Andromache

Andromache is born a princess of Anatolia, surrounded by loving parents and seven brothers, but she does not become Queen there. Achilles sacks her city, killing her father and all of her brothers. She and her mother do not have time to properly mourn them, not when Achilles and his army are storming the castle looking for them, not surrounded by fire and screams. They gather what they can and flee into the night. Eventually, Andromache’s mother dies of an illness that Andromache cannot cure—she was raised a princess, not for aiding the sick. Andromache buries her mother and rages at the gods. They have taken everyone and everything she had ever known from her and they left her here alone. She collapses to her knees eventually and begs them for a sign.

Hector comes to her as the eldest prince of Troy, and as she is the last remaining child of the King of Cilician Thebe, his parents deem it acceptable for them to marry. They are still getting used to each other when Paris brings Helen home, and Andromache knows that war will follow. In the time between battles with the Greeks, Andromache and Hector build a love and a life together, and eventually, Andromache gives him a son and heir. She debates for hours, holding her son in her arms and watching him breathe, about naming her child after her father or one of her brothers or even her mother. She decides she won’t. It has been years since she lost them, but some days the pain in her chest is so great that she cannot breathe around it; each inhale becomes a shuddered gasp and each exhale becomes a shaky sigh. She will not name her son something that will cause her pain—her son deserves the best of her, and that is what he will get. She names him Scamandrius, after a mighty river near Troy, but the people call him Astyanax—meaning Town-Prince—because he is Hector’s son. For a few years, even with the war that seems never-ending, they are wonderfully happy. The ache of her family’s loss gets easier to bear, or maybe she just gets better at standing beneath the weight. Hector is an attentive and loving husband, who adores Astyanax. When Andromache asks Hector why Paris will not simply let Helen go back, he tells her that Helen was given to Paris as a reward from the gods, so he cannot give her back. Cannot or will not, Andromache wonders, watching Paris escort Helen around Troy. It galls her that Helen has been given over to Paris like a pair of shoes, or perhaps an ox. Bringing Helen here started a war, but refusing a gift from the gods might start something worse. When she asks Helen about it, she does not seem to mind being traded away. She and Helen become friends, of a sort, given that they are both princesses of Troy and that their husbands are brothers. Helen loves Astyanax, even though he tends to pull at her hair.

Andromache and Hector are having a cup of wine together when Cassandra bursts in, screaming about Hector dying because Patroclus had stolen the Achilles’ armor. Andromache’s eyes meet Hector’s, and she inclines her head, getting up to leave. Hector loves Cassandra, even if she is mad, and she will leave him to comfort her. Andromache would have done the same for any of her brothers. His parents have tried to talk to Hector about locking her up, but Hector will not hear of it. Even if the King did put her somewhere, Hector would go retrieve her, and they all know it.

Then Achilles parades Hector’s body around Troy, dragging her husband behind his carriage like garbage. Andromache is up on the walls, and she knows that she cannot fall apart here. Her people are watching, and they need her to be strong. She makes it back to her room before she falls apart. She doubles over, on her knees and forehead nearly touching the ground, sobs racking her body. She laughs breathlessly—she has forgotten how it felt to lose someone she loved. How could she have forgotten? A servant knocks on the door. Andromache stands immediately, wiping her face. Hector would want her to be strong, and even though that thought makes her want to collapse and wail about the unfairness of the gods, she goes to the door. A servant has brought her Astyanax. Andromache takes her son and closes the door, pressing her back against it and sliding to the floor. Astyanax is upset, although he is too young to really know what is going on. She holds him close, breathing in the scent of his hair, and explains what had happened. She rocks him to sleep that night, still pressed against the door. If she moves, she feels like she will shatter into a dozen pieces, and then what will she do? But she has rebuilt from the ashes before, and she can show her son how to do the same.

Troy falls. Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, of the man who had ground her family into dust once already, takes her son from her arms and carries him to the walls, ignoring her screams and the way she thrashes against the men holding her. Then he tosses her son—Hector’s son—off the walls. Andromache stills for a moment, horrified, and then she launches herself at him so ferociously that she escapes her guards. She has no weapons, so she turns herself into one, clawing at his face and biting at his throat. He knocks her out and makes her his concubine, and takes Helenus, Hector’s brother as a slave as well. She bears three more sons, all born of rape. She thanks the gods they don’t look like Astyanax. On the anniversary of Astyanax’s death, watching Neoptolemus play with her sons, Andromache steals a dagger from one of the place settings and drives it between his ribs. He dies, and Andromache marries Helenus, becomes Queen of Epirus, and lives happily ever after until she dies of old age.