Blood of an Empire: Helen of Sparta Page 12

  Zeus enjoyed this war because he thought the mortals had multiplied too fruitfully; the herd needed to be thinned out.

  With a roar, Menelaus ran at Paris with his sword, a fine one that had served him for many years and was not only beautifully crafted, but was also strong and dependable.

  Just as Menelaus came within reach to strike, his mighty sword fell to pieces before his eyes. The handle became dust, the jewels fell to the earth as seashells, and the shiny blade cracked into three pieces, which turned greenish and began to wiggle, becoming snakes and then slithering in three directions, all away from the walls of Troy.

  As everyone began to laugh, Paris seized the advantage and stabbed at Menelaus. His aim was true, and the wound was great in the upper shoulder where it bled down his armor most dramatically.

  Everyone on the walls cheered. Paris raised his arms in victory, and both sides believed there had been a winner; the Greeks were glad to see this done and over so that they could go home. It had been over thirteen years since they had been home.

  It was done.

  Menelaus waited until Paris was walking off the field with cheers from his side and groans from the others (but not too many as they were just glad for the war to be finished).

  Then, he ran and jumped on Paris from behind, a bit of a sneaky move. A champion wrestler, Menelaus intended to use his moves to hurt and then kill Paris, by breaking his spine or neck.

  Paris would have surely died in the match, but the goddess Aphrodite, recalling how Paris had named her to be the fairest of all, sent a thick storm of dust and wind that swirled and blackened the sky. It twisted deliberately, sending Menelaus and the Greeks away from the battlefield and sending Paris Alexandros close to the walls of Troy so he could run inside.

  The Greeks were furious and felt the action was wicked trickery and cowardice on the part of Paris.

  Helen bathed him of the sand, blood, sweat, and dirt, scraped all away with barley water and then olive oil, then submersed him in a hot bath with sandalwood, lemon verbena, and bergamot, and scrubbed him until his skin was pink and spotless.

  She oiled his body with grape seed oil and bergamot and put a poultice of pine needles, honey, and wine over his small wound. She had him lie in bed and relax while she rubbed his feet with more oil.

  “Come in,” Helen called when there was a knock.

  “Greetings,” Hecuba, the Queen, called out.

  Andromache brought in a large basket and a huge pitcher. “Poultices of orange oil and mint to be followed with a poultice of comfrey and lavender, and a third of rosemary oil and camphor. The poultices are tiny, so you should heat them, apply and keep them on for about three hours, and then use the next one.”

  “There are enough poultices for several days. I also have a bottle of oil: camphor, eucalyptus, pepper, and rose to use for his sore muscles and aches.”

  She took a breath finally and pointed to the pitcher and said, “And this one is for sleep; it’s weak, and he may have a full cup of it: willow bark, rosehips, a little salt, some lemon, strong wine, and a drop of poppy. It will make him sleep and then feel stronger.”

  Hecuba had a large basket, too, and Helen couldn’t guess what else she had brought. “Here are some things to eat so you can relax: figs, plums, and dates, three kinds of cheese, several kinds of olives, walnuts, and a part of freshly roasted goat and a fat duck.”

  Andromache spoke again, “Cassandra has brought this big pitcher here.”

  Cassandra nodded and said, “It’s honeyed milk for the children and sesame treats, and this piece of roz silk would look pretty on baby Helen.” It was the pink of the sunrise.

  “It’s lovely.”

  “When the children awaken in the morning, let them come to us, and we will amuse them so you may rest,” Andromache said.

  “We’ll let you be, but if you need anything….” Hecuba motioned the other two away.

  Helen looked at Paris, but he only laughed and laughed until she feared he would loosen his wound and begin to bleed again.

  “Stop that laughing, and tell me what happened just now. Asinithistos.” But Helen thought it was more than just unusual or strange.

  “They were making amends.”

  “Why now?”

  “Well, for one thing, it was obvious I had the help of a god or goddess, and I think it was Aphrodite as do they. Therefore because Aphrodite helped, our love and marriage must be blessed by her as well,“ Paris smiled. “I imagine their next stop will be at the Temple of Aphrodite.”

  “Oh, so now, I am not so despised?”

  “Not as much.”

  Helen laughed.

  “Let’s try a new poultice and the rest of the things they brought. I am beginning to ache,” Paris complained.

  “Instead of enjoying this, you should be concerned that you had a chance to end this and didn’t. You left the battlefield.” Helen felt betrayed. The other women didn’t like her for herself but feared a goddess and catered to Paris, he who walked off the battlefield.

  “It was Aphrodite who brought that about.”

  Helen grimaced a little and said, “But it could have been ended, and I could have stood with you as my husband and watched the Achaeans sail away. The goddess has instead caused trouble for us.”

  “Helen, don’t say such….”

  She closed her lips, but she knew it was so.

  Chapter 18

  The War Takes a Turn

  It came to pass that several events happened at about the same time and created a perfect storm, as sorts that would decide the outcome of the war. Each event, taken alone, would have little to no effect on the war, but like tiny puzzle pieces, they fit tightly to form a cause and effect of great magnitude.

  The Achaeans sent word to the Trojans that they wanted a special battle between one of theirs and one of their own; it might decide the war, or it might be a day’s entertainment. The people of Troy accepted.

  Ajax and Hector met on the battlefield for a duel.

  Chosen by a lottery, Ajax was the winner and was greatly admired by both sides as being a fierce and strong fighter who had been trained in battlement by Chiron, a centaur of legendary talents.

  Both sides drank wine and watched with interest as Ajax who was renowned for not only being strong, but also for being a brilliant strategist during battle, was able to out think most opponents.

  Disappointed at not being chosen, some of the Greeks drank more than they watched, at first, refusing to admit and show how interested they were. Diomedes and Menestheus both sulked in the shades of their tents.

  Hector, confident in the battle after being told it was said by an oracle that he was not to die that day, met Ajax with great pleasure.

  They began to fight early in the morning. When the sun was directly overhead, neither had been wounded but was sweat-stained and even more determined to win.

  All afternoon, they fought with their swords, slashing and parrying until the shadows grew long. Finally, with no winner claimed, mighty Zeus called it a draw and praised the stamina and fortitude of each man.

  In honor of Ajax, Hector walked over to greet Ajax and made him a gift of his sword. “I have never been in such a well-matched, excellent battle. You are indeed a brilliant adversary.”

  Ajax grinned widely, handing Hector a beautiful sash, dyed deep purple and embroidered with threads of gold. “I have been honored in this contest,” he said and bowed.

  The men retreated to fight the next day.

  Paris met with his men and made plans for an attack the next day that his brother would lead. Hector, weary from the all-day fight, retreated to his chambers. He noticed a shadow along the wall.

  “Step out. Who is too shy to reveal himself to me?” Hector asked.

  Helen boldly faced him.

  “Helen, what brings you here?” he asked.

  “To admire the greatest warrior in the army,” she said.

  Hector chuckled, “I am such a magnificent man right now?”
he asked as he indicated his sweat and the dirt that stuck to him in grimy patches, “I think not.”

  “It’s mere dirt and sweat, born of a great battle.

  My own husband stands on the walls and watches the fight while the most noble of men, Hector, defends my place here.”

  “I see.” Hector tried to ignore Helen’s presence, and to show he was uninterested, he stripped and slid into his tub of water after his attendants had scrubbed the dirt away with salt and barley water.

  Despite himself, he continued, “You find something interesting?”

  “I find it shocking that my husband doesn’t fight often. I find that the other side asks why only the great Hector battles?”

  “Paris is a hunter. He prefers the bow. I am the warrior. You know he was raised as a herdsman.”

  Helen nodded and said, “And so do they.”

  Hector might have corrected her and chided her not to say such things, but he was a man and had noticed how she looked, as she stood there in an almost transparent peplos of rose silk. Her golden hair fell in waves and smelled of flowers. Thinking to avoid looking at her, Hector handed her the sponge and bade her to wash his back.

  After she bathed him, her strong hands rubbed his aching muscles and slid beneath the water.

  Despite his honor and noble character, he sighed, no longer as tired or sore, but suddenly was energized.

  He grabbed her wrist at once, staring into her eyes as he asked silently if this were really what she wanted. Instead of an answer, he felt himself fall into her spell. He desired her more than he had ever desired anyone or anything; his head was dizzy with the way she looked and smelled and with her voice and her very being.

  Without even drying himself, he left the bath, picked her up, and took her to his bed. He had thought he would lie down exhausted, but it was hours before she left his bed and he was satisfied.

  Helen was not satisfied but still unhappy.

  Achilles removed himself from the battle to woo and concentrate on his lover, Patroclus, as he had lost his female consort.

  Because of the excellent contest of Ajax and Hector, the men from Troy took this as a great sign and fought harder than ever, driving the Greeks all the way back to the sea. Only the god Poseidon, master of the waters, kept them from decimating the entire army of Greek fighters as the god Apollo blessed Hector in his aggression.

  Hector had visions of Helen in his mind, and his blood roared with the memory of her body and beauty. He slashed his way through the enemy.

  Ajax again fought valiantly with his brother Tuecer by his side. While the first used his sword, the latter picked off men with expertise with a bow and arrows. These two prevented the ships from burning, except one.

  Patroclus, torn between his lover and the epic battle, hoped to make the right choice, according to the oath he had given to Menelaus, many years before. Determined to stop the fall of his fellow countrymen, Patroclus grabbed Achilles’ armor, donned it, and leaped into the fight with almost super human strength since it was a hero’s armor. Almost alone, he kept the Trojans back while the others guarded the ships.

  The other men, thinking that Achilles had again joined the battle, fought back with new excitement and speed and drove the Trojans back up the beach and all the way to the walls of Ilium.

  As the beaten Trojan men retreated, Hector came forward, thinking he was meeting Achilles on the field at long last. Swords flashed, and each parried, and as everyone on the walls watched, the other men on the battlefield stopped to watch as well. It seemed the two greatest warriors, one from each side, were in a last fight. With a deep breath, imagining Helen watching him, Hector lunged with his sword, and the blade was true.

  The warrior fell onto the ground and was dead quickly. Hector removed the helmet and gasped. It was Patroclus who had fallen. “What trickery is this? You fear to fight me and send a substitute? I will feed his bones to the dogs and laugh as they break them with their great teeth.”

  All went silent as they saw it was not Achilles but his lover who lay dead. Hector, although surprised, tore the armor off the man and put it on. While he did this and wiped away blood that stained the metal, Ajax fought to recover the body, taking it away.

  This was the part that Achilles could not accept; it was bad enough that his lover had been slain, but for his own armor, the armor of a hero, to be worn by Hector was a terrible affront. He roared with anger.

  As all of that happened, a prophecy revealed that the war would not be won by the Greeks if the great Heracles’ bow and arrows were not used in the battle. Heracles, born of Zeus, was dead; he had died when his cloak was poisoned and his skin blistered away.

  When Heracles was alive, one of his twelve great labors was killing the Hydra, a monster of the earth with many heads, each of which could blow flames of deadly fire.

  When one head was cut off, two more heads would grow in its place. Heracles defeated it with the help of Athena, using the monster’s own poisonous blood to seal the head stumps as he cut them off, making the flesh blacken and release deadly fumes that Heracles had to avoid with a scarf about his face.

  In later labors, Heracles used arrows dipped in the deadly blood.

  Philoctetes now owned the great bow and the arrows since he had been the one who lit the funeral pyre for the great hero.

  He was not there on the beaches because as he was taking seven ships of warriors to the battle, the ships had stopped to refill the stores of fresh water, and an unusual serpent had bitten Philoctetes.

  Though he didn’t die, the wound on his foot turned black and green and grew terribly swollen with pus, and he could not walk on it. Not only was he too ill to travel, but also the other men saw a wound as a bad omen.

  His men went on and served alongside the other Greeks for the next nine years, but Philoctetes remained, left behind on the crude, uncultured island to recover.

  Agamemnon had not spared a ship to get Philoctetes until he heard the prophecy; then, he sent for his friend.

  And, Achilles, in a new set of armor, took the field.

  Chapter 19

  Hector

  “Again, you do not take the field?”

  Paris frowned, “It is a war for spears and swords. I am a hunter.”

  Hector slapped a table and said, “Then stand above with the bowmen and fight. Take the field, and use your bow.”

  “They can’t breach our walls.”

  Andromache glared and said, “And those outside the wall have been slaughtered. My entire family either has been hacked to pieces, or the women are being used as bed partners, or the family is starving and living in filth and squalor.”

  Priam nodded and said, “I have again moved more into houses within the walls.”

  “And they live there, starving, while their excrement makes mud puddles outside their doors. We are burying soldiers in the yards,” Hector’s wife snapped. She was angry about the war but also at something else she couldn’t quite define. As the war progressed, Hector often neglected her bed.

  Helen had just been delivered of another child.

  Her husband obviously didn’t neglect her bed, and Helen and he gazed at one another still in love, as they had been almost twenty years before when they first met.

  Hector, although the paragon of virtue, always seemed to be more aware of Helen’s beauty and grace; Andromache couldn’t say he was straying or that her sister–in–law was immodest with Hector, but something nagged at her mind.

  “Our men retreated last night, and we suffered huge losses,” Hector said since he felt he should have remained and fought. “We can’t ask our men to fight and then neglect the field ourselves.”

  Queen Hecuba commented, “The people curse Helen for this war. The men who fight often fight alongside their sons and grandsons who are young and have known nothing but war for all of their eighteen years.”

  “And the Greeks have never breached our walls,” Paris said.

  “But we have been at this war so lo
ng that the people are tired.” Hecuba was not pleased with Paris, and she felt he would indeed cause the fall of the Trojans. “I beg you to let Helen return to her people.”

  “We are her people,” Paris roared, “she is Helen of Troy.”

  “Tell them that!” Hecuba snapped back.

  Priam waved his hands and said, “This is an old argument. This is political, and they will not leave with her, either. Besides, she is one of us.”

  “Thank you,” Helen told him.

  Andromache tried a new tactic. “The people whisper that Helen is a…witch…a succubus that comes to them at night. They blame her when a man is found with his throat mutilated or one of the sheep is gutted.”

  Paris was almost speechless. “Helen doesn’t gut sheep.”

  “I didn’t say I believe it. I said people whisper that. I don’t think she rips entrails from sheep and goats; I think the Greeks do that,” Andromache said cryptically.

  Everyone noticed she didn’t disclaim that Helen attacked men or was a succubus, she just said Helen might not rip apart animals. In saying that Greeks were responsible, she didn’t absolve Helen of anything.

  “Paris, will you take the field or not?” asked Hector as he tried to stay on topic.

  Paris, glad that they were no longer discussing Helen, shrugged.

  Deiphobus, another brother, offered to carry the spear for Hector and gained his father’s approval.

  On the field, Hector faced Achilles; both men were armed with long ash spears tipped with brass ready to be thrown. As Hector watched his enemy, he felt a chill, the first fear he had ever known. In some confusion about what to do, he turned and ran, thinking it would tire his enemy. With Achilles chasing him, Hector ran around the entire city three times; they both exhausted themselves.

  The next day, they faced one another, again. Achilles threw his first spear and barely missed Hector; Hector was fine and raised his arms. The crowd cheered. Hector threw his spear, and it glanced off Achilles’ shield and fell to the ground.

  Those watching gasped.