“Yes . . . Father,” I said. “But I must send my advisor to get it.”
“Advisor?”
“Yes, the wisest man in Sparta, whom I brought with me.”
Hecuba turned her dark eyes upon me. “No word of a wise man of Sparta has ever reached our ears,” she said.
“He was a privately wise man, great queen, not a public one.” I whispered to one of the king’s attendants to go fetch the man Gelanor and tell him to bring . . .
“Let us continue our ceremony,” said Priam. He turned back to the Pallas Athena. “You who came to us from the heavens, to my grandfather Ilus, the founder of Ilium, of Troy, and without whose protection we would perish, send us a sign that you accept the woman Helen, also called in her new life Cycna, amongst us. We know the sign may not appear at this moment, and that we must be alert for it. But you will not fail us. And while we wait, we will welcome her and join her hands with those of Paris.” He turned slowly back to me, just as Gelanor entered the temple and made his way to us. He held a box in his outstretched arms, which he placed in Priam’s.
Priam opened it, to see the heavy gold marriage chain of Menelaus within. In the torchlight the gold shone almost red. I could see his eyes widen.
“Great king,” I said, “this Spartan gold was hung around my neck on the day Menelaus made me his. I gladly and freely relinquish it. Do what you will with it. It binds me no longer.”
I could see Priam fighting within himself to muster the high-mindedness to give it to the goddess. He took it out and fondled it, on the pretext of inspecting its links. Finally he raised it aloft and said, “By this token of your former life, you have proved that you hand your past to us. Your present and your future will be in Troy.” Slowly he knelt and placed it before Athena. Then he turned again to us and clasped his hand on top of Paris’s and mine. It was done, then, and done publicly.
“They are joined,” he said, and a polite ripple of murmurs buzzed in the temple, echoing slightly against the stones. Then he looked at Gelanor. “And do you give this wise man to Troy as well?” he asked.
“You must ask him,” I demurred.
Gelanor made no answer. He merely looked at me and said, “I have now seen you safely to Troy, as I promised.”
Instead of feeling safe, I felt a great hostility from the goddess Athena. It wafted out from her statue as surely as the scent of the flowers. But what had I ever done to her to incur her enmity?
XXXII
We were to leave the temple, but I dreaded turning my back on the goddess in her displeasure. If we were not to turn our backs on earthly kings, how much less would the gods tolerate it? But how could I refuse to follow Priam and Hecuba as they made their stately way out? Paris clasped my hand and in its warmth I felt safe, but at the same time the intensity of Athena’s displeasure increased. I could sense, rather than see, Gelanor behind me, impatient to leave me in the hands of the Trojans.
In the short time we had been gone, the main courtyard—not the inner one around which the sons and daughters had their apartments—had been transformed into a place of feasting. The altar was cleansed and an ox stood placidly by waiting to be sacrificed, its horns gilded, its proud head held high. Several priests flanked it, and already the roasting fires were lit. The beast looked on the flames that would consume it, but without knowledge, just as we may pass the place where our bones will lie, and linger upon it to pick flowers.
“Helen, this is my eldest son, Hector.” Priam turned me to face a dark-haired man. “Hector, this is the choice of your brother Paris for his bride.”
“Oh, Father, why do you introduce him so modestly?” said Paris. “Eldest son is the least of it. Why not say, my joy, my pride, the strength of Troy? The glory of the—”
“Elder brother will do,” said Hector. He had a pleasant voice, neither too loud nor silkily soft, either of which often mar an otherwise appealing man. In his face I saw no resemblance to Priam or Hecuba or to his brother. “Welcome to Troy,” he said. But in those three words I heard shadows of others unsaid. “I see that the goddess has accepted you as one of us.”
It was premature, but polite, to assume so.
“I am grateful,” I said. The longer I looked at him, the more appealing he was, in that he lacked any displeasing features. He was without blemish. Even his ears were exactly the right size, as perfectly shaped as if they were cast from a mold.
“See, you cannot help staring at him!” Paris chided me. “You have fallen under his spell, like everyone in Troy.” Did he mean this, or was he teasing?
“Brother, you are the one people call godlike,” said Hector. Now he smiled, and the smile transformed his face. Where he had been appealing, he was now masterful. “Paris and his golden hair.” He laughed, but kindly.
“Ah, but men won’t follow me,” said Paris.
“Only women.” Hector shrugged his shoulders—shoulders that I now noticed were very broad. “Lady, we knew the only woman he could end up with was one prettier than himself, and there were none until you.”
“I meant into battle,” said Paris quietly. So he had been stung. The lightness had left his voice.
“We’ve had no battles since you came to Troy,” said Hector. “So you cannot know how you would fare leading men into battle.”
“Oh, I could lead them—but would they follow?”
“That, little brother, is something you must wait to find out. But not too soon, not too soon—it is quiet in the lands around Troy, and that is as pleasant as the late afternoon when the sun warms the hillsides.”
“Hector’s favorite time of day.” Suddenly someone was standing beside him—a tall woman, almost as tall as Hector himself. Athena! flashed through my mind. But an Athena who stood lovely and serene, not the strange one I had just come from.
“Andromache, my wife.” Hector encircled her with his arm.
“Welcome to Troy,” she said. “I, too, came from another city. I am from Thebe, where my father is king of the Kilikes.”
“It is near Plakos, a spur on the southern flanks of Mount Ida. Andromache is used to woods and mountains. When she longs for them overmuch, we betake ourselves to our side of Ida. There lie woods, springs, and slopes enough for anyone.” Hector pulled her close to him. “Are there not?”
“The woods of home are always different,” said Andromache. “Perhaps because they are home. Surely the trees are the very same.”
“I, too, come from a place with mountains and woods,” I said. “The peaks of Taygetus are high and often snow-crowned, and the slopes are covered in pines and oaks.”
“I have found everything I wish in Troy,” Andromache said. “May you do so as well.” She laughed. Her laugh was like one of the mountain brooks. “Although it is so very flat!”
A great bellow split the night. It was the loudest I had ever heard, and I cringed. The ox was being sacrificed.
There was a scurrying around the makeshift altar. The priests would have to attend to all the horrid details—the blood, the steaming entrails, the flailing, the carving. Even from our safe distance, I could smell the blood. I felt dizzy, and put my hand to my mouth.
“Catch her, Paris, catch her.” The voice was like the sound of chariot wheels running over gravel. “She would appear to have a squeamish disposition.”
“Aesacus.” Paris turned to him. “My half-brother,” he said. The chill in his voice was not well disguised.
A small man stood before me, his face all but hidden beneath the ample folds of his hooded mantle. Paris yanked it back. A short-cropped head, closeset dark eyes, and a lined face confronted me.
With slow dignity, the man pulled his hood back in place. “Please, dear brother, it is cold tonight. Do not vent your hostility upon my poor head.”
“My elder brother by Priam’s first wife,” Paris muttered.
“Oh, why stop there?” He turned to me, and false-confided, “Why does he not tell you all? My brother—half-brother—is too kind. That must come from hi
s mother Hecuba, although, the gods know, she is rarely kind—rather than from our mutual father.” He smiled and adjusted his hood. Now I could see his face. It reminded me of some night creature, wedge-shaped and alert.
I waited. I did not have long to wait.
“I have the gift of prophecy.”
Not another one. So Priam had spoken truly. Troy was full of prophets.
“Yes?” I responded.
“Hecuba had her dream . . . that dream in which she brought forth a firebrand that destroyed Troy. It was I who told her what it meant.” He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “This is our chance to test the gods and their dire prophecies. How do we know any of them are true?” He stepped forward and took Paris’s face in his hands. “The gods commanded us to destroy you. Someone disobeyed, and now you stand before us, tall and straight and glorious. The gods rewrite their instructions all the time. Why should we follow their first orders?”
Scowling, Paris jerked his hands away. “Stop it, Aesacus. You have had too much wine.”
He shrugged and smoothed the folds of his cloak. “Yes, perhaps. They are serving the best tonight, in your honor. I make it a point to take large portions of good things. As with the gods—when they give you fine things you should help yourself quickly, before they change their minds.”
Gelanor glided up to us as Aesacus slipped away. A faint smile played on his face and he sighed. “Now my conscience is at peace,” he said. “I can leave you, with no nagging worries about your welfare.”
“Must you leave?” asked Paris. “Why hurry away?”
Gelanor laughed. “Already much time has passed since I left Sparta. More time will pass before I reach it again. I dare not linger.”
“Oh, but linger a few days. To scurry off in haste might be insulting to the Trojans.”
Again he laughed. “I doubt any Trojan gives a cow’s udder whether I stay or go.”
“That’s not so. You heard the king asking if you intended to stay. He would welcome you.” I would not beg him, but oh! how I wished to persuade him. But I knew that he was usually proof against my persuasions.
“There is nothing useful for me to do here, and you know I live only in my usefulness. I set you a task: within the next few days convince me there is need for me in Troy and I will stay awhile. But only for a while. Troy can never be home to me.” The dull tone of his voice made the words thud.
“Do not be hasty,” I said.
“I am not. I know myself. Do you know yourself?”
“Everyone is so gloomy!” cried Paris. “Stop this talk of gods and omens and knowing yourself. Can we not just drink our wine and embrace?”
“For some people, that serves well enough,” Gelanor said.
The flames were leaping in the courtyard as the ox meat was roasting, fat sizzling as it dripped onto the fire, sending clouds of smoke swirling and disappearing into the night sky. People crowded around, eager for the first bites. In their wait, they consumed more and more wine, making their heads swirl like the smoke. The din increased, as if the crowd had grown.
Paris put his arm around me and steered me away. “I must show you something,” he whispered.
We left the crowded courtyard behind and he guided me to the main building, across the megaron, and to the staircase hidden in one corner of it. It was eerily quiet here, all the people having been drawn off into the courtyard. We climbed up the wooden steps slowly, I holding my gown so I would not trip on it. At once we emerged onto a flat roof overlooking all of Troy and the Plain of Troy, like the bow of a ship riding high above them. The vastness of it was startling.
“Come,” Paris said, taking my hand. He led me to the edge of the roof, where a waist-high wall protected us. The wind blew strongly, and I clung to the top of the wall.
“There it lies—all of Troy, and the territory around her,” said Paris. The wind snatched his words away.
I leaned over the wall and looked at the city, encircling the palace like petals of a rose. On this highest point, there was only the palace and the temple of Athena; on the other three sides, falling away beneath them, were rings of houses and terraces stretching to the walls, those guardian walls standing sharp and knife-edged in the starlight. Flickering torches, like little dots, marked out their course. Dim and dark, large towers reared up along the perimeter.
Below the steep north side a flat plain stretched to the sea, where the starlight caught on the waves and showed us the swift-running water.
“You cannot see it now, with no moon, but there are two rivers down below—the Scamander and the Simoïs,” said Paris. “The Scamander runs all year long, but the Simoïs dries up in the heat of summer. We pasture our horses there in the sweet meadows—our famous horses of Troy.”
The meadows must have been just springing, for a delicious scent rode the next gust of wind. I inhaled deeply. “This is truly an enchanted land,” I said. I looked out over all of it—the sleeping city, the grand homes, the strong walls, the neat lower town, the fertile plain. I walked over to another side of the roof and peered down at the courtyard, filled with noise, smoke, and people.
“Must we return there?” I asked him. From above, it looked like a field of writhing serpents.
“No. We need do nothing we do not wish to. You have been presented to the family and the Trojans, and all ceremony observed. Now you are free. We are free.”
Could that be true? Standing there on the highest place in Troy, feeling the wind rushing past us, clean and fresh, I believed so. I clasped Paris’s hand. In that moment, I felt as young as Persephone and as lovely as Aphrodite. Aphrodite then flew to me with the winds, enveloped me, entwined me. I felt her warmth all around me, soft as a cloud.
I have brought you here, my child. Obey me, revel in me, exalt me. I turned to Paris. “Let us go back to your chambers,” I whispered. The wind snatched my words away, bore them southward over the city. I pressed closer to him, repeating them.
“Yes,” he murmured.
Across the rooftop, down the stairs in haste, skirting the loud courtyard, we entered our private courtyard from another doorway, running through its emptiness. To Paris’s doorway, flinging it open. The large receiving room, the connecting chambers, greeted us silently. As we rushed through them, the only sound was our footsteps on the colored stone.
The door shut behind us; we were alone in that innermost bedchamber. The little brazier had not been lit. I would have liked a fire, if only for its golden flames and its sweet scent. But now nothing mattered but being with Paris—no fire, no crackling, soothing sound, nothing but the two of us.
There were no wolf skins spread here, no bulwark against the cold. The apartments of Troy were not made of heavy stone boulders, to lock in the cold long past winter as in Mycenae, but of the finest clay and cedar beams—delicate, dainty. Spring would already come to these chambers when winter still lingered in Sparta.
I wanted only to hold Paris, to embrace him and the life in him, the life he offered me. Lying with him side by side, I could not help tracing his face with my fingers, as if I would memorize every plane and facet of it. And I have, I have . . . I can feel it even now, as I remember . . . But then, with his face beneath my fingertips, I was aware only of the warmth and the deliciousness.
“Paris,” I said, “now I am truly yours. I have laid my fortune—what will become of me—at your feet. I have followed you from my world to yours. Nay, more than that—I have disclaimed mine, incurred the wrath of my family and land. I have placed my hand in yours, between just us in privacy, and before the goddess who guards your city. May she guard us as diligently!”
Paris leaned over me and kissed me, his soft lips drowning my thoughts, all save my longing for him. “She will . . . she will . . .”
I had felt her enmity, but now it was washed away in hope. Did the gods not bend their favor to those who honored them? And now I cared for nothing but Paris. The strong swelling arms of Paris, the divine face of Paris, the urgent and insistent
body of Paris.
They speak of an Isle of the Blessed. A place where living people are snatched away so they never die, and live out their eternal lives in bliss, wandering in this magic isle far from everything we know upon this earth. Paris and I flew to that isle; we were transported to a realm where we could touch one another for eternity, where we would never change or age, where passion would never slake nor the sun rise to shatter a night of love.
There was no time in the chamber. It stretched out and made one hour two, like a supple piece of leather. Whatever we wanted, whatever we did, we could savor, repeat, as many times as we wished, a bard’s favorite passages recited again upon request.
We slept, finally. And then the sun found its way into the chamber. We had not thought to bar the window; when it is deeply night, we do not think of the dawn.
Paris lifted himself on one elbow. “Stupid intrusive sun!” he muttered. “How dare it invade our privacy?” He staggered over to the window and tried to bar the light. But there were no shutters strong enough, and the sunlight could not be kept out.
“I was never bothered by the sunlight before,” he admitted. “I was always up with it.”
The light showed his body to perfection; its early morning slant caressed its hollows and swells. “The sun brings me a daylight Paris,” I said. “So I cannot be angry with it.”
Each hour, each minute, was ours. None was our enemy. Each laid its own gifts at our feet.
XXXIII
But we had to emerge from our Isle of the Blessed, Paris’s chamber. Outside, the world of Troy waited, in the form of a summons to come to the king and queen.
Dressed, dismissing the night as best I could from playing about my thoughts, I stood before them in the privacy of their palace chamber. Priam looked weary; his hands clutched the side of his chair as if he feared falling. Hecuba, seated beside him, was unreadable.
“The ceremony was observed correctly,” Priam finally said. “And people seemed to join in the celebration freely enough.”