Aeneas came back in, still wearing the wig, but now with a mantle draped backward over him to suggest a gown. He whirled around, pointing and mouthing silent cries.
“Oh, she’ll never get this one,” said Paris. “That isn’t fair. She doesn’t even know about her.”
“Doom! Doom!” rasped Aeneas.
“Cassandra,” said Evadne in a low voice.
Paris started. “How can you know that?”
“The less I see with my eyes, the more I hear from far away. Other minds tell me things, even in Sparta. This is your sister Cassandra, the one who prophesies doom to Troy.”
Aeneas stopped acting. “It seems that you may be a prophetess as well.”
“No,” said Evadne. “I merely use what is brought to my senses. But this Cassandra—has she not been your enemy, Paris?”
Paris gripped my hand so hard it tingled. “I have no enemies.”
“But when you returned, did not this sister try to have you cast out again?” Evadne persisted.
“No!” said Aeneas quickly. “No, nothing like that. And no one listens to Cassandra. She is mad.”
“Not mad,” said Evadne. “You know that. Just cursed by Apollo, because she spurned him. So the great god of prophecy revenged himself on her by making it so that she had the gift of prophecy but no one would believe her. What crueler punishment for a seer?”
“It wasn’t Apollo who made her a seer,” said Paris. “She and her twin brother Helenus had their ears licked by serpents when they were infants, and that gave them the gift of prophecy.”
Serpents. The call to prophecy. We were siblings in that gift. Would we recognize one another?
“But it was Apollo who twisted the gift into a curse for her,” said Aeneas.
Would Aphrodite have twisted mine into some sort of curse if I had rejected her? I shuddered. Obey them, resist them—either way the gods inflict misery on us.
Paris heaved himself up from the mat. “My turn,” he said. Aeneas took his place, watching.
Paris strutted his way across our vision, his head held high, grasping a stave.
“A councilor of some kind,” I said. But was he a good councilor or a bad one?
Paris preened a bit, inspecting his sleeves.
“Even I cannot know who you mean,” said Aeneas. “We have many pompous councilors.”
“Pandarus,” said Paris. “I admit, there are many Pandarus-like fellows about.”
“Pandarus is an irksome fool,” said Aeneas.
“You can take his place!” said Paris, pointing at Gelanor. “We need some new blood in the council chambers.”
Gelanor laughed. “A Spartan serving as a Trojan councilor? I think not.”
I noticed that he did not add, and besides, I am not remaining at Troy.
“But the queen of Sparta will now serve as . . . princess of Troy. People can change countries. Yes, and she will be honored beyond anything you can imagine!”
“I shall watch the ceremonies, then, as a guest,” said Gelanor. “Before returning home.” I was disappointed to hear those words.
Paris kept his staff but dropped the flourishes. Instead, he struck a monumental pose.
“Still a councilor . . . or perhaps a seer,” said Aeneas. “But a respectable one. Oh!” He smacked his cheeks. “Of course! His brother Calchas!”
“Excellent. Excellent.” Paris bowed. “Yes. Helen, Calchas is one of our most trusted seers and councilors. He is embarrassed by Pandarus, but we cannot choose our relatives.”
“Exactly what your brothers may say about you when they see what you have brought back to Troy,” said Aeneas quietly. “Paris, have you thought how you will present Helen?”
“As my wife,” he said. His face was open and brave.
“But she is not your wife,” said Aeneas. “She is someone else’s wife.”
“No! She has renounced him. Let us marry now, this moment, so I can look the king, my father, in the eye and tell him honestly that Helen is my wife.”
“But . . . we have no power to perform that rite!” Alarm rose in Aeneas’s voice.
“Power? There is no special power needed. The gods will hear us! All we need is to clasp our hands and vow ourselves before witnesses. There are three witnesses here. That is sufficient.”
So: here, on this plain ground somewhere on the way to Troy, sometime in the evening, but at no hallowed time—neither at sunset nor midnight nor sunrise—wearing only traveling clothes, with no bridal dowry or gift, I would wed Paris.
“Yes,” I said. “Let us do this.” I turned to the others. “I ask you, bring what you find to help celebrate this. Let us make it our own, using only what is at hand.”
My mantle was dull brown, stained with sea spray and dirt. My gown was rumpled and its hem smeared with mud. My hair was bound up in a coil, my feet dusty from the path.
Bridal attire was supposed to have prophetic powers. What did this mean—that Paris and I would be dusty wayfarers? That we would be reduced to poverty? I could not see how this would be, but I no longer scoffed at the idea that the unimaginable could come about.
Gelanor brought his bag of dried mastic resin from Chios; Aeneas a skin of wine and clay cups; Evadne the sack with the snake. Paris took a torch and went out into the fields searching for night-blooming flowers, but it was too early in the season for them.
Aeneas planted two torches before the entrance of our tent and then beckoned us over to the fire. “Now say what you must,” he said.
Paris took my hand and led me to the warmth of the fire. A light, chilly wind had arisen, and was blowing across the fields and out to sea. My hands were cold as he took them, covering my fingers with his. How many times had we held hands? Yet this felt different, heavy with intent.
If I just slid my fingers away, pulled back . . . then all could be undone. If I did not, now, then I was bound forever. The grip of his hands on mine felt imprisoning, like clamps. I could not move my fingers.
“Speak,” said Aeneas. “It is only you who must speak now. No priest, no priestess, no mother, no father. As it is when all those things fall away and you are alone.”
Paris shut his eyes and bowed his head, thinking. He had never looked more boyish, more disarming. His light hair fell forward in glorious waves. The firelight turned his perfect skin to gold. In this light, even his garments were turned to gold. Had Midas touched him, turning him from a living being into a statue of metal?
“I am Paris, son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy,” he said, lifting his head. “I was born to them the night my mother had a dream that she gave birth to a flaming brand. One of my brothers proclaimed that it meant I would bring fire and destruction to Troy. So my mother and father cast me out, left me to the will of the gods. But their will was that I should live, and they gave me a glorious childhood in the glens and meadows of Mount Ida, the mountain where Zeus himself resides.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Then, when I was ready, the gods brought me back to my true home and family.”
The fire crackled and leapt up at that moment, and Paris laughed. “I thought nothing was lacking in my happiness then. I knew my mother, my father, my family—cousins like Aeneas. I belonged to their world. But that happiness was as pale as dying smoke compared to the fire that consumed me when I first beheld you, Helen.” He took my face and turned it full to his. “Since then it has been as if the sun has never set, there is no night. And so before you here, I pledge myself to Helen for the rest of my life. I shall care for nothing but her, look at nothing but her, think of nothing but her, as long as I shall live. I offer myself to you utterly, Helen. Please take me.”
His eyes pled with me, as if this were the first time we had ever spoken. As if it was all only starting now.
“I take you, Paris,” I answered, my voice low. I had trouble speaking, I was so affected by the solemnity of this moment. “I am yours forever.” I could not speak of how much and what this meant. Surely those four words said everything.
/> “We stand as witnesses to these promises,” said Aeneas. “And now we will drink a cup of wine together.” He measured out the portions and handed the cups around. Before we drank, he poured a libation on the ground and invoked Hera as goddess of marriage. “Bind them, O goddess,” he beseeched her, “in the sacred union of marriage.”
We all raised our cups and sipped the sweet wine in silence.
Gelanor took a handful of the resin beads and cast them into the fire. The smoky fragrance of the renowned mastic rose, dense and compelling.
Evadne stepped forward and held out the snake in both her arms. “Take him,” she said. “Let him bind you.” She placed him around our necks, where he curled, seeking our warmth.
He had bound us once before, in Sparta. Now he sealed our union, tying the past, the present, and the future together in his graceful coils.
Aeneas motioned us to the tent. “Now take yourselves to your new home. Here, we will accompany you the short distance with torch and song, as if this were a regular marriage procession.”
Our short and subdued little parade walked over to the tent, and then we left them and went inside.
Even the familiar tent now seemed different. The quick improvised vows felt more genuine than the lengthy ceremony I had undergone with Menelaus, with its heavy gold necklace, traditional promises, priestesses, and sacrifice, all a blur now. But I would never forget the look in Paris’s eyes as he made those sweeping, wild promises to me.
“Your gift,” he said, kneeling and handing me a jar.
I opened its covering and peered in. A light flutter showed itself against the clay.
“A big white moth,” he said. “I caught it when I was looking for moonflowers. I think the moth was looking, too.”
“Oh, it is lovely,” I said. The white wings were pulsing gently at the bottom of the jar. “But we must let it go. Tonight, all creatures must be as free as we are. Come.” Together we stood at the entrance of the tent and shook the jar, setting the moth free. It floated away, seeking the fields.
“We are that moth,” I said. “Now we are free in the fields, the fields that belong to neither kingdom, not to Troy or Sparta or Argos or Mysia.” I threw my arms around him, all hesitations flown away with the moth.
XXX
Troy. It shone before us, floating up over the featureless plain like a vast and impregnable ship on a swelling sea. Behind us lay Mount Ida; we had skirted its pine-covered flanks and now nothing stood between us and Troy.
As we came closer and it loomed larger, it seemed less and less real. Its walls were of gleaming, fitted masonry. Massive towers, square and lowering, guarded the circuit of the walls, and spread out like a flung mantle beneath those walls were countless houses. It was as grand as Mycenae and Sparta and Pylos and Tiryns all put together—more delicately wrought and yet more formidable.
I walked, keeping it ever before my eyes, seeing it grow to fill more and more of my vision. Beside me, Evadne kept her face toward it, but her expression did not change.
“You cannot see it,” I said. “But if you could—you would know it is something you have never beheld in Greece.”
She turned her head rapidly and said, “Oh, yes! I know! It gleams!”
“How did you know that?”
“I saw it.”
“But you cannot see . . . you told us so.”
“My lady, it is very odd. I cannot see straight on, but sometimes, if I move my head quickly, I can glimpse something just out to the side. But if I then turn to face it and look, it disappears. It is so maddening. It means I can only see the shadows and hints of things, and never look directly at them. But I saw Troy, for that tiny instant. And it shines like a crystal.”
“So you have a bit of sight. Perhaps that is why your eyes do not look like a blind person’s; they appear as clear and bright as anyone’s.”
“So I have been told. I fear I must have angered some god and this is how I am being punished, but I cannot for my very life know what I have done.”
“Not everything that happens is from the hands of the gods.” Gelanor came up beside us.
“Do not let them hear you say that!” Evadne laughed. “They might strike me again to make their point. Look, what do you see when you see Troy?”
“Power and beauty,” he said.
“Wealth?” I added.
“Wealth and power are the same thing. And together they underpin beauty. The world of nature can give us beauty cheaply, but the world of man requires wealth to make beauty.”
“Here it lies, Helen!” Paris came running, light of foot, and took my hand. “Troy. My home. Now yours as well.”
Troy will never be home to me, I thought fleetingly. “Will I . . . will I be able to speak easily to the people?”
“Of course, to the people at court. We speak much as you do—a few odd words here and there may be different. But, after all, we are related, we Trojans and Greeks. We share common ancestors—Atlas and Pleione, at least the old tales tell us so. The workers and people in the big city below the walls, they are a bit hard to understand, unless you have grown up with common people as I have. But I’ll translate for you—just as I do for Hector and the rest of my family.” He hugged me close to him. “Helen, I’m so proud—to show Troy to you—and you to Troy.”
Troy did not seem curious to see me. I should have been thankful for that—had I not wished to cease being an object of curiosity? But now it hinted at something amiss. The high towers, standing like sentinels, must have guards inside, guards whose duty was only to spy out anyone approaching the city. The parapets encircling them looked like jagged teeth, and the height would make anyone inside dizzy.
. . . And burnt the topless towers of Ilium. The words twined themselves around my mind. Topless towers of Ilium . . . someone else framed those words, and whispered them to me then, someone who lived so long afterward that he saw Troy only in his dreams, but he saw it clearer than anyone standing beside me that day I first approached it, he told of Troy when men had forgotten her, and now she lives . . . or perhaps Troy was always only a dream.
“How long since we sailed away?” Paris asked Aeneas. “Time has ceased to pass for me. But for Troy . . . how long might they have been expecting us?”
“Some two full moons since we left,” said Aeneas. “But since the duration of our mission could not be predicted, nor could the winds promise a certain return, we may take them by surprise.”
We reached the outskirts of the city, protected by a stout wooden palisade fence; its sharpened tips turned the top into a row of spears. Now, in the peace of noonday, the outer gate was wide open, and people were streaming in and out, chattering and carrying baskets and bundles. They smiled and greeted us, calling out playfully to Paris, but other than that paid us little mind. However, like the ripples of a wave, word of our arrival raced ahead of us as we walked through the streets.
“These streets seem like any other streets,” I told Paris.
“Of course,” he said. “Did I not assure you that Troy would not seem foreign to you?”
“I meant, they are not very wide. Whenever Troy is spoken of, people say, ‘broad-streeted Troy.’ But it is not so.”
He laughed. “Wait until you get inside the walls, into the real Troy—or rather, the famous Troy. The one that all men speak of. When they say Troy, they do not mean this.” He flung out his arm to encompass the small houses and shops all around us.
Behind us our guardian soldiers trooped, stopping to swig new wine they bartered for their smiles and promises. All the time we were walking uphill toward the high walls, which seemed to elongate and reach for the sky even as we approached. The houses fell away and left a broad swath before the glistening, slanted masonry. A square guard tower jutted out almost to the nearest house; before it were stone pillars holding statues.
“The gods who protect Troy,” Paris said. “Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares, and Artemis.”
Glancing at them, I thought how unlike the glor
ious gods these stone representations were. Plain, squat, broad-featured: surely the gods would renounce these likenesses. But no one knew how to make better ones. We fashioned the gods in their splendor only in our minds.
“This is the south gate,” Paris said. “Some people say it is the grandest, but they are all grand.”
I looked overhead at the large beckoning entrance and I could not see how it could be grander.
“Inside, inside, my love—my wife. See my city!”
We passed through a dark tunnellike entrance through the walls, some fifteen paces wide—oh, such wide walls above us!—and then out into the sunlight and a wide paved courtyard.
“Oh, are we already at the palace?” I asked.
Paris laughed. “No, no. This roadway circles the walls. It makes a broad street for us to parade upon, walk upon, merely to look upon. We do not permit houses next to the walls.”
I had never beheld such a thing. A street only to give space. The sunlight seemed to fill every aspect.
“The palace, the temple of Athena, the living quarters of the king’s children—they are all farther up, at the summit. All Father’s sons and daughters live in apartments surrounding the palace, but now I’m going to build my own. We need not be like all the others!”
“Perhaps we should not insist—” We were asking so much already.
“Nonsense!”
A young man flew toward us, almost tripping over his sandaled feet as he rushed down the sloping street.
“Troilus!” Paris’s voice was warm with affection. This, then, must be his favorite younger brother.
“Is it really you, Paris?” Troilus stopped, panting, clutching Paris’s mantle. He was light-haired and freckled, with an open, sunburnt gladness about him.
“Your eyes see true,” Paris said.
Troilus turned them toward me. “What—who—?”
“I have brought home a wife!” proclaimed Paris.
“But how—?”
“I will explain all to our father, and thereby tell it once—although I would gladly tell it a thousand times, for I love the telling of it.”