Blood of an Empire: Helen of Sparta Page 10

  “You speak your mind and can turn a phase with ease. You are very witty and can be sharp tongued or speak with honeyed words. You are clever and intelligent, sly. Odysseus would have a trial outwitting you.

  “Hmmm.”

  ”Your clothing is always immaculate, you are clean and fragrant of body and hair, your palace is kept in perfect cleanliness, and everything is neat and attractively shown. Your paintings, weavings, and tile work are all excellent, not rude, but still classics.”

  “You think?”

  Paris thought. “Ah, Are you shrewish? I have not seen you complaining, nagging, or finding fault with things. You might state your opinion, but then you don’t harp on it. Several times, many, no, most women would have nagged their husbands about dragging the child out to perform or about leaving you to entertain me, or about his ignoring you, or his way of making it clear that you are his property.”

  Helen’s hand went to her throat without thinking.

  “Has he laid hands on you?”

  “It was nothing. I forgot my veil, and the stable boy glanced at me. Menelaus was livid and beat the boy, and he grabbed me….”

  “About your throat?”

  “It’s all right."

  “Sihama, Gamozo-o,” Paris cursed, calling Menelaus a disgusting and fornicating animal.”

  Helen smiled a little, despite herself.

  “And if you were hateful, you would have called him another name, too, and laughed and been pleased at what I said.”

  “I did smile.”

  “Which shows you have spirit,” said Paris as he considered the rest, “now, it is said a succubus gives a man his most desired lovemaking and casts her spell onto him so that all he can do is desire the woman and can think of nothing else.”

  “It is said.”

  “Then, of course, you are a succubus. I know it by half anyway, as we’ve not touched. But since I have been here, I can’t think straight, and I only desire you.”

  “That is bold,” added Helen.

  “I am a bold man.”

  “And if I am a cruel monster who seeks the souls of men? If I devour men’s hearts by the light of the moon?”

  “Then, I only ask that you don’t devour my heart but allow it to go on beating and loving you for all eternity.”

  In a glade, they dismounted to walk a bit, and Helen allowed him to hold her hand. Had she not loved Theseus, lost him, and then became this monster she was, she could have fallen in love with Paris Alexandros. Angrily, she wiped away tears.

  “Tell me. Helen what hurts you so badly? I see deep in your eyes such infinite pain.”

  “My mother died when I was a child. My father conspired and sent me to Theseus. He and I fell deeply, endlessly in love, and then my brothers, the Dioscuri, and more men marched on Theseus’ kingdom to put a pretender in place for political reasons.

  I had a daughter before Hermione, but they would have killed Iphigenia, so I gave her to my sister, Nessie, to rear as her own. My daughter can’t be here with me, and Theseus was killed not long ago. My husband cares for his daughter for politics and for the idea of owning Helen.” She poured out her story to this man.

  “Oh, Helen.”

  She sighed, “He is a jealous, angry man. And do you know what? I am Helen, said to be so beautiful, but I feel I am cursed. I have not one single person in the whole world who is utterly and only mine.

  And in all, the world, not one would claim me to be utterly and only his.” At those words, all her years of pain and misery and all her heartbreak and losses hit her in full, and she fell across the grass and cried harder than she had ever cried.

  Paris sat down and spread his cloak and easily set Helen upon it as she lay, face down, weeping. Sliding the cloak over his lap, he was able to pull her along until her head was in his lap, and she turned away from him and kept crying. Very softly, he stroked her hair, sometimes her cheek and forehead, but always her hair. He didn’t talk.

  After a while, she stopped crying and just stayed there.

  “Helen, what if I could love you that way? Never think of another woman, see only your beautiful face all of my life? What if I loved you so that I would pledge myself before Aphrodite to be all yours, to be unable ever to stop loving and cherishing you? What if I only breathed for you?”

  “Could you?”

  Paris chuckled a little, and said, “How could I not? I already feel that way.”

  “Because of the curse I carry.”

  “Silly girl.”

  “Wha…what would we do; I mean O̱ Theé mou, is it possible to feel that way, but you are only visiting.” Helen’s pretty face crinkled to cry again, and tears began falling down her cheeks.

  “No, oh no, Helen, my love, don’t cry. The way I feel is real. If you could feel the same, then I am not just visiting, I am here to take my bride back to Troy. Can you love me?”

  He bent down and kissed her tears and her eyes; finally he kissed her, gently, wondering how she felt; then, as she opened her lips, he kissed her more deeply. When she allowed her tongue to entwine with his, he felt her passion and heard her breath quicken.

  Breaking the kiss, she looked into his eyes. “I should wash the tears away.” She glanced at a sun-warmed pool of water, crystal clear and blue with minerals and white boulders deep below. “I’ve gotten tears all over myself and all over you.”

  “And they should be washed away. I won’t have my love cry again. Ever.”

  He helped her to her feet, and they walked closer to the pool. She unclasped her peplos so that it fell in a wash of silk at her feet. With naked skin like marble and hair flowing like gold, she stood with the trees and foliage behind her.

  Paris Alexandros took a deep, jerk breath as he looked at her fully. He had never seen a more beautiful vision in his life, his dreams, or in his imagination, and he all but fell at her feet to worship her.

  Helen turned and walked away. It was a test to see what he would do.

  Before her toes touched the water, he raced toward her, swept her into his arms tightly, and then raised her so she wrapped her legs around his waist as he ran, carrying her through the shallows until the water was too deep, and they both fell.

  They came up laughing, but he took her again in his arms, and they made love in the pool of water. After three trysts, they fell on the cloak again to rest. “You are amorous and so loving.”

  “Only for you.”

  “Then by your own words, you must belong only to me. And I must belong only to you.”

  “I love you, Paris Alexandros,” Helen whispered.

  “Tomorrow, we will board my ship and sail away to Troy. You will go with me, and we will live all of our lives together, only belonging to one another.”

  “And Menelaus?”

  “Kataraménos. May he sail the River Styx forever.”

  “I’ll go with you?”

  “As my bride. I have claimed you.”

  Helen felt much of her harbored anger and disgust for men lessen since she would be away from the ones whom she disliked the most. It would be delicious revenge on her father, all the suitors who had treated her as a prize, on Menelaus, and on her brothers. This time, she was choosing her husband; how many Spartan women ever were able to do this: to choose and choose for love, at that.

  Helen and Paris rode back to the palace in giddy moods, as if they were drunk, but it wasn’t wine.

  Helen was about to step into freedom.

  Chapter 14

  Helen of Troy

  “Will you love me if I am really a monster?” Helen asked Paris again.

  “Yes, I said I would as long as it isn’t my heart you consume,” he said as he laughed.

  Helen chewed her bottom lip as she looked at the endless sea. She took her jewels, the swan feather, and her huge trunks of dresses, making Paris laugh as he and his sailors pretended to bow under the weight of the trunks, making her giggle at them.

  She had told Hermione she was going away, and the child did
n’t particularly react. Aethra promised she would care for the little girl. If Hermione were cursed as her mother (Helen) and her grandmother (Leda) were to drink blood, then Aethra would help her adjust.

  Helen’s mother, Leda, had taken her own life to escape the misery of her life; Helen was sailing away to a new land to escape. Each left daughters who needed them.

  The next day, Helen asked him again, “What if I am a horrible person and do terrible things to people?

  “I might think it amusing.”

  “Yes? If I did such things?”

  Paris knitted his brow, “To me?”

  “No, not ever to you, your family you love, or friends…to…others? What If I did something awful?”

  “Helen, you worry about this so much. I see it’s in your mind, working at you and making you unhappy. What is it you might do? What can I do to reassure you that nothing will sway my love for you? Tell me what causes you anguish.”

  But she didn’t.

  She didn’t know what she would do, and she only had a few days before the curse would be on her. Already, she felt the stirring of cravings, and her senses were becoming more acute. She thought about running along on the ship’s deck, chasing a man, and devouring his throat. Blood and meat.

  “Tomorrow, I want you to lock me away for a few days. I may curse and howl and beg to be set free, but Paris, if you love me, you will do this. I have an illness that manifests for a bit each month, and I get quite out of my mind with it. Then it passes.”

  But it wouldn’t just pass. The next month would be far worse, but she would deal with that later.

  “I won’t lock you away!”

  Helen wept as the symptoms came on even though power and strength surged through her. She wanted to run wild and do mad things. Her stomach ached, and her lower belly cramped as she sweated and moaned, thirsting and hungering.

  The ship’s doctor wasn’t a very bright or imaginative man and told Paris he didn’t know what it might be, but this was surely something of the blood, and she should be bled.

  The second time he treated Helen, he told Paris it must be a strange affliction, and after judging her pain and paleness, he recanted bleeding her and said that as far as he could tell, Helen would die within a day or two.

  “Oh, my love,” Paris lay his shaggy curls beside her bed, kneeling and weeping for her. She could take no food, water, or wine and was dying. ”Anything, I would do for you.”

  “I told you I am a monster, my darling, Agapi mou.”

  “I won’t lose you,” he wept.

  “My mother had a curse. It was passed on to me. Once a month, I become ill this way. Vrykolakas.”

  Paris puzzled over the word, “You are not a wolf and have not the hair of a wolf. You are not dead or a spirit.”

  “Lamia.”

  “You devour children?” Paris laughed, despite her pain and misery.

  “No. What else does the lamia do? They drink….”

  “Blood,” Paris finished, “is this in your mind? Have you been so tortured you believe this?”

  In desperation and sure that she would either die or he would kill her as a monster, she leaned close to him so that she could smell the blood in his veins.

  Before his eyes, he watched her incisors grow long and sharp as a cobra’s fangs. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one’s view, her long white teeth set against her rosy, full lips and alabaster skin almost drove Paris Alexandros mad with desire; it was all he could do not to fall upon her and ravish her, knowing she would sink her teeth into him.

  “Succubus,” he whispered, not as a derogatory term but almost as an invitation.

  In all their lovemaking, he never had so wanted her, and it scared him a little; it terrified her.

  His eyes were glazed with lust.

  “Oh, Paris….” With her last bit of strength, she slapped his face hard.

  He sat back, stunned, but his eyes cleared. “By, Zeus, oh, Helen.

  “Do you hate me? Fear me?”

  “No. But I am going to save you.” Paris wrapped her in a soft blanket and carried her out. He called to one of his men. “Where is that fool that I planned to flog to death today for stealing wine?”

  “Down below in manacles.”

  “I will deal with him, now. My wife will join me, and we’ll see if some good honest punishment will put color to her cheeks.”

  It was an odd thing to say, but Paris carried her below where the man sat sullenly. The smell was terrible down there, but above the stink of offal and waste and sweat and rats, she could smell blood-wine coursing through the man’s body.

  On him, she smelled he was a thief and liked to hurt women with his fists. She could smell rage and lies and a desire to do harm to everyone he met.

  To Helen, it mattered little that he was a criminal. That he was a man was enough; if she had her way, all men, save Paris, would be her food. Paris set her down and leaned against some cargo, fascinated. What would his beautiful, refined wife do?

  In a flash, Helen leaped at the man, slammed his head back, and bit into his neck, letting the bursts and jets of blood fill her throat. In a few swallows, she moaned with relief of the pain, and in a few more, she felt strong again, healthy and alive. She drank every drop, lapping at his flesh and then chewed away some goblets of fat and meat to finish her meal.

  She wiped her chin. “He’s dead, now. If I had stopped and he had lived, he would have been horribly sick and suffered for a long time, and people would wonder, so when I stop myself, I cut their necks with a silver dagger, and that stops the illness from taking over.”

  “How…I mean…well, how do you feel?”

  Helen stretched like a cat. “Strong and healthy. There’s no more pain.”

  “You are well again?”

  “Perfectly. But you have seen what I am. I should have told you before you took me from Sparta.”

  Paris shook his head, “I wouldn’t have done a thing differently. This is once a month? There are plenty of evil men who deserve such a fate. What matters is that you are healthy again, my Helen.”

  Paris cut the man’s head off to disguise the wound, and when they went up top, he ordered his men to toss the man over board to the sharks. In their little berth, Paris showed Helen how accepting he was of her little issue by making love to her lovingly.

  Though she still carried a deep hatred of all men, except her husband, Paris, it was the most peaceful Helen had ever been in her entire life as she lay next to Paris Alexandros.

  When they finally reached Troy, Paris proudly took his bride to meet his family. There were mixed feelings. Paris’ mother, Hecuba, declared that there would be a war and Troy would fall as foretold long before Paris had taken Helen away and brought her there.

  “You should go back to your husband,” Hecuba declared, pointing at Helen.

  “She is with her husband. Me,” Paris said.

  Deiphobus, Paris’ brother who would have killed him in the boxing event, glowered with jealous and waved without commit.

  Cassandra, Paris’ sister could foretell the future since she was given this gift by the god Apollo who admired her beauty. She refused to give him her virginity, and in anger, he spat in her mouth, causing everyone who heard her prophesies to disbelieve her. She said Helen should go and that Paris’ union with the woman would destroy their kingdom, but no one believed her.

  Helenus, another brother, had eyes for Helen and thought she should remain. Deiphobus, third in line for the throne, eyed the woman with lust.

  Hector, fourth in line, and the most noble and perhaps the only truly honorable man on earth, spoke for Helen and Paris. He said many men had sailed away to find wives, but nothing had been done about that, so if Helen were happier in Troy and if the couple was in love and had married, then he would lend all his support to the marriage. He kissed the hand of his sister-in-law and welcomed her to Troy.

  King Priam, having seen many things in his life, suggested that the deed was done, an
d right or not, they would not be bullied by the Spartans to return Helen.

  He suggested that Helen’s former husband get over his loss and muttered something about the man could perform sexual acts on other men, making the Trojans laugh.

  Chapter 15

  A Plea

  Menelaus and Odysseus sailed to Troy to try diplomacy, hoping that this was a silly ploy and that they could bring Helen back after paying some tribute of gold. King Priam listened to the pleas and offers and then explained that his son, Paris, loved Helen and had taken her for his wife, and in Troy she would remain.

  Menelaus remembered how Tyndareus had made all the suitors pledge an oath to uphold his marriage to Helen and to defend it; he was glad that had happened. He spoke to his brother, Agamemnon, who remembered the oath. He swore that each man would have to live up to the oath and bring war ships and men to fight the Trojans. He pledged fifty ships of men to add to the sixty that Menelaus had.

  Odysseus was unhappy that the diplomatic mission had failed and didn’t wish to go to war since with Menelaus’ help, he had married the lovely Penelope and had fallen more in love with her each year of their marriage.

  Pretending to be insane, Odysseus began to salt his fields, something so terrible since nothing would grow there for sheaths of years. Hooked to his plow were a donkey and goat, of all things, and he muttered nonsense.

  Outwitting him, one of the men placed Odysseus’ newborn son in the row where Odysseus plowed. Had he been insane, he would have plowed over the child, killing it, but he swerved away so the animals and the blade of the plow never came close to killing Odysseus’ son.

  Odysseus was forced to sail to war from Ithaca with twelve ships of men and supplies.

  The warriors and ships met in Aulis; Achilles was the last to arrive and the youngest commander at age fifteen.

  As soon as the ships set sail, a terrible wind came up and blew them far off course to far away islands; they were hopelessly lost.

  Years past while the men tried to find one another, and while they waited for favorable winds, Achilles took a wife. The men despaired of ever fighting the battle or of getting to return home, and morale dropped.