She marched straight through the pines. We followed; as soon as we were amongst the tall trees, the light grew dim. Overhead the branches wove themselves loosely across the sky. We were silent as we walked swiftly behind the Mother, trying to get as far up the mountain as possible before lighting our torches.
I glanced over at Andromache, admiring her fine strong profile. She and Hector were well matched. If only they could have a child, what a marvel that child could be! If only this . . . this ceremony—whatever it was—could bestow a child on them, and on Paris and me. Just then she looked at me and smiled in complicity.
The climb was hard. Soon I was breathing fast and sweat covered my face and neck. I threw off the hood to let the cooling air rush around me; it was dim enough now to conceal my face. My feet began to slip on the loose stones and pebbles on the path. Once I stumbled and Andromache caught my arm.
We emerged out onto a flat plateau. The plain, now far beneath us, swam in an indistinct blue haze. The sun had set, sending up a few last feeble rays from beneath the horizon.
“Let us light our torches,” said the Mother. She knelt down and laid a clump of dried moss on a rock, then twirled a stick against a piece of wood to create first smoke, then a flame. She dipped the end of her own torch into it, then, when it had caught, motioned to one woman to come up and light hers. She touched her torch to the lit one.
“Now light the others, light your sisters’,” the Mother said.
The woman began to move amongst us, touching her torch to ours until all were alight, all flamed, and the air around us grew bright even as the light faded in the west.
“When we reach the summit, embrace what is there,” she said. “I can tell you no more, except to say that she who does not fling herself into the riches of our rite will reap no benefit. Hold nothing back.”
The flaring torches, their new-lit tips sputtering and jumping, made the air around us alive with capricious spirits. Overhead the pines swayed and groaned, bending like dancers.
“Higher, higher,” the Mother exhorted us. “Do not linger here.” We streamed after her, a snake of bobbing lights.
The path grew much steeper and narrower. We had to scramble up, holding our torches in one hand and using the other to grasp roots and rocks as we skirted ravines falling away to one side. It grew blacker and blacker. The moon was dark now and hid her face. The stars shone more brightly, but starlight cannot keep one from stumbling.
Around a great sheer face of rock we came out upon a narrow path that wound to a summit where a tumble of stones, twisted pines clinging amongst them, crowned the mountain. The wind was whistling past us, whipping at our cloaks.
“Play, my daughters, my sisters,” the Mother said. Several women pulled cymbals, flutes, and small drums from under their fawn-skin cloaks, and began to play. It was soft at first, barely rising above the wind and the cries of the night birds that were circling the summit.
It was music I had never heard before. The sweet low flute was pierced by the strident bronze cymbals, and the throbbing of the goatskin drums created a tide of sound that ebbed and rose, ebbed and rose.
Some of the women planted their torches in the ground, making a wide circle, and began to move, swaying and bending, clapping and humming. The wind carried their hair streaming out behind them, and they stepped faster as the music grew louder and more insistent. Now the drums were strongest and drowned everything out, now the flute screamed above the drums, and now both were shocked into retreat by the cymbals.
“Come!” Andromache took my hand and we joined the circle of dancers. We were almost the last to do so, and already the pace was quick. Around and around we traced the path that circled the heap of rock at the summit. Someone planted a torch on the very tip of the pile.
“Do not look at your feet but at this torch,” she cried. “Keep your eyes upon it!”
I lifted my eyes and focused them on the wavering flame. I could sense the women before me and behind me, but now I was held on the tether of the flame upon the summit, it was my master.
The flute speeded up its piping, and we moved faster; now we needed to trip and jump. Suddenly one of the women broke from the group and started turning, her cloak flying out behind her. Faster and faster she whirled, letting her arms propel her, whirling her. Others broke away and started turning, flinging their arms out and their heads back. The circle of dance broke into swirling leaves. The women began to utter shrill cries of jubilation and excitement, competing with the music.
“Turn, turn, turn!” cried the Mother. “Close your eyes now, embrace the god!”
What god? Who was this who they worshipped in dance and fire?
Suddenly grapes were arcing through the air, landing all around us. We stepped on them and the ground grew slippery, the scent of sweet juice enveloping our senses.
“Drink his gift!” A big pouch, a drinking skin, was flung onto a rock. “Drink the gift of wine, wine that brings gladness and joy and release!”
We rushed to the wineskin and gulped the wine in draughts, wanting to get our fill before yielding our place to another. Wine dribbled down our faces and onto our gowns, but the Mother assured us, “Every drop is a blessing. Never wash it away, and now you may ask the god for his other blessing—fertility. He is the god of wet things that grow.”
Still I did not know what god she meant, and she never named him. I saw Andromache looking down at the stains on her gown, touching them.
The women spun away from the wineskin, their dancing wilder. I twirled with them, feeling my head grow dizzy and my thoughts loosen. Loosen . . . float away . . . I drifted in a sea of movement, cut free from everything else.
Time ceased. I know not how long I turned and turned, only that I was in a trance. I barely heard the shrieks when a cage with a pig was opened. I was knocked down by a hoard of women running after it, shouting and screaming. They were like a pack of dogs, their faces twisted and their teeth bared.
The music had stopped, and now the guttural cries of the women resounded in the air. I heard them rise to a shrieking scream and then stop. They had disappeared down a pathway on the other side of the mountain.
Andromache and I and several others who had been left behind by the pack followed them. What we saw when we reached the little glen was unbelievable, shocking: a circle of women covered with blood, blood up to their elbows, tearing at the carcass of the pig, ripping it into pieces. And then—one woman grabbed a piece of the raw meat and began eating it, staining her face and neck with blood. Her eyes looked slanted and dark like an animal’s.
Andromache and the other women in our group shrank back, not seized by whatever madness had taken these women, and watched in horror as they devoured the pig raw, making hideous swallowing noises, gulping not only its flesh but its blood.
How had they even killed it? By tearing it with their bare hands? This seemed impossible, yet it had happened.
So this was why it must never be spoken of. What else was to come here on the mountaintop? We had to leave before whatever it was took place. Might it even be sacrifice of one of us? I clutched Andromache’s hand and said, “We must escape! Even though it is dark, we cannot wait for light, we must find our way down! Even if we get lost, I would rather be amongst true animals than these human beasts!”
“Oh, Helen, forgive me for bringing us here, I did not know—!”
Together we turned and stole away, hoping no one would see us. I tried to remember the paths we had taken on the ascent, but I knew we would be lost sooner or later. Better later, was all I could hope.
The wind howled and tore at us as we slipped and slid down the steep path, being careful to lean away from the yawning ravines on one side. As we got lower, the trees suddenly grew thick again around us, and the dangerous ravines disappeared, but now the path was not so clear and the forest enveloped us. We could hear the cry of wild dogs and a thousand other sounds of night creatures surrounding us. Paris’s teasing about lions no longer seemed a joke
.
Andromache clutched at my arm as we threaded our way through the dark forest, stumbling over tree roots and loose stones, slipping on old leaves and needles underfoot.
“Ida is enormous,” I whispered, marveling. This one mountain seemed as vast as the entire range of the Taygetus at home.
At home . . . at home . . . I was frantic to return safely to Troy . . . was that home now? My sister Clytemnestra was now a shadowy figure, wife of my enemy, Agamemnon, whereas Andromache was my companion, a fellow outsider who had been brought to Troy. How complicated my allegiances and loyalties had grown, like a monstrous and many-tendriled plant.
We grew weary, stumbling along. Sometimes we sat to rest, but not for long. The nearby howls of animals and the batting of wings had us back on our feet quickly. But at last the darkness lessened on the eastern side of the forest, and we knew we were delivered from the hand of night.
The sunrise was glorious. The light burst on us and filled the sky. At once everything around us was revealed. We were upon the lower flanks of the mountain, where it dwindled to gentle humps and dips. Ahead of us we could see open meadows, deep green.
“Thanks be to . . . whatever gods watch over you,” Andromache said. “For me, it is Hestia.”
“For me . . .” I could not say Aphrodite, it was too embarrassing. “It is Persephone.”
“The goddess of death?” Andromache took my hand. “I would not have thought it. She has few devotees, though, so she must appreciate you.”
“She is much more than the queen of Hades,” I said. “She loves life, as we do. That is why it was so difficult for her to leave it.” It took a dark night of wandering for me to appreciate even more her joy when she came back to the light and air of the upper earth.
Paris and Hector were waiting for us on the far side of the meadow. They had waited all night. Their faces revealed their relief upon seeing us, and they pulled us up into the chariot to make for Troy.
“What happened there?” asked Hector.
“We cannot divulge it,” Andromache said. “But perhaps it will reward us with what we most desire.” She looked down at her wine-stained gown. “It is a pledge,” she said.
XXXVIII
Our house was rising. It thrust itself up through the fog that was Troy in winter as if it were seeking the vanished sun, boldly claiming it for its own.
We were meeting on a cold day with the artists who would make our walls sing with beauty. They would design and paint scenes of our choosing—we would select the story to be told, they would tell it.
“I don’t want the usual,” said Paris. “Warriors prancing about, or hunters tripping after their prey. Or more labors of Heracles.” He had wrapped himself in a thick robe to ward off the chill, but still he shivered. The wind was moaning outside, seeking entrance into our chamber.
The painter and his apprentice looked eager to comply. When Paris offered no suggestions, the painter said, “May we have your preferences, then?”
“You are the artist!” said Paris. “It is up to you to think of what I might want.”
“But, my prince, once it is painted on the walls it cannot be erased. We would never proceed without knowing what it is you wish to see. We could make sketches first on pottery.” The artist shrugged. “But we would still like some guidance.”
“Paris,” I said. “Could we possibly have the springs and glens of Mount Ida? They were so magnificent. And since this is all within our own will and whim, may we show the wildflowers? I know they bloom only for a short time, but on our walls they could bloom forever. And when we are wrapped in wool and surrounded by fog, we could look upon them and all but smell the perfume.”
He nodded. “That would be an unusual decoration. No people at all. But, my love, let it be as you wish.”
We had been choosing plasterers and tilers and gilders and timberers and hearth-men for what seemed forever. Paris wanted rafters gleaming in gold, wanted marble thresholds and cedar-lined chambers. Each decision seemed to occupy a full day.
But the days were increasingly dark and dreary, and we were glad of a diversion. Let us immerse ourselves in the color of rafter paint and thickness of the wood for the inner doors. Let us shut out the murmurs from the streets of Troy and the rumors that curled, smokelike, under our thresholds: rumors that spoke of the Greeks and their fleet, a fleet gathering at Aulis—in winter, a thing unheard-of.
We were shut in upon ourselves. Mist swirled through the streets, making it impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of us as we measured our steps to the temple at the summit or made our way down to the gates.
Evadne came to me before a late winter dawn had truly passed into daylight, so shaken she knelt by my side. She had risen from a dream that began at dusk and held her captive all night. “I must speak of it,” she said. “I must, to purge myself of the knowledge. I cannot carry it within myself in secret.”
“Speak, then. But first, take some nourishment.” She looked ravaged.
“No,” she said. “I am too poisoned within.”
Then she told it, in hesitant whispers—what she had seen on the shores of Greece, at a place called Aulis. That was where Agamemnon had gathered his gigantic fleet, ready to sail for Troy.
“And it was huge, my lady,” she said. “The ships darkened the water, with their black-tarred hulls, spreading across the whole bay.”
I shuddered. He had succeeded, then, in raising his full army. The other kings did not deny him, like the wily king of Cyprus.
The winds blew steadily from the east, trapping them in the bay day after day, until their supplies dwindled and they began to quarrel. Then Calchas, the Trojan priest who had been sent to Delphi by Priam, appeared in her dream, advising Agamemnon what to do.
“He had become one of them,” she said. “He stood at Agamemnon’s right hand. But he did such evil that Priam can be thankful he no longer serves in Troy. He advised him that Artemis was holding them prisoners by the contrary wind, and that she demanded a sacrifice from him. He must kill his oldest daughter, Iphigenia, on an altar.”
I felt my heart jump. “A human sacrifice? But we do not—”
“That is what Agamemnon said. He refused.”
Yes. Of course he would.
“But it was no use. The winds kept blowing, and the men began crying for Agamemnon to do it, threatening to mutiny if he did not. And so he . . . sent for Iphigenia, pretending—oh, heaping shame upon shame—that she was to marry Achilles. That she should bring a wedding gown. She did.”
“But Achilles . . .” My mouth was so dry I could hardly speak. How was he there?
“He was not a party to it. He knew nothing of it. Iphigenia asked to see him, of course, and then she was told the truth.”
I shut my eyes. What did she do? “Did she beg? Protest? Fight?” I could not begin to imagine what she would have done in this hopeless horror. She had always been a quiet child, but that did not mean she would not struggle.
“She did all of those things. Begging availed her nothing. Protesting and arguing fell on Agamemnon’s hardened heart. Her fight was quickly subdued. So, when all had failed, she turned the other way, gave herself willingly. She asked to be allowed to pray privately to her patron gods, and to dress herself in the wedding robes. She looked sorrowfully at her father and told him she was a willing sacrifice for Greek honor.”
Greek honor! No, Agamemnon’s honor!
“They came for her and escorted her out of the tent and to the altar, where, like a sacrificial animal—”
I shrieked, unable to hear more.
She sat silently. Finally she said, “Artemis kept the bargain. The fleet has sailed. It is on its way.”
For a long time we sat unmoving. The chamber lightened and the feeble rays of the winter sun finally entered through the window.
“I must go,” she said, rising.
“Are you delivered of the evil vision now?” I asked. “Are you Evadne again, free of it?”
“Yes,
but it is a dreadful burden to be delivered of. Now it will live in others, in everyone in Troy.”
After she left, I sat, stunned, by myself. I could not even tell Paris. Not yet. I could not bear to tell him what my family had done to itself. The curse on our houses was coming true. Mother dead—Iphigenia murdered by her father. I needed to mourn Iphigenia in quiet and in solitude. And to reach out, somehow, to my bereaved sister, who had endured the unendurable, with my mind and spirit, and hope she could feel it.
Within a few days, all of Troy knew the Greek fleet was on the sea. It was impossible that the whole world did not know; the news traveled faster than the ships themselves.
Calchas was another matter. He had sent a private message to Priam about his new allegiance. Priam called a conference about him, lamenting his defection.
“He sent us a message,” said Helenus. “He did not desert, he merely—”
“Do not dress it in other words,” cried Priam. “We sent him out as a loyal Trojan, to ascertain what our future held. Instead, he has bolted and allied himself with the Greeks.”
Cassandra knelt. “Perhaps, Father, he received some information from the seer at Delphi that sent him on this course.”
“Then why should he not have reported it to us first?” cried Priam.
“I think that is obvious,” said Hector, stepping forward. “He was told that he must go to the Greeks. Why he was told that, we cannot know.”
“That they would be victorious?” Deiphobus raised his voice. “I cannot imagine what else it could have been. What else would send him scuttling to the other side?” Now he, too, edged close to Priam in a possessive way.
“Cowardice? Or even loyalty? Suppose the oracle foretold the downfall of the Greeks. Might he have received instructions to go cast himself upon them, give them false readings?” Helenus said. “Perhaps he is amongst them to mislead them.” His voice was, as always, low and faintly insidious.
“Wishful thinking, Helenus. Should it be true, we will rejoice, but for now we must look on it more glumly, seeing only the worst. To look for the best and refuse to consider the worst is a crime against ourselves,” said Antenor. He made it sound like a crime against good manners as well.