The War At Troy

by Lindsay Clarke

  Only gradually did the extent of her sister’s fears become clear to Clytaemnestra, and the more her understanding grew the more her anxiety increased. She tried to persuade Helen that her fears were groundless, affording her all the gentle attention she could give. Whatever resentment there might have been between them, they were sisters after all, and she had a duty of care as well as a horrified, sympathetic awareness of how helpless all women were when men took it into their heads to behave in a way that would shame the beasts. But when she tried to encourage Helen to venture out into the world with her again, Clytaemnestra met only with panic-stricken refusals that she took for a kind of self- defeating obstinacy, and she lost patience when all her efforts seemed to make no difference. Beginning to dread that when their father returned he would expect her to carry on caring for her sister until she was well again or until she could be suitably married off, Clytaemnestra told herself that she had a life of her own to live, away from Helen, away from Sparta. It was a life for which she was increasingly impatient.

  Then word came that the war was won at Mycenae. The usurper Thyestes was dead. Agamemnon had ascended to his throne. Tyndareus would soon come home. He rejoiced at the thought of seeing his beloved Helen again, and he had news that would excite Clytaemnestra’s heart.

  The decision to flee Sparta before her father’s return was hastily taken but never for a moment regretted, for the year and a half that Clytaemnestra spent as the wife of King Tantalus in Elis proved to be the only unquestionably happy time in her life.

  They were fortunate to be allowed so long. Their life together would have been ended sooner but for a development of which Clytaemnestra was ignorant when she fled. When he had first heard the news of Helen’s abduction, the shock knocked Tyndareus off his feet as though he had been struck down by a god. For a time after he came round, his behaviour was so vague and uncertain that his friends feared that he had lost his wits. He also complained of numbness in his leg when he walked, so he had been forced to take things easy for a time, entrusting the campaign to Agamemnon’s leadership. Tyndareus steamed and fumed like a hot spring in the tent where he lay, until eventually, by sheer strength of will, he got back on his feet again and returned to the battle. But things had changed in his absence. Even his own Spartan warriors looked to the vigorous young leadership of Agamemnon now. He was the future, and that old warhorse Tyndareus was the past. Once Mycenae was regained, men had no doubt where the ruling power in Argos would lie.

  Tyndareus saw that he needed the marriage between Agamemnon and his daughter more than ever, and not merely as an act of patronage to a younger ally, but as the only sure means of maintaining the security of Sparta. He could only thank the gods that, for reasons best known to himself, the elder son of Atreus favoured Clytaemnestra over Helen, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

  Then the gods smiled on him again. Helen was found and rescued. After Aphidna was taken, Menestheus, who had succeeded Theseus as king in Athens, hastened to dissociate himself from his predecessor’s crime. And in the following weeks the power of Thyestes began to crumble at last. The gate into Mycenae was sold, Thyestes fled the city and was cut down. Regrettably, his son Aegisthus -- the murderer of Atreus -- contrived to escape, but no one doubted that a great victory had been won, and one that signalled an even more momentous change in the times.

  Tyndareus was already on his way home when he was told that Clytaemnestra had eloped to the city of Pisa in Elis where she was to marry King Tantalus. He erupted into rage so violent that the god struck him down again, and he entered Sparta less as a conquering hero than as an ageing cripple with trembling hands and slurred speech.

  He was certainly in no shape to lead an army into Elis. Nor could he count on Agamemnon for immediate help because the young Lion of Mycenae would have his hands full for some time, securing his power base in the city, taking charge of its finances and administration and asserting his authority over the outlying domains. So Clytaemnestra and her husband were left in peace for many months, though the temper of the messages reaching them from Sparta left Tantalus in no doubt that he had better prepare for war.

  War came shortly after the birth of their first child. By that time Agamemnon was ready to expand his empire and there were urgent reasons why he was drawn first to Elis. When he marched into that country at the head of his troops, Tantalus decided to meet him in the field rather than allowing him to lay siege to Pisa. He chose his ground well, intercepting the invaders at a narrow pass through the mountains where he commanded the heights.

  But Agamemnon had learned a great deal through the way Mycenae had finally fallen to treachery. Tantalus ordered his army to charge and drove his chariot down towards the Mycenaean line. Only when he was too far advanced to turn back did he realize how few of his warriors had followed. The rest, convinced that sooner or later Elis must fall to the overwhelming might of Mycenae, had been bought off and were now Agamemnon’s men.

  Clytaemnestra learned of her husband’s defeat as the Mycenaeans marched into the palace at Pisa. Terrified and distraught, she was clutching her infant son to her breast when Agamemnon burst open the chamber door. He snatched the child from her, gave it to one of his men with orders to bash out its brains, and informed Clytaemnestra that she was now a widow and would shortly be remarried.

  Only with difficulty was she restrained from killing herself. Then, for a time, she fought him off like a lynx. But this strange, grim man, who had been obsessed by her for many years, doggedly laid siege to her.

  When Clytaemnestra demanded in outrage how he could imagine that she would ever give herself to the murderer of her child, he told her that if he had spared the child, it would only have grown up looking to avenge its father -- such was the way of things in the bloody history of Mycenae. Nor, he pointed out, was she the first woman to have been seized as a prize in war, and unlike most of the rest she was not condemned to the life of a concubine or a slave.

  On the contrary, she was about to be married to a man who had loved her like a faithful hound for years, and would become the wealthiest wife in all Argos. For if the gods had gifted the house of Aeacus with power, and the house of Amythaon with wisdom, they had blessed the house of Atreus with wealth. And where there was wealth there was power, and that surely, Agamemnon declared, was wisdom enough for any woman in her right mind.

  So he left her alone to think things over for a time. Then one night he came to her with wine and gifts. He was trying to make a suitor of himself, and with every awkward gesture she could feel her hatred for him coursing through her veins. But there was a moment when she saw among the bluff crags of his face the eyes of the frightened boy who, many years before, had fled with his brother out of the bloody butcher’s cave that was Mycenae. In that moment she sensed the power she might wield through him and over him.

  Later, much later, he mounted her like a bull, and she let him take what was neither of meaning nor of value to her now. But her spirit -- she vowed it as she lay with her eyes open -- would remain for ever, and inalienably, her own.

  In the meantime, Helen had found new purpose in her life by caring for her father. Tyndareus had always been soft with his younger daughter and pliant to her will. Even though he had been party to her sister’s terrible suffering, he knew that Helen would never enquire into his actions too closely, and was grateful now to consign his weakened body to her care. So with Aethra in constant attendance, and her lovelorn cousin Penelope for company, Helen would have been content to live this quiet life indefinitely. But the world still had demands to make on her.

  As Agamemnon brought Elis under subjugation and kingdom after kingdom acknowledged the supremacy of Mycenae, a time of peace settled across Argos. Young men whose thoughts had largely been given over to war began to think of marriage, and Helen -- who was reputed to be the most beautiful woman ever to grace the earth -- was now of marriageable age. Whoever was lucky enough to marry her would also shortly succeed to the throne of Sparta. So Helen so
on became the unrivalled object of desire for all the great princes of Argos.

  One by one they presented themselves as suitors at the court of Tyndareus, each of them bearing rich gifts and strutting in their finery like courting birds, or making an impressive show, like bull-seals, of their strength and prowess.

  Among those most infatuated by Helen’s beauty was Diomedes, Lord of Tiryns, who was renowned as one of the bravest of men. Unaware of her nervous temperament, or perhaps insensitive to it, he sought to impress her with stories of his triumph in the long and terrible war at Thebes. Helen listened to him patiently and gave him small signs of her favour, but withheld any certain answer to his eager proposal of marriage.

  Menestheus of Athens was less warmly received. Though he was at pains to distinguish himself from his predecessor Theseus, he brought back memories of her confinement in Attica and was too evidently self-seeking in his manner. He would have been sent away with a clear rejection had Tyndareus not advised his daughter to reject no one yet for fear of stirring hostility to Sparta. So Idomeneus, heir to the Cretan King Deucalion, sailed from Knossos to plead his suit, and out of Salamis came Ajax, the valiant son of Telamon, along with his step-brother Teucer, who had been fathered on Telamon’s captive bride Hesione. The great archer Philoctetes came from Aeolia, bringing the massive bow that Heracles had bequeathed to him in return for his armour-bearer’s willingness to light his funeral pyre on Mount Oeta, and many others made the journey by land across the Peloponnese.

  All together, there were thirty-eight contenders for Helen’s hand, most of them mature warriors, men of power and influence who had already made their reputations. But among them were two young men of much the same age as Helen herself. Not yet seventeen, Palamedes, the Prince of Euboea, proved far more intelligent than any of his rivals, whom he kept amused by teaching them a complicated new game he had invented. The movement of stones across a patterned board according to the throw of dice provided a volatile form of gambling, from which Palamedes seemed to profit with astonishing regularity. The other young man had much less to say for himself but he carried his diffident good looks with a proud reserve and a strong, noble bearing. It was generally agreed that he stood little chance, but this graduate of Cheiron’s school impressed everyone by the courteous modesty of his demeanour. His name was Patroclus, son of Menoetius.

  Helen sat at the centre of all this attention in a state of panic. She had seen what had happened to her sister, who had now provided Agamemnon with an heir yet seemed to have surrendered all hope of happiness in this life. She watched as her uncle Icarius refused to allow his daughter Penelope to marry the man with whom she was clearly in love. And she had long since begun to wonder whether her own life could ever be anything more than a trophy to be grabbed by the strongest contender. Yet she also saw that her father could not have much longer to live, and that the world would give her no peace until she belonged to some other man. Sooner or later a choice must be made among the gang of suitors clamouring for her attention.

  Tyndareus would also have preferred to despatch the contenders and carry on living a quiet life at the centre of his daughter’s world. With so many mighty princes vying for Helen’s hand, and feelings running high, he was uncertain how to favour any one of them without incurring the enmity of the others. And the risk of such enmity was increased by the fact that, of all the candidates, one had stronger claims on him than all the rest, and could exert more pressure.

  Menelaus, the younger son of Atreus, had loved Helen with a passion for many years, and Tyndareus could see that Helen found a familiar gentleness and consideration in Agamemnon’s milder brother that was less threatening to her than the claims of strangers. Since the days of his boyhood, she had always responded with loving friendship to the shy, slightly askance smile with which he faced the world, as though it had always come at him like a big wind. But Menelaus was no longer a boy. He was a seasoned warrior who bore the mark of the wars in a scar that ran down his right cheek and clipped the corner of his mouth, fixing it in a wry tuck of the skin. And if he lacked his brother’s oppressive bluster, he remained nevertheless a son of Atreus. Should he become King of Sparta through marriage to Helen, the brothers would have effective control of the entire Peloponnesus. Some of the others contending for Helen’s hand, and the power that went with it, might be sufficiently worried by such a prospect to take steps to prevent it.

  So Tyndareus dithered, and Helen was content to let him do so.

  Fortunately, among that rowdy gathering of gallants Tyndareus had one resourceful friend. Odysseus, Prince of Ithaca, had come to Sparta not in the hope of snatching Helen from under the noses of much richer men, but to pursue a different claim of his own. Tyndareus had a brother called Icarius and he too had a desirable daughter. If less astonishingly beautiful than her cousin, Penelope had a poise and dignity that enchanted the heart of the Ithacan, and a shrewd intelligence that delighted his agile mind. But her father Icarius -- a stiff-necked man who liked to assert what little power he had -- was looking for a more prosperous son-in-law than the relatively penurious prince of a small island in the Ionian Sea, and he made it plain from the first that he neither liked nor trusted this adventurer out of Ithaca.

  His daughter might pine as long as she liked, he insisted, but sooner or later she would see the good sense of his opposition. Why on earth would she want to wear herself out in a hand-to-mouth life with a man who was no better than a pirate on a barren rock somewhere to the west of civilization, when she could take her pick among any of the princes that her more obedient cousin refused?

  Penelope had only a single reason -- a reason which satisfied her as much as it exasperated Icarius: she loved Odysseus and was more than happy to spend the rest of her life with him, however hard that life might be. So to her father’s angry frustration, she remained obstinate in her resolve to marry no one else. But her nature was also too modest and loyal to do what her lover urged and compromise her reputation by an impetuous elopement.

  Caught between two stubborn, Spartan temperaments, Odysseus eventually came to Tyndareus with his problem.

  ‘We both seem to find ourselves in difficulties,’ he said. ‘I wonder if we can’t be of assistance to one another.’

  Tyndareus sighed. Knowing Odysseus of old, he had guessed that this scrawny fellow with short legs, bristling hair and a knocked-askew nose was fishing for something from the moment he’d requested this private audience. But his guest’s rascally smile made a welcome change from the laconic gravity of those around him, and he could at least relax in the knowledge that the Ithacan was not in contention for his daughter’s hand.

  ‘Explain,’ he said, and signalled for his cup-bearer to pour more wine.

  Odysseus took the measure of the man across from him -- a man well past his prime, more than twice his own age, who had once been a formidable warrior and was now reduced to the condition of a pampered cripple. Deciding that a breezy impudence might serve his purpose best, he said, ‘It seems clear to me which way the wind blows.’

  Tyndareus tilted his head.

  ‘I’ve been watching Agamemnon lean his weight on you. The Mycenean lion is pushing his brother’s cause, of course, but he also wants this marriage to consolidate the alliance between Sparta and the house of Atreus.’ Odysseus glanced sharply up at the old Spartan king. ‘My guess is that he has ambitions abroad, and with Sparta safely in his brother’s hands, his power would be secured at home.’

  In the slurred speech that was all he could manage these days,

  Tyndareus whispered, ‘The throne of Sparta is already occupied.’

  ‘And by the wisest of kings,’ Odysseus smiled. ‘But you won’t live for ever, old friend. And whoever marries Helen warms his bed with a woman as close to a goddess as a man can hope to get and inherits your kingdom.’

  Tyndareus reproved his manner with a weary sigh. ‘Your point?’

  ‘My point is, I think it’s what you want too. Marry Helen to Menelaus,
make him your heir, and Sparta becomes unshakeable.’ Odysseus grinned across at the old king, whose trembling hand fidgeted with a serpent arm-ring twisted round his wrist. ‘Add to this the convenient fact that Menelaus seems to be sincerely insane with love for your daughter, and Helen knows that he’ll take good care of her, then the marriage makes sense in every way.’

  ‘Do you think that none of this has occurred to me?’

  ‘But it’s not quite so simple, is it? Disappoint any of the other ambitious princes here and you could have a deal of trouble on your hands.’

  Tyndareus glanced away.

  Odysseus brought his hands together at his lips. ‘I think I can see a solution.’ He smiled. ‘But it comes at a price.’

  Tyndareus turned to look at him again, narrow-eyed. ‘Save your breath,’ he said. ‘My brother’s face is set against you.’

  Odysseus opened his palms. ‘The King sees through me. But there are things he might say to his brother which I cannot say myself. He might tell him, for instance, that Odysseus of Ithaca has recently pulled off a number of successful ventures and is far richer than when he was last in Sparta.’

  ‘Piracy will not endear you to him!’

  Again Odysseus smiled. ‘But a glance into my coffers might. And could he name me a royal house that was not founded on brigandage or piracy?’

  Tyndareus grunted. ‘How much richer?’

  ‘Enough to make a couple of Lycian towns and several Sidonian merchants considerably poorer. Icarius will have his bride-price, and he can rest assured that his daughter will want for nothing when she comes to Ithaca.’

  Tyndareus shook his head.’Icarius looks to have her as Queen in Crete.’

  Odysseus shook his head. ‘There is bad blood in the House of the Axe. Penelope will not give herself to Deucalion’s son.’

  ‘Temper your speech,’ Tyndareus frowned. ‘The Cretan is my houseguest.’