Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

in years. Others would speak of wives and children, while Menelaus would show off his own family. I loved how Menelaus loved his children.
    But when parties were over, and we withdrew to our rooms, Helen would give her husband a light kiss on the forehead and waft away. They did not spend the night together as often as they should.
    I had been in the palace two weeks when Menelaus' older brother Agamemnon came to hear about the voyage to Troy.
    As Helen was a golden woman, Agamemnon was a golden man. He was much more king than Menelaus. The gods choose the body, and how the gods had chosen for Agamemnon! He was exceedingly handsome and as frightening as a shipload of pirates. You could feel all over him theblood he had shed, the cities he had sacked and the ships he had sunk.
    “How's my Pleis?” said Menelaus, taking his little son from Rhodea and nuzzling Pleis' throat and cheeks. “How's my big boy? Snuggle with me, little son. Keep me warm.”
    Helen turned her face away and saw me, which only increased her annoyance. She said to Agamemnon, “That dull little sparrow, we are told, is the daughter of the king of Siphnos. You remember that fellow Nicander, who boldly cheated Apollo.”
    My cheeks went red with shame, as if Nicander really were my father and I really did carry his crime. I could not meet the eyes of Agamemnon, lord of lords.
    “
We are told
that she is the daughter of Nicander?” repeated Agamemnon, grinning. His wide face was sliced by a long steep nose. Above his narrow lips was a thin mustache, something I had never seen, and he straightened his beard with oil. “You mean, my dear Helen, that we do not quite believe?”
    “Nicander and Petra had dark hair. Look. Hers is red.”
    “Oh,” said Agamemnon. “I thought you had interesting gossip. If hair color meant anything, then you, my daughter of a swan, would have white feathers, would you not?”
    The day Agamemnon left, we children went on a picnic. Rhodea took Pleis to wade in a shallow brook, where he splashed joyfully. Squires carried baskets of food and jugs of water while the huntsmen prepared to flush out birds and small game for the boys to shoot. The nurse Bia paid no attention to Hermione at all, but lay on her back on a blanket, dozing in the shade.
    Aethiolas and Maraphius set up clay targets andcontested each other with their slingshots. “I can do better than that,” I said contemptuously when they consistently missed their mark.
    “Girls can't use slings,” said Aethiolas irritably.
    “Get out of here,” added Maraphius.
    I took Aethiolas' sling in my hand and swung it to get its feel. It was a little long for me, Aethiolas' arm being bigger. But it would do. I chose a stone, fingered it to know its shape, and swung. My stone split an old clay goblet in half. I took another stone and smashed the second target.
    When I stepped back, pleased with myself, fixed upon me were the astonished eyes of two princes, two squires, two tutors and Hermione.
    “You
are
good, Callisto,” said Maraphius respectfully. “But what kind of princess knows how to use a slingshot?”
    No kind. Ever. I had made a mistake. But I shrugged, as if it were nothing. “My parents buried five sons. I became the son they never had.”
    Aethiolas was fascinated. “They raised you as a boy? Can you use a javelin too? A sword? Darts?”
    I have heard that you can protect yourself from your own lies by crossing your fingers. I did not do it. I must not think of this as lying. I must think of it as truth I had not told before. “Father was planning to teach me to use a javelin this year,” I said breezily, “now that I am tall enough.”
    Maraphius nodded. “Father brought me a baby sized javelin from Troy. I'm too old for toys. He should have—”
    His squire had had enough. “She's nothing but a girl, no matter how tall. Come, my prince, the huntsmen are ready. Leave the girls here to spin and stare at clouds.”
    Hermione waited till they had gone.