The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

‘There’s nothing I want more,’ he answered, ‘but this isn’t the way to do it. Even if Pleisthenes agrees to come, you’ll be too much of a burden – escape would be impossible. And haven’t you realised yet, Helen? This war isn’t about you any more. It stopped being about you the moment Agamemnon had brought the Greek kings under his command and set sail for Ilium. You’re just the figurehead, something for Agamemnon to point at while he ensures the destruction of the greatest obstacle to his own power. If you return to Menelaus the war would still go on – only Agamemnon would probably have you assassinated and blame it on the Trojans, turning the war from a matter of honour to a matter of revenge.’

‘So you won’t help me?’

‘I can’t.’

‘Not for anything?’

She stood and unfastened the brooch at her shoulder. The chiton slipped down to her feet and she stepped free of it, brushing it aside with her toes. Odysseus swallowed and raised himself onto his elbows, transfixed by the sight of Helen’s naked body. Her oiled skin was a matchless white, broken only by the pink ovals of her nipples and the black triangle of her pubic hair. Then, before he could even think to force his gaze away, she crouched down and slid into the bath. For an agonising moment her nakedness was lost below the water, then she moved towards him and pressed her body against his.

‘I’ll give myself to you, Odysseus,’ she whispered, her face so close he could smell the wine on her breath. ‘Promise to take me away from here and I’ll be yours, right now. Deiphobus is at a feast to honour the visit of King Anchises, Aeneas’s father, from Dardanus; we won’t be disturbed.’

‘No,’ he said, turning his face away.

Helen kissed his cheek and slid her fingers into his hair. The soft weight of her chest pressed down on his and he wavered, looking into her eyes and seeing the promise that was in them. The blood was in her lips and cheeks and he could feel the hardness of her nipples, craving for his touch. The wine in her veins and the grief in her heart had filled her with a reckless desire that cared nothing for what might happen if they were discovered. And her passion was infectious, spreading through the heat of her naked skin into Odysseus so that his arms slipped around her and trapped her body against his. He had not felt the touch of a woman since leaving Ithaca; now, suddenly, the long years of loneliness and need rose up like a great wave that threatened to sweep him away. But as his eyes looked into hers another instinct – deeper than his lust – told him the woman in his arms was not his woman. He seized her by the waist and pushed her away.

‘No!’ he repeated, more firmly this time. ‘I will not betray Penelope.’

‘Don’t be a fool!’ she replied hotly, rising to her feet so that the water streamed from her shoulders and breasts. ‘You want me, I can feel it. And I want you!’

‘You don’t want me, Helen. All you want is for someone to make love to you and help you forget your own misery.’

‘And what of it? Don’t you have the same need? You haven’t seen Penelope in ten years – and surely you haven’t been faithful to her in all that time? Even if you have, what does it matter anyway? Take me now, Odysseus, while you still have the chance – or deny your instincts and continue in the vain, pathetic hope you might one day be reunited with your wife! Can you risk more years without a lover’s touch – a touch that for all your faithfulness you might never know again?’

Odysseus thought of the oracle he had been given under Mount Parnassus, which had solemnly announced that if he went to Troy he would not see his home again for twenty years. One decade had already passed; could he bear to wait another? And then he remembered the old oracles that had said the war would end in the tenth year, and the new ones that promised Troy would fall if the Palladium could be stolen from the city. No, he insisted to himself, he would bring the war to a finish and sail back to his wife – and the pleasure of a few moments would not mar that homecoming for him. He pulled himself up onto the edge of the bath.

‘I’m sorry, Helen. You’re not in your right mind, and even if you were I could never become your lover. Nor can I help you escape from Troy – with or without Pleisthenes.’

Her eyes were ablaze now.

‘If you refuse to help me get out then I’ll make sure you share my imprisonment. All it would take is a single scream.’

Odysseus swung his legs out of the water and stood. A stack of folded towels waited on a nearby stool; he took one and began drying himself.

‘Then call the guard.’

She glared at him from the bath, provoked to rage by his rejection and tempted to accept his challenge. Then she lowered her face into her hands and sobbed. Odysseus stopped rubbing his hair and looked on helplessly for a moment, before throwing the towel about his waist and kneeling at the water’s edge.

‘Here,’ he said, offering her his hand.