1 comments/  34536 views/  3 favorites

Falls to Climb

By: HarryC



When I walk up the spiral stairs to Helen's rooms - taking each long, sharp-cut stone step slowly in order not to wake her so that for a few brief moments I can watch her sleep – I find she is already awake. Naked, she stands outlined in the tall arched window, watching the sun rise to softly caress the many spires and crenellations of this most beloved of cities. In the slight wind coming off the sea, on which I can detect the scents of fire and rot and burnt meat corrupting the clean smell of salt, the gold drapes swell and gutter like candle-flames, and flare around Helen without quite daring to touch her.

Helen has not yet noticed my presence, and as always I feel my eyes drawn to her as if to a lodestone. She makes whatever room she enters smaller – no, small, simply by commanding the attention of every person in it. Even noble Hector is not entirely immune. This morning the sun lines her olive skin with soft golden edges, its rays are captured in the artful, artless locks of her night-black hair, its gaze feasts on her breasts and loins.

I am enraptured by the smooth curve of her spine, and the soft, slender flesh that curves in taut inverted bows to either side, the view alternately obscured and revealed by the tidal motion of her long hair. I am entranced by the lush curve of the backs of her breasts, protruding ever so delicately into the blessed space between the flawless arches of her back and the delicate musculature of her slender arms. The tiniest bump of her crooked elbow seems to call for hours of attention from my lips. Disregarding the possibility of self-immolation, I allow myself a fleeting glimpse at the perfect spheres of her buttocks, which swell close together with all the terrible majesty of the rocks between Scylla and Charybdis, that my friend and master will soon face.

The seamless, perfectly symmetrical curves that flow from Helen's shoulders down her flanks and curve into those magnificent orbs continue flawlessly along her shapely, gamine thighs and calves, to finally reach apotheosis in her feet and toes. She is perfection, in even the most minuscule element. Men and women both have been brought to their knees in lust after a mere flash of cuticle. Her smooth skin has no blemish – no moles, no small, faint childhood scars, not a single freckle has dared form even under the sun's lustful glare. There is not even the slightest variation in tone, not the merest hint of slackness or sag, though Helen has had two children – and one not an easy birth – and doesn't hide from the sky like some of the other great women of this city.

In ten years, Helen has only grown more beautiful, and the tongues of the town, both gossips and the close-mouthed alike, have only wagged ever more fiercely. Last night, even in the kitchens of our own house, one of the guards, his beard running with beer foam and thick hunks of pork clotting his teeth, had looked around carefully and then whispered – loud enough for the whole room to hear, mind – "I hear no man can last more than one stroke in her cunny."

The men in the room had sat in awed silence for perhaps a minute; the women struggling to stifle their giggles. Finally, Appolonia, a dressmaker with more eyes than teeth, revered more as a great lay than a great beauty, called out in a loud cackling voice: "Aye, Trocha, but you barely lasted one stroke with me last night!"

That set all the women off, which only encouraged Appolonia – "Am I right girls? These days, a man with a half-decent cock who can manage to keep rhythm for a couple of strokes is worth hanging on to!" – and sent Trocha reeling red-faced from the kitchen.

In actuality, only one man had known Helen in that way since she had come from her home to this city, and while he certainly didn't last long in his visits to her, rumour had it that Paris didn't last long with any woman. He was known as the great charging stallion – all heavy thrust and forceful strokes, and spent quickly.

Helen's arms arched up in benediction to the topless towers of Ilium, and the shifting muscles of her back swept into a different, yet equally beautiful, configuration. She turned to me and I knew instantly that she had been aware of my presence since the moment I had crossed the threshold. One thing people forget about Helen is that beneath the perfection of skin and bone lay a mind equally rarefied – true beauty is, after all, a holistic quality, and this is the true difference between a beautiful woman and a merely pretty one. 

She was not without her faults. She was undeniably selfish, and a dreadful mother – though what noblewoman wasn't? – and she could be thoughtless of her effect on other people's lives. The number of marriages she had damaged, merely by laying her hand on a man's arm, almost equalled the pyres that burned daily outside the city's walls. She was, however, almost preternaturally astute, even in such traditionally masculine pursuits as politics and war.

Then she turned towards me, and once more the world seemed to shrink to the size of her face. A ballista could have shattered the tower around us, and I would not have noticed. Yet this morning, like every morning, the same thought passed almost involuntarily through my head. A thousand ships? I'd have demanded a thousand times that number. I wondered how Menelaus refrained from throwing himself against the great Scaean gates until they shattered with the force of his lust. I wondered how he had settled for gathering just the greatest army the world had ever known, and not forcibly conscripting every Greek citizen.

There are no words beautiful enough to describe the perfection of Helen's face. The delicate eyebrows, slender black lines sculpted exactly to mesh the supple slope of her forehead with the great stars of her eyes. The eyes, themselves, huge and liquid, a thin moat of milk white containing a boiling brown that was at once kind and heart-bursting with sensual fire. Her inky pupils, which sparkle with wit and humour. The delicate slope of her nose, ending in a brief hop before the rosy grandeur of her full lips and the occasional pink flash of her slender, sharp tongue from between the ivory palisade of her teeth. The easy symmetry of her chin, made to be cupped by forefinger and thumb as you held her face up to smother in kisses. Even now, I can tell that the greatest poets will strive for millennia of millennia and still language will be unworthy of describing the curve of only one of her eyelashes. No – even the merest curl of one of the hairs on her loins will be beauty beyond the talents of the gods to equal in any form.

I have seen flames coil like golden serpents around the gleaming towers of the greatest city ever built by man, and watched in awe as they flailed at the stars, as if the death of the Universe was all that would slake their fury. I have seen my children fall from the womb and open their eyes and bawl in shock at the wonders of our world. I have stood on the tallest mountain in our land and, all alone on a perfectly cloudless night, have gazed for hours at the slow, eternal wheeling of the stars and wondered if perhaps there is a planet, equal in stature if not similar to our own, around which each one of these stars spin. And I know that were all that placed on one side of a scale, it would shoot skywards at the merest breath of Helen's on the other side.

Without even seeing Helen, for ten years men have risked – and lost – life and limb and balls and stem, and not one, if given the choice, would have it any other way.

"Time for your bath, my lady," I say, keeping my voice as soft and innocent as I can. If anything, this only becomes harder each morning.

"Oh, Hermaphra," Helen says in her voice, which rings as clear and delicate as the soft chiming of crystal bells. "You must be so bored of caring for me each morning. Can you not once let another servant take your duties? Spend the morning curled next to a warm lover, or better – in a hot bath of your own?"

I smile as much as I dare, and some familiarity in her voice leads me to reply. "There is not a man or woman in Ilium, from the lowliest beggar to King Priam himself, that wouldn't trade the world for one morning being me."

Helen laughs, and anyone unfortunate enough to have heard it will now be fatally in love with her until they walk either blissfully in the Elysian Fields, or cold and alone in grey Hades. "I suspect Andromache would not agree with you. But come, it is a beautiful morning, and Paris will want me at least once before he meets Menelaus."

At mid-morning, Paris and Menelaus were due to fight. It was, supposedly, to be one the great acts of Aristeia and, theoretically at least, could provide in one last death the conclusion to this endless war. In reality even the lowest of Ilium's citizens knew that Paris was such an indifferent warrior that if he were to actually fight Menelaus, the older man would kill him in moments. What would happen was that Paris would take a couple of dents to his armour then run to Hector for protection. And Ilium would fall back within it's great walls and the Greeks would retreat to their barricades, and both would be venally united in their desire to see Hector and Achilles fight instead. Even Cassandra – even Athena - would be unable to foretell the outcome of that battle.

As always, the other servants had finished filling the bath and left the wash room carrying their long train of urns just the moment before Helen entered. She slid into the water gracefully, and I watched the slow, easy rocking of the faint ripples against the marble. Helen moaned, and I was instantly aroused, already knowing what would happen next today.

For a few minutes, Helen lay perfectly still, her eyes closed, her body relaxed by the hot water, a nimbus of steam glowing around her. Her breasts were large – not as colossal or crude as a peasant's breasts, like Appolonia's for example, but rather full and soft and as perfectly round and pale as a young moon. Her nipples perched on them daintily, like tiny pink pearls, and were surrounded by a circle of lighter pink a couple of finger-widths wide. Now a light rose blush warmed the tops of her breasts, perhaps in anticipation of her third husband's visit, perhaps at the sensuous touch of the water. Her tiny nipples hardened almost imperceptibly – only my experience allowed me to detect their arousal.

Her left eye opened and looked at me, her lips curving in a smile. She nodded, and I dipped the sponge in the water. Sponges were a luxury now – the one supply the people of Ilium seemed not to have in greater abundance than their besiegers did. I started by running the sponge in long single strokes along her limbs. When I began serving Helen, after the disappearance of her first maid, I had been excessively gentle, and she had told me off. She liked to feel the roughness of the sponge; she didn't like to be pampered like a yearling babe.

Again, Helen moaned, and had I less restraint I would have climaxed at the sensuality of that sound. Involuntarily, she rested one perfect hand on my rougher forearm, and my suspicion that this was going to be one of our special mornings was confirmed.

I washed her back next, letting the sponge circle over muscle groups and spiral down towards the delicate swell of her buttocks. Then she leaned back, and I began to sponge her breasts. Even through the sponge they felt magnificent. I washed the underside first, though caressed would be a more honest description. I continued this for an eternity, pausing only to remoisten the sponge, then I ran the sponge up the narrow cleft between her breasts and then slowly traced it down over one of her breasts. Helen's eyes met mine, and for an instant I wondered if I had misread this morning's signals. Then she spoke, low and throaty, "You're invaluable Hermaphra. You seem to read my mind."

I continued to pleasure her breasts for some minutes before I began my assault on her more intimate regions. I let the sponge slowly follow the contours of her soft torso, then scraped it in rough fast strokes over her upper thighs while my eyes devoured her cunt. Like almost all women, at least all wealthy women, the only hair on Helen was that on her head. I did not have the pleasure of shaving her – that blessing went to one of her body servants.

Helen's cunt was as cursedly perfect as the rest of her. The outer lips were the exact shade of the rest of her body, tidy, tight and symmetrical. I parted them with my fingers and, all thought of the sponge forgotten, let my free hand play with her breasts. The inside of her cunt was the most beautiful pink, and my tongue rushed to taste it.

In long laps, I soaked up the sweet taste of Helen, and she urged me on with her graceful cries of pleasure. When I applied my tongue to the hard little nubbin that dwelt there, and entered her with my fingers, she began to gasp. Almost immediately, I felt her body tense under my hands. The water in the bath rocked sharply and some spilled out onto the tiles and soaked my tunic where I had gathered it to relieve the pressure on my knees. I let my ministrations slowly diminish, until I was merely slowly swirling one finger around the nipple of her left breast.

"Oh, Hermaphra," Helen said quietly, "why don't any men know about that little bud in the centre of our roses?"

"I'm sure some do," I replied.

"Have you ever met a man who touched you there?" Helen asked, and there was just the hint of slyness in her voice.

"No," I told her, completely truthful. "But as Appolonia says, we live in hope."

"Ah, Appolonia," smiled Helen. "If even half the whispered stories the servants think I don't hear are true, this war should be fought over the right to her affections."

As I said, Helen was not without her flaws, and I absorbed this last thoughtless remark silently. Then she surprised me. Her beautiful face became, without a single wrinkle forming or even any noticeable change in gaze of visage, unutterably sad and thoughtful, and almost beneath even my exceptional hearing, I heard her repeat "hope" questioningly.

"Come, Hermaphra. Paris will be here soon, and our little diversion has not helped me get ready," she told me with excessive formality.

We returned to her bedroom. Once dry, I rubbed honey into Helen's skin to moisturise it. Then I spread the rose-petal infused olive oil over her body, perfuming her skin and making it glimmer. Helen didn't require the white lead as some ladies did, but I did mix some charcoal with olive oil in a mortar and use it lightly to shadow her eyes, and dab a little redding on her lips. Of course, Helen needed none of these embellishments, but she liked to show Paris that even after ten years her passion for him had not dimmed. Whether this was true or not was another matter, but given the hardships of the past decade, a little show of affection was perhaps essential for morale.

Paris walked in just as I was leaving. He was naked, his cock already turgid with anticipation - how many husbands are still so hungry for their wives after ten years? Much has been said about Paris's cock. Some claimed that, in order to snare Helen, it must be bigger than a bull's. Others, perhaps jealously, claimed that it was tiny and that Helen had been drawn to his beauty – not the masculine counterpart of her own, but nonetheless prodigious. In truth, Paris's cock was utterly average in every way. Helen had nothing to complain about, but also nothing to boast about with the other ladies, and having heard some of their more private conversations, they did talk about such things. Hector, Andromache proudly reported, was extremely well endowed. But then Andromache had never forgiven Helen for the danger in which the latter had put the former's beloved husband.

In any case, as I exited the room, Paris was entering Helen, each thrust made with furious force, accompanied by a loud growling grunt. In turn, Helen moaned softly. I noticed that her moans now were different from those she had made under the touch of my fingers and tongue.

It was my intention to tell only the parts of this story that I have personally witnessed, and those with complete truthfulness, but I find that already I have lied, albeit mainly by omission rather than commission. Paris may be a quick and rough lover, but he is not the only man to touch Helen's sacred flesh.

Allow me to properly introduce myself – I am Polymachus, friend of Odysseus, former Myrmidon and presently a failed murderer. My stint as maid to Helen of Ilium began when crafty Odysseus, longing for his Penelope, ordered me over the walls of Ilium to kill the woman whose marital problems had changed the structure of power in the Greek isles.

Getting over the walls was easy, for one man at least. I circled the city to the side opposite the Greek camps, put an arrow through a sentry's eye, then climbed the walls. I dropped the sentry in a cesspool in a slum area then followed the map Odysseus's spies had provided to Helen's house.

The guards were lax, but numerous, so I climbed to the roof of the house nearest Helen's, then jumped across to her balcony. I drew my dagger, the blade dulled by oil so that it wouldn't catch the moonlight, and stepped carefully into her bedchamber. She lay naked on the bed, asleep alone and bathing in the moonbeams. I knew immediately that I would never be able to kill her. I approached her bed and carefully touched her cheek, which was as smooth and soft as a ripe peach. Then I left, just as stealthily as I had entered. 

There will never be another city to rival Ilium. Only in the final hours of the night do the streets calm at all, and even then the taverns and brothels still spill their light onto the streets and ring with the sounds of carousal and sex. With dawn, the traders set up their stalls, and the wide streets fill with people, all so acclimatised to the impossibly tall buildings that they don't even look up. My first few days, wandering Ilium and carefully discovering the composition of Helen's staff and the routines of the house, I developed a crick in my neck and I nearly lost my purse to a thief, whose hand I grabbed at the last possible moment. I decided that with my youthful appearance I could, with careful preparation each day, pass for a woman – though a spectacularly ugly woman – and that this would give me the easiest access to Helen. The guards, one of whom it was my initial intent to replace, never saw her. So, I set out to become one of Helen's maids.

It was in a tavern that I finally ran into the woman who had my job before me. She was being plied with drinks by every man in the bar, and every person there hung on the clumsy words she used to describe her mistress's body. I forced my way into the inner circle through the judicious use of my elbows and knees and stared with an entirely artificial hunger at the woman.

She was a plump, uncomely woman, almost completely round, with huge round breasts and enormous hips. At some time her nose had been broken and poorly set, and her lips wriggled like satiated leeches as she talked. Drink spilled down her front and sprayed her listeners as she never stopped talking. Then she noticed me staring at her. Her monologue slowed as she inspected me.

I, due to my rigorous Myrmidon's training, had a better body than any of her other admirers, slender and quick, and well muscled. I was younger too, and much more handsome. She looked questioningly at me, and in response, I licked my upper lip quickly and grabbed at my crotch. To the protests of the rest of the crowd she said that she had to get back, and left. I followed her out, and searched the streets for her, wondering where she had gone, fearing she had sensed my real intentions.

From a nearby alley I heard a low whistle. I walked in carefully, my eyes slowly getting accustomed to the dark until I could see the gigantic shape of the woman. Then she pressed me against the wall.


Falls to Climb



She turned her hand so it was palm up, then laid it right on my cock. She fixed my eyes with hers and watched me as her hand slowly measured my dimensions. I felt her fingers slowly move over my balls, then curve around my cock. She traced my shaft through the fabric, then hefted it.

"Mmm," she said, "what a nice big cock. I was hoping you were big."

She leaned even closer to me, resting both hands on my thighs and placing her lips against my ear. I could smell the scent of her hair and feel the rough oblate shape of her huge breasts crushing against my chest. I thought of Helen, conjuring the image of her naked body in the moonlight, and my cock grew harder than it had ever been.

"Take me from behind," she told me. I obliged, pushing her hard against the wall and yanking her dress up around her hips. I freed my cock and, reaching between her legs and parting her wet folds, I shoved it in, fast and hard. I fucked her roughly, mauling her breasts with my hands, almost biting, instead of kissing, her neck.

"Harder," she growled. "Harder." I obliged, and she responded by thrusting in counterpoint to my strokes. Her hand slipped down her front and one thick index finger rubbed frantically at her cunt. As she neared climax, she hissed the word "yes", over and over. I kept fucking her as she came, and as I felt the familiar tingling in my balls and across my shaft, I closed my fingers around her neck, choking her.

The next day, I entered Helen's service and soon, after proving my skill and efficiency - military training, it seemed, having many uses - became her morning servant.

After Paris's abortive fight with Menelaus, the days continued, largely without incident until the final few moves in the Gods' game were made, and the awful and inevitable shape of things to come was revealed. It began when Hector met Achilles in battle and slayed him easily. At least, that was Ilium's first, delirious reaction. Then Achilles appeared alone at the walls, his wrath endless and terrible, boiling off him like the sea raging in a summer storm and sending the hordes of Ilium fleeing within the city. It had not been Achilles, but his friend - and some said lover, though they bedded more than their share of women too - Patroclus that had been within the armour, leading the Myrmidons in an attempt to force Achilles to stay and fight, after his disagreement with Agamemnon had seen him leave the field. That disagreement was over Achilles' beloved concubine, Briseis: to me it seemed like every event of this war pivoted upon a woman.

What happened next is well known. Hector strode out through the Scaean gates to defend the honour of Ilium. Their duel was long and arduous, but it was clear that Achilles would win, and he did. Later, Achilles was killed by the coward Paris, who shot a poisoned arrow into his heel. It is said that Apollo himself guided the arrow to the one spot Thetis had been prevented from protecting. It is hard to credit Paris with sufficient skill. That Paris himself was killed, by Philoctetes, soon after, did not assuage the grief of the Myrmidons, though.

The day after Paris's pyre had been lit, Helen bade me make her up with all the cosmetics I possessed, and she was married to Deiphobus. This was a purely political manoeuvre. It meant Helen could still be legitimately held from the Greeks, and by now neither side would surrender. It also gave Deiphobus a claim to Menelaus' throne, which would have been useful had Deiphobus not died by Menelaus' hand soon after. Their marriage was never consummated, though Deiphobus was certainly willing. Helen was able to claim the chastity of grief.

Again, the siege continued in its almost dreamlike state, with neither side gaining any momentum or success without the other snatching it away again. Skirmishes were small, and fought more out of habit than anything else.

Then one morning Ilium awoke to find her plains free of Greeks for the first time in ten years. Disbelieving at first, but then with greater and greater certainty, the people began to celebrate. A weight they had borne for so long that they had forgotten they carried it was lifted, and they danced and drank and cheered. Homes filled with parties that became orgies, and had they survived long enough, three-quarters of Ilium's soldiers would probably have been stricken with diseases of Aphrodite.

After I had prepared Helen for her visit to Priam's palace, I slipped out of the house, changed into male clothing and found a party where no one would recognise me. As late evening became early morning, I was drunk on sex and alcohol and talking to a girl in preparation for fucking her. That's when I heard it.

"And do you know," the girl said, giggling, and idly caressing her coppery bare nipples, "the Greeks actually left a gift for us?"

"What?" I asked, and an edge of uneasiness began to cut through the fog in my head.

"You haven't seen it? It's this huge wooden horse. It's resting just inside the gates. We can go there if you want... after." She moved to kiss me, but I was already pulling away. 

I ran out of the celebration, sober before I even hit the cool air. I paused for a moment then decided that Helen would be home by now. I sensed the cunning of my old friend Odysseus behind this. I just prayed I wasn't too late.

I was racing up the stairs to Helen's room when I heard the voices.

"You know Menelaus ordered that he was to be the one to kill her," the first one said.

"And did Achilles bow down and lick at Menelaus' feet? No, and neither will we Myrmidons. Achilles died because of this whore."

"Very well," the first voice replied, "but remember who this is. Be a shame to just kill her."

Clear and strong, I heard Helen. "Try it and I'll cut your cock off."

The men laughed, and deciding I had no time left to find a weapon, I charged into the room. My fellow Myrmidons were shocked and froze. I jumped the one closest to me, and before he could react I slammed my knee into his balls then, as he doubled over, I snapped his neck. Immediately, I rolled out of the way of the spear thrust of the other Myrmidon and picked up the first one's weapon.

I found my feet and tested the balance of my spear. As expected, it was excellent. We faced each other, and I could see the shock on the Myrmidon's face as he recognised me. He said my name, inflecting it as a question, and I nodded. Then he charged me, and I batted his spear away and rammed mine through his throat.

Helen was sprawled naked on her bed, a pathetically short dagger clutched in both hands, which were shaking furiously. I dropped the spear, knocked the dagger out of her hand and held her to me.

"It's me," I said. "It's Hermaphra. You're safe."

She moaned something, but didn't try to break free of me. I felt her shaking ease, slowly. Eventually, she moved back, and looked at my face.

"I'm sorry I lied to you," I said.

"I suspected," she said. "The first time I saw you, I noticed what I thought was a hard cock. But I didn't see it again, and all those mornings you never tried to fuck me."

I had bound my cock up each morning with cloth since I discovered the effect just being in Helen's presence had on me. At the same moment, Helen and I realised that I had a full erection. We paused for a second.

Helen pushed me back on the bed and peeled off my clothes. Her lips closed around my nipples and sucked while her soft hands stroked my cock with just the right blend of care and force. I laid my hands on her breasts and stroked them just as I had with the sponge.

I moved so that I was on top of her and sucked on her pearly nipples. Her skin tasted sweet and yet wholesome. Like I had too few times before, I parted her lower lips with my tongue and savoured what we both realised would be my final taste of her musk. I tongued the little nubbin as she moaned and writhed against me, and I recalled her wish that sometime a man would know about this most sensitive and godly piece of anatomy.

Helen instructed me to move so that while I was licking her cunt, she could suckle on my cock. Her lips played around my foreskin and her tongue bathed and tickled my head. She engulfed several inches of my length and bobbed her mouth up and down, and my pleasure was so great that I froze, my tongue resting motionless in her cunt.

Our pleasure had built hugely. With every contact of her skin and mine, waves of pleasure lapped at the edges of my being and, judging by the noises of her pleasure, which were not unfamiliar to me, the same was true for her. We rolled one last time, and Helen straddled my lap.

In great, rapid circles she ground her cunt over my rock hard cock, never letting me slip inside her for even a moment. My hands clasped around her armpits and held her up, and I marvelled at the gentle sway of her breasts and the cascade of her dark hair. The moonlight reflected in each drop of her sweat, a tiny moon shining back at me from each bead on her brow, her breasts, her smooth stomach.

Then, letting my arms take all her wait, she closed one hand partially around the shaft of my cock and lowered herself until my cock was completely within her, and we both held stupefied by the sensation. Slowly at first, but with greater fervour, she began to move up and down on me. As she fucked me I stroked her breasts and caressed her back and let my hands tangle in her soft hair. I moaned her name over and over, as if to convince myself that this was really happening, that this was me with Helen of Ilium. She didn't say my name, instead she gasped and gasped.

We came at the same moment, and I filled her with what felt like a lifetime's worth of semen. I felt my cock soften, yet let it remain within her, and she lay very still next to me, our eyes locked together. "That was very good," Helen said. She clenched the muscles of her cunt, just one brief squeeze and I was immediately hard again. This time our lovemaking was even more desperate.

Afterwards, our bodies tangled together and our salt sweat mingling with far sweeter juices, Helen turned towards me and I could see that she was crying.

"Did I... did I hurt you?" I asked.

Helen smiled sadly. "No," she said. "You were incredible. The Gods must have wished me one last blessing. Were there time I would offer a lamb as sacrifice to Aphrodite."

My cock was beginning to harden again already, and I wondered at how our animal nature seemed utterly remote from our cerebral nature, even as I marvelled at the soft, wet feel of the lips of her cunt that my fingers gently strummed like a lute.

Helen kissed me quickly, the only time she ever kissed me. "I'm sorry Herm... I mean Polymachus. But I fear there is only one act left for me."

Helen dressed swiftly but carefully, and bade me stay in her bed until she was long gone. She did not want to see me again, she said, but kindly. I did as she said, then stripped the armour from the Myrmidon whose neck I had broken, wishing as I did so that I did not recognise him. Then I went out on the streets, where the quick, organised warriors under the command of Agamemnon and Odysseus were butchering the drunk and unwary soldiery of Ilium.

I wandered around until I spotted the squat, powerful, instantly recognisable figure of Odysseus, who recognised me almost as immediately.

"Well, well, Polymachus. I thought you were dead."

I made to speak but he held up his hand, then placed one bear-like arm around my shoulders.

"Don't worry, lad. I understand. I don't know if I could have done it myself."

Then a great gulp of flame belched out of the pillars of the temple of Apollo and Odysseus screamed in a stentorian voice, "Fuck if I didn't tell them none of the temples were to be touched." For a moment he looked worried, then he smiled at me and that Gods-defying genius flared in his eyes. "Well, lad, look around. On a night like this, of what matter is something as paltry as the will of the Gods!"

Then, against the flames, we watched the climax of this long war.

My final sight of Helen, in this world at least, was of her kneeling at the top of the stairs leading in to the temple of Apollo, golden-haired Menelaus standing above her, his sword burning red with the reflection of the flames all around us. His sword pointed skywards and held steady, and with Odysseus's strong grip on my shoulder I couldn't try to save her – though even Hermes could not move swiftly enough to save her now. Fruitlessly I watched the sky, hoping that a thunderbolt from a sympathetic Zeus would crash down and melt Menelaus through the ground and straight to Hades. That miracle did not occur, but another did.

Slowly Menelaus lowered his sword, and sheathed it - not in Helen, but in the scabbard on his belt. He took her hands in his and lifted her to her feet, then pulled her into a long kiss. Neither Odysseus nor myself could hear what they said, and we watched them walk away from us, through the great city ruined by one man's jealousy and one woman's love.

I have, until now, recounted truthfully and completely honestly – as far as far-too-fallible memory allows at least – only the things that I have seen. I will not bore you with a recounting of my wanderings, though they were as long and burdensome as that of my former master, as I am merely a background player in Helen's great tale. All that is left is to tell of her ending.

Rumour has it that she lived with King Menelaus as his wife until his death, when his son – but not hers – exiled her. No man knows for sure what happened next, but it is said that she never died – that the Gods raised immortal Helen to the Elysian Fields, there to take Achilles as her final husband.

Perhaps I shall see the truth of this soon. Outside I hear my young wife, my love for whom, though both great and true, is as a pale reflection of what I feel for Helen. She is gathering the cows with my strong sons. But those sounds grow ever fainter, and my clearest vision is not the walls of my room, but of Helen standing in front of a window, bathing in the sunlight. I have lived many times many years, and my present state is entirely natural. I have made perilous mistakes, and won great triumphs and I have raised a good family. Of one thing I am certain. There will never again be another Helen of Ilium...