Beauty's Daughter Read online

  I ran along the open passageway. As I was about to pass my little brother’s room, I noticed that his door stood ajar and peeked inside, expecting to see his nurse asleep on her pallet and Pleisthenes’ golden curls spilling across his pillow.

  No one was there. No child, no nurse. No longer caring if anyone heard me, I rushed to my mother’s bedroom.

  Empty. I stared in confusion. Where are they?

  I flew across the columned portico and through the great hall and the anteroom. Guards standing rigidly by the entrance seemed not to notice me as I raced by, bound for the riverbank. The queen’s barge was not tied up at its usual place, the boatman gone.

  I tried to call out to my mother, even though I suspected she was nowhere near. What could I do? If I found another boatman, I’d insist that he take me down to the gulf, where Paris had left his fleet, his ship with the carving of Aphrodite and Eros. I felt sure that Helen must have gone there with him. But even if I found them, how could I, just a child, coax her to come back? Would she even listen to me? I didn’t think so.

  I started back up the stone path to the palace, passing on the way the enormous storehouse where the wine, oil, and grain were kept. Behind it was the smaller treasury where my father locked up his gold—plates, vases and cups, diadems, bracelets, necklaces and rings—and also his weapons and shields. Something felt strange. The usual treasury guards were on duty, but they stood by as though in a trance. I marched up to one of them and put my face close to his.

  “Guard!” I shouted. He didn’t even blink. I slapped him, hard. Still nothing. What was wrong with him? I spun around and looked carefully at the others. It was as if someone had put them under a spell.

  Seeing that the treasury door, armored in bronze, stood ajar, I pushed it open and stepped inside. A narrow blade of moonlight cut across the bare floor. Except for a few dusty trunks bound with leather, the vault was empty, my father’s treasure gone.

  Not only my mother and the treasure were missing, but Pleisthenes was missing too. That hurt me deeply, maybe more than anything. My brother loved me, and I loved him. Helen never paid as much attention to him as I did, yet it seemed she had taken him with her. But why hadn’t she taken me? Didn’t she love me? Or would I simply have been in the way? A nuisance to her and Paris, reminding her that what she was doing was wrong! I didn’t want to leave my father. But I didn’t want Helen to go without me, to leave me here.

  My mother had abandoned me for handsome, charming Paris.

  My anger grew—not only at Helen and Paris, but also at my father for being so blind, for leaving the two of them here together, alone. How could he not have seen what was going on? Or hadn’t he wanted to see?

  I hated them all. And I had no idea what would happen now.

  4

  Aphrodite’s Spell

  THE GREAT HALL, WHERE we had enjoyed so many banquets, was deserted. I took one of the flickering torches down from the wall and carried it with me while I searched the palace. First I returned to my mother’s bedroom. Her gowns, her jewels—nearly everything—was gone, except for her loom, which stood empty against the wall, and her silver spindle, which was lying on her bed. I didn’t know if she’d forgotten the spindle or left it for me, but I took it to my room and hid it there.

  In the anteroom, Pentheus, Father’s vizier, sat slumped at the table where he kept the king’s accounts, staring at nothing. Drunk again, I thought, hurrying past him unnoticed. Servants sleeping in their quarters could not be roused, and the guards at their posts all seemed to be under the same kind of spell. Only the horses in the stables were alert.

  In one of the stalls I stumbled accidentally over a man who huddled in a corner, staring up at me. “You,” I said, shoving him roughly with my foot. “I am Princess Hermione, daughter of King Menelaus and Queen Helen. Get up and tell me who you are.”

  He wobbled to his feet. “Mistress, my name is Zethus, servant of Prince Paris,” he said with a shaky bow. “A son of King Priam by a servant girl of such low station that I am not recognized as one of his thirty sons by his concubines.”

  I held the torch closer for a better look. The man was a filthy mess. “Your master is gone. Paris and Helen and my little brother, and much of my father’s treasure—all have gone, as I suspect you know. Tell me why you’re still here, Zethus,” I ordered.

  Zethus shuffled his feet. “I drank too much wine. Very delicious wine, from King Menelaus’s private stock! I came out here to relieve myself, and that’s when Aphrodite arrived and put all the king’s servants and guards into a trance.”

  “Aphrodite?” I gasped, remembering my father’s stories about her. “The goddess of love was here?”

  “Yes, mistress. Paris is her great favorite. She will give him whatever he wants, and he wants Helen.”

  “And you say that Aphrodite put my father’s guards and servants under a spell?”

  Zethus nodded. “I watched it happen. The spell will be broken with the first appearance of Dawn,” he explained. “The guards will come to themselves, but they’ll have no memory of the previous night.”

  The stars in the blackness of the heavens had begun to fade. The spell wouldn’t last much longer. What would happen when the palace servants and guards awoke and realized that I was the only member of my family still here?

  “My father will come back from Crete and discover that everything of value to him is gone. He doesn’t anger easily, but when he does, beware!” I warned Paris’s disheveled servant.

  Abruptly, Zethus dropped to his knees. “Princess Hermione, please let me help you.”

  I studied this Trojan. The king was far away, and until he came home again, I did not know what to do. To begin, maybe the best course was to question this stranger and find out more about the Trojan prince who had taken my mother.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll call for a servant to see that you have a bath and clean garments. And then we’ll talk.”

  THE SKY HAD PALED to the color of pearls, and the night guards had shaken off their spell. I stopped a pair of them as they headed back to their quarters. I had known these two, as I had most of our servants, for nearly all my life.

  “How did you pass the night?” I asked. “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  They smiled at me. “No, Princess Hermione, not a thing,” said the older of the pair. “A night like any other,” added the younger.

  “You didn’t hear any odd sounds? Didn’t notice that the treasure house is empty? That all the boats and boatmen are gone? That Queen Helen and our guest, Prince Paris, left while you were on duty, and took Pleisthenes with them?”

  The guards stared at me, stunned. “Has an alarm been raised?” asked the older one.

  “No. No alarm was raised. But tell me—did you have a visit from a goddess?”

  They looked at each other in confusion.

  “Aphrodite?” I prompted. “Perhaps you saw her.”

  “The mist . . .” mumbled the younger. “Do you remember the mist?” he asked the older guard. “We spoke of it, how strange it was.”

  “I do remember, yes! But nothing after that. Nothing until the last star had been extinguished and Dawn came.”

  Later, when Zethus reappeared, bathed and dressed in clean clothes and looking quite respectable, I told him what the guards had reported.

  “That was certainly Aphrodite,” he said. “She spreads a fine mist that makes men forget everything. You must not punish them. It was the work of the goddess. The guards aren’t to be blamed.”

  “Tell that to Father when he comes home!” I exclaimed. “He’ll need some convincing not to order the death of every man who failed him. Starting with his vizier.” I wondered what had become of Pentheus.

  We sat in the anteroom brightened by sunlight flooding through openings in the walls. Servants brought us a meal of cheese and fruit. I saw now that Zethus was not much more than a boy, only a few years older than I. I watched him devour his food. It was obvious that he’d been
brought up simply but well. I asked about his family, and he smiled, showing strong, even teeth.

  “My father is King Priam, as I’ve told you. My mother is a servant to Priam’s daughter, Cassandra. I admire Princess Cassandra—she doesn’t have an easy life.”

  “Why is her life hard? She’s the king’s daughter.”

  “She has the gift of prophecy. She can foretell the future.”

  “A useful gift, surely?”

  “It might be, but the problem is that no one believes her. It was the god Apollo’s doing, my mother told me. Cassandra received the gift of prophecy from Apollo, but when she resisted his advances, he spit into her mouth so that no one would ever believe her. At any rate, Priam is convinced that Cassandra is mad, and he keeps her locked up in a tower with only my mother for company. I’ve seen her—she’s very beautiful. They say that Cassandra is the second most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “The only one more beautiful is Helen?”

  “Yes,” Zethus admitted. “And since I’ve seen them both, I know it’s true.”

  “Now you must tell me about Paris,” I said. “Why has he won Aphrodite’s favor?”

  “I’ll tell you the story,” Zethus said. He pushed away his empty bowl, and I leaned forward to listen.

  “The gods and goddesses had gathered on Mount Olympus to celebrate the marriage of Thetis, a beautiful sea nymph, to Peleus, king of Phthia, a grandson of Zeus. The only one not invited to the wedding was Eris, the goddess of discord, whom nobody likes because she is always causing trouble. Furious at being excluded, Eris hovered above the gathering on a cloud and tossed a golden apple down onto the banquet table. The apple was marked ‘For the fairest,’ and three of the goddesses tried to claim it: Hera, Zeus’s wife; his daughter Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare; and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. They asked Zeus to choose the fairest, but he wasn’t willing to anger the two not chosen. Instead, he suggested that the decision be made by Paris. Foolishly, Paris accepted Zeus’s challenge, and the competition began.

  “Each goddess tried to bribe him. Hera promised to make him lord of Europe and Asia if he’d award her the apple, but Paris wasn’t interested in power. Athena offered to make him a great warrior; that didn’t tempt him either, because he dislikes fighting. But Aphrodite knew his weakness: he loves women. She promised him the most beautiful woman on earth as his bride.

  “And so,” Zethus continued, “Paris picked Aphrodite, and Hera and Athena vowed to get even. It complicated matters that the most beautiful woman on earth—Helen—was already married. But Aphrodite didn’t care. She arranged to bring Paris here to Sparta, where he met your mother. It was love at first sight. He was determined to have her. You see what happened next. Aphrodite cast her spell and allowed Paris and Helen to escape.”

  I listened to Zethus’s story with growing alarm. “All of my mother’s former suitors have sworn to join with King Menelaus against anyone who tries to take her away,” I told him.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve heard the story.”

  “When Father comes home and discovers that his wife, his son, and his treasure have been stolen, he’ll call for those men who pledged to support him. I’m sure they’ll bring her back,” I said, hoping I was right.

  “They will sail to Troy, and there will be much bloodshed,” Zethus predicted. He drummed on the table. “One thing more—Thetis and Peleus, at whose wedding the problem began, now have a son, Achilles. He’s known to be a mighty warrior. Menelaus will certainly want him to fight to get Helen back. As for the goddesses, Hera and Athena will be on the side of the Greeks, but Aphrodite will help Paris as much as she can. The war is likely to last for a long time.”

  I wanted to ask more questions, but activity along the riverbank drew our attention. Boats were arriving from downriver. I ran toward the boatmen, who were leaving the slaves to tie up the craft.

  “Where is Queen Helen? Where is my brother?” I shouted.

  The boatmen stared uneasily at their feet. “They’re with the Trojan prince. At Kranai they boarded the ship with the figure of Aphrodite and Eros on the prow. They sailed eastward.”

  “And the king’s treasure?” I demanded. “Where is that?”

  One of the boatmen stammered, “We were ordered to load it into the holds of the ships.”

  I glared at him. “Why didn’t you refuse to do it?”

  “I beg your pardon, my princess, but it was not possible to refuse. A mist came upon us, and we were powerless to resist what Prince Paris and Queen Helen ordered. It was Aphrodite’s doing.”

  I stamped my foot in frustration. “You!” I shouted at Zethus. “You’re a Trojan! You’re one of them! Why didn’t you stop it? You must have known what was happening.” I began to pummel him, pounding his chest hard.

  Zethus looked startled at my outburst. “I take it you’ve not had much to do with the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus!” he exclaimed, seizing my wrists. “Or you’d know that you can’t oppose them. They always have their way. Always!”

  Zethus let go of my wrists, and I sat down on the beach and cried. When I was finished weeping I stood up, brushed off my chiton, and stalked up the stone path to the palace. “I have a lot to do before Father returns,” I said to Zethus, who was still hovering. “You can stay here, but you may not find a warm welcome from him when he learns what your countryman has done.”

  “If it is your will, Princess Hermione, I shall stay to help you however I can.”

  “All right, then,” I said, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. I left him and lay down to rest and didn’t awaken until Helios, the sun, had nearly completed his blazing journey across the heavens in his fiery four-horse chariot.

  5

  The King’s Return

  WE WAITED, HARDLY DARING to breathe, for the return of King Menelaus. I wanted to get it over with, and at the same time I dreaded his anger and his disappointment. I knew the servants must have been gossiping among themselves, whispering about the handsome Trojan prince who had come as a guest and left as a thief, taking his host’s wife away with him. What an insult!

  Once, when I heard laughter coming from the cook house at the rear of the palace, I crept close to the door where I could gather snatches of conversation: about how the queen had not found her husband to be a real man, and how she had run off with the first man who dared to ask her.

  “Maybe it was her idea in the first place,” one of the servants suggested.

  “Maybe she bribed the Trojan prince with the king’s treasure,” another said.

  I stood fuming, hands balled into fists, until I could bear it no longer and burst through the door, bringing about a shocked silence among the meat roasters, cheese makers, and bread bakers. “I know what you’re talking about,” I shouted. “If you want to gossip about my mother, you should know the truth. Queen Helen did not leave willingly. Paris forced her to go with him. She would never have left King Menelaus!” I insisted passionately. “Aphrodite cast a spell on Helen so that she could not put up a fight. I saw it with my own eyes as he dragged her away!”

  That last part was not true. I had no idea what had really happened. I had seen the looks Helen and Paris exchanged, his message of love scratched in the sand. I hated the thought that it may have even been her idea to leave. I liked the explanation I was inventing so much better, and the more I spoke, the more it seemed like the truth. My mother was abducted! Kidnapped! She had not wanted to go. Paris was holding her against her will. She would come back as soon as she could get away from her captors. I believed the lie I was inventing, because I had to. It was better than admitting to myself that my mother had chosen to abandon me.

  “King Menelaus will rescue Queen Helen!” I cried while everyone gaped at me, open-mouthed. “He will bring her back to us!”

  I turned and fled, back to my sleeping room, where I flung myself on my bed of fleeces and sobbed.

  THEN I HAD TO deal with Pentheus. As Father’s vizier, he oversaw the
overseers—those who made sure the fields were planted, tended, and harvested, the grapes turned into wine and the olives pressed of their oil, the horses groomed, goats and cows milked and their milk turned into cheese, meals prepared, and sheep sheared and their wool woven into cloth. Pentheus was even in charge of our personal servants, the women who bathed and dressed us, the man who trimmed Father’s beard.

  The vizier was also the king’s confidant. He had been with him since boyhood. Father loved him like a brother, but my mother didn’t trust him. I’d heard my parents argue about him.

  “Pentheus sticks his nose where it has no business,” Helen had complained. “He has spies among my slaves who listen to my conversations with my women and report to him every word that’s said.”

  Father always defended Pentheus. “Everything is his business,” Menelaus answered mildly.

  “I don’t like it,” Helen insisted. “I’m entitled to some privacy, surely.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating, my dear,” said Menelaus. “But I’ll speak to him. The slaves need to be more discreet.”

  I agreed with Helen. But I thought I knew why Pentheus paid so much attention to my mother: he was in love with her. This was to be expected. There wasn’t a man who didn’t adore her. What she didn’t admit to Father was that she encouraged Pentheus’s affection. My mother loved to be loved. I supposed she couldn’t help herself.

  Pentheus seemed dazed when I confronted him. “Queen Helen is gone?” he asked incredulously.

  “The Trojan prince abducted her,” I said, now completely believing that myself. “Pleisthenes is with them. I have no doubt that Paris intends to carry them back to Troy.”