask the helmsman to make no haste. I will distract him with talk of sea-monsters and whirlpools.’

  ‘You aren’t taking me seriously,’ she said. She tried to jerk her arm out of his reach, and remonstrate with him, but she could not. She longed for his touch, even when she had it. ‘You must allow the other men to get off the ship before you. All will be well if you will just stand back a little and let another man off the ship first.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But perhaps the sooner I leave my ship, the sooner I can return to it, and then to you.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, please. That’s not it at all. You cannot be first off the ship, you cannot.’ Her tears spilled out again.

  Protesilaus smiled patiently, and ruffled her hair. ‘I said, don’t cry, little queen. Please stop.’

  Their bedroom was not large or opulent by the standards of other palaces, she had no doubt. The kingdom was small, the palace was small, and she was small. Or delicate, as Protesilaus laughed. He always said that he would have married her even if she hadn’t been beautiful, because she was the only queen who would fit in his low-roofed home. But the thick walls kept the palace cool: the only cool place in their hot little city. And so they could fill their bedroom with quilts and torches, even as the rest of the kingdom baked in the evening sun. She loved to be there more than anywhere else, tangled up with her husband in their private room.

  But when the call came for the suitors of Helen to mass their ships at Aulis, her small, perfect happiness began to unravel. She knew that Protesilaus had once bid for Helen’s hand in marriage, of course. It was before she had known him, so she bore only the slightest grudge. But oh, if only he had not. Because the suitors had all sworn an oath to bring Helen back – if ever she went missing – to whichever of them was named her husband. Otherwise, she could not have been married at all: every Greek king wanted her to be his own. There had to be some consequence for so many competing claims.

  The man who eventually took her was no Greek and had sworn nothing. Yet the oath which bound Laodamia’s husband could not be broken. So when Helen disappeared with the prince of Troy, Protesilaus received his orders to join his fellow Greeks and wage war for her return. Because the Spartan king had lost his queen, a hundred queens lost their kings. And Laodamia resented the Greeks at least as much as she resented the Trojans. She had asked for very little in her life: only that her husband be hers, and be safe, and be near.

  And now he was none of those things. She knew the moment it happened, days before the messenger arrived with the news she had dreaded above all else. She had always known, she thought, even before she could have put words to the fear. The moment she met Protesilaus, she had somehow known she would lose him. She remembered the warring sensations when her father introduced them: immediate devotion mingled with a desperate presentiment of grief.

  She had known as she closed her eyes in his embrace that final time, having travelled with him to his ship so she could wave him off. Again, she begged him to hang back from the sandy shores of Troy, to be last, to be second from last, to be anything but the first Greek to set foot on foreign land. She had hidden her tears from her husband so he would have her smile to take with him. But as soon as she thought he would no longer be able to see, she wept steadily and never stopped. She watched his outline until she could make him out no more, and then she watched his ship until it became a speck. Still, she could not bear to leave the water’s edge, so strong was her sense that once she had turned away from the ocean she had turned away from all happiness. Eventually, slaves steered her back to the palace, her maidservant holding her around the waist so that when she stumbled (unable to see through her tears and the twilight), she would not fall. The poor girl could not see that Laodamia had already fallen and would never get up again.

  Her parents consoled her: Protesilaus would return, the distance was not so great, the sea was calm. Too calm, it transpired. A few days after he had sailed from Thessaly, Protesilaus sent word that he – like the rest of the Greeks – was becalmed at Aulis. The fleet could not sail and Laodamia allowed herself to hope that the enterprise would be abandoned, and her husband would sail home again. That the image she kept seeing – of his beautiful feet, the long toes pointing outwards, left foot in front of right, perched on the prow of a ship – was Protesilaus disembarking on the Thessalian coast and not leaping to his doom at Troy. She could see it in such detail: his knees slightly bent, like a dancer, his weight moving forward with such deliberate precision.

  But of course she knew it was hopeless. Agamemnon, the leader of the expedition, committed some atrocity to appease the gods and win back the wind for his ships. The fleet sailed, as she had always known it would. It reached Troy safely and her husband, her beloved, so desperate to get the war underway so he could hurry back to his little queen, leapt from his ship into the shallow waters which lapped at the shore. The Trojans were waiting for them, but Protesilaus was no coward. She did not know – until the messenger arrived with the awful news – that her husband was such a fine warrior. If asked, she would have said that he was, of course. But if asked, she would have said, with equal pride, that he might fly. It was no consolation to her to find out that her husband was brave and skilled with both spear and sword. She would have preferred it if he had sat quivering behind a couch, refusing the call to fight. Who could love a coward, she had once heard a woman say. Laodamia knew the answer. Someone for whom the alternative is loving a corpse.

  But though she took no comfort in his bravery, she knew others did. His fellow citizens were filled with pride for their late king. They sat beneath sun-bleached flax awnings, telling each other of Protesilaus’ exploits. How he had leapt from his ship ahead of all his men, and killed three Trojans – no, four – before the Myrmidon ships had even landed. Swift-footed Achilles, people called the Myrmidon king. But their king had been swifter still. How they boasted of him: she heard it from the slaves who hoped to ease her suffering. And it had not been an ordinary Trojan who cut her husband down. It had been no less than Hector, the favourite son of Priam, the barbarian king. He was built like an ox, they said. Tall and strong, and fighting in defence of his city. All agreed that those who fought to protect what they valued fought more desperately than those on the attack. Such a man it had taken to fell their young king and make him the first of the Greeks to die.

  After the news of his death had reached her, Laodamia had not known what to do. She tore her garments and ripped at her hair and cheeks, because she knew it was expected of her. She rent her skin with her sharp nails – nails which she had dragged down her husband’s spine in moments of pleasure – and in the moment of causing the damage she felt a release. The physical pain was a shallow reflection of what she felt, but even a poor reflection was better than nothing. The dull soreness which followed was insufficient. The wounds healed, but nothing else did. Unable to bear the conversation of her parents or friends or servants, she found herself repeating the looped walk, across to the eastern side of the city where she sat under a thin tree and waited for no one to come, because there would be no news she ever needed to hear again.

  The citiz
ens of Phylace left her alone with her grief every day, until the blacksmith – whose forge lay opposite her tree – could bear it no longer. A tall, bulky man with huge, soot-blackened forearms and a gut which he restrained with a tanned leather belt, he had watched his queen sit opposite his smithy since the day the king had left. He had never considered himself to be a sentimental man: he had hammered out the king’s spearheads for him, he knew what happened on a battlefield. But the sorrow which exuded from her like a stench – forcing others to turn away and hurry past, even when it was too hot to hurry anywhere – did not repel him. Rather, it reminded him of his wife, when she lost their second child a few months after birth. The baby had slept fitfully and cried often, and one morning when they awoke, he lay cold in his crib. There was no sign of sickness or injury; he was perfect. He looked more beautiful dead than he had looked alive, always gasping for breath. The blacksmith had taken the child and buried him in a pit he dug himself. His wife could not speak for days. The smith tried to remind her that they still had a son – toddling around their chair legs, tugging at her skirts – and that they would surely go on to have more. But grief stood before his wife like an immovable object around which she could not find her way. She grew paler and thinner from staying indoors, and after a day or two, he began to take his surviving son around the corner into the smithy each morning because he could see that if she was not feeding herself, she was not feeding the boy. He begged his sisters and his brothers’ wives to talk to her. But no one could reach her. A month after the child died, he buried his wife.

  The blacksmith was a good man and he could provide for his family, so he married again within a year. His second wife was ten years younger – broad-hipped and quick to laugh – and they had five more children in rapid succession. She never treated his eldest son as anything but her own, and it was this which made his voice still catch in his throat sometimes when he spoke about her. His friends would roar and laugh and raise their cups at the sight of the big man brought low by his own affection. But the laughter was never cruel.

  Every morning, he watched Laodamia walk to her tree. And every afternoon, when he had finished his work for the day, he began to make something else. He was not usually a rich man, but he had sold a great number of weapons to the Greeks who were now waging their war on Troy. And he had a large chunk of bronze which was not spoken for, having arrived after the men had set sail. His wife did not complain when he came home a little later, nor did she ask what kept him at the smithy for the extra time. Instead she rubbed olive oil into the red weals under his arms and beneath his belt, where the salt deposits from his sweat had abraded his skin.

  Two months after the king had sailed into the Pagasean Gulf, the blacksmith found himself waiting for the little queen to arrive as he was hammering a pair of greaves into shape. He had done this so many times before that he did not need to look down. The greaves would fit their owner perfectly around the calves when he came to collect them tomorrow.

  When Laodamia arrived at her perch beneath the tree, the smith thought one last time about whether he was doing the best thing. But her birdlike frame had become so gaunt that he could not ignore it. He walked over to her slowly, because he was aware of his size and he did not want to scare her.

  ‘Potnia,’ he said, bowing his head slightly. He felt foolish, hoped it was early enough that his neighbours were busy with their own work and wouldn’t see him. She showed no sign of having heard. He crouched down on his haunches in front of her. ‘My lady?’ he said again. She dragged her eyes from the middle distance to see what huge boulder had rolled in front of her. She was astonished to discover that it was a man.

  ‘I cannot help you,’ she said. Whatever he was asking for – food, water – she had none. Nor did she have the mental resources to find them. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘I cannot help.’ Their eyes met and he saw the depths of his first wife’s misery once again. He had not been able to save Philonome, but he would save this girl.

  ‘I do not need your help, Potnia,’ he said. She almost smiled to hear the word. Protesilaus had called her that, in the bedroom which belonged to them.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, and she looked at him in confusion. He held out a meaty hand and she placed her own into it, as though he were her father and she were a child. He led her across the dirt track, steering her around the furrows made by carts laden with marble and stone.

  ‘Now this way.’ He took her into his forge: only low walls separated it from the street and she followed him past a set of hanging bellows made of calfskin, which had been polished to a hard shine with the blacksmith’s sweat. Behind the battered anvil and the collection of small, sharp spearheads he had made with leftover metal shards as he worked on larger pieces, was a doorway which led into a storage room. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the relative darkness, and she saw dented pots and split cauldrons, waiting to be reheated and hammered or spliced back together.

  Behind all these, in the furthest corner, was a huge pile of cloth. No, not a pile, she realized. Just one piece of cloth covering something large. Something taller than her.

  ‘Will you accept a gift from a stranger?’ the smith asked, and he whisked away the cloth with a deft tug. She felt the air leave her lungs, squeezed like the bellows outside. Because there, standing in front of her, was Protesilaus. She was not conscious of moving her feet, only following her hand which reached out to touch her husband’s perfect face. The bronze was warm to the touch, as though his blood flowed beneath it. She opened her mouth, but could not find the sounds.

  ‘I am truly sorry for what you have lost,’ said the smith. ‘If your ladyship would like it, I will wheel it up to the palace whenever you wish.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Yes.’

  The smith looked at her, and shook out the cloth so he could cover his work once again.

  ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Please don’t.’ She threw her arms around the statue and grasped it tight. The smith smiled. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘My boys will be here shortly. You can stay with it and accompany them home with it, if you like.’

  ‘With him,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I will.’

  Over the days and months which followed, Laodamia did not let her bronze husband out of her sight. She refused to eat or drink unless the statue was present, and she could not be prevailed upon to leave her chamber. Her parents grew worried that their daughter could not continue in such a fashion. The slaves used to talk of her as a tragic figure, but as time passed, they grew scornful of a girl who could not accept her husband’s death and marry again. She was young enough to bear any man children.

  Her parents tried to reason with her, and when that had no effect, they decided to act in her best interests. They waited for her to fall asleep one night, and had slaves remove the statue from her room. She awoke to find it on a funeral pyre, burning in place of the body which had never been returned to Greece. She issued a cracked howl, and hurled herself at the flames.

  The gods saw this and, unusually, took pity upon her. As she was grabbed by her father and bundled back to her room, locked in for her own safety, the gods sent Hermes to negotiate with the lord of the Underworld. For the first and last time, Hades agreed to their request. As Laodamia wept her hopeless tears into a sodden pillow, she felt a warm hand on her upper back.

  ‘Hush, little queen, don’t cry,’ said her husband. And at last she wept no more.

  They spent a single day together before Hades’ patience expired and Protesilaus was returned to the halls of the dead. Unable to live without what she had lost once before, Laodamia tied her bed-sheets into a noose and followed him. The gods remarked upon her devotion, and when the people of Phylace built a shrine to their king and queen, the gods smiled upon their prayers.

  15

  Iphigenia

  Her father had sent word that she was to be married to Achilles, and her mother’s servants had packed their things and bundled them out of the palace so quickly she had known that they w
ere afraid the great man would change his mind. But why should Achilles be anything other than delighted to marry her? She was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister to Orestes and Electra, niece to Menelaus, cousin to Hermione. Whereas Achilles was who? Of course, they said he was the greatest warrior the world had ever known, but he had yet to fight in a war. And when he did strap on his greaves and unsheathe his sword, it would be for her family. The troops were drawing together at Aulis, ready to sail to Troy. But it was her father who commanded the Greeks, not Achilles – who commanded only his own men, the Myrmidons. And yes, perhaps he was more nimble than Apollo, swifter than Hermes, more destructive than Ares, as the rumours went. But he was not disgracing himself by marrying her. Her chin jutted forward as she berated her imaginary accusers for their ill-considered slight.

  Iphigenia and her mother were on the road to Aulis before she even knew where it was. Her infant brother accompanied them while Electra remained at home with the wet-nurse. They rode in a small cart which juddered along the stony paths, and when the going became too rough, she and her mother clambered out and walked so the horses had less of a burden. No one wanted to lose a horse in the mountainous region north of Mycenae. Even as she turned her ankle, stepping on loose sand which covered a treacherous rock, she consoled herself with the beauty of her saffron-coloured gown, packed into a box, safe from the bleaching sun and the billowing dust. She would make a spectacular bride, gazed at by every man in her father’s armies.

  But these thoughts consoled only her. By the time they arrived at Aulis, her mother was irritable from the heat and the dust and, most of all, the absence of her father to greet them. Agamemnon was somewhere in the camp, they were told by a gruff soldier who hastened them to their tent, but no one seemed sure where.