Helen of Sparta

by Amalia Carosella

  His grief turned to sorrow, but he did not stop. Though I screamed and clawed and beat against him, he did not flinch. He caught my arms, then held both my hands in one of his, his strength so great I could only fall to my knees before him. He tried to speak again, but I could not hear over the roar of blood and despair in my ears. Aethra came in behind him at his shout, and though my throat was hoarse from screaming, I cried out again, begging. She was dressed in the robes of a priestess, her face painted white with red sunbursts on her cheeks and forehead. She took the baby, and though I threw myself after her, Theseus held me back.

  “It is the only way, Helen,” Theseus said, his voice hoarse but loud enough to pierce through my sobs. “Zeus’s price must be paid, or the war will come. Athens will perish, and countless will die. If we disobey him now, it will be even worse than the nightmare you feared. How many would you see killed for standing in the way of your father?”

  I did not need the priests to tell me what this dream meant. But it was early yet. I had time to act, time to stop it from coming. I pressed my hands against my stomach, imagining the life inside.

  Theseus stirred, the sunlight having reached the bed. His hand covered mine, but I could not bring myself to face him. If he met my eyes, he would see my grief, and I would have to tell him of the dream and the baby he did not yet realize we had made together. To him, now, it would be nothing to give up if the gods demanded the sacrifice. But if I waited, perhaps he would come to love it enough to refuse.

  And in the meantime, I would settle my own debt to the gods, without the blood of our child in payment.

  Aethra helped me dress in the mornings, and she watched me with narrowed eyes as I tied the tasseled rope to cinch the cloth of my gown at the waist. I flushed under her scrutiny, knowing what she saw.

  “It’s been three months since your last blood,” she said to me at last. “One we might discredit from excitement or distress, but three is a child, and you will not be able to keep it secret for much longer.”

  I sighed, pressing my hands to my stomach, still flat but thickening now. I had felt Theseus’s hands pause there when he loved me, but I could not bring myself to speak of it. So often a child might be lost in the first months, before it had even formed, and with the threat of the gods hanging over us, I feared it even more. Theseus already had two sons. What if he did not want this child? What if he did not care if Zeus took it, or asked me to give it up even before its birth? I could not stand to know.

  “It’s so soon,” I said. “Early still.”

  “If I have noticed, Theseus must have. He is no fool not to realize what three months of lovemaking might mean, besides.”

  I smoothed the material of my gown—linen today, dyed pale blue, but finely woven and embroidered with acorns at the edges. “Do you think he will be pleased?”

  Aethra smiled, taking my face in her hands. “The only thing that pleases Theseus more than his children is you, Helen. He only waits for you to tell him he has not misread the signs, and you will see for yourself how he rejoices.”

  We drove to Piraeus that day, for Theseus had promised to take me to the sandy shore. While I had played in Sparta’s river as a girl with my brothers and sister, it was not the same as the sea. I still had not had my fill of looking at it, as long as I had land beneath my feet.

  He knew a secluded place where the horses might find grass to graze, and we would be undisturbed by ships and oarsmen. We left our clothes in the chariot and bathed in the salt water, exulting in the warmth of the sun and the waves until dolphins joined us in the cove. I had never seen them so close, and Theseus called them nearer.

  They were immense, longer than Theseus was tall, their thick tails beating the water and propelling them forward with such speed, I thought they might knock us over when they came.

  “It is a sign from my father,” Theseus said when they swam in circles around us, nudging us with their smooth noses and clicking greetings I did not understand. “That he blesses our marriage.”

  A smaller calf had come to me, rolling on its side and staring with an eye above the water before diving beneath the surface again. Its body brushed against mine, its skin the texture of smoothed cork. Another of the creatures bumped my stomach, and I stroked its side, hope flaring bright and hot in my heart. Poseidon’s blessing. Surely he would not give us such a sign if he did not mean to protect us. Zeus was king, but perhaps Poseidon, his brother, could intervene where the other gods would not. With a flick of their tails and splashing leaps into the air, they all swam off as suddenly as they had come.

  Theseus smiled at me, catching my hand and pulling us toward the beach with easy strokes. I had never seen anyone so at home in the water. Even beside the dolphins, he was still graceful. We lurched from the sea, thick and heavy on dry land, and Theseus laid out a blanket beneath the shade of a stray oak. We had a lunch of figs, cheese, and bread, with a skin of wine that was mostly water.

  After, I dozed, my head pillowed on Theseus’s arm, and I felt his hand spread over my stomach, the touch almost reverent. I covered it with mine and pressed his palm to the place above my womb.

  “Perhaps it will be a girl,” I said, emboldened by Aethra’s words, and Poseidon’s sign. “A princess of Athens and Sparta.”

  Then he was kissing me, and I did not have the breath to say anything else.

  Theseus frequented the temples, leaving me almost daily in the afternoons. I knew that he consulted Aethra often, for as high priestess, she knew much of what would please the goddesses, and Theseus was determined to slight no one.

  For the most part, during those times, I kept to our rooms. I had given up painting my face as an Egyptian, though my skin had browned nicely even without the help of umber. But the night before, I had dreamed again, and when Theseus had gone to make his offering, I had gone to the megaron to make one of my own.

  There was no fire more sacred than the hearth within the megaron, the heart of the palace itself, and in times of need or great distress, only the queen could make the proper offerings to the gods. In Sparta, it was believed that the gods would not hear the petitions of any other, if the queen did not do her duty first, but in Athens, it was different. There were some rites and rituals only a woman could perform, and Aethra saw to those mysteries still, but the king did not need a queen to speak to the gods, no matter the circumstances. Whether it was because Theseus was known as Athena’s champion, or because of some king before him who had received the favor of the gods, I did not know.

  I knew the ritual well, for Leda had made me follow her every gesture since I was old enough to hold my own cup. I poured the wine into a kylix from the small jug on the offering table, and then raised the two-handled cup high, taking my place before the fire, with the throne behind me. It was not that I wanted to pray, to beg for help from the gods who had caused my distress from the start, but rather, I could not shake the fear that every offering Theseus made might go unrecognized because I had not done as I ought. Because I had not done my duty first, as queen.

  “Dionysus, hear us,” I began, pouring a sip of the wine into the fire. “We are the vessel, and you are the wine. And so we drink to you, of you, with you, that we might know you, and you might know our hearts and prayers, and carry them up, to Olympus, to Zeus our king of kings, and Hera our queen in all things, that we might be heard and answered!”

  And then I drank. One sip, then two, before I circled the hearth, pausing between each of the four pillars, to raise the cup again and drink, giving thanks to Dionysus with every touch of the wine against my lips. When I reached the position before the throne again, I finished what remained in the kylix and dropped to my knees before the hearth.

  “Accept our offerings and all our prayers, we beg of you,” I finished, lifting my arms and throwing my head back. My eyes closed. “Accept us as your servant, your vessel, in this.”

  “I had not realized
the Egyptians worshipped Dionysus,” a voice said, and my eyes snapped open, my head turning toward the door. Menestheus stood at the entrance, a clay tablet in his hand. “Forgive me,” he said, a small smile curving his lips, “but I heard voices, and I wanted to be certain all was well.”

  “As you see,” I answered, rising to give myself time to gather my composure. The second jug on the offering table held water, and I used it to rinse the kylix, then drank that as well, before replacing the cup. I felt as though I had been jarred awake from a dream.

  “Dionysus is a son of Zeus,” Menestheus said, still standing in the doorway. There was only one entrance into the megaron. “Or is he something else to your people?”

  “I am Athenian now,” I told him, keeping my voice even and cool. “Theseus’s people are my people, his gods become my gods. And I will serve them as an Athenian queen should. It is a mystery you should not have seen.”

  “But it has been my understanding that it is Aethra, still, who serves as high priestess in Athens.”

  I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze, too sharp upon me, too focused. My hands shook, and I closed them into fists to hide my weakness. It was a Spartan ritual, and if he recognized it—oh, I had been a fool to come alone. If I had asked Aethra, she would have helped me. She would have joined with me in the ritual, and what Menestheus had seen, he would not have questioned. Nor would he have dared to interrupt. I raised my chin, drew myself up, and looked down my nose upon him.

  “Some rites yet belong to the queen. She has taught me what I must do, and I have done it. Do you object?”

  He pressed his lips together, tilting his head to the side, like a bird examining a worm upon the stone, far from the safety of its burrow, unsure whether it should strike, or whether it was yet some trick. I held my breath and my gaze, refusing to look away first. Meryet or Helen, Egyptian or Spartan, I was queen, and he had no right to question me.

  “You must forgive me,” he said, offering a bow at last. “My curiosity has ever been a weakness. For a moment I feared—” But he smiled, stopping himself. “It is only that Theseus has devoted himself to you so utterly, or so his women tell me. I had not expected love from such a match, or at least not found so soon. But you are right, of course. It is not my place.”

  My heart twisted, even as relief flooded through me. I allowed myself to soften, and held out my hand to him in forgiveness. “I cannot be angry with you for loving your king,” I said much more warmly. “But you need not fear for him. The love and affection we share is no bewitchment, unless we are both bespelled by the gods themselves.”

  Menestheus bowed again over my hand, kissing the back of it before he left with a mumbled excuse.

  At least in that much, I had not needed to lie.

  My spirits lifted after that, the burden of guilt falling from my shoulders. I had done my part, my duty, and I had no need to fear that Theseus’s offerings would be wasted.

  “You worry too much about me, Theseus,” I told him when he planned another sacrifice to honor Hera. We were alone in his room. “I am well, your baby grows, and your father himself has blessed us. What more could you wish for?”

  His hands warmed my shoulders, then slid down my arms to take my own. “You are young enough to think yourself invincible, I know. And as a daughter of Zeus, perhaps even more so. But I have seen women die to bring children into the world, and I do not mean to see you suffer the same fate.”

  “You worry too much,” I said again. It was not my life that mattered, and I would have traded it gladly for our child’s if it would not have caused Theseus grief. “I’m young and strong, and even Aethra has said my body is made for birthing children.”

  “There is nothing else for me to do but this.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “The risk of a child is not an enemy I can fight. Let me have this small comfort, that by some action of mine I might help keep you safe.”

  I sighed. Hera would never love me. I was a daughter of Zeus and proof of his faithlessness, but if it reassured Theseus to pray to the goddesses, I should not argue. And while he was on his knees, I could make my own offerings. For since we had seen the dolphins, and I had performed the ritual in the megaron, a thought had come to me. Just like Theseus, I had no wish to overlook any opportunity that might guarantee us peace, and there was more yet I might do about my dreams. But better that I not go about it without his help. Menestheus might not be the only Athenian worried I was some sorceress.

  “I wish to offer a bull to Poseidon,” I said, “for his protection and to thank him for his blessing. Even if he will not speak to you, perhaps he will answer me now that I carry your child. I would honor your father.”

  He pulled back, searching my face. He knew me too well, I feared, to think this came from nothing. I only hoped he would not press me for the reasons. “I will find you a black bull, then, and let it go consenting. Would you have a feast day as well?”

  I shook my head. “If it is a feast, the people will expect the sacrifice by your hand, and I wish it to be mine. This is between me and the god.”

  His forehead creased, and his eyes crinkled in long-absent lines of concern. “You have had some sign from him?”

  “It is not that.” And I promised myself it was not a lie, for I did not know who sent my dreams, or why. “But if we are to be a family, I would not have strife between you and your father. Aethra has told me of Poseidon’s kindness to her. Perhaps my beauty will serve us here. Give me this, and let me do it alone.”

  “You do not know what you ask, Helen.” His hands fell from my arms, and his blue eyes darkened. “You might be safe enough from Zeus as his daughter, but Poseidon will have no reason to stay his lust. Are you so willing to give yourself up?”

  “I have done it before,” I said, though the reminder of Menelaus pained us both. “And for peace, I would do it again.” For the child Theseus had given me, I would give myself up to the god and more if it meant protection from Zeus. “Please, Theseus. I do not mean to tempt him, and surely he would not betray his own son in such a cruel way. Poseidon is not Aphrodite, to spite you so.”

  He looked away, his jaw tight. “You are determined.”

  I touched his cheek, turning his face back to mine. “The last thing I was so set upon was my marriage to you. You trusted me then. Trust me in this now, too.”

  Theseus pulled my hand away and turned his back on me, busying himself pouring wine. I waited, even so slight a rejection stinging my heart, but it would not serve me to press him further. He set the jug of wine back on the table, the movement slow and careful, as if he feared he might shatter it with his hold. I had only seen him so cautious once before, after he had turned the handle of a water jug into dust at the banquet in Sparta. If he refused me, I would go to Aethra, but I did not want to act any further in secrecy than I already did.

  “There is a shrine I know, dedicated to Poseidon Earth-Shaker,” he said at last, his voice low. “A half day’s journey from here, near a shepherd’s fold belonging to one of the men who went with me to Crete. If it must be done, let it be done there, where it will truly be between you and the god if he claims more than the bull you would give him.”

  “Will you take me?” I asked, hoping he would see it as a compromise. “At least to the shepherd’s fold, if not to the shrine.”

  He offered me the wine cup and met my eyes, his own still dark with emotions I could not name. “I would trust no other man with your honor, Helen. We will leave as soon as the bull can be found.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  For the journey, by chariot, with the bull plodding beside, I wore a simple shift, so as not to ruin fine fabric with the dust of the road. Theseus kept me before him in his arms, as he had during those first days after our marriage, his body tense behind mine. He said little, and even if we had not had the bull, I do not think he would have hurried the horses to anything faster than a trot.
Nor would I have wished him to, for I needed the time to prepare myself for what I meant to do.

  In a basket lashed to the chariot, I had finer clothes—a flounced skirt in shades of blue and brown for the sea and the earth, and a fitted underdress that covered my breasts, embroidered with horses along the edges. Theseus had made no comment on my choices, though Aethra had assured me I would not dishonor the god. I would change in the wood before entering the shrine, while Theseus tied the bull to the altar.

  It was not only that Poseidon might want my body, but Theseus feared for the strength of the bull, which might fight me during the sacrifice. If the beast did not consent, I would have a hard time of it, to be sure, but Theseus had chosen the mildest animal he could find, and if I never trusted a god again, I must put my faith in Poseidon now.

  Theseus muttered a low oath, just before the sun had reached its zenith, and drove us off the road. He leapt from the chariot before it had stopped and stormed toward a grove of olive trees.

  I caught up the reins, tying the horses to a small oak nearby, then followed him.

  “Theseus?”

  He swore something I didn’t hear, and his fist slammed into the thick trunk of an olive tree so hard, the wood cracked and olives rained down over his head. I stopped then, for I had never seen him strike at anything so violently, and I had no wish to test his restraint.

  “You ask me to give you up to my father. To let you suffer another rape, if the god demands it! For what? My father’s favor, when the child is born? His forgiveness? It is not worth such a price, Helen!”

  “You do not know that he will ask it of me,” I said quietly. “And it is worth it to me, to see our child safe from the other gods who might hope to do him harm. After everything you have told me of your past, how can you begrudge me this?”