Because I occupied a place in Troy outside of any normal protocol, when I wished to see someone, it was entirely within my prerogative. I hurried off to Priam’s megaron as soon as I received word that the Amazon ambassador had arrived.
By the time I entered, she had already presented her credentials to Priam. They were conferring about the number of warriors she would be able to provide in the hour of need. I slipped in and slid along the wall, staring at her.
She was very tall, and outfitted in fighting gear, although not armor as I knew it. She wore a linen corselet and a helmet, but other than that was unprotected. Her long hair was drawn back in a braid. Her arm was like a column of marble—smooth and impenetrable. I saw her hands, fingering her sword—broad with stubby fingers. At my movement—although I had tried to be quiet—she swung around and confronted me, grasping her sword.
“Peace, Elate,” said Priam. “This is Helen. There is no need to draw on her.”
The Amazon pushed back her helmet a bit to get a clearer look at me. An expression of disdain flitted across her face. “No, I think not!”
I walked over to her. “I am your friend, not your enemy.” I smiled. “I must confess everyone is curious about Amazons. Is it true that you have no men in your villages?”
“Oh, we have them for a little while. They are useful for some things. I think, lady, you know what those things are.”
I nodded and laughed nervously.
“But beyond that, we do not need them,” she said. “We find them a nuisance.”
Now I did truly laugh. That amused her.
“Now, come, Helen, have you never felt the same? Would you not like them to vanish after they have fulfilled their purpose? So much simpler.”
I found myself unable to answer, I was so overcome with laughter.
“Some of them,” I said. Certainly not all.
“No men are worth the bother they cause,” she said. “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty.” She all but winked at Priam. “Well, I can guarantee a force of some hundred warriors, like these.” She motioned to her bodyguards, all of them tall and muscular. “Trained since childhood to fight and shoot,” she said. “A hundred Amazons are worth a thousand men.”
“Why would you come all this distance to protect Troy?” I asked her. Her homeland was far away.
“We want no Greeks here,” she said. “Let them stay on their side of the sea. My lady, although you are indeed lovely to look on, no one is fooled by their wavering cries of needing to retrieve you as a matter of honor. They want a foothold in our region. We want to deny it them.”
“Then we welcome your help,” said Priam.
Elate shot a look at me. “I don’t doubt that your husband wants you back and is a lovelorn creature.” She snorted at the thought of it. “But as for the rest of them—they just want the pluckings of this land.” Now she smiled. “I hope I do not disillusion you.”
“No,” I said. “No.”
The white storks returned from their winter journey, and were now wading through the marshes. The sky sang a clean blue song. All the signs of spring that would give us joy were now signs that our land was open to invasion. The passage was easy now, beckoning.
As swiftly as the returning birds flew, rumors flapped alongside them. There are ships on the horizon. No, those were only waves. They’ve landed far to the south of us, at Larissa. A great mass is coming from Thrace. My son saw them with his own eyes, when he went to the hot and cold springs on the mountainside, there they were, spread out on the plain below him. They say there are two of them, coming on a special embassy. What two? I don’t know, but they both have red-gold hair. Lots of Greeks have that. It could be anyone. Has Priam received any word? No.
As the days passed, I grew increasingly on edge. Then one day I received a baffling summons to come to the queen’s apartments as soon as possible. There was no explanation and no formal greeting, just a command.
I still was not used to no longer being queen, but having to obey one. In Sparta I had thought the queenship sat lightly on me and had not changed me, but now I knew that once a woman is queen, even briefly, she is queen forever, in her own heart. Still, Hecuba rarely summoned me at all, so in one way this was a good sign.
When I reached the outer chambers I saw all her daughters waiting nervously, flitting and milling about. Priam had twelve daughters, but they were not all by Hecuba. I saw no strangers amongst them, so these were all Hecuba’s. Laodice came up to me, her great dark eyes shining. “I wanted you to come!” she said. “Won’t Mother be surprised?”
“Yes, she will,” said Ilona, gliding up to us. “She will be even more surprised when she hears that you pretended to be her and summoned Helen.”
So it was not Hecuba after all. I felt a keen disappointment at that. Still, at least the princesses accepted me, particularly Laodice. There are stories of men sitting motionless in the forest attempting to win the trust of a wild animal. I felt like that with the royal family of Troy.
“It is Mother’s birthday!” Laodice said. “And we have planned something to please her and surprise her.”
“You know it is impossible to surprise Mother,” said Creusa. “She knows everything.”
“She didn’t know about this,” said Laodice stubbornly. “Come, we can decorate the chamber now; she’s gone to the rooms where the robes are kept, and she always takes a while there.”
They festooned the chamber with green garlands and meadow flowers, and Ilona busied herself hunched over a large tray. There was little for me to do and my task was not to appear as awkward as I felt. I watched the youngests, Philomena and Polyxena, playing tag with one another, then settling down to a game played with bone knuckles. They were children one moment and young women the next. They reminded me of Iphigenia and Hermione playing together, and such a heavy weight of sadness fell over me I had to turn away. Iphigenia would play no more, and Hermione . . . what was she doing, this very moment? Oh, if only I could see her—just for an instant.
“You look sad!” Cassandra stood before me accusingly. “What for?” she barked.
“You look angry,” I replied. “What for?”
“She’s always angry,” said Laodice, rushing to my defense. “No one listens to her, that’s why.”
Andromache joined us, and just then Ilona said, “She’s coming! Quiet!”
I heard soft footsteps approaching the chamber; then Hecuba stepped in. She looked about in surprise, but a frown rather than a smile settled on her face. “What is this, my daughters?” she asked
“We are here to honor you on this day of your birth sixty years ago.”
“Bah!” she said. “What is that to me?”
“Well, Mother, it is something to us and we wish to honor you.” Creusa lifted her chin in the stubbornness she took care to hide from Aeneas.
Hecuba walked erect into the middle of the chamber. She moved like one who was ageless, with neither the springiness of youth nor the shuffle of decline. She looked around at the eight of us and her face softened. “All here, then,” she said. “And the wives of my sons. The only two that have managed to marry so far, shame to the others!” Finally she smiled. “I am blessed in my daughters, from my eldest, dear Creusa, to my baby, Philomena.”
“We are more blessed in having such a mother,” said Ilona.
“And we, newly adopted into Priam’s great family, are also blessed.” Andromache encircled me with her arm, speaking for me.
“Now that we have finished with the honey, what shall we have for a real meal?” Hecuba said briskly. “What have you for me?”
“A game,” said Ilona.
Hecuba waved her hand. “Games. I hate games!”
“Not athletic contests, Mother, but a game of the mind,” Laodice said.
“Something you excel at,” said Creusa.
“Oh, my, the flattery is so thick I wonder the chamber is not swarming with flies!” said Hecuba.
“We each have put a trinket on this t
ray,” said Ilona. “All except Helen, that is.” She smiled a deadly sweet smile at me.
“I had no opportunity to bring anything,” I said. “This was as much a surprise to me as to you . . . Mother.” I still found it very difficult to call her that.
“Yes, I am to be your mother now,” she said. “Since you have lost yours to an unfortunate . . . unfortunate . . .” It was unlike her to stumble for a word.
“Impulsive act,” said Cassandra flatly.
“Brave, but misguided,” said Andromache quickly.
Everyone knew, now, about my mother, what she had done and why she had done it. That was my torment and my grief, no longer private but every-one’s property.
“You may call me daughter,” I said. I wanted us to leave speaking of my mother, before I wept in front of them.
“So, what is this?” Hecuba peered down at a tray covered with a soft cloth.
“You are to look at the things underneath while we count to ten, then we cover it up again.”
“What’s the point in that?”
“To test your memory and make sure you are not like some of Father’s councillors, who are so befuddled with age they cannot remember which door they have just come out of.”
“I remember everything, my darlings, so don’t think you can put anything over on me. It would be just like you to add or subtract something from the tray so that I’d begin to doubt my senses. I warn you, it won’t work.” She whisked off the cloth herself and said, “Start counting!”
I saw her keen eyes moving over the tray, scrutinizing each object. Before Laodice could get to ten, Hecuba said airily, “Take it away!”
“So soon?” Ilona was incredulous.
“I haven’t been queen of Troy for nigh on forty years without being able to remember every item that crosses my path and every word spoken.” She shook her head. “Some I would rather have forgotten.”
“Very well, then, Mother, recite them. Any one you forget, you may not keep.”
She closed her eyes. “I can still see every one, where it was lying on the tray. You will have to explain the significance of them once I name them. There was a clump of little dried berries in a bowl. They looked like raisins but were not. That was in the upper left corner. Next to that was some sort of grass, tied up in a little bundle. Then in the middle there was a folded packet of something very blue. And a little box next to it, made of ebony with spiral lines radiating out from the middle. A very long white feather . . .” I shuddered at the word. But then she went on to say, “fluffy, floating. And an enormous egg, so big it must be from the gods. And then there was a bracelet of bronze, an arrow tip, a pair of earrings, also bronze . . .” She went on to name several other items, quite ordinary ones. When she finished, she opened her eyes. “Well?”
Ilona was staring down at the tray. “You have missed nothing.”
“There, there, don’t be so disappointed. Now, which ones are my gifts, and which one of you chose them, and what is their significance?”
“I gave you the herb grass, Mother,” said little Philomena. “I gathered it myself in the fields, and it will soothe you and give you good dreams if you put it in water and let it steep in the sun and drink it slowly.”
“Thank you, my pet. I need more good dreams.”
“I gave you the cherries, Mother,” Polyxena said.
“Whatever are cherries?”
“A fruit that grows far inland, beyond even the Black Sea. I found them in a booth at the fair. They are sweet, and, the merchant told me, red when they are fresh.”
“Beyond the Black Sea! I have heard there is another sea, a bit smaller, farther to the east, but I don’t know its name, or even if it has a name,” Hecuba said. “Thank you.” Ilona handed her the little bowl and she popped a dried cherry into her mouth. “Tasty,” she said.
“I gave you the ostrich feather,” said Ilona. “They say the pharaoh in Egypt uses fans of ostrich feathers, and I thought the queen of Troy deserved one as well.”
“And to go with it, I gave you the ostrich egg.” Creusa picked it up and twirled it. “It is indeed beyond the size of any other bird’s, even an eagle’s or a crane’s.”
Or a swan’s, I thought. I’ve seen the eggshell, it’s blue, hyacinthine blue . . .
“I don’t suppose it will hatch,” Hecuba said. “What is that folded blue item?”
“It’s a cloth from even farther east than the cherries,” said Laodice. She unfolded it and flicked it through the air, where it floated as lightly as the plumes of the ostrich feather. It looked like a blue mist, transparent and wafting. “I was told it was silk. Oh, Mother, if I might have a wedding gown of this!”
Everyone laughed. Laodice was consumed with wedding plans, even with no fiancé.
Hecuba fingered it in wonder. “Marvelous,” she murmured.
“And Mother . . .” Cassandra stepped over to hand her the little ebony box.
“A box. I must have a hundred of them, but this is still very attractive.”
“Look inside it.” In her eagerness, Cassandra almost grabbed the box away to get the lid open faster.
Hecuba drew out a round bluish stone.
“It has a star inside,” said Cassandra. “Look, if you hold it this way . . .” She tilted it. “See, a six-pointed one.”
“What stone is it?”
“I don’t know its name, but the man told me it was a powerful talisman, so powerful it protects the wearer even after being passed on to someone else. Mother, may it protect you.”
Cassandra the seer giving her mother something to protect her—what did Cassandra see?
“Thank you, my dears.” She looked around at her six. “It seems you have given the merchants at our last trade fair much business.”
Was it my imagination, or did she emphasize last in an ominous way?
She turned to Andromache and me. “Now, what have you for me?”
Andromache fluttered, then said, “We were invited at the same time as you, it seems, so we had no time to prepare something. But let us—”
“There is only one gift I want from the two of you,” she said. “Children! Give me grandchildren!”
Self-contained as she always was, Andromache did not respond except with a tepid, “It is one I would gladly bestow, if I could.”
Before anyone else could cover the hurtful moment, the doors to the hall flew open and Priam strode in, surrounded by a pack of nervous, jumping hounds. “To my queen, the mother of Troy!” he cried, spreading his arms.
“You know you are not to bring those animals in here!” Hecuba said, backing away. “I’ve told you, I won’t tolerate it!” As she spoke, one of the dogs grabbed a corner of her rug and started chewing it. “Out!” she cried.
Priam bent down and nuzzled the dog, pulling it away from the rug. It obeyed him, wagging its tail wildly. “Oh, be kind, my dear. On this special day all creatures wish to pay homage to you. See?”
Just behind him trooped in all their sons, followed by the elders of Troy. Suddenly the chamber was filled to bursting. Hector, resplendent in a white robe, stepped forward to embrace his mother, and the brothers then followed in order: Deiphobus, wearing a leather tunic and his usual sardonic look; Paris, attired in the Eastern-style trousers he usually wore only in private, with a panther skin draped over one shoulder; Helenus, his black seer’s robe adorned with silver stars; Troilus, still wearing the tunic of youth; the four who were just names to me—Hipponous, Antiphus, Pammon, and Polites—and the very youngest, Polydorus, his cheeks flushed with the excitement of a party and his part in it. He walked solemnly over to Philomena and took her hand, leading her up to Hecuba.
He bowed, and, eyes tightly squeezed shut to help him remember his words, recited, “We, your youngest son and youngest daughter, salute our mother on this special year of her life.”
Hecuba’s lip trembled a bit, but she stifled it. “Thank you, my dearests, the last son and daughter I gave Priam. All the living children that I hav
e given him are here today, from the youngest to the oldest. We are most blessed.”
“And,” said Priam, “we have many old friends who have made the journey through our years together by our side, and they greet you as well.” He waved toward the group of councilors standing eagerly by.
“Thymoetes!” One-eyed from an ancient battle with the Mysians, the old man bowed.
“Lampius!” So rotund his wrinkles were plumped out from within, he nodded gravely. Had he bowed, he would have toppled over.
“Clytius!” His toothless gums flashed pink as he greeted the queen.
“Hicetaon!” His face and form bore vestiges of the marvel he had been in youth. But the features had softened and melted, the muscles withered, the hair thinned. Staring out from this ruined vista were dark puzzled eyes—puzzled to find their owner in this state.
“Now let us include Zeus in our commemoration,” Priam said. “My Zeus.”
Indulgently, the family followed him out into the main courtyard, where they gathered every few days as he called upon them to sacrifice before his strange wooden figure of Zeus. He felt that this image was his personal protector, and he was fiercely loyal to it. I found it unsettling, with its three eyes and wild, twining hair, but I knew that each man’s god must speak to him alone and none should question why.
As the large family stood around the altar, I could not help comparing it to my own back in Sparta. Even when we were all together, there had been only six of us. Father had no circle of comrades and councilors who had been with him all the years. Our lives in Sparta seemed barren in comparison to Priam’s. Barren of people, but also barren of the luxuries that Trojans seemed to feel were necessities. From what I had seen so far, they denied themselves nothing. Perhaps they even thought it unhealthy to do so! I was still not sure if I envied their comfort or disapproved of it.
“We pledge ourselves to you, Zeus, and know you will continue to protect us as you have all along.” Priam was addressing the image.