Read Online Beauty's Daughter: The Story of Hermione and Helen of Troy by Carolyn Meyer - Free Book Online Page A

chiseled features. I wondered if he was Achilles’ son.
    Achilles was laughing. “I should have known—those bright red curls!” At that moment I cursed my red curls. What man could ever love a girl with such hair! “Come along, then, and we’ll find your father,” he said, and continued striding along the beach, assuming I suppose that I would follow him. And I did. The boy ignored me.
    Up ahead I glimpsed my father. I ran to catch up with Achilles and tugged at his tunic, thanked him, and assured him I knew my way and no longer needed his help. He nodded then, smiling his beautiful smile, and he and the boy turned away.
    Enterprising people from nearby villages had set up a marketplace on the beach and were selling all manner of things: baskets of bread, piles of vegetables, sandals, clay pots, scarves dyed bright colors . . .
scarves!
Exactly what I needed! I slipped into the market, trying to be inconspicuous. But I had nothing with which to pay, except my mother’s silver spindle, and that was not a fair trade.
    And so I stole a scarf so dull and ugly that I was probably doing the merchant a favor, getting rid of one that no woman could possibly want to buy—or so I told myself. I ducked out of sight, threw the dun-colored scarf over my hair, and sidled away from the market and onto the crowded beach. I hurried toward the ships. Men were clambering aboard, and I spotted Father at the stern of his vessel, deep in conversation. I studied those belonging to my father’s fleet, trying to decide if it was better for me to be on his gleaming new lead ship, where he would soon find me, or to smuggle myself aboard one of the smaller ones, where he would not realize I was there until it was too late to send me back.
    My decision was made for me. A group of women were carrying bundles, their last-minute purchases at the market, onto one of the small ships. An aged crone grabbed my elbow. “Why are you standing there gawking, girl?” she demanded. “Best you come along with the rest of the lot, if you expect to find a decent place to sleep.”
    I let her shove me up a rope ladder and into the hold of an old ship, battered and bad smelling. Then I realized that all of those onboard, except for a crew of rough-looking sailors, were women and girls. Slowly it dawned on me that they were concubines.
    I needed to get off this ship.
    It was too late. The crone had already taken charge of me. She yanked off my dun-colored scarf and grinned when she saw my red hair. I sighed. I’d been discovered.
    “Ha!” she cackled. “I’ll wager you’re the daughter of King Menelaus himself, aren’t you?”
    I nodded, miserably.
    “And who’s your mother? Eh? Afraid to tell us?”
    The other women had dropped their bundles and were staring at me. I opened my mouth to answer. Was it not obvious that I was Helen’s daughter? Who else could I be? “Why, I’m the daughter of Queen Helen!” I said, and was greeted with roars of laughter.
    One of the women stepped forward and flounced around me, snapping her fingers and swinging her hips. “We all know who your father is, but we’re not so sure about your mother! It could be almost any one of us, couldn’t it?” she asked, grinning at the others, who responded with raucous laughter, “Oh, yes! Any one of us!”
    Hot with embarrassment, I realized many of these concubines had lain with my father. My red hair gave me away as the daughter of Menelaus, but nothing about me hinted that I was the daughter of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. They assumed that I was the king’s bastard child. Why else would I be there among them?
    The crone stepped back and looked me up and down, pinching me here and there. “Ay!” she cried. “You’re not even a woman yet, are you, my girl?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well, I have no idea who sent you to travel with us, for you aren’t old enough for this.” The other women and girls stood around, smirking, watching to see how this