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The game had grown to the point Tyndareus came out to observe accompanied by a red-haired young man who viewed them with good-natured amusement. "You need to make tents for the warlords," Tyndareus got down on one knee to gesture with a grand sweep of his hand.
He looked up. "This is Menelaus, Agamemnon's brother. He's come to look at our horses. What do you think, do they need more than tents to make this site true?"
Menelaus knelt beside Helen. "Do you often play in the dirt with your brothers?"
Helen swept her hair out of her eyes with a small part of her arm that still remained clean. "They are playing with me. I began the game with Omalu and Castor wanted to play. Now Pollux has deigned to join us."
Menelaus laughed as the boys shrugged to admit they were indeed playing her game. "How old are you, sweet child?"
"Helen is six," Tyndareus answered. He noticed how closely Menelaus regarded her, and growing uneasy, he rose and stretched to his full height. "We meant to look at horses rather than play with my children." He took a step in the direction of the stables and Menelaus got to his feet and followed.
Castor waited until the men could not overhear. "He wants you, Sister."
She moved a rope warrior onto his stick horse. "He wants me for what?"
Pollux laughed at the innocence of her question. "At last we know something Helen doesn't."
Helen eyed him coolly. "Maybe it's not worth knowing."
"We'll have to wait and see," Pollux replied, and he went for another pot of water to refill his newly created sea.
* * *
Leda shook her head as her maidservants scrubbed Helen clean for the second night in a row. "You're dirty to the ends of your hair. How did making little rope dolls inspire you to play at war?"
Helen held out her arms, and the soapy water dripped off her fingertips into the large terracotta tub. "They were rope warriors, what else would they do?"
"And your brothers encouraged you. I'm angry with them too."
"Who's scrubbing them?" Helen asked.
"They can wash themselves," Leda argued, "so everyone will be clean for tonight's meal. Menelaus could not make up his mind on a horse, so he's staying the night."
"Castor said he wants me. What does that mean?"
Leda bit her lip. "It means only that he thinks beneath the dust, you are a very pretty little girl. Do not speak to him alone, Helen. You must never be alone with any man. Do you understand me?"
Helen thought of the handsome man who had given her the pomegranate. It had to have been all right to be with him. She gazed up at her mother with a charming, innocent gaze. "I understand." But she really did not.
* * *
Tyndareus, Menelaus, Castor and Pollux ate in the andron where they would talk about horses half the night, while Helen, her mother, and Clytemnestra, ate on the second floor of the palace where Leda had her rooms. Helen was hungry and chewed the last savory morsel from a rib. Her mother and sister were talking about the quality of a new weaver's work, and she soon grew bored with their conversation and asked to be excused. The instant her mother gave a slight nod, she bolted from the table and went to her room.
Omalu had eaten with the other servants and was seated on the end of Helen's bed creating a doll with a many-colored skirt. "I'm making a queen for you."
Helen watched her twist and tie scraps to form a doll larger than any of the others they had made. "I like her, but we must leave her here in my room rather than take her outside to our battlefield where she'd soon become dirty."
"The queen belongs on her throne, not on the battlefield," Omalu offered.
Helen climbed up on the bed. "I know, but if I were a queen, I'd don gleaming bronze armor and lead the warriors into battle myself."
Omalu laughed. "You wouldn't be strong enough to hold a sword."
"I will be when the time comes," Helen promised. "You'll see." She stretched her legs over the side of the bed and wiggled her toes. "Maybe I'll urge them on from the back of my horse."
"A good plan," the little maidservant agreed, and Helen giggled with her.
Chapter 5
