14

After breakfast, Menelaus, Agamemnon, and an entourage of warriors assembled outside the house. I stood with Helen, her women, and Hermione and tried to think of something to prevent the journey, even at this late moment.

Menelaus told his wife to entertain my brother and me.

Helen threw her arms around him. “Don’t go! Remember that I love you, that you are my first love. Don’t leave me alone with—”

My brother inhaled loudly, almost a gasp.

—“my sorrowing self!”

Menelaus patted his wife’s back. “Darling, what’s this about?”

It was about eloping with Paris—but also about leaving the door open for her to return eventually if she wanted to.

She shook her head, spraying tears. “I’m just a silly woman. You’ll always forgive my foolishness, won’t you?”

He chuckled. “I will. Take good care of our guests.” He set her to the side and lifted Hermione over his head. “What would you like from Crete?”

“A baby bull!”

Her father laughed and put her down. Hermione smiled up at him. When he leaves for war, he’ll be gone for ten years. Unless I succeeded, she’d grow up without her parents.

Agamemnon came to me again. I hated how afraid I felt.

But his expression was kind. “If your thoughts are jumbled, warm baths, massages, quiet sleep, and primrose oil on the eyelids are excellent remedies.”

“My brother fancies himself a physician,” Menelaus said. “Helen, my love, can someone do for her what my brother prescribes?”

Hermione said, “She won’t be as interesting if she isn’t a topsy-turvy head.”

Menelaus laughed.

Agamemnon touched my shoulder. “I have an idea we’ll meet again. I look forward to it.” He mounted a white mare.

Menelaus climbed on a piebald horse. He told me, “The gray will recover.”

As if my true prophesy didn’t matter. “I’ll be right about the rest too.”

He spurred his horse. The street emptied. Hermione tugged me into the house to start Agamemnon’s treatment, but after a massage, I persuaded her that we should help her mother entertain Paris.

We found them ambling on the bank of the slow river that ran through Sparta. My brother was talking and gesturing, brushing Helen’s bare arms with his bare arms. She was laughing and not moving away.

Hermione ran to them, leaped, and tapped my brother’s shoulder. “I’m a champion jumper.”

He turned, smoothing away a frown.

“Do you think Corythus will be an athlete too?” Without waiting for an answer, I told Helen, “Corythus is Paris’s son.” I clasped my brother around his waist. “He may not have told you what a sacrifice he made when he left a wife whose beauty dazzles the sun.”

There.

Paris squeezed me back, hard, meaning to cause me pain. “No decent brother would do less.”

Probably quoting her father, Hermione said, “The evils of travel are made up for by the joy of homecoming.”

“Already, I miss my husband. I can be comforted only by this—” Helen dived into the river. In a moment, she surfaced, laughing.

Paris surged in and splashed her, laughing too.

Hermione and I watched from the bank. She said, “Mother loves to swim and stand on her head. Pragora told me she doesn’t like being a mother much.”

I put my arm around her shoulder. “My brother may not like being a father.”

“Mine does.” She said I hadn’t had my warm bath yet. “And I’d rather be alone with you.”

I left with her. I’d have more chances.

During the next week, Helen and Paris were constantly together. My brother slouched near her loom when she was weaving. He stood in the kitchen when she supervised the cooking, or cooked herself, because she said she liked to.

I did everything I could think of to drive them apart. Even in Paris’s presence, I warned her of flaws I saw in the future—he told long, meandering stories; the palace shook from his snoring; he was lazy—and flaws I invented—he was plagued by boils; he twitched when he was nervous; servants steered clear of him because of his bullying.

Helen listened, her expression serene. Paris just smiled.

Once, while they strolled to the stables, I related the prophecy that was made at Paris’s birth. “Together, you’ll bring about Troy’s destruction.”

Helen walked backward. “Poor Paris, to be treated that way by his parents,” said she who was soon to abandon her daughter.

Walking backward too, my brother opened his arms as if embracing the world. “I think everything led me to this glorious moment, here in Sparta with all of you.”

When they were saddled, I wanted to ride out with them, but Hermione insisted on playing tag with me instead.

“My daughter loves you.” Helen laughed. “She never wants to spend time with her mother. Please indulge her.”

I couldn’t say no, and I knew they wouldn’t run away quite yet.

That evening, I brought Eurus an offering from Menelaus’s kitchen and asked him to send rain to keep Helen and Paris indoors where they’d be watched.

They went out anyway.

I examined and reexamined every minute before they were going to leave, hoping to find an opportunity—

And I found a desperate one—desperate and dangerous. I’d be imprisoned if Eurus didn’t reach me in time.

It was a cruel plan, so terrible I was too ashamed to tell even Eurus. I tried to imagine something else, but nothing seemed as likely to succeed.

If Themis, the goddess of justice, weighed my scheme on her scale, Helen’s suffering would rest on one side and Troy’s on the other: thousands dead, thousands enslaved. Themis would call my plan just.

But she’d despise me, and I’d despise myself.

Cooking was done in Sparta as in Troy, in pots and pans set on coal braziers. Smoke exited through a hole in the ceiling, and the kitchen was always dark and smoky, lit by clay lamps, which produced more smoke.

It was late afternoon, and preparations for dinner were underway. Paris lounged on a bench, his legs extended. Hermione sat on a reed mat on the floor with a doll in her lap. I leaned against the doorframe. I may have looked lazy, but my heart was hopping.

Helen worked at a three-legged table bearing pottery jars of condiments. Acrobatic as always, she bent at the waist with a level back, her smiling face turned to Paris. “Sparta is famous for our black broth, which I haven’t served until now.” She laughed. “Today I will, though, since I’m running out of ways to impress you all. Remember my strategy, Hermione.”

Hermione looked up. “Yes, Mother.” She hunched over her doll again.

Helen went on. “The goodness of black broth depends on vinegar. Too much—you spit it out. Too little—you spit it out. Ah.” She picked up a ewer and uncorked it. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“May I taste it?” I went to the pot on the brazier. The broth bubbled. A clay ladle rested on a stool next to the brazier. My heart went from hopping to leaping.

“Of course you can taste it.” Helen joined me. “Paris, it’s all in the elbow.”

I picked up the ladle for my taste, as they expected. Steady, hand. This is for all of Troy. My parents. Hector. Me.

Helen poured in whatever amount of vinegar she judged right. Before she could straighten, I dipped in the ladle and lifted it out full of boiling broth.

Do it!

I forced my hand and flung the broth at her face. Burns will disfigure her. Paris won’t want her. It ends now.