Goddess of Yesterday: A Tale of Troy

  But the two women who had helped me on the beach at Siphnos were sold at Helen's instruction. Whatever slave woman was not busy had to fit me in. Once it was Aethra, the old crumpled queen.

  I made up names for the rest of the generations. If Helen insisted I had them wrong, I would look confused and bow to her superior knowledge.

  It was very hot even after the sun went down, so we slept on Hermione's high porch, hoping for a breeze from the mountains. I had lived on the tops of cliffs, but never at the bottom. I found the sight of those mountains so stirring, so profound. I could more readily imagine Helen sired by a jagged black peak than by a swan.

  There were fifty-six rooms on each floor of the palace. I doubt the island of my birth had fifty-six huts. I knew now that Chrysaor's house had been three rooms on a rock; the palace of Nicander merely a pleasant house on a hill.

  Wherever I turned at Amyklai were long stairs, long shadows, and bright frescoes on walls.

  The royal ladies used a peculiar room, which was on a lower floor. Hermione and Aethra demonstrated several times before I was willing to use the seat.

  On my birth island, we used the cliff. We had our favorite spots to sit, my brothers and I, and down our manure would drop, splashing into the sea with a satisfying plop. The peasants went in the straw as did their donkeys, sheep and goats. Now and then they would throw the old straw into a field and bring in new. At Siphnos, I learned to use pots, which the slave women emptied in the morning and washed in the sea. But in the palace of Amyklai, a clay tunnel ran from a fountain into a tiled room and you sat on a chair while the water in the tunnel carried everything away to a distant pit.

  Aethiolus and Maraphius did not simply have manservants; they had tutors whose purpose was instruction, and with these tutors, they had to repeat not only their genealogies back ten generations, but the lineage of all kings and all heroes. Then they had to learn strategies, battles, treaties, and wars.

  Every day Hermione wore an amber necklace, a treasure only a princess of great wealth can enjoy. Each bead was a slightly different shade of yellow and inside each bead was frozen a wasp or bee, so Hermione was hung with yellow stinging insects.

  I loathed the necklace, but Hermione's nurse, Bia, said it was magic. Hermione said only that her father had brought it when she was very little and put it around her neck himself, so every time she touched it, she thought of him.

  A wasp in amber did not describe Menelaus.

  It described Helen.

  A few days after my arrival, just before sunset, Helen and her women and Hermione walked to the great temple of Apollo. “Here we are, Callisto!” called Hermione, although I was hoping to escape notice. “We'll wait for you.”

  I dreaded being with Helen and kept my eyes down. When I caught up Helen said, “Girl. Whose gown are you wearing?”

  Everyone else said “my princess” or “Callisto.” Helen addressed me as a slave. I wondered how long before everybody followed Helen's example.

  “The gown is an old one of yours, my queen,” said Aethra. “I thought it fitting for a princess.”

  “It is fitting for a princess,” said Helen, “so when we return to the palace, take it off that girl.”

  “Now, Mother,” said Hermione. “Father says to be kind to Callisto.”

  “How like him,” said Helen. “Always being kind. Is this a king? A king should stain the world with blood. Bring honor to his name and treasure to his house! A king should live for his spear.”

  Helen strode on ahead. She was no swan today.

  “Father thinks it's funny,” whispered Hermione. “He says not to worry, she'll get used to you.”

  I did not think Helen got used to things any more than Medusa had.

  The temple of Apollo stood alone on a rocky ledge in a wide valley. Fifteen pillars by seven, the beautiful sanctuary was painted black, gold, red and blue. It shouted to the gods.

  We walked right in, as if we too were gods, and I trembled to be there. It was fine for Helen, daughter of a god, and for Hermione, her child, and even for Aethra, once a queen. But for me?

  Inside stood an Apollo three times the size of a man.

  The god was losing his paint. In some places, bare marble glowed. Aethra went down with difficulty on her swollen knees to embrace the feet of Apollo. It was adoration that had removed his paint.

  Goddess of yesterday, you are so small next to this Apollo. But you must protect me. You let me do this. In fact, you told me to. If anything goes wrong, it's your fault.

  Helen went to the god as if he were nobody and fingered the tunic he was wearing. Every year the noblewomen of Amyklai wove Apollo a new tunic. They used flax grown just for that purpose, taking turns at a sacred loom on which nothing else was ever woven.

  “You weave, girl, do you not?” said Helen to me.

  “Yes, queen!” My heart leaped up. What joy to work on Apollo's tunic.

  “The task takes many ladies,” said Helen.

  “I would be honored,” I whispered.

  “Oh?” said Helen. “And are you a lady?”

  Her loathing scraped me as barnacles on a boat scrape the bare skin.

  “You have captivated the king, girl. But it is only the color of your hair, you know.”

  I stared at the well-kissed hands of Apollo.

  “One who lies to the gods brings down their wrath,” said Helen. “Plague. Famine. Death. You lie about your heritage.”

  Aethra spoke as if she were still the equal of Helen, not the property of Helen. “I would think that a king such as Nicander is not a background to be proud of, my queen,” said Aethra. “Why would Callisto make such a claim unless it's true?”

  “To get an island,” said Helen.

  In Amyklai, the people did not enter their palace freely.

  Those awaiting the king's attention sat in a reception room. There their hands and feet were bathed, that they might not bring uncleanliness into the king's presence. Every petitioner, whether peasant or noble, received a gift goblet. There were so many visitors that two slaves were needed just to stock and distribute the goblets.

  Every guest at any meal kept his bowl and cup. The potters of Amyklai worked ceaselessly to create so much dinnerware.

  When Menelaus rose from bed, there would already be a dozen men in the throne room awaiting the king's attention, and all day long more would arrive. They did not call it a throne room, but used a very old name for a cave. Megaron.

  A watcher could sit on the balcony above the megaron protected by a carved screen, looking down through smoke and shadows, while voices echoed against the vaulted ceiling. I went once with Hermione, but she found it dull and would not go a second time.

  When Helen was there, men forgot their arguments, and lost the focus of their eyes, and confused their hopes with their fears.

  Around Helen the hall murmured.

  In the afternoon, when his kingly chores were done, Menelaus and his sons would go hunting. More often than not they would come home with a rabbit, but the boys made their hunts sound so dangerous I would look around for the carcass of some vicious wild pig, whose tusks could rip open the chest of a man and his hunting dogs with a single slice.

  “One of these days,” Aethiolas would say, grinning.

  The boys were their fathers' sons. They had skinned knees and torn knuckles. They sparred with wooden practice swords and got sick of it and tried to take their father's real ones. Their servants were always either dragging the boys apart to stop a fight or trying to separate them to go to bed.

  It was not easy to explore a palace so filled with guards. Hermione had never thought of exploring, and her older brothers had probably finished exploring years ago. I went alone.

  One day I found a bright and sunny room full of men squatting on stools and playing with wet clay squares. I was unable to figure out what the game was. Each man played by himself, and each seemed proud of his results, but I saw no dice and no game pieces.

  I asked Menelau
s, who loved to give answers. Sometimes when men gathered in the megaron for the king's decisions, they squirmed with boredom as the king answered and answered and answered.

  “Those are my scribes. I have twelve. They sit all day making keeping-track lines. I have difficulty doing it myself, but my slaves have spent their lives mastering the art. Into wet clay they make marks for storage counts and trading records. How many amphorae of wine, how many bales of leather, how many horses or spears.”

  I did not understand. “Can't you keep track of spears by looking?”

  “I would have to walk from room to room, from wing to wing,” said Menelaus. “I would have to visit every citadel and barn and outbuilding and guardhouse.”

  It was true that the palace was crammed with goods. He was a king and yet he lived like a sea trader: rooms full of pottery and wine and grain and oil and nuts and linen, all awaiting exchange. Helen despised everything but the precious metals.

  Helen had seen through me. And yet she was making no real effort to destroy me. Because in spite of everything, she is still a wife who must obey, I thought. Menelaus has given me his protection and she cannot void that promise.

  “This way,” said Menelaus, who never noticed if the people around him began thinking of other things, “the keeping-track lines are on a tablet, and my slave can tell me that so many shields are kept here and so many vats of oil are stored there. Sometimes we put rent arrangements or the sale of property on the tablets, and then when men argue about what month the payment is due, it is saved, right there on the clay. It makes it easier to be a king.”

  I figured out some lines right away. The mark for barley was a tilted stroke holding up one grain. Cloth was a square sagging at the top, like a sheet hanging from a line. Sheep was a line crossed twice, while goat was the same but with a ripple on top. I puzzled over these two.

  “Crossing the line twice gives each figure four feet,” said the slave. “The ripple is because goats dash around, while sheep just stand there.”

  I ran my finger over the little dents; the clay had now dried and was permanent.

  Keeping-track lines were for sheep and shields. But what if you could use them for keeping track of a family lost to you? For keeping track of your heart and your sorrow?

  The thought was as smoky and dark as the megaron, and I could not see it clearly enough to speak of it. It did not matter anyway.

  Anaxandra had ceased to be. Only Callisto drew breath.

  For a long and lovely week I played with Hermione and Pleis.

  The real Callisto's pursuits had been so quiet they were motionless, but Hermione and I ran races and played tag and hopscotch. We loved ball games, hitting with bats or feet or forehead as each game required. We had dolls and dollhouses, and Hermione stole the boys' toy soldiers and when nobody was looking we played war instead of house.

  We played chess and checkers, kings and pegs. Hermione especially loved pegs. A throw of the dice told you how far you could move your pegs, and if you could get all your pegs into the circles before the other person, you won.

  Pleis was still struggling with my name. He separated the word “Callisto,” as if I were two people. “Calli?” he said anxiously. “Sto?” he added.

  He was solemn. He laughed only when tickled or chased. His nurse, Rhodea, was tender and loving with him. How her name suited her. Rhodea was indeed a rose, pink and sweet smelling.

  But it was I who crawled on tiles and rugs, in the grass and up and down stairs, making Pleis laugh, wrestling with him and wiggling under furniture.

  There was a dinner party every night, for Menelaus loved company.

  He always asked after a guest's family. Some men could not answer, on voyages so long that they had not seen their families in years. Others would speak of wives and children, while Menelaus would show off his own family. I loved how Menelaus loved his children.

  But when parties were over, and we withdrew to our rooms, Helen would give her husband a light kiss on the forehead and waft away. They did not spend the night together as often as they should.

  I had been in the palace two weeks when Menelaus' older brother Agamemnon came to hear about the voyage to Troy.

  As Helen was a golden woman, Agamemnon was a golden man. He was much more king than Menelaus. The gods choose the body, and how the gods had chosen for Agamemnon! He was exceedingly handsome and as frightening as a shipload of pirates. You could feel all over him the blood he had shed, the cities he had sacked and the ships he had sunk.

  “How's my Pleis?” said Menelaus, taking his little son from Rhodea and nuzzling Pleis' throat and cheeks. “How's my big boy? Snuggle with me, little son. Keep me warm.”

  Helen turned her face away and saw me, which only increased her annoyance. She said to Agamemnon, “That dull little sparrow, we are told, is the daughter of the king of Siphnos. You remember that fellow Nicander, who boldly cheated Apollo.”

  My cheeks went red with shame, as if Nicander really were my father and I really did carry his crime. I could not meet the eyes of Agamemnon, lord of lords.

  “We are told that she is the daughter of Nicander?” repeated Agamemnon, grinning. His wide face was sliced by a long steep nose. Above his narrow lips was a thin mustache, something I had never seen, and he straightened his beard with oil. “You mean, my dear Helen, that we do not quite believe?”

  “Nicander and Petra had dark hair. Look. Hers is red.”

  “Oh,” said Agamemnon. “I thought you had interesting gossip. If hair color meant anything, then you, my daughter of a swan, would have white feathers, would you not?”

  The day Agamemnon left, we children went on a picnic. Rhodea took Pleis to wade in a shallow brook, where he splashed joyfully. Squires carried baskets of food and jugs of water while the huntsmen prepared to flush out birds and small game for the boys to shoot. The nurse Bia paid no attention to Hermione at all, but lay on her back on a blanket, dozing in the shade.

  Aethiolas and Maraphius set up clay targets and contested each other with their slingshots. “I can do better than that,” I said contemptuously when they consistently missed their mark.

  “Girls can't use slings,” said Aethiolas irritably.

  “Get out of here,” added Maraphius.

  I took Aethiolas' sling in my hand and swung it to get its feel. It was a little long for me, Aethiolas' arm being bigger. But it would do. I chose a stone, fingered it to know its shape, and swung. My stone split an old clay goblet in half. I took another stone and smashed the second target.

  When I stepped back, pleased with myself, fixed upon me were the astonished eyes of two princes, two squires, two tutors and Hermione.

  “You are good, Callisto,” said Maraphius respectfully. “But what kind of princess knows how to use a slingshot?”

  No kind. Ever. I had made a mistake. But I shrugged, as if it were nothing. “My parents buried five sons. I became the son they never had.”

  Aethiolas was fascinated. “They raised you as a boy? Can you use a javelin too? A sword? Darts?”

  I have heard that you can protect yourself from your own lies by crossing your fingers. I did not do it. I must not think of this as lying. I must think of it as truth I had not told before. “Father was planning to teach me to use a javelin this year,” I said breezily, “now that I am tall enough.”

  Maraphius nodded. “Father brought me a baby sized javelin from Troy. I'm too old for toys. He should have—”

  His squire had had enough. “She's nothing but a girl, no matter how tall. Come, my prince, the huntsmen are ready. Leave the girls here to spin and stare at clouds.”

  Hermione waited till they had gone. Then she said to me, “I've never stared at a cloud in my life. But you are worth staring at. No wonder you try not to talk about being a princess. You are actually a prince in disguise! Show me how to use the slingshot.”

  “Mother,” said Maraphius after dinner.

  I found it strange that anybody could call Helen Mother. She neve
r embraced or kissed any of her four children. She seemed mystified that they existed. But they, like their father, treated their goddess mother quite routinely.

  “Guess what Callisto can do,” said Maraphius. “She can use a slingshot. She's good. And she taught Hermione. We saw. Hermione, show Mother what you can do.”

  “I'm not very good yet,” said Hermione. “And Callisto and I are out of stones. Do you have any, Maraphius?”

  “Sure.” He handed her a full purse.

  “Callisto was brought up as a prince,” said Aethiolas, “because her brothers died when they were babies and so her father trained Callisto in weapons.”

  “Callisto always wanted to be a pirate when she grew up,” Hermione added. “She drove off a hundred ships of pirates in one day all by herself.”

  Helen turned her long, slow look upon me.

  “It wasn't really a hundred ships,” I said. “But it was a lot.”

  “Hermione,” said Helen, “return the stones to your brother. Aethra, take the slingshot away from the girl. Girl, sleep in the weaving room from now on. Do not go near my daughter again.”

  “Now, Mother,” said Hermione, in exactly the voice Menelaus used. “Father said to treat Callisto as our sister.”

  “I hated my sister,” said Helen.

  She fixed her eyes upon me and I could not stay in the room with those eyes, but fled into the corridor, and then had to run down the hall until there were safe thick solid walls between me and the stare of that Medusa called Helen.

  There did Aethra find me. Gently her twisted fingers took mine. Eighty years of lanolin from spinning sheep's wool into yarn had made her skin so soft that even Helen's was not its equal. I had always thought of my goddess as slender and strong, like the slim whip of a willow branch, but there in Aethra's wrinkles and washed out eyes stood my goddess.

  “I was once a queen,” she said. “My son was the great and famous Theseus, who saved the children from the Minotaur in Crete. A warrior finer than Menelaus or Agamemnon could hope to be. And still my fate is slavery. My child, to stay a princess, stay away from Helen.”

  “How?” I whispered.

  But she was not listening to me. She was speaking as an oracle speaks, the words coming out of her mouth from the gods. “Helen has drawn her breath from many fathers. From Madness, Hate, red Death and every rotting poison of the sky.”