Helen of Troy (80 page)

It lay there, gleaming. It was the very same sort of feather I had seen in Mother’s jar. Its brightness, after so many years, was not dimmed. Was it the swan she treasured, then, or the memory of the man who had seen it with her? Who, in truth, was my father?

* * *

Time passed in an uneven fashion. Just when it seemed something momentous was about to happen—a pivotal battle, an inciting decision—time froze and we felt motionless, suspended in a sea of inaction.

But that was an illusion. All the while time was rushing by, faster than it seemed. Was the natural world a reliable marker? Were the trees growing normally, or were they the playthings of the gods who guard the passage of the seasons, as we were? Could I look at them and say with confidence that yes, this is a year’s growth, therefore a year has passed? It seemed the Greeks had been at Troy for a long time; other days it was as if they had just come. We watched the seasons change but it seemed there were no true changes: the Greeks waited, and waited, and waited, and so did we.

On a cold, clear night, Gelanor came to the palace. A half-moon was shining forlornly on the patchy, lumpy ground stretching between us and the Greek camp. Nothing moved down there. The sea beyond it gleamed faintly. The waves always captured whatever light there was and twinkled it back.

“Hector and I have been training a spy he is particularly impressed with,” he said. “His name is Dolon—of course, that’s not his real name, who would know what that is? He’s to reconnoiter the Greek camp, pass into the walls.”

“I thought you already had people there,” Paris said.

“I do. But Hector does not, and it is important to him to train someone. I think . . . Dolon is perhaps not the man I would have chosen. But no matter,” he quickly said.

“No one is listening,” I assured him. “There are no spies here—unless you sent them, you spymaster. Why are you hesitant about Dolon?”

He twisted his mouth—something he always did when thinking. “Dolon has a vanity about him . . . the enemy can use that. If they appeal to it, his caution will flee. A good spy has no vanity. Why should he? His identity is false in the first place.”

“Some men may find it impossible to lay their identity down, walk away from it,” said Paris.

“Such men should not be spies,” said Gelanor. “Vanity has betrayed more spies than informants.”

As the cold wind whispered through the trees outside, we let the wine warm us, savoring our quiet time together. I see us now, as a painter might have seen us: Gelanor sitting calmly on a stool, Paris young and glowing, me, so happy with my loved ones beside me, their faces so close I could reach out and touch them with my fingertips.

* * *

Once again, both armies readied themselves for battle. The Trojans marched out through the Scaean Gate as usual, although the company seemed larger to me this time. Perhaps more of the common soldiers had joined in. We had word that the Thracians were nearby and would reach us in the next few days. Close behind them the Lycians were coming, the Carians, and the Mysians. The Amazons, coming the farthest distance, would be last.

This was the largest battle joined so far. It was as if the Greeks finally had realized they were here to fight—after so many seasons of sitting on the seashore or making tentative little forays into the field—and they were willing to do so. We could see the demarcation line where the armies met—at first it was in the middle of the plain, then as the day drew on it moved back, closer to the Greek camp. Then darkness fell.

No one returned to Troy. Our warriors were camping out in the field. From my rooftop I could see the pricks of light from the fires, spread out on the plain. They were close to the Greek lines. The Greeks must have drawn back behind their defensive palisade wall, cowering there. Onward, Trojans! How well had they done today?

Oh, they had done marvelously well, and my Paris magnificently! He had wounded and disabled Machaon, their physician, and Eurypylus, the highborn son of Euaemon, and best of all, Diomedes, the bragging, swaggering upstart who had wounded Aeneas in an earlier battle. The only possible disappointment was that he had done it with his bow, and Diomedes taunted him for it, but what matter? Diomedes said it clutching himself, teeth clenched for the pain. Better than that, Agamemnon was wounded, as were Menelaus and Odysseus—not seriously, but their best fighters were taken out of the action. Meanwhile Achilles and his Patroclus held themselves aloof from the fighting, so they might just as well be wounded—or dead.

Menelaus, wounded. How badly? Where? I did not understand myself, but I winced in picturing it, and even prayed that he was not in pain. Now he had paid a price for his pursuit of me, but knowing that was no balm to me. I did not feel that way about Agamemnon; no pain could ever compensate for that which he had wreaked upon his own daughter and his wife. I hoped he was howling in agony, clutching whatever part of him was wounded; I hoped that Menelaus had been given a sleeping draught and would awaken calm and mending. As for Odysseus—let his wound incapacitate that mind of his, unhinge it so he thought only of remedies for his pain and not plans against the Trojans.

But we received news that Dolon had been intercepted on his way into the Greek camp—intercepted by Odysseus and Diomedes before the battle where they sustained their wounds—and tricked into revealing the site of the Thracians, who were camped in the fields approaching Troy. Odysseus and his party not only murdered Dolon, they killed Rhesus, the Thracian leader, stole their fine-bred horses, and pranced their way back to their camp.

It became clear to me in that moment that Odysseus had been the most dangerous foe the Trojans had. Not because he was the greatest warrior—he was not—but because he could strike from under a rock, like a venomous snake. Agamemnon, Menelaus, Idomeneus, the sons of Nestor—those men rode out in their chariots, fought with sword and shield, fell or retreated. But Odysseus—he was like a covered pit lined with sharpened stakes, his true, deadly nature disguised.

Evadne came to me, stealing in silently while I stood on the balcony watching the fires on the plain. Before I realized it, she was standing beside me. I was happy to see her; her very presence was reassuring.

“You cannot see them, but there are hundreds of little flickering fires down below. The Trojan forces are camping close to the Greek lines.” That was before I knew of the attack on Dolon.

“That is good, my lady, but I do fear for the morrow. Something bad has already happened, I feel it.”

“Not to Paris!” I cried, as if saying it would make it not so. “Tell me.”

“Not Paris, no, I would feel that more strongly. But then, there are always bad things in war.” Now she sought to undo her frightening words. “My powers have been stirring again. There was a time, after the serpent—when I received few messages. Perhaps that is because there were no messages to receive. But you understand how it shakes one to have revelations suddenly stop.”

Yes, I did. I had received few leadings; my impressions of things yet to come were mere whispers, the pictures faded and wavering. The snake had taken that with him, or so I believed.

“The battle will turn now,” she said. “Things will happen very quickly, after so long when nothing happened. Are we ready, my lady? Ready for whatever is to come?”

“No,” I said. “I am not ready for anything, save for the Greeks to board their ships and return home.”

“I see that, but I see you on the ships with them. I see Andromache on a Greek ship, and Cassandra.”

“No. Your vision fails you. You have just said that you do not see Paris!”

“The visions are incomplete, they come as patches and pieces.”

“Until they are joined and whole, do not speak of them.” But too late—she had, she had.

I lay down on my bed, rigid. Evadne had departed; the palace was silent. The bed I shared with Paris seemed huge without him, as if I were on the deck of a ship. A ship . . . why think of ships now? Because of what Evadne had said? I would never board a ship with Greeks, that I vowed. If the day came that she foresaw, it would mean that Hector’s horror had come true, and what he had dreaded for Andromache had come to pass. It would mean Paris was dead.

I turned on the flat mattress. All the pillows of sweetest lambs’ fleece were of no comfort. I could barely draw my breath. I was frightened; no, beyond fright. As I lay there, a slight movement fluttered in the far corner of the room.

I sat bolt upright. Coming toward me was a hunched-over slave, who came and knelt before me. “My mistress Andromache sends me to you. She cannot sleep. She said, if you also cannot, please come to her.”

A strange summons. Yet I welcomed it. We were two women keeping watch for our men in the night. “I will come. Pray wait for me.”

It did not take long for me to slip into my gown. Silently I followed her into Hector’s palace, through the courtyard and up to the private chambers. The sleepy guards on duty turned half-open eyes upon us. Andromache was waiting, standing on her rooftop balcony and staring at the campfires.

“Soon they will sputter and die down,” she said, not even turning to acknowledge me. “Then the day will come. The day of battle.”

“Yes, my friend. And I am honored that you knew I also would be lying awake, and sent for me.” I took my place by her side. “Where are they, do you suppose? At this fire, at that one?”

“We can never know. Would Paris and Hector even share the same fire? There are so many companies.”

“Our men will fight to the best of their abilities, as the gods allow.” That was all we could be certain of.

“But what if the enemies storm the city, take us by surprise?” she said.

“It is impossible to take a city by surprise, not a city as big as Troy. The assault on the walls must needs make a great commotion. We will have enough warning. Will we have enough courage, that is the question. It can never be easy to die.” I took a breath. “But we will have the example of our husbands to call us. We will follow them, or we would not be worthy wives.”

She embraced me, trembling. “You do truly love him,” she said. “I tried to tell them all, Hector, the king, Hecuba, but they—”

So they—the Trojans—had not believed even that! Why else would I have come here, destroying everything else in my life? I was so disappointed in them all that I could barely form the words. “Yes, my lady. I love him above my own life.” I waited an instant. “As you love Hector.”

Waiting in my bedchamber when I returned was a little pouch with a barbed arrow wrapped within it. The messenger, a boy who had had no sleep that night, murmured, “Prince Paris sends it, and tells you that its brothers have struck true. You need have no shame.”

I thanked him and dismissed him. I sat in the growing light and caressed the unused arrow. I need never be ashamed of Paris.

LVII

I
saw the dawn come up and knew that the armies would be stirring, if indeed they had slept at all. Suddenly trumpets sounded, and criers, their quavering voices riding on the chill air, shouted that Priam would address the city down by the wide space by the walls.

The old king—looking even older now—flanked by Hecuba and his very last son, Polydorus, who barely came up to Priam’s stooping shoulders, held up his hands for silence. He spoke of the successful push toward the Greek camp and named the allies who had joined us: the Dardanians, under the command of Aeneas; the Paeonians and the Carians, with their crooked bows; the Paphlagonians and the Lycians, under the joint command of the noble Sarpedon and his cousin Glaucus. The Thracians, and their famous white horses, were already in the field with their king, Rhesus. In addition, the Amazons and, also, a company of Ethiopians were rumored to be on their way. At this point the allies outnumbered the Trojans. Thus, in order to feed and equip them, it would be necessary to sell Trojan treasures to the Phrygians and the Maeonians. His shoulders drooped even lower as he announced this.

As he was speaking, a guard came forward and whispered something to him. He stopped and blinked, then turned back to us. “It seems,” he said, “that our friend and ally, King Rhesus, has been slain while he slept in the field, his men killed, and his horses stolen.” He dragged each word out like a lame leg. “There will be other deaths.” He drew himself up, raised his chin. “That is what war is. Death and surprises. When you go to gather the bodies of fallen comrades, I forbid any of you to cry. It is too disheartening. Cry, if cry you must, within the privacy of your own chamber.”