Goddess of Yesterday (13 page)

I had never known that. I had never heard anybody refer to any defeat of Troy, let alone within living memory. We in the balcony held our breath. The Trojan companions who had been tired and a little drunk were now flushed and humiliated. Their muscles shifted as they considered reaching and gripping weapons. But they had none, not even studded leather to bind their knuckles, a weapon that permits one strike of the fist to kill.

Aeneas, graceful and calm, said quietly, “It happened as you say, lord.”

Menelaus did not stand. It was his throne room. He had power just sitting there. But at a glance from him, his men too shifted position. Their spears were not leaning against a distant wall. They had not had too much to drink. “When Hercules had beaten Troy,” said Menelaus, relishing the words, “the great hero took his due. His soldier Telamon, having slaughtered many, was awarded the princess Hesione as his prize. All this was just and proper.”

The stories of Hesione were many. She had been raped by Hercules or saved from sea monsters by Hercules. She was now a pitiful drudge slaving in the house of Telamon or she was Telamon's honored wife. Every year she bribed traders to take her home to Troy or every year she laughed in their faces and spit on Troy.

“Wise King Priam knows all this,” said Menelaus, “for he and I discussed it at length during my recent visit. Telamon
married
Hesione. Hesione is his
queen
, not his servant.”

There was no need for any man to wed his captive. Telamon must have loved her to do that.

“Hesione is not only Telamon's queen in Salamis,” said Menelaus, and no man in the court was bored by the story he told now, “she is also the mother of his beloved son Teucer—your cousin, Paris. Your age, in fact. But unlike you, Teucer will become a king. The son of Hesione has a future. You on the contrary are the youngest son. You will do nothing in your life except obey your brothers.”

In the balcony we cringed. What a slap in a guest's face to remind him how lowly his position really was. But Paris just smiled.

“We acknowledge,” said Aeneas carefully, “that there is much truth in what you say, Lord Menelaus. But our king Priam nevertheless yearns for his sister. We will of course report to him how happy she is as queen of Salamis and how proud of her son Teucer.”

Paris found this as amusing as he had found the entire evening. “My father's request having been made and refused,” he said, “I am free of obligation.” And then he shouted, as if he and not Menelaus were the host, “Let us have dancing now, and song, for these are the crown of a feast.”

And Paris it was who led the dancing and Helen who watched with a feverish flush.

The next day Menelaus took Paris and Aeneas on a boar hunt. Aethiolas and Maraphius got to go along. Hermione and I spun. Helen spent the day on her balcony.

“Isn't that odd?” said Hermione. “Usually Mother detests sun on her skin.”

I did not think it odd. She would see Paris return. She expected that he would get the boar.

But Menelaus got the boar. The peasants had feared the boar, for a boar has no fear of man and will rip apart a shepherd or a sheep, a woman in the field or a child on the path. How they sang the hunter king's praises.

Helen sang nothing. Paris smiled.

The following day, Helen escorted Paris to the temple of Apollo in preparation for the ceremonies in which the prince would shed his blood debt. In the megaron, Menelaus listened to petitions. Maraphius and Aethiolas memorized history with their tutors. Pleis napped. Hermione spun. I made my way to the keeping-track room.

I hoped the scribes would let me try. If I could whirl a slingshot, surely I could wield a marker thorn. I had been working on my thoughts and they were less smoky.

I kept thinking of that Trojan princess Hesione, who must be quite old now. As old as Aethra. At this moment Hesione sat in a palace in Salamis on the western rim of the Aegean Sea, while Priam her brother sat in the palace of Troy on the eastern rim.

Could there be a keeping-track line which spoke not of objects on shelves but of thoughts in hearts?

Could there be a way for people who would never see each other again to talk to each other?

Yet if there were such a thing, what good would it do? If I could keep track with that marking thorn that I hoped my parents still loved me, all I would have was a dried square of clay telling
me
. It wouldn't tell
them.

And yet…

Clomping boots down the dark hall startled me. Still
thick with thought, I stepped into a side room and slipped behind the door curtains. The steps were loud and many, but there were only two speakers, and I recognized their voices.

“Lord king,” said the captain Kinados intensely, “Paris and Aeneas have warriors on their ships.”

“Now, Kinados. I would hardly expect a prince to travel unescorted,” said Menelaus.

With ferocity, as if Kinados would gladly shove the king against a wall to make him listen, the captain said, “Menelaus! These are not escorts. These are troops! We need to know what Paris is really planning. He does not care about blood debt.”

“Now, Kinados. Paris is my guest. He has gone hunting with me. Bounced my little son on his lap and played with my hounds.”

“Paris just wants to get to know his enemy before he attacks,” said Kinados. “Lord, at table you came close to mortal insult.”

“And yet he laughed, didn't he?” said Menelaus patiently. “Is that the mark of a dangerous man?”

“Didn't you hear him tell the queen what a fine warrior he is? That he lives for the joy of throwing the lance?”

“He's no warrior, Kinados. We all bathed together after the hunt. You and I have seen every inch of his body. If Paris loves battle, he loves it from a distance. No spear tip, no arrow, not even a fist has ever touched that skin. Paris just wants a good hunt followed by a good party.”

“Amyklai is what he wants!” snapped Kinados. “And after that, Sparta. And then all your kingdom. And when he has gotten us, he goes to Salamis to get his aunt Hesione.”

“Send a messenger to Salamis, then. Let King Telamon
know that an overgrown playboy named Paris frightens you. But bother me no more.” Menelaus walked away.

His soldiers were so angry they could not at first follow him.

“The king is a good man,” said one, trying to find an excuse.

“In a king,” said Kinados grimly, “that is a flaw.”

I did not go to the keeping-track room after all. I had so many thoughts in my head I could not keep track of anything.

“I don't trust Paris,” said Hermione.

The hour was very late. Most of the palace was asleep. Hermione's nurse Bia and the maids were snoring on the porch. Hermione and I were sitting on her bed whispering. I had first pulled back the window curtains and then opened the hall door in hopes of a cool draft. None came. “Why not?” I asked.

“Father taunted Paris,” she said. “I think that was a mistake. I think Paris has a plan and Father does not.”

I was impressed. Hermione thought like a seasoned captain. I, however, agreed with Menelaus, not Kinados. Paris was just watching himself shine. He had no plans. He had only parties and laughter.

“If I were a general or an admiral,” said Hermione, “Father would listen to me. But when I told him that Paris is a danger to the kingdom, Father just patted my head.”

I loved Menelaus. His captain criticized, his wife scolded, and now his daughter was correcting him. I changed the subject. “Did you see the tusks from that boar?” I said.

“Aethiolas and Maraphius were bragging about that old boar. I don't think Father really let them anywhere near it. I
bet Paris didn't get near it either. Everyone is joking about his smooth skin.”

“How old do you think Paris is?”

“Twenty-five?” she guessed.

“How old is your mother?”

“Twenty-eight. Last year was a very sacred year for her, because twenty-seven is nine threes. She was sure something important would happen, but it didn't.”

I thought of that ninth day when I returned to the sacred olive tree. It was only weeks ago, yet Siphnos seemed as distant as the mountains from the sea. Hermione and I leaned close, and the night wore on, and still we whispered.

And so when all the household slept except the guards at the gate, we were awake when Paris of Troy walked barefoot down the hall and Helen met him at her door.

I was too shocked to breathe. If a queen is with a man not her husband, it is treason, for if she should bear a child, it will not be the king's. A stranger's blood and history will step into the royal family and defile it.

Hermione and I climbed off the bed and stepped out into the hall and looked down toward Helen's room. The two red marble dogs stared back, their black eyes glittering.

“I will kill them,” said Hermione.

The days passed.

The number of people who knew what Hermione and I knew grew larger. The secret filled the palace like the stench of rotting meat, stinking in our hearts.

But Menelaus arranged competitions for the pleasure of our guests, not knowing that one guest was enjoying a different sort of pleasure.

We rooted for runners in quarter-mile and half-mile
footraces; we screamed as chariots tipped over on the turn; we cheered for sweating wrestlers and long-throwing ball players. Harpists vied for a prize and bards sang new songs.

On the eighth day of Paris' visit, I woke to the soft clink of stones. From Hermione's window, I watched two men and a boy as they laid a new slate roof on the low granary beyond the women's garden. How neatly each stone slice lay, like fish scales.

How well men put together a roof. How poorly they put together their lives.

I was exactly what Helen accused me of: a girl of lead, not a princess of gold.

What was I to do about this life I had stolen? For among such cruel gods, such stern kings, I felt a dread fate before me.

That morning, a messenger brought news from Crete, largest island in the Sea. It has ninety cities. I tried and failed to imagine ninety places like Gythion and Amyklai all on one isle. While visiting the king of Crete, the messenger told us, the grandfather of Menelaus had died in his sleep. Crete was holding off the funeral games until Menelaus arrived.

Suddenly Amyklai was buzzing and active, Menelaus' closest companions assembling to escort him to the funeral. Helen's much older brothers, Castor and Pollux, came from Sparta. They would attend in honor of the old king. It was decided that Aethiolas and Maraphius would go, too.

“Boys always get adventure,” said Hermione. “Girls always stay home. You are so lucky, Callisto. You have had adventure.”

Priests arrived and choirs sang songs of mourning for the grandfather. Captain Kinados put together the honor guard. The treasury was opened and Helen and Menelaus chose the
funeral offerings. Menelaus decided to bring two of his best smiths as his gift to the king of Crete. These men forged bronze, but one of them had worked the new metal, iron. The smiths were obedient and prepared to live forever in a strange land, but their wives were heartbroken and full of fear.

Menelaus turned suddenly to the queen. “Helen, you must honor my grandfather. Cut off your hair. I will place it on the fire of his bones.”

Helen was aghast. Cut off her beautiful hair like a common woman? How could Menelaus ask such a thing of Helen, daughter of a god?

Menelaus pulled his dagger out of its sheath, flipped it in his hand, and passed it to her handle-first. For a moment, the blade lay in his palm. So sharp. So stained by blood. Into how many hearts had that been plunged?

Helen wore her hair that day in an intricate pile of braids and curls. One by one she pulled out the pins. How long and thick was her honey gold braid. She tossed her head so that the braid swung and she caught the braid in her left hand. In her right, she held the knife as if she would rather slit her throat.

Her eyes moved around the room, summoning affection. The room loved her. The room resented Menelaus for such an untoward demand.

A handmaiden held a silver salver to catch the falling braid.

Helen swung the knife.

From the curling tip at the bottom of the braid, she cut half an inch of hair. Half an inch is contempt.
You are nothing to me.

Menelaus said not a word. The high color in his face said
it for him. The queen returned the knife blade-first and for a moment the knife balanced between them, aimed at her husband's heart.

Paris smiled at the ceiling.

“Don't go to Crete!” cried Hermione suddenly, her child's voice as piercing as the flute that guides the ship. “Father, I don't think you should go. Please stay here.”

He patted her head. “I'll bring you a present,” he said. “Paris, my priests will proceed with the ceremony to release your blood debt. Feast and hunt until my return. The weather is perfect and the sail to Crete should not take more than two or three days. I expect to be back in a week or two.”

Paris smiled at the ceiling.

At dawn the slim ships of Menelaus would sail the winedark sea, and still the king had no idea why Paris smiled.

Hermione almost told him. But she could not do it. Nor could any man or woman at Amyklai. They loved Helen and Menelaus both.

“My goddess of yesterday travels with you,” I said to my king, and Menelaus patted my head too. “I'll bring you another magic jar, Callisto.”

It is you who need magic, my king, I thought sadly.

Aeneas accompanied Menelaus all the way from Amyklai to the shore. I felt a little better. No one can ensure a safe journey better than a guest-friend. Aethiolas and Maraphius twittered like sparrows in their joy. I spotted Tenedos carrying the little princes' baggage and I was glad for him. Funeral games on the great rich isle of Crete would be exciting.

The soldiers and servants of Menelaus raised a cloud of
dust under their sandals as they marched to Gythion. Even when we could no longer make them out, we could see their dust. Finally they vanished into the darkness called forest.

Bia her nurse told Hermione they would weave together, as it was high time the princess acquired more skill.