Chapter 5 - The Woman Everyone Whispered About
By the end of my first week in Troy, I knew three things about Helen.
She was beautiful.
She was foreign.
And almost everyone claimed to know what she wanted.
The last part interested me most.
At the market, a wine seller told me Helen had been carried away from Sparta against her will.
An hour later, a bronze merchant swore she had fallen madly in love with Paris and fled willingly.
A sailor claimed she regretted everything.
A shepherd claimed she regretted nothing.
The shepherd had never seen her.
That did not affect his confidence.
“People prefer certainty,” Ione told me.
We were walking through a narrow lane near the textile quarter. Dyed wool hung from wooden frames above us, strips of red, blue, yellow, and deep purple moving in the breeze.
“They prefer stories,” I said.
“Stories are certainty with prettier clothing.”
I stopped.
“That was good.”
“Do not write it down.”
I wrote it down.
She tried to take the tablet from me.
I held it above my head.
“You are a terrible guest,” she said.
“I pay Myrine on time.”
“That is the only reason Troy tolerates you.”
For all our joking, the subject of Helen produced tension.
Sparta was not a distant name to everyone here.
Merchants knew Greek ports.
Sailors carried rumors.
Messages arrived.
Menelaus had demanded Helen’s return.
Agamemnon, his brother and king of powerful Mycenae, was said to be gathering support among Achaean rulers.
Odysseus of Ithaca.
Ajax.
Diomedes.
Nestor.
Names traveled faster than armies.
Then came another.
Achilles.
I first heard it from two sailors drinking near the market.
“If Achilles comes,” one said, “Troy will pay dearly.”
The other spat into the dust.
“One man does not take a city.”
“No. But some men make cities wish they had surrendered.”
I wrote the name down.
Achilles.
At that point, it meant nothing to me.
A few days later, I saw Helen again.
This time I was not lost.
A public offering was being made near one of the temples, and many citizens had gathered. Priam’s household appeared at a distance.
Helen stood among the royal women.
People watched her when they thought she would not notice.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
How could anyone fail to notice being watched by an entire city?
Paris stood not far from her.
He smiled at someone below.
Helen did not.
Hector arrived later and spoke briefly with his father.
The contrast between the brothers struck me again.
Paris looked like the beginning of a song.
Hector looked like the ending of one.
After the ceremony, Ione and I sat in shade near an outer street.
“What would you do?” I asked.
“If what?”
“If you were Priam.”
She laughed.
“I would become younger.”
“I mean Helen.”
“What about her?”
“If sending her back prevented war?”
Ione picked at a piece of bread.
“Would it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then do not pretend it is simple.”
That annoyed me because I had been pretending exactly that.
I had imagined war as a door.
Return Helen, door closes.
Keep Helen, door opens.
But pride, alliances, promises, honor, family, politics, desire, and humiliation had already tangled together.
Perhaps the war was not waiting to begin.
Perhaps it had already begun in rooms far from battlefields.
That night, a messenger arrived at the citadel.
By morning, rumors flooded Troy.
Ships were gathering across the Aegean.
Not merchant ships.
Warships.
Myrine dismissed the story.
“People say war every summer.”
Dymas was less relaxed.
“Kings do not gather ships for conversation.”
Ione said nothing.
At sunset, I climbed the wall with Dymas.
The plain below glowed copper.
Farmers still worked.
Cattle still moved.
Dust rose from roads.
Nothing had changed.
Yet I looked toward the horizon longer than before.
“What are you looking for?” Dymas asked.
“Sails.”
“You will not see them from here tonight.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if they were close enough to see, men would already be shouting.”
I smiled.
Then I noticed he was not smiling.
Below us, Troy continued its evening routines.
Bread baked.
Children were called inside.
Oil lamps appeared.
The gates prepared to close.
I thought about Helen.
A woman inside a palace.
Men across the sea.
Ships being loaded.
Oaths remembered.
Pride sharpened.
The next morning, I went to the market earlier than usual. I wanted to hear what ordinary people thought before rumor had been polished into certainty.
A butcher blamed Paris.
A potter blamed Menelaus for being unable to keep his wife.
A visiting merchant blamed Troy for insulting Greek honor.
Myrine blamed kings in general.
'Give five kings one insult,' she said, 'and they will find fifty reasons to make everyone else suffer for it.'
That was the most sensible analysis I heard all week.
Meanwhile, life continued. Sira burned a batch of bread because her daughter distracted her. Ione's aunt treated a boy who had stepped on a nail. A wedding procession crossed one street with flowers and singing while, less than a hundred paces away, soldiers inspected spearheads.
The contrast disturbed me.
People often imagine the days before a war as dark and ominous. Ours were bright. The sky was clear. Figs ripened. Children laughed. Men argued about horses. Women complained about husbands. Nothing in the sunlight looked capable of becoming tragedy.
Perhaps that is why people fail to recognize danger. It does not always arrive wearing a black cloak. Sometimes it arrives while bread is rising and someone is planning a wedding.
May you like
Everyone claimed the coming conflict was about one person.
I had begun to suspect that no war involving so many kings could ever be about only one thing.
