Helen of Sparta

by Amalia Carosella

  “Too much sitting at banquet?” Pollux teased me, when he saw how stiffly I moved. “Perhaps we should go hunting tomorrow morning, before the festivities begin.”

  Even the idea of sitting a horse made me wince. “I don’t think Leda will approve.”

  “Since when does Leda approve of anything you do?”

  “Best not to test your mother’s patience, Pollux, when we have a palace full of guests,” Tyndareus said. “And it would not do for Helen to be thought wild by the men who might marry her.”

  “I was given to understand that Helen was all but promised to the younger Atrides,” Pirithous said. “Or so your people say.”

  Tyndareus shook his head. “Helen is promised to no man until the games are played and a winner is found. Before Zeus himself, I have sworn this. Helen’s husband will be chosen as much by the gods’ favor as by mine.”

  “Then I will tell Theseus to make sacrifice,” Pirithous said. “And pray that the gods favor him, when the time comes.”

  “I did not think the king of Athens would take another wife,” my father said.

  “Nor did he,” Pirithous agreed. “Until he looked upon Helen. But surely you could not find fault in such a match. The blood of Poseidon joined with the blood of Zeus could only strengthen the line. Their children would be as gods.”

  “But at what cost?” Tyndareus asked. “I would not see Helen suffer the fate of Phaedra.”

  Pirithous glanced at me, and I pretended not to listen. Even so, he guided my father back down the path toward the palace, and I did not hear what else he might have said.

  “Do you know what happened to Phaedra?” I asked Pollux.

  My brother shrugged, and I took his arm as we followed. Even if I had wished to eavesdrop, Pirithous had lengthened his stride to leave me behind.

  “Only that she was cursed by the gods,” Pollux said. “They say Aphrodite made her fall in love with Theseus’s son, Hippolytus, and they both died for it.”

  “Hippolytus is an Amazon name.”

  “Yes.” Pollux matched his pace to mine. “Hippolytus was Theseus’s son with Antiope, the Amazon queen. But the story I heard of how it came to be does not seem much like him.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Pollux hesitated, glancing down at me. “They say he stole her while he traveled with Heracles. Then he took her maidenhead, that she would have no other choice but to leave her people, dishonored. When the goddess Artemis learned of it, she cursed them both, and the Amazons attacked Athens to take revenge for the insult to their queen. In the battle, Antiope fought for Athens in order to protect her son, and the Amazons killed her for breaking her vows.”

  I did not know what to say. For the first time, I wondered if I had made a mistake in placing myself in Theseus’s hands, but the man in the story did not sound at all like the man I had come to know. Was this what the people of Sparta thought of him? If Tyndareus believed it, he would never let me marry him, no matter how great a hero he might be.

  “I suppose Tyndareus thinks he is protecting me,” I said.

  “Isn’t that what all of this has been for?” Pollux asked. “So the man from your nightmares has not come as we hoped he would. When he does, we will be ready. Zeus will protect you and all of Sparta.”

  I pressed my lips together and said nothing. Zeus seemed much more willing to take than to give, and I had no intention of leaving my fate or Sparta’s in the hands of any god.

  But I could not turn my mind from the story of Antiope . . .

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I returned to the megaron, we spoke of nothing beyond the level of wine in my cup and the amount of food on my plate. Theseus seemed even more intent than Pirithous to keep my cup filled, and though he smiled and laughed as he had the first night of the feasting, his eyes remained the flat blue-gray of the sea before a storm. When our gazes met, his jaw would tighten before he looked away.

  I had seen Tyndareus behave the same way when something troubled him, but I did not know what could have happened between last night and this evening. I did not dare ask where I might be overheard, just as I could not ask about Antiope.

  “If you’re worrying over Menelaus,” Theseus said finally, after a bard had taken a seat by the hearth and the carcass of the bull that had been our supper was cleared away. “Two of my men carouse beneath your window even now, ready to feign drunkenness until Pirithous relieves them himself in the morning. As long as I am in Sparta, you will be safe.”

  “And when you leave?”

  His mouth formed a grim line. “I’ve given you my word, Helen. You can depend upon that much, if nothing else.”

  “But my father has refused your offer.”

  “It isn’t your father’s refusal that worries me.” He poured me more wine. One of his men had brought us a jug of Attic wine, and though it felt disloyal to admit it, I liked the sweetness of it better than our own. “As long as this is what you wish for, removing you will be the least of my concerns.”

  I swallowed around the thickness in my throat and forced myself to look at him. “I have heard you have experience with abducting women.”

  He froze in the act of setting the jug back down on the table, and for a moment, the song of the bard and the conversation in the megaron faded completely. All I heard was the roar of the sea pounding against stone as Theseus’s eyes met mine.

  “What exactly,” he said, speaking so softly that I had to strain to hear him, “were you told?”

  I swallowed again, but I could find the breath for only one word. “Antiope.”

  The pottery handle shattered in his palm.

  How he caught the wine jug before it dropped, I did not know, for he had not looked away from me for even so much as a heartbeat. But he steadied it, and then he brushed the dust of the pottery from his hands with every appearance of complete control. He shook his head just slightly, and the voices of my father’s guests and the music of the lyre crashed back around me.

  “Ah,” he said. “Of course.”

  I glanced down the table, but no one seemed to notice the accident, or if anyone had, they did not care.

  “Of course?”

  Theseus took a long drink of his wine and said nothing.

  “Theseus, please.”

  He set down his cup but did not look at me, his gaze trained on the bard. “Do you believe it?”

  “Should I?”

  “Oh, Helen.” He laughed, but it was bitter. “What am I to say? I could tell you what happened, but why should you believe me? Why should anyone?”

  “They said—” I bit my lip, but I had come this far, and if it was true, better that I learn it now than after he had taken me to Athens. “They said that you raped her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I can see why that would upset you after what Menelaus did.”

  I flushed. “That’s different.”

  He shook his head, his expression full of sorrow. “They say,” he said softly, “that I raped her to make her marry me. So that she would have no other choice but to be mine.”

  “Oh,” I breathed, feeling it like a kick in my gut. I closed my eyes against the tears that pricked behind them and tried not to think of the things Menelaus had said, or the feel of his body over mine. I focused on my breathing and felt some of the tightness in my chest ease.

  “Would you like to hear the truth?” he asked. Concern made crow’s-feet around his eyes, and I knew he was only offering to distract me. He did not wait for me to nod.

  “Antiope was a wise queen, and a better warrior,” he said. “Her people loved her to the point of worship. When she chose to leave them, to break her vows and become my wife, they could not believe she would do so willingly. They did not want to believe it. So they told themselves a different story, the one that you had the misfortune to hear.”

 
I felt the cold metal of my wine cup in my hands and drank from it while he spoke. He smiled, but his expression was filled with remembered pain, and my heart ached for him.

  “It was not long before they came to Athens with Artemis’s blessing, thinking to rescue her and take revenge on me, but by that time we had our son, Hippolytus, and I do not think any force on earth could have persuaded her to leave him, even if she had not cared for me. She fought for Athens, and Artemis made sure she fell in the battle. Later, the goddesses took our son as well.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He refilled both our cups with more wine than water. “So am I.”

  The bard began singing of Heracles and how Hera had driven him so mad, he killed his wife and children.

  Theseus grimaced, and rose. “I’m afraid I have no stomach for song tonight. Will you walk with me?”

  I took his hand and let him help me up, ignoring Leda’s glare. She could hardly complain that I was not doing my duty for Sparta, and even if Theseus had not been a suitor, he would have deserved any honors we could heap upon him as a hero, my companionship among them.

  Clymene trailed behind us as Theseus led me from the megaron. I wished I could send her away, but under Leda’s eye, I did not dare. In the courtyard, she dropped back several paces. It was enough space, if we kept our voices low, that we might speak with some privacy. Theseus pulled my arm through his as we walked beneath the shadows between the pillars and the walls.

  “I wish I could promise you an easy life,” Theseus said when we had outpaced her. “Or even that I could tell you what avoiding your war will cost. I will not even be able to give you freedom, at first.”

  “It is a great freedom to choose my own husband, my own fate. That is all I have ever asked for.”

  “So you say.” He stared ahead into the darkness. The moon was bright, but after the lamps and fire of the megaron, I could barely see. “But a month from now, a year spent locked away, what then?”

  I stopped, pulling him with me. “I have been ogled by men since my tenth summer, Theseus. Every year, it is worse than the last. If leaving here means I need not be seen by anyone but you, I cannot imagine it will make me unhappy. At least I will be spending my days without fear of my nights.”

  He caressed my cheek, his touch featherlight. “Nothing to fear but the gods.”

  I caught his hand, holding it to my face. “I will not fear them, either.”

  “Careful,” he said, “or they might hear it as a challenge.”

  “The gods do not listen to me. Sometimes I doubt they hear any of us.”

  He laughed, dropping his hand from my face and walking on. “Knowing they hear you does not change things for the better, I promise you.”

  I sighed, taking his arm again. The two men beneath my window stood when they saw us, their grins flashing in the moonlight. Theseus flicked his fingers, and they went back to their game, but I waited until they would not hear before I spoke again.

  “You said before that you have some greater worry than stealing me away.”

  Theseus was silent long enough that I looked up. His lips were pressed together, and his hand over mine tightened.

  “The gods have never loved me, Helen,” he began, seeming to choose his words carefully. “They have taken every woman I have ever loved, my father, even my son. You think I am different from these other men who wish to win you, but in truth, it is only that I fear what will happen to you if you become my wife. Now more so than ever, for though Athena will help us, Zeus demands we pay a price.”

  Zeus. Always Zeus! Why should he care now, what I did? After all the years he had spent ignoring me. I glared at the sky. “Zeus has never had any use for me before now. I do not see why that would change.”

  “I think it is this war you dream of. By taking you from Sparta, we deny the gods. Men are never more attentive to sacrifice and honors than during battle, and Zeus will ask for something in exchange. I fear—I fear it will mean blood. A life.”

  “No,” I said, but I wanted to scream. “I cannot believe it. The gods sent me these dreams as a warning. Why should Zeus feel cheated when he never meant for it to happen? The gods seek to avoid this fate, not court it.”

  “Athena has never lied to me, Helen. Not in all the years I have been her champion and king.”

  “Then perhaps Zeus has deceived her, or means for us to be deceived. That is his way. That is always how he accomplishes his goals, through trickery and lies.” My nails dug into his skin, but I did not care. “We make our own fate, Theseus. I have seen it in my dreams. And whether or not he is my father, I will not let Zeus take that from me.”

  Theseus pried my fingers from his arm and raised my hand to his lips. The warmth of his kiss spread up my arm, making me flush.

  “You have the courage of a hero, Princess. As a queen you will have no match.”

  “But you do not believe me.”

  “I know the gods. They have never taken less than what they asked for.” He nodded toward the entrance to the megaron, guiding us back. “But if there is any woman who could succeed in thwarting Zeus, I can believe his daughter has the fairest chance.”

  When we stepped back inside, the sour smell of men and wine brought with it Menelaus’s breath in my ear, his weight crushing the air from my lungs.

  “You need only make it through this evening and tomorrow,” Theseus murmured. “I only wish I could free you from the heartache so easily.”

  I forced myself to smile, for many of the men in the hall had turned to look at me as I walked back to my seat. Menelaus stopped his conversation with my mother, and when he looked at Theseus, his lip curled.

  “He’ll suspect you first and convince my father it was so,” I said.

  “Perhaps.” Theseus squeezed my hand and leaned down to speak in my ear with the excuse of helping me seat myself. “But it will change nothing. The Rock has never fallen, and Athena will not see her city brought to ruin for the glory of Mycenae. Once we reach Athens, you’ll be safe from Menelaus.”

  But his face when he sat down was lined, making him look for the first time as old as Tyndareus.

  In Athens I would be safe from men, his expression said as he urged me to drink my wine. But not from the gods.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  One more cup of wine, Helen, and then I’ll call Pollux to see you to your bed.”

  She mumbled something in her sleep that sounded like a denial, and he smiled. Theseus helped her to sit up, and her eyelids fluttered open, her eyes like emeralds in the lamplight.

  “Here.” He pressed the cup into her hands. “To help you sleep. You will need as much rest as you can get, I’m afraid, for tomorrow night will bring little.”

  She widened her eyes with an effort and hid a yawn behind her hand. “Forgive me.”

  “I would not have bothered to wake you at all, Princess, but I fear we push Menelaus’s temper too far.”

  “He hates you,” she mumbled.

  Theseus nodded and helped her lift the cup to her lips. “Drink.”

  She took a sip, and her nose wrinkled, the taste seeming to wake her more thoroughly than his words had. Her eyes narrowed in a glare over the rim of the cup as she swallowed down the rest in one long draft.

  He turned a laugh into a cough, fearing she might spit the wine in his face if he showed his amusement. She did not seem to be fooled.

  “It did not taste like that when Pirithous dosed me,” she muttered, setting the cup down on the table.

  He poured more wine to wash the bitterness from her mouth. “Pirithous likely did not make you drink it all at once.”

  “Hmph.”

  She drank the second cup without complaint, though, and the tension around her eyes eased. He took the cup from her hands before she had finished. As it was, he’d be surprised if she could walk.

&nb
sp; He leaned down so he would not be overheard. “Tomorrow, after you retire for the evening, can you find your way out of the women’s quarters without being seen?”

  She considered it for a moment, blinking slowly. “Perhaps through one of the windows in the bathing room. They look out on the back side of the palace and the practice field, rather than the courtyard, though I would not want to risk jumping.”

  “I would not let you fall.” He stroked her hair from her face. “I will not let any harm come to you again, Helen. I swear it.”

  “But we will still need to get beyond the palace gate and the city walls. Both are well guarded. And if anyone notices your absence—”

  “I will be conspicuously present, with witnesses to vouch for me. Your brothers, if I can manage it. Menelaus can hardly accuse them of complicity. You need only excuse yourself from the feasting when full dark has fallen and slip out of the palace without being seen. Not even by your maid. Can you do it?”

  She bit her lip, her gaze sliding down the table to Menelaus.

  “Helen.” He caught her chin and turned her face to his. “Can you do it?”

  She blinked the moisture from her eyes as quickly as it had come. “Yes.”

  “Good.” His fingers trailed along her jaw as he dropped his hand, her skin so soft beneath them. “Then you need not worry about the rest. Pirithous is the most successful raider I have ever known. In the dark, he moves like fog and shadow. You will not be seen as long as you are in his company.”

  “But if he is absent for too long, he will be accused. Will that not point suspicion back at you as well?”

  Theseus grimaced. “Pirithous slipping away for a few moments during a feast will be expected by now. I only hope he does not leave too many children behind.”

  “Is that why he’s always gossiping in the kitchens?”

  “He is even more accomplished at talking women into his bed than he is at raiding.”

  Helen fell silent and looked away, her brow creased. Theseus wished he had never mentioned it, but perhaps it was better for her to know the kind of man Pirithous was, if she had not realized it already.