Helen of Troy (41 page)

* * *

The fire burning brightly, we sat on woven mats and lay back, wine cups in hand. “No more delays,” I told Paris. “Let me learn so I can recognize them and greet them by name.” I called Gelanor and Evadne over to join us.

“Very well.” Paris motioned to Aeneas, who stood up and turned his back on us. In a moment he turned around and stood facing us, a scowl on his face, thumping a large staff, which I assumed was to mimic a spear. “Who is it?”

“That must be Hector.” He was the oldest son, the finest warrior there that I had heard of. But was he also fierce and unpleasant?

Paris laughed. “Fooled you! We wouldn’t start with the most obvious. You will learn better if they’re all mixed up. This is Deiphobus, a bit older than I. He wants to be Hector, but isn’t. Pity.” He waved to Aeneas. “Next.”

Aeneas returned partially stooped, wearing a woman’s headdress. Earrings made of string hung from his ears and he seemed to have a wig on, but one suspiciously strawlike.

An older woman . . . but he couldn’t mean Queen Hecuba, could he? Shuffling along like that, bent over? “An old priestess?” I ventured.

“No, no! There
is
a high-ranking priestess of Athena, named Theano. But she’s younger. This is my mother, Queen Hecuba.”

“So old?” I asked.

“Well—we exaggerated,” Paris admitted. “After all, my brother Troilus is younger than I am, and there’s a daughter and son younger yet. So she is not so far away from childbearing.”

“Tell me about Troilus,” I said.

“He’s very handsome, and he loves horses. He’s a great tamer of them, a great charioteer. But although he’s good-looking, he seems unaware of it and he’s very friendly and loving.”

Aeneas came back in, still wearing the wig, but now with a mantle draped backward over him to suggest a gown. He whirled around, pointing and mouthing silent cries.

“Oh, she’ll never get this one,” said Paris. “That isn’t fair. She doesn’t even know about her.”

“Doom! Doom!” rasped Aeneas.

“Cassandra,” said Evadne in a low voice.

Paris started. “How can you know that?”

“The less I see with my eyes, the more I hear from far away. Other minds tell me things, even in Sparta. This is your sister Cassandra, the one who prophesies doom to Troy.”

Aeneas stopped acting. “It seems that you may be a prophetess as well.”

“No,” said Evadne. “I merely use what is brought to my senses. But this Cassandra—has she not been your enemy, Paris?”

Paris gripped my hand so hard it tingled. “I have no enemies.”

“But when you returned, did not this sister try to have you cast out again?” Evadne persisted.

“No!” said Aeneas quickly. “No, nothing like that. And no one listens to Cassandra. She is mad.”

“Not mad,” said Evadne. “You know that. Just cursed by Apollo, because she spurned him. So the great god of prophecy revenged himself on her by making it so that she had the gift of prophecy but no one would believe her. What crueler punishment for a seer?”

“It wasn’t Apollo who made her a seer,” said Paris. “She and her twin brother Helenus had their ears licked by serpents when they were infants, and that gave them the gift of prophecy.”

Serpents. The call to prophecy. We were siblings in that gift. Would we recognize one another?

“But it was Apollo who twisted the gift into a curse for her,” said Aeneas.

Would Aphrodite have twisted mine into some sort of curse if I had rejected her? I shuddered. Obey them, resist them—either way the gods inflict misery on us.

Paris heaved himself up from the mat. “My turn,” he said. Aeneas took his place, watching.

Paris strutted his way across our vision, his head held high, grasping a stave.

“A councilor of some kind,” I said. But was he a good councilor or a bad one?

Paris preened a bit, inspecting his sleeves.

“Even I cannot know who you mean,” said Aeneas. “We have many pompous councilors.”

“Pandarus,” said Paris. “I admit, there are many Pandarus-like fellows about.”

“Pandarus is an irksome fool,” said Aeneas.

“You can take his place!” said Paris, pointing at Gelanor. “We need some new blood in the council chambers.”

Gelanor laughed. “A Spartan serving as a Trojan councilor? I think not.”

I noticed that he did not add,
and besides, I am not remaining at Troy.

“But the queen of Sparta will now serve as . . . princess of Troy. People can change countries. Yes, and she will be honored beyond anything you can imagine!”

“I shall watch the ceremonies, then, as a guest,” said Gelanor. “Before returning home.” I was disappointed to hear those words.

Paris kept his staff but dropped the flourishes. Instead, he struck a monumental pose.

“Still a councilor . . . or perhaps a seer,” said Aeneas. “But a respectable one. Oh!” He smacked his cheeks. “Of course! His brother Calchas!”

“Excellent. Excellent.” Paris bowed. “Yes. Helen, Calchas is one of our most trusted seers and councilors. He is embarrassed by Pandarus, but we cannot choose our relatives.”

“Exactly what your brothers may say about you when they see what you have brought back to Troy,” said Aeneas quietly. “Paris, have you thought how you will present Helen?”

“As my wife,” he said. His face was open and brave.

“But she is not your wife,” said Aeneas. “She is someone else’s wife.”

“No! She has renounced him. Let us marry now, this moment, so I can look the king, my father, in the eye and tell him honestly that Helen is my wife.”

“But . . . we have no power to perform that rite!” Alarm rose in Aeneas’s voice.

“Power? There is no special power needed. The gods will hear us! All we need is to clasp our hands and vow ourselves before witnesses. There are three witnesses here. That is sufficient.”

So: here, on this plain ground somewhere on the way to Troy, sometime in the evening, but at no hallowed time—neither at sunset nor midnight nor sunrise—wearing only traveling clothes, with no bridal dowry or gift, I would wed Paris.

“Yes,” I said. “Let us do this.” I turned to the others. “I ask you, bring what you find to help celebrate this. Let us make it our own, using only what is at hand.”

My mantle was dull brown, stained with sea spray and dirt. My gown was rumpled and its hem smeared with mud. My hair was bound up in a coil, my feet dusty from the path.

Bridal attire was supposed to have prophetic powers. What did this mean—that Paris and I would be dusty wayfarers? That we would be reduced to poverty? I could not see how this would be, but I no longer scoffed at the idea that the unimaginable could come about.

Gelanor brought his bag of dried mastic resin from Chios; Aeneas a skin of wine and clay cups; Evadne the sack with the snake. Paris took a torch and went out into the fields searching for night-blooming flowers, but it was too early in the season for them.

Aeneas planted two torches before the entrance of our tent and then beckoned us over to the fire. “Now say what you must,” he said.

Paris took my hand and led me to the warmth of the fire. A light, chilly wind had arisen, and was blowing across the fields and out to sea. My hands were cold as he took them, covering my fingers with his. How many times had we held hands? Yet this felt different, heavy with intent.

If I just slid my fingers away, pulled back . . . then all could be undone. If I did not, now, then I was bound forever. The grip of his hands on mine felt imprisoning, like clamps. I could not move my fingers.

“Speak,” said Aeneas. “It is only you who must speak now. No priest, no priestess, no mother, no father. As it is when all those things fall away and you are alone.”

Paris shut his eyes and bowed his head, thinking. He had never looked more boyish, more disarming. His light hair fell forward in glorious waves. The firelight turned his perfect skin to gold. In this light, even his garments were turned to gold. Had Midas touched him, turning him from a living being into a statue of metal?

“I am Paris, son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy,” he said, lifting his head. “I was born to them the night my mother had a dream that she gave birth to a flaming brand. One of my brothers proclaimed that it meant I would bring fire and destruction to Troy. So my mother and father cast me out, left me to the will of the gods. But their will was that I should live, and they gave me a glorious childhood in the glens and meadows of Mount Ida, the mountain where Zeus himself resides.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Then, when I was ready, the gods brought me back to my true home and family.”

The fire crackled and leapt up at that moment, and Paris laughed. “I thought nothing was lacking in my happiness then. I knew my mother, my father, my family—cousins like Aeneas. I belonged to their world. But that happiness was as pale as dying smoke compared to the fire that consumed me when I first beheld you, Helen.” He took my face and turned it full to his. “Since then it has been as if the sun has never set, there is no night. And so before you here, I pledge myself to Helen for the rest of my life. I shall care for nothing but her, look at nothing but her, think of nothing but her, as long as I shall live. I offer myself to you utterly, Helen. Please take me.”

His eyes pled with me, as if this were the first time we had ever spoken. As if it was all only starting now.

“I take you, Paris,” I answered, my voice low. I had trouble speaking, I was so affected by the solemnity of this moment. “I am yours forever.” I could not speak of how much and what this meant. Surely those four words said everything.

“We stand as witnesses to these promises,” said Aeneas. “And now we will drink a cup of wine together.” He measured out the portions and handed the cups around. Before we drank, he poured a libation on the ground and invoked Hera as goddess of marriage. “Bind them, O goddess,” he beseeched her, “in the sacred union of marriage.”

We all raised our cups and sipped the sweet wine in silence.

Gelanor took a handful of the resin beads and cast them into the fire. The smoky fragrance of the renowned mastic rose, dense and compelling.

Evadne stepped forward and held out the snake in both her arms. “Take him,” she said. “Let him bind you.” She placed him around our necks, where he curled, seeking our warmth.

He had bound us once before, in Sparta. Now he sealed our union, tying the past, the present, and the future together in his graceful coils.

Aeneas motioned us to the tent. “Now take yourselves to your new home. Here, we will accompany you the short distance with torch and song, as if this were a regular marriage procession.”

Our short and subdued little parade walked over to the tent, and then we left them and went inside.

Even the familiar tent now seemed different. The quick improvised vows felt more genuine than the lengthy ceremony I had undergone with Menelaus, with its heavy gold necklace, traditional promises, priestesses, and sacrifice, all a blur now. But I would never forget the look in Paris’s eyes as he made those sweeping, wild promises to me.

“Your gift,” he said, kneeling and handing me a jar.

I opened its covering and peered in. A light flutter showed itself against the clay.

“A big white moth,” he said. “I caught it when I was looking for moonflowers. I think the moth was looking, too.”

“Oh, it is lovely,” I said. The white wings were pulsing gently at the bottom of the jar. “But we must let it go. Tonight, all creatures must be as free as we are. Come.” Together we stood at the entrance of the tent and shook the jar, setting the moth free. It floated away, seeking the fields.

“We are that moth,” I said. “Now we are free in the fields, the fields that belong to neither kingdom, not to Troy or Sparta or Argos or Mysia.” I threw my arms around him, all hesitations flown away with the moth.

XXX

T
roy. It shone before us, floating up over the featureless plain like a vast and impregnable ship on a swelling sea. Behind us lay Mount Ida; we had skirted its pine-covered flanks and now nothing stood between us and Troy.

As we came closer and it loomed larger, it seemed less and less real. Its walls were of gleaming, fitted masonry. Massive towers, square and lowering, guarded the circuit of the walls, and spread out like a flung mantle beneath those walls were countless houses. It was as grand as Mycenae and Sparta and Pylos and Tiryns all put together—more delicately wrought and yet more formidable.