Chapter Seventeen

 

 

 

“Wear this.” Neoptolemus fastened a strand of lapis and gold beads around my neck. “It matches your gown.”

Briseis had dressed me in deep blue edged with golden embroidery over an azure shift, and draped a matching veil of the sheerest linen over my curling red hair. When she held up the polished bronze mirror, I had to admit that I looked like a queen.

After a ten-day voyage, we had disembarked on Epirote shores to rest for two days in the governor’s residence while Neoptolemus sent a messenger inland to Ephyri with instructions to prepare the palace for our arrival. I eagerly bathed away the grime and goat-stink, luxuriated in the comfort of a feather bed, and tried to avoid brooding over the fact that my father’s ships had not intercepted us.

The ships would come, of course they would. I was the sacred heiress of Sparta. They had to come.

Neoptolemus bent to kiss my rouged cheek. “You look lovely today.”

My bruises had healed, but my seething contempt for him remained. It did not matter how courteous he was, or how well he cleaned up. All the courtly manners and scented oil in the world could not hide the fact that he was still a hot-headed young ruffian.

A painted scarlet and gold chariot drawn by white geldings awaited us in the courtyard, along with a Myrmidon escort. Neoptolemus extended his hand to help me onto the platform. Briseis rode in another chariot with Eumaeus.

People crowded the streets and rooftops of the port town to watch the procession, cheering as we passed. Neoptolemus must have announced far and wide that he was marrying the daughter of Menelaus and Helen, because the people called out my name as they flung posies into the chariot. They ran after us, beyond the walls into the pastures and fields, shouting blessings.

We headed northeast across open country, following a broad, swift-flowing river past dusty vineyards and fields green with ripening wheat. In the distance, a formidable range of snowy mountains presented a bulwark along the eastern horizon. Peasants abandoned their labors in their dozens when they heard our jingling harnesses and saw the sunlight glinting off bronze spears and gold jewelry; they flocked by the roadside to watch the procession. Neoptolemus drew my attention to them. “Hear how they welcome you!”

Along the way, he pointed out landmarks he thought might interest me, and promised he would send for swans to stock the rivers if I desired it. For all I cared, he could jump into the water with them.

At length, we arrived at his seat of power, a small citadel crowning a limestone hill overlooking a middling lower town. Here, too, crowds waited to welcome us, cheering us along the route from the circuit walls to the citadel gates. Our escort led the way into the outer courtyard. On the supporting terraces above were bright awnings shading the lords and ladies of the court.

Our driver brought the chariot to a rolling halt. Neoptolemus stepped down first, then held out his hand to help me. Together, we ascended the steps so he could present me to his courtiers. It was a monotonous affair, a seemingly endless parade of elegant Epirote noblemen and their stylish wives. There were even rough Molossian chieftains wearing shaggy animal-skin cloaks.

Then, we came to a dark-haired woman whose Anatolian silver headdress and spangled veil framed an oval face bearing a guarded expression. Servant women stood behind her holding three young children. She must be the Trojan concubine. Hector’s widow.

Neoptolemus introduced us. “Princess, this is Andromache.” I shifted my gaze from his face to hers just in time to catch her slitting her eyes at him. “And these three handsome lads are my sons.”

One was a mere babe, but the other two eagerly called out and reached for their father. Neoptolemus greeted each one with enthusiasm, yet he forgot to introduce them to me.

The older, dark-haired man standing beside Andromache aroused my curiosity. Something about his hawkish features and Anatolian dress recalled vague memories of the fateful Trojan delegation. He reminded me somewhat of Prince Alaksandu.

Returning his youngest child to the maids, Neoptolemus presented the strange man. “This is Helenus, the last of Priam’s sons.”

Golden crescents swung in the man’s ears as Priam’s son nodded graciously toward me. Helenus. It did not sound like an Anatolian name.

Neoptolemus escorted me into the palace. As we passed through the great court and up the stairwell leading to the private apartments, he pointed out rich frescoes and any other details he thought might interest me. He was trying much too hard to impress upon me that his backwater palace was just as splendid as the one from which he had taken me.

Fortunately, he withdrew as soon as we reached my designated apartment. “I will leave you to rest.” Taking my hand, he raised it to his lips. “We feast tonight with the court.”

I explored my surroundings under the anxious gazes of the three young girls who had been appointed to serve me. An empty loom stood flush against the far wall, and beside it a basket containing copper needles, a spindle, and snowy fleece. A terracotta tub stood in the bathroom, and in the bedchamber Briseis opened chests and jewel caskets to let me inspect their contents. My prospective bridegroom had prepared everything for my arrival.

After the maids undressed me, I dismissed them and ducked into the bathroom to change my menstrual linen; I had started bleeding aboard the ship, and was in the heaviest day of my flow. Cramp bark tea and an hour’s rest would be just the thing to restore my energy, yet at the same time I chafed at my ongoing confinement. “Is there a garden or inner court where we can walk?” I asked Briseis.

“Yes,” she replied, “but you will need permission.”

This was intolerable! “All I want is to walk inside the walls!” I realized I was being irrational, but Mother Dia had chosen a terrible time to send my moon blood.

“Try to be patient,” Briseis urged. “I’m sure you will be able to go wherever you please after the wedding.”

I seized a cushion from the bed and hurled it at the wall. Sitting down at the dressing table, I sank my head into both hands.

Then she was there behind me, massaging my shoulders with a firm touch. “Lie down and rest,” she advised. “Later, we’ll dress you for the feast, and you can send for Lord Helenus and Lady Andromache.”

I stared at the elaborate pyxis on the table before me. Had Neoptolemus chosen all these things, the clothes and furnishings and jewels, or had it been a woman, perhaps even Briseis herself? “Why would I send for them? I don’t need to see them, to humiliate them.”

“Helenus could make a valuable ally,” Briseis argued, “and you must establish to Andromache that she is not the mistress here. She might no longer be a princess, but she has her dignity, and will do whatever she can to protect her sons.”

I could care less about her dignity or her sons, or who ruled as queen. Frowning, squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to think more rationally. Of course it mattered. “Helenus. Andromache. Those are not Anatolian names, are they?”

“No,” she admitted. “Helenus’s real name is Hantili, but his captors thought it amusing to name him after your mother.”

It was a slight, then. That did not surprise me. “Should I call him by his real name?”

“He will not mind, but she will,” Briseis told me. Her mouth tightened. “You must tell no one, but Neoptolemus called her Andromache because she fought him so hard when he first took her. You would be showing her great respect by using her real name. Ashakumila.”

I mouthed the harsh, unfamiliar syllables. “Do you also...?” I knew Briseis was Anatolian, perhaps also a Trojan captive, perhaps even a bed-slave, but did not want to offend her by assuming she was a concubine. I tried again. “Does he keep you as he does her?”

“No,” Briseis said. If my question bothered her, she did not let it show. “I belonged to his father. Achilles set me free just before his death, but I had no home to return to. Neoptolemus took me under his protection after the war.”

So she was the Anatolian princess that Achilles and Agamemnon had quarreled over. That Briseis. She was a winsome woman, past thirty-five, with dimpled cheeks and almond-shaped gray eyes, but no great beauty. “If I may ask, what was Achilles like?” I asked.

I observed the pink blush suffusing her cheeks. Her enigmatic smile made her seem twenty years younger. So she had liked the hero. Considering what Nestor had said about heroes, that they were either madmen or liars, her reaction surprised me.

“Achilles was god-touched, like no other man.” Her dreaming look evaporated, and she peered intently at me. “If you’re asking whether his son is anything like him, then no, not at all. Neoptolemus is no more Achilles than you are Helen.”

 

*~*~*~*

The servants were lighting the lamps in the bedchamber when I rose to greet my visitors. “Thank you for coming. Will you join me for a cup of wine before we go down?”

Helenus raised an eyebrow, but accepted the invitation, claiming the chair beside me. Andromache hesitated, then accepted the other chair. Helenus took the vessel, mixed the wine and water together, and uttered the libation prayer in his native tongue. Afterward, he set the vessel down without having drunk.

Awkwardness thickened the air. Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I addressed Andromache first. “You have beautiful sons, Lady Ashakumila. What are their names?”

Her nostrils flared. “Are you asking so you can curse them?”

The mere suggestion blindsided me. “I had no such intention.”

Helenus addressed Andromache in a foreign tongue. Whatever he said, she defiantly set her jaw and glanced away. He spoke again, more sharply this time, and it did not require a translator to tell me that he was a kinsman commanding a recalcitrant woman’s obedience.

Finally, she relented, forcing out each name in grating tones. “Molossus, Pielus, and Pergamos.” Disdain flashed in her dark eyes. “You do not look like her at all.”

Like my mother, she meant. Perhaps I could turn that difference to my advantage. “I have little in common with her. I get my red hair from my father.”

That did not work, either. Andromache spat her contempt. “Menelaus is a weakling, to let his wife and now his daughter be stolen.”

Andromache spoke with the thickest accent and most stilted diction I had ever heard. I let the insult slide, while trying to ease the tension by stating the obvious. “I am not here because I wish to be. Neoptolemus abducted me.”

She hooded her eyes. “So now a thousand ships will storm Epirus to recover Helen’s daughter?”

Simple courtesy would not win over this woman. Andromache’s hostility called for a firmer hand. “I will say this once, Lady Ashakumila: I have no desire to be your queen or make trouble for you or your sons.” I lifted my right hand. “I swear by holy Hera and Athena that I will not harm you or your children. Let them witness this oath. In return, you must swear to give me the same consideration.”

Andromache pursed her lips together. Tension coiled through her tall frame. Her fingers clawed at the armrests.

Helenus barked at her in their native tongue. Slowly, her fingers uncurled, and she spoke, grinding out the words. “I swear by Tarhunt the Storm God not to trouble or intrigue against you. Let him hear this oath.”

She left then, exiting the sitting room in a resentful swirl of dark skirts, leaving Helenus behind. He waited several minutes, until she was truly gone, to address me. “Ashakumila will not trouble you. I will make certain of it,” he stated. “I cautioned Neoptolemus to meet with your father and conduct a civilized negotiation, but he does not always heed my advice. I apologize for any rough treatment or distress he might have caused you.”

“Sparta won’t stand for this.”

Helenus nodded. “I expect your father will send ships very shortly, but do not expect an armed host. When Alaksandu took your mother, Menelaus tried diplomacy first. It did not work then, and I doubt it will work now.”

“Then there will be war,” I said hotly.

“Not this time,” he replied. “Menelaus does not have Agamemnon’s resources, and under these circumstances his Pylian and Arcadian allies will not supply ships or fighting men.” Helenus’s thick brows knitted together. “I am afraid this is what your people refer to as a legitimate abduction.”

Legitimate abduction. Authorized rape. However one labeled it, the phrases tasted sour. “There was nothing legitimate about it. I was never betrothed to Neoptolemus.”

Helenus did not try to argue. “I will do my best to advise and assist you, but you must understand that you have very little choice in the matter. You must be prepared to accept your fate as queen of Epirus.”

I would do no such thing. Neoptolemus had no valid claim on me. None. “Is that what my mother did, accept her fate?” I asked bitterly.

Helenus’s face remained impassive except for the faint twitch of his eyebrows. “Your mother kept her true feelings hidden.” A pause. “You are nothing at all like her.”

 

*~*~*~*

A Spartan ambassador arrived a fortnight later. Carts containing my belongings rolled into the outer court. Monime and Thebe hunkered among the baggage. Seeing them overwhelmed me with crushing disbelief. My father could not have capitulated that easily! Where were the demands for my release, the warships, the threats of retaliation?

Porters under the direction of a rotund household steward awaited my command. I ignored them while the driver helped my handmaidens down from the mule cart. My face burned with humiliation and rage. “Is this it?”

But neither handmaid understood my meaning. “These are all your goods and furnishings, Mistress,” Monime said.

I had no patience, and it was all I could do not to slap her. “And my father just sent them?” Disbelieving tears filled my eyes. “He just said yes?” Monime and Thebe froze at my outburst. “He wasn’t even angry?”

“Yes, yes, he was,” Thebe stammered. “He executed the stable master who supplied the horses, and throttled the man who brought him the letter. Only the queen could talk to him. She ordered us to pack up your belongings and told us we were going to Epirus.”

I had recovered some of my composure while she spoke, and was already regretting my outburst. “Where is Sotera?”

“Mistress, she...” Thebe glanced aside. She must be dead. “Whoever attacked her struck her too hard.”

Several feet away, the steward discreetly coughed to remind me that the porters were waiting. I gave him my instructions, and then vacated the courtyard with my women in tow.

Upstairs, I balled my hands into fists. Sotera’s death rankled as much as Menalaus’s capitulation. How dare Neoptolemus treat me like this! How dare his men kill my servants with impunity and my father do nothing! I seized the spindle from the chair and hurled it against the wall.

Briseis brought more unfortunate news. “Neoptolemus wishes to dine with you tonight.”

His was the absolute last face I wanted to see, right next to my father’s. “Tell him to go hang himself.”

“I doubt he will oblige.” Briseis indicated the slave girls who were on their way to the bathroom carrying steaming water jugs. “I ordered you a bath.”

By the time I had finished bathing, chests and bundles crammed the apartment. Having helped my mother pack, my handmaidens knew where everything was. First, we took out my gods, which my mother had packed in soft fleece to protect them during the voyage. We carefully arranged the deities on my altar and gave them food to help them settle into their new home.

Servants arrived to prepare the sitting room for supper, shifting the baggage to one side so they could set up a small table and linens. Neoptolemus arrived just as the lamps were being lit. “Hermione, I have letters for you from your family.” Shaking his head, he sat down across from me. “Your father is furious with me over the abduction. When you write back to him, assure him that you weren’t harmed.”

He could do that himself. A servant mixed and poured the wine, while another laid out the first course: a salad of cucumbers, radishes, and sliced olives drizzled with seasoned olive oil and vinegar. I had no appetite. “Did Nestor say anything?”

“Nestor can’t argue over a pre-contract. I hear Peisistratus is taking it as well as one can expect from a boy who clings to his father’s greaves. I’ll send him a splendid chariot and matched team. We breed fine horses here in Epirus.” Neoptolemus tucked into his salad. “Your father’s ambassador is here for the wedding. A week ought to be enough time to arrange a feast and invite the guests. Helenus will see to everything.” Chewing, he nodded toward my plate. “You’re not eating?”

A mere three days. “I’m more interested in what you’re saying.”

He called me on the fib. “And I’m more interested in presenting a glowing bride to the guests. Eat your salad, or you’ll have to wait to read the letters.”

Like a father telling his daughter to eat her vegetables, just as he had done aboard the ship. I smarted at his reprimand, but ate enough to satisfy him. Over the last course of sweet figs, he rewarded me with a thick packet. “Go ahead and look at them. If you want to write back, give your messages to Helenus and he’ll give them to the ambassador.”

Monime brought over a lamp while the servants unobtrusively cleared away the dishes. I broke the seal on my father’s letter first.

Menelaus confirmed the tale Neoptolemus had told me that first evening at sea, but went on to explain further: “Neoptolemus and I met a few times, but the conversation always turned to his late father. We never discussed a marriage alliance. I have no idea who told him there was a binding contract. It was an informal and private arrangement between Achilles and me, which was never seen through. We never offered a blood sacrifice or swore before any gods to seal the alliance. And I considered the matter completely void after he died.

“I realize this isn’t what you want to hear, Daughter, but what’s done is done. Neoptolemus might have handled you a bit more roughly than he meant to, and insulted your pride, but he assures me that you haven’t been harmed and will be treated with all the respect due your station. I know him well enough to believe him.” If he believed that, then he obviously did not know his prospective son-in-law at all. Or maybe manhandling a princess during a “legitimate” abduction did not count. “I have made certain arrangements regarding his place in the Spartan succession, but this is a delicate matter, and my ambassador will discuss it with him when the time comes.

“Nestor is gnashing his teeth at the moment, but he understands and will explain the matter to Peisistratus. Life is filled with many unexpected changes in fortune, and many disappointments, and sometimes we have to accept them as best we can. A war now would be ruinous.”

Bitterness soured my throat. My father had given up on me, just like that. The Spartan ambassador was not even going to demand my return.

Neoptolemus stretched out his long legs and munched on a fig. “From the look on your face, it seems like your father isn’t pleased.”

As though my father’s opinion was the only one that mattered. “No, not at all.”

Helen’s letter offered more practical advice: “You have no choice in the matter. Accept Neoptolemus as your husband and remember that your situation could have been much worse. I sent you nepenthe for the wedding night. Use it along with a liberal amount of olive oil.”

Another mother would have wrung her hands and wept over a daughter’s abduction. Helen the spider advised me to weave webs and submit to my captor bridegroom. I read on. “Your father and I have discussed the succession, and have decided that Neoptolemus should not become king of Sparta after your father dies.”

A chill passed through me, reading and rereading that passage. My parents were disinheriting me, through no fault of my own. “This has nothing to do with you,” Helen wrote, “and everything to do with your bridegroom’s inexperience and immaturity. No doubt he’s boasted to you that he rules a kingdom while your former betrothed still clings to his father’s greaves. Did he also tell you that he let the Dorians overrun Phthia while he played at war with the Molossians? He will not have the same chance to ruin Sparta.”

My gaze darted to the prospective bridegroom in question, snacking on figs and relaxing, oblivious to the arrangements being made behind his back; he would not have been so nonchalant had he known Sparta was not going to become an Epirote vassal after my father’s death.

I returned to the letter. “Your grandfather would have used this incident to make Aethiolas sole heir, but the Spartan assembly balks at the thought of overturning the old sacred traditions overnight. They want a queen of ancient royal blood. Chrysothemis is your cousin through the maternal line, and in the same degree. The assembly will accept her as heiress, and Aethiolas as her consort. She is woefully ignorant and empty-headed, but she will simply have to do.”

Chrysothemis would jump at the chance to marry my personable, good-looking brother, but what were my parents thinking? She would have to act as a high priestess and manage the royal household. She could scarcely read or write, or add a column of figures, and now she was going to inherit my station?

What Helen said next came as a complete surprise: “I have enclosed a letter from Orestes. He is much more lucid now, but still quite unwell, as you will see. He doesn’t know that you have been abducted, so say nothing. Also, don’t send a reply directly to Delphi. Orestes may question why you are writing from Epirus. Neoptolemus may also object to your correspondence with him, however innocent it might be. Send your reply to me instead, and I will forward it.”

Tucked into her letter I found a smaller packet bearing a broken seal; my mother had pried into its contents. Send your reply to me instead. Could she have been more obvious? She meant to censor our letters to each other.

Across from me, Neoptolemus kept daydreaming and munching on dates. Why could he not just go away? It was not as though he was interested in interacting with me.

My mother said Orestes was lucid. If he was strong enough to write his own letters, then that might mean he was ready to stand trial.

I unfolded the papyrus. The Delphic priest’s crabbed handwriting met my eyes; he explained that he was taking dictation from his patient. And he was no pedagogue; he had copied exactly what he heard, right down to Orestes’ disjointed grammar.

“My dearest Hermione, forgive me for having someone else write for me. I can’t hold my hands steady, can’t even focus to make this a proper letter. Whoever else reads this will think me crazy. I am. All torn up inside, splintered into so many pieces I can’t even begin to find myself, because whenever I reach for one piece all the others slip away and I have nothing again.

“They give me drugs to sleep, drugs to wake me up, and drugs to stop me from dreaming. I wish you were here next to me. Then it wouldn’t matter how my letter sounds, because then you could see me lying here and hold my hand, and feel it shaking. I would like to have someone special sit with me for a while.”

I swallowed to hold back my tears. Reading his letter in front of Neoptolemus was a mistake, but I could not help myself.

“I love the blue cloak you sent. Its color is so soft, it feels so soft, it soothes me. I smell your scent in it, and remember how lovely you always look in blue. I know I shouldn’t be talking like a love struck boy. Didymus is sitting right here next to me shaking his head, asking do I really want to say all this. Yes, yes, I do. I heard you were to be married soon. Nestor’s son. I hope he’s a kind man. Aegisthus said things when I went to kill him, things that made me snap inside and smash him into pieces, but I don’t want to think about them. There have been so many lies and betrayals it’s hard to know what’s true anymore.”

I had to stop and wipe away the tears before reading the rest.

“Once I’m well enough to face judgment, they’ll tell me what I must do in order to cleanse this pollution. Perhaps the priests will sacrifice me. It’s all right. I will go willingly, because it’s what the gods have decided, and because spilling my blood might cleanse all that’s rotten and part of the curse. Don’t cry if you hear that they led me to the altar, because I will have consented. It will be all right. With all my love, Orestes.”

Letting the papyrus sheet slide into my lap, I wept into both hands. A foolish thing to do in front of Neoptolemus, I knew, but I could not hold back.

“What’s wrong?” I peered out between my fingers to see Neoptolemus leaning forward across the table. “Bad news?”

“It’s my cousin. He’s very ill.”

“Orestes, isn’t it?” Neoptolemus mused. “I don’t see why you’re crying about him, or why he’s so tormented over the whole business. It was absolutely right, what he did. That bitch deserved to die.”

“That bitch was his mother.” Neoptolemus was as dense as he was insensitive. “Would you please excuse me?” I managed a polite smile when I yearned to point an angry finger at the door and scream at him to get out. “This has all been very upsetting.”

I submitted to his solicitous kiss on the cheek before withdrawing to lie down in my bedchamber. A lamp burned on the dressing table, casting eerie shadows onto its enameled surface. Next door, the servants began clearing the table. I heard Monime murmuring to someone. A dog barked in the distance. It might have been an evening back home, except it was not.

Briseis entered the room. She crossed over to the bed, then the mattress shifted and she was sitting beside me. “You’re brooding too much, Lady. It’s not healthy for you.”

I had not asked for her opinion, and did not want it. “Leave me alone.”

“Learn to accept your lot, Hermione.” Briseis sounded like my mother, saying that. “Believe me, it’s the best thing you can do.” She paused. “I was married once, before Achilles sacked Lyrnessos and claimed me. I loathed the husband my family chose for me, but crying about it only made it worse.”

A bad man was still bad whether one smiled or cried, I reflected grimly. “I have other cares,” I said. “My cousin Orestes has been polluted with madness. They’re going to kill him for his sins. He consents to the sacrifice, but it isn’t right. He had no choice but to do what he did.”

“I know what it feels like to be so helpless when those you love are suffering.” Briseis filled the space above and before me like a benevolent mother goddess. “I remember lying in Achilles’ hut after he died, as you’re lying here now, listening to the warriors holding the funeral games in the distance.” A scent of wildflowers wafted from her skin when she moved to stroke my hair. “It was wrong, how he died. He wanted to die in battle, covered in glory, not convulsing and crying in agony from a poisoned arrow.”

She was not comforting me at all. “Why are you telling me this?” I mumbled.

“Because fate is cruel, and you are not its only victim.” Briseis withdrew her hand. “Now dry your eyes. Write back to Orestes and tell him all the things on your mind, while you still can.”

Thebe and Monime came in to attend me, to remove my clothes and cosmetics, and dress me for bed. I felt shaky and wrung out as I headed back into the sitting room.

Briseis had laid out writing materials for me: a stylus, clay tablets, and a finger bowl of water. I had not used clay since my childhood lessons, but I knew that in many places in Hellas the scribes and priests did not use papyrus.

I picked up the stylus and scored horizontal lines across the clay. Tomorrow I would have to send the tablets to the kiln, but was determined that neither Helenus nor anyone else handle my letters. I would give them to the Spartan ambassador myself.

My mother would read the contents, maybe even show the letter to my father before sending it on to Orestes. Let her. She knew how I felt.

“My dear Orestes, I am so very glad to hear from you again. Please forgive my sending a clay tablet. I had nothing else to write on when I received your letter, but this will last forever.

“I wish with all my heart that I could sit beside you, and stroke your hair and hold your hand when the nightmares come. All I can do is send you my love and hope that it’s enough to sustain you. Forget all this grim talk about curses and sacrifices. All who know and love you know that you are a good and pious man. Should the worst happen, do not go to your death believing in your guilt, or thinking that no one will care. Pythian Apollo and Mother Dia receive my daily prayers for your deliverance. Your dearest and most loving cousin, Hermione.”