Helen of Troy (10 page)

Father was more transparent, and I could tell by his glowering that he was highly displeased. Castor treated it as an amusement—“Clytemnestra looked regal with the scepter”—whereas Polydeuces found it offensive—“To spar in public like two boxers demeans them both.” I myself did not care for Agamemnon, but I had to admit that he brought out Clytemnestra’s fire and that perhaps they were well suited.

I left Castor and stood for a moment at the edge of the hall, where the covered porch gave way to the open courtyard and, beyond that, the moonlit grounds. Looking up, I saw that the moon had only one more night before it was full. It shone brightly, casting sharp shadows from the edge of the roof and the tall poplars swaying in the wind, the same wind that ruffled the shoulders of my gown.

Someone came and stood beside me, disturbing my solitude. I thought that if I ignored him he would turn away. Instead he spoke.

“I fear my brother’s behavior has displeased you.” It was Menelaus.

“No,” I said, feeling bound to answer. “Not displeased, but surprised. Yet it seemed to appeal to my sister, and after all she is the one whose favor must be won.”

“It was bold of him.”

“A gamble that may pay off.”

“Does boldness appeal to both sisters?”

I could look at the moonlit grounds no longer, keeping my profile to him. “I do not care for boldness for its own sake,” I finally said, turning to him.

“Nor do I,” he said. “I am not sure I am capable of it myself. I am quite different from Agamemnon.”

“As I am from Clytemnestra,” I said. “Brothers and sisters are never mere copies of one another.”

Outside in the night I heard the call of a nightingale. The warm winds of spring stirred it, the same warm winds that were stirring the hems of our garments. “No,” he said. “And sometimes there’s more in common between unrelated strangers. Clytemnestra and Agamemnon are both dark-haired, and we are both light.”

I laughed. “Yes, that is one thing.” His hair was a redder gold than mine, but they were similar. And we had both chosen to stand apart from the crowd at the feast, to look out into the night: another similarity.

A long silence now descended. Although I had wished him not to speak, now that he was beside me and had ceased doing so, it felt awkward. Why did he not reply? The nightingale called again, sounding very close.

He seemed content just to lean on the little balustrade and keep looking out onto the moonlit courtyard. The edge of it cut into his muscled forearms, but he did not move them. His hands were finely made, perfect and strong. They hung loosely, relaxed. I thought of Father’s, nervous and veined like a monkey’s, and always plucking at something. Father’s were also festooned with rings. I saw that Menelaus only wore one, so that his hands looked naked for a man of standing.

“What are you thinking?” he finally said.

I was startled at his directness. “I was wondering about your ring,” I admitted. “That you wear only one.”

He laughed and held up his hand. “I need my hands to be free, not weighed down, even with gold.”

“What is on it, then? What does it show?” I could see it was incised with figures.

He pulled it off and gave it to me. In the deep hollows of the oval I could barely make out two dogs flanking a curved object. Their heads arched toward the edges of the oval, making a graceful half circle. As I turned the ring to catch the carvings in the dull light, I realized how thick it was and how much gold it held. The House of Atreus was rich; in that Clytemnestra had made a good match.
Zeus gave power to the House of Aeacus, wisdom to the
House of Amythaon, but wealth to the House of Atreus:
I had heard that saying from Father’s lips.

“My two hunting dogs,” he said. “When we were fleeing from Mycenae, they faithfully accompanied us. They are gone now, but I keep them with me this way.”

“You are loyal to them as they were loyal to you.”

He smiled as he drew the ring back on. “Yes. I shall never forget.”

And we cannot forget, either: the reason you were driven away, the dreadful curse of your house, I thought. At the same time, he must have been remembering the unspeakable thing hanging over our house, my mother’s deed. We were both defined by our family histories, yet must not speak openly of them. I laughed, a quiet, sad laugh.

“This amuses you?” he said. “Loyalty?”

“No. What amuses me is the weight we both carry, and must not speak of. Yet you seem to carry it lightly enough.”

“I try to make it look that way.” He gave a smile, and won my admiration.

“Oh, so here you are!” A loud drunken voice cut through our privacy. “Little brother!” Agamemnon swaggered up, rubbing his belly in satisfaction, and reeled, sagging, against Menelaus. “Hiding? You should be celebrating with me. I’ve found the wife I need!”

Menelaus pushed him away, and Agamemnon swayed back and forth on buckling knees, eyeing me. “Ehhh . . .” he murmured. “Is she really the most beautiful—”

“Silence!” ordered Menelaus. “Drink more and cease your stupid babbling.”

Thus the hated phrase was stopped halfway through. I signaled my thanks to Menelaus, then slid away from the distasteful brother hanging on his shoulder, the man soon to be my own brother-in-law.

VIII

I
was awake before dawn, watching the moon set behind the trees on our hilltop. The breeze was still stirring, stealing into the room between the columns. There was a faint stale scent of the megaron fire, burned out now.

Being up so early, I was able to assist Clytemnestra in her dressing. Only one more day for her to dress formally; only one more day to attire herself in what must appear to be the fourteenth different costume. In truth, she combined her gowns and mantles and brooches in changing ways to make it appear that she had many.

“Bring me the bright scarlet!” she ordered her servant as I stepped in. She was magisterial that morning, her color vivid. There was something different about her.

The servant returned, bearing a bolt of cloth so red it would make a poppy look pale. Clytemnestra smiled and picked it up. “Yes!” she said.

“It is the color of blood,” I said. Are you sure you wish to . . . to look like a warrior?”

“A warrior-man needs a warrior-woman,” she said, holding the cloth under her face.

“So your mind is still settled on Agamemnon?”

“Yes. I shall wed him. I shall go to Mycenae.” With no hesitation she stripped off her sleeping gown and stood naked for a moment before sliding the red wool over her body. She had an unusually strong body, broad-shouldered but not like a man’s. Her face was likewise strong of feature, but not masculine in the least. It was her spirit that was so bold.

“I shall miss you,” I said, my voice low. I was just realizing how much. From my earliest memories she had been there, protecting me, teasing me, playing with me. Now her chambers would be empty.

“But we knew this must happen,” she said. She was so straightforward. Her thinking was thus: I am a woman. I must wed. When I wed, I may leave Sparta. What is the surprise in that, in the what-must-be?

Her acceptance of it—of leaving me—hurt. “But Agamemnon!” I said. “What about the—the—”

“The curse?” She was pinning the shoulders of her gown. She did not reply until she had gotten them just right. Then she turned and looked searchingly at me. “I cannot explain it, not even to myself. But the curse is part of the reason I want him.”

I was horrified. “Why do you wish to bring self-destruction upon your head?”

“Because I believe I can thwart it—even overcome it,” she said, lifting her chin. “It has issued a challenge. I will take up that challenge.”

“But to bring
our
house into this circle of destruction! Oh, please do not!”

“Are you forgetting we also have our bad prophecies? Aphrodite has vowed to Father that his daughters will be married several times and leave our husbands—did he ever tell you that? If you intend to be faithful to your husband, then you also will be trying to challenge a prophecy, to overcome it.”

I wanted to say,
Please don’t leave our house! Don’t leave me behind. And don’t
marry Agamemnon. I don’t like him!
But I would never voice those words. When a daughter left home to wed, there was always an empty place in the family.

“One more to get through,” she said, laughing. “And then I can have the man I want.”

The pitiful last contender, an envoy from a Cretan suitor, had little to offer and no one was paying much attention to him, so when his brief speech was over, he slunk away. He knew—as did everyone else—that the choice had already been made.

At the closing gathering, Father presented all the suitors with guest-gifts of bronze cauldrons and thanked them. Then he announced that his daughter Clytemnestra would wed Agamemnon of Mycenae.

Hearing the actual words
wed Agamemnon of Mycenae
was so dreadful and final, I flinched.

They were married two months later. Clytemnestra rode with great gladness in the marriage chariot that took her to Mycenae, determined to best the prophecy that had been laid out for her.

It felt lonely without Clytemnestra, and at first we kept looking for her to return for visits, as some daughters did. But she stayed mostly at Mycenae, and the journey was just long enough to give one pause in making an impromptu visit. My brothers helped fill the gap, and Father seemed content with the match he had made. He also was pleased that his “most beautiful woman in the world” ploy seemed to have taken root in the popular imagination. The rejected suitors spread it everywhere, so that it became a fervid belief in the minds of the Greeks: Helen, princess of Sparta, is the most beautiful woman in the world. This meant that from the moment Clytemnestra was betrothed, they began to ask him when I would be ready to wed. I was only eleven then, but Father put them off, not to keep me at home and preserve the last of my childhood, but to drive the price up and attract more suitors.

Mother was kinder and genuinely wanted to keep me with her a while longer. As we expected, I had finally grown taller than she. And one day she pronounced that I had eclipsed her in beauty, and she was content with that.

Looking into my face, she said, “A mother always imagines it will hurt, when she must surrender her throne to her daughter, and so she fights it. But when the time comes, it feels natural.” She smoothed my hair.

“You have lost no throne that I can see,” I reassured her.

“The throne of youth, my dear, and all the loveliness that attends it.” She tilted her head a little. “It may not happen to you at all. Your aging may be . . . different.”

Four years later, when I reached fifteen, Father decided that my own turn had come to follow in the ritual of the suitors and the choosing. But before that could take place, I wished to be allowed to follow an ancient custom, still occasionally observed in my day, of a race for unmarried girls. It was reputed to go back to the bride of Pelops—the grandfather of Agamemnon. She had raced before her wedding day with fifteen maidens in honor of Hera, the patron of marriage. Afterward the girls dedicated a garment to a statue of the goddess.

I begged him to let me enact this last rite of the girlhood and the freedom I was leaving behind. “For you know I am a fast runner,” I said.

“Yes, but—”

Mother broke in. “Let her run. Let her have this day.” She looked at me knowingly. “I never had that opportunity.” She took my face in her hands. “Dear child, you shall run free down by the banks of the Eurotas.” She smiled a private smile. “As is fitting.”

Because that is where I was conceived? I thought. The swan feathers were still in her box; I had recently looked. They had lost none of their blazing whiteness.

“First you must weave a garment for the goddess,” Father said.

That was a joy for me. I had become a good weaver, and even learned to put patterns into the cloth. For the goddess I would create a pattern showing her favored bird, the peacock. It would be challenging, but yes, I could do it. With pure white wool, then green dyed from nettle and moss, then a border of blue.

It was early spring, to my mind the most beautiful time of year. Tiny leaves created green auras around the tree branches when the sun shone through. A thousand minute flowers—white, gold, purple—were winking in the meadow. Once again I stood by the banks of the Eurotas.