Blood of an Empire: Helen of Sparta Read online

  Fully eight years later, the men and ships finally gathered at Aulis to fight the battle. Each man cursed that he had ever made an oath to stand by Menelaus’ marriage and grew weary of Agamemnon’s leadership.

  As the thousands of ships gathered, provisions were restored, and the men readied themselves for battle, the winds completely died down. The gods again had played a cruel trick on the warriors.

  Chapter 16

  Agamemnon’s Cruelty

  Menelaus railed and tore at his hair while Agamemnon cursed. At this point, not only did they want to get Helen back, but they also wanted to fight, and they needed to do something, or the last eight years would be lost.

  In desperation, they sought help from an oracle who told them that Agamemnon had slighted the goddess Artemis while hunting, remarking that he was a better hunter than she and that the goddess was causing the winds to remain still.

  When they asked what they could do to make amends, they were told that Agamemnon must sacrifice his virgin first-born daughter to the goddess Artemis.

  At first, he refused, but then the men threatened to leave and go home and called him a poor commander; he relented, sending word to his wife Nessie that she was to send Iphigenia to him to be married to Achilles.

  Nessie didn’t like the idea and wondered why it was to be handled this way but came with her daughter to the ships. Nessie wasted no time in greeting Achilles, her future son-in-law, but he was dumbfounded. “I am already married,” he told Nessie.

  Nessie found her husband Agamemnon and demanded to know the truth. He told her, shaking as he spoke, “I tried to send a letter telling you to ignore the first letter and not come, but Menelaus was furious, ripped it up, and said we had to follow the oracle.”

  “What reason did you send for her?”

  He told her.

  “You will not touch the only child I love,” Nessie screamed.

  Achilles stood close and nodded. “This is wrong.”

  Agamemnon wavered between his daughter and wife and the angry men, who demanded a sacrifice as ordered by oracle. “The gods command me.”

  Iphigenia asked, “Is it so important that the winds blow your ships to Troy so you can fight a war to bring home a woman who doesn’t want to return? She has chosen to live there, and her choice means nothing to you? I mean so very little?”

  Everyone listened.

  “All of you are so eager to fight in a war where you likely will be killed, leaving widows and children behind. You have neglected your lands and kingdoms and have been gone for eight long years for what: an oath you made when you were hardly men?

  Is it the oath or a need to fight to shed blood and to bleed on foreign soil? Is it pride that causes you to want to show that no man can steal a Spartan woman, even one who goes willingly? Are you so enamored of Helen that this war means so much to have her back like a treasure?”

  Nessie wept.

  “You will give up your wives, children, lands, and years of your life and take my life just to go fight for Helen? This is how men think? My own father would do this? I volunteer to be sacrificed.”

  Men shuffled their feet.

  “Take my life as I give it gladly, but remember this: I did what is good for all people; remember me as noble and giving, a true Spartan woman, a virgin and honorable, which is rare. I give my life so all of you may go rescue Helen, the whore of Sparta and Troy.”

  Nessie screamed and tore her hair out in clumps, falling to the ground.

  She lay upon the altar of Artemis and closed her eyes.

  With tears streaming down his face, her father, Agamemnon, plunged the dagger into her heart; Clytemnestra was on the ground screaming, and Achilles looked at everyone in disgust. Only Menelaus nodded, satisfied the ordeal was over.

  He would be avenged.

  Over the years, he had heard whispers that Iphigenia was Helen’s daughter with Theseus, and old Tyndareus had all but confirmed it. The diseased, festering sore in Menelaus’ life was finally cut away and could now heal properly as Helen’s connection with Theseus was dead.

  Now, he only had Paris Alexandros to be rid of, and Helen could truly be his: body, mind, and soul.

  That day the winds shifted, and the Achaeans cheered, able to set sail for Troy. One hundred thousand men crossed the sea to fight.

  Chapter 17

  At Troy

  It was prophesized that the first Achagean man to set foot in Troy would be the first man to die; the men who gathered looked longingly at the shore but hesitated to get off their ships. Odysseus, the sly brave one, stepped on the shore and spun around with his arms raised in victory. He had been the first and was unharmed. However, he had used his shield and stepped onto it and not the actual land.

  The Trojans and Achaeans began the fight on the beach.

  Protesilaus, the first man to actually set foot on the land, was killed in the battle; Hector, using a bow and arrow, shot him after he had killed four men. Taking pity on him, the gods allowed Protesilaus to visit his wife, whom he had just married, but he was a mere ghost, and she became inconsolable. Rather than mourn her beloved, she took her own life with a dagger.

  Both sides took heavy losses; the Trojans conceded the beach and fled back within the walls. The Achaeans raided and took everything they could find, destroying cities for their stored supplies and razing temples and homes.

  They collected water, food stores, household goods, gold, and silver, gathered harvests, from the fields, and stole the comely women as their own. The elderly men and women and children were slaughtered until the streets ran with the blood of the innocents.

  There was no mercy shown.

  The Greeks made themselves at home: erecting great pavilions, laying rugs and carpets, bringing out furnishings, and making comfortable beds of sheep skins and soft wool. They sectioned off land to farm and took livestock: sheep and goats and horses.

  In the winter, the Greeks planned their strategies, and they slept warm in their beds with whores they had brought or with women they had captured.

  In the spring, they planted and then fought on the battlefield when the days were warm and sunny; they retired to their tents when the rains came.

  In the summer, they fought furiously unless the day was too hot and muggy. They harvested their fields.

  In the fall, they met again on the battlefields when the days were pleasant, and they drank wine.

  In Troy behind the gates, Helen and Paris Alexandros fell deeper in love each day. And although she still carried rage and hatred toward her Spartan husband Menelaus, she loved Paris and greatly admired his father Priam and Paris’ brother, Hector. King Priam held steadfast that Paris had chosen his bride, that the Achaeans had no right to declare war on Troy, and that it was more of a political move than anything else.

  Some members of the royal family, who lived below the walls in villages, suffered the most and were the first casualties. The Greeks raided all the usable supplies, collected and stored them; killed entire families; and took captive the women who would be used for slaves or for whoring.

  Led by Achilles, the men took everything of value, killed without mercy, and burned what little was left. If the land couldn’t be planted, it was salted or covered in ashes.

  Priam had allies that protected them, and they were never without fresh water or food supplies; the Dardanians and Tracians remained loyal, and the Achaeans could not breach the walls.

  Achilles and Ajax and their men raided the island, keeping the men in fresh water and plenty of food. If not for those two, the Achaeans would have loaded up and gone home; as it was, the entire force of the Greek army was only fully gathered during the first and tenth year of the war.

  Some of Priam’s own children, sired by mistresses, were murdered.

  One of his sons was part of a prophecy. It was said that if he lived to be twenty, Troy would win the war, but he was killed in a battle and was only nineteen. It was also said that only an army led by Achilles would win the war
.

  Andromache, Hector’s wife, screamed at Helen, “Go back with your Greeks, and leave us in peace.”

  “She is at home. Troy is her home now,” Hector said calmly.

  “Only because Paris brought her here and brought war right to our door. How many of our brothers and fathers and mothers will die by their hands?”

  Andromache still yelled, pointed to Paris and said, “It’s always about Paris, Paris Alexandros who causes a great war and hides behind his brother.”

  “He has fought, too,” Helen said. Every day, she joined the family high above the battlefields to watch the battles, cheering for their men or allies and groaning when one was injured. Her palms always had cut, crescent-moon shapes dotting them, imprinted deeply or cut into her flesh. She clenched her jaws and fists each time the Trojans fought.

  “This is unbearable,” said Hecuba, the Queen, Priam’s wife. Those were her final words and meant a great deal.

  “They won’t breach the walls,” Priam said, “if we gave Helen to them, what would that message be? Would we hand over her and her girl child to them? The baby is royalty.”

  “Keep the child,” Andromache snarled, “toss her to her Greeks.”

  “If you dare touch my child….” Helen began.

  Hector waved them back as he watched his brother. “Stop.”

  “Helen is my wife. She will be treated accordingly,” Paris stated.

  All at once, Andromache was deflated, calmed herself, and looked at the floor. She had gone too far and knew it; Hector was disappointed in her.

  He was so noble, so good in every way possible that a mere look of disapproval from Hector was a burning pain, a scorch upon the soul. As he raised his voice, it was if he had brutally stoned each of them. “Helen is of Troy,” he said.

  There would be no further discussion.

  Priam nodded and asked, “Have you seen Diomedes on the field? He has taken Chromius and Echemmon and a dozen more. He is outdoing Ajax!”

  “I didn’t know he could fight as he has,” Hector agreed, “he is unstoppable.”

  Diomedes wore a cuirass of gold and silver and carried a shield with an engraving of a boar, said to be blessed by the goddess Athena and forged by the god Hephaestus, son of Hera. He carried a spear and had twice beaten Hector and almost killed him. One of the youngest of the warrior kings, he led many men, had volunteered eighty ships, and was considered to be almost the equal of Achilles.

  “Agamemnon, Ajax, and Tuecer have proven deadly as well,” Paris said. “Had another not been in the way, Tuecer’s arrow would have killed Hector.”

  Andromache embraced her husband.

  Paris and Helen retired to their home. He was still enamored of her and never tired of her beauty and wit. He lounged in a bath, letting Helen use a sponge to rub rosemary and grape seed oil into his back and shoulders to relax him. She called for more hot water and added mint to the steaming water.

  In a compliant posture, she brought him wine and a tray of food: figs, cold meat, cheese, dates, and honeyed walnuts, and apples, feeding him as he bathed.

  “What is this for?“ he asked, as he smiled lazily.

  “For my love…for you,” Helen said.

  “And what have I done to deserve such attention?”

  “You breathe. You exist. You are the beautiful strong, brave father of my two children.”

  He nodded as he ate a fig. Their daughter, named for her mother, was a beautiful child. Two children? Startled, he looked up at her and found her smiling face looking at him for acceptance.

  “Another baby? Oh, Helen, could it be a son?” His face was alight with pleasure and excitement.

  “It could be,” she said.

  He pulled her into the bath, soaking her peplos, making her laugh as he kissed her whole face. Helen was a wonderful, loving mother, and here, in the midst of death and war, she would bring forth a new life.

  In the fifth year, Helen produced a second son.

  When the Greeks captured men, they sold them as slaves; some escaped and made their way back to fight again.

  On the Trojan side, the captured men were held in a prison and treated humanely except when Helen was hunting. On those days, she would select a man and drain him quickly; if Paris noticed her victims resembled Menelaus and Agamemnon, he didn’t say anything.

  There came a day when Chryses of Moesia approached Agamemnon to beg him to return his daughter, Chryseis, whom Agamemnon had taken away to bed, claiming her as his wife. It would have shown honor for the man to return the girl, but he refused, saying crude things about her to her own father. Chryses complained to King Priam, as well, and Hector and Paris were in the audience to hear the man’s pleas.

  Paris said he would try to help.

  Paris rarely involved himself in Helen’s feeding; he accepted it and helped her keep it a secret. However, this time, he involved himself.

  For Helen’s feeding, Paris chose a man and then allowed Helen to go to him. Helen studied the man. His eyes were downcast, and he expected, maybe, to be executed. Sliding close to him, Helen stroked his arms and chest, relaxing him; he became excited.

  Very carefully, almost gently, she bit into his throat and drank his blood- wine. With an iron will, she stopped after a few seconds and licked the wound closed; Paris took the man, drowsy with blood loss and confusion, and set the warrior free.

  Paris pushed a drunken herdsman towards Helen and nodded as Helen sank her teeth into his neck roughly and drank, stopping when he was growing dizzy. She wanted to gulp but did as her husband asked her.

  He was released.

  In all, Paris had her drink of ten different men; Helen finally filled herself, stopping her pain and hunger. All of the men drunkenly staggered back to the Greek camp with little memory of what they had been through, but sick. In the days following, the men vomited, had loose bowels and fever, were pale, and suffered terrible pains.

  Paris secretly sent word to Chryses that he should tell the Greeks it was a plague brought about by Apollo and that only Chryses could cure it. The men grew sicker and hovered between life and death, but the Greeks would not bend.

  After another cycle of the moon, Paris asked Helen to drink her fill again; this time the blood came from twelve men that were then sent back to the Greek camp. With so many ill and with such odd symptoms, Agamemnon called for his favorite physician to find out what was wrong.

  The doctor said, “They can’t eat or drink without vomiting or releasing from their bowels, and it is most foul. They are pale and in grave pain, and their skin blisters easily, especially in the daylight.”

  He continued, “They have wounds on their necks, gaping holes that leak noxious fluids that reek abominably. I have treated the wounds with honey and figs, wine and barley, but nothing stops the corruption of the flesh. Tea made with poppies helps the pain, but they are withering away, and I fear they won’t last much longer, yet when they should be long dead, they linger in misery.”

  “What do you conclude?”

  “It must be a plague, and if you were told it was designed by Apollo himself, then I must concur.”

  Agamemnon called for Chryses and released his daughter, Chryseis.

  Chryses told them that they must slay the ill men with a silver dagger. It must be silver to remove the curse, he cautioned, and then they were to burn the bodies. If they did so, the plague would infect no more of the men, repeating what he had been told to say.

  And that was what they did.

  Without Clymenestra to warm his bed, Agamemnon demanded and took Briseus from Achilles; the girl was a princess, very beautiful and kind. Achilles had murdered her entire family and took her away to be his sometime-lover. Achillis’ other lover, his most beloved Patroclus, brushed her hair, talked softly to her, and comforted her. Infuriated first by Achilles and then taken by Agamemnon, she wept uncontrollably.

  Achilles seethed with fury; he was livid with rage over Agamemnon daring to take his concubine.

  To
everyone’s surprise, Achilles withdrew from the war, pouting angrily. He spent his days playing music for Patroclus, refusing to speak of war. When he did mention the war, it was to compare that Agamemnon had stolen his woman just as Paris had stolen the woman of Menelaus. On one count, they would fight over a woman, and on the other, they would dismiss the dishonor and thievery? He was very angry.

  In his dreams, his mother whispered that he was right to refuse to fight.

  Menelaus sent word that Paris should meet him to fight alone on the battlefield.

  Almost sick with fear, Helen stood with Priam, Hecuba, Hector, Andromache, Cassandra, Helenus, and Deiphobus, her short nails again digging into familiar places on her palms. She wore a peplos of brilliant galazio or a sky blue so her husband could look to the high wall and see her watching him.

  “It’s the fair thing. This may end the war,” Priam said.

  “Paris can manage this,” said Hector but still looked worried.

  Helen shivered, “I can’t bear it if he is hurt.”

  Menelaus, having demanded a fight man-to-man, faced Paris on the battlefield. Paris drew back his arm and threw his spear. This was not his best weapon, and although it flew straight at Menelaus and hit him, it hit his shield and did no damage. Menelaus drew back his arm, and he was sure of his ability with a spear; it soared into the sky and hit the target: it hit Paris Alexandros.

  Helen screamed, and Priam tightened his grip on the ramparts.

  “It’s okay,” Hector whispered.

  Helen dared to peek and saw a boy wipe at Paris’ side where the spearhead had gone through his shield and nicked his lower rib area. Blood stained the cloth, but the boy nodded, and Paris waved valiantly.

  The gods sometimes grew bored on Mount Olympus, and to pass the time, they enjoyed interfering in the businesses and lives of mortals. Giving tiny gifts or altering events made more of a sport of things, and to be sure, the gods all watched this war, wagering on it and tipping the scales this way and that for entertainment.