“No wonder Achaeans and Trojans have been fighting all
these years for such a woman! …she is like some divine
creature come down from heaven.”
Iliad, Homer, Book III
(Rouse’s translation)
The morning sun slanted into the colonnaded gallery, dazzling my eyes with its reflection in the polished red and black paving stones. I counted the doors as I walked, and at the sixth one I knocked.
The door was opened by a dark-haired Trojan woman. I entered a large, sunny room where four or five women sat at their work. My gaze fell at once on the woman at the loom, a lovely woman wearing a rosy gown shot with gold thread. She was poised gracefully on the stool, one hand holding a length of purple wool, and she turned toward me, eyes widening. They were extraordinary eyes, the color and brilliance of sunlight shining through honey. Dark lashes fringed them, and delicate dark brows arched over them. Her hair was the deep tawny gold of polished oak. She had it drawn into thick coils and loops at the back of her neck. One solitary curl escaped to rest artlessly on the smooth naked shoulder, gleaming in the sun. Everything about Helen seemed to catch the light.
She rose and came toward me with a delighted smile dimpling her cheeks. Perhaps it was art, perhaps only an accident of facial structure and features, but that smile made me feel as if I were the very person Helen most wanted to see.
“Welcome! Welcome!” The voice was melodious and tinged with wonder. “A visitor! Sit down. Aithrê, fetch our guest a cup of wine.”
A stool was brought, a goblet placed in my hand. The wine was sweet and fragrant. While I sipped, Helen sat with her hands clasped in her lap as if she could scarcely contain her eagerness to question me. At last she said, “You must be the woman who fled from the Achaeans!”
“Aye, I’m Briseis. How did you know?” I asked.
Her rosy lips came together coyly. “Word gets around,” she said. “And I knew you were not Trojan. No Trojan woman would come here, except to malign me.” She turned her head aside for a moment, and I saw the perfect profile with its up-tilted eye and softly molded cheek. “They all hate me, you know.” She sighed. “Except for my own loyal ladies, of course!” She gestured at the others in the room. The ladies continued their work without looking up. Whatever they felt for their mistress, it was not to be read on their smooth, blank faces.
Helen smiled again. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You must tell me how you escaped the Achaean camp.”
“My lady Helen.” I glanced at the other women. “Gladly will I tell you, but first I have a favor to beg from you.” I lowered my voice. “If we could talk alone…”
“Oh!” Swift comprehension came to her face, and her eyes took on a twinkle of mischief. “A secret! How exciting! Ladies!” She turned in her chair. “Go out for some air. Take a stroll along the walls—but tell no one about our guest.”
When we were alone, Helen drew her chair up. “Now tell me.” Her head tilted attentively to the side, and her face assumed a look of sweet, half-smiling gravity that set a dimple quivering in one cheek.
I mistrusted that facile sympathy. Still, I told her how I had come here and what Hektor planned to do. I left out all mention of Andromache.
“Ah!” she sighed, when I finished. “I understand very well. Men will use you for their conflicts—then they will blame you. Both sides will hate you. It is what happened to me.” Her eyes took on a misty, reminiscing look. “All I did was run away with my lover. Has not many another woman done the same? Is it my fault they chose to fight a war? They are not just fighting for me! Yet everyone blames me.” She lifted her hands in a graceful gesture of helplessness. “It’s so unjust! Some days I wish I had never been born.” But she spoke the words lightly and waved them away with delicate fingers. “Ah, well! No matter. More wine?”
She poured some for both of us. While she sipped I waited, held silent by a terrible doubt. I had nothing to offer her in exchange for the favor I came to ask. I had hoped that persuasion would be easy—a matter of asking. But Andromache had warned me. Helen would demand something in exchange. Charm her, beguile her. How?
Helen set her goblet down and smiled. “I so seldom get visitors, and it’s such a pleasure to talk. Do you know, I have had no news at all of the Achaean camp?”
I raised my head. She was bored and isolated. Perhaps I did have something she wanted.
“You say you saw my husband.” She grimaced. “Menelaus the mighty, Menelaus the anxious-hearted!” She clapped her hands together and laughed like a delighted child. “And my dearest brother-in-law, Agamemnon. How well I remember him! Has he grown any more charming with the years? I doubt it. And tell me of Achilleus. I do not know him, but I have seen him when I watched the fighting from the battlements. That one, I said to myself, would be well worth knowing. You must tell me about them all, my dear! You see how starved I am for news.”
I hesitated. “About the favor, my lady—”
“Later! Later!” She waved an impatient hand. “Let’s not get down to serious business just yet. Tell me about the Achaean men.”
I forced a smile. I would give her what she wanted. Surely it would be a fair exchange for my favor.
I sipped wine and began to talk lightly. I spoke of Agamemnon and Menelaus, describing their faults with humorous exaggeration, as if these men had no power, no importance. And I was rewarded by Helen’s tinkling laugh. She drank more wine. I tipped my goblet to my lips and drained it. Then I braced myself to tell her what she would want to hear about Achilleus. I described his beauty and his strength, though the words pained me. I watched her eyes grow wide with pleasure as the picture of him formed in her mind, and I forced myself to feel nothing when she said, “Such a man! Had I met him in my youth, I would never have fled with Paris!”
At last I finished. I kept my lips sweetly smiling in mimicry of hers. I realized that, at all costs, Helen must smile, Helen must laugh, Helen must tell herself that she felt joy. But had I given her enough? I waited, hardly breathing while she took another sip of wine.
Then I said, “Helen, now I must beg you for your help.”
She smiled charmingly. “My dear Briseis! I can guess what you’ve come for. It’s written all over your face. You want to get out of Troy so that you cannot be used against Achilleus. You want to go to him, and cast yourself at his feet, and beg him to take you back. Is that not so?”
I nodded, dumbfounded.
“I cannot help you,” she said.
I sat very still, gripping the chair. All at once there was not enough air to breathe, nothing solid beneath me.
“My dear, it would be treachery!” Helen said, as if I had protested.
And when did you ever stop at that? I wondered silently.
“I am sorry, Briseis! But I cannot go against Hektor. You must see that. These Trojans would kill me if I gave them the least excuse.”
“Helen,” I pleaded, “if you help me, the Trojans will win, and in the end they will thank you.”
She smiled. Her shoulders gave the slightest, scornful lift.
I stared, astounded. “Don’t you care?” Her smile never wavered, but she was silent. “What do you care about, Helen?” I demanded.
“I care for comfort—warm, perfumed water for my bath, women to wait on me, and men to admire me.” She stretched her arms in the sunlight streaming through the window, holding out her white hands, the perfect nails like delicate, translucent pink shells, jewels glinting in the rings that adorned her fingers. She sighed. “I suppose I want Troy to win,” she said. “But I am content to let them do it without my help. I am Prince Paris’s most precious treasure, coveted by all the world. Why should I endanger that?”
Rage kindled in me. I shot to my feet. “Then you care nothing that, because you failed to help me, either Achilleus or Hektor will die?”
“That would be a great pity. Still…” Her hands gestured languidly and fell to her lap.
I wanted to strike her. “Is there nothing, no one, you love?”
A shadow crossed her face. She stood up. The bloom on her cheeks faded to a creamy pallor. She turned aside. The answer came so low I barely heard it. “I love my home—and I love my daughter.”
“Daughter?” I had all but forgotten she had a child.
“My little Hermione. She was seven years old when I left Menelaus. Paris came along—a strong, tender lover. I thought I would have sons with him. What was a daughter? But still, I remember the last time I saw her. She was wearing a crown of wilted flowers she had made and holding her kitten. I kissed her goodnight as if it were any other night. Then in the morning—I was gone.” Helen’s voice caught in her throat, and her face disappeared behind those ringed fingers. The slender shoulders quivered.
I sat down, pulled my stool close to hers. “Helen—surely, if you chose, you could go back?”
She shook her head without looking up. “It’s too late.”
I said tentatively, “Perhaps if I were free in the land of the Achaeans, I could find a way to send your daughter to you, or deliver a message—”
Her head reared up. “Liar!” she lashed out. “You care nothing for me! You care only for your own lover. If you were with your precious Achilleus, you wouldn’t give me another thought!”
Aghast, I said, “Helen—”
But she had sunk her head down into her hands. Her voice was thick and muffled. “Whatever happens, I am lost. If the Achaeans win, Menelaus will kill me. I must hope the Trojans win, but I will never see my home and my daughter again.”
“Then help me win victory for Troy.”
“No!” I realized she was weeping. She jumped up angrily. “Now you’ve made me cry.” She went to a small side table that held pots and vials, keeping her face averted, but still I caught a glimpse of it. To my surprise, Helen did not cry prettily. She soaked a cloth in scented water and held it to her red, blotched eyes and swollen nose. “Look what you’ve done!” Her voice rose to a wail. “If Paris should see me like this…”
What I had done was to make her see how intolerable her life was. I felt a sick despair. She would never help me now. I stood and paced about slowly, wondering if there was a way to reverse my failure.
“You have power over men, Helen. If you chose, you could find a way to seek your daughter.”
She opened the cloth and buried her entire face in it. Her shoulders drooped.
I felt a kind of angry pity for her. “You’ve given up. You’re in love with futility. But it’s not too late. If you help me, then maybe you will see that you are not helpless.” I waited, holding my breath.
Helen kept her back turned. At first she was utterly still, as though she were considering my words. Then her hands began making quick, practiced movements, and in the silence I could hear the small sounds of wet cloth dabbing against skin. Each sound stabbed me with defeat. Blindly I turned toward the door.
Before I reached it, it was flung open. A tall man stood there—a man of such godlike beauty that I took a step back to look at him. Curly black hair fell to his shoulders. His eyes were large, limpid, chestnut brown, and fringed with girlishly long lashes. But a small pouting mouth and a narrow chin marred the perfection of his face. This must be Helen’s lover—Hektor’s brother.
I stood still, helpless. Too late to flee or hide. If he guessed why I was here and told Hektor, all was lost.
Helen glanced up, then turned her back on him. She continued to mend the ravages to her beauty. The sharp angle of her arm and shoulder betrayed her consternation. “Paris!” she mumbled. “What are you doing home so early?”
“I am not needed at the barracks,” he replied. His eyes lit on me with sharpened interest. Then he appeared to notice Helen’s distress. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.
“Nothing! We were just talking, and I started thinking of home.”
Paris took two steps toward her, frowning. “This is your home, isn’t it? Or did you mean Sparta? I didn’t know you wanted to go back there.”
Helen turned in alarm. “I don’t! Don’t send me away, Paris, I beg you!”
“Then stop crying like a child. I can’t stand it.” He looked at me. “Who are you?”
Helen answered for me. “She’s Briseis—the Achaean captive.” She paused, and I held my breath, afraid. But she only said, “She’s staying with your brother Hektor.”
“Oh!” Paris smiled at me winsomely, displaying a flash of white teeth. “I heard about you in the barracks. Only I didn’t know you were so lovely! Will you be staying long?”
At a loss, I lowered my head. I had seen the admiration in his eyes. Perhaps this could work in my favor. But Helen was watching fiercely. “Briseis was just going back to Hektor’s dwelling,” she said.
Paris’s smile grew broader. A light danced in his eyes. “Surely there’s no need for haste! It’s a fair, sunny day. Let me take you on a tour of the battlements, Briseis. The view is breathtaking.” He came toward me, extending his hand to take mine. “Will you come?”
He was not to be trusted. Clearly he was using me to anger Helen. Still, I felt a rush of hope. If I could get to her, make her jealous…. And a tour of the battlements might give me the faintest possibility of finding a way to escape.
Or perhaps he might be persuaded to help me.
I gave him my best smile. “That is most kind,” I began, but Helen was quicker. She dropped her cloth and came toward us like a swooping crow.
“Briseis and I were just going out. I myself was going to take her there—to join my ladies. But since you’re back, Paris, I’ll just show her the way and return to you.” Her composure was restored, the eyes only slightly red. She turned the full strength of her seductive smile on him. “Will you wait here for me?”
Paris’s eyelids fluttered. “But surely—later—”
Before he could finish, she bustled me out of the door and shut it behind us. She hurried me a short way along the gallery to where none could overhear.
Then she whispered hastily, angrily, “Tonight! The Skaian Gate. You can get out that way after everyone’s asleep.” She took a long, shuddering breath. “I’ll contrive it somehow.”
