5

The King’s Return

WE WAITED, HARDLY DARING to breathe, for the return of King Menelaus. I wanted to get it over with, and at the same time I dreaded his anger and his disappointment. I knew the servants must have been gossiping among themselves, whispering about the handsome Trojan prince who had come as a guest and left as a thief, taking his host’s wife away with him. What an insult!

Once, when I heard laughter coming from the cook house at the rear of the palace, I crept close to the door where I could gather snatches of conversation: about how the queen had not found her husband to be a real man, and how she had run off with the first man who dared to ask her.

“Maybe it was her idea in the first place,” one of the servants suggested.

“Maybe she bribed the Trojan prince with the king’s treasure,” another said.

I stood fuming, hands balled into fists, until I could bear it no longer and burst through the door, bringing about a shocked silence among the meat roasters, cheese makers, and bread bakers. “I know what you’re talking about,” I shouted. “If you want to gossip about my mother, you should know the truth. Queen Helen did not leave willingly. Paris forced her to go with him. She would never have left King Menelaus!” I insisted passionately. “Aphrodite cast a spell on Helen so that she could not put up a fight. I saw it with my own eyes as he dragged her away!”

That last part was not true. I had no idea what had really happened. I had seen the looks Helen and Paris exchanged, his message of love scratched in the sand. I hated the thought that it may have even been her idea to leave. I liked the explanation I was inventing so much better, and the more I spoke, the more it seemed like the truth. My mother was abducted! Kidnapped! She had not wanted to go. Paris was holding her against her will. She would come back as soon as she could get away from her captors. I believed the lie I was inventing, because I had to. It was better than admitting to myself that my mother had chosen to abandon me.

“King Menelaus will rescue Queen Helen!” I cried while everyone gaped at me, open-mouthed. “He will bring her back to us!”

I turned and fled, back to my sleeping room, where I flung myself on my bed of fleeces and sobbed.

 

THEN I HAD TO deal with Pentheus. As Father’s vizier, he oversaw the overseers—those who made sure the fields were planted, tended, and harvested, the grapes turned into wine and the olives pressed of their oil, the horses groomed, goats and cows milked and their milk turned into cheese, meals prepared, and sheep sheared and their wool woven into cloth. Pentheus was even in charge of our personal servants, the women who bathed and dressed us, the man who trimmed Father’s beard.

The vizier was also the king’s confidant. He had been with him since boyhood. Father loved him like a brother, but my mother didn’t trust him. I’d heard my parents argue about him.

“Pentheus sticks his nose where it has no business,” Helen had complained. “He has spies among my slaves who listen to my conversations with my women and report to him every word that’s said.”

Father always defended Pentheus. “Everything is his business,” Menelaus answered mildly.

“I don’t like it,” Helen insisted. “I’m entitled to some privacy, surely.”

“I think you’re exaggerating, my dear,” said Menelaus. “But I’ll speak to him. The slaves need to be more discreet.”

I agreed with Helen. But I thought I knew why Pentheus paid so much attention to my mother: he was in love with her. This was to be expected. There wasn’t a man who didn’t adore her. What she didn’t admit to Father was that she encouraged Pentheus’s affection. My mother loved to be loved. I supposed she couldn’t help herself.

Pentheus seemed dazed when I confronted him. “Queen Helen is gone?” he asked incredulously.

“The Trojan prince abducted her,” I said, now completely believing that myself. “Pleisthenes is with them. I have no doubt that Paris intends to carry them back to Troy.”

“But how could I not have known?” he asked, his voice thin and cracking. “Why was the alarm not raised?”

I explained about Aphrodite and the spell she had cast on everyone—including him. I added nastily, “But of course he will blame you when he learns what happened.”

Pentheus buried his head in his hands. For a moment I felt a little sorry for him, though I had never liked him. Finally he raised his head and looked at me with watery eyes. “I am aware of that,” he said, his voice unsteady.

“In any case, we must prepare for the king’s return,” I reminded him.

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “No need to concern yourself, Princess Hermione. I’ll attend to everything.”

But he did not. The next day I learned that Pentheus was nowhere to be found. No one seemed to know where he was. The stable master revealed that the king’s vizier had galloped off before dawn, saying only that he had urgent business to which he must attend.

“The coward,” I muttered to Zethus. “I don’t believe Pentheus had urgent business. He just urgently needed to run away.”

“I can’t say that I blame him,” Zethus said. “That means when your father comes back and learns what happened, he’ll turn his fury on me. I’ll be the target—the Trojan stand-in for the Trojan prince—and he will have me killed. It will be much better if I leave now.”

“No, Zethus, you must stay!” I begged. “You promised! Please. I need your help.”

I wanted him to move into the palace, maybe even to occupy the beautiful room that had been prepared for Prince Paris, but Zethus dismissed that idea immediately. He was stubborn, but I was even more stubborn. I stopped begging and ordered him to stay—after all, I was a princess, though a very young one, and I could command that, couldn’t I?

Finally we reached a sort of compromise. Zethus would continue to sleep in the stable with the horses, and I would take him some bread and cheese every day and let him know when I had word that my father would soon arrive. When we were sure that Menelaus was on his way home and I would be all right, Zethus would make his way down the river to the gulf and look for a trader’s ship to take him back to Troy.

I sent a staff of servants to set up a camp on the beach at Kranai to greet King Menelaus, just as he and my mother had done for the arrival of Paris. A fine meal would be prepared for him, and barges would be waiting to bring him home. I gave orders for signal flares to be lighted if my father arrived at night, and runners to be sent if he came during daylight hours.

Day after day we waited for word that my father was home from Crete. Though I slept only fitfully, I was indeed asleep when a serving maid came to awaken me.

“The signal fire has been sighted,” the maid told me. “I’m to tell you that King Menelaus’s ship has entered the gulf. He will no doubt reach Gythion by morning.”

I leaped from my bed. I’d been arguing with myself about the right way to break the news of what had happened, and though no way was perfect, I thought it might be better not to let my father reach Sparta before he’d learned the truth.

I sent the servant for Zethus and ran down to the river. The boatmen were all asleep, but I had the guard awaken the one I knew best. “Tell him that King Menelaus is entering the gulf and that I want to be taken down to greet him.”

Zethus arrived, pulling on his tunic. We climbed into my small boat and, traveling rapidly with the current, reached the mouth of the river. My father’s large-prowed ship was already swinging at anchor farther out in the harbor. I ordered the boatman to stop near the beach where merchant ships from many places were loading and unloading their cargo. Before Zethus stepped ashore, he pressed into my hands a little wooden carving of a ship. It was executed in fine detail, from the arching prow to the rows of tiny oars.

“I made it for you, Princess Hermione, with gratitude for your many kindnesses.”

I thanked Zethus, and we took our leave. I watched as he began to make his way from ship to ship along the beach, in search of one that would help him get home. Then I instructed my boatman to take me to the king.

The sailor on watch recognized my boat. A rope ladder was let down and a sailor helped me to scramble up, though I was in no need of any help. Father, looking surprised and pleased, greeted me heartily.

“Welcome, daughter!” he boomed as I boarded the great ship and was folded into his embrace. Then he asked, peering into my boat, “And your mother? Is Helen with you?”

“She was unable to come,” I answered carefully. “And so I came instead.”

I had been onboard the royal ship only a few times when I was much younger, and Father now proudly led me from the great carved prow to the rear, explaining the ropes that controlled the billowing sail and pointing out the benches where slaves sat and rowed, twenty-five on each side. He showed me where he slept and where he ate, and then I suggested that we go ashore on Kranai. “We’ve prepared a welcoming meal for you on the beach,” I said. “I’m glad to have you home again, Father.”

“I’m glad to be here,” he said fondly. “And I look forward to seeing your lovely mother and that lively little brother of yours.”

“I’m sure you do,” I said. “The barges will soon be here to take us to the palace.” I hoped to have the chance now to tell him what had happened, to prepare him, maybe even to blunt his anger.

On the beach, the smell of roasting meat filled the air. Servants hurried to lay out the meal. I had arranged for musicians to play soothing music, but my father was clearly agitated.

“This is all very pleasant, Hermione,” he said. “But I’m eager to be home again, in my own bed, next to my dear wife.”

I sighed, my heart heavy with the news that I couldn’t delay much longer. Father drained the last drops of wine from his goblet, and when I motioned for a servant to refill it, he shook his head. “Finish your meal, and let’s be on our way.”

My hands had begun to tremble, but at that moment a brilliant rainbow arched across the sky and a young woman with golden wings appeared, startling us both. “It’s Iris, Hera’s messenger,” Father said to me. “You see the herald’s rod she carries in her hand?” I gazed at her in awe.

“King Menelaus,” Iris addressed him, “I bring you a message from Hera, wife of Zeus. Your wife, Helen of Sparta, has sailed away with Prince Paris of Troy, taking your son, Pleisthenes, and much of your treasure with her.”

“Helen, gone?” My father reeled, looking as though he had been struck. A good-size man and broad shouldered, he appeared small, shrunken. “Where is she—” He corrected himself. “Where are they now?”

“They intended to sail for Troy,” Iris reported, “but as they did so, Hera sent a fierce storm that blew the Trojan fleet off course. They have reached Cyprus. Hera believes that the lovers will spend several months enjoying themselves in Phoenicia and Egypt before Paris orders the bows of his ships turned at last toward Troy.”

When the first stars of evening appeared in the sky, the rainbow and the goddess vanished as quickly as they had come. I braced for the full strength of Father’s fury, but nothing happened. Instead, he looked deeply saddened and weary beyond words. I reached out and took his hand. “Father,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “Where are the barges, Hermione?” he asked tiredly. “I want to go home.”