*
Five days later, in Sparta, Menelaus was blunter.
“Telamon sees himself as the last of the heroes,” the king said. “He adventured with Heracles, remember, and not just in Troy. They were raiders together for years. Telamon’s whole life has been about pride in that. If he gave Hesione back he would seem weak in his own eyes.”
Pride, Antenor thought to himself. All the Argives seemed to care about was pride. Nestor might claim they were changing, but if so it was so slow as to hardly be noticeable.
Here in Sparta it was impossible to believe. The city sat in the middle of a plain, where a pair of streams flowed into the river Evrotas. It was ringed by two walls, one inside the other and both protected by a moat. The walls were square and thick, like the buildings inside. The palace seemed to be all dark tunnels and halls lit by a single candle, guttering in the gloom.
Menelaus himself was big and brawny, with reddish hair and heavy forearms. Wisps of fine hair curled out from the collar of his chiton, at the back as well as the front. An Argive warrior lord, in short, all brawn and bristle. He looked quite similar to his brother in fact, the High King Agamemnon, who Antenor did not intend to visit during this trip to the west. There wasn’t much point: Agamemnon was surly and sour with almost everyone, nearly all the time. When Antenor had gone to Mycenae two years earlier he’d ended up being made to wait for a week, while the High King went hunting or idled his afternoon away in wine. When Antenor was finally admitted he was treated to a long rant about how other peoples never understood the Argives. His ears had ached for days. He didn’t plan to go through that again.
Hence this new approach. It had been Hecuba’s idea at first, the queen encroaching onto her husband’s ground if truth be told, though she and Priam exchanged ideas regularly. Speak to the other kings, those without a direct stake in Hesione’s fate and with nothing to lose by negotiation. Try to build a broad agreement, if not to hand her back then at least to discuss terms. It had seemed a good idea, in Troy. Antenor had considered which of the kings might be most amenable, whose help was most useful if it could be gained, and slowly the trip had taken shape.
It had seemed a good idea in Pylos too, until Nestor spoke and it began to seem hopelessly optimistic. Now, in Menelaus’ grim palace, it seemed little better than a fool’s errand. But Antenor was here now. He might as well play the game through to the end.
“We Greeks thought you unmanly, you know,” Menelaus said conversationally. “That day in Thessaly, I mean. When you wouldn’t hunt with us.”
It was an effort not to stare. This was supposed to be the smoother, more tactful of the brothers. Antenor spoke without knowing what the words would be until he heard them. “I would never have been able to keep up. In Troas we hunt from chariots.”
“We knew that,” Menelaus said. “But you could have tried. A lot of the older Greeks couldn’t stand the pace that day. They still ran until their legs gave out.”
You didn’t, Antenor thought. Menelaus had been too young to join the hunt that day, and had followed behind on a chariot, just like an easterner. Yet now he sat and lectured, as though to a weakling or a lackwit. It showed a lack of proper respect. Antenor was a diplomat, sent by a king of considerable power – more than Laconia, for certain, however this blocky idiot liked to strut. He deserved better than cheap insults.
“Argives judge manliness by their own standards,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “There are others.”
Menelaus shrugged. “None that matter.”
The man was a boorish lout, actually very similar to his brother. Antenor was wasting his time here. He was preparing to make a polite excuse – some people knew how to behave, after all – when a side door opened and a woman came in.
For a moment Antenor actually thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. He’d heard poets claim that a woman was as lovely as a goddess, but always thought it just a neat turn of phrase, of no more importance than a man who claims his children are the prettiest in Troy. And he’d seen beauty, in the court at Troy and sometimes beyond, in Miletos or Sardis. But this woman was… astonishing. He didn’t think he could speak.
Helen, something in his mind gabbled as he stared. This must be Helen, daughter of old king Tyndareus. The heir, after Castor died that day in Thessaly. Menelaus is king through marriage to her.
Word had reached Troy that Helen had chosen her own husband, something unheard-of among the masculine lords of Greece. Antenor doubted it, himself. Laconia was the second most powerful of the Argive nations, behind only Agamemnon’s Achaea. The High King would not have wanted to see it in a rival’s hands, or even those of a younger man, a better warrior and captain of men. It seemed likely that Helen had been… coerced. Persuaded to choose Agamemnon’s brother.
Watching her glide across the floor, Antenor was no longer sure. It was hard to imagine this woman being forced to do anything she didn’t want to. There was something about her of open flames, something too of the tigress, though that might just have been the mane of tawny hair, bound up in a net but still seeming to flow freely. Menelaus was visibly changed by it. He sat straighter, his expression sharpened to one of immediate fascination, and his eyes opened wider. Antenor hoped he didn’t look the same.
“I did not know you had a guest,” Helen said. Her voice was very low, and all but smoked. “Will you introduce me?”
She almost certainly had known, of course. The presence of a Trojan emissary in the palace would have been very hard to hide, even if anyone had tried. She was playing some game of which Antenor was unaware. He kept silent, trying to regain some composure.
“Matters of state,” Menelaus said with a wave of his hand. His gaze travelled over her body. “You needn’t concern yourself.”
Watching, Antenor was sure he saw a flash of anger in her eyes – extraordinary eyes, violet and very large, under strong brows. It was gone at once though, and her smile never faltered as Helen laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “Will these affairs delay you long?”
“I trust not.” Menelaus was riveted by her, even as he strove to keep a semblance of formality. “I may come to you later, wife, if time allows.”
It was a dismissal, and this time the flare of fury was impossible to mistake. The throne of Laconia had been her father’s and had come to her, Antenor reminded himself: she had made Menelaus king here by her own choice, whether coerced or not. It must rankle sorely that she could now be dismissed like a common maid. Those violet eyes flicked to Antenor and pinned him to his chair, and he was sure he could feel his skin crisping in the heat of her gaze. Despite himself, despite all his worldliness, he felt a shiver of sudden desire.
Then she turned and walked away, leaving the room even gloomier than before she’d entered.