Helen of Troy (42 page)

I walked, keeping it ever before my eyes, seeing it grow to fill more and more of my vision. Beside me, Evadne kept her face toward it, but her expression did not change.

“You cannot see it,” I said. “But if you could—you would know it is something you have never beheld in Greece.”

She turned her head rapidly and said, “Oh, yes! I know! It gleams!”

“How did you know that?”

“I saw it.”

“But you cannot see . . . you told us so.”

“My lady, it is very odd. I cannot see straight on, but sometimes, if I move my head quickly, I can glimpse something just out to the side. But if I then turn to face it and look, it disappears. It is so maddening. It means I can only see the shadows and hints of things, and never look directly at them. But I saw Troy, for that tiny instant. And it shines like a crystal.”

“So you have a bit of sight. Perhaps that is why your eyes do not look like a blind person’s; they appear as clear and bright as anyone’s.”

“So I have been told. I fear I must have angered some god and this is how I am being punished, but I cannot for my very life know what I have done.”

“Not everything that happens is from the hands of the gods.” Gelanor came up beside us.

“Do not let them hear you say that!” Evadne laughed. “They might strike me again to make their point. Look, what do you see when you see Troy?”

“Power and beauty,” he said.

“Wealth?” I added.

“Wealth and power are the same thing. And together they underpin beauty. The world of nature can give us beauty cheaply, but the world of man requires wealth to make beauty.”

“Here it lies, Helen!” Paris came running, light of foot, and took my hand. “Troy. My home. Now yours as well.”

Troy will never be home to me, I thought fleetingly. “Will I . . . will I be able to speak easily to the people?”

“Of course, to the people at court. We speak much as you do—a few odd words here and there may be different. But, after all, we are related, we Trojans and Greeks. We share common ancestors—Atlas and Pleione, at least the old tales tell us so. The workers and people in the big city below the walls, they are a bit hard to understand, unless you have grown up with common people as I have. But I’ll translate for you—just as I do for Hector and the rest of my family.” He hugged me close to him. “Helen, I’m so proud—to show Troy to you—and you to Troy.”

Troy did not seem curious to see me. I should have been thankful for that—had I not wished to cease being an object of curiosity? But now it hinted at something amiss. The high towers, standing like sentinels, must have guards inside, guards whose duty was only to spy out anyone approaching the city. The parapets encircling them looked like jagged teeth, and the height would make anyone inside dizzy.

. . . And burnt the topless towers of Ilium.
The words twined themselves around my mind.
Topless towers of Ilium
. . . someone else framed those words, and whispered them to me then, someone who lived so long afterward that he saw Troy only in his dreams, but he saw it clearer than anyone standing beside me that day I first approached it, he told of Troy when men had forgotten her, and now she lives . . . or perhaps Troy was always only a dream.

“How long since we sailed away?” Paris asked Aeneas. “Time has ceased to pass for me. But for Troy . . . how long might they have been expecting us?”

“Some two full moons since we left,” said Aeneas. “But since the duration of our mission could not be predicted, nor could the winds promise a certain return, we may take them by surprise.”

We reached the outskirts of the city, protected by a stout wooden palisade fence; its sharpened tips turned the top into a row of spears. Now, in the peace of noonday, the outer gate was wide open, and people were streaming in and out, chattering and carrying baskets and bundles. They smiled and greeted us, calling out playfully to Paris, but other than that paid us little mind. However, like the ripples of a wave, word of our arrival raced ahead of us as we walked through the streets.

“These streets seem like any other streets,” I told Paris.

“Of course,” he said. “Did I not assure you that Troy would not seem foreign to you?”

“I meant, they are not very wide. Whenever Troy is spoken of, people say, ‘broad-streeted Troy.’ But it is not so.”

He laughed. “Wait until you get inside the walls, into the
real
Troy—or rather, the famous Troy. The one that all men speak of. When they say Troy, they do not mean
this.”
He flung out his arm to encompass the small houses and shops all around us.

Behind us our guardian soldiers trooped, stopping to swig new wine they bartered for their smiles and promises. All the time we were walking uphill toward the high walls, which seemed to elongate and reach for the sky even as we approached. The houses fell away and left a broad swath before the glistening, slanted masonry. A square guard tower jutted out almost to the nearest house; before it were stone pillars holding statues.

“The gods who protect Troy,” Paris said. “Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares, and Artemis.”

Glancing at them, I thought how unlike the glorious gods these stone representations were. Plain, squat, broad-featured: surely the gods would renounce these likenesses. But no one knew how to make better ones. We fashioned the gods in their splendor only in our minds.

“This is the south gate,” Paris said. “Some people say it is the grandest, but they are all grand.”

I looked overhead at the large beckoning entrance and I could not see how it could be grander.

“Inside, inside, my love—my wife. See my city!”

We passed through a dark tunnellike entrance through the walls, some fifteen paces wide—oh, such wide walls above us!—and then out into the sunlight and a wide paved courtyard.

“Oh, are we already at the palace?” I asked.

Paris laughed. “No, no. This roadway circles the walls. It makes a broad street for us to parade upon, walk upon, merely to look upon. We do not permit houses next to the walls.”

I had never beheld such a thing. A street only to give space. The sunlight seemed to fill every aspect.

“The palace, the temple of Athena, the living quarters of the king’s children—they are all farther up, at the summit. All Father’s sons and daughters live in apartments surrounding the palace, but now I’m going to build my own. We need not be like all the others!”

“Perhaps we should not insist—” We were asking so much already.

“Nonsense!”

A young man flew toward us, almost tripping over his sandaled feet as he rushed down the sloping street.

“Troilus!” Paris’s voice was warm with affection. This, then, must be his favorite younger brother.

“Is it really you, Paris?” Troilus stopped, panting, clutching Paris’s mantle. He was light-haired and freckled, with an open, sunburnt gladness about him.

“Your eyes see true,” Paris said.

Troilus turned them toward me. “What—who—?”

“I have brought home a wife!” proclaimed Paris.

“But how—?”

“I will explain all to our father, and thereby tell it once—although I would gladly tell it a thousand times, for I love the telling of it.”

“Aeneas?” cried Troilus. “I see you have brought my brother safely home, as you promised.”

“I have brought him home,” said Aeneas. “Safely is another matter.”

Again poor Troilus looked perplexed. “He looks well enough.”

“Aye, there’s the pity. Had he looked less well, then . . .” He shrugged. “All will become clear in time.”

We resumed walking, Troilus falling in beside us. Then a woman came flying down the street, arms outstretched. She rushed to embrace Aeneas.

“My wife, Creusa,” he finally mumbled, when he could get his breath.

She was small, fair, and fine-featured. Her eyes missed nothing. Now they looked me over. There was none of the usual squinting or pandering. “Who is with Paris?” she asked.

“He calls her wife,” said Aeneas.

“But where—”

“I shall explain all once I see the king and queen, my father and mother,” Paris said again.

“Oh.” Creusa turned back to him, losing interest in me.

What a novel experience! Did it sting? Or was it a relief? A bit of both.

As we walked toward the top of the city, more and more people came out of their houses, drawn by the large company of soldiers tramping behind us. They were well dressed and only then did I notice how handsome the men were. Just so: the godlike Trojan men, renowned everywhere. So it was true.

Opening up before us was a wide pavement—a level courtyard. We must have reached the top at last. It had been a long walk, much farther than walking from the palace in Sparta down to the banks of the river and to the city. Troy was, then, truly immense.

The view was dazzling. A tree-dotted plain spread out before us on three sides, and on the fourth the sea shone a hard reflective blue. The buildings crowning the courtyard were of two stories, surrounded by brightly painted pillars, and boasting wide welcoming porches with overhanging roofs. One of them was fronted with stately columns; this looked to be the temple.

Just then there was a stirring in the portico of the largest building, and an elderly man stepped out, shading his eyes. I knew immediately it was Priam. He was tall and commanding even in his advanced years; his tunic did not hang limply around the frame of a shrunken man, but rippled as from the shoulders of a warrior.

“Father!” Paris held out his arms and walked swiftly toward him.

“Oh, my dear son!” Priam came forward and embraced him. “Welcome home!”

Aeneas inclined his head with respect. “You bade me bring him home safely,” he said. “That I have done.”

“You shall tell me all!” said Priam. “Tonight. We’ll have such a feast—” He suddenly looked around. “No Hesione? What did she say?”

“We did not see her, but from all accounts she does not care to leave Salamis,” said Paris. “She is old, she is content . . .” He shrugged. “What would be the point in abducting her? Would your joy in beholding her offset her sorrow in leaving her home?”

“This was her home!” Priam thundered, and I thought of Zeus.

“Homes change,” said Paris. “Mine did, from the slopes of Mount Ida and a herdsman’s hut, to Troy.” He took my hand and drew me to his side. “And hers has changed as well. From Sparta to Troy.”

“What do you mean?” His voice was sharp. “Who is this, Paris?”

“Do you not recognize her?”

“I have never seen her before in my life.”

“But nonetheless you should recognize her. Just look upon her face.”

He narrowed his eyes and looked at me. Then he shook his head. No one had ever done that before.

“Oh, Father, come now. There is only one person in the world who could look like that, and you know who it is.”

“Yes,” said Priam. “And that face has told me I am a liar, something I have never been. Never!”

“What do you mean?” Paris dropped my hand.

“They have already come looking for her, threatening me if I did not return her—the queen of Sparta, Helen! I told those envoys from Menelaus in the sternest terms that I knew nothing of this, that Helen was not here, nor had you abducted her. I sent them away with warnings. Now I see . . . you have made a liar of me!”

“But Father, how could you have known? You spoke the truth as you thought.”

“I should have known the character of my son! That should have stood surety for your actions. But no—I see I do not know you at all. They warned me, they said you had not been brought up as a prince, that you did not have a noble mind—but I sent those naysayers packing. To my sorrow!”

All the while I was standing there while they argued over me. I felt I must say something.

“Priam, great king.” I stepped forward. But I knew to come no closer, nor to make any gesture of either supplication or familiarity. “It is true, I am Helen of Sparta, former wife to Menelaus. I came with Paris on my own accord. It was no one’s doing but my own. I do not wish to cause unhappiness to anyone in Troy—bitter enough that I must cause it in Sparta. Often the happiness of one person must cause the unhappiness of another. But I have found happiness, the first true happiness I have ever known, with your son Paris, and I rejoice in it. I only regret any sorrow it may cost anyone else.”

His eyes grew so large the whites showed all around the irises, as if he would burst from within like an overripe fruit. “How dare you blather such nonsense, when you have put us all in danger? And how dare you compromise the honor of Troy in such a fashion?”

“Father!” said Paris. “She is my wife!”

“What do you mean?” Priam shouted.

“We have pledged ourselves, and before witnesses. The gods brought us together, they guided us, and now they must protect us.”

“Bah!” yelled Priam.

“Great king,” I said. “Please have mercy.”

“Oh, I’ll have mercy.” He whirled around and pointed to the guards on each side of the palace, to the people gathering in curiosity in the courtyard. “But the rest—the council of elders, the Trojan people, our allies, and the faraway Spartans—will they?”

“We must hope—” I began.

“Oh, if it were just me,” he said, “I would welcome her.” He put his leathery, lined face very close—too close—to mine. “I would kiss her hand in welcome”—he did so, elaborately—“and praise my newfound son for finding such a bride. Who could not? To have such a one about the palace would be like harnessing the sun, so it would always be bright. But alas, she comes trailing sorrows and dangers.”

He was still looking at me, and I felt him soften. People always did if they looked long enough. I had despised this gift; now I poured out silent thanks for it.

“Hesione did not wish to come, and I did. One princess for another,” I said.

“Do not speak to me of my sister!” he barked, and I realized I had overstepped the delicate bounds.

“You were willing to risk war and sorrow for her,” said Paris, “when she did not even wish to come!”

“That was a matter of blood,” said Priam.

“What is happening?” a high voice sounded from the porch. “Priam?”

A small woman, wearing the finest light wool gown, had appeared. Her voice showed her to be an older woman. This, then, must be Hecuba. Head held high, she descended the steps and came over to us, dripping dignity.