Andromache at Epirus

Helen rubbed her hands together swiftly, heating her palms with the friction. For a moment, her warm touch soothed Andie's aching lower leg. Then her fingers sank into the tight knot in Andie's calf muscle, eliciting a hiss of pain.

“Breathe,” Helen commanded gently.

“Achaean whore,” Andie growled between clenched teeth.

“You can’t cuss me out unless you breathe,” Helen responded with a sweet smile. She rolled her thumb in an expert massage, forcing the tight muscle to release. “Three. Two. One and a half—”

“God-jism in a stolen gown!” Andie gasped.

Helen laughed as she eased off Andie’s calf. Her thumbs moved forward, sliding up and down the oiled shin. “Just like old times,” she said. Her sky-like eyes fixed on, or rather through, the nearest wall. The blonde’s lovely face had taken on a serene, dreamy expression, as if her mind had wandered somewhere lovely.

Andie’s gut quivered at the sight of Helen’s reverie. There were a lot of sensations going on in her swollen body, and she didn’t appreciate adding nostalgia to the list. “Is it?” she snapped.

Helen blinked and met her gaze. “What?”

“Is it just like old times?”

Helen looked from Andie’s face, bare of cosmetics; down her dark braid, with no pearls or golden beads; to her simple cotton dress. After a long silence, Helen said, “You’re as lovely as you ever were.”

Andie snorted.

“Does the other leg hurt, too?” Helen asked. “Your ankles swelled up so badly with Astyonax.”

Andie slammed her eyelids shut and took a slow, deep breath.

“By thunder!” Helen dropped Andie’s leg and scrambled forward a little to hold her hands. “Andromache. I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned him. I got so caught up in the memories and thinking about the two of us as sisters-in-law. It just slipped out of my mouth. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shut your cock-sucking lips,” Andie snarled. She mentally wrestled her rage into a submission hold. When she opened her grave-dark eyes, each one released a furious tear.

“You aren’t wrong to blame me,” Helen moped.

“Don’t project your sense of guilt on me,” Andie said. “Or do. Whatever. I just don’t have to hear about it. I know you’ve got all sorts of grief and trauma and healing going on. So do we all. And some of us more than others.”

Helen produced a fine linen handkerchief and dabbed at Andie’s cheeks. “Of course all the survivors of the war are traumatized. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to visit. You and I can be there for each other, just like loving sisters.”

Andie stared.

“There,” Helen said, brightening. “I knew you couldn’t stay angry with me for too long.”

“I’m just so impressed by your audacity,” Andie said. “Sisters? We had been wed by the laws of a land that was shattered and sown with salt, to brothers who both died.”

“You and I are still here,” Helen said. “We’re still connected.”

Andie spoke slowly, as if to a confused child: “We are only connected now because I am your daughter’s husband’s slave.”

Helen sighed. “About that.”

Andie blinked, her expression neutral.

Helen asked, “Is this baby definitely his? Neoptolymus has other bastards, but none by a former princess. It would look really bad if you gave him a son before my daughter even got pregnant.”

“It is his,” Andie said through clenched teeth. “I haven’t given myself to anyone since my beloved Hector died.”

Helen didn’t give any indication of parsing that sentence. “You didn’t curse Hermione with infertility using dark magic from Colchis, did you? People are saying you cast a spell on her womb and you’re trying to take her place as Queen of Epirus.”

“Go to the nearest Temple of Zeus,” Andie said. “Sacrifice fine bulls to your father, and gift your best golden bracelets and necklaces to the priests. If you beg the Lord of the Skies prettily enough, he might finally grant you a brain.”

The two women regarded each other.

Helen burst into laughter. “I missed your wit.”

“I’m not joking,” Andie said. “I didn’t like you before, and your affection is very insulting now.”

“I know.” Helen dipped her fingers in olive oil again and got to work on the muscles of Andie’s other leg. “Ten years in close quarters, and we never did become friends. But.” Her fingers dug into another muscle knot, making Andie hiss. “We wove on the same loom. We worked together to doctor sick children and injured soldiers. The night I miscarried, you cried with me. The night your first child died, I cried w—”

“It hurts!” Andie interrupted, turning in her seat so suddenly that her leg slipped out of Helen’s grasp. For a silent moment, she stared at Helen’s face, enhanced by subtle touches of cosmetics; her golden hair, topped with a fine jeweled diadem; her fine gown, once a prized possession of the Queen of Troy.

Helen opened her mouth to speak.

Andie interrupted again. “Go away, Helen. Or give me some menial command. Either be a sister who cares enough to give me space when I need it, or be a visiting queen who can order her host’s slaves around. This weird in-between treatment, where I am not free to get the Tartarus away from you, but you act all nice? It is sick.”

“Kassandra died.” Helen’s face once again took on its dreamy expression.

Grief flared in Andie’s chest, compounded by the heartburn that had become painfully frequent in the past weeks. Kassandra died. Kassandra, a sister-in-law Andie had liked, was dead.

Helen’s eyes focused on nothing at all. “They’re all gone, Andie. Polyxena was so nice. Mother Hecuba always had that incredible poise. And Kassandra, poor mad girl—”

“Mad,” Andie echoed, unheeded.

“—My sister—my real sister, I mean. Klytemnestra saw that Kassandra was going to give Agamemnon a baby and become the Queen of Mycenae.” Helen’s words came faster and faster. “She killed them both. Now here is another princess captured at Troy, bearing the child of an Achaean king who is married to another spiteful woman of my blood.” Her voice gained volume as her mouth sped onwards. “It’s happening again. It’s happening again. Klytemnestra and I have the same mother. We are supposed to care about each other but she stabbed someone who was like a sister to me because of a man. It’s happening again. It’s happening again. Hermione came out of my own womb—not that I know her, I was stolen away when she was so young—but I love my daughter, of course I love my daughter. I love my daughter, but I can’t let her—she’s going to—Her father is going to make her do it—I can’t let her—”

Helen’s emotional frenzy devolved into keening sobs and desperate gasps. The fetus inside Andie wiggled, possibly curious about the noises it could hear through all the fluids and flesh of its protective shell.

Another slave came in: Irusya, Neoptolymus and Hermione’s head housekeeper. Her ancient gaze met Andie’s. She wordlessly left.

Andie considered the sobbing demigod at her feet. An unmistakable pull in her heart urged her to wrap her arms around Helen in comfort. Briefly, she thought about slapping sense, or at least silence, into Helen’s face. A small part of her mind clenched with envy, because even a runny nose and puffy red eyes couldn’t detract from Helen’s divine beauty.

She didn’t make a conscious decision to act. She simply realized that, some time between Irusya’s departure and Hermione’s entrance, Andie had joined Helen on the cold stone floor. She ran her fingers through sobbing Helen’s flawless golden hair and murmured gentle comforts.

For a few minutes, Andie had no time for observations. Irusya made up a bed near the fire. Andie and Hermione maneuvered the insensible Helen onto it.

Wine and a blanket calmed Helen down enough to demand a series of promises from Hermione. “I wasn’t going to stab her anyway, Mother… Yes, Mother, I’ll swear any oath you like that I won’t let Father make me murder anyone… I promise I won’t be unkind to any woman unfortunate enough to get dragged into my jerk husband’s bed… Oh, I am beyond happy to disown Klytemnestra…”

Eventually, Helen closed her eyes . Her breaths slowed to the deep, gentle rhythm of sleep.

That’s when Andie really took in the sight of Hermione, Queen of Epirus, granddaughter of Zeus, descendent of the storied and cursed House of Atreus. The young woman was dressed like a boy.

“All right, then,” Hermione said. She lifted a full bag Andie hadn't previously seen from the floor to her shoulder. “Good luck with the baby. Take good care of Epirus. Oh, and you may want to avoid my father. He really did latch on to the idea that you have to die to cement my marriage to that predatory piece of crap, Neoptolymus.” She started to leave.

“Hey!” Even this far into her pregnancy, Andromache easily outpaced Hermione. She wedged her athletic, if rounder than usual, body between the younger woman and the door. “I would slit a hundred men's throats if it meant I could spend just one more moment with my family. Are you really going to abandon your mother?”

Hermione rolled her sky-like eyes. “You’ve met my mother. You called her a war-mongering cock addict this morning.”

“And I called you Queen Whinybitch this afternoon,” Andromache snapped. “It doesn’t mean I don’t want the best for you.”

“What do you really think is best for me, Andromache? Wallowing in the shadow of Helen and Menelaus? Enduring the unwelcome thrusts of a man whose one and only virtue is that his dead father sliced up your dead husband?”

“So, what, you’re going to leave me with Neoptolymus instead?” As soon as the words left Andie’s mouth, heavy anxiety pressed down on her chest.

Hermione shook her head slowly. Her expression gentled to pity. “I’m not leaving at you, Andie. I’m just leaving.” She stepped around Andie and resumed her walk towards the door. Andie watched her touch the latch. “I meant what I said about my father,” Hermione said over her shoulder. “And I mean it when I tell you that I hope you fare well.”

The door closed behind her, leaving Andie utterly alone.

Except, old Irusya and the sleeping Helen remained by the fire.

Andie pulled a wooden stool beside them. “What do you make of it all, Irusya?”

A derisive sound burst out of the housekeeper’s lips. “We mortals do not get the luxury
Of carving our own fates upon the stars.
Just look at you: a princess from the East,
Who bore an heir to sit the throne of Troy,
Now friendless property who warms a bed
For Thetis’s ungrateful grandson. No.
Don’t ask me what I make of demigods,
Or quests, or heroes and their vengeful plots.
Plain humans? You and me? They’ll never care.
We’re only pawns, not players in their games.”

The future great-grandchild of the water goddess Thetis kicked Andie from the inside. “Thank you, Irusya. I needed to hear that.”

The old housekeeper patted her knee and left.

Andie pressed a hand to Helen's shoulder. “Wake up.”

“Mmph.” She was the divine image of slumber.

“Wake up, you selfish bimbo.”

Even after a cry, wine, and a truncated nap, Helen seamlessly became the epitome of smiling attention. “Andromache. You stayed beside me. Where is Hermione?”

It didn’t escape Andie that Helen didn’t ask about Irusya.

“Your daughter left. I’m leaving, too. I’m going to the temple of Thetis.”

“Are you going to sacrifice bulls to her and ask her to give me a brain?” Helen joked.

“No. I’m going to point out to her that unless she protects me from your husband’s murderous intentions, her latest descendent will die with me.” Andie patted her baby-bump for emphasis.

“Smart move!”

Andie shrugged. “Yeah, well. It beats dying. Or enduring the unwelcome thrusts of a man whose one and only virtue is that his dead father sliced up my dead husband.”

Helen shook her head. “You always had the sharpest mind and the crudest mouth.”

Andie didn’t bother telling her that this particular phrasing had originally come from Helen’s own daughter. Instead, she said, “Do you want to come with me?”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to be all sisterly. I figured I’d give you the option to come with me.”

First, Helen gave Andie a radiant smile. Then her brow furrowed at unpleasant thoughts. “If I really were stupid, I would assume I could run so far from Menelaus that he would never track me down. If I really were selfish, I would inflict that hunt on you.”

Andie’s abdomen tightened painfully. She winced. “You’re staying.”

“I’m staying.”

“Well, fuck.”

Helen opened her arms. Andie accepted the offered hug, then left before another contraction could hit her.

They never did become friends. They never would be sisters. They hadn’t ever had a conversation that wasn’t about men. Still, each one grieved the other as they parted ways.