“But clearly they did not!”
“The gods are not to be trusted. We know that. That is why I sought protection—not that it availed me any.”
“But you gazed upon them. Tell me about them, what they looked like.”
“I hardly noticed,” he admitted. “If you saw a gigantic mastiff, its jaws dripping with foam, about to spring, would you notice its coat?”
“And they disrobed?”
“Hermes suggested it. So the first was Hera. She looked well enough, but then her attempts at bribery were pathetic. She sought to dangle riches and territory before me.” He paused. “Then came Athena. She had insisted that Aphrodite remove her magic belt, which caused all who saw her to fall in love with her.” He laughed. “Aphrodite agreed, if Athena would remove her helmet. She said Athena looked hideous in it. She was right. Athena was . . . almost attractive without it.”
“And what did she offer you?”
“Oh, more territory and victories, things I care not about.” He shrugged—too quickly. Then he went to the edge of the pool and, kneeling, dipped his hand into it.
“Aphrodite, then,” I coaxed him.
He sank back on his haunches. “That lady knows how to please a man.” He smiled.
“Yes, she is known for that.”
“The first thing she told me was that I was the handsomest man in the region and was wasting myself in cattle-herding. She said I was meant for better things. She promised them to me.”
“She promised you a place in Troy? But of course she already knew of your true birth.” Oh, how quickly I rushed to supply the answer! Would that I had waited for him to speak first.
“Yes, that is exactly what she promised,” he said, smiling. “Just that.” He flipped some water over at me, spraying my face. “And it was soon after that that I went to Troy and the truth of my parentage was revealed. I must thank her for that. Because of her, I became a prince of Troy.”
“You were already that.”
“But it was Aphrodite who revealed it to my mother and father.”
“Then it was worth it to choose her. It changed your life in a manner you desired.”
“Yes, yes.”
“I thought you did not remember what they promised you.”
A fleeting look of alarm crossed his face. “Coming here has revived my memories. As I hoped.”
“As I hoped. Now we must propitiate the losers, so they call off their vengeance on Troy.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He dug into his sack and brought out two painted vases celebrating their charms, along with homage acknowledging their beauty with exquisite necklaces of carnelian and amethyst strung with gold beads. He laid them reverently on a flat stone, invoking their presence.
Holding up his hands, he cried, “Great goddesses of Olympus, Hera of Argos and gray-eyed, aegis-bearing daughter of Zeus, sublime Athena, look with favor on these gifts I bring you, and have mercy on Troy.” Then he offered more things to fire their hearts: spread out upon the rock were models of ships and walled cities, as if Paris could deliver them! “All these are yours to command. You promised to abide by my pitiful decision, but I am only an ignorant mortal. My weak opinion should weigh nothing in the scales of the immortals.”
He knelt before the makeshift altar.
There was utter silence. Did they even hear him? They were most likely occupied with other matters, all as frivolous as an engraved apple. I clamped my thoughts shut, lest they read them.
“You threaten Troy, which never did you harm. I am not Troy. I was not even acknowledged by Troy when I was summoned to award the golden apple. Do not blame innocent people for my failings.”
More silence.
“Call off the Greeks! Beseech Zeus, call off the havoc of war!”
No sound but the rustle of the thicket and the gurgle of the waterfall.
“Then . . . Aphrodite, save us!” he cried. “Do not let us perish!”
Aphrodite: the goddess who, leading us by invisible traces, had brought us together. She was not trustworthy, but now she was all we had. Our petition to the others had been ignored, and Troy must suffer. I gave a cry. Was there nothing we could do? But what could we promise to the losers, Hera and Athena? It was they who had the power to bestow gifts, not us.
I reached out to Paris and took his hand, drawing him up. “Come,” I said. “This is as it is.” I felt both sad and defiant. “We must stand up to it, bear it, whatever may come. The gods can buckle our knees and crush our shoulders, yet there is a majesty in being destroyed by them—but by their hands alone. Meanwhile, we stand on our feet. This is our last petition to them, to hateful Hera and Athena.” I cast my glance across the skies. Sometimes the gods even admired those they destroyed, if they were worthy adversaries. “You made your choice, Paris. Now we must accept the consequences.”
“You would do that alongside me?” He sounded incredulous.
“Of course. Without you there is nothing of me.” I clasped his hand. It was cold, like a jar left outside in the night.
“Helen.” He leaned toward me, his eyes asking a hundred questions.
“I thought never to see you again.” A clear, sharp voice rang across the glen. I jerked my head around to see a woman standing on the far side of the pool. She was young, slender, robed. Paris’s hand trembled in mine. I felt a slight movement as if he would withdraw it, but he did not; instead, he squeezed it tighter.
“Oenone,” he cried.
“Oh, yes. Oenone.” She was striding forward, coming toward us. Her steps were brisk, kicking out her closed mantle around her; inside it I could see a rose-colored gown. The closer she got, the clearer I could see her lovely face. Paris stood rooted as if he were a tree. He clutched my hand.
“So this is the one you left me for.” She was within a few paces of us before she stopped. “Oh, I have heard of her.” She flipped back her hood. Long honey-streaked hair tumbled out. “She’s not so superlatively beautiful as they say. So why, Paris?” Her voice was loud and challenging. I wanted to answer it, but it was not my place. Let Paris speak.
“I love her,” he finally said.
“Love her, or love the fact that she is daughter of Zeus?” The bold woman circled us. “You carved our names together on the forest trees. You said you would be mine forever. Then suddenly you were gone!” She brought her arm out in a swift gesture. “Gone, and gone to her.” She thrust her face up into mine. “Tell me, lady, what trick did you use to win him? When he came to your husband’s court, why did you throw yourself before him?”
I did not, I started to say. But why should I defend myself? Best to say nothing.
“A married woman,” she hissed. “Did you know special things to lure him? Or was it just the melody of the forbidden? I know Paris, he likes the forbidden. That is why he went to Troy that day. It was forbidden. Mark yourself, lady, and now that you are no longer forbidden, but come with a price—watch for him to flit away!”
Why did Paris not speak?
“Begone, Oenone. You are wearisome. It is over between us.” Now Paris did speak, but his words were drooping, weak ones.
“So you think. Have you forgotten my gifts of healing?” She pulled herself away, glared at us.
“What of them? I am not in need of them.”
“Ah, but you will be. I see ahead, I see it. You will suffer a grievous wound and be brought to me here—she has no powers of healing—but in that day I will turn my back on you and send you back to Troy to die.”
If she sought by this to win him to her side again, she was ignorant of men. “Such is your love, then,” I spoke. “A shallow one, that smarts only with your own pride. This is not love.”
“Curses on you!” she spat. “Source of all his doom, and you dare to call me names!”
“I only know that if I truly love someone, I would never withhold vital aid to him, regardless of what he had done. But perhaps that is because I am a mother, and know other dimensions of love.”
“
A mother who has left her child—abandoned her for her lover! What right have you to speak to me of love?”
Ah, well she knew how to wound me. “Perhaps I understand love even better because of that. I have suffered.”
“And I have not?” she glared at Paris. “Speak to me, you coward. Do not let your lover speak for you.”
“Oenone, I have told you, it is over between us.”
“Because you have gone on to a higher station—prince of Troy, lover of a queen.”
“It was my destiny.” His voice was faint, reluctant. “I was already a prince of Troy, and not to claim it would have been cowardly. And Helen is my other self, my soul. Meant for me since the beginning.”
“Let that other self save you, then, when the time comes!” she cried. She turned, then stopped and looked back at us. “I had prayed to see you just once more. The gods brought you here, whispered in my ear where I could find you. Bitter finding! I leave you to her, and in those final hours, even she will beg me to save you.” She flung back her head. “But I won’t, my lady. Your pitiful supplications will be balm to me, but they will avail you nothing. Rejoice in your short time together!” In a swirl of her cloak she was gone. The foliage swallowed her up as she slipped away.
“Paris,” I said, shaken. “You had not told me of her.” Now I remembered Deiphobus’s sneering remark about a water nymph Paris had left. “Perhaps it is best. Now I know everything: the hard test the goddesses put before you, the woman you had loved before me. You know Menelaus, I now know Oenone. I have looked upon her face.” He looked so distraught I sought to reassure him. “There should be no secrets between us.”
Fool that I was, I thought I knew all. I still did not know the final secret of Aphrodite’s promise, how she had dangled me as a prize.
XL
At the rumors of the Greek fleet, Troy seemed to swell with pride and excitement. Too long slumbering peacefully, too long prepared with high walls, stout towers, and stores of weaponry, it welcomed the exhilaration of coming action. Awakening from its golden haze, it stirred like a lion eager to hunt. Evidently these desires had been pent up for a generation, and the young hailed Paris and me when we walked among them on the streets, crying out that they would defend their “Greek treasure” to the death. But the way they laughed, with their flashing teeth, it was clear they did not think it was they who would die. They would strike such terror into their enemy that the enemy would flee—not before a fierce battle or two, however. The Trojans did not want to be robbed of a great battle, in which the end was a foregone conclusion. What else could it be? Everyone knew the Greeks quarreled and fought amongst themselves and were a ragtag bunch, who had never mustered a proper army. One Trojan was worth ten Greeks, became their song.
The workshops were humming, the artisans and smiths of Troy busier than ever, and trade was brisk. People flocked in to Troy to get goods and trade their own. A market sprang up around the new sphinx in the open courtyard, and it was thronged from dawn to dusk. Then Priam insisted that they leave so the gates could be closed for the night. But every morning the people were there again, and it seemed the numbers grew.
The women of Troy enjoyed the market coming to them, and being able to shop without leaving their city. Husbands forbade them to indulge themselves with trinkets and tidbits, but their lectures went unheeded.
Strangely, it was a happy time in Troy.
In addition, Troy began fortifying itself. Workmen oiled the pivots of the great gates; carpenters hewed new bolts to secure the doors. Stonemasons added a fresh parapet of clay bricks atop the stone walls. The ditch surrounding the lower town was deepened, and a further row of stakes were set bristling in back of the one already there. Priam himself went down and addressed the people living in the lower town, warning that trouble might be coming. He was careful to avoid the word war. Or even siege.
The steps to the covered well beside Athena’s temple were refaced and the well dredged; new buckets were set out and fresh ropes were provided for hauling water. Busiest were the merchants who had the responsibility of laying in food supplies. They fanned out across the region and returned with wagonloads of grain and oil. These were transferred into huge sunken stone storage jars. Just seeing them there, buried in rows up to their necks, their lids sealed with tar, gave Trojans a sense of security, but also added to the holiday mood.
There was no further word on Agamemnon and his fleet.
Exactly how many of them? Who were the commanders? We would not know that until they set foot on our side of the Aegean and we could send spies amongst them. Already Priam was recruiting these spies, largely young men with no family obligations. He called upon Gelanor to help train them, but Gelanor told him he would have to include volunteers of varying ages.
“The point of a spy is to blend in perfectly,” he said. “A spy should be the most forgettable person possible—so that later if someone is asked to describe him, he will scratch his head and say, ‘I cannot recall.’ Handsome men, swaggering men, men with scars and red hair, cannot be spies. But we need older men and even some women.”
“Women?” Priam’s thick eyebrows rose.
“Yes, women. Does not every army have a flock of women, called by the less-than-flattering name ‘camp followers’? What else is a spy but a camp follower? Who better to blend in?”
“You mean . . . prostitutes?” Priam twisted up his mouth.
“He who scorns a prostitute scorns himself,” said Gelanor.
Priam drew himself up. “What, sir, do you mean by that?”
“I mean only that those who look too high overlook important things,” he said. “Who has better access to generals than prostitutes? Who overhears secrets muttered in the dark? Some of the most loyal defenders of a city have been prostitutes.” He coughed discreetly. “There should be a public monument recognizing their contributions.”
“All right, find them! Train them! That is, train them in retrieving information.”
“And older men, too—you will need them. Pitiful, broken things, lamenting the cruel fate that deprived them of limbs or livelihood. They hang on the edges of armies and are employed for menial tasks. The more bitter they are, the less anyone suspects them.” He paused. “Surely you have such at Troy?”
“It has been a great long while since we had a war at Troy,” Priam said.
“Men are broken by things other than war,” said Gelanor. “We must find them.”
“How many do you think we will need?” Priam asked.
“Allowing for desertion, execution, and failure, I would say . . . at least two hundred. Then we might be left with a hundred.”
Priam nodded. “You shall have them, sir, you shall have them.”
Training spies seemed ominous. Gelanor assured me it was not. He said there were always amateur spies; these were usually caught and killed, so did it not make sense to learn from those mistakes?
“You make it sound as if these people are weapons like bows or swords, always needing improvement,” I said.
“They are weapons,” he said. “Perhaps the most deadly we have. After all, knowledge of the enemy’s thinking and position determines the action against it.”
Now he had hit upon it. “How can these people from Greece ever be our enemies? We are Greeks. I cannot think of them as enemies.”
“Then you should learn to,” he said. “Your brother-in-law has assembled an armada of soldiers to invade Troy and retrieve you. Do you wish to go with him?”
“No,” I said quietly.
“Then it will not be peaceful. Oh, they will send an embassy, which will be rebuffed. Then the fighting will start. Agamemnon would be gravely disappointed if it did not start. So would the Trojans, I sense. So we need to know exactly how many men he has, and what tactics he plans.”
“Yes, I understand that.”
“It may save lives.”
“Trojan lives.”
“That should be your only concern.”
Oh, but how
could it be? I had kinsmen and neighbors amongst the Greeks. Possibly even my own brothers! How could I care only for Trojan lives? “But what of you—you are a Greek, these are your people too,” I cried.
“That is my sorrow,” he replied. “And the price I pay for not having left Troy immediately, as I wished.”
“Can you change loyalties so completely, even if your heart is partly elsewhere?”
“I try not to think of that,” he said. “My task is to outsmart Agamemnon and disarm him before he does any harm. So that is why I will select and send out spies, and teach them every trick I know to ferret out Agamemnon’s plans.” He smiled. “Helen, I know you will not wish to be known in ages hence as the cause of a war.”
“Never!” I agreed.
“But again, we both know that down the ages knowledge fades and only a few memories remain, and the memory of the beautiful Helen as a cause of war between Greeks and Trojans may linger. Unless that war is prevented.”
Winter came and went. The seas opened. But the horizon remained clear. Down on the plain, the Trojans were training, seemingly thousands of warriors exercising in the thin sunlight, practicing archery and sword-thrusting, charging up barricades and ditches set before them by their commanders. Drivers raced chariots across the expanse, and the horse pens were transformed into stockades to protect their precious wards. Meanwhile, the smithies were turning out swords, shields, and armor by the cartload, and craftsmen were preparing new chariots as quickly as possible, the wainwrights fashioning eight-spoked wheels, the leather workers creating the floors, others fashioning the soft, pliant willow rushes gathered by the riverbanks into guardrails.
Representatives of Trojan allies came to promise aid to Priam. I met many of these ambassadors, and I must confess that aside from differing headgear they all seemed similar, although of course they spoke different tongues. The only truly unusual ones—and the ones I was keen to see—were the Amazons of Asia. They sent a chieftain, along with a contingent of soldiers, to assure Priam of aid should the need arise.