CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The ruined king came to Sparta seven years after I thought he was dead.

I was pregnant with my fourth child; had I realized the old man was the man who had kidnapped me, I would have had him slain before he could enter my home and pollute the air my unborn babe and I breathed.

I sat, stiff and heavy on my throne, as I attended to the needs of my country. My husband was away, engaged in the trade of war, and I was alone on the dais. It had been a hard winter, and the fire in the center of the room burned as hot as my men could make it.

Petitioners came and went, their concerns defining their lives and mine for the time it took me to address them. I consulted with Aethra often; she was always by my side of late, as we waited for my child’s time to come.

The last petitioner was announced. An old man shuffled towards me, his face hidden by a heavy cloak. When he reached the dais, he pushed his hood back and sneered.

He had meant it to be a shocking revelation, I am sure, but even his own mother could not recognize what Theseus had become. He had aged fifty years in seven, his limbs thin, his face a skull within skin.

I recognized him by the scar on his left arm, the long white line that ended in a fishhook that spun up towards his heart.

So did Aethra; I heard her gasp at what her son had become.

I nodded to the nearest guard. “Kill him.”

“Hold!” There was still enough command in the old king’s voice to freeze even a Spartan warrior. “I will speak with your queen before I die.”

I held up a hand to the soldier. “He knows he will never leave this room,” I said. “Let him speak.”

What a fool I was.

“Helen, Queen of Sparta,” Theseus spat. “You’ve brought me to ruin.”

I said nothing. There was no need for me to point out what was obvious.

Aethra had the mother’s prerogative of chastising her son, and so she did. “The fault is yours, Theseus,” she said, moving ever closer to my throne. I placed my hand over hers, and felt her quaking; she had so nearly escaped seeing her son die in front of her. “Had you left this girl alone, you would still be a king.”

“And whole,” I added. The members of my court chuckled, but I knew my words were petty as I said them. The Dioscuri had told all of Greece how I had brought down the king of Athens, and every man in the room knew what Theseus lacked beneath those beggar’s robes.

His face grew wild with rage.

“Dog’s bitch,” he swore. “Whore of a queen. Mark me—I bring your doom.”

I kept my own face calm as I studied him for traces of disease. I saw none, but that did not mean he had not brought sickness to my court.

“Oh?” I asked, pillowing my chin on my hand.

He removed a dagger from his robes. Its black blade was short and straight; its handle too heavy for throwing. Still, I nodded to my guards and they closed around him, spears at the ready.

“I have been across the sea,” he said. “I found an Egyptian who taught me their magic.”

The old king bowed his head and began to whisper in a language I did not know, and the guards looked to me for guidance.

Before I could tell them to run him through, Theseus snapped to his full height. “Helen of Sparta!” he shouted. “Hear me! You are cursed! I curse you, your children, your entire line! Your kingdom, cursed! The Age of Heroes ends with you, Helen!”

His voice dropped to cold fury. “I pledge my shade to this,” he said. “You will never know another moment’s peace. Not in your lifetime, and not after death. This I vow.”

Theseus drew the black dagger across his own belly.

The old king’s guts poured from him as he toppled forward, into the fire, and he burned while he screamed my name.