Or did Zeus himself inspire the act, out of spite? The more I think on that, the more it seems likely…
I wonder if Helen realises.
But right now, Kyshanda and her retinue face execution, and though our love might be broken, I can’t allow her to die here.
‘Behold! Two princes of Troy and a princess also,’ Agamemnon declares, as I wrack my brain for some way to extricate her. ‘Why are you here?’ the High King demands.
Parassi remains sullenly silent, but Skaya-Mandu raises his head, defiant, arrogant as ever. ‘My brother is the eldest son of Piri-Yamu, a man who one day will rule you all. He was promised a bride, a daughter of the gods, and he will have one.’
Some theioi really do believe in their own immortality. If Agamemnon hadn’t raised a hand, Aias of Salamis would have taught the stuck-up twat his error by beheading him.
I cast a look at Menelaus. He’s helping Helen up, and she’s clearly aghast. I’m sure she knew there was an assassin in play, but she never thought he might be turned on her, the absolute, golden, immutable centre of her own universe. She’s deadly pale, her beauty almost ghostlike – and Menelaus’s protective nature and weakness for those he sees as helpless means that he can’t let her go, can’t look away.
Helen will get over her shock in a moment, no doubt, but right now, she’s at least a little more manageable than she might have been…
Agamemnon stalks down the line of kneeling Trojans, each with a blade to their throat, then pauses beside me to throw me a searching look, one eyebrow twitching upwards. I’m surprised and gratified: he needs my counsel.
In answer to his silent question, I shake my head faintly. While I would happily see Skaya-Mandu and Parassi dead, the act would certainly precipitate an immediate war with Troy. We’re not ready for that yet. And Agamemnon would have Kyshanda killed also, or raped and enslaved, and I don’t want that at all.
Just looking at her, the sword blade sketching a faint red line of blood across her throat, is a torment. ‘Killing them would oblige Troy to attack us,’ I murmur to Agamemnon. ‘We need more time to prevent that, or to prepare.’ I raise my voice a little, so that the people around us can hear. ‘It is said that a great king shows his power through his mercy. Perhaps these people can carry a message to Troy, one that tells of Achaean unity?’
Agamemnon weighs that up. He’s cold-hearted enough that I still fear for Kyshanda’s safety; but then he inclines his head.
‘This is a sacred place,’ he declares. ‘There will be no more killing. These people were brought here by the Skyfather, who has blessed us with his divine presence, and shown his love for Achaea. Let us not dishonour his hospitality.’
There’s some dissatisfaction among the men holding swords to the Trojans’ throats, but we all know that Agamemnon is not someone to question, let alone oppose. It’s his Atreiades blood – the knowledge that he’ll go further, longer and bloodier than anyone else, to avenge a slight.
The armed men all back away – though Aias of Locris, who had his blade at Kyshanda’s neck, pulls her to his feet and whispers something in her ear, leering down at her breasts as he does. She tosses her head and spits in his face.
He wipes her spittle off his cheek and raises a hand to strike her, but Diomedes grabs his wrist and the Locrian backs down. For myself I’m livid, my urge to skewer this rampant pornos almost overwhelming.
Aias sees the look on my face, and smiles evilly. He touches two fingers to his eyes, then points them first at me, then Kyshanda, and licks his lips. He yanks his hand from Diomedes’s grasp and stalks away.
If he touches her again, I will kill him.
‘Attend her if you must,’ Penelope murmurs. But I shake my head. I’ve already let Kyshanda go. Now I have to live with that decision.
Agamemnon assigns trusted men – his own Mycenaeans – to take the Trojans away, as Tyndareus’s ‘protected guests’ under the ancient laws of guest friendship. He strides to the altar, and looks around the circle of priests and priestesses and pallid-faced, sagging avatars. Someone’s helped my grandmother up, but she and her entourage look devastated. Their illusions have been destroyed and they’re still reeling. So too are the priests of Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite and Apollo. They’re here, but reduced to passivity – for now.
Agamemnon swiftly recognizes the opportunity, turning to the crowds and raising his voice.
‘Yea, here we are! You have haggled, you have given generously, you have competed with the bow and you’ve run and wrestled. All for the love of a young woman, for the right to marry her, to honour and protect and love her.’
Very occasionally, someone speaks as well as I do – not often, mind. Seldom is someone better at seizing the moment, but Agamemnon is doing that now – and I have a horrid feeling where he’s heading and I don’t like it at all.
But do we have any alternative? It’s as though we’ve all been caught up in an avalanche, flailing about and now it’s coming to rest, with our bodies tossed about and jumbled together in the most unlikely combinations…
Agamemnon gestures grandly to Helen, who is still being held by Menelaus, although her head is now high and her lips tightly pursed. ‘I could elaborate about the need for the leading suitor to be of noble birth,’ the High King continues. ‘For him to be whole of limb and fair of face, great-hearted and gentle, a warrior and a leader. The type of man who can rally men behind him and challenge wrongs. A man for whom being a husband and father is his greatest and longest held dream.’
My heart sinks as my guess becomes a certainty. Agamemnon doesn’t need to name names, when his brother fits all these criteria.
‘It might even help if the princess knew this man, had known him all her life, and forged bonds of love and trust with him already,’ says Agamemnon in that pompous but compelling voice of his. ‘That, instead of a stranger, she could be easy of heart knowing that for them both, marriage will be an extension of the friendship they share. And for her to know that in a moment of supreme danger, her husband is the only one present whose first and only thought was for her safety.’
My mind is full of fear and doubt. I’m terrified for my friend. But we need to keep Helen in Achaea, we need her married and safely guarded. Who has the strength to clasp such a viper to his breast? Because I know in my heart that Helen can be another Manto, someone who breaks those around her. Who could hope to contain her?
But hope, the Moirae have proclaimed, is the one weapon we have.
Then I realise that I’m thinking about this the wrong way. We shouldn’t be trying to contain her. She’s a complex young woman who’s been through terrible things, and had all manner of evil whispered into her ears, of superiority and domination. Caging her will further ruin her… but love, real and unconditional love, might redeem her, and unleash her incredible potential – a woman blessed by all the gods, a queen, not a tyrant.
Can Helen become that person? Can she open that cold heart of hers to be warmed by the love of a decent, caring man? If anyone can reach her with kindness and loyalty, it’s Menelaus. No one else sees her as anything other than a prize. But he feels her pain, and he wants to heal it. Not even Diomedes is capable of that. Might unquestioning love be the only thing that can reach her and give her back the innocence and happiness Theseus ripped from her?
That I helped him rip from her?
I watch, torn and confused, as Menelaus beseeches her with his eyes. Even Agamemnon dare not speak now – my eyes meet his and I can tell he, like me, realises that this marriage will never work unless Helen herself makes the final decision.
Although nobody utters so much as a whisper, I’m almost deafened by the sound of my blood, hissing and surging in my ears.
What’s the tipping point? I don’t think she’s capable of true gratitude – even Menelaus throwing himself in front of death to save her is probably something she just expects lesser mortals to do. But maybe – hopefully – she sees in the eyes of my best friend something she instinctively kno
ws that she needs.
For a moment I think I glimpse her real self – a still-unformed girl, too privileged to feel empathy, but possessing tremendous resource and potential. Then the mask slams down, and she’s the girl the audience wishes to see, the princess seeking love. She smiles tremulously, murmurs something only he can hear, then kisses my friend’s mouth with all the passion and intensity that a beautiful young woman can summon.
The groom has been chosen.
No one else need speak, and no one does: until Agamemnon claps his hands together, and all those round us burst into a ragged cheer that is as much relief as it is joy.
19 – The Oath
‘HESIOD: And what, above all, is the most excellent thing to pray to the gods for?
HOMER: To be ever at peace with oneself and with everything around one.’
—Lives of Homer: The Contest of Homer and Hesiod
Sparta
This business isn’t finished though. There’s something we must do, to try and seal the fragile unity we so badly need, in order to make it real. It’s not prophecy or divine knowledge that tells me so, but instinct. We’re flesh and blood and we need tangible symbols to remind us of the intangible. I wrack my brain… and an answer begins to form.
Penelope goes to return my cloak just as Bria joins us, only to realise for the first time what state she’s in underneath the heavy folds. She hurriedly covers her blood-smeared body and ruined tunic again, struggling to keep her discomposure hidden and failing dismally. ‘Oh Gods, did I…’
‘I’m afraid so, honey,’ Bria says cheerily. ‘Nice tits, by the way. I’m sure Ithaca thinks so, too.’
Penelope collects herself enough to raise her eyes skywards, before huddling deeper than ever into the cloak.
‘We need to have a nice long chat about the Moirae,’ Bria adds.
‘I have to go back to Delos. My place is with the cult of Artemis—’
‘No way,’ Bria drawls. ‘You’re your own cult now. You don’t belong on that bloody rock, and after what you just did, you’re not safe there anymore.’ Then she gives Penelope a mischievous look. ‘On the bright side,’ she adds, ‘I don’t think all the Fates are virgins.’
Penelope gives her a steadier look than I would have been capable of. ‘You must understand, I’ve never wanted to be anything other than a priestess of Artemis, before…’
Before… My heart thuds at the implications of that word.
Her eyes flicker to the knot of Artemis priestesses and huntresses, staring at us with hard eyes. ‘But I fear you’re right,’ she adds, her voice cracking as she contemplates a life in which all past certainties are gone.
‘We’ll protect you,’ Bria tells her, in a voice that is for once devoid of irony or sarcasm.
‘Yes, we most certainly will,’ I put in. ‘But there’s something I must do, right now.’
The two women look at me quizzically, but I turn away, as my plan takes shape. I think it’s a good one. Brilliant, even. Right now everyone is standing around, in a mostly stunned silence, but I can already see a few disgruntled faces. This harmony isn’t going to last long.
Light the torch, Man of Fire…
I go to the near end of the colonnaded garden, and climb onto a handy bench so everyone can see me, and pitch my voice for all to hear. ‘You are witnesses to the fate of Achaea,’ I shout, stretching my arms out as everyone turns to hear. ‘You heard the seeress speak: of a land whose very soil will be scoured, if we do not provide the nails to hold it together. A land that would give away those very things it needs to keep us safe, its chalice and its blade. A land which almost lost its builder and its shepherdess.’
The listening men nod anxiously, as I confirm their own interpretations.
‘The seeress spoke of hope,’ Eumelus calls – Penelope’s friend.
I give him a nod of thanks. ‘I believe the spirits gave us a warning, not of what is and will be, but of what will become of us if we do nothing. They showed us what we need, to save ourselves. And, as soon as they spoke, our needs began to be met. Great Zeus vowed to be our builder, the unifier who will keep us together and strong. Great Hera promised to be our shepherdess, and drive away the wolves that divide us.’
‘Aye,’ a few men reply, the mood of the gathering lifting.
‘So let us bind ourselves to that promise of hope,’ I tell them, pointing to Helen and Menelaus. ‘We have all contended for the hand of Helen of Sparta, sometimes rancorously. Aye, we have fought, some of us like dogs. We’ve made enemies, I’m sure.’
Too bloody right we have.
‘But the matter is settled now, and we need to put it behind us,’ I tell them. ‘No more contention! The decision is made and must be respected, if we are to go on in fellow feeling. Such friendship is the bond that will keep Achaea whole. The Moirae have spoken – telling us we need to be united. From Thessaly in the north down through Attica and Euboea, from the Peloponnese to the islands of Crete and Rhodes and beyond – we must all find a common bond. I offer you this one: that we will unite to preserve the marriage we have declared today. That any enemy of Menelaus and Helen, any man that drives them apart, is the enemy of us all.’
I leap down off the bench and stride into the middle of the shrine, where Tyndareus’s poor dead stallion lies in bloody pieces. I don’t admire the cheap posturing most orators use, but I sense that these men will be more easily swayed by some dramatic gesture. ‘This is a sacred place, a holy place. The gods and the spirits are listening.’ I place my right foot on the butchered horse’s shoulder and cry out, ‘Hear, O Gods. Hear me, Tyndareus, in whose name I invoke these words, hear me Lord Poseidon, master of horses, whose puissant power fills the bloodied pieces at my feet. I, Odysseus of Ithaca, pledge to preserve the union of Menelaus and Helen. He who comes between them is our enemy, and I will unite with you, my brothers to strike any and all of them down!’
I mean any and all of these suitors – but perhaps they think I mean Parassi and Skaya-Mandu and their arrogant claiming of Helen. Regardless, after some sideways glances, they begin to come forward, and for no reason other than my example, they decide that placing a foot on that poor horse’s remains makes the oath more solemn and binding.
Perhaps it does, because whatever Amphithea did to that horse’s blood, I can sense the spirits that fuel the oracles straining to listen. They see everything we do, it’s said, but some moments are more significant than others.
The web is woven and cast over us all. I step away, wondering what it is I’ve really done. Bria’s frowning, but she gives me a nod of approval – and Penelope is gazing at me, and I can see that she too approves.
That’s all the acclaim I need.
* * *
Two days later, as evening gathers, I’m sitting on a bench, watching musicians play and supping ale. All round the campsites, men are feasting, drinking, gaming, wrestling – for fun and or to prove a point – and generally forming the sorts of bonds that are easy in peace time but can be the glue that keeps an army together in war. We’re even mingling – islanders and mainlanders, north and south, men from every corner coming together to boast, laugh, and just perhaps become a nation.
The Oath of Tyndareus, as the promise I encouraged them to take is being called – named for the man we all swore it to – is binding us together in common cause. Achaea, perhaps more than in any previous time, is one nation, under one High King.
I did that.
A few hours ago, Amphithea married my best friend, Prince Menelaus, to Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful woman in the world. She looked radiant and utterly composed – or was that resigned? I don’t trust her, I still believe she’s a menace to our entire nation, but if love has any power, perhaps Menelaus’s might change her heart, and bring her to love her people?
As for Menelaus, he looked delirious with joy. I wish them every happiness, clinging onto that vision of hope the Fates have held out to us. This has to work.
At this moment, up in Tyndareus�
��s palace, they’re alone together, working through the beginnings of what it means to be married, and to be the symbol of Achaean unity – with our gods and with each other. It’s a behemoth of a burden, not one I’d want.
‘Hey, Ithaca,’ Bria drawls, swaggering up and throwing one leg over the bench. She drains my ale, then loudly calls for more. ‘Thought you’d be off somewhere with the priestess of the Moirae,’ she teases.
‘Penelope and Actoris set out this morning,’ I tell her.
‘For where? Not that bloody rock in the Aegean?’
‘No, not for Delos. She’s left the cult of Artemis, but she’s still on hostile terms with her father. She’s going to stay with an aunt, somewhere on the other side of Mount Taygetus.’
Bria pokes my arm. ‘Thought you’d have something to say about that?’
‘I will have something to say,’ I admit, ‘when she’s ready. But she says she has to relearn who and what she is. She expected to serve Artemis all her life, and now she has to find a new path. She has to think it through.’
‘I always think better after a nice long fuck,’ Bria comments, in her usual charming way. ‘Anyway, won’t her prick of a father – Icarius, yes? – just peddle her off again to the highest bidder, like some dromas.’
‘She says no,’ I say, though I’m not so sure of that.
Bria grins wickedly. ‘Did you give her something to remember you by?’
‘A bracelet,’ I tell her.
‘A bracelet!’ She rolls her eyes, then jabs her thumb in an easterly direction. ‘So what about Her Royal Nibs – Kyshanda? Are you seeing her off?’
I sigh. ‘No. It’s better we don’t—’
‘Bullshit,’ Bria guffaws. Two fresh mugs of ale arrive, care of Eurybates, and she scoops one up. ‘Come on,’ she says, handing me the other. ‘You owe it to her. Or are you a gutless slug that’s scared to say goodbye?’
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