Beautiful War

Chapter 1 The Trojan Princes

Five Years Later...

I sat in my bath as Delia poured more hot water into the stone tub when she was done, she sood and moved a few paces back from my tub. My healing bruises are still sore to the touch. I had spent the last five years in hell being married to Menelaus and becoming queen of Sparta. After Agamemnon and Menelaus finished conquering the city, and putting out any kind of resistance from noblemen who were still loyal to my father and our family line. They forced Clytemnestra and I to the temple of Hera, and beside her altar we were forced to marry the men who murdered our father. Since that fateful day, Menelaus had consistently beaten and raped me. I had already lost two babies before they were born to Menelaus' cruelty. When the priests of Ares told him that I was now carrying his son and heir he had stopped kicking me and punching me. Though he found others ways to torment me. He also stopped coming to my bed at night. Choosing instead to spend his nights with his mistress. It was the same mistress he had brought from Mycenae to Sparta after the conquest. She had already bore him two strong sons who were ten now. They were also brought to the palace, which was a stain on our home and name. Delia was his mistress and my new handmaiden. She was equally as brutal and ruthless as he was. Tormenting me mentally, blaming me for the children I had lost. Both were daughters that never even got their first breaths. She Delia it was my fault that the two children were daughters and not sons. My friend and former handmaiden Athena never returned to the palace after the massacre. Both she and her father fled to nearby Athens to escape the brutality of Menelaus and his men. I missed her companionship every day. Menelaus had isolated me from all the noble women who I had grown up with. He distrusted anyone who was Spartan. Most of the Spartan noblemen and their families were either killed or were forced into exile after the conquest. I no longer recognized the palace I lived in. The only person I could trust, the only person Menelaus allowed me from my old life was Pollux. Pollux refused to go into exile, he chose to remain by side as the head of my queens guard. Which too came at a price, in the first year of marriage any time I would displease Menelaus he would take it out on Pollux. Soon I convinced him that I would obey and allow him to do whatever he pleased to me as long as left Pollux unharmed. This only fueled Menelaus' brutality and his vision of a great Spartan son. Pollux in return chose ten of the best Spartan warriors loyal only to him and myself to guard me. Not allowing any Mycenaean soldiers into the guard. But even they could not protect me from the will of the king... my husband. Menelaus wanted me broken and meek, and that was what I became. I became the very thing I hated. A woman who could not defend herself. But I did it to protect my brother and the men who served me faithfully for the last five years. Afraid that they would incur the wrath of Agamemnon.

I was now eight months pregnant with my third child. Though this was the first child who survived this long into the pregancy. The two daughters I had lost when I was only three months along in my pregnancy. Menelaus wanted only sons, strong sons. He did not want weak women around him. He beat me more often when word from Mycenae came that Clytemnestra had given birth to three children already. One daughter, and two sons. She was the meek submissive wife, always going out of her way to please Agamemnon. Menelaus on the other hand blamed me for not giving him a son. I could not control the fate the gods had bestowed on us. No matter how hard I prayed to Hera. The gods were always silent toward me. I often felt the child kick in my womb. The first time the child kicked, Pollux was there. He held me as I cried tears of joy. I truly had become a shell of my former self, and living each day in a golden cage was making me lose the will to live. The only thing keeping me alive was this child growing inside of me. I rubbed my swollen stomach. The priests and midwives said it would not be long now until the child was born. I prayed to both Hera and Zues that it was a son. I feared that if I gave Menelaus another daughter, then Menelaus would surely kill us both.