Glyn Iliffe - King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

The slave girl blushed. ‘Well, he’s handsome and strong with beautiful auburn hair . . .’

‘Which is thinning on top,’ Helen added.

‘I don’t have your height, my lady, so I can’t tell. But he’s a fine-looking man nonetheless, very wealthy, and he treats everyone as if they were royalty. Even slaves.’

Helen withdrew her foot and sat up, sighing with frustration. ‘Yes, he’s all of those things. Although I’ve only met him once, he also seems a kind-hearted, thoughtful man with good manners and a love of the simple life. And if Agamemnon is to be believed, I won’t find a man amongst his peers who has such fairness of mind, modesty of character, depth of intelligence or courage of spirit.’

‘Oh, my lady,’ exclaimed the slave with excitement. ‘Then you will marry him?’

Helen shook her head. ‘No, I won’t. Menelaus doesn’t inspire the least morsel of desire in me.’

The slave girl looked deflated. ‘Then who will you marry, my lady? Diomedes is coming. And Ajax, they say.’

‘That oaf!’

‘I’ve even heard that Achilles will come,’ Neaera persisted. ‘Surely you can’t turn down someone as handsome as Achilles?’

‘How do you know how handsome Achilles is?’ Helen scoffed. ‘Besides, don’t you know that Achilles is little more than a boy? How can I fall for a boy, whatever his pedigree?’

‘Then who, my lady?’ Neaera implored. With all the bets that were being placed in the palace, the slave who managed to obtain the secret of Helen’s true desire could win enough money to buy their own freedom.

‘Do you really think I’ll be allowed to choose?’ Helen asked bitterly. ‘Tyndareus is only interested in Agamemnon’s favour, and Agamemnon is only interested in a marriage of power. He knows that whoever wins me inherits my father’s throne. That’s why they will choose Menelaus, because Agamemnon’s brother will eventually become King of Sparta and the Atreides will be the most powerful dynasty in Greece.’

The slave girl looked at the princess for a moment. The politics of power meant nothing to her, but she recognized the sadness beneath her mistress’s anger. ‘Then who do you like most?’

‘None of them, Neaera,’ Helen said, throwing herself back onto the couch. ‘Does that win your wager with your friends for you? There isn’t one of those supposed noblemen who inspires any passion within my heart. What would I want with an overdressed, obnoxious, arrogant buffoon, however pretty he is or how nice he smells? I don’t care how many men they’ve killed or how many cities they’ve plundered: I want a man who makes me feel my heart beat in my throat when he enters the room. I couldn’t care less if he’s ugly, or even if he’s poor, within reason, as long as he takes me away from all this . . .’ she swept a white arm through the air, ‘paraphernalia. Find me a real man who doesn’t give a damn for power or the glory of the Greeks, and who can take me from this palace, then I’ll tell you who I really favour.’

Neaera looked down, ashamed. Despite her mistress’s wilful and often petulant nature, she loved her with all her heart and was sorry to have upset her. It was a slave’s privilege to be burdened with a mistress’s deepest worries, so Neaera knew how much Helen despised the idea of becoming the prize of a wealthy prince. For all her beauty and wealth there was still one thing beyond Helen’s grasp: freedom. It was a desire the slave girl understood fully.

‘Do you never wear any clothes when you’re in your room, sister?’

A young woman stood in the doorway eyeing Helen’s nakedness with undisguised amusement. She was tall and lean with pale skin and long, red hair, which swept around her protruding ears to fall down to the middle of her back. She had an attractive face with thin lips and staring eyes, but was dressed all in black, as if in mourning.

Helen smiled knowingly. ‘If my body repels you, Clytaemnestra, you shouldn’t come here unannounced.’

The woman entered anyway and, indicating to Neaera that she should leave, sat down next to her sister. They had not seen each other for over a year, but Clytaemnestra had decided to come to Sparta with Agamemnon and Menelaus to visit her family.

‘I’ve been listening from the doorway, Helen. You should be more careful of who’s eavesdropping when you speak disparagingly about my husband.’

‘I don’t care who hears me,’ Helen replied, sitting up and taking her sister’s hand. ‘I’m speaking the truth, after all. You know Agamemnon thinks of nothing else but power and ruling the whole of Greece.’

‘He will rule Greece,’ Clytaemnestra stated simply. She stroked her sister’s hands affectionately and sighed. ‘He always gets what he wants, as I’ve found to my loss. But he also wants peace. He’s sick of the constant wars – I think they all are – and the only way to achieve that is to unify Greece.’

Helen stood and picked up a piece of clothing from the floor, draping it about her flawless body. The white cloth was so fine that it hid nothing of her nakedness.

‘How convenient that Greece should be unified under Agamemnon, though,’ she insisted.

‘I’m sure he would gladly serve under somebody who he thought was more capable of rule than himself,’ Clytaemnestra added calmly, used to her sister’s outbursts. ‘But like all of his kind, Agamemnon just feels there is nobody more capable.’

‘You sound like you agree with him!’ Helen said angrily. She strode over to the window that overlooked the courtyard, where a group of guards stared up at her. Their eyes lingered for a brief but longing moment, then as one they switched their gazes to the ground, unable even to meet each other’s eyes with the vain desires that lay behind them. She turned to look at Clytaemnestra, shaking her head bitterly. ‘How can you even sympathize with what he thinks and what he wants? It was want of you that made him murder your first husband and butcher your baby as you held it against your breast! They were the only living things you’ve ever really loved. How can you stand that monster?’

Clytaemnestra glared at her younger sister. ‘What choice do I have? Agamemnon is the most powerful man in Greece, and I’m just a woman. And what is a woman without a man, Helen? We can’t bear arms or declare ourselves kings. We’ve both seen what happens to wives who lose their husbands and have no sons or married daughters. If they’re young enough they can sell their bodies; otherwise they’re abandoned and forced out of the community to scratch a living in the hills, or to die. A slave is better off than a freeborn woman: at least she has food and a roof over her head.’

‘It wouldn’t matter to me,’ Helen insisted. ‘I would never forgive. Never! And I’m surprised at you, Nestra. You were always the strongest of us all, even the boys. You should have been born male.’

Clytaemnestra laughed and allowed herself to relax. She beckoned her sister over and embraced her tightly, turning her face away to hide her tears. ‘I may endure him, Helen, but I’ve never forgiven him. Agamemnon still thinks I wear black in mourning for my first husband, but he has faded now in my memory, along with all the good things. I wear black because it angers him, and reminds him I’m not his in my heart. Every breath I take fuels my hate for him. My only joy is in knowing that, as his wife, I can deprive him of the love he should otherwise have received from another. He took my love, so I will deny him his. It’s the same when he comes to me at night. I don’t give myself to him, Helen, only my body. Do you understand?’

‘Not really,’ Helen answered, kissing the tears from her sister’s cheeks. ‘I understand the hate, but I don’t comprehend how you can give your body and not yourself