Helen of Troy (43 page)

As soon as her eyes fastened on mine, I knew she was the hard one, not Priam. She would never melt, she was an eternal snow capping the highest mountain. Like the snow, her complexion was very pale, and when she was younger, it must have been exquisite.

“Paris? You have returned, then.” She held out her hand for him to take.

“Yes, Mother.” He bent over the hand, then took it in both of his and squeezed it.

“And he’s brought us a pretty prize—oh, our son has been a-plundering!”

“Gold? Slaves? Cattle?”

“Nothing so useful,” said Priam. “He’s stolen the wife of Menelaus. The queen of Sparta.” He gestured toward me.

“Helen!” Her voice was a hiss, a soft slither of sound. “So it is all true, then.”

I longed to know what was true, what she meant, but I knew to keep silent and look respectful before this formidable little woman. I bent my head.

“Are you a statue, girl? Can’t you speak?” she said.

Oh, I can speak, I thought, but if I speak my mind I might anger you. “I would not presume,” I murmured, in what I thought was a conciliatory manner.

“A mealymouth, then!” Hecuba said. “You’ve gone to all the trouble to kidnap a timid little milksop. Her face will soon seem as wheylike as her manner!”

“She’s my wife!” Paris said loudly. “I command you to stop insulting her!”

Everyone in the square overheard him, and pressed forward eagerly to hear more.

“Command, do you?” she said. “Will you flick me with a whip like you did your cattle when you herded them?”

“Cease!” Priam ordered them. “Come inside, out of this public place.”

“Do you invite me to enter your palace, then?” I said, without moving one step. I knew that to be invited inside the palace meant that they accepted me—or the marriage, that is.

Hecuba raised an eyebrow. “She can speak!” She puckered her mouth. “At least there’s that. Yes, of course, get yourselves inside!” She made fluttering movements with her hands.

We stepped over the marble threshold, and in so doing, I thereby became a Trojan.

Inside, it was cool and dark, and for a moment I felt I was back in the cave with Aphrodite, a sensation made stronger by a faint scent of roses. But in a moment I saw smoke rising from an incense burner and knew this was the source of the perfume. I was not in a magic cave but standing in the palace of the richest city in the world, facing all-too-human critics.

“Now, my child,” said Priam, “we may speak freely.”

“Yes.” Hecuba took her place by his side. She barely came up to his shoulders. Her voice did not invite speaking, free or not.

Paris gestured toward the pillows heaped around the walls. “Can you not invite us to sit?”

“In good time,” said Hecuba briskly. She continued standing.

Must it be I who spoke first? I looked about, hoping someone would spare me that obligation. But all faces, and mouths, were closed. I drew up my courage and prayed to Aphrodite to guide my words.

“Blood is a sacred thing,” I began tentatively. I did not know how sacred the Trojans held it. “We share our blood. Closely, through my father Tyndareus, we are cousins. Atlas had two daughters and they are the ancestors of Lacedaemon and Dardanus, our forefathers.”

“Not so close,” said Priam. “And no blood at all, if it is true that your father is not Tyndareus after all.” As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, I could see him more clearly. His face showed no emotion, no recognition. Yet he was appraising me. I knew that look well enough.

“Great king, I cannot speak for that.” I bowed my head—submissively, I hoped.

“I can,” said Hecuba crisply. “There is no Tyndareus there. Look at the light that shines around her. The very chamber has brightened.” She sounded vexed.

“But you and I, most exalted queen, share blood that cannot be denied.” I turned to her. “On my mother’s side, we claim Phoenix as our common ancestor.”

She grunted. “And how is that?”

I was ready. I had teased it out of Paris and Aeneas in preparation. “Agenor is the ancestor of Phoenix. Do you truly want me to relate all the threads in between, leading to my mother Leda and you?” I could do it, but so tedious!

“No,” she replied. “I know it as well as you.”

Silence for a moment. The smoke poured from the incense burner in clouds.

“It seems that Paris has chosen his wife,” Priam finally said. “We had urged him to marry. He has done so. They have lived together publicly as man and wife, taken vows. It is not to be undone. Helen is, distantly, of our blood. We must—” He shook his head. “We must welcome her as a daughter.”

I bowed my head.

“But a daughter who weakens us,” said Hecuba. “I thought marriage alliances were to strengthen dynasties, not threaten them.” She turned a hard face toward me. “The envoys from your husband, lady, were insistent that you be returned. In all truth we replied that we knew nothing of this matter. But this is no longer the case. When you fail to return, what will their response be?”

“Nothing!” cried Paris. “Nothing has ever come of such a thing. In all respect, Father, nothing has come of Hesione being in Salamis, nor of Medea being stolen from Colchis by Jason. Nor the abduction of Adriadne by the Athenians. The Greeks will fulminate, curse, send envoys. In the end they will sit down content before their fires and make sad ballads about Helen, the lost queen.”

“ ‘People yet unborn will make songs of us,’ ” I said.

“What?” demanded Hecuba. “Is that all this means to you? Songs?”

“I—I—” In truth I knew not where those words had come from. They came from somewhere outside me. “I did not mean it to sound light,” I said.

“What else could it be?” she snapped.

“Helen knows of things we do not,” said Paris.

“What can you possibly mean?” asked Hecuba.

“I mean, because of gifts bestowed upon her in a temple, she can see things we cannot. Her attendant has brought the sacred serpent from her household altar. Let us find a suitable home for him here.”

“Troy is filled with seers!” said Priam. “Too many of them. Helen, you are welcome here as the wife of Paris, but as a seer—no!”

Now he had come around, as I knew he would. “I will keep my serpent, then, only as my special companion, a treasured thing I have brought from Sparta.”

He smiled. Men were so easily won.

“I suppose you will retire to your old apartments?” Hecuba asked. Women not so easily won.

“Only for now,” said Paris. “I will build splendid new ones for Helen and me.”

“What, desert all your brothers and sisters who lodge in the royal apartments? Are you to be set apart, then?”

“Dear Mother,” Paris said, stepping forward and taking her face between his hands, “I am already set apart, because fair Helen is my wife.” He held out his hand to me. “Come, my wife. If my mother and father do not invite us to sit, I do.” He gestured toward the brightly colored pillows. We sank to the floor—a floor covered with woven tapestries, but ones unlike any I had ever seen before.

“Here in Troy do you put your fine weavings upon the floor?” I asked. I ran my hands over one, marveling at the design.

“Oh, these come from the East someplace,” said Paris. “We get them from the passing caravans before they proceed any farther. It is one of the privileges of living in Troy—to intercept trade.” He laughed.

“Since you have already done so, I invite you to sit,” said Hecuba. “Would you care for refreshments?” Now she extended all the trappings of hospitality, in a measured way.

“Yes,” said Paris. “Yes, we would.”

Priam nodded to a waiting slave. “Bring him what he desires.”

“It seems the gods have already done that,” said Hecuba tartly. She took her seat nearby. “So you like our floor coverings? They come from farther east. We call them carpets. Novel idea, to cover the floors. But warm. It gets very cold here in winter.” She smiled at me, a distant smile. “You will see.”

XXXI

A
eneas, who had been sitting quietly all the while, stood and made to leave.

“Say nothing to Creusa!” Hecuba ordered him. “Swear it, before you leave this room.”

Aeneas frowned. “But she has already seen us. She met us on our way through the city, and I am eager to be with her again.”

“Be with her all you like,” said Hecuba. “But say nothing. You men excel at that—being with a woman and saying nothing of import.”

“She has seen me as well.” I felt I had to speak. “She knows I am here, and who I am.”

“Let that be all she knows!” Hecuba glared. “You should never have allowed your face to be seen in the streets of Troy. Henceforth, you must wear a veil.”

“No, I will not.” I kept my voice low, but I was trembling. I could not go back to that, I could not bear it. “I am not an animal to be trussed up. Covering my face is like being bound. Let people see it, and do as they will. I saw that no woman in Troy wears the veil.”

“You are not a Trojan.” Priam finally spoke. “Do not invoke the customs of Troy for yourself.”

“She is a Trojan now!” Paris leapt to his feet. “Henceforth she will be known as Helen of Troy, not Helen of Sparta. Let her therefore be treated as a Trojan.”

“I fear that cannot be,” said Priam. “One is as one is born. Just as Hesione was, and always will be, Trojan, not Greek.”

Aeneas shook his head. “Great king, I think she is Trojan no longer, and we must turn our eyes from that idea.”

Priam grunted.

“Go to Paris’s quarters,” Hecuba ordered us. “Stay there until I summon you. This must be dealt with swiftly. I must think of what to do. In the meantime, stay out of sight.”

“Like a thief or a murderer?” Paris cried.

“You
are
a thief!” said Hecuba. “What else can we call a wife-stealer?”

“He did not steal me,” I said. “I came of my own accord.”

“That is not what the Greeks will say,” said Priam. “It would insult their honor; to keep their honor they must maintain that you were stolen.”

“Raped, even!” Hecuba snorted. “I can hear it already.”

That would compromise my own honor. Let it not be said!

“No,” I protested. “It is not so.”

“Can you prove that to your kinsmen, far away? No, they will cling to that belief.” She stood up, straight as a shaft of light. “Go now. Go to your quarters.”

I had not been ordered about like this since I was a child. I would have answered back, but Paris, reading my mind, took my hand.

“Let me show you where I lived before setting sail for Greece,” he said.

We left the small chamber and wandered out beneath the brightly painted inner portico whose zigzag reds, yellows, and blues made me blink. We passed through a small passageway and then out into an immense oblong courtyard with shady porches protecting each doorway.

“Here is where all the sons and daughters of Priam live,” said Paris, sweeping his hand over the vista.

It was as big as a city. I said so.

“Indeed,” he admitted. “And we have all the trappings of a city—a ruler, power struggles, scandals, and bribes.”

“And who is the ruler of this city, if it be not Priam?”

“Hector, of course,” Paris said. “The most illustrious of the princes. It does not hurt that he is also the eldest. That eliminates quarrels about rank and worthiness. It is always convenient when those qualities keep company.”

I thought of Agamemnon and his rank and worthiness. I hoped that Hector was more likable.

“My quarters are halfway down the portico.”

Rather than beneath the dim covered portico, we walked in the open courtyard, where potted plants made the semblance of a sacred grove. Their leaves rustled in the stiff breeze, making a dry sound.

“Troy trades with many lands,” said Paris. “These plants were all bartered for other goods. Some of them are valuable, like these myrrh bushes. Others have flowers with unusual colors. Hector’s wife, Andromache, wanted a garden with flowers of every color. She has come close. Her collection is here.” He led me over to a dense grouping of pots. “She said she now has all the colors except black, and flowers do not come in black. But there is a legend that a black flower blooms on the banks of the River Styx. Is it true? Have you ever been to the Styx?”

“No,” I said. There were so many places I had never been, even ones near my old home. “But I know that Persephone’s sacred groves have black poplars. I think she would claim a black flower as her own.” I looked over the flowers, seeing violet, red, pink, yellow, white, waving bravely in the wind. Happy colors. “Andromache would not want black,” I said. Just then a gust of wind blew dust in my face. How could it be so windy in this enclosed space? “Where does this wind come from?” I sputtered.