She flushed when I entered the room. “Hector,” she said.
“Yes, wife. I have come for some wine. Do you still keep the Chian by the kitchen door?”
“All is in waiting for your return, husband, just like you left it.”
I brushed past her and found a cup and filled it. When I returned, she had set aside her sewing.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Well enough. The war... and now those fools...”
“I know. They want to send you out against Achilles.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“They’ve talked of nothing but that for days. Helen has even been to see the king. She’s very persuasive, they say. If you had stopped here, I would have warned you.” There was gentle reproach in her voice. And then I thought that of all the Trojans, the only one the war had not changed for the worse was Andromache. Kind, caring Andromache. I should ask for her forgiveness. She would grant it. But that was another Hector. I had lost him years ago.
She waited in silence, as if giving me time to order my thoughts.
“You are still a man of truth, are you not? No one has yet called you a liar.”
“There is that, at least,” I said. “I still have my honor.”
“Then I will ask for the truth, husband, on your honor. People have whispered things. Some out of concern, some out of cruelty. I laughed in their faces and called them fools, ignoring my growing doubt. But now I need to hear it from an honorable man. Did you make love to Helen?”
Gods, did she doubt that? If so, she was the only one left in the city. But she had sworn me to tell the truth.
“Yes, wife. I made love to Helen.”
“Many times?”
“Many times.” It sounded shameful when I said the words.
“Do you love her?”
I could not answer that. Did I love Helen? Or was it only some primal force, an earthquake that I had fallen victim to? Was there a difference between need and love?
“Your silence is answer enough,” she said at last. Then she sighed, and it sounded like a hundred years of sorrow captured in a single breath. “I never liked Helen, you know. I didn’t like her from the moment we met. Helen of the golden hair. Helen the beautiful. Helen who launched a thousand ships. How could I like her? Look at me. I’m plain. I have no wit for conversation. I only have love. What man is ever satisfied with that?”
She stood up and brushed the scraps off her lap.
“Once I heard they wanted you to face Achilles, I went to the armorers and had them make new armor. Yours is old and scarred, like you. But now you will stand for Troy in single combat. It would not do for the stories to say you faced great Achilles looking like a beggar.”
“Stories?”
“That is what we make here now. They are already singing some of them. I’ve heard the Achaean prisoners reciting like bards.”
“And what do they say?”
“That the end is near. When you start to pass into story and song, you know there is not much time left.” She put her hands to her eyes and rubbed them. “You have hurt the people who love you most.”
I thought about that. There was blame to be shared all around. I had been hurt far worse in return.
She dropped her head. A tear fell from her downcast eyes. “Wear my armor, husband. It is my gift to you for all that you have done. Stay home tonight. I will leave and sleep elsewhere. I have a few last-minute adjustments to make to the armor’s fittings. It will be here in the morning when you awake. I will send Helen to you. Don’t worry, I will see to it that Paris is occupied.”
“If I see Helen, I will kill her. She has betrayed me.”
“Now I have seen it all. Hector telling a lie.”
“I mean it. I will.”
“So you think. I won’t be watching tomorrow when you fight Achilles. I will be here at my loom. I will tell our son one of the stories they are singing about you.”
“I never should have left you.” It was all the apology I could give her.
“No,” she agreed. “You never should have left me.”
Helen came to me at dark. I was sitting in my chair, clutching the dagger I intended to kill her with. She carried a lamp and I could see her face. She was frowning.
“I have been waiting.”
She raised the lamp and stepped closer until she could see me plainly. Then she smiled.
“Why do you smile at men?” I asked.
“I only smile at men when they smile at me. My mother taught me it was good manners. Sometimes I think it was bad advice. Maybe if I had returned a scowl to all your smiles, none of this would have happened.”
I had to touch my face to be sure. I was smiling. I had been smiling ever since I sat down in the chair, it seemed. Andromache was right. I could never kill Helen.
We made love for the last time. I still found peace in her arms. Tomorrow the gods would judge me. Tonight was not the time for judgments.
When at last I lay exhausted on the bed coverings, questions came to me like crows circling above a battlefield.
“Why did you tell Paris we shared a bed?”
“Do you think I am a fool? I would never tell him that. He would have killed me. When he came to me two weeks ago and asked me, I denied it.”
“Then why did you mention it to my wife?”
“You are full of accusations tonight, Hector. I did not tell your wife. We hardly talk. She doesn’t like me.”
“I will pretend to believe your lies. I know you went to my father. Why did you urge him to send me out against Achilles?”
“I never told him that. I told him to send me to the Achaeans adorned in gold. Was that not your plan?”
“It was. But how did you know that? I never told you.”
“You talk far too much when you drink. When it comes to secrets, you can’t keep your tongue still.”
That is when I finally understood Helen. She had betrayed me to my brother, my wife, and my father because she did not want to return to Agamemnon. She was angry that I would think of casting her aside.
“What did my father say when you told him of your plan?”
“He laughed and asked me why every woman in Troy seemed to have a scheme to end the war. Then he grabbed me and tried to kiss me.”
Exactly the behavior I would expect from a drunken old stoat.
“The gods know why you have plotted to destroy me, Helen. I do not care. I am a fool.”
“That, at least, is not a lie,” she said, and kissed me. I fell asleep beside her. Later, when day was just beginning to creep into the sky, I heard Andromache and Helen talking in another room. Then Andromache left. I lay in silence, listening and waiting. A long time passed before Helen came back to my bed.
“Your armor is here. Shouldn’t you be preparing?”
“I no longer command the host. Let Paris gather the troops and explain his battle plan to the captains. He has been up all night, worrying and fretting. Eventually he will notice I am missing and he will panic and send a herald to fetch me. I can steal a few more minutes of rest until then.”
Helen covered me with a light blanket. “I will send someone to help you with your armor. I never learned to do it. The things that men use to kill each other unsettle me.”
I laid my head back on the pillow but I was no longer able to sleep.
Our men fought with ardor in the morning. They knew the war would end before the sun had passed its zenith. I waited in the rear, where Paris had placed me. At midmorning he dashed up beside me, his chariot drawn by two foam-flecked horses.
“We have found Achilles. He is on the left of the battle line. Face him and defeat him, brother!” I could hear the excitement in his voice.