by Amanda Elyot
A hawk circled far above us, its silhouette black against the cerulean sky. “Do you think he already sees his prey?” I asked Paris Alexandros. “Or do you think he is looking for something to kill?”
“I think he is admiring the view below him; a vision in blue and gold. Traveling on the wind, the tales of Helen of Sparta reached his mountaintop aerie and he had to come closer to the earth to find out for himself if she was indeed as beautiful as they said.”
“And what does the hawk think?”
Paris Alexandros offered me his hand so that I could mount my mare with ease. Our hands kissed, palm to palm, and I felt his soul, his thymos, enter mine. “He is enchanted by her loveliness. The songs of the bards do not do it justice. He is cursing the fate that made him a bird and wishes himself a man so that he might make love to her.”
“He does not wish her a bird so that she might fly away with him?” Our hands were still joined, and Paris brought mine to his lips and kissed it before helping me up. Our flirtatious exchange confirmed my greatest hopes and fears: The Troyan prince desired me as much as I did him. This situation was as new to me as were the sensations that had overtaken my body and mind since the moment our gazes first met. Exquisite and charming Paris Alexandros, with his honeyed speech and overt attentions, swooped down and took hold of my heart before I had time to stop for breath. So long unaccustomed to affection from my husband, and never anticipating the possibility of onslaught from another quarter, it was an undefended citadel, vulnerable to attack from an outsider.
We rode toward the outskirts of the city, and I pointed out the modest mud and brick farmhouse where my childhood friend, Polyxo, had grown up. The prince was surprised that the legendary Helen had played with commoners. “My sister Clytemnestra was a cruel playmate and convinced the other girls to shun me,” I told him. “I never desired to be any different from my playfellows, and yet I never felt as though I inhabited their world. Even adults would remark upon my beauty in a way that made me feel I was not human. True, my father was the great Zeus, but although I am demimortal, I am my mother Leda’s daughter as well: made of flesh and fueled by emotions that are as vulnerable to injury as theirs. All through my life I have tried to put myself back among other people to make sure I have not missed any elements of a normal life by being Helen. From the very beginning, Polyxo was the only one who had enough courage and goodness to seek to befriend me.”
“Then I should like to thank her for her courage and goodness.”
“You want to meet Polyxo?”
“Why not?”
“You would need to leave Sparta then, for she married a Rhodian, Tlepolemus.”
The day could not have been more beautiful. First I showed Paris Alexandros the reedy banks of the Eurotas, where we waited for a tortoise to cross our path. The creature seemed to enjoy the warmth of Helios as much as we did and took his time before ambling into the rushes. The Troyan prince pointed toward Gythium, where his ships lay moored. His men and Aeneas’s had erected tents, dwelling there until their commanders completed their diplomatic office. “How I wish you could see my ship!” he said. “The great bull of Troy graces her prow, and her hull is the color of pomegranate seeds.” It sounded remarkable indeed. As exotic as the vessel’s master, who wore fine robes and bedecked himself in gold and brazen bracelets and earrings like an Achaean woman. “This is the fashion for well-born men of Wilusa,” he explained to me. “At first I was astonished by it. But it did not take long for this former shepherd lad to grow acclimated to the custom. I have always appreciated beauty in all its forms.”
I felt the heat spread from my hairline to my cheeks, along my throat and chest, taking up residence between my thighs. “Come,” I said, “I will show you where my brothers taught me to ride.” I led him up the slopes of Mount Taygetos, past eucalyptus, cypress, pines, and acacias. Our route was a riot of color. Like the golden narcissus, my precious anemones were long gone, their blossoms of red, violet, and indigo children of the spring; but we were greeted with cyclamen, carpets of fragrant lavender, and patches of sweet veronica. Asphodel and iris paid court to the Spartan queen and her consort for the day. As we rode through a shady spot, a gentle breeze carried the crisp scent of mint to our nostrils.
Not in nine summers’ time had I felt so free. The heavy yoke of marriage, motherhood, and responsibility had been lifted from my neck; unhaltered, I embraced my renewed unrestrained state like a lover. The terrain became rockier the higher we climbed, and as we neared a plateau, Athena, my mare, stumbled on something and nearly threw me. Paris Alexandros insisted that I dismount immediately, which I did, and he alit from his mount as well, the better to ascertain whether Athena had been injured. With the same expert tenderness I had seen my brother Castor display with one of his horses, the Troyan prince examined Athena’s left front leg and, somehow convincing the massive beast to raise her foot, discovered a stone caught in her hoof.
“I thought you told me your brother Hector was the tamer of horses,” I said, admiring Alexander’s talent for calming the mare and gaining her trust.
“That was his nickname—before I returned to the family fold!”
His ego was as healthy as his complexion and physique. Modesty did not become this prince. At any rate, his inclination toward boasting set aside, in his management of equine matters he was indeed as skillful as he claimed. “She should rest for a bit,” Paris Alexandros said, having just removed the stone. He gently guided Athena’s hoof to the ground, and she gave a little shake and tested her leg. “And so should we. Rest.” He removed his cloak, also the color of pomegranate seeds, and laid it across a patch of earth.
In order to avoid acknowledging our increased physical proximity, I found myself complimenting the richness of the winedark shade.
“The red dye comes from the safflower,” he told me, “and we set the color in salt from the plant’s ashes. That is why, through wind and wear and weather, it remains a true red, rather than eventually fading to an orangey hue.”
“Ahhh . . .” I found it hard to look at him because I feared, even then, and even though it was Kronia, that I could not remain responsible for my actions. Once I walked through the fire, there was no returning. That I knew as well. We gazed across the fertile Taygetos valley, past all the dwellings, and out to the Great Sea. Suddenly, I thirsted for it again, as I had done that day at the beginning of my fourteenth year when Polyxo and I had hiked up the mountain and were set upon by Theseus and Pirithous.
“You were going to tell me a story about the goddesses depicted in the mural in our Great Hall,” I reminded him. I lay down on the pebbled ground, protected only by the fabric of Alexander’s mantle.
“The wedding of Thetis to Peleus.” Paris Alexandros sighed deeply and reclined beside me. His skin smelled of sunlight, but I could not hold my breath forever to avoid its intoxicating effect. “All the gods and goddesses were invited to the feast . . . but one. Eris.”
“Well, who would want the goddess of strife at their wedding banquet?” I interjected, aware that Lady Discord had not received an invitation.
“To overlook Strife, whether deliberately or unintentionally, is to court it, of course. When traders came to Mount Ida for livestock, after dinner they would regale us with stories about the renowned and mighty. After one such evening in the company of a particularly loquacious trader, I dreamt about this famous wedding. And in my dream, the uninvited Eris appeared at the feast, leaving the happy couple an enigmatic wedding gift. She tossed a golden apple marked ‘for the fairest’ at great Zeus himself and challenged him to judge which of the greatest goddesses merited the prize. As his own wife Hera was among the three contestants—the other two being Athena and Aphrodite—he refused to be the arbiter, naturally disinclined to unnecessarily incur her ire. So he sent Hermes the messenger god to my humble dwelling on Mount Ida, demanding in the name of Zeus that I act as judge. Naturally, I could not refuse an offer from the king of the sky gods, and reluctantly I rose to the
task. Athena and Hera tried to bribe me. The latter offered me tremendous wealth and power, and the former promised me victory in battle. I was happy with my simple life and had no desire for Hera’s gift, and as I was a hunter and not a warrior, saw little value in Athena’s bribe. But more to the point, as the apple bore the words ‘for the fairest,’ it was a beauty contest I had been asked to adjudge, not an assessment of the goddesses’ relative merits. Of course the fairest among them was the goddess of beauty herself, Aphrodite. But to tempt me further to award her the glittering orb, she promised that the most beautiful woman in the world would be mine. My consort, my lover, my wife.”
A shiver, like little sparks of flint, crackled along the length of my spine, and I felt robbed of breath.
“You see?” Paris said, propping himself on one elbow. “We are destined to be together. The gods themselves have ordained it. Do you not believe in anake—in fate?”
“Anake: what has to be.” I tried to see the situation with Spartan pragmatism: for someone to insist that your union is favorably starred is nature’s way—perhaps even the Great Mother’s way—of saying that they want you very much at that moment. It’s not too distant an emotion from that of the young child who sees a brand-new plaything or a starling that spots a shiny object and thinks mine! But I was neither a child nor a bird; I lacked their freedom to follow my desires so unequivocally. I had loved Theseus with an all-consuming passion and still reserved for him a special chamber in my heart, although he had been dead for four years. How then could I accept that Paris Alexandros was fated to be my perfect lover: the only man for me in a lifetime? From my own experience, that was not true. What is true is that a great love, like lightning, can strike twice. Once, I thought my destiny was Theseus. Looking at Paris, I realized that as our personalities develop, and our devoted hearts break and attempt to repair themselves, our destinies are not as final as we believe them to be.
Love and loyalty were separate entities as well. In a good marriage, they combined to form a single centaurlike creature: half one and half the other. In a union such as mine with Menelaus, only loyalty warmed itself at our hearth. I had believed that my destiny was not to be permitted to embrace both.
“You are silent, Helen. What do you think of that?” Paris Alexandros asked me, twining a tendril of my hair around his finger.
“You have a way of robbing me of words . . . of . . . incommoding me. I do not know you, and yet I have never before been so drawn to a man. You are a foreign prince from an exotic realm, which is enchanting enough . . . and I am the queen of a somewhat powerful, though provincial, city . . .”
“An orchid among weeds—”
“—That is hardly fair.”
“Among common wildflowers then.”
I smiled. “Wildflowers have a unique beauty, too. But you could still be the shepherd youth on Mount Ida, or here on Taygetos. It is your spirit and your words . . . and your beauty that move me.”
Paris inched closer to me. Our bodies were nearly touching. His mouth was so close to mine that I could taste his breath. “Let me make love to you, Helen.”
The words formed themselves on my lips and escaped from my mouth as though my body had no power to restrain them. “Not now.”
“When, then?”
“Soon.” The bargain had been made; the pact sealed. On my honor as queen I could not renege, and so, I would dishonor Menelaus. Perhaps Paris Alexandros was right. That our destinies were meant to be thus joined. A religious person, upon hearing his retelling of the story of the Judgment, would certainly agree that Zeus and Aphrodite had conspired to plan the fate of Paris Alexandros, a fate to include Helen of Sparta as his golden apple. Zeus was my father and Aphrodite my spiritual patroness, a godmother of sorts. Was it not reasonable for me to concur that my Olympian family desired the best for their shining daughter? It offered an unassailable explanation, should I choose to follow the path as allegedly preordained.
I was terrified of the power within me. It was as dangerous as a conflagration or a tempest-tossed sea. Although it dwelled inside me, contained by the flesh and sinew of my body, I knew it could consume me.
Paris Alexandros removed one of his earrings and pressed it into my palm. “Here is my promise: to give you all that is mine. Will you pledge the same to me?”
I gazed upon the small golden hoop for several moments, then with great deliberation and a tiny pinch of pain, handed him one of my own. Each of us now was in possession of a mismatched set. “A pair and not a pair,” I breathed.
Rising to my feet, I adjusted my skirts. I held out my hand to Paris Alexandros and led him back to our horses. “We should begin our descent,” I said.
And so we did.
SEVENTEEN
Certain that my secret promise covered my face like a veil, I was grateful that Menelaus monopolized Paris Alexandros at the evening banquet. All he could talk about was the wrestling match he had planned for the following day. I asked Aeneas to tell me all about Ilios. “Was it like Sparta?” I asked, knowing that the cities bore little in common, but as the hostess I wanted to give the other Troyan ambassador the chance to shine. The Dardanian-born Aeneas bloomed with pride for his adopted city, boasting that its highly advantageous location at the mouth of the Hellespont made it the center for world trade. From the summit of its twin-towered citadel, King Priam controlled the flow of commerce from the Black Sea to the north and through the Aegean to the south.
“Wilusa has the best of everything,” Aeneas averred. “The finest goods from the Adriatic, Achaea, Egypt, and the Hittite kingdom are at our fingertips. Most important, ships bearing copper from Cyprus and tin from Central Asia pay their tributes to Priam in the form of tolls as well as goods.”
“Why are those ships the most important?” I desired to know. This was something in which Theseus had not completely schooled me.
“We are living in the age of bronze,” Aeneas replied. “And bronze is an alloy. One part tin combined with ten parts copper makes bronze. He who controls the flow of bronze, controls the world.”
“And your King Priam from his towered city on a shining hill sits atop that world.”
“Until someone topples him. Even the great Heracles tried . . . and failed. And Priam was only a boy then.”
I caught Paris Alexandros looking at me. He peered over his wine kylix and touched his lips to the cup as though the lip of the kylix were my own. Momentarily flustered, I lowered my eyes, then raised them to meet his again. Not now, they told him. I touched Menelaus’s arm and favored him with a warm smile. He accepted my gift with an inclination of his head and resumed his impassioned discussion of wrestling.
Menelaus had wanted to stage their mock skirmish out on the pergamos, but I feared that the injuries both men might suffer on the hard paving stones would be anything but sham. Enduring their taunting and chiding, I convinced my husband to move the bout to the field beyond the palace. I found it amusing in an almost pathetic way: two grown men—one of whom was a hunter who had never been in a real battle, and the other an experienced soldier who for several moons had been nostalgically pining for the thrill of blood and drums and clash of bronze—playing at war.
The patch of earth was ringed by spectators, all cheering for Menelaus, as they would never dare to cross their king even during Kronia. This did not seem to daunt the foreign prince, who twice pinned the older, slower Menelaus within the first few seconds of the match. Embarrassed to be losing on his own territory, particularly after having so vociferously insisted upon the face-off, Menelaus found his strength and skill and turned the tides. Paris gamely rallied but was clearly not as committed to the bout as was his adversary. For the Troyan prince, it was little more than an entertainment in which he happily humored his host. Physically, the men were not well matched. Paris Alexandros was younger by a decade and a few inches taller; but the stockier physique of Menelaus was more suited to that of a wrestler, and my husband was able to use it to gain the advantage. Or had the
Troyan prince diplomatically allowed his host to best him? The two men wrestled well enough so that I could not be certain whether Menelaus had legitimately won.
He rose and offered his hand to Paris Alexandros, pulling the prince to his feet. They embraced and brushed the dust from their loins, and Menelaus complimented his opponent on being a worthy competitor. “Come! I will send our loveliest serving girls to bathe you and tonight we will feast again!” My husband asked me to attend him in his bath and I could not refuse. Some kings might have sent the queen to bathe their guest as a gesture of the goodwill they bore him; such a thing was well within the bounds of tradition, but Menelaus, ever alert to even the most innocuous communication between another man and me, would certainly never have made such an offer. During the past three days, either Menelaus had been too focused on his own newfound amity with the Troyan prince, or I must have concealed my blushes well, for they went undetected by my husband.
A messenger was waiting at the palace gates when we arrived. He had come from Crete to inform Menelaus that Catreus, his mother’s father, had died. Another runner had been dispatched to Mycenae with the same sorrowful news. “I must go,” Menelaus said grimly. “It is only fitting that my brother and I are present for the funeral rites and games.” He made no delay in arranging for his immediate departure, although at least he allowed me to bathe him first! “You must entertain our guests with all the hospitality I would accord them had I been able to remain for the duration of their stay in Sparta,” he charged me. “And I will not hear that you shunned them, as you are often wont to do.” I did often take pains to avoid our guests, it was true, but only because Menelaus would scold me for what he considered was conduct too warm and too familiar. I was expected to be Helen but not Helen. There was no way to win; and therefore, I did my best to try to remain aloof and distant. Now, even that behavior was being held up to censure and scrutiny.
