16
NARRATED BY
Under the shadow of Troy Agamemnon raised a city stone by stone; every day when I stood on my balcony I looked out over the walls and down to the Greeks sitting by the Hellespont shore. They toiled like ants in the distance, rolling boulders and piling the trunks of mighty trees into a wall which stretched from sparkling Simois to cloudy Skamander. Houses proliferated behind the beach itself, tall barracks to accommodate soldiers over the winter, grain bins to store emmer wheat and barley away from rats and weather.
Since the Greek fleet arrived my life had grown a great deal harder, though it never was what I had imagined before I reached Troy. Why is it that we do not see the future clearly on the loom of time, even when it is depicted there, manifest? I should have known. I ought to have known. But Paris was my all; I could get no further than Paris, Paris, Paris.
In Amyklai I had been the Queen. It was my blood legitimised Menelaos on the throne. The people of Lakedaimon looked to me, Tyndareus’s daughter, for their wellbeing and their contacts with the Gods. I was important. When I rode in my royal car through the streets of Amyklai its populace abased themselves before me. I was worshipped. I was adored. I was Queen Helen, the only one of Leda’s divine quadruplets left at home. And, looking back, I realised how full was my life there – the hunts, the sports, the festivals, the Court, the diversions of all kinds. I used to tell myself that time hung heavily on my hands in Amyklai, but now I knew that in those days I had no concept of what boredom actually entails.
I learned all about boredom after I arrived in Troy. Here I am no queen. Here I am unimportant in the scheme of everything. I am the wife of a minor imperial son. I am a detested foreigner. I am constrained by rules and regulations I have neither the power nor the authority to set aside. And there is nothing to do, nowhere to go! I can’t snap my fingers and order a car, go into the countryside or watch the men playing games or drilling at being soldiers. I can’t escape from the Citadel. When I tried to venture down into the city everyone from Hekabe to Antenor protested that I was fast, immoral, capricious enough to want to go slumming. Didn’t I understand that the moment the men around some low tavern saw my exposed breasts I would be raped? But when I volunteered to cover them, Priam still said no.
My own apartments (Priam had been generous in that respect – Paris and I occupied a large and beautiful set of rooms) and the chambers in which the noblewomen of the Citadel gathered were suddenly the limits of my world. While Paris, my wonderful Paris, I have discovered, is a typical man. He wants – and gets! – his own way. Which doesn’t include keeping his wife company. I am there for love, and love is a short business once the lovers have no new things to learn about each other.
After the Greeks came my life, boring though I had already deemed it, worsened. People looked at me as if I was the precursor of disaster and blamed me for Agamemnon’s advent. Fools! At first I tried to convince the Trojan nobility that Agamemnon went to war for no woman, even his sister-in-law twice over: that Agamemnon had talked of war with Troy as far back as the night the priests quartered the white horse and I was given to Menelaos. No one would listen to me. No one wanted to listen to me. I was the reason the Greeks were there on the beach along the Hellespont shore. I was the reason the Greek city grew behind the mighty wall they erected from sparkling Simois to cloudy Skamander. Everything was my fault!
Priam was very worried, poor old man. He perched himself on the edge of his gold and ivory chair instead of sinking back into it the way he used to. He plucked strands from his beard, he sent man after man to the western watchtower to report back to him on Greek progress. Since the day I had walked into his Throne Room he had run the full gamut of emotions, from glee at having tweaked Agamemnon’s nose to sheer bewilderment. While the Greeks gave no indication that they planned to stay he chuckled; while the promise of aid came from his allies he looked happy. But when the Greek defence wall began to rise his face fell and his shoulders sagged.
I was quite fond of him, though he lacked the strength and dedication of a Greek king. A man had to be very strong to hold onto what was his in Greece – or have a brother strong enough for both. Whereas Priam’s ancestors had ruled Troy for aeons. His people loved him as Greek peoples could not love their Kings, yet he held his duties more lightly, being secure in the tenure of his throne. The word of the Gods was not so precious to him.
Old Antenor the royal brother-in-law never ceased to carp at me; I hated him more than Priam did, and that was saying something. Whenever Antenor turned his rheumy eyes upon me I could see them burn with enmity. Then his mouth would open and he would start, on and on and on. Why did I refuse to cover my breasts? Why did I beat my servant girl? Why did I have no womanly skills like weaving and embroidery? Why was I permitted to stay and hear the men’s councils? Why was I so open with my opinions when women had none? There was always something to criticise, Antenor made sure of it.
When the wall behind the Hellespont beach was finished, Priam’s patience with him came to an end.
‘Be silent, you old simpleton!’ he hissed. ‘Agamemnon did not come here to get Helen back. Why would he and his subject Kings spend so much money just to retrieve a woman who left Greece of her own free will? It’s Troy and Asia Minor Agamemnon wants, not Helen. He wants Greek colonies in our lands – he wants to stuff his coffers full from our vaults – he wants to pour his ships through the Hellespont into the Euxine. My son’s wife is an excuse, nothing more. To return her would play into Agamemnon’s hands, so I’ll hear no more from you about Helen! Is that quite clear, Antenor?’
Antenor dropped his eyes and made a flourish out of his bow.
The Asia Minor states began to send their ambassadors to Troy; the next assembly I attended was swollen with their ranks. I couldn’t keep all the names straight in my head, names like Paphlagonia, Kilikia, Phrygia. Some of their representatives meant more to Priam than others, though none was treated lightly. But of all of them Priam greeted the delegate from Lykia most fervently. He was the co-ruler of Lykia with his first cousin, and his name was Glaukos. His first cousin’s name was Sarpedon. Paris, who had been commanded to attend, informed me in a whisper that Glaukos and Sarpedon were twinnishly inseparable, and lovers into the bargain. A foolish thing in Kings. They had neither wives nor Heirs.
‘Rest assured, King Glaukos, that when we’ve driven the Greeks from our shores, Lykia will get a large share of the spoils,’ said Priam, tears in his eyes.
Glaukos, a relatively young man (and very handsome), smiled. ‘Lykia isn’t here for a share of the spoils, Uncle Priam. King Sarpedon and I want only one thing – to crush the Greeks and send them squealing back to their own side of the Aegaean. Our trade is vital to us because we occupy the southern corner of this coast. Trade goes through us to our northern neighbours, as well as south to Rhodos, Cypros, Syria and Egypt. Lykia is the linchpin. We believe we must band together out of necessity, not out of greed. Rest assured, you’ll have our troops and other aid in the spring. Twenty thousand men, all fully equipped and provisioned.’
The tears were falling; Priam wept an old man’s easy grief. ‘My heartfelt thanks to you and Sarpedon, dearest nephew.’
The others came forward, some as generous as Lykia, others haggling for money or privileges. Priam promised each what he wanted, and so the toll of men and aid grew. At the end of it I wondered how Agamemnon would ever manage to hold his ground. Two hundred thousand men would Priam marshal on the plain when the crocuses burst through the melting snow in the spring of next year. Unless my erstwhile brother-in-law had either reinforcements or tricks up his purple sleeve, he would be defeated. Why then did I continue to worry? Because I knew my people. Give a Greek enough rope and he’ll hang everyone else in sight. Never himself. I knew Agamemnon’s advisers of old, and I had lived in Troy long enough to understand that King Priam possessed no advisers to equal Nestor, Palamedes and Odysseus.
Oh, those meetings were boring! I attended them only because the rest of my life was even more boring. No one was permitted to sit except the King, and certainly not a woman. My feet hurt. So while a Paphlagonian clad in what looked like soft embroidered skins prated on in a dialect I couldn’t comprehend, my eyes wandered idly over the throng until they lit upon a man at the back who had apparently only just come in. Oh, nice! Very nice!
He pushed his way through the crowd easily, taller than any other man present save Hektor, who stood, as usual, beside the throne. The newcomer had all the haughtiness of a king – and one who held himself in high regard into the bargain. I was reminded irresistibly of Diomedes; he had the same graceful walk and hard, warrior air about him. Dark-haired and black-eyed, he was dressed richly; the cloak tossed carelessly back over his shoulders was lined with the most beautiful fur I had ever seen, long and fluffy and tawny-spotted. At the foot of the throne dais he bowed very slightly and stiffly, as a king does to one he has difficulty in admitting is his senior in rank.
‘Aineas!’ Priam said, a curious undertone in his voice. ‘I have looked for you these many days.’
‘You perceive me, sire,’ said the man called Aineas.
‘Have you seen the Greeks for yourself?’
‘Not yet, sire. I came in through the Dardanian Gate.’
His emphasis on the name of the gate was meaningful; I now remembered where I had heard his name. Aineas was Dardania’s Heir. His father, King Anchises, ruled the southern part of this land from a town called Lyrnessos. Priam always sneered when he spoke of Dardania, Anchises or Aineas; I gathered that in Troy all three were considered upstarts, though Paris had told me that King Anchises was Priam’s first cousin, that Dardanos had founded both the royal house in Troy and the royal house in Lyrnessos.
‘I suggest, then, that you go outside onto the balcony and look towards the Hellespont,’ said Priam, oozing sarcasm.
‘As you wish.’
Aineas disappeared for a very few moments, came back shrugging. ‘They look as if they mean to stay, don’t they?’
‘A perspicacious conclusion.’
Aineas ignored this sally. ‘Why did you summon me?’ he asked.
‘Surely it’s obvious? Once Agamemnon has his teeth firmly fixed in Troy, Dardania and Lyrnessos will be next. I want your troops to help crush the Greeks in the spring.’
‘Greece has no quarrel with Dardania.’
‘Greece doesn’t need excuses these days. Greece is after lands, bronze and gold.’
‘Well, sire, looking at the formidable array of allies here today, I can’t see that you’ll have need of the men of Dardania to help crush the Greeks. When your need is genuine, I’ll bring an army. But not in the spring.’
‘My need is genuine next spring!’
‘I doubt that.’
Priam struck the floor with his ivory sceptre; the emerald in its head gave out blue sparks. ‘I want your men!’
‘I can’t pledge anything without my father the King’s explicit permission, sire, and I have not got it.’
Beyond speech, Priam turned his head away.
As soon as we were alone, consumed with curiosity, I quizzed Paris about that strange argument.
‘What lies between your father and Prince Aineas?’
Paris tugged my hair lazily. ‘Rivalry.’
‘Rivalry? But one rules Dardania, the other Troy!’
‘Yes, but there’s an oracle which says that Aineas will rule Troy one day. My father fears the word of the God. Aineas knows the oracle too, so he always expects to be treated like the Heir. But when you consider that my father has fifty sons, Aineas’s attitude is quite ridiculous. My theory is that the oracle refers to another Aineas some time in the future.’
‘He seems a man,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Very attractive.’
Liquid eyes gleamed at me. ‘Never forget whose wife you are, Helen. Stay away from Aineas.’
The feeling between me and Paris was waning. How could that have happened, when I had fallen in love with him at first glance? Yet it had, I suppose because I soon discovered that despite his passion for me, Paris couldn’t resist the urge to philander. Nor, in the summer, his urge to frolic in the vicinity of Mount Ida. In that one summer between my arrival in Troy and the advent of the Greeks, Paris disappeared for six full moons. When he finally returned, he didn’t even apologise! Nor could he be brought to see how I suffered in his absence.
Some of the Court women did everything they could think of to make my existence prickly and unbearable. Queen Hekabe loathed me; she considered me her beloved Paris’s ruination. Hektor’s wife, Andromache, loathed me because I had usurped her title of Most Beautiful – and because she was terrified Hektor might succumb to my charms. As if I could have bothered! Hektor was a prig and a nuisance, so up and down and rigid that I soon deemed him the most boring man in a court of boring men.
It was the young priestess Kassandra who terrified me. She would sweep around the halls and corridors with her black hair streaming wildly, her eyes stark with madness, her white face ravaged. Every time she saw me she would launch into a shrill diatribe of abusive nonsense, words and ideas so tangled that no one could see their logic. I was a daimon. I was a horse. I was the agent of misrule. I was in league with Dardania. I was in league with Agamemnon. I was the downfall of Troy. And so on, and so forth. She upset me, which Hekabe and Andromache soon discovered. That led them to encourage Kassandra to lie in wait for me; they hoped, of course, that I would confine myself to my room. But Helen is made of stronger stuff than that. Instead of retreating, I got into the annoying habit of joining Hekabe, Andromache and the other high noblewomen in their recreation chamber, there to irritate them by stroking my breasts (they really are gorgeous) under their scandalised eyes (not one of them could have bared her own collection of loose beans in the bottom of a bag). When that palled I would slap the servants, spill milk on their boring tapestries and lengths of cloth, engage in monologues about rape, fire and plunder. One memorable morning I enraged Andromache so much that she flew at me with teeth and nails, only to discover that Helen had wrestled as a girl, and was more than a match for a carefully nurtured lady. I tripped her up and walloped her on the eye, which swelled, closed and blackened for almost a moon. Then I went round coyly whispering that Hektor had done it.
Paris was always being nagged to discipline me; his mother in particular badgered him constantly. But whenever he sought to remonstrate with me or beg me to be nicer, I laughed at him and gave him a litany of the offences the other women committed against me. All of which meant that I saw less and less of Paris.
In early winter the first disquiet gripped the Trojan Court. It was rumoured that the Greeks were gone from the beach, that they were raiding up and down the Asia Minor coast to strike at cities and towns far apart. Yet when heavily armed detachments were sent to investigate the beach, they found the Greeks very much present, ready to issue out and skirmish. Even so, word of the raiding became positive as winter drew on; one by one Priam’s allies sent word that they could no longer honour their promises of armies in the spring. Their own lands were threatened. Tarses in Kilikia went up in flames, its people dead or sold into slavery; the fields and pastures for fifty leagues around were burned, the grain taken and loaded on board Greek ships, the stock slaughtered and smoked for Greek bellies in Kilikian smokehouses, the shrines stripped of their treasures, King Eetion’s palace looted. Mysia suffered next. Lesbos sent aid to Mysia, and in its turn was attacked. Thermi was razed to the ground; the Lesbians licked their wounds and wondered whether it might be more politic to remember the Greek half of their ancestry, and declare for Agamemnon. Then when Priene and Miletos in Karia succumbed, the panic increased. Even Sarpedon and Glaukos, the double Kings, were forced to stay at home in Lykia.
We received news of each fresh strike in a most novel way. The message was brought by a Greek herald who stood outside the Skaian Gate and shouted his news for Priam to the captain of the western watchtower. He would detail the city sacked, the number of dead citizens, the number of women and children sold into slavery, the value of the spoils, the dippers of grain. And he always ended his message with the same words:
‘Tell Priam, King of Troy, that Achilles the son of Peleus sends me!’
Trojans grew to dread the mention of that name, Achilles. In the spring Priam had to endure the presence of the Greek camp in silence, for no allied forces arrived to swell his ranks, nor money to buy mercenaries from the Hittites, Assyria or Babylonia. Trojan money had to be carefully conserved; it was the Greeks who now collected the Hellespont tolls.
A certain greyness entered both Trojan hearts and Trojan rooms. And, as I was the only Greek in the Citadel, everyone from Priam to Hekabe asked me who was this Achilles. I told them as much as I could remember, but when I explained that he was hardly more than a lad – though of splendid stock – they doubted me.
As time went on fear of Achilles grew greater; the mere mention of his name turned Priam pale. Only Hektor displayed no evidence of fright. He burned to meet Achilles. His eyes would light up, his hand seek his dagger each time the Greek herald came to the Skaian Gate. Indeed, to meet Achilles became such an obsession with him that he took to offering at every altar, praying for the chance to slay Achilles. When he sought me out to quiz me, he refused to believe my answers.
As autumn of the second year arrived, Hektor lost patience and begged his father to let him lead the whole Trojan army out.
Priam stared as if his Heir had gone mad. ‘No, Hektor.’
‘Sire, our investigations have revealed that the Greeks left on the beach number less than half of the total Greek strength! We could beat them! And when we do, Achilles’s army will have to return to Troy! Then we’ll beat him!’
‘Or be beaten ourselves.’
‘Sire, we outnumber them!’ Hektor cried.
‘I don’t believe that.’
Hands clenched, Hektor kept finding new reasons to convince the terrified old man that he was right. ‘Then, sire, give me leave to go to Aineas in Lyrnessos – with the Dardanians added to our reserves, we would outnumber Agamemnon!’
‘Aineas doesn’t wish to involve himself in our dilemmas.’
‘Aineas would listen to me, Father.’
Priam drew himself up, outraged. ‘Authorise my son, the Heir himself, to beg from the Dardanians? Are you out of your mind, Hektor? I’d rather be dead than bow and scrape to Aineas!’
At which moment I chanced to see Aineas. He had only just entered the Throne Room, but he had heard enough of the exchange at the dais. His mouth was drawn down; his eyes went from Hektor to Priam, the thoughts behind them veiled. Before anyone important noticed him – I was not important – he turned and left.
‘Sire,’ said Hektor desperately, ‘you can’t expect us to remain within our walls for ever! The Greeks are intent upon reducing our allies to ashes! Our wealth is dwindling because our income is gone and provisioning ourselves is costing more and more. If you won’t let me lead the whole army out, then at least let me lead out raiding parties to catch the Greeks unaware, harry their hunting parties and make them stop these insolent expeditions to our walls to insult us!’
Priam wavered. He dropped his chin into his hand and thought for a long time. After which he sighed and said, ‘Very well. Get you to drilling the men. If you can convince me that this isn’t a foolhardy scheme, you may do as you ask.’
Hektor’s face shone. ‘We won’t disappoint you, sire.’
‘I hope not,’ said Priam wearily.
Someone in the Throne Room began to laugh. I looked around, surprised; I had thought Paris away again. But there he stood, laughing helplessly. Hektor’s expression darkened; he stepped down from the dais and pushed his way through the crowd.
‘What’s so amusing, Paris?’
My husband sobered a little, threw an arm around Hektor’s shoulders. ‘You, Hektor, you! Fussing about mere skirmishing when you have such a lovely wife at home. How can you prefer war to women?’
‘Because,’ said Hektor deliberately, ‘I’m a man, Paris, not a pretty boy.’
I stood turned to stone. My husband was not only a fool, he was also a coward. Oh, the humiliation! Feeling all the contemptuous looks around me, I walked out.
Two beautiful fools, Paris and I. I had given up my throne, my freedom and my children – why did I miss them so little? – to live in prison with a beautiful fool who was also a coward. Why did I miss them so little? The answer was easy. They belonged to Menelaos, and somewhere in my mind I now had to lump Menelaos, my children and Paris into the same unpalatable parcel. Was there ever a fate worse for a woman than to know that not one person in her life is worthy of her?
Needing fresh air, I went to the courtyard below my own apartments, and there paced up and down until my pain abated. Then, turning quickly, I ran full tilt into a man coming the other way. We put out our hands instinctively; he held me at arm’s length for a moment looking curiously into my face, the last traces of his own anger dying out of his dark eyes.
‘You must be Helen,’ he said.
‘And you’re Aineas.’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t come to Troy often,’ I said, very much enjoying looking at him.
‘Can you think of one reason why I should?’
No point in dissimulating. I smiled. ‘No.’
‘I like the smile, but you’re angry,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘That’s my own business.’
‘Quarrelled with Paris, have you?’
‘Not at all,’ I answered, shaking my head. ‘To quarrel with Paris is as difficult as taking hold of quicksilver.’
‘True.’
Whereupon he caressed my left breast. ‘An interesting fashion, to bare them. But they inflame a man, Helen.’
My lashes fell, my mouth turned up at its corners. ‘That’s nice to know,’ I said, low voiced. Expecting a kiss, I leaned towards him with my eyes still shut. But when, feeling nothing, I opened them, I found he had gone.
Boredom a thing of the past, I went to the next assembly intent upon seducing Aineas. Who was not present. When I asked Hektor very casually what had become of his cousin from Dardania, he said that Aineas had packed his horses in the night and gone home.