WE DIDN’T GET FAR. The giant had anticipated my foolishness just as I had anticipated Diomedes’. He had a tight grip on my ankle, and although I felt like I was being torn in two, I couldn’t help feeling a measure of gratitude, even amid all the sleet and thunder. I shouted to Diomedes, who had been shaken from his trance by the battering rain, “Let go of your shield!”
“I can’t,” he cried. “You’re holding the strap!” And so I was. But I had dealt with forces of nature before—tacked against the wild winds of the Aegean in little more than a skiff.
“Turn it into the wind!” I yelled, but now Diomedes was looking at Helen again, and she, arms outstretched, fluttered just beyond his reach. “Diomedes!” I shouted. “You can’t save her! Turn your shield into the wind!”
Still there was no answer. I reached back with one hand and drew my sword from its sheath, then struck him—hard—with the flat of the blade. Just then, his hand caught the hem of Helen’s gown.
“Turn your shield into the wind!” I cried for the last time, and now Diomedes complied. Together, he, Helen, and I were catapulted into our shelter by the combined force of the wind and the giant’s strength.
“Great,” I sighed once my head stopped spinning. “Now we have a woman to look after.” I sat up and knocked the water from my ears. Helen, Diomedes, and the giant were piled up against the back of the shelter.
“It could be worse,” said Diomedes from where he lay. Helen was sprawled full length atop him.
“Thank you,” she said without rising. I had to give her credit. The woman knew her strengths. “Thank you for not leaving me out there.” She untangled herself from Diomedes, then slid over opposite me and sat cross-legged with her back against the wall.
“This does not please me,” groaned the giant. He rolled Diomedes off and sat up. “Mortals!” he grumbled. “Forever slaves to your flesh. Why the Authority loves you so much I shall never understand.” Then he looked from Helen to me and growled, “The next time you go courting, ask my permission.” He bent his head to his breast and said no more. I didn’t have the will to respond. I was too busy staring at Helen.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You want to know what she looked like, the siren of Troy. You want me to describe the face that launched those thousand ships. And I suppose if I had to, I’d say she had eyes like wells of blue spring water and hair that rolled in golden waves like honeyed wine. Perhaps I’d say that her skin was pale and smooth as polished ivory, or that her cheeks glowed like love. I’d say there was the light of something smart and dangerous in her eyes . . . But that wouldn’t do her justice. And besides, if you asked Diomedes, he would tell you something altogether different. He’d say her eyes were dark as onyx beads and her hair a chestnut brown. He’d say that her face was as innocent as a doe’s and that her cheeks were sharp and angular like those of an Eastern princess.
No, Helen’s beauty was beyond description. Every man saw something different in her. That was her gift—to be all things to all men. What you desired, you saw.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said again, with a coy smile.
“Thank Diomedes,” I answered, looking away. “He wanted to help you, not I.”
“Still angry, then, Odysseus? After all these years?”
I didn’t answer. I’d lost some good friends at Troy, and if anyone was to blame, it was she.
“Penelope wanted you more than I did. That is the long and short of it. I would have chosen you, but she was smarter.”
“What are you talking about?”
Helen cocked her head to the side, then opened wide her eyes and laughed. “You still don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?” I asked. I had the feeling I was about to learn something unpleasant about myself. For all her beauty, Helen did have a knack for bringing out the worst in men.
“Penelope never told you, did she? She never told you why I chose Menelaos.”
Now she had my attention.
“Amazing! And you, famous the world over for your wit. Outwitted by a woman—and still you do not suspect.”
“Suspect what?” I shouted. Much as I hated to succumb to her taunts, she’d finally driven my curiosity over the edge. Even Diomedes and the giant were listening now.
“Penelope arranged the whole thing.”
I still wasn’t making the connection, but clearly Diomedes had, for he let out a muffled laugh from his corner of the shelter.
“That night, before I made my choice among the suitors, I told Penelope that I had decided on you. After all, it was your idea to give me the choice in the first place. How many men in Greece would have done that? But Penelope sat up all night listing your vices. You were dishonest, she said, and lazy. You were too short and too pale, and your ankles were too thick. She warned me that if I chose Odysseus of Ithaca, I was sure to end my days frustrated and alone. I ought to have suspected what she was up to, but she needled me all night. ‘You want someone strong and simple and wealthy,’ she said. ‘Menelaos is the man for you. His wealth will not distract him, and his power will not corrupt him.’
“So that was the man I chose. Three days later, Penelope was on her knees before my father, begging him to arrange a marriage with—of all people—Odysseus, the Ithacan.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Penelope,” I gasped.
“Penelope indeed,” said Helen.
“That scheming fox.”
“Scheming fox indeed. I got stuck with that limp-willed cattle thief. I never spoke to my sister again, and I vowed that the first chance I got, I would run from that clod and never look back—which I did. I might have been happy in Troy if you all hadn’t come tramping over with your swords in your teeth to drag me back again. That wife of yours ruined my life.”
“That wily, sneaky, double-dealing, scheming fox!” I said. I’d always assumed I was given Penelope as a sort of consolation prize—a thank-you gift from her father for helping straighten out the situation with Helen. “That scheming fox!” I said it once more in spite of myself. I couldn’t tell whether I should feel betrayed or pleased.
Helen rolled her eyes. “Men like you always assume that you’re in charge. For the best, I suppose. If you ever really ran things, there would be nothing but wars and orgies.” She looked me over with a wry smile. “Well, thank you just the same for saving me.” Out of the corner of my vision I watched her close her eyes and lean her head back. “I am so tired,” she purred. “How long have I been blown about in that in storm, I wonder? A thousand years? Ten thousand?”
“You’re safe now,” declared Diomedes. He was pretending to rest, but I could see he was watching her as well.
“Thank you, Son of Tydeus,” she answered, yawning. Then she drew one arm over her eyes and slept—just like that. It couldn’t have been a comfortable position, but it was graceful.
When I looked again at Diomedes, he too was asleep. He had the most amazing ability to sleep and wake at will. Sleep—like most everything else in his life—was a mission. He’d spend no more time on it than was absolutely necessary. Do it. Have it done. Move on. He was the same way about food.
I watched the rain, marveling over the woman I’d left behind in Limbo. I had always underestimated her. Who else had I misjudged? Could I be missing something even now? Before long, I too drifted off.
I dreamt I stood between a tiger and a tree.
The tree was an olive, grafted to wild stock. I stood before it within a circle of light, and just outside that circle, the tiger’s eyes, bright and green as glass, blinked in the gloom. I used my sword to dig a trench, and when it had been dug, I killed the tiger and filled the trench with its blood. Then, from out of the darkness stepped eight souls—seven of the suitors I had killed in my home when I returned from Troy: Calydoneos, Antinous, Rhomachos, Ithacos, Thoas, Agelaos, Stratios; then, last of all, the giant Ajax. When they had drunk their fill from the trench, they prophesied, each closing his eyes in turn and lifting his hands to the heavens. But the words poured from their lips in a jumble so that the harder I tried, the less I understood. And through it all, Ajax alone remained silent, standing like a mountain in their midst. When the others had departed, I addressed him. “Great Son of Telemon, Bulwark of the Achaeans, why do you keep company with those dogs? Surely there is no one more blessed than you, and none to come in the future. While you were still alive, we honored you as we did the gods. Now that you have crossed the Styx, you must be a great prince among the dead.” Yet Ajax did not answer but receded silently into the darkness.
At this I awoke, astonished and dispirited and wondering what the dream could mean. I understood why Ajax would not speak. In life, we had parted on bad terms. In death, it seemed, we were to remain so. But the tiger and the tree and the seven suitors? This was a mystery.
Of course, sometimes, a dream is just a dream.
Beyond our shelter, the storm continued to rage. Across from me, Helen lay still with her arm across her eyes. She was spattered with gore. But more important—and this I hadn’t noticed before—there was something wrong with her hand.
“What happened to you?” I asked when at last she awoke.
Helen looked down at her bloodied cloak. “Nothing beyond what has always happened here,” she said. “The souls in this storm are all that remain of those who surrendered reason to passion—and lost their heavenly inheritance in the process.”
“No. I mean, what happened to your hand?”
She scowled and slipped it under her shawl.
“You lost a finger?”
“An accident.”
“What sort?”
“What do you care? It was an accident. I have a flaw now. Does that make you happy?” She seemed genuinely hurt.
“Calm down,” I said. “We’ve all got scars.” But it did make me a little happy, and I might have questioned her further if Diomedes hadn’t awakened. “We have slept adequately,” he declared.
Helen stretched and yawned. (Like a cat, I thought to myself, and with about the same loyalties.) “I haven’t slept nearly enough.”
“I’m sure you’re exhausted,” answered Diomedes, softening a little. “You’ve been through a lot. But we can’t stay here. We have a mission to accomplish. Besides that, this shelter is starting to stink. It’s making me sick.”
I had been wondering about the smell myself. It was like dead fish. Or seaweed.
Helen blushed. “It must be me. I haven’t had a proper bath in years.” She ran her hands down her neck and over her shoulders. Like she was bathing.
Diomedes coughed and smoothed his hair. “Actually, it isn’t so bad. And I’m not exactly sick. Just kind of empty in the middle. Around the stomach.”
“Diomedes,” I said, grateful for the change of topic, “I think you’re hungry. It’s been so long since we’ve eaten, you’ve forgotten what hunger feels like.” I opened the leather pouch and looked at the twelve little loaves.
“Is that what I think it is?” gasped Helen. Before I could stop her, she reached into the bag and snatched one of them out.
Diomedes leaned forward. “I wouldn’t—”
But she had already popped it into her mouth. “Wouldn’ whad?” she asked through a mouth full of bread.
“Wouldn’t eat it,” I answered. “We think it might be poisoned.”
Helen stopped chewing and looked at me, then at Diomedes, then at the giant, who was cowering against the far wall of our shelter. Then she shrugged and swallowed. “What harm could it do? I am dead already.”
Diomedes and I waited to see if anything would happen. But nothing did. And nothing continued to happen. “It did not taste poisoned,” said Helen, “but I have been dead for a long time. It might be that I cannot taste it.”
“Or maybe it’s just regular bread,” said Diomedes.
“It is not,” said the giant.
“Not what?” I asked. “Not bread? Is it a sort of fruit? A stone? It doesn’t look like a stone.”
“It is not just bread,” the giant continued. “It is not bread at all. And I will not speak of it further. The next time you open that bag, you will lose your guide.”
Helen cast him a bemused look. “It most certainly is bread. I could be dead a thousand years, but I would still know a loaf of bread when I saw it. Your giant is either a fool or a fabricator.”
I looked back at the giant, but he wouldn’t say another word.
“Well, we won’t run out of water anytime soon,” said Diomedes, changing the subject. “But we will need to leave this shelter, and I don’t see any sign that the storm is letting up.”
I looked out into the rain. “The wind is strong. How do you figure on walking in it?”
“We could each tie ourselves to a big rock,” suggested Helen.
Diomedes and I exchanged a glance. Yes, this was Helen, to be sure. Long on ideas, short on wit.
“Tell me, then,” I said, “how would you suggest we move the rocks?”
Helen thought some more. “We could tie ourselves to the giant.”
“Then what would we tie the giant to?” I replied.
A longer silence. I watched Helen closely. She wasn’t the sharpest dart in the quiver, but she might be on to something. If we were going to make any headway through the storm, we would need to anchor ourselves somehow.
And then it came to me. “Diomedes, hand me the rope,” I said. I spread out my arrows on the floor and sorted them by weight.
“What are you up to?” he asked, looking rather anxious. In spite of his long association with me—or perhaps because of it—Diomedes had remained skeptical of any strategy that did not favor punching something or pushing it out of the way.
“I’m going to attach this rope to one of my arrows, then shoot it out into the storm. It’s bound to stick in something sooner or later, and when it does, we’ll just pull ourselves along.”
Diomedes grimaced, and Helen put her face in her hands.
“What are you so upset about?” I said. “It beats tying yourself to a big rock.”
“How is the arrow going to fly anywhere in that wind?” asked Diomedes as I frayed the end of the rope with my sword. “It will blow about like a leaf.”
“Not if it’s missing its feathers.” I singled out the arrow that had lost its fletching and began to whittle a hole near the base of the shaft.
“Does this make any sense to you?” Diomedes asked the giant.
“Yes,” he answered.
“I don’t need accuracy,” I said, working the ends of the rope through the hole. “I just need something that will hold its course through all that wind. Since this arrow has no vanes, it won’t get blown about so much. And it’s heavy, so if I pull hard, it ought to fly pretty far.”
Helen and Diomedes remained unconvinced, but since neither could come up with a better plan, we went ahead with mine.
The first few attempts were disappointing. The arrow clattered against stone surfaces, got tangled up in the rope, or stuck shallow and had to be pulled back; but eventually I got the hang of it and landed a firm shot between two sharp rocks about a stone’s throw away. I pulled the rope taut and secured it to a broken pillar at the back of our shelter.
“You first,” I said to the giant.
“Me?”
“You’re the strongest.”
He nodded, pushed his way to the front of our shelter, gave the rope one hard tug, then stepped into the storm. He spent most of his effort staying on his feet, but he did eventually make it to the other side, and once he had made certain the arrow was securely fixed, he braced himself and signaled for us to follow.
I smiled at Diomedes. “You’re next.”
He bit his lip and looked at Helen and me. “You’re absolutely certain there’s no other way.”
“No other,” I said. Then I clapped him on the shoulder and looped the rope under his belt. “Trust me.”