‘But what are you doing here, really?’ she asks, stepping back. She looks intently into my face. ‘It is a dangerous place for you to come, so soon after . . .’
‘Wasn’t it dangerous for you, too?’ I ask. ‘To come back here? I didn’t know if Menelaus would bring you home, if he would even let you live. Where is he?’
‘He feasts in the great hall,’ she answers. ‘They are sharing stories again of Troy, becoming maudlin, as ever. It’s why I stole away.’
‘Won’t you be missed?’
She shrugs, languid and graceful. ‘I only intended to be gone a matter of moments.’ Her eyes flick to the table, the scatter of dried leaves there. ‘But Menelaus won’t question me if I am longer. And if you are discovered, I’m sure I can plead on your behalf.’ She smiles, and in the soft firelight she could be sixteen again, so confident and sure of herself. Helen of Sparta; a vast crowd of men jostling in our halls, ready to offer anything to have her. Marriage, motherhood, ten years of bitter siege and bloody battle and its aftermath – and still, nothing has changed for her. ‘Sit,’ she urges me. ‘I will send for wine.’
I sit on the soft couch whilst she pads to the door, and I hear her murmured instructions to a passing slave. I feel a twist of irritation, even when she comes back with a jug of wine, its rich sweetness fragrant in the air. I need her help, I remind myself. My son is what matters. The slave has brought bread too, the sight of it reminding me that I am hungry. I tear a piece off, wishing I had the strength of will to refuse her hospitality. As I eat, she picks up her knife again, chopping the herbs on her table swiftly and neatly, sweeping them into a little pouch that she ties on to her belt. Then she draws a stool closer and sits, facing me expectantly. The weight of everything I have to say feels at once overwhelming, and I cast about for something to delay. ‘The herbs?’ I ask.
‘A soothing blend,’ she says. ‘Dissolved in wine, they lift the spirits, help the drinker to forget his sadness.’
I imagine Menelaus, weeping at the feast for all he lost at Troy. I look at the pouch dangling at Helen’s waist and suck in my breath. ‘Why did you go?’ I blurt out. I wasn’t sure I ever intended to ask the question, to show my weakness by asking what everyone must long to ask her, but I am just as desperate to know.
‘Why do you ask?’ Her eyes are steady on me. ‘Do you think our armies would never have sailed to Troy if I hadn’t?’
I don’t answer.
‘Those who came home returned on ships laden with spoils and women. The bards sing each night of their bravery, their glories, the fame they won there. And Troy, the city everyone thought impermeable, is razed to nothing. Do you really believe that those thousand ships carried men who wanted only to restore one wife to her husband?’ She laughs. ‘I watched from Troy’s towers every day. The battlefield was full of mighty warriors. Everyone said that the gods strode alongside their chosen heroes.’
‘The bards sing of you, too.’ One woman, daughter of Zeus, at the heart of their story. Troy was about one woman, for me at least. My daughter, the first of them all to die. I don’t want to say her name, not here in this room, where my mother used to dress, and Helen and I would play together, what seems like a dozen lifetimes ago or more.
‘I’m sure they do. But did you come here just to ask me that?’
I sigh. Plenty of sons of Zeus fought on that battlefield, earning their place in the legends. What was his daughter supposed to do? If it had been my choice, I would have left her there. If it were up to me, no mother would have lost her children. Helen could have stayed across the ocean forever. ‘My son, Orestes, he was born just after – just after the Greeks left for Troy. Now he has vanished. I hoped he had come here.’
She is already shaking her head. ‘We have had no word of Orestes.’
My stomach drops. ‘Nothing at all?’
‘No.’ She pauses. ‘We heard of what happened to Agamemnon, of course. But your son has sought no sanctuary with us. I would not hide it from you if he did, not for a single heartbeat.’
I look away from her. Tears are burning in my eyes, and I am determined not to let them fall. Could he have died on the journey here? Of course he could. Brigands, beasts, anyone loyal to Aegisthus, any opportunistic thief or false friends ready to betray him for gold or favour. He could have been buried hastily at the roadside, flung into the sea or left on the ground for the crows, anywhere between Mycenae and Sparta.