‘Why did you choose Menelaus?’ I asked Helen later. A flurry of handmaidens encircled her, draping her dress, braiding her hair into elaborate swirls, and making countless tiny adornments that were entirely unnecessary.
Helen considered my question before she answered. People only ever spoke of her dazzling radiance, sometimes moved to poetry or song in praise of it. No one ever mentioned that she was thoughtful or that she was kind. I could not deny the odd pang of envy that had reared up inside me, cold and poisonous, growing up alongside a twin whose magnificence would always throw me into shadow. But Helen had never been cruel to me or tormented me. She had never boasted about her beauty or mocked her inferior sister. She could not help that heads would swivel to gaze wherever she walked any more than she could turn the tides of the sea. I made my peace with it, and, to be truthful, I didn’t yearn to bear the weight of her legendary allure.
‘Menelaus . . .’ Helen said meditatively, lingering over the syllables of his name. She shrugged, twisting a smooth curl of hair around her fingers, to the visible annoyance of one of the handmaidens, whose fussing ministrations had produced nothing like the bounce and gleam that Helen’s effortless coiffing did. ‘Perhaps there were others richer or more handsome,’ she said. ‘Bolder, certainly.’ She curled her lip slightly, maybe thinking of the undercurrent of violence that had throbbed invisibly around the hall as the suitors eyed one another. ‘But Menelaus . . . he seemed different.’
She did not need treasure; Sparta was wealthy enough as it was. She did not need good looks; she could provide all the beauty in any partnership. Any man was eager to be her husband, as we had seen. So, what was it that my sister had been looking for? I wondered how she knew, what magic had sparked between them, what it was that made a woman sure that a particular man was the right one. I sat up straighter, waiting to be enlightened.
‘I suppose . . .’ She breathed out as a girl handed her an ivory-handled mirror, the back of which was ornately carved with a tiny figure of Aphrodite emerging from her great shell. She flicked her eyes over her reflection, tossed back her hair and adjusted the gold circlet that rested atop her curls. I heard a faint sigh go up from the clustered girls who awaited her judgement on their unnecessary efforts. ‘I suppose,’ she continued as she bestowed a smile upon them, ‘that he was simply so very grateful.’
I paused, the words I had sought evaporating on the air.
Helen noticed my silence, perhaps read some reproval in it, for she straightened her shoulders and fixed me directly in her gaze. ‘You know that our mother was singled out by Zeus,’ she said. ‘A mortal woman beautiful enough to catch his eye from the peak of Mount Olympus. If our father were not of a quiet and uncomplaining disposition . . . who knows how he may have felt? If he were more like Agamemnon than Menelaus, for example.’
I stiffened a little. What did that mean?
‘A man like that doesn’t look like he would take any affront without protest,’ she continued. ‘Would he see the honour in his wife being chosen, or would he see it differently? I don’t know what my destiny might be, but I know that I was not born to do nothing. I don’t know what the Fates have planned for me, but it seemed –’ she searched for the right word – ‘prudent to make my choice carefully.’
I thought of Menelaus, the adoration in his eyes when he looked at Helen. I wondered if she was right, if he’d be able to see things the way our father had done. If winning the contest in our halls really would be victory enough, whatever might happen later.
‘And of course, this way I can stay in Sparta,’ she added.
For this, I really was thankful. ‘So, is it agreed? You will live here together?’
‘Menelaus can help Father with the ruling of Sparta,’ Helen said. ‘And, of course, Father can help him in return.’
‘How?’
‘How much do you know about him and Agamemnon?’ Helen asked. ‘And Mycenae?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve heard stories about the family. The same ones as you. The curse of their ancestors, fathers killing their sons, and brothers turning on each other. It’s all in the past, though, isn’t it?’
‘Not entirely.’ Helen waved away the girls around her and leaned in confidentially. I felt a little thrill. ‘They came here from Calydon, you know.’
I nodded.
‘But that’s not their home; they’ve stayed there with the king. He gave them hospitality, but he couldn’t give them what they really need – what Father can.’
‘What’s that?’
She smiled, delighted to be the one to impart something exciting. ‘An army.’
‘Really? What for?’
‘To take back Mycenae.’ Helen tossed her head. ‘They’re taking what’s theirs. Their uncle killed their father and exiled them when they were children. Now they’re men, and they have the support of Sparta.’
I knew that much of the story. Menelaus and Agamemnon were sons of Atreus, whose brother, Thyestes, had murdered him for the throne and cast them out. I suppose he had just enough mercy not to want the blood of children on his hands. That was the crime for which their family had been cursed by the gods generations before: the crime of Tantalus.
Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Menelaus intrigued Helen, I thought. The old legend of the family was one we’d heard before, a grisly story that chilled the blood but seemed so distant from reality. Now it was a step closer – two brothers seeking justice, healing the wounds of a tortured family with one final act.
‘Won’t Menelaus want to go back to Mycenae, then?’ I asked.
‘No, Agamemnon will take Mycenae,’ Helen said. ‘Menelaus is happy to be here.’
So, Menelaus would get the prize of Helen and Agamemnon would have the city. No doubt that seemed a fair bargain to them both.
‘It’s just a question of what they do about the boy.’
‘Which boy?’
‘Aegisthus,’ Helen said. ‘The son of Thyestes – just a boy, like they were when Thyestes killed their father.’
‘Won’t they exile him, too?’
Helen raised an eyebrow. ‘And let him grow up like they did? Nurturing the same dreams that they did? Agamemnon won’t want to risk it.’
I shuddered. ‘He won’t want to kill a little boy, though, surely?’ I could understand the brutal logic of it, but I couldn’t bring myself to picture the young men I’d seen in that hall plunging a sword into a weeping child.
‘Maybe not.’ Helen stood up, smoothing out her dress. ‘But let’s not talk about war any longer. It’s my wedding day, after all.’
Later, I slipped away from the celebrations. They would go on all night, I was sure, hours still to come of feasting and drinking, but I was tired and felt strangely flat. I wasn’t in the mood to dodge the increasingly drunken nobility of Sparta; the usually stern and severe military generals becoming red-faced and loose-tongued, their clumsy hands groping out like the tentacles of an octopus. All were puffed up with self-congratu-lation at the alliance and the oath sworn by all the important men of Greece to defend Menelaus’ prize. Their loyalty was bound to Sparta.
I walked to the riverbank. Wide and lazy, the Eurotas wound its way through our city to the distant southern harbour, which was the only way any foreign invaders could reach us. To the other sides, the great mountains of Taygetus and Parnon towered west and east, whilst the northern uplands were equally impenetrable to any army. We were snug in our valley, protected and fortified against any who might come intent on sacking us for the wealth and lovely women that gave us our fame. And now the loveliest of them all had a waiting army ready to rise up in her honour against any possible enemy. No wonder the men relaxed and drank deeply tonight.