Across the table, in darkness lit only by torches, Helen was still beautiful, painted as she was and well over forty years old. But she had led an easy life, not rising early, overworking, bearing many children as most women do. Yet something had happened to her skin. I could see under the cosmetics it was puckered in places. Paint could not quite hide it. She would flinch, these days, from the glances of men who would once have fallen into her eyes – stood still, amazed – killed a brother for her. I believed as she had aged she had come into the hands of a doctor or a magician who had put warm wax or some heated compound of herbs on her face, promising it would take away the lines. Either the heat, or some corrosive substance in the mask had scarred her. And what of those damaged feet in the gold sandals? What had caused that? Was it an illness? More magic gone wrong?
We sat by the fire. ‘You blame me,’ she said. ‘You have not forgiven me. Do you really think I caused all the trouble that has come to you?’
I shook my head. ‘There were other reasons. But it would have been better if you had not come to Troy with Paris.’
‘I was in love,’ she said, quite proudly.
I responded almost automatically, telling her what Hecuba, my mother, had told all her daughters and I had told mine. ‘Love is for slaves.’ Of course, it is. Beaten for not working properly, a slave would say, ‘I’m in love.’ It is not fitting for dignified women and girls to behave like that A family’s condition depends on marriage. For a royal woman to become besotted is worse, for a queen utter folly – how can she carry out her duties when her mind is preoccupied by a lover?
Helen only said, ‘You have not been in love.’
We were both silent as the door opened and, with snowflakes blowing through the entrance, Helen’s three, tall manservants came in carrying bedding, a roll of carpet, or a hanging, a silver basin and ewer, a painted pot of herbs into which, I supposed, she would put spills or tapers, and light them to scent her bedchamber. I noted she had brought no female servants, not even one woman attendant; her manservants were tall and young.
As they went in procession to Helen’s room I was seized with despair, so that my silence seemed to me something I would never break. The memories which were always a sad background to my life but now, after so many years, had become like a tune heard at a distance, with notes one cannot quite follow, or like a scent so faint one knows it before being able to say exactly what it is – those memories came crowding back. With them thoughts perhaps even more bitter – what had she made of me, this woman? What would I have been, how would I have lived if it had not been for that war in which she played such a significant, and damaging, part? I might have been a happy woman, confident that my brothers and sisters were well, seeing my parents die in dignity, burying them and mourning them with proper ceremony. I might have lived in a beautiful city with my husband and children. Instead, broken and abused, I had been only too grateful to spend my years hiding on a mountain farm, respecting though not loving a husband who respected, but did not love me. Without Helen my eldest son would not have been in exile for seven years. Often enough I’d thought my life worthless, decided I would be better throwing myself from a cliff, and dying below on the rocks by the sea. But that is a luxury a woman with a growing family cannot afford. I could not allow my children to be split up, perhaps neglected in another person’s house or cruelly treated by a stepmother. Now, looking at Helen, I heard the crackle of Troy in flames and the screams of mothers as the Greeks killed their children.
And there sat Helen, still, in the dim light as beautiful as she had ever been, even if sunlight would have told a different story, still with those curving, ever-smiling lips, that blue, inturned gaze. To me she seemed like a dog who from boredom drags from a cupboard something hidden by the owners and pulls it proudly into the big hall in front of the company. The hosts, saddened by memory, embarrassed before guests, must then give an explanation – that is my brother’s staff he broke when we quarrelled for good, it’s the box of herbs for my complaint, the dress of my dead child, the shirt of the boy who left and never came back. And the dog wags its tail and waits for reward.
Helen, settled in her mind as to her sleeping arrangements, becoming used to the house and to me, realising, no doubt, that I would do her no harm, exuded ease. Charm flowed round her like waves of light But she gave out no light. She left me in agony and darkness. She must have had that effect on Paris, and all the men who loved her. They would be always trying to get closer to the source of that light and abolish the darkness she herself had created for them. They would try, but never succeed. The fire we sat before, large flames licking up from dry wood, was dimmed by her presence. She took the heat from it. I found I was making the sign of Hecate, to ward off ill fortune. It is just a joining of each thumb to the little finger on both hands. I had learned not to use the sign during my years of exile. Now I sat, my fingers making the two little circles in my lap. The woman seemed oblivious of any effect she might have on me. She watched her men go through the house carrying her things, smiled her half-smile as if to say, ‘Good. There we are, then. Now things are arranged as I like them.’ It seemed barely human. Perhaps this was why Helenus, with no cause to thank her, and his wife Andromache with even less, had dealt with her gently. They knew she was too strange. Ordinary things could not be asked of her.
So – ‘I was in love,’ she told me.
I found my voice, but it came from far off. ‘Couldn’t you have resisted it, when you began to see the consequences?’
I heard her say, ‘No – I could not,’ and I believe this was true.
Twelve
Troy
The first, inevitable result of Helen’s abduction, as the Greeks called it, was the arrival of Menelaus. The city laughed harder – here came the cuckold to get his wife back. Our men, of course, had some sympathy for him – no man relishes the idea of being left by his wife – but our own customs were different from those of the Greeks. With us a man did not own his wife, so if she left, it was not supposed to be a matter (as with the theft of a horse) of curses, blows, law-suits or the seizing back of the property. The man had to accept the loss of his wife and return her dowry when she asked for it. So part of the laughter in the streets was therefore connected with the curious habits of the Greeks in their domestic lives.
The arrival of Menelaus was not taken so lightly at the palace. The arrival of the wounded husband was unwelcome if not unexpected. My parents and the advisers would have to deal with one of the two most powerful rulers in the Greek mainland, a chief voice among the other Greek rulers and a very angry man. There could be no question on our side of putting pressure on Helen to return to her husband or to give back the treasure the couple had brought away from Sparta with them, though some would have been glad to see her hand back that treasure. And not a few would have been relieved to see her leave voluntarily for Sparta with her former husband.
Menelaus came in shortly after the messenger bringing news of the arrival of his ship. Behind him came eight or nine helmeted men with spears, shields and swords swinging at their sides. He himself was armed. His red hair underneath a large winged helmet hung unkempt at his shoulders and he had shaved off his beard. He was pale and his eyes were red-rimmed. It was plain he had hardly slept for many nights. He was an unnerving sight as he entered the room with his hand on his sword, a hand which never left the hilt all the time he was there.
My mother greeted him from her seat, using the proper language, and invited him and his followers to sit. She ordered servants to bring refreshments. Menelaus stood as these formal preambles took place, his eyes not meeting my mother’s and his hand twitching on his sword hilt. When she had concluded he looked at her, stared at my father, seated beside her, and demanded, ‘King Priam. Will you fetch my wife from wherever she is?’
My father responded, again with the only formula suitable for the occasion, ‘King Menelaus. You are welcome to my home. I give you honour.’ He cut the courtesies short, howeve
r, and responded, ‘I cannot do as you ask. She has renounced you and is now married to my son, Paris.’ A king’s word should have been good enough, but Menelaus, obviously barely restraining an impulse to cry out, ‘You lie!’ instead breathed in hard and muttered, ‘I’ll find her.’ Whereupon he seized a servant from the door and, trundling the man out by the shoulder, left the hall and the palace with his men racing after him.
Citizens and slaves going about their business stood amazed as the tall, red-headed man, in full armour, pushing the servant in front of him, shouting, ‘Lead me to the woman!’ ran down the paved streets to Paris’ house, actually no more than three hundred yards from the palace. His warriors sped behind. Once there he let go of the servant and rushed through the entrance, across the courtyard and through the open front door. He went into the main hall at a run. It was empty. He found Helen and Paris in the garden. The houses, built on a hillside, had little land behind them, but Paris and Helen’s house had a courtyard with a well, a fig tree, an apple tree and a bed of herbs.
The day was very hot. Helen sat on a cushion at the well’s edge trailing one white hand in the water, while with the other she tugged, teased and smoothed by turns the curly head of Paris, who was leaning against her knees. As Menelaus charged in she had just taken her other hand from the well to smooth Paris’ hot brow. (Clemone, my half-sister, told me all this. She heard it from a servant – everyone knew quickly what had taken place in that house that day.) Menelaus had scattered the few servants who had tried to prevent his rush like so many chickens kicked aside in a farmyard and as he appeared in the doorway, his men behind him, Paris of course leaped to his feet He was unarmed, wearing only a linen tunic. What Menelaus thought as he gazed at Paris’ handsome face, his large blue eyes under the dark brows, his straight nose, gently curling brown hair and shapely body, manly, yet with some feminine grace, no one can know. If he had even really believed that Helen had been abducted, the scene he had just broken in on must have been a shock to him. Whatever he believed, the temptation to kill Paris must have been strong. Paris said later he was sure at that moment he was a dead man. But whether Menelaus had believed or allowed himself to believe Helen had been taken from him against her will, or whether he had always known she had left him for a lover, he did not draw his sword. He wanted Helen, not Paris’ life. He told his warriors to seize her. They dragged her up from the well’s edge. She stood passively, eyes wide, between two armed men.
Menelaus, at that point, might well have escaped from the city with her, reached his ship and carried her off without interference, but there was a yell behind him suddenly and there was my brother Hector, stocky, wearing the workgown in which he had entered the palace just after Menelaus left (he had been away on one of the farms). He had a raised sword in his hand. Behind him were others, equally hastily equipped – my brothers Chromius and Deiphobus, Abas, and a couple of squat Carians from the countryside. Some had swords, some not, one carried a pruning sickle. Though ill-prepared for battle they looked dangerous, and Menelaus and his men, including those holding Helen, got out their swords. There might have been a serious fight with terrible consequences for Hector and the others had no armour and the courtyard was small, leaving no room for manoeuvre.
Hector grasped how bad the outcome might be if there were a fight. He took a risk, put down his sword, stepped forward swiftly and grasped Menelaus by the arm. ‘My lord,’ he stated, ‘you cannot force the woman to come with you. Be reasonable – what would be the point? What good is she to you now?’ There was something in his tone, they said, which was sympathetic. It was not enemy to enemy. It was the voice of a man speaking to another man about a woman. Hector said only one more thing to the Spartan king. ‘Do any of us,’ he asked him, ‘wish to be remembered as warriors who died fighting at home in a courtyard?’ He meant, though he did not add ‘– Over a faithless woman?’
Menelaus, who had been standing rigid as Hector spoke, staring all the time at the lovely face of his wife, now broke away. He said coldly, ‘I have been mistaken. I believed the woman left against her will. I came to rescue her. Now I see the true state of affairs I will leave her to your brother and welcome. But I shall not go until the property she took with her is restored to me.’
‘My dowry,’ Helen said.
‘You came to me with no dowry,’ Menelaus said. ‘Your dowry was your beauty, all knew that.’
‘My father would never have let me marry without a dowry,’ she told him.
‘A dowry was agreed,’ he said. ‘Two farms, flocks, gold coins, many other things – but it was never paid and I did not insist. You know that.’
‘The gods will witness,’ said Helen, casting up her eyes, ‘I took only what was mine.’
They said at that moment all present believed Menelaus would raise his sword and kill his wife before anyone could stop him.
Hector said, ‘This should go to judgement.’
‘Whose judgement?’ responded Menelaus. ‘Your council’s? Who do you think they would declare for?’ It was as if he had suddenly become weary. He straightened himself and said, ‘Hear me – I will go now. You can keep the woman and the money and property she stole from my treasury – for now. But,’ he declared and there was a great chill in his voice, ‘I shall come back and I shall take both from you. That is my promise.’
It was, they said, a terrifying declaration from that great red-headed man, pale with fury and still holding his sword. All knew it was a solemn speech, one of those statements which, once made, a nobleman must honour, even if it means losing his life. So, his head tilted back, Menelaus said, ‘That is my promise.’ Then with one hard look at Helen, still between the armed men, he wheeled round and left, the other Greeks close behind him. They went straight to their ship, walking to the harbour with set faces. People on the road got out of their way quickly. One man, driving his waggon off the road fast to evade them, broke an axle.
In Paris’ courtyard the frightened servants began to relax. Paris looked indignant, Hector grave. Helen smiled. Her hand on her husband’s arm, she said in a courtly way, ‘Shall we go in?’ She added, to Hector and the others, ‘Some refreshment? You have come from your work.’
There were those who claimed this response was a sign of good breeding. Hector, heavy and sweating, was embarrassed, as if he had burst in dirty and started a fight in the house, instead of having been dragged into a crisis not of his making. He mumbled that he had better go home to his wife, who was unwell. My other brothers, and the others, also excused themselves.
Later, at the evening meal, as our family, and the nobles and townsmen sat at table, Hector raged, ‘She smiled at me! After all that – I and the others forced to drive her husband from the house – after that, she smiles! Would she have smiled at me if some of us had been killed?’
‘And no word since,’ observed Deiphobus, a cooler man than Hector, but intelligent. ‘It would be more suitable if they were here dining with us this evening.’ This was quite true. It was a matter for the family, the city, perhaps the nation. It would have to be discussed and Paris should at least have been there for the discussion.
The light was failing. Helenus and I sat at the end of the long table. I had tugged Naomi downstairs with me for the evening meal and now she sat on the floor by my knees, the dog alongside. Helenus and I were both feeding Naomi and the dog scraps from the table, meat and bread, which both ate voraciously. Naomi had been with me only two weeks then and was still famished. As she stared up at me, her eyes wild and her body tensed for any danger which might come to her, she seemed less tame than the dog.
‘So he said he’d be back?’ questioned Anchises, although this fact had been mentioned more than once already. He pondered.
‘What man in such a humiliating position would not say that?’ demanded Deiphobus, who had a mocking spirit. ‘He’d been refused by his wife and was backing down from a fight – he had to issue a threat. Why should we concern ourselves with him? We already know he and his b
rother are wild dogs, forever trying to steal from us and attack us if they dare. Now, Menelaus is angry about the woman, and his brother is angry for his sake – but it won’t make any difference. They attack us already. They’ll continue to attack us. Nothing’s changed.’
‘I do not like it,’ said Anchises, predictably. No one said what we all knew – that, as he gravely pondered the matter, his son Aeneas was probably at Paris’ house, holding a goblet of wine, laughing, asking the musicians for his favourite tune, while his wife, the patient Creusa, waited at home with her women.
‘So – as for coming back to take his treasure and his revenge,’ Deiphobus went on boldly, ‘we know they will – and we’ll see them off.’ There was a laugh, shouts of agreement. Encouraged, he went on, ‘Who cares for them? They’ll probably tear each other to pieces before we see them again. We hear rumours of attempts to form a Greek alliance, but that can only be an alliance of enemies. And isn’t it true,’ he appealed to Anchises, who had spies in Greece, ‘that Agamemnon’s cousin is trying to raise a rebellion against him? Menelaus’ll have his work cut out defending his brother if that happens. Their father quarrelled with his brother and ousted him from the throne, now the cousin quarrels with Agamemnon –’ He paused and some laughed, but not all. Deiphobus concluded, ‘What are they? A family without sons, always at war with each other.’
It was an energetic speech, and all true. The table – there were sixteen of us – settled into comfort, even complacency, as we turned to other matters. A disunited family cannot rule. A family without sons, in warlike times, will find itself at a disadvantage. What we were not reckoning with, of course, was the fact that, from those terrible, ever-threatened cradles in Mycenae and Sparta, could spring beasts, hardened by neglect and lovelessness and desperately seeking compensation from everyone for early woes. Few they might be, sonless even, but the damage they, men, women, daughters, sons, could wreak had little to do with numbers.
Cassandra Page 12
