Helen of Sparta

by Amalia Carosella

  “That’s enough,” Aethra said. “Demophon, see your brother to his bed.”

  Demophon grimaced, but he rose and dragged his brother with him by the arm before he could protest. “Good night, my lady.”

  Aethra guided them out the door, though I saw she paused long enough to kiss them both on the cheek before shutting it behind them.

  “I’ll have to call the servants in, or they’ll wonder,” Aethra said, moving my plate to the center of the table as if it were an empty serving dish and shifting the others so there were only four places set. “Theseus, they will not think anything amiss if you’ve disappeared to the baths. Take Helen and bolt the door behind you. I’ll be sure they leave you the wine.”

  “And the fruit,” he said, rising to his feet.

  She waved us away.

  Theseus opened the door to the baths, guiding me through with a hand at the small of my back, the heat of his touch seeping through the fabric of my gown. I still held my wine cup in my hand to hide the evidence of my presence at the meal.

  He dropped his hand from my back to pull the door shut behind us, and everything went black.

  I strangled a panicked scream into a whimper, my wine cup dropping to the floor. The basket. The hold. The black days with nothing but the sound of water against the hull and the rats, the rats scrabbling and gnawing upon my bones. Tears filled my eyes, and I choked on a sob.

  “Helen?”

  I tried to speak, but it only came out a moan. The floor rose beneath my feet, like the deck of the ship, and I stumbled back.

  Theseus’s arm wrapped around my waist, drawing me against his chest. His hand found my cheek, and I hated myself for the moisture he felt there.

  “Shh,” he said, brushing my tears away.

  My hands closed into fists around the linen of his tunic, and I could not bring myself to release him. He swung me up into his arms, and I heard the clatter of my cup on the tiles as he kicked it away.

  “I should have thought to bring a lamp,” he murmured, pushing the door to the queen’s room open. A noise of relief escaped me at the sight of moonlight and glowing embers in the hearth. “There, now.”

  He carried me to the bed, but my fingers still would not open, so he sat with me in his lap.

  “Oh, Helen.” He stroked my hair from my face. “Was this why you did not sleep last night?”

  I tried to laugh, but the sound was pitiful. “I’m too old to be so frightened by the dark.”

  “Any man would be made uneasy after what you endured. Everything that has happened to you has come in the night, in the dark, in the shadows. There is no shame in wanting the light.”

  I hid my face in the curve of his shoulder. “Stay with me?”

  His fingers wound into my hair, and his arm tightened around me. “Always.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I’ve brought oranges from the East for your lady—”

  Pirithous stopped in the doorway to the king’s room, staring at me in the same manner Theseus had months earlier when he had first seen my hair. He collected himself much more quickly, and a slow smile spread across his face.

  “My lady.” He bowed. “You are a vision. I would not have recognized you but for your eyes.”

  I dropped into the Egyptian bow that had so startled Theseus, and had the pleasure of seeing Pirithous’s eyes widen with surprise as I rose.

  “King Pirithous, it is an honor,” I said in Egyptian.

  Theseus laughed and clapped his friend on the back, propelling him into the room and shutting the door behind them. He came to me at once, taking my hand and kissing it before Pirithous could reach me to do the same honor.

  “She is convincing, isn’t she?”

  “Even your brothers must doubt their own eyes, were they to see you now,” Pirithous said, still staring at me as if I were a stranger. “Where did you learn Egyptian?”

  “My tutor, Alcyoneus, was a scribe in Egypt,” I said. “I learned so quickly that he taught me Egyptian just to keep me out of trouble. I can write it, too.”

  Pirithous shook his head. “Worthless then, if Tyndareus knows of it. Or Menelaus.”

  Theseus smiled. “But they don’t. Why would Tyndareus have his daughter taught to write or speak so foreign a tongue? Helen says she learned it without their knowledge.”

  I nodded when Pirithous glanced at me, confirming Theseus’s words. “Only my tutor knew. I did not even tell Pollux of it, for fear Leda would hear and forbid me from learning.”

  “An Egyptian, hmm?” Pirithous rubbed his jaw, eyeing me. “If she can manage to keep up the lie, it is probably the best solution. Far enough away that no one will know the difference and close enough to be familiar. But what happens when the Egyptians hear of it?”

  “The pharaoh has at least a dozen concubines in addition to his wives,” I said. I did not need Alcyoneus as a tutor to know that, for the number of the pharaoh’s women was a point of awe to every king in Achaea. For some, this was because they did not know how he could control so many; for others, it was pure envy. I tried not to think of how many palace women Theseus kept. “Send him a gift and ask him not to deny the alliance if it is ever mentioned.”

  Pirithous’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been to Egypt while our backs were turned?”

  “Alcyoneus was highborn before he became a slave. His father’s brother was a scribe for the pharaoh himself.”

  “You’re a very strange woman, Helen.” Pirithous’s eyes bored through me, but I ignored his scrutiny, passing him his cup. “The more I know of you, the less I understand.”

  “Then it is fortunate I will be Theseus’s wife and not yours.” I smiled to take the sting from my words. In the months we had spent together since my arrival, I had not yet had cause to regret giving myself into Theseus’s care, nor did I expect to find reason. There was nothing he would not do to bring me even the smallest pleasure, and I was careful not to abuse his generosity.

  Theseus squeezed my hand and waved us both to our seats at the low table in the corner where I had shared my first meal with his family. “Fortunate indeed. Pirithous would not treat you half so well.”

  “I’ve never received any complaints,” Pirithous said, all but leering.

  Theseus’s hand found my knee beneath the table, and I bit my tongue on what would have been an uncivil response, dropping my gaze to my cup. Picking a fight with Pirithous would not do us any favors now. Turning me into a foreign princess was the only way Theseus and I would ever be free to marry while Menelaus hunted for me still. If Theseus produced an Achaean bride of any beauty, he was sure to come, no matter what color her hair.

  “Will you take the message to the pharaoh?” Theseus asked after Pirithous had filled his plate and taken a healthy bite of cold lamb. “On our behalf? I do not see why he should refuse, when it was not so long ago that one of his line went to Crete.”

  Pirithous stopped chewing, then picked up his cup and took a long drink. He set the cup back down slowly. “To Egypt?”

  “You’re the only one I can trust with it, save perhaps my sons. But Demophon is too young to go alone even if the nobles would not notice his absence.”

  “When you were his age, you were bull dancing in Crete.”

  “At Poseidon’s command and against my mortal father’s wishes—”

  “And what difference does it make if the court knows Demophon has gone to Egypt to secure his father a bride? It sounds to me as though it would be more suspicious if you didn’t send him. Going yourself would make the most sense.”

  My stomach lurched at the words. Acamas had told me the oarsmen yet spoke of Aphrodite’s appearance aboard ship, and while it was not proof enough on its own to raise an army against Athens, Agamemnon would use any excuse to nibble at Theseus’s borders in his absence. So much the better if he found me here as well. Theseus only
shook his head. “I won’t leave Helen unprotected, and bringing her to Egypt unseen would be impossible even if she had not sworn off sailing after the storm. As different as she appears, she will still be noticed anywhere she goes.”

  Pirithous grunted, his eyes sweeping over me in a way that made me flush. “You should send Demophon, all the same. The boy is desperate for glory, and a little raiding would go a long way.”

  “He is not even sixteen, Pirithous.” Theseus’s jaw was set, the muscles twitching with strain, and he ground his words between his teeth. “Athens cannot lose another heir, and I will not risk him. It would be one thing if he had sailed any distance before, but to send him on such a journey without experience would tempt the Fates.”

  “Only a fool coddles his son. Especially if he is to be king.”

  “Enough!”

  Theseus’s fist hit the table so hard, I flinched and the wine cups jumped. He swallowed and turned his face away, inhaling deeply through his nose.

  “If you take such an interest in my son, by all means take him with you, but I will not send him alone.”

  Pirithous’s lips twitched, and I wondered if he had been stopped by Demophon on his way through the palace. I’d never heard him gripe to his father, but from some of the comments he’d made, and the time he spent in the practice field, I would not have been surprised if he’d mentioned something to Pirithous.

  “I suppose I will be returning from Egypt with your bride. Shall I find a suitable slave in the market before I set sail? We can parade her in through the gates of the palace and smuggle her right back out again, leaving Helen to take her place.”

  “Dark-haired and as close in body as you can find,” Theseus agreed. “You can keep her veiled while you ride in. Blame it on foreign custom, and no one will know the difference.”

  “Meryet,” I said. It was the simplest name I could think of, and much better than being named for a god in the common Egyptian fashion. Alcyoneus’s gods may have been less terrible than ours, but I wanted nothing to do with them just the same. “Call her Meryet.”

  “Are we really in a position to be naming the pharaoh’s supposed daughter?” Pirithous picked up his cup and leaned back in his seat. “Don’t we need his permission first, before we jump to naming conventions? For that matter, what do you intend to do if he says no?”

  I shrugged. “Pretend I’m a Hittite instead, I suppose.”

  “And do you speak the language of the Hittites as well?”

  “No. But how many Athenians can tell the difference between Egyptian and Hittite?”

  Pirithous grinned. “I’ll be lucky if I can make myself understood in Egyptian. I don’t suppose you’ll make it easy and just send me with a clay tablet inscribed with your request?”

  I frowned. “It will take more than one, and I cannot promise it will be perfect.”

  “I’ll have Aethra bring tablets and a stylus in the morning,” Theseus said, taking my hand. His thumb caressed my skin, and when he looked at me, I could hear the sea washing against the beach in soft waves. “The sooner the better. It will be a month’s journey by ship to Egypt, perhaps weeks before the pharaoh will see them, and another month to return.”

  “Pray to Poseidon we’re not smashed to pieces in either direction,” Pirithous added cheerfully. “If we return within three months, it will be by his grace alone. Unless Athena will help you in this, too?”

  Theseus sighed and tipped a portion of his wine into a golden bowl. “May she remember her promise and give us her aid.”

  Pirithous added his own libation to the bowl, and I did the same.

  “I’ll offer a bull to Poseidon tomorrow for good weather and gentle seas.” Theseus rose from the table and poured the wine into the hearth fire with a few more words under his breath. The flames burned more brightly for a moment, accepting the gift. “Perhaps he’ll grant me that much of his favor.”

  “Be sure to say it is for his grandson,” Pirithous murmured. “Even if he has no love for you, surely he would not see Demophon suffer after what happened with Hippolytus.”

  Theseus nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “I usually am. And if your wedding to Helen is accomplished without incident, I’ll claim all the credit for that, too. You will owe me, Theseus, and do not think I will forget it.”

  “A debt I will be happy to repay. Shall we make it a wife for a wife?” Some of the tension had left Theseus’s face, and he offered his friend a smile, though not his most charming or his most genuine.

  Pirithous’s eyes narrowed, his lips twitching. “Sworn upon the River Styx?”

  My own gaze shifted to Pirithous, for to ask such a thing—a prickle of unease slipped down my spine. Oaths upon the Styx were never to be taken lightly, and to break them meant worse than dishonor. A half-life, if one survived at all.

  “Are you truly so lonely as to demand such an oath?” Theseus asked, laughing.

  “Only when I am forced to bear witness to your love,” Pirithous said. “Now, will you swear, or won’t you?”

  “A wife for a wife,” Theseus agreed, much too easily for my taste. “Upon the Styx. And once Helen is queen, she will help me in the search for such a woman, will you not?”

  “I will have no trouble discerning which women he should not marry, in any case.” I held out my hand to him, and Theseus returned to the table, taking it and sitting down beside me once more. When he was in such good spirits, I could not bring myself to frown at him over a promise made to his friend. And it was true that we would owe Pirithous a debt.

  Pirithous snorted. “How do you even make it through the day’s business when you have her waiting for you?”

  “With determination,” Theseus answered, grimacing. “And it will be harder yet if Demophon chooses to accompany you. I suppose I’ll have to make more use of Menestheus.”

  Pirithous looked up from his plate, his eyes sharp. “The son of Peteus?”

  “Who else?”

  “Watch that one,” Pirithous said. “He’s hungrier than the rest for power. Thinks he has something to prove as a grandson of Erechtheus.”

  “We are blood, and he is loyal, as his line has been, always. Whatever he feels he must prove, he’ll accomplish it as an able administrator, as his father did before him. Why should he want more when I have given him peace and prosperity?”

  “Peace is all well and good in theory, and I grant you it is much better for our women, but the younger men need something to put their muscles to. Even a minor border skirmish would serve them.”

  “And shall I wage war against my allies just to appease them?”

  Pirithous shrugged, but he glanced at me. Another chill went down my spine. “It isn’t as though Menelaus and Agamemnon would have a hope of winning. And once you had won, Helen could walk freely under her own name without any need to disguise herself.”

  “Had I only the smallest excuse, I would see Menelaus dead,” Theseus said, his voice low and tight. “But he is too much a coward to give me reason for war, and I will not betray my people by inventing one.”

  My heart beat hard and fast in my chest, my whole body growing cold. Pollux would come, if a war began, whether Tyndareus wished it or not, for he was as eager to test himself as any of the Athenian men, and Castor would not be left behind. And if they fought in my name, Tyndareus would have to send an army or be shamed.

  I shook my head, trying to fight the image of my brothers’ bodies broken below the Rock. I did not want to see them killed. Not because of me. I had come here to avoid a war, not drag Sparta into another. The losses in Athens would be nothing to what Sparta would suffer. And my brothers!

  “Shh, Helen,” Theseus said, and it was only then I realized I had made any noise, though I did not know what it might have been.

  He turned my face to his and stared into my eyes until the panic that chok
ed my breathing and made my ears buzz was replaced with the roar of the sea.

  “It will not come to that,” Theseus said. “I swear it to you. Your brothers will not suffer.”

  The tightness in my chest eased. “No war, Theseus. Promise me.”

  His jaw clenched, and he did not answer at once.

  “I would have no more lives lost over me,” I said, clutching at his hand and pressing it to my cheek. “Not even Menelaus’s.”

  “I will not promise not to kill him, Helen.” His eyes had turned the flat gray of a hurricane, and he pulled his hand away too carefully, as if he did not trust his own strength. “Do not ask it of me.”

  I turned my face away, that he would not see the words half-formed on my lips. Theseus had never spoken to me with a king’s voice until that moment, nor truly refused me anything, and I was not so great a fool as to press him further. It was one thing to ask him to spare the life of the shepherd boy, innocent and too young to know what he meddled with, but I remembered then, what Pirithous had said, that day on the field before they had fought. Theseus would never forgive Menelaus for what he’d done. But it was more than that, and I had been a fool not to see it before now.

  Theseus wanted Menelaus dead. And if Mycenae marched on Athens, he would make certain he had his way.

  I did not speak of it again, and nor did Pirithous, within my hearing. For that much, I was grateful.

  The next morning, Theseus gave me clay tablets, and with Pirithous and Demophon, we argued over the language of the message that would be sent. In the end, I wrote three versions, each more specific than the last, with the third to be given only to the pharaoh himself, and Theseus pressed his owl seal into the soft clay.

  Demophon and Pirithous left for Egypt three days later with two square-sailed ships and the most troublesome of the young men, spoiling for war. Theseus went to the port at Piraeus to watch them sail, and I practiced patience.

  It would be a very long three months.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I stood on the palace walls to watch the procession, my hair and face hidden by a shawl. Most of the palace women had found an excuse to slip outside. Whether it was out of curiosity for their new queen, or simply to avoid being put to work by Aethra, I didn’t know, but at least I would not be noticed. It was the nearest to freedom I’d been since arriving in Athens.