Goddess of Yesterday (26 page)

Not only was Hector gloomy, but Cassandra and I were the two girls Helen least wanted to remember during her hour of triumph. With Cassandra literally under the king's arm, however, Helen could do nothing about that god-swept princess.

I was easier.

To Aethra, Helen snapped, “Shave her skull again tonight and bring her for me to look at. She is no princess. I know she has stolen a birthright.” To me, she said, “The gods will punish you, girl.”

“And the seven ships now sailing into the harbor, Helen dear?” asked Priam. He might have been asking about a variety of rose—whether the bloom was double or single, pink or yellow.

Helen forgot me and looked eagerly to see who else had come to fight over her. The hulls of the seven ships were black with pitch. Their sails were red. Their insignia was a twisted blue fish.

“From rugged Olizon. I do not know their captain. They are experts with the bow. They appear to have fifty rowers to a ship, so before you are three hundred fifty brilliant shots.” Helen was trembling with joy. For this had men stood in the Blood of the Horse:
to die for her.

But the men of the twisted fish would die for me.

I
WALKED AND
A
ETHRA HOBBLED
, holding my arm. We were no different. My heart was hobbled. I was so proud of the hair I now had. It had grown several inches and the curls were beautiful and tight. Andromache said that any woman who used a curling iron would be jealous; any warrior preparing for battle. Andromache thought I could go without the turban now. She said I was lovely and very feminine and would be the envy of all.

I did not risk explaining that my hair was short because I had offended Helen.

I loved my hair. I wanted Euneus to see it. I wanted him to smooth it down and wrap it around his fingers and… and if Aethra did not obey Helen, she would be punished.

We went to the house of Paris. It was empty. Every royal resident of Troy was on the battlements, entertained by the sight of the Greeks. The other residents of Troy were standing below the walls, getting a view wherever they could. Only Hector seemed to take the prospect of war seriously. Everybody else expected a party with some dead Greeks at the end of it.

The courtyard was lovely, though small; the inner room beautiful, with so much gold and amber that it glittered even
without torches. The only other chamber was the bedroom of Paris and Helen. A tiny cradle awaited the new birth.

I felt sick and worried. “Where does Pleis sleep?”

Aethra pointed. Behind a jog in the wall, and up two steps, was a little closet, too small even for a slave to curl up. A fleece and a few toys filled the floor below a single window. The window opened into an alley so narrow that almost no light came in.

O my Pleis
. “Where do you sleep?” I whispered.

“There is an attic. Very low ceilinged. You cannot stand upright. But then, my spine is so twisted I cannot stand upright anyhow. I am better off than the rest of the slaves.”

“Does Kora sleep there?”

“Kora sleeps in the courtyard.”

“Outside?”
I said. “All winter?”

Aethra shrugged. “She is just another dog to Paris.” Aethra found a sharp blade among the possessions of Paris, and we went out into the courtyard for the light and Aethra began to cut off my hair while I began to weep.

As every gleaming curl fell to the paving stones, I felt weaker and weaker, as if it were my blood falling there; as if this were my death. I had to sit on a stone bench and grasp the rim of a great jug full of flowers.

“Lovely,” said Aethra sadly. “Like the petals of a rose. Your glory.”

Everyone used the word “glory” now. Each soldier hoped for glory. No one seemed to understand that for one man to attain glory, another man must die. Cassandra too had mentioned glory.
The gods will take your greatest glory.

“Aethra, what if my hair doesn't grow back?” I whispered. “Cassandra said the gods were laughing at me even
now. That they would take my greatest glory just when I thought I was safe.”

Aethra stared at my bald head. Then she rested her old wrinkled soft cheek against it. “Poor child. I am so sorry.”

“It couldn't happen!” I cried. “The gods would not be that mean!”

“The gods are always mean,” said Aethra. “Does the life I lead make you think of gentle loving gods? Does the body I live in look like one blessed by a kind god? When I missed my grandsons by two days, was this arranged by a generous god? And Nicander—when he angered the gods with that egg of lead, did the death of five infant sons come from a forgiving god?”

We are told to fear the gods. I had forgotten to be afraid.

On Siphnos, when I chose not to tell Menelaus the truth, I had known the gods would punish me. I had shrugged. It is never good to shrug when a god is there. “I didn't do anything so very bad,” I whispered.

“What did you do?”

“I lied. Helen is right, Aethra. I am no princess. I stole the name and birthright of Callisto. I am just a hostage from a rocky isle without a name whose parents did not want me back. I had no value, so I took Callisto's value, that I might not be made a slave.”

Gently the old queen kissed my naked head. “We all bargain with the gods, my dear. They, however, do not bargain with us.”

The ships of the Greeks continued to arrive. Along came support and supply ships, bringing timber and tents and slaves, barrels and crates and sacks. There had not yet been a battle, but Troy no longer controlled the water: not the
Hellespont, not the far shore of the Hellespont, not the Aegean, and not the nearby islands in the Aegean.

King Priam was not concerned. “Our allies who had to come by sea are already here,” he said. “The remaining allies will approach by land anyway. And no matter how much food and water they bring by ship, we will always have more food and water.”

“No soldier signs on for free,” said Hector. “Every one of those Greeks expects to be paid, and not from the treasury of Menelaus. They expect to be paid from
our
treasury, when they sack our city.”

“Then they will die poor,” said Priam, smiling.

As for the poor of Troy, they seemed no more worried than their king. They did not leave their huts below the citadel, their children still played ball in what would surely be the battlefield, while their tiny flocks of sheep and goats nibbled grass where the attack would begin. No mother packed the family goods; no father carried his children to the safety of the great walls; no girl stopped spinning.

The greatest worry of Troy was that Menelaus might want to fight Paris in single combat.

A duel would be proper and just and there would be no way to avoid it. Nobody had come all this way to watch two men jab at each other. Troy's allies fretted that they might not get to fight. Not to mention that Paris would lose. If Menelaus requested a duel, they would try to make him fight Hector, because Hector would win.

Luckily, Menelaus made no such offer and Troy was spared the humiliation of admitting that the prince who had started this was not prince enough to end it.

By day, the two armies would fling taunts, preparing for the hour in which they would fling spears.

“When we have broken down the walls of Troy,” yelled the troops of Menelaus, “we will take the faithful wives of your dead. Every princess in Troy will pay for the deeds of Paris!”

It is the promise of the battlefield—the winner gets to rape the wives.

Since the Greeks had not brought any women, the Trojans could not make the same threat against them. Trojans had to be content with describing what would happen to the men they slaughtered. “Your bowels will spill into the sea for eels to devour! When we feast after our swift and easy victory, Trojan vultures will feast on your eyes.”

“Shut the window,” said Andromache. “I hate this. What if something happens to Hector?”

It will happen to you, I thought. You are the princess they refer to.

We spun. You can spin as you walk, as you sit on a donkey or lean on a wall. We spun in fear. I had done nothing but spin since Aethra had shaved my head again. I was terrified of Helen now, terrified of all gods and all punishments. Terrified even of Andromache, who one day would pluck off my turban to admire my red curls, my glory.

There would be a great feast this evening. It had been arranged that battle would take place in the morning. Priam wished to celebrate the coming victory.

“Menelaus and Agamemnon and their tens of thousands will also feast,” said Andromache suddenly. “I look at their camp every night. Their fires are a fence of flame. Tonight, those soldiers will crouch in the shadows around Menelaus and Agamemnon, planning the death of Troy.”

It was true.

“Planning the death of Hector!” cried Andromache.

This too was true. Hector would be a greater enemy in war than Paris.

“You love Menelaus,” she accused me. “You want him to win!”

I remembered the kingly courtesy with which Menelaus rescued me from Siphnos; the warm smile when he'd bought me the magic jar. How he cuddled Pleis and teased Hermione and roughhoused with Aethiolas and Maraphius. It was a strange word—“love.” The love I felt for Euneus, whom I had known only hours, had sustained me through the long winter. The love I felt for a puppy named Anthas, which I had snuggled only for minutes, still tugged on my heart. But the love I felt for Menelaus, whose careless kingship had brought us to this terrible pass, was sad and tired.

“I want to be neutral, Andromache. Like Euneus.” I felt neutral. My hair was not growing back. My scalp was as smooth as the palm of my hand. I could hate neither the gods for their punishment nor myself for my lies. My heart was as flat as the plains around Troy. Even when I thought of Euneus, my heart did not leap. I had not even the strength to plan the demise of the men of the twisted fish. What would be, would be. Some would win, some would lose. I would just exist.

Neutral is a terrible thing to be.

“Hector says Euneus is a traitor.” Andromache was weeping. “And you, too, Callisto, are a traitor. I, daughter of the king of Cilicia, have adopted Troy. Helen, daughter to one king of Sparta, wife of another king of Sparta, has adopted Troy. But you, daughter of Siphnos, have not. Yet Troy has been good to you. I have been your friend. Hector has been your friend. And you do not swear to be a daughter of Troy.”

“I would never betray Troy, Andromache. I treasure your friendship. Deeply do I respect this city and her people.”

We spun.

“Helen is right,” said Andromache. “You should not be among us.”

No, my princess. It is Helen who should not be among you.

But Andromache, my friend, waited for me to go.

“I thank you for this winter of friendship,” I said to a real princess. “I too weep. I shall find a place in a distant hall and trouble you no more.”

The future queen of Troy did not say goodbye. She did not call me back.

I was not so neutral, after all.

I wept.

Stumbling down dark halls, I rushed to the bedroom I could no longer share with Andromache and retrieved my Medusa and my fleece. I had never returned the mud-stained divided tunic of the squire nor the ugly cap. I took them, too. And my slingshot, just in case.

There was only one person in the world now who loved me.

I went to the palace nursery, where the toddlers and babies of the princes were being watched during the feast. Pleis was not there. “He's with Kora,” said a maid, “in the house of Paris and Helen. No royal parents want the son of Menelaus playing around their children. You won't see him here again.”

I left the palace, elbowing through packed streets, deafened by the curses being thrown at Menelaus. Time and again my fleece with its pathetic treasures was nearly jostled from my grasp. So many soldiers filled the city that I was invisible.
I did not have to worry about being seen by a princess. No princess would go out in this wild drunken spear-swinging crowd.

But Kora would. There she stood, over a great trencher of roast lamb, dipping each piece in salt and rosemary.

Kora had left Pleis unattended.

I hastened to the house of Paris. The door opened easily and without sound. They do not bolt their doors in Troy, for they are all one family. The place was empty. Paris and Helen were undoubtedly on the battlements, and the slaves were in the street, eating greedily and well.

Pleis was in his little closet. His dinner had been set on the floor, as if he were a dog. He was playing with blocks and had not eaten much. I had not eaten much either and reached for the bread.

Between the bread and yogurt, something gleamed. It was wet, round at the edges. It did not look like food. I was puzzled.

“Silver,” Pleis told me. “Pretty.” He smacked it with spread fingers. The puddle split into silver raindrops. Pleis pushed them together with one clumsy finger until they became one again and he beamed at me, proud of his trick.

Quicksilver.

Poison.

Set before a child who still put most things into his mouth.

Even I could not believe this of Helen. Surely she did not know. But Paris knew.