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his return, stumbled from their beds. King Menelaus strode through the palace, saying nothing.
    He peered into my brother’s room and found it empty. “Pleisthenes?” he called softly, and leaned down to touch the fleeces where his son had slept. “Pleisthenes?”
    He checked the room adjoining it Aethra, the former queen and now the boy’s nurse.
    Empty.
    I followed behind him, stepping softly, trying to make no noise. I had to know how he would react, had to see it with my own eyes. Finally he reached the marital chamber that he had shared for more than a dozen years with my mother. He stared at the empty bed. “Helen,” he said, as softly as he had called out to his little son. Then, louder, “Helen!” Of course there was no reply. “Helen!” he shouted. “Helen!” He was answered by silence.
“Helen! Helen!”
Now he was roaring, so loudly that I put my fingers in my ears. “HELEN! HELEN!”
    Menelaus burst out of the bedchamber and rushed down the hall, still shouting my mother’s name. The guards stood stiffly, wincing as he bellowed, frightened by his terrible anger. Still I hurried after him, staying out of his sight, though he saw nothing but his own red rage.
    Finally he charged out of the palace courtyard like an enraged bull and bolted toward the treasure house. I didn’t try to follow him there. It would be just as awful, I knew. I heard him shouting for Pentheus, his vizier. But Pentheus was long gone, surely never to return to shoulder the blame that would be heaped on him.
    The night wore on and morning came. At some point I slept a little, though I’m not sure Father did. When the servants set out a meal at midday, he came to the table, stared at the food with haggard eyes, ate little, but drank a quantity of wine. Still he said nothing. Sometimes he wept. Sometimes he actually laughed, though I didn’t know at what—there was no merriment in it. I wondered if my father had gone mad.
    I continued to tiptoe around him, not knowing what to do. Then the madness left him as suddenly as it had come. He called for a servant and ordered him to have his ship prepared for a voyage.
    Finally he called for me.
    “We’re going to Mycenae, to King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra,” he said. “You will stay with your aunt and cousins, and your uncle and I will go to all of Helen’s rejected suitors and demand that they make good on their oath. Then we will go to Troy and bring your mother home.”
    I collected a few things to take with me, expecting a rather short journey, though Zethus had warned me that it might not be. I decided to take my mother’s silver spindle, and then added the tiny carved ship Zethus had given me. None of my other possessions held any deep meaning.
    I was glad to be leaving our palace at Sparta, with its vast, echoing chambers, suddenly filled only with sadness, misery, and deep anger. I began to look forward to the journey. For a long time I had wished to travel on my father’s great ship. I would see my aunt and cousins again. I had few friends my own age in Sparta. Electra and Chrysothemis paid no attention to me, but I got along well enough with Iphigenia, though she
was
awfully vain. The only cousin I truly liked was Orestes.
    With a company of guards and servants, we traveled down the river to Gythion and boarded Father’s royal ship. Seamen swarmed the deck, preparing for the journey. Slaves hauled up the great anchor stones that dragged on the sea floor. The rowers on their benches bent to their oars, and the ship moved slowly away from shore. When we reached open water, the great white sail was hoisted and caught the wind. The ship gathered speed, skimming the whitecaps, throwing out sparkling necklaces of foam. We sailed southward first, crossed the gulf, and then turned northward and followed the coast of the Peloponnese.
    Father’s broad brow was dark and his manner brooding. We spoke little. At sunset the sail was lowered and the rowers took us toward the