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“Will I ever get to go home?”
The weight and the longing in that question did not belong in the young voice that posed it. The peaceful quiet that had settled over the room turned mournful; a comb paused in its motions through the young girl’s hair as its wielder considered how best to answer.
“I don’t know,” the woman said, at last. “I wish I could tell you. Perhaps, when you’re older, when Theseus returns…”
The girl shook her head— the comb pulled away to avoid tangling her hair further— and she tipped her head back to look up at the woman. “That’ll be forever from now, Aethra. And I’ll be married, then, and I don’t want to marry Theseus!”
Aethra smiled sadly at the girl’s little pout, but gently pushed her head forward again and returned to brushing. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that for a few years yet. Besides,” her tone turned playful, an attempt to lighten the mood, “you could do far worse than Theseus. He’s a hero, you know.”
“I know, but he’s scary.”
And oh, how Aethra’s heart hurt, knowing her son had inspired fear in such a young soul. She dropped a kiss to the crown of the girl’s head in the only apology she could give— what else could she do, except to offer comfort?
“You’re safe as long as you’re with me,” she said, wishing it were true.
“I was s’posed to be safe in the Temple of Artemis.”
She… the temple? Artemis? Had Theseus taken this child from a Temple of Artemis?
“Yes,” Aethra said, straining to keep her voice from wavering, “you should have been safe there.”
“My handmaiden said, ‘Helen, you can play, but you have to stay in the courtyard’ and I did! I never left.”
Aethra only hummed, her voice too thick to respond properly, but that was alright— Helen was more than happy to speak, clearly having needed an outlet for some time, and the older woman was happy to listen.
“I never left,” she repeated, “and then Theseus and Peirithoos, they, they came and took me away, and they didn’t look happy. They said I was too young.”
Aethra carefully separated Helen’s hair into pieces, preparing to weave them together for sleep. “My son was seeking a wife,” she sighed. “You… are a very special girl, Helen, and everyone says that one day you’ll be a very special woman. I don’t think he was expecting you to be as young as you are.”
“Like my brothers,” Helen agreed, nodding easily, and Aethra moved her hands along with the movement to avoid dropping the hair she was braiding together. “I told Theseus that my brothers would come rescue me, and he didn’t believe me, because we’re the same age. But we’re not, really!”
The words she was saying didn’t quite make sense, but it was late, and Helen was barely nine years old. Aethra tucked the last strands of hair into the braid, and helped Helen hop down from the stool she’d been perched on. The girl yawned and leaned heavily into her elder’s side, and Aethra bent to pick her up and carry her across the room. Once she was deposited gently in her bed, she snuggled under the soft bedding and peered up at her caretaker through quickly drooping eyelids.
“The trip here was scary,” Helen muttered, already half-asleep, “but at least you’re here. You’re not scary.”
The girl was asleep before Aethra could respond.
It was not until much later, after having performed her own evening routine and settled in front of the fireplace in the central room of the gynaeceum, that Aethra realized the true gravity of their situation.
The letter had arrived sometime that day, placed inconspicuously among her other correspondences. This one, however, was not addressed to her by pseudonym (as had been required of her, if her and Helen’s presence in Aphindae was to be kept secret). Rather, it was addressed to her as the mother of Theseus, and read as follows:
Aethra,
I have received word that your son, the hero Theseus, passed through here some months ago, accompanying his brother-in-arms Peirithoos. They were setting out to the Underworld, in an effort to claim the Daughter of Demeter in marriage; a fool’s errand, as I’m sure you understand, for she is already married to the Lord of the Underworld, but one he undertook at the behest of his companion.
I am writing to inform you that they have not returned, and I fear that they will not.
I do not know when word of their disappearance will reach your contemporaries, nor if it has already. I hope that this letter, delivered with the grace and speed of Hermes, offers some advance notice to you, so that you may prioritize your own well-being in whatever future awaits you.
Best of luck,
Your friend
The letter was left unsigned, but Aethra knew its contents were trustworthy; there were only a scant few people who her son would have entrusted her location to, let alone told the details of his most recent— and, as it would seem, final— expedition. Yet, although she knew that the letter could be trusted, it took some time before she could comprehend its purpose or its meaning. They have not returned.
Theseus, her son, had gone to the Underworld.
He would not be coming back.
The paper creased and wrinkled in her hand as Aethra clenched her fist, sitting shocked still and gazing into the fire.
A fool’s errand indeed. She would not mourn her son, not now; not when he had left her here, protected only by the honour of Aphidnus, a man who kept them as a favour to what he would soon learn was a dead man. That was if he didn’t know already. What would become of them? What would become of the women entrusted to Aphidnus for safekeeping— Helen, and Aethra herself, and Physadeia, the sister to Peirithoos who slept soundly but a room away— would they be sent away, to their respective homelands? Would they be kept, as insurance in the event that Theseus should return after all? Would Helen, poised to become one of the most beautiful women in the lands, be ransomed back to her people, or would she be married at Aphidnus’ choice when she came of age?
Aethra knew, of course, that it was far from wise to begrudge the gods their actions, no matter how deeply they meddled in her life. Still, fire danced across her vision, and she couldn’t help but think—
A child of Zeus had been stolen from the Temple of Artemis Orthia, and the gods had not acted.
In a moment of clarity, she understood: perhaps they could not act alone.
Was it not she who waded in the waters at Troezen, laid with Poseidon and King Aegus both so that Theseus might be born with the strength to become a hero? Was it not she who held close the secret of the King’s hidden arms, and led her son to retrieve them?
Was it not she who had cared for Helen as her own since the girl’s abduction, and she on whom it fell to act now?
With only a single deep breath to steel herself, Aethra, Mother of Theseus and Caretaker of Helen, cast the letter into the fire, slipped from the chair to her knees, and in front of the fire she prayed.
“O goddess Athena, hear me, who has twice seen your will carried out, and who asks nothing of you for myself,” she began. And though she spoke softly, her whisper seemed to echo about the room, to fill the shadows cast by flickering flames as her voice gained confidence. “I seek only your guidance, so I may once again perform the role that was given to me; so I might protect those in my care; so I might carry out your will, rather than the will of men who might do me harm.”
The air itself seemed to freeze in her lungs, but she was not afraid; the world around her felt as though it was lying in wait, holding its breath as she was, as flickering light danced behind her eyelids. Without realizing it, Aethra had closed her eyes, but she felt it unwise to open them, so she did not.
Mother of Theseus, the firelight asked, who do you seek to protect?
“The Daughter of Zeus, taken from Sparta not two seasons ago,” she said, and the tension in the air ratcheted higher still. Aethra did not open her eyes.
A new voice could be heard now. Sharper, focused, angry and feminine and powerful. This was a goddess, in all she was, and Aethra did not dare open her eyes.
She who was stolen from my Temple is in your care? The goddess— Artemis— asked, so loud that Aethra could not tell if it were only in her mind or if it were everywhere at once, but it did not matter.
“Yes,” she answered, “Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, who was stolen from the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, is in my care, and it is my wish to see her safe return.”
That was not exactly Aethra’s intention— but as she said it, the words became true. She would see Helen home to Sparta, and she could only pray that the goddesses would see fit to help her however they wished.
To her great relief, Artemis’ rage ebbed somewhat, or at least was no longer aimed at Aethra herself, and the woman found she could breathe again. When next a divine force spoke to her, it was not Artemis; it was the firelight, it was Athena, she who Aethra had called upon, who knew war and struggle and strategy.
Will you truly do what is necessary to see your charge to safety? The goddess asked, and the question hung in the air with a tension that told Aethra her answer to this question would inform the course of her life.
She did not hesitate to answer: “Yes, I will.”
The tension did not break, then; rather, it whirled around her, warm and cold all at once, as though the fire itself had leapt from the confines of its place to encircle her as goosebumps raised on her arms and the voices of two goddesses melded into one.
Very well, the goddesses said. When your rescue should arrive, swift as the strongest horse and warrior, you will know it; and you should be ready to flee the destruction that precedes it.
For a moment, Aethra was taken aback by the wrath she felt in the power that surrounded her. But it was not directed at her— it was directed outward, a beacon of power and divinity that she was sure could be sensed for many miles by anyone inclined to feel it.
Artemis, as though responding to her unspoken shock, remarked with some amusement:
Aphidnus will come to regret his part in this insult to us.
Athena agreed with a wordless hum of power which seemed to pierce straight through Aethra and strengthen her resolve. It is to you to ensure the innocent reach the future that awaits them.
“I understand,” she said. “I will not disappoint you.”
The heavy tension in the air vanished as quickly as it had come; the warmth in the air settled into the chill of a long-dead fire, and slowly, cautiously, Aethra opened her eyes.
The chair she had slipped from had been pushed back, leaving a large open space in front of the fire where she still kneeled, though the fire had burned out, as she suspected. Through the window to her left, Aethra saw the sky was beginning to bleed with the light of dawn. She had not slept, but she wasn’t tired; a fierce determination, a sense of purpose she hadn’t felt in decades, burned bright within her.
She kneeled in the center of a perfect dark circle of ash and coal-dust, whirling symbols marked on the ground around her, until with a single gust of sourceless wind these symbols were obfuscated and swept into a meaningless layer of dust around her.
Well, then. It seemed her first goddess-appointed task was to clean up this mess.
Within a fortnight, the city was burning.
Aethra was ready for it, of course; she had begun preparations that chilled morning, as she came back to herself surrounded by ash and with the echoes of divine power singing in her veins. Still, as all the women of the household were ordered into the gynaeceum, told to stay put until the Spartan threat was passed, she felt as though no preparation could ever truly be enough.
Within the chaos, she sought her charges; Helen, nine years old, scared out of her wits but waiting obediently in her own bedroom, her bag already packed and ready to go. Aethra nodded her approval, and emerged briefly back into the crowd, where she spotted Physadeia— having gathered the last of the supplies they would need, the young woman wove through the forms of these people that they would be leaving behind, but that they’d not really gotten to know in the first place. Nobody noticed her enter Helen’s room; nobody noticed the three of them absent. Worried voices carried into the room as they shut themselves in, but as Physadeia distributed what she’d gathered— some food, and a couple of small knives— between the packs they were each to carry, it felt rather like they were alone. A moment of calm before the storm.
Outside their window, beyond the courtyard, the sun was setting, and an army had breached the castle gates.
“They’re really here for Helen,” Physadeia said, breathless. “I trust you with my life, Aethra, but even I had doubts…”
“Yes, well,” Aethra lifted her own bag over her shoulder, “they won’t get her if they burn this whole place to the ground with us inside,” she threw open the window, and the smell of smoke and the sounds of battle reached them at last. “Come on, both of you, we haven’t got much time.”
Physadeia led the way, dangling from the window ledge before dropping the remaining few feet to the yet-unbreached courtyard below, then helped Helen down after her. This left Aethra as the last one left in the room, and it left her as the only one of the three able to hear as a messenger arrived in the gynaeceum, shouting orders to the women within:
“The invaders are here in search of Helen of Sparta!” she heard, “they are led by the Dioscuri; Aphidnus has requested that Helen be brought to him at once. Where is the girl?”
Aethra didn’t wait to hear the others direct him to Helen’s room; Steeling her resolve, she eased herself through the open window and dropped to the grasses below. If Aphidnus would have his way, she knew Helen would be used as a bargaining chip— a hostage— and she would not allow this. With any luck, her brothers would realize she was no longer in the castle, and turn their attention elsewhere; the innocents within would be safe.
This small courtyard was deceptively peaceful; the clashing of weapons a muffled, distant sound. Once they made their way through a small gateway into the castle grounds proper, though, that ceased to be the case. Shouts and the clash of metal on metal were constant, ringing in the womens’ ears; smoke hung thick and heavy in the air; no matter which way they turned, armed men ran to and from skirmishes in small groups. Helen clung to Aethra’s skirts, and the woman wasted no time in lifting her up and cradling her to her chest as they hid in the cover behind what was once a market stall.
“We’re alright, we’re leaving,” she told the child, casting her eyes about, until— there. A gap in a row of hedges; beyond it, a stack of crates and a tree next to a low wall. She gestured to Physadeia; the younger woman followed her gaze, and though she was at first overwhelmed by the chaos her gaze hardened in determination when she understood Aethra’s plan.
They made their way carefully through the grounds, ducking from one hiding place to the next, until they made it to that tree— then, Physadeia climbed and levered herself onto the wall, before Aethra passed Helen to her and then went over after them.
From there, it should have been simple: they would make their way to the front gates, approach the invading force, and identify themselves. But as they stepped in that direction, something gave Aethra pause; something tugged at her awareness, urged her away, urged her toward the river that served as the border between the palace and the wilds beyond. And as her gaze slid towards the woods, she couldn’t help but think— that river looked like safety, and in the woods beyond, she saw a single doe, its head raised high as though watching them. It turned away and disappeared into the treeline.
“This way,” she told Physadeia, and together they ran down the hill.
Crossing the river was not easy; the waters were relatively gentle, but nearly waist-high at their deepest, and in one terrifying moment, Physadeia slipped, and Aethra had to lurch forwards to catch Helen before they both were swept away. It was worth it, though— looking back the way they’d come, Aethra could see Aphidnus’ men coming around along the outer wall, and she understood then that her intuition— or, more likely, the work of divine forces— had not led her astray.
In any case, they moved a little bit further into the treeline, out of sight of any who might turn their eyes upon the river, and found a place to set up camp.
Helen and Physadeia wore matching wide-eyed expressions, and Aethra sat them both down in a clearing.
“We made it,” she said, “we may be soaked and a little bruised, but we’re out of Aphidnae, alright? You both did wonderfully.”
As they all calmed their racing hearts, as they did their best to dry their clothes and settle in for the night— distributing what food they’d taken with them, eating what they could stomach with the faint fire-glow of the city they’d left behind just across the river— Aethra sent up a small prayer to the gods, to Athena and Artemis, thanking them for seeing them safely out of the city.
You have done well, Aethra, Caretaker of Helen, the voice echoed across the river. Rather than firelight, it was the shimmer of stars which danced in reflection across its surface; the landscape was pristine, wild, as though the city was not there in the first place. The Dioscuri will ensure your safety.
The Dioscuri. Those were Helen’s brothers— Castor and Pollux, themselves divine-blessed warriors. They were there, on the battlefield; they’d come at Aethra’s behest. Relief washed through her.
Your journey is not quite over, Artemis told her, but from here, you will have their guidance and protection. The battle is over— make your way to the road, light a fire, and they will come to you.
“Thank you,” Aethra said, and her voice seemed to echo across the emptiness.
The goddess was amused, again.
Wake, Aethra, she said; the future awaits.