Helen of Troy (71 page)

“Well met, my lady.” I was wrested from my thoughts by the voice of Deiphobus. I abandoned the snake in my mind and turned to face him. He was planted in our pathway, standing, hands on hips, leering down at me. “Ah, such a sight as your fair face makes the morning blush.”

“It is long past morning,” I said, holding my gown to step past him on the steep path. I tried not to look at him.

“Oh, is the sun overhead?” He refused to budge, and gazed at the sky. “But Phoebus has not yet whipped his horses to the highest zenith,” he said. “You are mistaken.” He leaned forward, whispered in my ear, “I hear you like all these old tales, my lady—Phoebus and suchlike. I understand this; it befits the daughter of a swan, after all, to believe such things. Did your mother save any feathers?” He chuckled.

I could not help myself: I drew back and struck his face. “Let us pass!” I said. “Or, by all the gods, the king will hear of this.” I shoved him.

Instead of giving way, he leaned forward and grabbed my forearm in a hard grip. “You cannot walk amongst us and expect to escape our desires,” he hissed. “That is all you do—create desire. Never think there is any other worth to you.”

I flung off his arm and pushed him as far away as I could.

And he was my husband’s brother! Had he no shame? No restraint? I wanted to tell myself that it was his bitterness about Troy and its dangers that had sparked his words. But I had seen the lust in his eyes from the beginning.

The snake. The snake—cool and impassive in his grotto. I must seek him as an antidote to all this ugliness. Shuddering, I took Evadne’s arm and pulled her through the streets, perhaps faster than she would have liked. But I desperately needed the snake and his solace, his wisdom.

There was an entrance to the chamber on the ground floor. Together Evadne and I descended the stairs into the underground chamber. It was always lit with oil lamps; an acolyte brought the milk and honey cakes for the creature at dawn. Daily bouquets of dried herbs kept the air fresh.

Still, it seemed dark as we entered the chamber, after the brilliant light outside. It took a long time for my eyes to adjust and for forms to resolve themselves, stop quivering, and stand still. Once they had, I would pray before the altar and lure my beloved snake out so I could see him, whisper my desperate concerns to him.

The dark slowly dissolved. The polished stone floor came into view, its squares gleaming in the light of the oil lamps. I breathed deeply, smelling the sweet herbs in the urns beside the altar. Evadne sat beside me, only her breathing betraying her presence.

Then, as the room swam into view, there was something ropelike lying just before the altar. It was not arranged as a deliberate offering would be. I felt a chill in my heart as I saw it.

Was this innocent, or something very evil indeed?

Evadne’s eyes could not see it. “Stay here,” I said, trying to make my voice as normal as possible.

I crept up on it, and as I drew closer, I saw the horrible truth: my snake lay dead, killed. The cuts—I cannot describe them, I do not wish to see them ever again.

I fell to my knees, raised my hands, and screamed. Screamed to the heavens, screamed to the gods, begged them to restore life to my snake, my guardian.

Silence, and stillness. The pale body of the snake lay stretched before me.

* * *

I forgot the Paris I had avoided and rushed upstairs seeking the Paris I loved, fleeing the horrid sight in the grotto. Panting, I reached the uppermost floor; as I thought, he was there, surrounded by his weapons and armor. He looked up as I stumbled through the door, slowly raising his eyes to me.

“What is it?” His voice was chill, but I did not care. I cared only about the attack on me—on us.

“Paris—Paris!” I flung myself in his arms, seeking the warmth that was lacking in his voice. It would be there in his embrace. But no, his body was as lifeless as the snake’s. He stepped away from me.

“What?” he repeated, but his tone shouted,
I do not care
.

“Paris—someone has killed the snake! Someone came into this house and struck him, and destroyed our—our—first companion!”

Now at last his face came alive. His lips quivered. “The snake?”

“Yes. Go see. It will rend your heart.” I took his hand and led him to the entrance of the chamber, but drew back before entering. I could not look upon it again. I heard Paris’s footsteps, heard him murmuring to Evadne, heard the two of them come out of the little room, while I waited, head bowed.

Paris’s hand touched my shoulder gently. “We grieve together.”

I looked into his eyes. I thought I saw—but the light was dim—the old Paris looking back at me.

L

T
he streets of Troy seethed with agitated crowds, crowds filled with restless desire to burst out of the walls and pursue the Greeks, take action, any action, while at the same time bracing to defend themselves. Winter was drawing on. The soldiers wanted to strike a blow before the Greeks departed—as depart they must, as the sailing season closed; older councilors warned that it was wise to let nature do their work for them. But there is no glory in winter sending an enemy home while a warrior’s bronze lies unused, losing its luster, in his storeroom.

Our household priest gave the snake a ritual burial and there was some comfort in that. We did not replace him—how could we? There could be no others for us. I would incorporate him in my weaving, give him life again there in the limited way that memorials can give life, but he was gone, and with him, one of the most precious parts of my past.

Paris seemed to rally as time passed after the loss of Troilus. He still did not laugh as he used to, but he stopped lying on his couch and brooding, and even acted lovingly toward me at times. But it was only at times, and I could never predict when those times would be. At first, especially after the slaughter in the grotto, I was grateful for what seemed the rebirth of his love. But as it came and went, disappearing and reappearing like the moon on a windswept and cloudy night, I felt myself withdrawing bit by bit, to a place where he could neither reach nor disappoint me. It was safer thus.

Then the refugees began flooding into Troy. It came as a shock—one autumn day, across the empty plain where the trade fair should have been, a mob of people fled toward our gates. Standing on our flat rooftop I could see the crowds streaming across the meadows, but could not make out even whether they were armed or not. The sentries on the walls and towers yelled out at them and they cried back that they were from Dardanos and Arisbe and Perkote and their villages were being raided by the Greeks; they begged for protection.

Priam and Hector dispatched officers to set up camps around the outer defenses of the city where they could stay and be attended to. There were mainly women, children, and old men. The young men had been killed, they said, the livestock raided, many women taken captive and force-marched to the Greek camp. Then their homes were set afire or demolished.

Hector stood looking out at the people. “There are hundreds,” he said quietly. “So the enemy has made massive raids. There is more to this than just wishing for supplies for their homeward journey.” He leaned forward on the ramparts, gazing out like a bird of prey. The wind, chill from the sea, ruffled his hair.

“They mean to stay the winter.” Standing beside him was the truculent Antimachus. He sounded incredulous. Had this taken the experienced war planner by surprise?

“This is most unlooked for,” said Hector. “We did not reckon on this. So they have attacked the nearby towns. I heard one of the women saying they had raided the islands of Tenedos and Imbros as well. That is grim. How far afield will they go?”

“There is a limit as to how far they can raid,” Antimachus assured him.

“What do our spies say?” Paris joined them on the wall. I had not known Paris’s whereabouts this morning; I had left him sleeping.

“They will be returning as soon as it is safe,” said Hector. “Then we shall know more. In the meantime, we must somehow feed these people. Inform the quartermasters. Set up a grain supply for them.”

Antimachus cleared his throat. “But we cannot deplete our own stores for them.”

“We must do something,” said Hector. “It is because of Troy that they have lost their homes.”

I was grateful to him for leaving me out of it. Hector never blamed me for the sorrows I had brought with me. He alone of the Trojans seemed to accept me as faultless and as much a plaything of the gods as they were.

But for the rest of his family, the death of Troilus had been a turning point, as it had been with Paris. Up until then they had tried to make me one of them; when their own true brother and son had perished, they realized that Helen could never truly be a part of their family. I would always be an outsider, a foreigner, a stranger, and the person who would fulfill the overhanging curse embodied in Paris. We had become the instruments of one another’s, and Troy’s, destruction.

The people—the ones who had cheered me as their “Greek treasure” not long ago—cast baleful looks at me as I passed them on the streets, shunning me as if I carried a curse. Perhaps I did. As I wandered through the city, through the squares and the small byways, past the tomb of Troilus, I looked at all the little ways people trimmed their lives with beauty: the little pots with herbs at the doorsteps, the painted shutters, the woven rush seats of their stools. Sometimes swaggering warriors would push past me, overturning the stools or breaking the pots. Already things were being destroyed in Troy, and the Greeks were still outside.

Just when the dread sacrifice I would have to make settled itself in my mind, I cannot say. I only know that one morning when the sun was barely painting the sides of the houses I looked at them and thought I would always be seeing them, and by the time twilight had come and torches were flickering against those same walls I knew I must banish myself. I must save Troy from myself. I must return to the Greeks—even though I vowed to die there by my own hand.

How nightmarish it is to plan to end one’s life, to leave all that is dear. I must leave Paris, so that he could live. And Priam, and Hector, and my only friend amongst the women, Andromache, and . . . Evadne and Gelanor. As I sat enumerating them, I was saddened to realize that I could count so few here in Troy who would be even the least sorrowed by my loss, even though I had lived for some time amongst them.

I resolved to do this, and then set a time of thirty days in which to wait, to be sure that this was what I must do. It was not something to be undertaken on a whim.

During those thirty days I saw Troy differently, through faraway eyes, bidding it farewell already. I heard the thunderings in the council chamber about the raids; I saw the milling and despair of the refugees who were living in makeshift camps near the walls; I could smell the burning villages surrounding us. In vain I cast about searching for some sign that I should stay, but there was none. Everywhere I turned, I could see only improvement if I suddenly disappeared and the war was halted.

And Paris? He was better, now, grieving less over Troilus, but how would he cope if someone else dear to him was killed? And there
would
be further deaths. Paris himself would, perhaps, even follow them. So to give him life, I must leave.

How odd it was to hug such a secret to myself, to pass amongst them like a ghost already gone, but no one yet could discern that I was a ghost. I savored the times I sat before the hearth talking to Hector and Andromache, cherished the attention old Priam lavished on me, because those times were soon to be no more.

As for Paris, I could now forgive him anything—his moodiness, his coldness, his unpredictability. Those things were set against the shining gold of his entire person. I had caused these shadows, now I would lift them, and he would revert back to the Paris he was before. Only I would not see it.

Iphigenia, so it was said, at the last moment stopped struggling and laid down her life so that the Greeks might sail for Troy. Could I do less, if by my actions I could protect my new countrymen from those very Greeks?

Paris suspected nothing. I was surprised—not pleasantly—to find how easily I could play a part. After the first days when the very thought of leaving Troy stung me in the heart, that heart hardened and I could bear it. I felt that my own pain counted so little in the scales against the pain awaiting others if I did not go, I must not even consider it.