Heir of Troy: The Third Son

The east wing was quiet in the days after the council’s decision. Not the quiet of peace—the quiet of a house holding its breath, waiting for the next blow to fall. Paris had chosen these rooms deliberately, far from the council chamber, far from the barracks, far from the eyes that followed Helen wherever she went. But distance could only do so much.

He found her at the window, as he always did now. She spent hours there, looking down at the garden, the bare fig tree, the empty benches. Watching. Waiting. He had asked her once what she was looking for. She had said she wasn’t looking for anything. She was just looking.

"Arsini says you’ve been working through the night again," he said.

"The inventory won’t count itself." She didn’t turn from the window. "There are forty-three different types of medical supplies in the main storehouse. Antiphus has them organized by wound type—lacerations, fractures, burns, fevers. Did you know that."

"No."

"I didn’t either. I’ve been learning." She paused. "It helps. Having something to do with my hands."

He came to stand beside her. The garden below was grey and cold, the winter light pale on the stones. "You could have stayed in the room. No one would blame you."

"I would blame me. I didn’t come here to hide in a room." She turned to face him. "Your mother said I should make myself useful. So I’m being useful. The supply office needed help. Arsini needed help. I can read and write and count. It’s not much, but it’s something."

"It’s more than something. It’s what’s going to keep this city alive when the siege comes."

"The siege." She looked back at the garden. "Everyone talks about it like it’s inevitable. Like the fleet is already on the horizon."

"The fleet is already on the horizon. We just can’t see it yet."

"Your brother Lysander—he said the same thing. He said the war was coming whether I was here or not. That I was just the excuse Agamemnon needed." She wrapped her arms around herself. "But I’m still the excuse. Every man who dies on those walls will die because of a story about me."

"Every man who dies on those walls will die because Agamemnon wants control of the strait. You’re not the cause. You’re the story he tells."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it’s true."

She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "When I was a girl, my father used to tell me that beauty was a gift. A blessing from the gods. He said it would open doors for me. Bring me power. Bring me influence." She paused. "He was wrong. Beauty isn’t a gift. It’s a curse. It makes people want to possess you. Use you. Fight over you. It turns you into a prize instead of a person. The only time anyone ever looked at me and saw a human being was when your brother Lysander came to Sparta, three years ago, and asked me what I wanted. He was the first person who ever asked me that."

Paris said nothing. He knew the story. Lysander had told him, years ago, about the garden in Sparta, the conversation with Helen, the treaty he had built to protect her. It was the reason Paris had gone west in the first place. The reason he had found her again.

"Your brother saw me," she continued. "He didn’t want anything from me. He just asked me a question. And then he left. And I stayed in that palace for three more years, waiting for someone else to ask me that question. No one did. Until you."

"I asked you a lot of questions. Most of them foolish."

"Some of them weren’t." She turned to him. "You asked me what I wanted. You asked me if I was happy. You asked me if I wanted to leave. No one had ever asked me those things before."

"And you answered."

"I answered." She reached up and touched his face. "I’m here because I chose to be here. Not because you seduced me or tricked me or stole me away like a thief in the night. I chose. And I’m tired of everyone in this city looking at me like I’m a prize you won in a contest."

"They’ll stop. Give them time."

"Will they. Or will they always see me as the woman who started the war."

Paris had no answer for that. He wanted to tell her it would get better. That the whispers would fade. That the staring would stop. But he didn’t know if any of that was true.

Instead, he said, "Come with me."

"Where."

"Anywhere. Just for an hour. You’ve been in this room for three days."

She looked at the window, the garden, the grey sky. Then she nodded. "All right. Just for an hour."

He took her to the library.

It was empty at this hour, the scribes and scholars still at their morning duties. The shelves were lined with clay tablets, thousands of them, the accumulated knowledge of a city that had been standing for centuries. The smell of old clay and lamp oil hung in the air. A single window let in the pale winter light.

Helen walked between the shelves, her fingers brushing the edges of the tablets. "I’ve never seen so many books."

"They’re not books. They’re records. Trade agreements. Supply manifests. Tax rolls. Diplomatic correspondence. Lysander organized them by subject and date. He says knowledge is useless if you can’t find it."

"He would." She stopped at a shelf near the back, where a small tablet lay apart from the others. It was covered in cramped handwriting—not the neat script of a professional scribe, but the hurried, personal strokes of someone writing for themselves. "What’s this."

Paris looked at the tablet. "That’s Lysander’s. His personal notes. He keeps them here so no one will bother them."

"What are they about."

"I don’t know. He doesn’t show them to anyone." Paris paused. "He’s been writing on that tablet since he woke up from the fall. Arsini says it’s his way of keeping track of things. Lessons. Principles. Things he doesn’t want to forget."

Helen looked at the tablet for a moment longer, then set it back on the shelf. "He’s strange, your brother. He looks at everything like he’s measuring it. Calculating. Trying to figure out where it fits."

"He does that. He can’t help it."

"Arsini says he counts things. Ships. Lamp refills. Training repetitions. She says it’s how he stays sane."

"Arsini talks too much."

"She’s worried about him. She has been for years." Helen turned to face him. "She loves him, you know. She’s loved him since before I arrived. She probably loved him before she knew she loved him."

"I know."

"Does he know."

"I think so. He’s not very good at saying things like that. But I think he knows."

Helen walked back toward the window, where the pale light fell on a small reading table. "When this is over—if we survive—what do you want."

The question caught him off guard. "I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead."

"Think about it now."

He was quiet for a moment. "I want to marry you. Properly. In the garden, under the fig tree, with my family around us. I want to build a house somewhere quiet, away from the palace. I want to watch the sun rise over the sea and not worry about what ships are on the horizon." He paused. "I want to be ordinary. Just for a little while."

She smiled—a real smile, the first he had seen since they arrived. "That’s a good answer."

"What about you. What do you want."

"I want to stop being a symbol. I want to stop being the most beautiful woman in the world, the prize that men fight over, the excuse that kings use to start wars. I want to be just Helen. Just a woman. Just yours."

"You’re already mine."

"I know. But the rest of the world doesn’t."

He took her hand. "Then we’ll make them see. It might take time. It might take years. But we’ll make them see."

She looked at their joined hands. "You make a lot of promises."

"I keep them."

"I know." She kissed him—quick, light, a promise—then pulled back. "Now take me back to the supply office. Arsini will be wondering where I am."

That evening, Paris found Hector in the war room, alone. His brother was standing at the map, his hands braced on the table, staring at the coastline as if he could will the enemy fleet out of existence.

"Helen wants to help," Paris said.

"She’s already helping. Arsini says she’s been working through the night."

"I know. But she wants to do more. She wants to feel useful."

Hector turned from the map. "What did you have in mind."

"I don’t know. Something. Anything. She’s been a prisoner in her own palace for years. She’s been told her whole life that she’s only valuable because of her face. She needs to feel like she’s contributing. Like she’s part of this city."

Hector was quiet for a moment. "Andromache said something similar. About Helen. She said she saw her in the garden, looking at the harbour. She said she looked like someone who had been waiting her whole life for someone to give her a chance."

"Andromache would know."

"Yes. She would." Hector looked at the map again. "There’s a meeting tomorrow. The settlement leaders. Maea and Shebek and the others. They’re coordinating the evacuation plan—bringing everyone inside the walls if the fleet comes. Your woman can read and write. We need someone to take records."

"You want Helen to take minutes at a council meeting."

"It’s not glamorous. It’s not heroic. But it’s useful. Can she do it."

"Yes. She can do it."

"Then tell her to report to Maea at dawn." Hector turned back to the map. "Now let me work. The fleet won’t wait for us to be ready."

That night, Lysander sat alone in the supply office, the lamp burning low. The tablet was open in front of him—the small clay tablet he had been writing on for two years. He had added a new line.

The work is not the point. The people are the point.

He stared at the words for a long time. Then he picked up his stylus and added one more.

We are not fighting for walls. We are fighting for each other.

He set the stylus down and looked at the tablet. Twelve lines now. Twelve lessons, scratched into clay, carried with him through the plague, the fires, the black ships, the endless weight of preparation. He didn’t know if he would ever show them to anyone. They were not a strategy. They were not a plan. They were something else—a record of what he had learned, what he had become, what he was still trying to be.

Footsteps in the corridor. Arsini appeared at the door, her tablet under her arm. "You’re still awake."

"So are you."

"The inventory won’t count itself." She came to stand beside him. "Helen is working hard. She’s good with numbers. Better than I expected."

"She’s been a queen. Queens know how to manage things."

"She’s been a prisoner. There’s a difference." Arsini paused. "She’s trying to prove herself. To your family. To the city. To herself."

"I know."

"It’s not going to be easy. The council still wants her gone. The priest is still preaching against her. Half the city still blames her for the war."

"I know."

"But she’s still here. Still working. Still fighting." Arsini looked at him. "She reminds me of someone."

"Who."

"You. Two years ago. When you first started building walls and no one believed in you." She reached out and took his hand. "You proved them wrong. Maybe she will too."

He looked at their joined hands. "You always know what to say."

"I’ve had two years of practice." She almost smiled. "Now come to bed. The fleet won’t wait for us to be rested."

He let her lead him away from the desk, away from the tablet and the numbers and the endless calculations. Outside, the wind stirred the bare branches of the fig tree. The harbour was dark. The city was quiet. Somewhere in the west, a thousand ships were preparing to sail.

But tonight, there was only the quiet, and the warmth, and the woman who had been counting his lamp refills for two years. And that was enough.