Blood of an Empire: Helen of Sparta Page 14

  What might have happened, I do not know and dare not think about. Paris was white-knuckled with rage and fluidly; he raised his bow and arrow, and maybe Apollo himself directed the arrow, but the tip hit Achilles in his heel.

  I had told Paris Alexandros the story that Achilles’ heel was the only place he was vulnerable; I had also done one last deed in the Achaean camp before gorging and running away. I had stolen the bow and arrows.

  Paris held the bow and arrows owned by Philoctetes, and before that, they were owned by Heracles, the hero, who tipped each arrow in the poisonous blood of the Hydra.

  Achilles’ eyes went very wide, and he looked at me. He seemed so very sad as he collapsed to the ground; the hero was dead.

  All of the water ran backwards for a full day as his mother, the water goddess, Thetis, mourned her son.

  Chapter 22

  Ajax

  After Achilles died, many things happened at once.

  After Agamemnon killed Palamedes for being a traitor, Palamedes’ father Nauplius was angry and demanded justice. When no one would listen, the man made sure all the wives of all the Achaean men knew that the soldiers had taken concubines and lovers that they would be bringing home. The wives would be set aside by their husbands in order to have the new, younger queens.

  Clytemnestra, Helen’s sister, who hated Agamemnon for killing her first husband, her infant son, and her adopted daughter Iphigenia, vowed to take action, refused to give away her place as Queen, and took a lover, Aegisthus.

  The Achaeans took twelve days to mourn for Achilles.

  Odysseus and Ajax both wanted the armor of Achilles, each saying he deserved it, as each had been a valiant warrior. No one could decide who had earned the armor. The battles were seldom won while the men argued.

  When the next time of feeding came, Helen promised she wouldn’t go far so that Paris wouldn’t worry. She thought her luck was good when she found someone alone, creeping close to the wall. She wasn’t in terrible pain and crazed with thirst, so she took her time, trailing after the man.

  At a turn, she stepped out to meet him.

  It was Telemon Ajax, or the Greater Ajax to distinguish him from Ajax the Lesser.

  “The strongest of the Achaeans,” she whispered.

  “Not enough to be given the armor of Achilles,” he groaned. He was curious to see, of all people, Helen, before him and couldn’t conceal that he found her the most beautiful, desirable woman on earth. “Now, I remember why we fight.”

  Helen laughed and said, “You fight because you are Greek.”

  He chuckled.

  “Why are you here alone in the dark?”

  “Why are you, Ajax? I seek something,” she said. Moving like the wind, she was close enough to him so he could smell roses and lavender. On him, she smelled a lot of wine; he was almost drunk and on a spy mission.

  “Fair Helen,” he said, reaching for her, “what do you seek?”

  Without considering what she was doing, Helen leaned into his arms and kissed his lips, then his chin and neck, letting her lips trail a searing burn on his skin. Gently, she bit into his throat, not causing him pain, but letting him relax against her soft body and perfumed skin. The artery shot blood down her throat, and she swallowed quickly, enjoying the flavor.

  The sounds of men approaching startled her. She wasn’t finished, his heart was beating still, but Helen pulled herself away and ran back to the safety of Troy. She told Paris everything, and the next day, they listened eagerly to the gossip.

  Odysseus and Ajax continued to argue over the armor of Achilles. The Achaeans asked the royal members of Troy who had watched the battlefield which warrior they thought had done the most damage and thereby should get the armor. They asked the god Apollo and goddess Athena. The Achaeans finally voted, and the armor was given to Odysseus.

  Ajax was devastated. The word was that he was acting half-mad; he was killing sheep and goats, calling them by the names of his fellow warriors. The gossip was that he fell upon the animals to drink their blood. Paris and Helen pondered his behavior, knowing it was because Helen had bitten him and caused his madness. He would only be cured if killed with something silver, but for the time being, his fellow fighters were mystified by his actions.

  Ajax was a demigod and unable to die in a normal way, but being bitten by Helen, he harbored the curse in his veins and acted upon it. In time, he would attack his friends and rip open their throats, as well. Paris and Helen eagerly awaited news, curious as to what Ajax would do next.

  A few days later, Ajax came partially to his senses and was told what he had been doing, feeding on animal blood and calling them Menelaus and Agamemnon. He was humiliated and felt the hunger still in his veins and wanted to fall upon the men and drink from their necks. He fell upon the sword that Hector had given him; the end, tipped in silver, took his life as it went into his armpit and chest.

  Chapter 23

  Odysseus

  As Helen watched the battle, she saw empty places where Achilles; her brothers Castor and Pollux; Ajax; and Hector had fought.

  Paris took the field one day although he claimed to be uninterested now that Achilles was dead.

  Helen bit at her lips and wrung her hands as she watched the field beside Hecuba and Priam. He bravely fought, using his bow and arrows, and he wounded Diomedes badly; however, Philoctetes, who had survived the snakebite and brought the bow and arrows of Heracles to Troy, made a lucky strike. The man had only fought in this tenth year of the war, but he was the one who put a spear into Paris Alexandros’ side.

  After Philoctetes was bitten, the snake slithered to a bird’s nest and ate all the eggs in the nest of which there were ten; Philoctetes believed the war would, therefore, end in the tenth year.

  Regardless, Paris was stabbed in his side and fell to the ground, bleeding. The men quickly removed him and carried him into the palace.

  Helen danced in place, screaming for Paris and trying to get to him, but the physicians and his attendants worked at his side, waving bloody hands in the air and calling for various potions. They sent for bowls and water, wine and figs, barley and herbs, oil and cloths.

  Priam, shaking with fear and sadness, grabbed Helen’s arms and looked in her eyes, “The wound is mortal, Helen.”

  “No,” she moaned.

  “There’s nothing the physicians can do.”

  Her husband lay on the bed, his side opened as physicians applied compresses to stop the bleeding, prevent infection, and put the pain at bay. Only the latter was accomplished with poppies and wine. Paris’ skin was marble-white, and even in sleep, his face contorted with misery.

  Helen bathed her husband’s face with cool cloths and tried to concentrate on the blood and to wish it into stopping. Silk rag after silk rag was taken away, bloody and bright red.

  Breathing heavily, a runner came to Helen. She had dispatched him as soon as she saw Paris fall in battle. “Where is she?” Helen demanded. She had sent word to Mount Ida where Oenone, the healer and Paris’ first love lived. If anyone could heal him and save his life, it was Oenone.

  If the runner had not done his duty, Helen personally would have whipped him to death.

  “She refused. She said he gave away her love to claim his kingdom and you, my lady, and so she will not come. She said he chose being a prince over her love.”

  “Return to Mount Ida….” Helen gritted her teeth at the delay this would take. ”Take men with you, and force her to come. Carry her if you must. If you return without her, I will have you whipped and salted.”

  “I cannot, my lady; after she refused, she threw herself into a great fire and burned herself to ashes before my eyes,” he paused, “to her credit, she never screamed.”

  Helen backhanded the man.

  Helen almost collapsed. “Get out. All get out.” She felt the physicians and their blotting and pressing were hurting him more, and the fact was that the blood would not stop. “Stop poking and pushing; get out.” She closed them out
and slammed and locked the door. When she was alone with Paris, she laid her head on his chest ever so gently and stroked his hair.

  “Helen, how I love you, my Helen,” he whispered.

  “Don’t leave me,” she said. She wondered if she could bite him and share his infection; was he too weak? Would it save him?

  Paris didn’t open his eyes, and in a few minutes, he was gone.

  When Helen opened the doors again, she was dressed in a plain white wool peplos with no adornment, she was barefoot, and her hair was cut off, almost to her scalp. “He is gone.”

  There was barely time for his mother to shudder and his father to weep. Andromache cast a stunned gaze to Helen, and the rest were quiet. Deiphobus stepped forward, for he was next in line for the throne. “I claim Helen as my wife. Father, say it is so blessed.”

  “No,” Helen said softly, rubbing at her eyes and heartbroken. She despised the hateful man who never fought and skulked about with negative comments and rude behavior.

  “I claim her,” Helenus, number four to the throne said.

  “Can we wait until my son is buried?” Priam thundered.

  Helen had a twelve-day reprieve as music was played, the songs were sung, sacrifices were made, and the funeral pyre was lit and burned. His bones were then gathered, cleaned and oiled, and locked away into a similar chest to that of Hector’s.

  For twelve days, they mourned Paris, as was the custom, but on the last day, Deiphobus again demanded Helen. “It is my right to marry my brother’s widow.”

  “And it is my right,” Helenus said.

  “So be it,” Priam said. The last of his strength was gone. “Deiphobus shall marry Helen.”

  That night in Deiphobus’ bed, Helen imagined herself as a raptor, eating his liver and slitting his throat. He was not beautiful like Paris, nor was he noble like Hector; he was a slovenly, stupid man who was crude in every way, and Helen hated him. She had no friends left in Troy and was married to a disgusting pig. He enjoyed amorous activities in a violent way and hurt Helen horribly.

  He slit her lips with hard slaps to her face, blackened her eyes, broke bones in her hands, and left bruises everywhere. He pinched and bit her breasts until they were ugly with marks. Her female parts were abused terribly. But as a demigod and despite the pain, she healed within hours and only had the faintest bruises by morning.

  Deiphobus told her that he liked blood games and would use a knife and make tiny cuts all over her flesh the next night. Helen wept with fear.

  The fourth brother, Helenus, the seer, had a visions as did his twin sister, Cassandra, but since she was cursed, no one believed her. He, however, made a choice and never would Helen have imagined that he and she would work for the same purpose.

  Helenus caught Helen in a corridor, alone.

  “I will help you.”

  “How? Why would you?”

  “I will because I have grown to despise my own people. You know I am not like them. I despise them. They despise you, now. The enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. And the truth is, Helen, I pity you in a land of people who hate you and can’t see you even when they look right at you. I understand that.”

  “What can we do? I can’t think of a thing.”

  “I have thought of many things and so has the clever Odysseus. What more does he want but for this to end so he can go home to his beloved Penelope, your own cousin.”

  “How can it end? Someone must win.”

  Helenus nodded thoughtfully and said, “And all this time, we have pinned our hope for the end on our winning. And we have lost Hector and Paris. Maybe we aren’t meant to win.”

  Helen took a deep breath and responded, “Of course, you are wise, Helenus.”

  “Or Odysseus is,” he smiled, “be ready to assist.”

  The following evening, Deiphobus didn’t use a knife, but beat Helen and fell asleep, drunk. She escaped to her own chambers for a bath. When she was cleaned and dressed, bruises still livid, she heard a tap on her door.

  Helenus stood beside two men who were in the shadows. “Two common men beg audience.”

  Helen let them in. “Odysseus and Diomedes, how interesting.”

  Diomedes looked pained, “Oh, Helen, you are bruised….”

  “Nightly. Let’s be about our business, for it is a dark and dangerous treachery I am embarking upon.”

  “That we embark upon,” Helenus reminded her.

  “Helenus has shown us many secrets and plotted to help us in the quest. We have everything decided, but Helenus said that he knows another secret that might benefit us,” Diomedes said.

  “It is something I once heard,” Helenus told them. When Troy was formed, the basis was the Pallas Athena, a statue designed and made by Athena herself to make up for accidentally harming Pallas, her adopted sister. The statue was a symbol of virginity and was called The Palladium. Around it was an altar; then, the city was developed all around. Athena blessed Troy because of that statue.

  Helenus told Odysseus that Troy would not fall because they had the Palladium within the walls; if the statue were lost, Troy could be taken. Odysseus outlined a plan he had. Helenus would allow Odysseus and Diomedes into Troy to get to the statue but would help them no further.

  Helen nodded. “What will you do?”

  “We’ll take the Palladium, Helen. We will be victorious if we take it.”

  “So it is said….”

  Odysseus smiled and said, “Helenus, you are angry that Deiphobus won Helen as a bride; will you marry Andromache now?”

  “I will see how this plays out. Like the gods, I can work mischief and turn the tides a little,” Helenus said.

  This made a strange sort of sense to Helen. Helenus was fourth in line for the throne. “You came by the secret tunnel?”

  “Yes,” Diomedes said.

  “If I help you, I ask for only one thing.”

  Diomedes nodded and responded, “You shall have one wish granted, Helen.”

  She told them where they would find the Palladium and listened to the plan they had formed. “I will help. Now, about my wish….”

  “Name it,” Diomedes said.

  “When you sack Troy, you will make sure to slay Deiphobus in a most brutal manner.”

  Diomedes and Odysseus grinned. “It will be done.”

  “Upon my honor,” Diomedes said.

  “I swear by it,” Odysseus said.

  Chapter 24

  Trojan Horse

  In five days, the people of Troy found a surprise. The Achaean army was gone. The men had removed or burned everything they had left, stocked their ships, and sailed away. There was no one left on the beaches, and the tents were gone, as if they had never been there.

  The people of Troy rejoiced.

  Priam supposed that since Paris was killed, they considered this to be the end of the war and had struck back at he who took Helen; they were now satisfied. The Trojans encountered just one man, Sinon, a ragged thing in tattered and worn clothing who was thirsty and hungry; he said he had offended Agamemnon somehow and had been left behind with a tribute.

  There on the beach was a huge horse, the symbol of Troy, made of dogwood trees; it was ingeniously made, and Sinon said the Achaeans claimed the win but left the horse as a tribute to those warriors who had fought hard and died in the battle and as a tribute to the goddess Athena.

  Excited and impressed, the Troyans wheeled the horse into the city behind the walls, and Priam praised it. One of the priests, Lacoon, suggested it might be a trick and a way to get inside the walls, but Helenus waved him down, saying that was a silly notion. “Will the horse come to life and run about pawing at us with his mighty hooves?”

  “He will eat all the grain in the city,” Helen added as she laughed.

  Priam shrugged and spoke, “That is silly; of course, he is no threat, but it is odd, and I do have some reservations….”

  Helen, fearful that the Trojans would figure out the plot, mimicked the voices of various wives of so
me of the warriors and called to them, but nothing happened. “Diomedes, my beloved, come give me a kiss,” she called.

  Everyone laughed, Helenus hardest of all. How clever Helen was!

  “Odysseus, my darling, are you here? It is me, Penelope….” she called, pretending to be his wife. “Come see my new neck chain that I will leash you with.”

  Even Andromache was laughing.

  Cassandra wailed, “Don’t keep it. It will be our downfall,” she was not believed.

  “Anticlus, my handsome husband, come to me….” said Helen, sounding just like the man’s wife.

  Lacoon tried again and said, “ It’s a machine to break the walls and destroy the homes. It is something of war, a weapon. Burn it,” he finished by saying that he didn’t trust Greeks who gave their enemies gifts. "Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."

  In the night, the soldiers hiding in the giant horse opened the hatch and crawled out. There were forty men, including Odysseus, Diomedes, Philoctetes, Menelaus, Menestheus, Ajax the Lesser and Tuecer. They opened the secret passage, and the Achaeans, who had sneaked back in the night in ships, swarmed inside.

  They began ramming inside of homes and pulling people out, killing the men and children and gathering the females. In the wealthy homes, they carried out jewelry, cups of gold and silver, boxes, and treasures.

  In poor homes, they took food and wool and set the homes on fire. The wounded people inside burned alive, screaming and blackening under the flames.

  The prophet, Lacoon, who had warned of Greeks bearing gifts, ran out of the city and to the beach with his family. A huge sea serpent arose from the depths and used flippers to propel itself into the shallows, its tentacles waving madly. It grabbed a boy and raised him to its huge eye and looked upon the boy for a second before shoving him into its mouth, using sharp incisors and grinding molars to render the body to pulp. Lacoon was eaten and swallowed by the sea serpent that came out of the ocean and devoured him and his sons.