Orestes and I were together as much as the fighting allowed. We hadn’t yet spoken to our fathers of our wish to marry. They were too deeply involved in organizing their final assault on the Trojans to be interested in their children’s love affair.
“This is how we’ll arrange it,” Orestes had proposed the previous night in my tent. “After the Trojans have been defeated, I’ll return to Mycenae with Agamemnon as he expects, and tell him of our marriage plans, and you’ll sail back to Sparta with Menelaus and Helen. I’m sure our two families, kingly brothers married to queenly sisters, will want to celebrate our wedding with the ceremonies and feasting it deserves. In the meantime,” he said, “I’ve brought you a surprise.” From a leather pouch he produced an intricately designed golden goblet made of two halves, neither of which would stand alone. “It’s a wedding goblet. I’ll keep one half, and you’ll have the other. It was my idea, but Zethus made it for us.”
“I didn’t know Zethus could work in gold,” I said, running my finger along the delicate etching of a wedding party. I was struck by the beauty of the goblet and overjoyed to have this promise of our future marriage. I thought it even more beautiful than the design Hephaestus had etched on Achilles’ magnificent shield.
“Zethus can make anything,” Orestes replied. “Now we must have a little ceremony and make our betrothal official.”
He filled the two halves of the goblet with wine. We poured a few drops on the ground for the gods, pledged our love, and drank, each sipping a little from both halves, promising not to drink from it again until our wedding day. Orestes and I kissed and kissed again and again, until our passion was spent.
As I was weaving, Astynome came to my tent with her newborn baby, Chryses, and cooed to him while I worked. I told her what I was weaving, showed her my half of the wedding goblet, and confided the plans Orestes and I had made. But as I talked and wove, I made mistakes and often had to undo whatever I had just finished. Astynome laughed. “Maybe you should start with something simpler—like towels for a baby!”
“Astynome,” I said, laying aside the shuttle, “you’ve told me that you often have dreams of things that may happen in the future. You learned in a dream that Zeus and Hera were arguing. You knew that Thetis was having new armor made for Achilles, and you even knew that Achilles would die. And so I wonder,” I continued, “if you’ve ever dreamed of my mother. I haven’t seen her since I was a child, and I hardly remember her. What is Helen like now? Do you know?”
“I don’t dream about Helen, because Helen doesn’t change.” Astynome said. The baby was fussing, and she got up to walk with him. “She’s the same now as she was the day she left Sparta, and the Trojans adore her as much today as they did when Paris brought her here.”
“They’re not angry at her because of the suffering she’s caused? Doesn’t Andromache blame her for Hector’s death?”
“They don’t see it that way. They don’t think it’s Helen’s fault.”
“But it is her fault!” I gave up my weaving efforts and took the baby from her. “And why do the Greeks not blame her?”
“You should ask your father that! And Agamemnon! Your father wants to get her back, and Agamemnon gave his word to help him. So did nearly all of your mother’s suitors. They are honor bound to fight this war to the finish. The soldiers who serve under them have nothing to say about it.”
She took little Chryses back from me, and we sat quietly while the baby suckled contentedly. Sighing, I said, “Well, if Calchas is right, it will end soon, and we’ll all go home. It can’t be soon enough for me.” Then I made the mistake of asking Astynome if she would be going to Greece with Agamemnon.
“I don’t know. I scarcely ever see him. He seems to have tired of me, and he ignores his new son. I don’t dare ask.” Her lip was trembling. “I have no idea what my future will bring, Hermione. I pray to the gods and await my fate, whatever it is. I’ve had no dreams about that.” She struggled to sound brave, but I knew that she was frightened, for herself and her child, and there was nothing I could say.
THE GREEK ENCAMPMENT WAS astir. The great warrior and champion archer Philoctetes had arrived from the island of Lemnos. Philoctetes was another of my mother’s former suitors, and when Menelaus had called for help, he was one of the first to respond. But an argument later came up with Odysseus—this happened fairly often, for Odysseus could be a difficult man—and Philoctetes was left behind on Lemnos. There he remained until an oracle revealed that he possessed the special bow and arrows needed to finally conquer the Trojans. Menelaus now believed that Philoctetes was the one man who could kill Prince Paris. Suddenly all was forgiven, and Philoctetes received a hero’s welcome at the Greek encampment.
Philoctetes immediately challenged Paris to combat in archery. The two great armies gathered on the plain to watch. I went looking for Calchas to describe what was happening in this fateful duel. The aged seer was aching in his bones, but he had always been fond of me, and he agreed to go with me to our usual spot in the small grove of fig trees, and to tell me what his second sight revealed.
“The air shimmers with excitement. This is the duel the Greeks have been waiting for. Wagers are made on how many arrows Philoctetes will shoot in order to kill the Trojan prince. Menelaus has mounted a special stand from which to observe the contest. A hush falls on the crowd. Philoctetes looses his first arrow, but it misses its mark. Paris’s arrow also goes wide. Philoctetes puts his second arrow to string—and it strikes Paris in his bow hand! Paris manages to shoot again, but poorly. Philoctetes’ third arrow pierces Paris’s eye, and a fourth strikes him in the heel, in the same manner as Paris wounded Achilles.”
I wondered if my mother was watching, and what she was thinking, what pain she felt as her lover lay gravely wounded. “Is Paris dead, Calchas?”
“No, not dead, Hermione, but he is dying. Paris has asked his friends to carry him to his former lover, Oenone. Years ago he cast her aside for Helen. When they parted, Oenone told him, ‘If ever you are badly hurt, come back to me, for only I can heal you.’ Now Paris begs her to heal his wounds as she once promised him, but she refuses, taking her revenge. Tomorrow all of Troy will grieve for Paris.”
“And Helen?” I asked. “Calchas, can you tell me what will happen to my mother now? Is she ready to come home with my father and me?”
Calchas was silent for a long time before he answered. “She will be claimed by both Deiphobus and Helenus, brothers of Paris,” he said. “Priam will award her to Deiphobus, who will find her attempting to escape and force her to marry him. Unless Menelaus can reach her first.”
16
The Wooden Horse
THE WOODEN HORSE WAS ready. We gathered on the beach to admire it. It was enormous, large enough to conceal at least twenty warriors inside, with a secret trapdoor on the horse’s flank and a message carved onto its side: “In grateful thanksgiving for a safe return to our homelands, we dedicate this offering to the Goddess Athena.”
With the warriors hidden in its belly, the wooden horse would be left where it stood on the beach. Our belongings had already been loaded onto the ships; what remained of the Greek camp would be set on fire and burned to ashes. Only one man, designated by Odysseus, would be left behind to light a beacon when the plan had been set in motion, signaling the ships to return. Zethus had been chosen to be that man. I saw him just before I boarded Menelaus’s ship. He’d come to say goodbye.
“I wanted one last chance to speak to you, Princess Hermione,” Zethus said. “I expect to be killed. Odysseus has ordered me to allow myself to be captured by the Trojans. I don’t know if King Priam will recognize me as his bastard son who sailed for Greece with Paris ten years ago.”
I remembered how I’d found Zethus asleep in my father’s stables in Sparta. Zethus, who helped me understand what had happened to my mother. Zethus, who had given me the little carving of a ship, built me a loom, made a wedding goblet for Orestes and me. He’d done so much! But I had questions. “Y
ou’ve been with us all these years, Zethus, but where is your heart? Why are you helping us? Aren’t you a Trojan? And why does Odysseus, who is suspicious of almost everybody, trust you?”
“I swore my loyalty to the Greeks many years ago. I’ve been a slave, but I was treated well. I’ve helped to build the wooden horse, and now I’ll help to get it inside the walls of Troy.”
“That doesn’t answer why, Zethus.”
Zethus looked uncomfortable. “Because of my devotion to you, Princess Hermione. I would gladly give my life for you. And now I bid you a last farewell.”
He bowed and rushed away. Speechless, I watched him go.
MY FATHER WAS THE first to climb up a rope ladder into the belly of the horse. Next was Odysseus, who’d concocted the whole plan. Pyrrhus followed; he would lead the fight once they’d entered Troy. The choice of Pyrrhus as leader shocked me, though he was his father’s son and no doubt Menelaus and Agamemnon sought to honor him.
I watched Orestes climb the ladder. We had said our goodbyes the night before as we held each other, whispering words of love, and I had promised not to weep when he was gone. The wooden horse was a risky plan, and I knew well that I might never see Orestes—or my father—alive again. But I kept my promise and, dry eyed, went with the others to board Menelaus’s ship. At nightfall the camp was set on fire. As our ships put out to sea, we watched the flames leap skyward. But we didn’t sail far—only to the island of Tenedos, just out of sight of Troy on the mainland—and prepared to wait there aboard the ships. Hippodameia was with me; she still grieved for Achilles and worried what her fate would be.
“We’re all fearful,” I said. “I wish I could have persuaded Astynome to bring her baby and come with us. She has such amazing dreams. She could help us.” But Astynome had chosen to board one of Agamemnon’s ships—a mistake, I thought.
Calchas had also boarded Agamemnon’s ship; I couldn’t summon him and his second sight to describe the scene to me as it unfolded. Only later, when it was all over, did I learn in fragments what happened the next day in Troy.
The Trojans awoke to discover that the Greeks had gone, their camp nothing but smoldering ashes, but that they’d left a huge wooden horse on the beach outside the city gates. King Priam and some of his sons went down from the citadel to look at this strange object and to read the inscription on its flank. Fierce disagreement erupted. One of the princes wanted to haul the wooden horse into the city, because it was a gift to the goddess Athena. Another argued that Athena often favored the Greeks and that the horse should be left where it was. At the very least, he insisted, they should break into the body of the horse to find out what was inside. The two sides argued until Priam decided that the horse was to be brought into the city.
All day the Trojans struggled with the wooden horse, putting logs under it as rollers and using ropes to drag it. It was too broad to pass through the city gates—four times it became wedged tight, and four times they labored to free it. Even after they knocked down parts of the wall, their difficulties were not over. The arguing went on.
Princess Cassandra, Priam’s mad daughter, warned them of the danger. “It’s a trap!” she told her father. “Beware of the gifts given to you by Greeks!” But no one ever believed Cassandra—that was her curse.
Still, there were others who were suspicious of this wondrous wooden horse. One of the Trojans hurled a spear at it; the spear pierced the wood and stuck there, quivering—and caused the Greeks inside to quiver as well!
There were cries from many Trojans to burn the horse, to destroy it.
The Trojans had not yet discovered that their sacred wooden statue of Pallas Athena, which everyone believed was safely hidden, had been stolen. Wily Odysseus, in disguise, had sneaked into Troy a day earlier and taken it, knowing that the loss of the carving would weaken the Trojans and their will to defend their city.
Unaware of the theft, Priam remained adamant. The wooden horse must stay, lest Athena be offended by their treatment of it, and it must be hauled all the way up to the citadel. While this enormous task was being undertaken, Priam’s guards marched in, dragging Zethus in shackles, just as was planned. When Priam recognized his son by Cassandra’s maidservant, he ordered him freed. Zethus successfully convinced the skeptical Trojans that he was on their side, explaining that if they had not brought the horse into the city, Athena would surely have ruined them.
Zethus played his role well. Priam was deceived by this artfully concocted tale. He ordered a feast to celebrate the Trojans’ victory over the Greeks. Women gathered flowers from along the banks of the River Scamander, wove them into garlands, and hung them around the neck of the wooden horse. They spread a carpet of blooms around the horse’s hooves. The Trojans cheered.
Meanwhile, the Greeks, barely able to draw a breath in the stifling belly of the horse, waited tensely for Odysseus to give the order to attack. They argued in whispers. “It’s not yet time,” Odysseus insisted.
Pyrrhus, determined to begin the attack, was barely prevented from assaulting Odysseus to have his way.
Voices outside the horse tormented the men crowded inside. Helen, accompanied by her new husband, Deiphobus, walked around the horse three times, speaking loudly. Menelaus could hear her clearly. He had not arrived in time to prevent her marriage, and that further inflamed him. She seemed to be taunting him, as though she knew he was there. Odysseus had to restrain him from opening the trapdoor and leaping down to confront her.
The wait went on.
A day of feasting and revelry celebrating the Trojan victory ended toward midnight, and the people of Troy fell into a deep and untroubled sleep.
But to us onboard the ships, waiting anxiously out of sight and knowing nothing of what had transpired, that day had seemed endless. A bright moon rose. No one on the ships could even think of sleeping. We, too, were waiting. I thought about Zethus, wondering if he was safe. I was fearful for my father, fearful for Orestes, and worried what would now happen to my mother. The past ten years had brought us all to this night.
We crowded onto the deck and peered into the darkness, watching for Zethus’s signal fire. The moon rose high, and shards of moonlight glittered on the black water. At last the lookout on the mast reported a flicker in the distance. On his ship Agamemnon lighted a basin of wood chips as an answering signal. If the gods favored us, Zethus would see the light and find a way to pass the word to the men who had spent a long day and two long nights in the belly of the wooden horse. At Tenedos the anchor stones were raised, and the Greek ships sliced silently through the foaming sea toward Troy.
INSIDE THE GATES OF the city, Zethus spotted Agamemnon’s signal and crept close to the wooden horse. He spoke softly to the men hiding there: “The ships are coming.”
Odysseus calculated how long it would take the ships to sail from Tenedos to the harbor north of the beach where the remains of our former encampment still smoldered, and how much longer for the men to march from the harbor to the city. Zethus confirmed their arrival. The Greeks opened the trapdoor and scrambled down the rope ladder. With Pyrrhus in the lead, one group silently slit the throats of the sentries and hurried on to Priam’s royal palace. A second group opened the gates, closed up after the Trojans had hauled the wooden horse inside. Greek soldiers poured through the gates and spread out over the sleeping city, killing as they went.
Pyrrhus, consumed by rage, reached the royal palace, seized Priam by the throat, and slew him. He dragged the king’s butchered body to the tomb of Achilles and left it there. He found Hector’s widow, Andromache, on the rampart, clutching her infant son, Astyanax. Pyrrhus grabbed the little boy by his foot, whirled the screaming child over his head, and flung him onto the rocks below. Taking the sobbing mother as his prize, Pyrrhus dragged Andromache away.
Now Polyxena had to die. She’d betrayed Achilles—as he lay dying he’d called for her to be sacrificed—and Pyrrhus was quite ready to kill her. “Achilles loved her. My father deserves to have his spoils too,�
� he said.
Polyxena saved Pyrrhus the trouble and stabbed herself on Achilles’ tomb.
Menelaus, torn by conflicting feelings of love and hate, cared about nothing but finding Helen. He ran to the house of Deiphobus. My father may have intended to murder his unfaithful wife. I myself had heard him swearing to Odysseus, “She must die!” But what actually happened when he found my mother I could only try to imagine.
Helen was holding a bloody dagger, and Deiphobus lay dead at her feet. Menelaus dropped his sword, undone at the sight of her: the most beautiful woman in the world. Perhaps she knelt and clasped his knees, a supplicant, calling herself a whore, a lost woman. Or maybe she simply stood there, looking at him, waiting for him to put his knife to her throat.
“Menelaus,” Helen said. “Please forgive me. I have wronged you.”
He looked into her hyacinth blue eyes and loved her as much as he did when he first married her.
“Helen, I forgive you.”
They gazed at each other. He raised my mother’s hand to his lips. I don’t know what happened between them, only that my father led her out of Troy, followed by servants carrying chests of her jewels and gowns. Nearly everyone else was killed that bloody night.
My heart fluttered as my father brought my mother to his ship. She looked exactly as she had when I’d last seen her, at our palace in Sparta, entertaining our guest, Prince Paris. It was true: her beauty had not faded. Menelaus raked his fingers through his beard, no longer fiery red but threaded with gray. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
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