Helen of Sparta was in the practice court with an attendant sparing, when the summons came.
"My Queen Helen," said the messenger with a bow. "Your King wishes to have a conference with Your Majesty. His Majesty said to tell Her Highness 'yort,' I was told Her Majesty would understand."
"Thank you messenger, you are dismissed," Helen waved the messenger away. "Yort?" she thought. "Why do we need to talk of Troy?" She sighed as realization came to her.
"That idiot!" she muttered angrily. "He still wants to use that 'Trojan Horse' plan. I wonder what his reason is this time to use it." Helen stomped her way to the private courtyard that only the royal family was allowed in.
Her husband, the king of the city-state Sparta was standing over some pieces of parchment spread over a stone table that sat between two olive trees.
The king of Sparta looked up as he heard the clapping of Helen's sandals against the stone floor of the courtyard.
"Wife," he greeted her, almost smiling. He gestured to the pieces of parchment in front of him. "Would you join me?" It was an order not a request.
Bowing to hide her rolling eyes, Helen came forward to see what foolish plan her husband had thought of this time.
"Wife, you know full well that for some time now I've been wanting to invade and conquer Troy." Helen nodded to show she was listening and bade him to go on.
"But, I never used to have a good reason why, one that our nobles would not revolt against. It came to me this morning when you crept out of bed to go to the practice courts. We shall rescue you from the Trojans!"
"What!" Helen exclaimed though she had heard him perfectly. She had cried out because of her surprise and disbelief. "You think that I even could be captured!? Besides, why would the Trojans want to capture me? Are you a fool, husband!?"
Expecting this reaction, Helen's husband stood calmly before her, waiting for his chance to speak.
"Helen," Helen calmed, surprised. He never used her name, during the day anyway. "Listen to my plan, and tell me your opinions after I am done explaining. Now here's my idea…"
The plan was this; Helen was to send Prince Paris of Troy a letter that declared her love for him, she would beg of him to come rescue her from Sparta, to take her to Troy to marry her so they could be together forever. Of course Paris would act, Helen was the most beautiful mortal woman in the world. What man wouldn't want her? (Helen looked disgusted when her husband told her of the love letter, but let him go on without interrupting).
The letter was also to ask him to meet her at a secluded spot just outside the city where he could pick her up. Her letter was to say that she didn't want any bloodshed. Paris would think this a weakness of woman, but would obey her wishes.
Later once Helen was in Troy and the city was celebrating their prince's engagement, her husband would send the "Trojan Horse;" a wheeled wooden horse, big enough to hold a garrison of soldiers. The people of Troy would bring it into the city, seeing it as a congratulation present to their prince on his beautiful bride-to-be.
Then in the dead of the night, when even the rats were asleep, the Spartan soldiers would creep out of the wooden horse through a hidden trap door. First they would kill all of the soldiers in Troy. Next they would find Helen, and then finally ransack the whole city killing all in their way.
Troy would be destroyed on the pretence that Helen had actually been kidnapped. The nobles would not stand for their Queen being in enemy hands.
After contemplating her husband's plan for a few minutes, Helen responded. "Husband, perhaps you are not the fool I thought you were, she said carefully. "This plan could actually work. There is only one problem."
"And what might that be Helen?"
"I do not know how to even come up with the words of love you wish me to write."
The king guffawed at this, and smiling told her, "Wife, we have a slave that used to be a maid that was often in that pompous prince's presence. She knows how to compose poetry, she has seen the boy, so why not have her to the composing of the letter. You can just write it all down. She knows what will happen if she does not meet our expectations."
"True, true," Helen said thoughtfully. "Fine husband, I shall go find this slave and we shall write this letter of yours." She stood up to leave, but her husband stopped her.
Helen looked at him in askance. "Wife…Helen, call me by my name when we are alone." It was a command, but one that Helen actually liked.
Helen smiled. "Menelaus. With your permission, I will go to write that letter now."
Menelaus also smiled. "Go then Helen, I will see you later." He winked at her mischievously, and then Helen left.