Helen of Troy (57 page)

A
t the rumors of the Greek fleet, Troy seemed to swell with pride and excitement. Too long slumbering peacefully, too long prepared with high walls, stout towers, and stores of weaponry, it welcomed the exhilaration of coming action. Awakening from its golden haze, it stirred like a lion eager to hunt. Evidently these desires had been pent up for a generation, and the young hailed Paris and me when we walked among them on the streets, crying out that they would defend their “Greek treasure” to the death. But the way they laughed, with their flashing teeth, it was clear they did not think it was they who would die. They would strike such terror into their enemy that the enemy would flee—not before a fierce battle or two, however. The Trojans did not want to be robbed of a great battle, in which the end was a foregone conclusion. What else could it be? Everyone knew the Greeks quarreled and fought amongst themselves and were a ragtag bunch, who had never mustered a proper army. One Trojan was worth ten Greeks, became their song.

The workshops were humming, the artisans and smiths of Troy busier than ever, and trade was brisk. People flocked in to Troy to get goods and trade their own. A market sprang up around the new sphinx in the open courtyard, and it was thronged from dawn to dusk. Then Priam insisted that they leave so the gates could be closed for the night. But every morning the people were there again, and it seemed the numbers grew.

The women of Troy enjoyed the market coming to them, and being able to shop without leaving their city. Husbands forbade them to indulge themselves with trinkets and tidbits, but their lectures went unheeded.

Strangely, it was a happy time in Troy.

In addition, Troy began fortifying itself. Workmen oiled the pivots of the great gates; carpenters hewed new bolts to secure the doors. Stonemasons added a fresh parapet of clay bricks atop the stone walls. The ditch surrounding the lower town was deepened, and a further row of stakes were set bristling in back of the one already there. Priam himself went down and addressed the people living in the lower town, warning that trouble might be coming. He was careful to avoid the word
war.
Or even
siege
.

The steps to the covered well beside Athena’s temple were refaced and the well dredged; new buckets were set out and fresh ropes were provided for hauling water. Busiest were the merchants who had the responsibility of laying in food supplies. They fanned out across the region and returned with wagonloads of grain and oil. These were transferred into huge sunken stone storage jars. Just seeing them there, buried in rows up to their necks, their lids sealed with tar, gave Trojans a sense of security, but also added to the holiday mood.

There was no further word on Agamemnon and his fleet.

Exactly how many of them? Who were the commanders? We would not know that until they set foot on our side of the Aegean and we could send spies amongst them. Already Priam was recruiting these spies, largely young men with no family obligations. He called upon Gelanor to help train them, but Gelanor told him he would have to include volunteers of varying ages.

“The point of a spy is to blend in perfectly,” he said. “A spy should be the most forgettable person possible—so that later if someone is asked to describe him, he will scratch his head and say, ‘I cannot recall.’ Handsome men, swaggering men, men with scars and red hair, cannot be spies. But we need older men and even some women.”

“Women?” Priam’s thick eyebrows rose.

“Yes, women. Does not every army have a flock of women, called by the less-than-flattering name ‘camp followers’? What else is a spy but a camp follower? Who better to blend in?”

“You mean . . . prostitutes?” Priam twisted up his mouth.

“He who scorns a prostitute scorns himself,” said Gelanor.

Priam drew himself up. “What, sir, do you mean by that?”

“I mean only that those who look too high overlook important things,” he said. “Who has better access to generals than prostitutes? Who overhears secrets muttered in the dark? Some of the most loyal defenders of a city have been prostitutes.” He coughed discreetly. “There should be a public monument recognizing their contributions.”

“All right, find them! Train them! That is, train them in retrieving information.”

“And older men, too—you will need them. Pitiful, broken things, lamenting the cruel fate that deprived them of limbs or livelihood. They hang on the edges of armies and are employed for menial tasks. The more bitter they are, the less anyone suspects them.” He paused. “Surely you have such at Troy?”

“It has been a great long while since we had a war at Troy,” Priam said.

“Men are broken by things other than war,” said Gelanor. “We must find them.”

“How many do you think we will need?” Priam asked.

“Allowing for desertion, execution, and failure, I would say . . . at least two hundred. Then we might be left with a hundred.”

Priam nodded. “You shall have them, sir, you shall have them.”

Training spies seemed ominous. Gelanor assured me it was not. He said there were always amateur spies; these were usually caught and killed, so did it not make sense to learn from those mistakes?

“You make it sound as if these people are weapons like bows or swords, always needing improvement,” I said.

“They
are
weapons,” he said. “Perhaps the most deadly we have. After all, knowledge of the enemy’s thinking and position determines the action against it.”

Now he had hit upon it. “How can these people from Greece ever be our enemies? We are Greeks. I cannot think of them as enemies.”

“Then you should learn to,” he said. “Your brother-in-law has assembled an armada of soldiers to invade Troy and retrieve you. Do you wish to go with him?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“Then it will not be peaceful. Oh, they will send an embassy, which will be rebuffed. Then the fighting will start. Agamemnon would be gravely disappointed if it did
not
start. So would the Trojans, I sense. So we need to know exactly how many men he has, and what tactics he plans.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“It may save lives.”

“Trojan lives.”

“That should be your only concern.”

Oh, but how could it be? I had kinsmen and neighbors amongst the Greeks. Possibly even my own brothers! How could I care only for Trojan lives? “But what of you—you are a Greek, these are your people too,” I cried.

“That is my sorrow,” he replied. “And the price I pay for not having left Troy immediately, as I wished.”

“Can you change loyalties so completely, even if your heart is partly elsewhere?”

“I try not to think of that,” he said. “My task is to outsmart Agamemnon and disarm him before he does any harm. So that is why I will select and send out spies, and teach them every trick I know to ferret out Agamemnon’s plans.” He smiled. “Helen, I know you will not wish to be known in ages hence as the cause of a war.”

“Never!” I agreed.

“But again, we both know that down the ages knowledge fades and only a few memories remain, and the memory of the beautiful Helen as a cause of war between Greeks and Trojans may linger. Unless that war is prevented.”

Winter came and went. The seas opened. But the horizon remained clear. Down on the plain, the Trojans were training, seemingly thousands of warriors exercising in the thin sunlight, practicing archery and sword-thrusting, charging up barricades and ditches set before them by their commanders. Drivers raced chariots across the expanse, and the horse pens were transformed into stockades to protect their precious wards. Meanwhile, the smithies were turning out swords, shields, and armor by the cartload, and craftsmen were preparing new chariots as quickly as possible, the wainwrights fashioning eight-spoked wheels, the leather workers creating the floors, others fashioning the soft, pliant willow rushes gathered by the riverbanks into guardrails.

Representatives of Trojan allies came to promise aid to Priam. I met many of these ambassadors, and I must confess that aside from differing headgear they all seemed similar, although of course they spoke different tongues. The only truly unusual ones—and the ones I was keen to see—were the Amazons of Asia. They sent a chieftain, along with a contingent of soldiers, to assure Priam of aid should the need arise.

Because I occupied a place in Troy outside of any normal protocol, when I wished to see someone, it was entirely within my prerogative. I hurried off to Priam’s megaron as soon as I received word that the Amazon ambassador had arrived.

By the time I entered, she had already presented her credentials to Priam. They were conferring about the number of warriors she would be able to provide in the hour of need. I slipped in and slid along the wall, staring at her.

She was very tall, and outfitted in fighting gear, although not armor as I knew it. She wore a linen corselet and a helmet, but other than that was unprotected. Her long hair was drawn back in a braid. Her arm was like a column of marble—smooth and impenetrable. I saw her hands, fingering her sword—broad with stubby fingers. At my movement—although I had tried to be quiet—she swung around and confronted me, grasping her sword.

“Peace, Elate,” said Priam. “This is Helen. There is no need to draw on her.”

The Amazon pushed back her helmet a bit to get a clearer look at me. An expression of disdain flitted across her face. “No, I think not!”

I walked over to her. “I am your friend, not your enemy.” I smiled. “I must confess everyone is curious about Amazons. Is it true that you have no men in your villages?”

“Oh, we have them for a little while. They are useful for some things. I think, lady, you know what those things are.”

I nodded and laughed nervously.

“But beyond that, we do not need them,” she said. “We find them a nuisance.”

Now I did truly laugh. That amused her.

“Now, come, Helen, have you never felt the same? Would you not like them to vanish after they have fulfilled their purpose? So much simpler.”

I found myself unable to answer, I was so overcome with laughter.

“Some of them,” I said. Certainly not all.

“No men are worth the bother they cause,” she said. “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty.” She all but winked at Priam. “Well, I can guarantee a force of some hundred warriors, like these.” She motioned to her bodyguards, all of them tall and muscular. “Trained since childhood to fight and shoot,” she said. “A hundred Amazons are worth a thousand men.”

“Why would you come all this distance to protect Troy?” I asked her. Her homeland was far away.

“We want no Greeks here,” she said. “Let them stay on their side of the sea. My lady, although you are indeed lovely to look on, no one is fooled by their wavering cries of needing to retrieve you as a matter of honor. They want a foothold in our region. We want to deny it them.”

“Then we welcome your help,” said Priam.

Elate shot a look at me. “I don’t doubt that your husband wants you back and is a lovelorn creature.” She snorted at the thought of it. “But as for the rest of them—they just want the pluckings of this land.” Now she smiled. “I hope I do not disillusion you.”

“No,” I said. “No.”

The white storks returned from their winter journey, and were now wading through the marshes. The sky sang a clean blue song. All the signs of spring that would give us joy were now signs that our land was open to invasion. The passage was easy now, beckoning.

As swiftly as the returning birds flew, rumors flapped alongside them.
There
are ships on the horizon. No, those were only waves. They’ve landed far to the south
of us, at Larissa. A great mass is coming from Thrace. My son saw them with his
own eyes, when he went to the hot and cold springs on the mountainside, there they
were, spread out on the plain below him. They say there are two of them, coming on
a special embassy. What two? I don’t know, but they both have red-gold hair. Lots of
Greeks have that. It could be anyone. Has Priam received any word? No.

As the days passed, I grew increasingly on edge. Then one day I received a baffling summons to come to the queen’s apartments as soon as possible. There was no explanation and no formal greeting, just a command.

I still was not used to no longer being queen, but having to obey one. In Sparta I had thought the queenship sat lightly on me and had not changed me, but now I knew that once a woman is queen, even briefly, she is queen forever, in her own heart. Still, Hecuba rarely summoned me at all, so in one way this was a good sign.

When I reached the outer chambers I saw all her daughters waiting nervously, flitting and milling about. Priam had twelve daughters, but they were not all by Hecuba. I saw no strangers amongst them, so these were all Hecuba’s. Laodice came up to me, her great dark eyes shining. “I wanted you to come!” she said. “Won’t Mother be surprised?”

“Yes, she will,” said Ilona, gliding up to us. “She will be even more surprised when she hears that you pretended to be her and summoned Helen.”

So it was not Hecuba after all. I felt a keen disappointment at that. Still, at least the princesses accepted me, particularly Laodice. There are stories of men sitting motionless in the forest attempting to win the trust of a wild animal. I felt like that with the royal family of Troy.

“It is Mother’s birthday!” Laodice said. “And we have planned something to please her and surprise her.”

“You know it is impossible to surprise Mother,” said Creusa. “She knows everything.”

“She didn’t know about this,” said Laodice stubbornly. “Come, we can decorate the chamber now; she’s gone to the rooms where the robes are kept, and she always takes a while there.”

They festooned the chamber with green garlands and meadow flowers, and Ilona busied herself hunched over a large tray. There was little for me to do and my task was not to appear as awkward as I felt. I watched the youngests, Philomena and Polyxena, playing tag with one another, then settling down to a game played with bone knuckles. They were children one moment and young women the next. They reminded me of Iphigenia and Hermione playing together, and such a heavy weight of sadness fell over me I had to turn away. Iphigenia would play no more, and Hermione . . . what was she doing, this very moment? Oh, if only I could see her—just for an instant.