The Gates Of Troy (7 page)

There was a long, tense moment as the men stared at each other, punctuated by the laughing of the children below and the smooth voice of their mother. Apheidas had directly challenged Paris’s authority, an act that no commander could tolerate if he expected to maintain his position. But Apheidas was always standing up to those above him, and most had learned to tolerate this fault with magnanimity because it was outweighed by his excellence in battle. And perhaps Paris was in the wrong. He had assumed too much of Hector’s attitude – that they would never bring Hesione back and the best they could do was to spy on the Greeks and come back with a reason to make war on them in the future; however, it was Priam’s wish that his sister be returned to Troy and the city’s pride be restored along with her. And Priam was still the king.

‘All right, tell me what you’re thinking.’

Apheidas smiled. ‘Simple. The Greeks took one of ours; I say we take one of theirs in return.’

He indicated the garden with his thumb.

‘Only a fool would suggest something as ridiculous as that,’ Paris snapped, shaking his head.

‘Think about it, Paris,’ Apheidas countered. ‘Having her will give us the upper hand when it comes to bargaining for Hesione’s return. And if the Greeks aren’t interested then Troy will at least have its pride back – and you can have Helen for your own.’

He leaned back against the wall and gave the prince a knowing glance. Paris looked away, doubt furrowing his brow. Having just convinced himself that he must leave Sparta at once for the sake of his mission and his honour, his second-in-command was offering him a way to resolve all his dilemmas with one fell deed. Was it madness to consider such a possibility? he asked himself. But as he considered Apheidas’s words, he realized that it was not. To kidnap Helen would be to
fulfil
his mission, not
abandon
it. Troy’s pride would be reinstated and Priam would be able to offer Helen in exchange for Hesione. The Greeks would never agree, of course, and Hector would get his war. More importantly, Paris would have Helen for himself without betraying his mission, his father or his homeland. It was as if the gods had spoken to him, and yet his excitement was checked by uncertainty. He looked back down at the garden, his eyes dark as he stared at the oblivious Helen.

‘I won’t deny the gods have blinded me with Helen’s beauty, Apheidas – a fact you seem fully aware of – or that I have already thought of taking her back to Troy with us. But Menelaus is our host and I like him, even if he is a Greek. What’s more, to take Helen would be a dishonourable act, an offence to the gods.’

‘Sometimes we must swallow our pride if we are to have our heart’s desire,’ Apheidas said earnestly. ‘And as for offending the gods, don’t you realize that our very presence here is their doing? It’s by their will that we –
you
– are fated to take Helen back to Troy. In your pride, don’t forget your mortality and the fact you are a pawn of the immortals.’

‘You know it will mean war.’

‘War’s been brewing for years,’ Apheidas said dismissively. ‘The Greeks are growing all the time, and we Trojans are looking westward for a bit of elbow-room ourselves. It won’t be long before one side goes too far, and then it’ll be a war to the death – our culture against theirs. And the sooner we get the chance to wipe them out the better!’

Paris nodded, resigning himself to Apheidas’s argument and, with it, the unknown future he had feared and rejected not long before. ‘And how do you suggest we smuggle the queen of Sparta out of her own palace?’

‘Menelaus departs for Crete in five days. It’s a journey he can’t postpone, but after that look Helen gave you the other night – oh yes, I saw it – he’ll want to send us on our way before he leaves. We have to convince him to let us stay.’

‘How?’

‘Demand to speak with him today. Tell him the reason your father sent you here and ask him to send messages to Agamemnon and Telamon, requesting an audience on neutral ground in Mycenae. That’ll give us a reason to wait in Sparta until we receive their response, by which time Menelaus will have sailed for Crete. He won’t trust us, of course, but if you can make him swear an oath of friendship the customs of
xenia
will oblige him to let you stay here. And once he’s gone, we’ll steal his wife and head home.’

‘And what if Helen doesn’t want to leave – have you thought of that?’

Apheidas gave another of his self-assured smiles and looked down at the garden. ‘She will. Her eyes may have been on you the other night, but I could see what was burning inside them. It’s obvious she doesn’t love Menelaus. She’s like a trapped animal, desperate to escape.’

‘There’s no escape with a face like hers,’ Paris replied. ‘Men will follow her to the ends of the world. But even if you’re right in everything you say, you’re forgetting her children. We’ll be hard pushed to take them with us, so your whole plan relies on her giving them up.’

‘That will depend on how much she wants her freedom,’ Apheidas said. ‘But if she won’t leave them behind, then we’ll just take her without them.’

‘No,’ Paris said, firmly. ‘I will gladly endanger my life trying to get her out of Sparta; I will even surrender my honour for her sake; but I will not force her to leave against her wishes, with or without her children. To do that would be to make Troy her new prison, and myself a new Menelaus!’

Then you must find a way to speak with her, my lord,’ Apheidas insisted. ‘If you want her consent, then you must get it as soon as you can. In the meantime, I’ll find Eteoneus and demand an audience.’

Apheidas rushed off and Paris returned to the window, only to find the garden below quiet and empty. His spirits plunged, but only for a moment as the thought of taking Helen with him to Troy quickly revived his mood. Apheidas’s foolhardy plan would require suicidal courage and recklessness, but the risk had to be taken. It was the will of the gods, and what was more, Paris had finally accepted he would never find peace again without Helen at his side.

Helen sat by the pond and watched her children playing, aware that the Trojan prince was looking down at her from one of the upper windows. Her youngest son, Pleisthenes, ran to her and she wrapped her arms about him, enjoying the warmth of his small body against hers. She kissed his hair and sent him off to play again with his brothers and sister, telling him not to overexert himself because of his weak chest.

As he joined their game with enthusiastic energy, heedless of his mother’s warning, she thought back to the feast three nights ago when she had first seen Paris. As soon as news reached Sparta that a delegation from Troy was approaching, she had left her quarters and joined her husband in the great hall, keen to see for herself these visitors from distant shores. Not that she had any interest in political embassies and the machinations of power, despite being a queen and the daughter of a king; rather she wanted to see their foreign garb and hear their rough, barbarian tongue being spoken; to look on their faces and imagine for herself their distant country and how different it would be to Sparta.

But Menelaus had demanded she return to her room, angrily insisting that it was the king’s place to entertain such visitors and he did not want them distracted by her beauty, as so many before had been. He was only the king by marriage to her, she reminded him with equal venom, and she was still Sparta’s queen; after all, he could not keep her out of the sight of every man who visited Troy! Menelaus had opened his mouth to answer her back, but at that moment the Trojan delegation arrived, ushered into the great hall by Eteoneus. Menelaus quickly composed himself, but as Helen’s curiosity drew her into the circle of light thrown out by the circular hearth, she could not hide the frustrated rage still burning within her. Then her eyes met those of the Trojan prince and she felt something slipping within her, as if the props that held up her unhappy world were all collapsing at once. Was it because of her snap argument with Menelaus? Or was it because she had felt stifled by his jealous love for ten years and suddenly yearned for release? Was it because she had
always
wanted to escape Sparta, her prison since childhood, but marriage and motherhood had made her forget that? Or was it simply because there was something in the eyes of the scarred warrior on the other side of the flames that had reached into her heart and promised to set her free?

She did not know. All she did know was that she wanted this strange foreign prince like she had never wanted any man before, and that he wanted her too. Not only had she read it in his eyes, but since that evening the maids who took the Trojans their food and fresh clothing every day had told her how he would question them about her. Though his interest seemed innocent at first – polite enquiries about the wife of the king – they quickly sensed the urgency of a man in love, too clumsy to hide his feelings. And now, though Menelaus had done everything in his power to keep her out of the Trojan’s sight, he had found his way into the women’s quarters and was watching her in her private garden. She felt the nervousness rising in her stomach at his sudden closeness, but knew at once what she had to do.

Hurriedly retracing his way to a flight of stairs he had passed a little earlier, Paris bounded down the stone steps three at a time and turned immediately right in the direction of the great hall.

‘What’s your hurry, Trojan?’ said a voice from the shadows of a side passage, startling him.

Paris turned and saw Helen.

She stepped into the diffused half-light of the main corridor and leaned back against the wall, pressing the flats of her hands against the smooth plaster and arching her back so that her robe fell open across her breasts. The thin material of the chiton beneath revealed every detail of her flawless body, which she wantonly displayed to Paris’s gaze. Then her wilful eyes met his and did not turn away.

‘I saw you watching me in the garden,’ she continued, tipping her head to one side and raising her eyebrows slightly. ‘What is it you want from me, Paris, son of Priam?’

He was tempted to say ‘everything’, but his warrior instinct warned him to take care. To rush in, to reveal his feelings and plans to her, would be to lose her respect. She was playing a game with him – probing his strengths, just as so many enemy captains had done on Troy’s northern borders. But he had defeated them all and made many his captives, and he would do the same with Helen, even though every muscle and nerve in his body was crying out to take her in his arms and reveal his feelings for her with a kiss.

‘I need to talk with you, my lady,’ he replied.

‘Then talk. There’s no one else here but you and me.’ She stood and drew the folds of her robe loosely across her chiton, before stepping forward so that her body was almost touching his. ‘What is it you want to say, my prince?’

Paris sensed she was challenging him to touch her or step away, knowing that he wanted her but that at any moment someone could turn a corner and see them. But beneath her display of boldness – beneath her confidence in her own sexuality – he detected a flutter of uncertainty caused by his own nearness, as if she was afraid she might fail the challenge herself.

‘Not now,’ he said, holding her gaze. ‘Not here. I must speak with you in private, where there is no risk of being overheard.’

‘You are asking much, Paris. Menelaus is a kind and loving husband, but his jealousy is ferocious. That is why you have not seen me since the first night you arrived here. The fact you have met me this morning is only by the slightest chance.’

‘Or the work of the gods,’ Paris added.

Helen smiled. ‘Perhaps. But one can’t always count on their intervention, so I sent my maid to your room last night.’

Paris’s heart jumped.

‘But I wasn’t there; I couldn’t sleep.’

‘So she told me. She had a message for you.’

‘What message?’

Helen reached up and ran her finger down the length of the scar that dissected his face.

‘It seems we both want the same thing, Paris. It asked for you to meet me in the temple of Aphrodite at sunset tomorrow.’

Paris was suddenly overpowered by the need to kiss her, but as his hands closed about her waist she seemed to melt from his fingers and return to the shadows.