Goddess of Yesterday

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “There is no Helen of Sparta!” called Paris, adjusting the gold veil over the queen's hair. “There is Helen of Troy, and she is mine.”

  Thus did the guts of a slave shame the men of Amyklai. The battle began. The Spartans were raging and the Trojans were glad.

  Where is the joy of strolling in and taking? You want to fight, burn and slash. You want to hear groans and screams, see terror and submission.

  You want to earn that gold you rip from the treasury; earn the pretty girls you pull from their beds. No longer could the Trojans pretend this was a dinner party.

  They killed many as the day dawned and the morning brightened. They slashed the throats of men they would have left quietly tied up; raped the women they would have ignored; threw over the battlements tiny children they would have forgotten.

  And Helen smiled.

  Two armies were fighting over her. Shouting her name in love or in hatred. Dying for her.

  She was everywhere, like weather, passing through the chaos as a goddess, untouched. She wore a white gown, and it was never sprayed with blood.

  Hermione and I stumbled up the long stairs to the women's wing. “I know you keep a knife in your fleece,” said Hermione. “Give it to me, Callisto. I have seen that blade. Long and thin and sharp. Even I am strong enough to shove it through soft flesh and into the softer heart.”

  “Helen's heart is not soft,” I said. “It is stone. She cannot be killed. And if you did kill your own mother, the gods would never forgive you. They would go like wind through your ears and make a wild gale of your thoughts. The gods would destroy you.”

  “First I will destroy her,” said Hermione.

  Bia stood at the top of the stair. “Thank the gods!” cried Bia. “You are all right!” She was bulky in a comforting way, all bosom and waist. The thickness of women can be so warm and safe.

  “I am not all right,” said Hermione. “I will never be all right. Not even after I kill Helen. Get out of the way, Bia.” The nurse didn't move fast enough, so Hermione shoved her. “Apollo has not struck down one Trojan! Not even the ones who attack his own temple! I believe that Apollo himself is on the side of these Trojans. When I think of the sacrifices my father has made to him! Callisto, pray to your goddess of yesterday. I shall need her with me to accomplish the death of Helen of Troy.”

  I tasted the smoke of torches meeting the damp of stones. I saw the shadows lifting in the first light of dawn.

  Helen of Troy.

  That her own daughter, princess of Sparta, child of Menelaus, could call her that! And yet it was true. In heart and word and deed, Helen had already left Sparta.

  I obeyed Hermione in part. “Goddess of yesterday!” I called. “Still the heart of Hermione. Quiet her rage.”

  I thought Hermione would spit on me but she had already left. As a hawk plunges from the sky, with such speed did she enter her room and fling my fleece into the air and shake out what I kept there. My Medusa fell safely onto a rug. My knife clattered on the floor and spun away from the princess.

  I leaped toward the knife, slamming my foot down upon it. Hermione dropped to her knees to peel it out from under my sandal.

  Bia dragged the princess away. “Hermione!” she scolded. “Behave yourself.” Bia was too strong for a nine-year-old. Hermione could go nowhere. I retrieved the knife and wondered what to do with it.

  “Why don't you tell my mother to behave herself ?” Hermione's voice shook, but not as a little girl's trembles. Her voice shook as the earth shakes when it throws mountaintops or palaces to the ground. “My mother intends to travel with that Trojan. My mother intends to go to Troy.”

  “Well, then,” said Bia sensibly, “let us enter the queen's chamber and discuss it with her. Perhaps we can present arguments that oppose her decision.”

  I thought perhaps we could present a hundred arguments, but Helen would ignore them and Paris would laugh.

  Bia coaxed, her voice humming, her arms rocking, and soon she had Hermione calmed down, and they went together down the corridor to the queen's room. I kicked the knife under the bed and followed.

  Helen might have been supervising the transfer from summer palace to winter palace, mulling over which cloaks ought to go in which basket. She was singing softly to herself. Every now and then she glanced out the window and smiled. The low sobs of despair that came from her serving women bothered her not at all.

  Hermione stood as tall as a nine-year-old can. Half the height of a soldier. “Mother, think of Father and the boys. This is your kingdom. Think of your honored parents, only three miles away in Sparta town. Think of your famous brothers, Castor and Pollux, who have brought honor and glory to our name. Who stood in this house only yesterday. You have a trust to pass on to your sons.”

  Helen held up a lacy shawl, admired it, and handed it to Aethra to fold and place in a chest. “Menelaus will still have his kingdom,” Helen pointed out. “I am not taking the land, just a few important things and my women.”

  Vials of perfume and jars of powder were being arranged in a shallow wicker box. Inside a large chest, Helen's fluffy slippers, soft sheets and fragrant pillows had been packed in and around the silver yarn basket to keep it safe. She will sail away with Paris, I thought, but not without her finest clothing and jewels. Not without a hairdresser.

  “Mother, you are looting your own home.”

  “Hush now,” said Helen gently, as if they were talking about whether Hermione could stay up late. “Love dictates this. You have never felt love. Until now I have never felt love either. Now at last I possess it. Paris is the finest, strongest, most wonderful man in the world.”

  “No! Father is!”

  Helen shook her head. “Paris is my destiny. I was not conceived by a god to waste my years with so dull a man as Menelaus. It was the red hair, you know, that made me choose him. I thought a man with a flaming mane would himself be fire. No. Menelaus is merely an ember on the hearth.”

  Helen left her packing and went to her window. Her housewifely demeanor vanished. She feasted her eyes upon battle and plunder. It brought color to her face and glitter to her eyes. “I have met fire at last. Paris flames. Paris is mine and I am his.” She turned her back on the chaos below and faced us all, but she saw none of us. I think she saw her destiny. “I,” she whispered, “am Helen of Troy.”

  Paris entered as she said these words, and he repeated the sentence with her and embraced her. They kissed in front of us: in front of the children and their nurses, her maids and his soldiers. And smiled as if none of the burning and killing mattered.

  And it didn't. Not to them.

  I uttered a silent curse upon Paris. May you freeze to death, starve to death and be frightened to death all at one time.

  But the curse did not take.

  “To Gythion, my bride,” he said. “My warships await. Soon you will have the city you deserve, with high walls and shining towers. You are a goddess. Troy will treat you as one.”

  Aethra, who had nothing to risk, took up the argument. “You cannot leave your baby son, Helen. Think of little Pleis. Only two years old. He will have no memory of his dear and beautiful mother. Nor can you abandon sweet Hermione, image of her lovely mother. Think of your children, Helen.”

  Helen was stealing from her husband, her sons, her town and her temple. She didn't care what people or gods thought of that. But she did not want to be thought a bad mother. She hesitated.

  Aethra pressed her advantage. “They need you.”

  This was untrue. Pleis and Hermione were brought up by their nurses and their father. I was confident that once on board ship with Paris, Helen would never think of her children again.

  “I shall take them with me, of course,” said Helen. “Rhodea, pack everything the little prince needs. Bia, supervise packing for Hermione.”

  Paris had not expected this. It gave him pause. To steal a man's wife was part of the fun. All the better to filch a queen. And how delightful to take a little princess, for her
father would know exactly what would be done to her.

  But to take a king's son.

  Never.

  Nobody needs another man's prince. The usual thing to do with another king's son is to kill him.

  In Aethra's old eyes I saw horror. Had she not spoken up, Pleis would have been forgotten. If the little boy went with Paris, he was dead. Accidents are easy to arrange for twoyear-olds.

  Paris had thought quickly. “The children will sail on the ship of Zanthus,” he said. “Zanthus' ship is called Ophion,” Paris told Helen. “My ship is Paphus. Aphrodite the goddess of love on our prow, leading us to Troy.”

  Ophion. The moon snake. Paphus. Sea Foam.

  Paris would let Helen have her children, but he would not let them interrupt his honeymoon.

  “I will kill both of you before I take such a journey,” said Hermione.

  Paris did not glance at her. Hermione's pale cheeks stained red with helpless rage. Bia held her tight enough to break bones.

  The captain Zanthus stepped forward. This man had been in all the fights that Paris had stayed out of. He had no front teeth. He had no left eye. A slice had been taken out of his left ear. A scar ran from the empty eye socket into his hair, and the hair around the scar was white. The rest was braided into a single heavily oiled plait, like a slimy snake. His beard was a bush in which small birds might have hid.

  O my princess. O my little prince. Entrusted to such a pirate? Surely even Helen would not allow it.

  “You are taking the son?” Zanthus demanded of Paris.

  Paris did not bother to answer. “Come, my shining bride.” He kissed the tip of Helen's nose and her earlobes and her throat. “You will ride a white mule and I a white horse.”

  This is long planned, I thought. Aeneas' men and Paris' men were on the shore, ready and waiting. Had Menelaus not so handily left for Crete, they would have attacked in battle.

  I wondered suddenly about that messenger bearing news of a grandfather's death. Had he, in fact, come from Crete? Had a grandfather, in fact, died? Whose messenger had he really been? Had he actually been in the pay of the Trojans?

  Zanthus called after Paris. “Where am I supposed to put all these passengers?”

  Paris shrugged.

  The Trojans had come in warships, not cargo ships. There would be no cabin. A warship has a tiny foredeck and a tiny afterdeck. Zanthus the captain would need one, his rowing master and the cook the other. Hermione and Pleis would sit in bilge water, bruised by the tips of oars, crushed by sacks of loot. I could think of no place where Bia and Rhodea could sit.

  Zanthus shrugged. “Get moving,” he said to Rhodea, so roughly she almost dropped Pleis. The baby stared, his rosebud mouth open in confusion. “Pack!”

  Bundles of clothing and bedding, sacks of toys—these were thrown together and slung around by the Trojans. Rhodea had no time to get her own things. She would trot to Gythion in bedroom slippers—twenty miles—she who rarely walked farther than from one end of the nursery to another. She would be aboard a ship for days with not a single piece of clothing or a blanket.

  “You! Girl!” said Zanthus to Hermione. “Pack.”

  Here at last was someone Hermione could scream at. “I am a princess and you will address me as your superior.”

  “Get moving, girl, or I will strap you to a mule like a sack of oats. I am not treating the spawn of Menelaus with honor. Your father, may he rot, insulted my prince.”

  Bia and I dragged Hermione to her room. Bia closed the heavy door behind us and threw the bolt.

  Hermione grinned, a smile wholly her father's. The smile of a warrior. From the sheath at Zanthus' side, she had lifted his dagger. “I shall kill Helen. There is time and I am armed. You saw that pirate. His knife has killed before. It is a better choice than yours, which has only peeled fruit. When Helen is dead, no matter what else he carries away, Paris of Troy will have lost. My father's honor will not be wholly destroyed.”

  Bia tried to take the knife, but Hermione slashed the air with it and the nurse jumped out of range.

  Greece is a violent land, with violent weather and violent men. Always the sea churns, the heroes clash and the passion burns.

  But I had not thought the violence extended to a sheltered princess in the quiet of her palace.

  From the corridor came the voice of Zanthus. “Girl! Nurse! Now!” He was not quite ready to barge into the private room of a princess, but he would. He would break the door down, and perhaps break us as well.

  “She comes, my captain,” called Bia, who had not yet begun packing. She looked around wildly. What to choose for a lifetime in another land?

  “Hermione,” I said, “kill Paris instead. The gods will not mind that at all. He deserves death. He has broken his guestfriendship. I think you can get to him more easily, anyway. His men don't actually guard him, they just stand around. And he doesn't fear you. He'll be laughing when the knife goes in.”

  Hermione puzzled about this and in the brief instant that her body sagged and the knife drooped, I shoved her into her dressing room and slammed the door shut.

  Bia dragged a heavy trunk up against the door. The door was so thick we could hardly hear the pounding of her fists nor could we make out her screams. This was good, because she must have been bringing dreadful curses upon us.

  “Callisto, you go in Hermione's place,” said Bia. “As soon as you have gone, I will take the princess over the mountains and place her in the care of her uncle, King Agamemnon.” Bia flung together a great bundle of clothing, plucking at anything she could reach, and thrust it into my arms.

  “Now!” yelled Zanthus, banging at the door.

  “Coming!” shouted Bia. She looped Hermione's amber necklace around my throat and put Hermione's blue cape around my shoulders, tugging the hood up to cover my red hair. Into the bundle she thrust my Medusa.

  “But Bia,” I whispered. “Helen will kill me.”

  “Yes,” agreed Bia. “Delay that as long as possible.”

  I STOOD LIKE BONES inside two princesses I had never been.

  The sun rose in the sky and the heat beat down and I hid beneath a felt hood that scratched and clung.

  Far ahead rode Paris on his white horse and Helen on her white mule. He wore a parade helmet whose great plumes stood high above anything else. Her gold veil fluttered in the breeze.

  Aeneas' men kept the rear of the baggage train safe from attack, while Paris' men led the way. Helen's five women and Rhodea were the only slaves. A warship carries no servants other than a cook. Rowers are warriors and must care for themselves away from home.

  Aethra was one of the five. She seemed an extraordinary choice, even for Helen. There was so little a woman of such great age could contribute. Aethra could never walk to Gythion and had been given a tiny gray donkey. In all this chaos, she had her bag of wool and was sitting sideways on the donkey, spinning. Her mind would be occupied by the pleasant rhythm of the twist climbing into the wool. My mind had to twist over death, awaiting me in Gythion, or whenever Helen looked back.

  Poor Rhodea was whimpering in pain before we were out of sight of Amyklai. The heat and her unprotected feet were hard on her. If she had been a rose, she'd have had a short bloom.

  A Trojan soldier held Pleis gently, though, and the little prince seemed not to be afraid. I remembered sitting on the shoulders of Lykos, the wolf who had carried me away from my birth island. I had enjoyed it. It is good to be too young to understand that your family is ruined.

  Zanthus strode up to me. “Where is your maid, girl?”

  I did not let him see my face. “I am the Princess Hermione, captain. I will answer your question when you have phrased it respectfully.”

  Zanthus snorted and walked on.

  What defines a princess is that everyone cares about her. Noble children are half in the hands of gods and the other half must be protected by humans. No Trojan cared about a princess called Hermione. She—I—was baggage.

  Most likely, I
would be dead by nightfall. There was no need to rush into such a finish, however, and who knew what information I might glean that would postpone my doom or even lead to escape? I kept my ears open.

  I was astonished to find that the Trojans regarded the Lord God Apollo as their own property. They were confident that Apollo cared not one twig about Amyklai, Sparta or Menelaus. They had not, in their own eyes, looted a temple; they were reverent men returning Apollo's treasure to its rightful place. Troy.

  When they were not boasting that they had sole rights to a god, they boasted of Helen. She was a pool of light, they told each other, a halo from heaven. Proof that Paris was first among princes. They told vicious jokes about Menelaus' manhood, or the lack of it.

  Yet we were not making a leisurely and proud return. The pace was swift. We were taking flight.

  You may have stolen his wife, Paris, I thought, but you are afraid of Menelaus. You are afraid of his great brother, King Agamemnon. You are afraid.

  I stared into his spine, using the eyes of Medusa to pierce his back like a dagger, but nothing happened.

  For me, the twenty miles were not difficult. It had been only a month or so since I had last dashed over the hills and vales of Siphnos. This time, when we entered the forest, I saw only beauty: how each green leaf filtered the light, and butterflies threaded like embroidery among splashes of sun.

  When we emerged, it seemed that the same slaves were working in the same row of the same field under the same sky, singing the same song.

  I needed a good explanation for Helen concerning my presence. If I said that Hermione would have put a knife through her, it would simply inspire Helen to put a knife through me.

  I will tell her my true name, I thought. I will die as Anaxandra.

  Far ahead of us, like a war belt of purple and blue, I glimpsed the noble sea, flecked with the ships of Troy.

  And in the rushing salt wind came my goddess. I lifted my face to let her kiss me and held the hood off my hair that she might ruffle it.

  O goddess of yesterday, thank you for coming.