by catt dahman
Tyndareus had spared nothing when he ordered the wedding banquet for Clytemnestra. Each dish was so aromatic, so lovingly arranged, and so delicious, that people spoke of the food for years, fascinated at so many dishes and such clever concoctions of ingredients. Guests could hardly get drunk with so much enticing food available.
Helen, full, sat and nibbled a pastry, still eager to try a bite of each dish. The guests were so happy, and they toasted the couple often. Clytemnestra had never looked so happy; she glowed. Castor and Pollux gave their blessings before joining Helen, carrying plates of something she had not seen in their hands.
“What is that?”
Castor laughed, “The cooks stuffed clams, dates, and cucumbers into the fish and baked it. Over it are sweet onions, dried figs, and then a sauce of tomatoes and garlic. It’s wonderful.”
Helen took a bite from his plate and savored the taste a long time, chewing slowly to appreciate each element of the dish. “I hope one day a dark, handsome prince will whisk me off to his kingdom, and I will wear a jeweled crown and be ever so benevolent to those who beseech my favor.”
Pollux laughed out loud. “Silly. If a prince took you away, we would decimate his kingdom, burn, lay waste to everything, and bring you back home.”
“That’s true. No one will take away our sister and be allowed it.”
Helen smiled, unsure if this were a good thing or a bad thing for her future.
Chapter 4
Prey
A month later, Helen had a terrible stomachache that began at sunrise, the cramps were like she had suffered before, and despite it all, she felt a terrible hunger and thirst for something she couldn’t name.
The incident in the barn, she had decided, had been a mixture of fear and anger in which she furiously attacked the man to save her own self. Had she not been so ill from the cramps that day and had she not panicked, she wouldn’t have done anything to the man beside slash at him with his own dagger.
The part about her biting him, well, of course, during the fight, she had scratched and bitten him, but she had not drunk the man’s blood. It was a false memory, of course.
How absurd.
She had imagined everything, and this hunger that excited her was silly. She wouldn’t pay it any attention.
That day Helen lay around, letting her nurse massage her stomach with warm oil, sipping a tea of cramp bark, black pepper, and honey.
“A month has past since you were brought in and I bathed you; not all that was your blood.”
Helen cast a wary glance to her nurse. “I fought that man off me.”
“You are much like your mother,” Nurse never spoke this much and never, ever of Helen’s mother Leda, who had killed herself when Helen was very young.
“I am? How?” asked Helen since she felt there might be delicious secrets to be shared with her. “How am I like her?” She liked to remember her mother who had killed herself.
“She was very beautiful. No man, not even a god, could resist her beauty. And that was both a curse and blessing.”
“How?”
“Your father, your real father, Zeus, was captivated by her and came down to her in the guise of a great white swan because she was a chaste woman and would never have lain with another man.
She was drunk on wine, and Zeus, as a swan, seduced her in the glade. She said it was dream-like and confusing, but she couldn’t resist the great god Zeus. Your brother Pollux and you are the god’s children.”
Helen had heard that many times and only shrugged. “I don’t think he cares much about what happens to me,” she said.
Nurse laughed and said, “He cares.”
“I don’t think so.”
“After your mother had her first bleeding, no man could resist her. She was a pretty child but a beautiful woman. She captivated every man who saw her. She enjoyed the power she had over men as they all fell in love with her and swore their riches and loyalty to her forever. The power she had over men wasn’t normal. But it wasn’t what she desired,” Nurse said cryptically.
Helen’s eyes lit up as she asked, “And what was it she desired instead?”
“Their very life source.” Nurse turned away and fussed over things until she had more hot oil, scented with relaxing lavender to rub on Helen’s stomach and another cup of the nasty tea. Helen drank it obediently so her nurse would talk more. Nurse had considerately added a little wine to the tea. “Your mother worshipped in the old ways and never forgot them.”
“Beautiful Leda was always a chaste, proper wife, and she always obeyed your father and was a good Spartan mother, as well. Only in one way, that unusual desire, was she ever improper,” said Nurse as she struggled to find the right word, one that would describe how it had been but that wouldn’t fault her character.
“My mother was improper?” asked Helen who was delighted to learn such a thing. To have her mother so natural and so Helen-like was exciting. She tried to imagine it.
“She had an unusual need for something. When her blood course came, she would crave and require something odd to settle her stomach and stop the cramps, the hunger, and thirst she suffered. She couldn’t rest or even think until she satisfied that one need.”
Helen’s head jerked suddenly so she looked Nurse in the eyes. How could she know about Helen’s odd symptoms? And yet, she claimed Helen’s own mother had felt the same. “And what was it she craved? What was the life source she desired?”
“Blood, is it not?”
Trying to keep her face blank, Helen shrugged and then winced as a painful cramp hit her.
“After that bath, you slept well and had no more pain, and, Helen, you were lovelier than ever, despite your monthly courses. You reminded me of Leda, then.”
“How?”
“I would reluctantly dress her in her chiton of scarlet and sneak her from her rooms and outside where she would look for sustenance. It began at about your age,” said Nurse as she remembered.
Leda had dressed in red and vanished into the darkness of the night, dizzy, cramping, and starving and would return bright-eyed and at peace, satiated with her chiton sodden with blood, but not showing the carnage.
How many nights had she waited up for Leda, fearing for the girl’s safety, wondering who would be the victim that night, terrified of someone’s finding out what her mistress did once a month.
After Leda was married to Tyndareus, she tried to hold herself back and not go out, but she suffered horribly as she hungered and thirsted; a fever burned her skin. She stayed pale with the pain of her cramping stomach.
Holding herself, she rocked and cried. Her husband only knew it was her set of days when she locked herself away; he didn’t know how miserable she was, not that he would have understood had he known.
Helen imagined her mother suffering this fate.
She so hated what she did when she went out that she would have suffered, and locked herself away for those days if not for what happened the second month she didn’t feed.
Back in her husband’s bed when her passion was at the highest and she was in his arms, she caught herself just before she slipped her teeth into his throat and drained him of blood. Her mind was almost lost in blood lust, and it frightened her terribly.
“So my mother did it all those years? She…she drank blood? I didn’t even mean to do it, but now, it’s all I can think of.”
“Every month. No one misses a helot who goes missing or is found dead,” Nurse said. “Every month she did this, except when she was pregnant. That is why you remind me of her. The first time when I saw the blood and heard parts of the story, I wondered if you were just like her.”
“Now you know,” Helen admitted, “but I don’t know why am I this way? Why was she? Why are we cursed?”
“Your mother’s father was Thestius, and his father was the great god, Ares. He was the god of phobus and diemos, fear and terror, which is part of what you do. Does the fear not spice the blood? He enjoys the blood of war, and so do yo
u. You can’t escape what is part of your heritage.”
“Oh.”
“That means you are divine on both sides.”
Helen felt less divine than ever with her misery.
“Ares made Demodice pregnant, and they were the parents of Thestius, who, along with his wife, gave us Leda, granddaughter of the god of war, and, Helen, they were part of the most violent aspects of war: the brutality and blood-letting and carnage.
Aphrodite was Ares’ lover and quite jealous of his many affairs, and although she loved Ares, she cast a curse upon his children: blood and love would be entwined.”
Blood and love. Haima and Eros.
“And then what?” Helen asked.
“She cast the curse and thus began the hunger you and she carry. I don’t know if your mother’s father carried it, but it is doubtful he would have told her about it.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Helen snapped. “Why didn’t she tell me and help me instead of impaling and killing herself?” She felt disappointed that her mother had not shared this with her or warned her what she carried.
Nurse met Helen’s eyes and held her gaze. “She used that knife of silver to take her life. That was all she could do as a drinker of blood to find peace.
After she gave you life, like a bitch whelping pups, she was devastated. She was a Spartan woman, born and raised, and never would she have allowed another man, god or human, to defile her marriage and leave her to have a litter of children.”
Helen drew back, scared by Nurse’s stare and her harsh words.
“She felt soiled even if Zeus had tricked her. And yet, Helen, she missed his touch and loved the god who came to her as a swan. She was torn into two halves, craving and missing, ruined and tormented. When she could stand it no longer, remembering every victim she had taken the life force from, she broke, Helen. And so Leda took her own life.”
“Didn’t she care about her family?”
“Yes. But she felt she was doomed to be loved and could not help but have men attracted to her and lust for her. Who loved Leda for just Leda?” asked Nurse who seemed sad.
“Is love so confusing and miserable?”
Nurse shrugged and answered, “You must decide that on your own journey. But now, you know who you are.”
“But what am I?”
“Some say Lamia,” Nurse said, “but you are the progeny of gods, and you are the most beautiful girl in the world. You are Helen.”
“I am so confused, but I can’t stand this pain anymore. Every hour, it grows worse,” Helen complained as she heaved herself from the bed.
“It is not like the pain of other women. They hurt, but yours is a terrible pain, and I know you hunger and thirst, most terrible. Your bones and muscles ache, and your throat is like sand. And it will grow so bad that you will scream with the pain if you do nothing.”
“I’m going out,” Helen said, unsure how she could even walk but unable to continue lying there another minute.
Nurse asked nothing but left and returned with a soft red chiton that she helped Helen dress in. “So stains will not show. It belonged to your mother.”
“Helen of Sparta, unique,” she whispered as she sneaked from her father’s home and into the night. She didn’t know what she would do or where she would go, but she met the night, curious and desperate to sooth the pain; somehow moving and thinking of this made her feel a little better. “Father, give me strength.”
In this, she prayed to Zeus
Chapter 5
On The Hunt
I write this so I will never forget a single detail though how could I forget, even if I tried? Perhaps, I write for one of my children, one day, who might, if I die, read my words to understand this oddity. I wish I could read my own mother’s words, instead of having to know the truth from my nurse.
Barefoot, I crept through my father’s house and outside, like a thief, afraid to be caught. Luckily, guards were more concerned with keeping people out than inside, and I was out and free quickly.
I ran along the gardens, letting jasmine and honeysuckle scent my hair, past the wells and along the road, hiding behind olive and eucalyptus trees until I was close to the hills where the helots kept sheep.
My senses were on fire. I could almost hear colors and see sounds; I smelled the prey’s heartbeat and tasted the dark clouds flittering over the moon.
On one hill beneath a fig tree sat a helot, minding his flock and drinking sips from a wine flask. I was nervous and had no need to drag this out; I wanted to finish my business and be gone. I paused to imagine his wine and touching it to feel how delicious it was. Nothing made sense to me.
Timing things just right, I used the moon to my advantage, allowing myself to undress as clouds covered the sky and to take my place. When the clouds blew away and the moon again shone down, I stood in the blue light, naked and beautiful, every plane and curve enhanced by the light and shadows. My golden hair, streaming down my back and shoulders, glittered.
”Kalespera, goatherd.”
“Agapi mi,” he muttered. “My darling,” he said.
“I stand before you, agapi mou.”
“By Zeus, it is Aphrodite herself,” the helot breathed, unable to believe his good fortune, I suppose.
He stood, caught his footing, and came closer to me, head cocked with awe. I held out one graceful hand as if beseeching him. “Oh, my lady, I am your servant as I find myself entranced by your beauty; no, my lady, I am in love with you, and I swear to love you all my life. It is anuopkritos.”
“Do you love me?” I asked. He was but a slave, and yet, to know that at one glance, I could make a man fall in love with me was a heady thought.
“Do I? Does Poseidon not rule the seas? By my word, my lady, I will love you for eternity. I have always loved you. How could I not love Love herself?” he quipped. “S' agapo.”
Ah, I thought this helot was clever. “Come, hold me,” I pled of him. I could almost imagine the taste of his blood wine.
Almost reeling with shock at being asked that, he came a few steps closer, and I wrapped my arms about him, pulling him close so that his body cooled my feverish one. I didn’t want to play cruel games. Leaning into him, I let my elongated teeth touch his skin, the lovely things grew a bit longer and sharper, and without hesitation, I slid them into the helot’s throat, drinking deeply, refusing to spill a drop.
It must have been painful for a split second as he cried out just a bit. “Shhh. Katoptrizomai. Enjoy your passage,” I whispered.
How delicious was the dark red liquid as it filled my mouth with salt, savory, sweetness, and another flavor that I can only compare to the juice of a not-quite-ripe pear, tangy, but not sour, only smooth and crisp at the same time.
I gulped.
The cramps in my lower abdomen stopped gripping and clawing, and I relaxed at once. My hunger and thirst ended so that I could think beyond them, and my body cooled, my head stopped aching, and I felt strong again. Despite myself in my greed, I chewed a little at the man’s throat, worrying the flesh, not because I wanted to consume it, but just to feel the flesh shredded beneath my fangs, enjoying the sensation. I rather made a mess of his throat, biting at other spots, testing what I could do.
When I was finished, he was drained, and I let him fall among the soft grasses and moss, discarding him like an empty wine skin as I wiped my mouth and traced my finger in the blood that had fallen onto my breasts.
The helot on the ground looked up at me with glassy eyes but didn’t seem horrified or pained by his death. I faintly wondered if he had a family and if anyone would miss him, but he had declared himself in love with me, and so he couldn’t have been so loyal to a family or wife.
Had he not come to me of his own will? Had he not allowed his lust and love-fever to trap him as my prey? He had come to me across many steps when he could have changed his mind and run away, but he had wanted me. He was a victim of his own desires, more than he was of me.
I turned his he
ad to the side with a push of my bare foot. His throat was black with the terrible gaping wound and blood; the flesh was torn, ragged, and looked somewhat as if a wild animal had attacked him. Maybe when men found him, they would think that was what had happened: an animal had gotten him.
And yet, left the sheep unharmed? That made me laugh.
After I dressed in my red peplos again, I walked back. A noise frightened me until I realized the thumping must be the heartbeats of the family inside one of the little hovels. There was a titmouse scurrying across the stones; I heard his tiny claws as he ran. I smelled cheese upon the breath of one who slept and a crushed yellowish blossom pressed under a little bowl, the scent of gardenia strong in my nose.
A shadow across the sky took only a slight glance from me to know it was an owl, and there, along a stone on the path, wasn’t that a hair of one of the cats left behind? No, it was but a whisker.
My taste was not my only sense that was acute; my hearing, sight, and smell joined my sense of taste to give me new experiences, as well. Was this not the closest I had ever been to being a goddess? My limbs and muscles were so strong, and I was the greatest of huntresses tonight if only I could travel the forests alongside Artemis herself.
In the streets, I listened and watched everything, so thrilled at my strong senses. My eyes made out the shape of a slender woman, a whore, most likely, but her gamey scent and wine- laden breath smelled interesting to me. “What are you doing on the streets so late at night?”
She tossed her hair, chemically lightened and harsh-looking. “What business is it of yours?” Her eyes were full of methodeia, or cunning.
“I’m only curious,” Never had I spoken to anyone near my age or of any age who was a whore of the roads. Pornei.
“I am earning a few pennies. Why is a high-born lady creeping about?”
