Blood of an Empire: Helen of Sparta Read online

  Blood of an Empire

  Helen of Sparta

  catt dahman

  Copyright.

  catt dahman

  © 2014, catt dahman

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book, including the cover and photos, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. All rights reserved.

  The characters, places, and events depicted are fictional and do not represent anyone living or dead. This is a work of fiction.

  Thank you, Nic, for keeping my interest in mythology alive and well.

  Forward:

  There are various accounts of the Trojan War, and some claim it is a myth within itself. I have taken all the stories I have ever heard and/or was ever taught and tried to form a chronological order. This is the story of Helen (of Sparta and of Troy) and her life, and in this, she is not only the most beautiful woman on earth, but she is a succubus and vampire, as well because that fit perfectly. The story of Helen is the vehicle and ties it all together, but this is also the story of the many Greek myths, heroes, gods, goddesses, and monsters.

  I have taken a few small liberties with the actual myths, but for the most part, they are intact as told and retold for hundreds of years. I think some of the spelling of the Greek words may vary, and I have used what I found to be the best for my story. I apologize for ruining the language.

  This is the story of absolute and total futility; with all the stories of wonderful happenings, it is only fair we balance them with stories of irony, destruction, and unsuccessful actions. Helen was a complex character, and I hope I have shown her evolution correctly as well as how much a human can take before breaking.

  Chapter 1

  How Helen Was Born

  On the sunbaked rocks and boulders, Leda rolled to her back, not able to find comfort in that position, either. The sharp ribs of the rocks dug into her flesh and muscles from beneath the thin wool blanket she had settled on. The sun glared too brightly and white and much too hot on her skin, and the raging water just below was too loud.

  She was still a little drunk from the wine but not drunk enough to pass out asleep, yet not awake enough to move to the riverbank’s shade and softness. Lazy, she pulled the edges of the blanket over her to shade her from the rays of the sun.

  In a few minutes, the hardness of the rocks under her head was unbearable. Unable to stand it any longer, Leda stood and wrapped the blanket in a tight knot that she stuffed into her basket, along with the empty wine skin, and the remains of her small lunch. She swung the basket behind her and tossed it way over across the river to the bank below. It rolled over a few times on a flat boulder it landed on.

  Leda drew herself up straight, stretched, and leaned out over the rocks to dive into the clear pool below. It was deep, like a bowl that the water fell into from above on either side of where Leda had been napping. There, it churned white with bubbles before falling over the next set of falls, over and over, sometimes into pools, and other times onto more rocks before it ran down the river. The pool was always crisply cold and clear, and it was like pure ice on her sun-warmed skin.

  She surfaced, spinning about. Before she had felt her toes leave the hot rocks, she had caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye, something unusual here at her favorite place on earth, her refuge. Shivering a little from the shock of the cold water and waiting for her body to get used to the temperature, she watched the sky, wondering what movement had caught her notice.

  There it was again. It was a huge raptor, an eagle, she thought, diving and darting, searching for prey. It made a skreeee sound as it hunted, dipping and rising on thermals, head always stiffly alert.

  A second shadow loomed close, lower and much larger.

  Leda might have floated there in the freezing water and watched the bird, dreaming of what it was like to soar so high in the sky and then to swoop amid air currents so gracefully, but the other movement startled her, making her curious.

  It was so large, so plump, and well plumed that for a second, it blocked out the dizzyingly hot sun, casting its big shadow on Leda and the pool of water. Something white and glorious landed in the pool, and then with a cry of fear, it sailed over the edge of the cascading falls to a lower pool. The eagle swooped low, cutting the air like a scythe and causing a breeze to tickle Leda’s hair. Another few inches and it might have cut her with its talons.

  Athletic and graceful, the young woman swam to the edge and vaulted down to the rocks below. She then waded to the side, carefully picked her way across slippery rocks and gravel and then to the shoreline. To her astonishment, a giant white swan looked at her curiously as it followed.

  She wrapped her arms around it as the eagle flew lower, closer to them. With one slender arm, Leda waved it away, trying not to frighten the swan that shook a little against her breasts.

  “Come with me,” she said softly and motioned it to follow her as she picked up her basket and went down a little trail a few feet and then went down a few rocks to the banks of a little pond.

  It was a narrow waterway that some of the pota'mi water washed into, but it was far enough from the force that the water here was sun-warmed in places and cool in others, pleasant like a bath. Trees tilted overhead to meet in the center and form almost a canopy as Leda swam farther away from the river and into the tiny pond.

  Sunlight could only dapple the calm surface here. Cave-like, it was colored in shades of teal, grass green or prassino, and pale emerald; it was one of Leda’s favorite places, too.

  “She can’t get you here. You’re safe. She can’t even see you here, maybe.”

  The great aspro swan stretched his wings out to its twelve feet and then pulled them back, after allowing Leda to see how large and beautiful he was. He swam close to her, and she climbed out onto the bank and again spread her blanket.

  Taking out some bread, she offered it to the swan, and he gratefully ate while she finished the last bit of cheese and drank krasí from another wine skin; it was delicious.

  “Wine?” she asked as she poured a little wine into her palm and offered it to the swan.

  He gently tapped at her soft palm until the wine was gone. Whether he had consumed the drink or it had been flicked away as he picked at it, she didn’t know, but she was delighted and giggled. “Aren’t you clever?”

  He allowed her to feed him the last of the bread.

  Leda thought he was by far the most handsome swan she had ever seen with plumage too perfect to be out in the wild; he was so friendly with her that she thought he must be tame and that whoever had lost him would be sad.

  “You can hide and rest here until the eagle goes away, or you can go home with me. I’ll make sure everyone knows you are a pet and not to think of you as food,” Leda said, her words only a little slurred as she sipped her wine.

  She lay back, enjoying the relaxing place and the closeness of the handsome bird. She was moved when the creature trusted her enough to lay his head on her breast. For a bit, they rested.

  Then, Leda didn’t quite know how it all occurred, but when he became amorous, she and the great swan made love beneath the trees next to the water. Sometimes she knew it was the swan, and other times she thought a man held her and pleasured her, but she was unsure as the love making made her half out of her mind with bliss.

  Around her was soft down, white of wings, a strong hand that gripped her hair in
a fist. Leda couldn’t make sense of anything but knew her body was rocked over and over with ecstasy, and her mind was dizzy and crazed with love. In time, she passed out from the passion that filled her mind.

  Or from perhaps the wine.

  And when she awakened, Leda was alone on the blanket, lying relaxed on the soft grass next to the warm pool of water and was satiated.

  In time, she sat up in some confusion, wondering where her swan had gone, but of him, there was no sign as if he had never been there.

  On the blanket lay a single feather, long and lush, one that the swan had left for her. But Leda shook with shock now. She wept for his absence. She knew it had been no swan she had made love with but someone far greater than that; he had been such an expert lover that it could have been but one entity that had lain with her.

  Leda had been seduced and made love to by none other than the king of the gods Zeus, himself. Only in this way could his very jealous wife, Hera, not know what he was about. Hadn’t everyone whispered that Leda was so beautiful and exquisite that Zeus himself desired her? He had found a way to come to her and get his fondest wish.

  While she knew that the act never again would happen and that she regretted she could not make love again with the great god, Zeus, this one afternoon of happiness was enough to make her delirious for the rest of her life. The memory of his embrace would keep her happy forever.

  After replaying every detail many times over, Leda, exhausted, dressed and went back to her home. She was in such a lovely mood that she ate a hearty dinner with her husband, and he didn’t berate her for going off alone and swimming, as he often did. Instead, he complimented her appetite, the color the sun had left on her rosy cheeks, the brightness in her blue eyes, and her joyful mood. To his surprise that night, she didn’t turn away from him to huddle beneath the covers but kissed him back and seemed excited by their lovemaking.

  Leda never again saw the huge swan at the waterfalls on the river.

  In nine months, after a terribly hard labor in which her family and friends prepared for her to die, she gave birth. Tyndareus, most often called Dareus by everyone, looked up, having spent hours in his library, mourning the upcoming death of Leda and berating himself for bedding her and causing the pregnancy. His face was covered in lines and deep smudges beneath his eyes. In exhaustion, he asked the attendant, “Is it done? Is my precious Leda gone?”

  “Dareus, she is rallying and is able to drink a little wine and broth. Her color is better, and she seems stronger. The babies are delivered.”

  “And? Do they live?” he asked. For the last five months, she had been bedridden as her stomach was so large and her limbs so swollen.

  For hours, Dareus had spent rubbing her feet and hands, hoping the swelling would abate and Leda might strengthen, but only her belly grew large, seeming to starve the rest of her body. Only by teasing and finding wonderful treats had he tempted her to eat enough food to survive.

  He had spent a lot of time reading to her and entertaining her so she would stay in bed. The doctor said this was the only way the babies could be born: if she rested and took care of herself.

  “They are all alive and wailing. Listen. The babies have strong lungs.”

  Dareus did hear them. He grinned and asked, “Healthy, are they?”

  “Fighters. Come see your babies and wife.”

  One of the attendants slid close and whispered darkly, “Four, you have.” She was the one who dressed in dark clothing and spoke of the old ways, who sniffed at the doctor and concocted vile-smelling liquids and poultices. She was also the one who always told Dareus everyone’s secrets and hidden purposes, and she might have been the very one who had gotten his children here safely and saved his wife.

  “Four babies?” Dareus almost yelled, “I have four?”

  “It isn’t heard of. It’s amazing and a sign.”

  Leda whispers, “Two are yours, and two are Zeus’ children.” The night she conceived, she lay with Zeus earlier, and this is why she had such a terrible time, delivering so many strong babies.

  “It’s her fever or something.”

  “A boy and girl were born together and then a second boy and girl. The second ones were born with a caul. Leda claimed Zeus is their father. My Lord, that meant that two of the babies are demigods.”

  “That’s silly. I don’t care if she has religion, that is carrying it too far.”

  Dareus went to see his children, first. The tiny babies had heads the size of apples, and they howled, were hungry, and needed to be tended to again. “Castor and Clytemnestra. We will call her Nestra.” He gestured to the attendant to care for the babies.

  He went to the next basinette to see the other two. They were also tiny, but the boy was relaxed and stared at his (adopted) father with slit eyes. He was already a fair child. “His name will be Pollux, and this one will be Helen.”

  He paused to look at the tiny girl. While the first two were lovely babies, the second set was by far more beautiful and strong. The girl child was especially pretty.

  Leda was beautiful, one of the most beautiful women in the world, but as pretty as this baby was, she would be even more of a beauty one day. To be sure, she was a daughter of Leda, with her fairness, but Dareus saw at once that there was no way he could be the father of these two.

  But his wife was no moichalis, not an adulteress.

  In their area, Sparta was known for the chastity of the women as much as the fierceness of the warrior men. The very thought that Leda might have been unfaithful was impossible to imagine; she would, as a Spartan woman, drive a knife into her own heart before allowing another man to touch her, much less impregnate her. And because of what she was, she would have also killed the man who dared touch her.

  If a man had not touched his wife and if these children weren’t so different than the other twins, Tyndareus could only think of one explanation. He wasn’t a religious man, but he thought it must be true: Helen and Pollux were the offspring of Zeus, King of all gods.

  He sat next to Leda and took her hand in his. “They are beautiful babies. Are the two…are they the children of Zeus? Has he cuckolded me?” He chuckled a little.

  “He came to me as a magnificent swan when I was eating and drinking at the river.”

  Dareus knew she had been in the habit of drinking wine when swimming, and in her delusion, she must have imagined the swan, but then again, he didn’t know all of how the gods worked. After all, only some had been spoken about. They were as mysterious as everything else.

  Leda motioned for him to go to her box of jewelry. “Look, there in the drawer.”

  Dareus took out a long, beautiful white feather.

  “That was all he left.” It was a beautiful, glossy feather that must have come from an enormous swan.

  “You must rest now, and we’ll speak of this later when you are not so exhausted. The babies need to grow and get strong, too. All of you have been through so much that I couldn’t bear to lose any of you.”

  Leda smiled, her eyes brightening, and said, “We’ll be fine. And Dareus, darling, one of our babies is a demigod, and the other is a demigoddess.”

  She fell asleep, but the words seemed to echo.

  “Demigod and demigoddess.”

  Chapter 2

  Helen: The Most Beautiful

  Helen watched her sister’s eyes to determine how lovely she looked. If Clytemnestra narrowed her eyes hatefully, then Helen knew she looked perfect. She wore a peplos of soft bluish green and a himation of yellow over it. With her hair streaming down her back in gold, the color of her peplos made her figure noticeable and her eyes stand out as they flashed blue, then green, then blue- green.

  Clytemnestra glared as she picked at her own indigo peplos and himation, feeling that she couldn’t begin to compete with her sister even though she was a beautiful girl. “Helen, you look fine. Stop worrying over yourself.” Although she knew she sounded short-tempered and jealous, she was already tired of Helen. “Come on.�
�� She was simply merimnao, or nervous about the festivities.

  Towards the house, musicians played cheerful tunes, and by the stables, men looked at horses and planned the games that would follow.

  Around the pond were where the youngest children played games, mimicking their fathers and mothers with toy shields, blunt swords, dolls, and impromptu wresting battles in the sand. They had set up the games of competition for archery, spear throwing, and bouts of strength. Ajax and Tuecer, sons of Telemon, punched one another in the arms and talked loudly, and boasted.

  Tables were set up to eat on and to visit friends and family, and blankets of wool and pillows covered the soft grass for people to recline on.

  Leading the way outside, Clytemnestra headed for the tables that were set up and loaded with food; everyone gravitated there, eating and drinking watered wine. While Helen cut her eyes from side to side to see who was looking at her, her sister focused on the food.

  There were all kinds of cheeses as well as dishes with almonds or raisins, eggs, and olives baked with oil into some root vegetables. There was fresh bread and a dozen kinds of fruits, a curried goat, ducks filled with spices and peppers, squirrels in a thick sauce, and all kinds of kabobs of moschári and kotópoulo. On another table were pastries and pies, tiny confections, light swirls of sugar and apples, cakes with almost icing, and buttery cookies. In addition on another table were wines and water.

  Like the child she was, Clytemnestra filled her plate high and added more to Helen’s plate so Nessie wouldn’t look so piggish.

  “I don’t like that,” Helen hissed as she saw a pickled egg speared with rosemary.

  “I’ll eat it.”

  “Put it on your plate then.”

  “Have you found everything, Nessie? Helen?” asked their father Tyndareus as he smiled.

  “Everything,” said Nessie.

  Two of the boys came to load their plates. Nessie pretended to decide on a pasty but cut her eyes to both of boys, admiring them.