Chapter 10
She was breathtaking, there is no denying it. She wore a flounced skirt of shimmering rainbow colors with golden tassels that tinkled as she walked toward me. Her corselet was now as blue as the Aegean sky, her white blouse so gauzy that I could see the dark circles of the areolae around her nipples. She wore a triple gold necklace and more gold at both wrists and earlobes. Jeweled rings glittered on her fingers.
She was tiny, almost delicate, despite her hour-glass figure. Her skin was like cream, unblemished and much lighter than the women I had seen in the Achaian camp. Her eyes were as deeply blue as the Aegean, her lips lush and full, her hair the color of golden honey, with ringlets falling well past her lovely shoulders. One stubborn curl hung down over her forehead. She wore a scent of flowers: light, clean, yet beguiling.
Helen smiled at me and gestured toward a chair. She took a cushioned couch, her back to the open windows. I sat and waited for her to speak. In truth, just looking at her against the background of the blue sky and bluer sea was a feast that seemed too good for mere words.
"You say you are a stranger to this land." Her voice was low, melodious. I could understand how Aleksandros, or any other man, would dare anything to have her. And keep her.
I nodded and found that I had to swallow once before I could speak. "My lady, I arrived on a boat only a few days ago. Before then, all I knew of Troy was . . . stories told by wayfarers."
"You are a sailor, then?"
"Not really," I said. "I am a . . . traveler, a wanderer."
She looked at me with a hint of suspicion in those clear blue eyes. "Not a warrior?"
"I have been a warrior, from time to time, but that is not my profession."
"Yet it may be your destiny."
I had no answer for that.
Helen said, "You serve the goddess Athene." It was not a question. She had excellent intelligence sources, apparently.
Nodding, I replied, "That is true."
She bit her lower lip. "Athene despises me. She is the enemy of Troy."
"Yet her statue is honored . . ."
"You cannot fail to honor so powerful a goddess, Orion. No matter how Athene hates me, the people of this city must continue to placate her as best they can. Certain disaster will overtake them if they do not."
"Apollo protects the city," I said.
She nodded. "Yet I fear Athene." Helen looked beyond me, looking into the past, perhaps. Or trying to see the future.
"My lady, is there some service you wish me to do for you?"
Her gaze focused on me once again. A faint smile dimpled her cheeks. "You wonder why I summoned you?"
"Yes."
The smile turned impish. "Don't you think that I might want a closer look at such a handsome stranger? A man so tall, with such broad shoulders? Who stood alone against Hector and his chariot team and turned them away?"
I bowed my head slightly. "May I ask you a question, my lady?"
"You may—although I don't promise to answer."
"All the world wonders: Did Aleksandros actually abduct you, or did you leave Sparta with him willingly?"
Her smile remained. It even grew wider, until she threw her head back and laughed a hearty, genuinely amused laugh. |
"Orion," she said at last, "you certainly don't understand the ways of women."
I may have blushed. "That's true enough," I admitted.
"Let me tell you this much," Helen said. "No matter how or why I accompanied Aleksandros to this great city, I will not willingly return to Sparta." Before I could reply she quickly added, "Not that I harbor ill feelings for Menalaos, my first husband. He was kind to me."
"But Aleksandros is kinder?"
She spread her arms. "Look about you, Orion! You have eyes, use them. What woman would willingly live as the wife of an Achaian lord when she could be a princess of Troy?"
"But Menalaos is a king . . ."
"And an Achaian queen is still regarded less than her husband's dogs and horses. A woman in Sparta is a slave, be she wife or concubine, there is no real difference. Do you think there would be women present in the great hall at Sparta when an emissary arrives with a message for the king? Or at Agamemnon's Mycenae or Nestor's Pylos or even in Odysseus's Ithaca? No, Orion. Here in Troy women are regarded as human beings. Here there is civilization."
"Then your preference for Aleksandros is really a preference for Troy," I said.
She put a finger to her lips, as if thinking over the words she wished to use. Then, "When I was wed to Menalaos I had no say in the choice. The young lords of Achaia all wanted me—and my dowry. My father made the decision. If, the gods forbid, the Achaians should win this war and force me to return to Sparta with Menalaos, I will again be chattel."
"Would you agree to return to Menalaos if it meant that Troy would be saved from destruction?"
"Don't ask such a question! Do you think Agamemnon fights for his brother's honor? The Achaians are intent on destroying this city. I am merely their excuse for attacking."
"So I have heard from others, in the Achaian camp."
"Priam is near death," Helen said. "Hector will die in battle; that is foretold. But Troy itself need not fall, even if Hector does."
And, I thought, if Hector dies Aleksandros will become king. Making Helen the queen of Troy.
She fixed me with her eyes and said, "Orion, you may say this to Menalaos: If he wants me to return to him, he will have to win me by feats of battle. I will not go willingly to a man as the consolation prize for losing this war."
I took in a deep breath. She was far wiser than I had assumed. She unquestionably wants Troy to win this war, wants to remain in this city so that one day she can be its queen. Yet she wants to tell her former husband that she will come back to him—if he wins! She's telling him, through me, that she will return to Sparta and be the docile Achaian wife—if and when Troy is burned to the ground.
Clever woman! No matter who wins, she will protect her own lovely skin.
We chatted for a few moments more, but it was clear that Helen had imparted the message she wanted me to bear back to the Achaians. Finally she rose, signaling that our meeting was ended. I got to my feet and went to the door by which I had entered the chamber. Sure enough, the guard was outside waiting to escort me back to the king's audience hall.
No one was there except the courtier who had been with me earlier in the morning. The columned hall was empty, echoing.
"The king and royal princes are still deliberating on your message," he whispered. "You are to wait."
I waited. We strolled through several of the palace's halls and chambers and finally out into the big courtyard we had come through that morning. The hot sun felt good on my bare arms.
Out of curiosity I walked across the garden to the small statue of Athene. It was barely the length of my arm, and obviously very old, weathered by many years of rain and wind. Unlike the other, grander statues, it was unpainted. Or, rather, the original paint had long since worn away and had never been replaced.
Athene. The warrior goddess was dressed in a long robe, yet carried a shield and spear. A plumed helmet rested on the back of her head, pushed up and away from her face.
I looked at that face and the breath gushed out of me. It was her face, the face of the woman I had loved. The face of the goddess that the Golden One had killed.