Warrior's Captive: I, Briseis

by Jackie Rose

  Then pulled me over onto my back, still silencing me with his hand. He pulled it away only to force his lips onto mine, as his free hand held my wrists over my head. Struggling against him, trying to free myself long enough to tell him his mistake, I felt his rage and passion and gave myself up to them, despite the lingering burning.

  His knees shoved my legs apart as he angrily rammed his spear between them and plunged it deep into my sheath. “Tell me that you are thinking of Paris now!” he snarled, as he pushed and pounded into me. His red beard was rough against my face. As my lips parted beneath his demanding tongue he released my hands. They slid around his broad shoulders in an eager caress.

  We rocked together, in the ship’s own rhythm, as it rocked against the wooden dock. His thighs locked around mine. My body arched up to meet him as I gasped my commands, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.”

  He pulled back at that, peering at me closely with eyes now accustomed to the dark.

  “Briseis?” he demanded.

  “Yes, My Lord Menelaus.”

  “By all the gods, girl, why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

  “You would not let me speak, my lord,” I told him gently.

  With a gasp of horror, he gathered me into his arms.

  “It is not all my fault, though,” he told me, as he kissed the top of my head. “You should not have tried to shield her. I should have known you would try it, because you are as brave and generous as she is cowardly and selfish. Now she must be hiding somewhere else on the ship, waiting for my rage to pass.” And, as I knew from his tone of voice, it had passed indeed, released on me.

  But I did not mind that, I wanted to tell him: He had given me so much more pleasure than pain. I was not trying to shield her, I wanted to say: I did not tell him of his mistake because I did not want to. Nor did I want to pretend he was Achilles or any other man. His next words stopped me.

  “Well, then, you have made up my mind for me,” he said. “She will be punished as she deserves. If I want to show mercy, I will do it by selling her into slavery. Then I will be free to marry you, just as that fool Achilles should have done.”

  For a long, long moment, I could see myself sitting beside him on a golden throne. Then I shook my head and whispered, “I hope not, my king.”

  He drew back even further, in surprise.

  “Why in the world, girl? Didn’t you hear me say that I will marry you once Helen is dead?”

  “Yes, my king,” I answered. “But then you would no longer be a man I wish to marry, the kind and generous man Achilles gave me to.” And then, I thought, this war for love would have been a senseless butchery.

  “Then I could banish her,” he offered. “I could buy her an island, like the one Achilles’ mother rules. I can afford five islands like that. I am the richest man I know. That would be the modern way. And,” he added bitterly, “we must all try to be modern.”

  For another long moment, that seemed the perfect answer for everyone. Then I shook my head again.

  “And where would she be safe anywhere, without your protection?”

  He swung up to sit beside me.

  “That is indeed a problem,” he said, with a short laugh. “Very well, then. I will return to my wife, assure her that all is forgiven and have her the way I had you.”

  I sought the words to advise him, until Aphrodite sent them to me.

  “You treated a slave girl like a queen, once you knew she was not one,” I told him. “Now treat a queen like a slave girl.”

  “But not as I treated you,” he said, gently touching the reddened stripes on my back. “I am no longer angry enough for that.”

  That may be unfortunate, I thought. But I would never have wanted to serve a master who would beat his wife after his anger against her had gone.

  Aloud, I said, “Then go to her thinking only of your pleasure and hers. Treat her as a slave girl you were winning with your spear. There is a secret place on women’s bodies that Achilles showed me, and I can show it to you.”

  He laughed bitterly again. “No, Briseis, she is not you. No matter how many secret places I fondled for her, I could not win her that way. She would still despise me. You worship men and their power and she does not. Sometimes I think she hates us all.”

  “But you have all been kind to her.”

  “Not all,” he told me. Then he hesitated, wondering if he should share her secret. “One was too kind, when she was only ten.”

  Too kind in what way? I wondered. Then my mouth fell open at the horror of what he had said. I had heard of such monsters, as I had heard of murderous men with bull’s heads and nine-headed snakes, but never thought to come so close to their victims.

  “Who was this creature?” I demanded. “It must have been some madman, and I hope her brothers cut off his head!”

  “It was Theseus, who was her father’s guest.” In even more bitter tones, he added, “Theseus was fifty at the time, so perhaps he was no longer strong enough to force grown women, or perhaps he had had so many that they no longer excited him.”

  Now I could only gape at him.

  “Theseus is a famous hero!” I cried.

  “Why else do you think that her family did not slaughter him on the spot? He blamed Helen and her beauty, and her family had to agree.”

  “A hero? Theseus violated little children! Do you mean that famous people can do whatever they please?”

  “Achilles could and did.”

  Before I could protest against that comparison, Menelaus added, with a sigh, “And that also includes Helen, obviously. She is as famous as anyone.”

  But there is one thing she will do,” he said grimly. “She will put on all her finery and thank the good kings of Argos for rescuing her when she was longing to escape from Troy. They will not believe it for a moment, but they will pretend to, and she may have the decency to feel ashamed.”

  “Command Iphis to adorn her,” I said. “It will help them both.”

  He nodded as he stood up to go, but leaned down again to touch my hair. “I will tell her to adorn you, too. You must rest, now, because tomorrow evening I will want both you and Iphis standing beside her, to show that she still has her rank. But that will not be all she has, Briseis, I warn you. I am not like my brother. I do not believe in this modern practice of taking first and second wives. If I am with Helen, I must be with her only.

  “And you must, my lord,” I answered, with no gladness this time. “That is what a war was fought for.”

  Iphis did not mention Patrocles to me, as I sat in the chair before her. She did tell me, though, that I had done a good job of keeping the space between my eyebrows shaved. I knew that this was her way of telling me that she no longer blamed me for Patrocles.

  Aided by Iphis’ cosmetics, Helen seemed to display a beauty that was the gods’ own gift, as she stepped into the dining hall, clinging to Menelaus’ arm.

  “My lord has commanded me…” she quavered, glancing around at the assembled rulers before she burst into helpless tears and buried her head on his shoulder. Once again, Aphrodite was with her. They all glared at him for his brutality in having forced her here. Only Odysseus seemed unmoved and even close to laughter. Biting down hard on my lip, I glanced towards him long enough to show him that, for once, I shared his feelings.

  The next morning, we sailed back to Sparta.

  Officially forgiven by her husband, Helen was every inch the queen again. I had seen and pitied her at her lowest and did not think she would forgive me for that. Sure enough, she sent me time and again back to her cabin to fetch her comb, her cosmetics, her embroidery box, her medicine chest and anything else she could think of, as she sat motionless on the deck in the sun, watching the ruined walls of Troy as they receded beyond the glittering blue sea. Then she went below decks.

  When I could, I strained to see the last horizon, where Achilles’ log house was fading into the distance. Now I could only hope that it would shelter some Tro
jan family. I knew I would never again be as happy as I had been there.

  Chapter Nine

  Fearing that the war had forced him to neglect his foreign allies, Menelaus took us to Egypt on the way home. He joined us in admiring the royal palace, where carved lions guarded the throne and painted falcons spread their bright red and blue wings above it. An impressive sight it made, too, even compared to the royal palaces I would soon see in Argos.

  In Pharaoh’s house, the grey stone walls soared so high above the throne that the lowest pinion touched the shaven head of the ruler seated there. The height would have made the walls gloomy, were it not for the sun pouring through the open space above them. One beam gave an especially brilliant gleam to the brightly painted birds and to the wide lapis collar adorning the throat of the king beneath them.

  We did not have long to enjoy the splendid sights. At dinner, our king mentioned to Pharaoh that one of his queen’s attendants had originally come from Egypt.

  “A slave woman from Egypt?” the bald king demanded. “A Hebrew?”

  Iphis naturally kept silent, as she stood behind her mistress with Diomede and me. Menelaus answered that he believed so.

  At that, Pharaoh grasped the arms of his chairs and pulled himself to his feet. All Hebrews had been banished from Egypt forever, he shouted. Did King Menelaus know why?

  Without giving him time to answer, the Egyptian was quick to explain. When the renegade Prince Moses incited them to a mass escape, the Hebrew rebel slaves ran half naked into the sea. The soldiers who pursued them were weighted down by their heavy armor, so the slave mob pulled them off their horses and drowned them.

  “A strategy worthy of Odysseus,” Menelaus murmured over his shoulder to me. For my part, I wondered silently how any soldiers could be foolish enough to charge into the sea in full armor.

  Turning back to the Egyptian king, Menelaus said loudly, “A tragic story, certainly, but it has nothing to do with our Iphis. She belonged to my friend Patrocles at the time and showed him only devotion and gratitude. Now she serves my queen just as loyally.”

  “Nevertheless, she must be gone by tomorrow or die,” Pharaoh proclaimed. “Were it not for my respect for you, King Menelaus, she would be thrown to the crocodiles this moment.”

  In alarm, I glanced at Iphis. Taking her duties seriously, as always, she kept gazing at her mistress with her hands folded serenely before her, as though she had not heard.

  “Then we must all go,” said Menelaus, rising from his chair. “We all thank you for your hospitality.”

  Helen asked permission to say farewell to Polydama, an Argive woman who was an old friend of hers and now one of the Egyptian royal wives. The lady had taken Helen to the women’s hall and given her many fine gifts there, in return for the war news. They included a silver sewing box on wheels, which Helen had admired, and a box of medicines. Helen appreciated this gift all the more, since Polydama told her that they could cure not only pain but even grief. That seemed hard for me to believe, but proved to be all too true.

  Menelaus waited impatiently, then led us all back to the ships to spend the night. I heard him ordering his men to be ready to defend our vessels on a moment’s notice if the Egyptians tried to board them.

  Some of you might be surprised that he went to such lengths to protect a slave woman, but I was not. I knew that my lord Achilles would have done the same, especially for the one who had served Patrocles.

  Iphis soon showed that she was angrier than she had seemed. With good reason, too. She had finally dragged herself out of bed to do her duty and been rewarded by Pharaoh’s insults and threats. That night in our cabin, she whispered a song to me that she had heard from another Hebrew who had reached Argos:

  Rejoice, rejoice exceedingly,

  The horse and his rider are thrown in the sea.

  As dreadful as the words were, I could hardly blame her for relishing them. Not even a king should have spoken so rudely.

  By this time, I was starting to wish that Helen would be thrown in the sea as well. Everything I did seemed to annoy her, whether I was threading her embroidery needle too slowly or handing her the wrong color thread. Once, while Iphis was resting, I was pressed into service combing the queen’s hair. She cried that I was doing it too roughly and sharply tugged my own hair for revenge. It was just like Charis back in Agamemnon’s house, I thought, and just what we had all feared from our master’s wives.

  I had no chance to weep, though, because Helen started sobbing loudly enough for us both, covering her face with both hands.

  “Look what you made me do!” she wailed. “I never acted this way before. You must be trying to provoke me. Now I’m going to have to take my calming medicine and lie down, after the way you upset me.”

  “Please don’t upset yourself, mistress,” I begged her, sincerely sorry that I had gotten her into such a state. “You don’t have to take those drugs.”

  But nothing would do but to go looking for the potion she had gotten from her friend in Egypt. I searched for it only reluctantly. The black tarry stuff looked to me too much like the medicine that Machaon had used to ease Achilles’ dying.

  At least Iphis could no longer spend all her time in mourning. Perhaps without meaning to, Helen had given her a better cure than any medicine for grief. Having availed herself of Iphis’ skills to prepare for the Egyptian visit, Helen now kept her jumping all the time, with a curl to arrange to full advantage or a lip to repaint. Seeing the results of her efforts, Helen would often grasp her hand and exclaim that she could never survive without her Iphis at her side. Helen gave her beautiful gifts to prove it, but Iphis always wore them with the golden girdle that came from Patrocles, and I knew she would be buried wearing that.

  At other times, Helen would call Diomede to her cabin. They would talk behind the closed door for hours, saying, I feared, no good things about me.

  In a better mood Helen stared at me with strange speculation and told me that I seemed to be a big, strong girl who could work hard. That alarmed me enough to tell King Menelaus that I feared she wanted to send me out to harvest flax, out of his sight. He assured me that she would do no such thing, if she valued the life that she owed me. I don’t know what he told her, but she never mentioned that plan again, and she never once spoke of the night that Menelaus and I had spent together.

  * * *

  As her attendant, then, I walked behind her, with Diomede and Iphis, when our litters had carried us from the sea to the Spartan royal palace.

  Even though the day was cool and cloudy, a large crowd had gathered at the palace gates, curious to see their famous queen and decide for themselves if she was as beautiful as everyone said, even after so many years. Once again, Iphis’ skills helped Helen make sure that they were not disappointed.

  The throng parted as a lovely golden-haired girl of twelve or thirteen ran toward us, followed by her own attendants. She held out her arms to Helen, who merely stared at the group of girls and asked blankly, “Which one of you is my daughter Hermione?”

  For the first time, I really thought that Menelaus might strike his wife as the girl burst into tears. How could Helen have missed the resemblance to herself, I wondered, unless she never really saw anyone else in the world. Quelling his anger, Menelaus embraced the child. Then he reached out his free arm towards his wife until he was pressing them both to his chest.

  “You have grown so much, she could not recognize you,” he assured the weeping girl. “Now you are almost as beautiful as she.” Hermione ran into Helen’s arms as they were finally opened to her.

  The girl’s tears had dried by the time our litters reached the palace. The sight cheered me, too.

  Having little acquaintance with Argos’s royal palaces, I had expected this one to be a larger version of the kings’ log houses on the Trojan beach. Instead, I was amazed at how bright and beautiful it was. On the wall of the great hall, painted lions ran across green fields beneath white clouds in a bright blue sky. Even my littl
e room in the women’s hall was the finest I had ever slept in, with golden stars painted on a dome of rich lapis blue.

  It was pleasant to sit in that great hall, helping Helen with her embroidery. Prodded by her constant complaining about my big, clumsy stitches, I did learn to do a few simple floral patterns without any visible mistakes. She seemed pleased with me when I told her that she had been a good teacher. I must, she responded, embroider some work as a wedding gift for Hermione. She was to marry her cousin Orestes—her double cousin, since Menelaus was his father Agamemnon’s brother and she herself was the sister of his mother, Clytemnestra.

  Nor was Hermione the only promised bride.

  Menelaus sent for Diomede one day to tell her that one of his royal guards, a war veteran, had asked his permission to marry her. As considerate as ever, the king asked Diomede if she agreed. She did not hesitate long before deciding it would be an advancement from her current task of waiting tables.

  “Does he know about you and Achilles?” I asked her, when she had told me her good news.

  “Why do you think he wants me?” she retorted. “And there are plenty of men who would marry you for the same reason. Don’t you know that you are famous?”

  I had started considering the idea when I suddenly had much more pressing problems.

  * * *

  When I first missed my monthly bleeding, I did not notice. When the second month came and went, I thought at first that old age might be arriving early. Then I feared that I might have a growth in my womb. I only realized the truth on the morning when I had to race from my bed to the necessary room, where I fell to my knees vomiting.