Helen of Troy by Margaret George

afraid?” I said, knowing she would have to prove she was not.
    She scoffed. “Me?” She took a deep breath. “All right, let’s hurry!”
    Looking around nervously, we slipped out the postern gate and hurried down the slope of the hill. The shade from the hill’s olive and cypress trees gave way to bright sunshine once we were out from under them, making the green of the meadows dazzling.
    “It’s prettier than jewels!” I said. I ran into the open meadow, feeling the cool grass against my legs, surprised by the flowers hidden in the grasses—little purple ones, lacy white ones, clusters of pink blooms.
    “Helen!” Clytemnestra’s usual commanding voice held a note of worry. “Helen!”
    My head was barely taller than the stalks of grass and weeds, and I waved my arms at her. “I’m here.”
    “Come out now, before I lose you,” she said. “The grass here is too high.”
    We stayed on the path that led to the river, making our way down to the banks. Here, once again, we had shade—under the tamarisks and willows that grew near water, their freshly budding branches throwing shadows on banks and stream. The muddy water swirled past, turning and flipping up little flecks of white.
    “The water nymph is waving,” said Clytemnestra. She seemed to remember something that made her smile.
    “Which one lives here?” I wondered.
    “I don’t know her name,” Clytemnestra said. But somehow I knew she did. She just did not want to say it. Perhaps it was sacred.
    I came close by the edge of the water, to a place where the rushes grew. “I would like to see her.” I had to speak loudly for my voice to carry over the murmur of the water in the rushes. I stuck one toe in, and found it chilly. The snows on the Taygetus Mountains were still melting.
    Clytemnestra came and stood beside me. Our reflections were rippling in the water beneath us. I bent over to see mine better, but Clytemnestra pulled me back.
    “Don’t,” she said.
    I felt I must see what I looked like. I found a surprising strength to push against Clytemnestra, who was so much larger than I. Her grip loosened for an instant, and in that instant I lunged forward and saw a face staring wide-eyed back at me, as startled as I was in beholding it.
    I looked nothing like I had imagined, although I already knew—from my furtive look in Mother’s mirror—that my eyes were green-brown and had thick dark lashes, and that my lips were full and curved. Now I could see it all, see my face as those around me saw it.
    I leaned farther over, until I almost touched the water, and then my nose did touch it, and the image broke into ripples and shards, dancing away. I held my breath and waited for it to become still, so that once again I could gaze on my image and see what others had been seeing and had been denied me, could study it and memorize it. It dictated my life, it kept me a prisoner, so should I not know what it was?
    “No.” Clytemnestra pulled my arm back. “Stop, or you’ll end up like Narcissus.” She took a deep breath. “The man who fell so in love with his own reflection in the water that Apollo turned him into a flower. Is that what you want?” She kept her voice light, but she could not hide the fear from me. What was she afraid of?
    “No,” I said, obediently stepping back, for she had succeeded in frightening me. “I would not want to be rooted in any one place, even a place as lovely as this riverbank.”
    But once we were back on the sunny path leading to the city, my apprehension faded away. I had seen nothing, after all, but a reflection, and no face had any power in and of itself, at least no human face.

    The path meandered, sometimes ranging far out into the meadow on its way to the city, sometimes turning back to hug the riverbank again. By now the sun was high enough even in this early spring to make the shade welcome whenever we walked under trees again by the water. At one point the river widened, making a dark pool.