Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy (6 page)

“All right, Hermione, tell me what happened. Spare no detail.”

And so I did, starting with the arrival of Prince Paris, how my parents extended to him every hospitality, how it soon became apparent to everyone that Paris had fallen in love with my mother.

“And King Menelaus?” Clytemnestra demanded. “Your father noticed none of this?”

I shook my head and stared at my feet in the new sandals my aunt had given me. “None of it,” I admitted. “He was blind to it all.”

“Fool!” Clytemnestra muttered. “I could have predicted this,” she said darkly. “It might have been prevented if Menelaus had simply paid attention.” She sighed. “And now he wants help to get Helen back. In my opinion, she made her choice and she should stay in Troy, if they’ll keep her.”

“Oh, no,” I protested. “It wasn’t my mother’s choice. Paris abducted her. I’m sure of it.”

Clytemnestra looked at me with a small smile and shook her head. “It pains me to tell you this, Hermione, but you’re wrong. I know my sister. Helen went willingly.”

Her reply upset me deeply, and I burst into tears. If what my aunt said was true, my mother had truly abandoned me. I could not forgive her.

MENELAUS AND AGAMEMNON MADE
their plans. First they would send an embassy to King Priam and demand the return of Queen Helen and of the treasure stolen from Sparta.

“And if Priam refuses?” Menelaus asked.

“He’s a proud and stubborn old man,” Agamemnon said. “It’s likely he
will
refuse. And when he does, then we will go to every man who took the oath on the bloody pieces of the horse that Tyndareus sacrificed. I’ll remind them that by stealing Helen, Prince Paris has insulted every man in Greece. Who can be confident that his wife will be safe?”

Agamemnon and Menelaus had no doubt that the Greek princes would honor their oath with pledges of ships and warriors. “But first,” my father said, “we must consult the oracle at Delphi and ask if she means for us to proceed.” Agamemnon agreed.

The two men left soon after, and before the quarter moon had turned full, they had returned, firm in their resolve. “We will begin preparations now,” Agamemnon said.

Three days later, my father went off to find Nestor, king of Pylos, to ask for his help. Nestor had seen more than a hundred winters, but even at his great age he was much admired for his bravery and his speaking abilities. Menelaus trusted him to persuade the Greek leaders and soon brought him to Mycenae. How ancient Nestor looked, with a long white beard that nearly covered his chest! Agamemnon would join Nestor and Menelaus in their next journey, to Ithaca to convince Odysseus that he, too, must be a part of this.

“You watch, Hermione,” Clytemnestra muttered when the men left for Ithaca. “I know Odysseus, and he’s a shrewd one. He and his wife, Penelope, have a little son, Telemachus. Odysseus will not want to leave his comfortable home to make war on Troy, and he’s sure to figure out some way to avoid his responsibility.”

Clytemnestra was right. Menelaus, Agamemnon, and old Nestor came back from Ithaca with an extraordinary story. Odysseus had heard the three kings were coming, and he had guessed what they wanted. He pretended to be mad, putting on quite a performance, according to my father.

“He dressed as a peasant,” Menelaus told us, “and as soon as he heard that we had arrived he began plowing a field with an ox and an ass yoked together, which everyone knows will not work. He sowed handfuls of salt in the furrows instead of seed, and he chattered away in nonsense, pretending not to recognize us. We knew it was an act, but we had to prove it. Penelope was standing nearby with little Telemachus in her arms. I whispered to one of our attendants to seize the infant and set him in the furrow in front of the plow. No sane man would allow his only son to be killed, and as expected, wily Odysseus reined in his mismatched team, giving himself away. Telemachus was spared, and Odysseus has to join in our mission, whether he wants to or not.”

The days passed; the moon waxed and waned. King Priam sent his answer: Queen Helen would remain in Troy. Paris would not let her go.

While my father and my uncle traveled through the countryside, assembling their supporters, I stayed in Mycenae with Clytemnestra and my cousins. Iphigenia and I spent our time with our tutors, learning to write and do sums, which I enjoyed much more than my cousin did. Instructed by Agamemnon’s round-faced, big-bellied court minstrel, I practiced on the lyre, the instrument my mother had played so skillfully.

When our fathers returned from amassing still more ships and soldiers for their mission to Troy, we welcomed them with feasts and entertainment—I played the lyre, not nearly as well as my mother; Iphigenia sang sweetly with her two sisters, and Orestes recited poetry in a rich, melodious voice that had not yet begun to change from a boy’s to a man’s.

Odysseus was with them, unhappy to be there, already missing his wife and son. I could guess how he felt: just as Father must have felt. All of us ached for those who should have been with us. I missed my mother. Even more, I missed little Pleisthenes.

“What do you suppose he’s doing?” I wondered aloud.

“Probably learning to play knucklebones,” Iphigenia said. “Or whatever games Trojan children play.”

I didn’t want to know what my mother was doing, what her life was like in Troy, if she was happy with Paris, if she thought about me. I tried not to dwell on it, and yet it was almost always on my mind.

Iphigenia’s maidservant was fixing my cousin’s hair in a new style, arranging little curls across her forehead. “What do you think, Hermione? Do you like it this way? Or is it better the old way, pulled back with combs?”

“Either one is nice,” I said, trying hard to hide my envy of her beautiful hair. No one even attempted to do anything clever with my wild red locks.

All day and into the night the men discussed plans for their mission to Troy. I preferred to sit and listen to their talk when I could no longer bear to be around Iphigenia and her hairstyles and carnation-scented perfumes and cosmetics and clothes. Or her questions about whether or not I had become a woman yet. I had not. That bothered me enough without being asked about it continually.

I usually felt more at ease with her brother, Orestes. And since Orestes liked to sit with the men in their planning sessions, I often sat nearby—quietly, and out of the way, of course. Greek women were not usually included in such discussions, but since I was not yet “a woman,” as Iphigenia constantly reminded me, no one objected. They might not have even noticed that I was there. Menelaus, as I have pointed out, was not the most observant person. And now he was especially distracted. It had been months since we’d walked together into the countryside and we’d talked about the lives of the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.

The two kings pored over maps of Greece and had scribes keep an accounting of which princes had pledged to join the mission and who had yet to be persuaded, calculating how many ships and soldiers each would provide. Menestheus, who’d replaced Theseus, my mother’s childhood abductor, as king of Athens, pledged fifty ships. The king of Cyprus sent a handsome breastplate for Agamemnon and a promise of fifty ships. One by one the pledges came from all around Greece.

I happened to be present when they talked about Achilles.

“Calchas has already foretold that we can’t defeat Troy without the help of brave Achilles,” Agamemnon reminded Menelaus. Calchas was a seer for whom the men had great respect. And they had even more profound respect for Achilles, son of Peleus, the king of Phthia, home of the Myrmidons, the fiercest warriors in all of Greece. There was a rumor that Achilles’ mother, Thetis, the sea goddess, didn’t want her son to join the mission to Troy, knowing that he would not return alive, and she was ready to go to unusual lengths to stop him.

“I’ll talk to him,” old Nestor told Menelaus. “You know how persuasive I am.” He turned to Odysseus. “And you’ll come with me, my friend. We’ll have Achilles’ agreement in no time, I assure you.”

White-bearded Nestor and short-legged Odysseus set off together and a number of days later returned with Achilles’ promise to lead his army of Myrmidons to Troy. His cousin and closest companion, Patroclus, would be with him.

The plans were ready. Ships would gather at Aulis, a wide beach in a large bay between two rocky peninsulas and sheltered by steep cliffs. Father showed me the crude map he’d drawn. With his finger he traced the route they’d follow from Aulis, sailing across the Chief Sea to Troy.

“We must pray that Aeolus sends us strong winds,” Father said. “We can be there in three days.”

THE LEAVE-TAKING WAS VERY
hard. Iphigenia and her older sisters, Electra and Chrysothemis, were weeping. Orestes strutted around, proud to count himself among the men leaving home to go to war, though he was barely thirteen. I asked to go too and was laughed at by everyone. Orestes laughed even harder than the rest. “Girls don’t go to war! They do not fight!”

But Menelaus didn’t laugh at me. He patted my red curls and smiled fondly. “I need you to stay here and wait for me, daughter,” he said. “And I promise that I will bring your mother home again.”

“You swear it?” I asked tearfully.

“I swear it, Hermione.”

I believed him.

7

MY AUNT, MY GIRL
cousins, and I accompanied the men from Mycenae as far as the walled city of Tiryns and watched them descend the rocky path from the cliff to the beach. I stood alone, apart from the others, hoping that Father would turn and see me. He did not, but Orestes paused and looked back. I raised my hand in farewell, and he waved. I watched until he was lost in the crowd, wondering when I would see him again.

A dozen ships were being loaded with leather shields, bronze helmets, tin greaves to protect their legs, and piles of spears and swords and javelins. When I spotted Father on the deck of one of the ships, I kept my eyes on his flame red hair until the conch shells sounded and the fleet moved away from the beach and started down the coast.

The only one who did not seem in the least distraught at the departure was my aunt, Clytemnestra. Before the ships were out of sight she called for the porters to bring her chair and carry her back to the palace.

Agamemnon’s messengers arrived to report to Queen Clytemnestra that the first of the promised ships had arrived at Aulis, with more gathering there daily from all around Greece. But the king of Cyprus, who had agreed to send fifty ships, instead sent just one real ship and forty-nine miniature ships with little clay figures representing their crews. Agamemnon, we learned, called upon the god Apollo to avenge the insult. Apollo did so, killing the king, whose fifty shamed daughters then threw themselves into the sea.

But others made up for the deceit. King Idomeneus of Crete pledged a hundred ships if Agamemnon agreed to share the command with him, which he did. Great Ajax, said to rival Achilles in courage, strength, and good looks, joined them. Teucer, considered the best archer in Greece, was there. Also present was Little Ajax, small in stature but the best spear thrower and the second-best runner—Achilles was first in that as well. Diomedes brought several great fighters with him, and a man from Rhodes came with nine ships.

Eventually a thousand ships crowded into the bay at Aulis. Provisioning these ships and men was assured by one of Apollo’s priests, whose three daughters possessed the power to turn whatever they touched into oil, wine, or grain.

TWO FULL MOONS HAD
passed since King Priam of Troy had refused Agamemnon’s demand for the return of Queen Helen. Everything was ready. We waited at Mycenae for word that the fleet had left Aulis, bound for Troy. Calchas, the seer, promised to help them steer a steady course by his second sight. But the winds were not favorable for sailing, days passed, and the ships were unable to leave. The men grew impatient, then angry. Something had to be done.

Odysseus brought a message from Agamemnon. I was surprised to see him, and eager to hear what he had to say.

“I bring you great news!” short-legged Odysseus announced. “Achilles has decided to marry before he undertakes this great expedition, and he has asked Agamemnon to offer him the most beautiful of his three daughters as a bride. Someone, I can’t say just who, has offended Apollo’s sister, Artemis, the archer with golden arrows. A wedding will please the goddess, and she’ll call upon the winds to shift.”

Clytemnestra’s three daughters were astonished and delighted and immediately jealous of one another. “I am surely the one, am I not, Mother?” Chrysothemis asked in her shrill voice. Electra shot her a nasty look. “Don’t be stupid, Chrysothemis. You know that Father has sent for me. I’m plainly the choice.”

Iphigenia didn’t even bother discussing it. She simply began packing her finest necklaces and bracelets, her loveliest gowns, and a shimmering veil. While Iphigenia prepared for a wedding she was certain would happen, the other two argued and insisted that they would all go to Aulis and let Achilles make his own choice. I packed too, not much concerned with gowns and jewels but taking my mother’s silver spindle, the only thing I had to remember her by.

In fact, I was very unhappy in Mycenae and was glad to be leaving. I had heard Clytemnestra speaking to Odysseus, calling my mother a slut and a whore who had caused all of this misery. My aunt had made it clear to me in a hundred little ways that she would not have to put up with me if Helen hadn’t done what she did. I did not much like either Electra or Chrysothemis, and they had shown no great fondness for me. Iphigenia and I got along tolerably well, but if she was right, she would marry Achilles, and who knew where she would go then.

The next day our procession left Mycenae for Tiryns and the royal ship waiting for us there. I hoped I would not return.

IPHIGENIA, THRILLED AT THE
prospect of what she believed was her coming marriage to brave Achilles, chattered endlessly about his strength, his courage, his superb good looks. Her sisters argued with each other, not ready to concede anything. Clytemnestra seemed proud that one of her daughters had been chosen for such an honor; I did wonder, though, how much—if at all—she looked forward to seeing Agamemnon. My mother had told me of how Agamemnon had murdered Clytemnestra’s former husband, King Tantalus. Had she forgiven him after all these years? I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive a man who had done such a cruel thing.