The Firebrand (10 page)

For an instant, this puzzled her enough that she lost the fragment of vision; then she collected herself to call it back. Her senses were filled with the intoxicating scent of thyme from the slopes of the mountain, where the bright light and heat of the Sun Lord’s presence gathered together the fragrant oils of the herb and concentrated their scent in the air. Looking out of the boy’s eyes, she saw the crude brush in his hand as he combed the sleek sides of a great bull, smoothing the gleaming white hair of the flanks into patterns like waves. The beast was larger than he was himself; like Kassandra, he was slight and lightly made, wiry rather than muscular. His arms were sunburnt brown as any shepherd’s, his fingers callused and hard with endless hard work. She stood there with him, her arm moving like his, making patterns on the bull’s sides, and when the hair was suitably smooth and wavy, she put aside the brush. With another brush she dipped into a pot of paint that stood at his side, laying the coat of smooth gilt paint across the horns. The bull’s great dark eyes met her own with love and trust and a touch of puzzlement, so that the beast shifted its weight restively. Kassandra wondered if somehow the animal’s instincts knew what her brother did not: that it was not only his master who stood before him.

The combing and gilding finished, Paris (she did not ask herself how she now knew his name, but she knew it like her own) tied a garland of green leaves and ribbons around the animal’s broad neck, and stood back to survey his handiwork with pride. The bull was indeed beautiful, the finest that she had ever seen. She shared his thoughts, that he could honestly regard this fine animal, on whose looks and condition he had spared no little effort in all the past year, as the finest bull in the fair. He tied a rope carefully around the animal’s neck and gathered up a staff and a leather pouch in which there were a hunk of bread, a few strips of dried meat and a handful of ripe olives. Having tied the pouch at his waist he bent to slip his feet into sandals. He gave the great bedizened bull a gentle smack with the staff on its flank, and set off down the slopes of Mount Ida.

Kassandra found herself, to her own surprise, back in her own body, kneeling on the plain, among the sleeping Amazons. The sun had begun to decline a little from its zenith, and she knew the tribe would soon wake and be ready to ride.

She had heard that in the islands of the sea kingdoms far to the south, the bull was held sacred. She had seen in the Temples little statues of sacred bulls, and someone had told her the story of Queen Pasiphae of Crete, of whom Zeus had become enamored. He had come to her as a great white bull and they said that she had subsequently given birth to a monster with a bull’s head and the body of a man. He was called the Minotaur, and he had terrorized all the sea Kings until he was slain by the hero Theseus.

When Kassandra was a little girl, she had believed the story; now she wondered what truth, if any, lay behind it. Having learned the reality behind the legend of the Kentaurs, she believed there must be some such truth, however obscure, within all such stories.

There were deformed men who were bestial in both looks and manner; she wondered if the Minotaur had been such a man, with the mark of his father’s animal disguise in body or mind.

She was eager to see what had become of Paris, and of his beautiful white bull. Young women, particularly from the royal house, were never allowed to attend the cattle fairs, held all over the countryside, but she had heard of them and was intensely curious.

But the women were stirring, and in a few minutes the movements about her, and their voices, dispelled the quietness she needed to remain in the state where she could follow him. She sprang up, with only a little regret, and ran to catch her mare.

Once or twice in the next day or two she caught a glimpse of her brother, driving the garlanded bull, fording a river (where he spoiled his sandals) and falling in with other travelers driving cattle bedecked like his own; none of the animals was quite so fine or so handsome.

The moon grew round, lighting the whole sky from sunset to sunrise. During the day the sun blinded, the white dust glittered. Drowsing on horseback while the mares moved steadily, grazing in their close-kept ring, Kassandra watched the dry dust devils lifting up and swirling across the grass before they blew away. She thought of the restless God Hermes, lord of the winds and of deception and artifice.

Daydreaming, she saw one of the little whirlwinds shiver and tremble and draw itself upright into the form of a man; and so she followed the shifting restless wind westward across the plains to the very foot of Mount Ida. In the blinding sunlight, a beam of gold shifted and altered in the glow and became a man’s form; but taller and brighter than any man, with the face of Apollo Sun Lord; and before the two Gods walked a bull.

Kassandra had heard the story of the bulls of Apollo—great shining cattle, more beautiful than any earthly beast; and surely this was one of them; broad-backed, with shining horns needing no gilt or ribbons to make them gleam with light. One of the oldest ballads sung by the minstrels of her father’s court had to do with how the infant Hermes had stolen Apollo’s sacred herd, and then turned away Apollo’s anger by fashioning for Him a lyre from the shell of a tortoise. Now the brightness of the sacred bull’s eyes and the bright luster of its coat dimmed the memory of the bull Paris had decorated with so much toil. It was not fair; how could any mortal bull venture to be judged alongside the divine cattle of a God?

She leaned forward, her eyes closed; she had learned to sleep on horseback, yielding her body bonelessly to the animal’s movement. Now she drowsed, her mind ranging out in search of her brother. Perhaps it was the sight of Apollo’s bull that drew her to the animal Paris led to the fair.

Kassandra looked out from her brother’s eyes on the great body of assembled beasts and ran in his mind over their faults and virtues. This cow had flanks too narrow; that one, an ugly mottled pattern of brown and pink on its udder; this bull had horns twisted askew and not fit for guarding its herd; that one, a hump above its neck. Near or far, Paris thought with pride, there was none to match the bull from his own herd, which he had garlanded with such pride and brought here; he could declare the honors of the day to his foster-father’s own bull. This was the second year he had been chosen to judge the cattle, and he was proud of his skill and proud of the confidence his neighbors and fellow herdsmen felt in him.

He moved among the cattle, motioning gently to bring one forward so he could see it better, or to take an animal not seriously being considered out of his range of vision.

He had chosen the finest heifer and calf, and then, to murmurs of acclaim, the finest cow; it was a splendid cow indeed, its hide pale white with patches of gray so subtle that it was all but blue; its eyes were mild and motherly, its udder smooth and uniformly pink as a maiden’s breasts. Its horns were small and widespread, and its breath fragrant with the thyme-scented grass.

Now it was time to judge the bulls. Paris moved with satisfaction toward his foster-father’s own Snowy, the beast he had tended and decorated with such care. In a whole day of judging cattle he knew that he had honestly seen no beast to match it, and he felt justified in awarding the prize to his foster-father’s animal. He had actually opened his mouth to speak when he saw the two strangers and their bull.

As soon as the younger one—Paris supposed he was the younger—began to talk, Paris knew somehow that he was in the presence of the more-than-mortal. It was his first such encounter, but the blaze of the man’s eyes from under his hat, and something about the voice, as if it came from very far away and yet very close, told him this was no ordinary man. As for Kassandra, she would have recognized anywhere the unearthly shimmer around the golden curls of her God; and perhaps without Paris’ knowing it consciously, something crept through to him from the mind of his unknown sister.

He said aloud, “Strangers, bring the bull closer so I may see him. I have never seen such a fine animal.” But perhaps the bull had some fault not apparent, Paris thought, walking around it from all sides. No, the legs were like pillars of marble; even the tail moved with an air of nobility. The horns were smooth and broad, the eye fierce yet gentle; the animal even suffered, with a look of boredom, Paris to open its mouth gently and look at the perfect teeth.

What right has a God to bring his perfect cattle to be judged among mortal men?
Paris wondered. Well, it was Fate, and it would be arrogant to set himself against Fate.

He beckoned again to the man who held the rope around the bull’s neck, and said with a regretful glance at Snowy, “I am sorry to say it, but never in all my life have I seen a bull so fine. Strangers, the prize is yours.”

The glowing smile of the Immortal blurred into the sun; and as Kassandra woke, she heard a voice—no more than an echo in her mind:
This man is an honest judge; perhaps he is the one to settle the challenge of Eris.
And then she was alone in her saddle and Paris was gone, this time beyond any recall at her command. She did not see him again for a long time.

NO SOONER had they reached the country of the Amazons than the weather changed. One day, there was blinding sun from early morning to sunset; overnight, it seemed, there was day-long rain combined with damp, dripping nights. Being on horseback was no longer a pleasure, but toil and exhaustion; to Kassandra every day was a constant battle against cold and damp.

The Amazons kept up the fires in their sheltered camps; many lived in caves, others in heavy-walled leather tents set up in thick-leaved groves. Small children and pregnant women stayed inside all day, huddling close to the smoking fires.

There were times when the warmth tempted her, but among the tribe, girls Kassandra’s age counted themselves among the warriors, so she covered herself with a heavy robe of thick oil-surfaced wool, and endured the dampness as best she could.

As the rainy season dragged by she grew taller, and one day when she dismounted for a rare hot meal in the camp around the fire she realized that her body was rounding, small breasts sprouting under the rough loose garments.

From time to time as they rode, there slipped into her mind visions of the boy with her face. He was taller now; the woven tunic he wore barely covered his thighs, and she shivered in sympathy when he tried to cover himself with his too-short cloak. Surrounded by his flock, he lay on the slopes of the mountain, and once she saw him at a festival, one of a group of boys garlanded and moving in a dance. Another time she sat within him before a blazing fire as he was given a new warm cloak and his long hair was cut for the altar of the Sun Lord. Was he too under Apollo’s protection?

Once in spring, silent in a cluster of other boys, he watched a group of little girls—though most of them were as tall as or taller than he—wrapped in bearskins, dancing a ritual dance to the Maiden.

Now she seldom even thought about indoor life except for a vague constant nag of memory of a time when she was confined to the palace and never allowed outside. Curious sensations attacked her body; the roughly woven wool of her tunic rubbed her nipples raw and she begged from one of the other women an undergarment of soft cotton cloth. It helped, but not enough; her breasts were sore most of the time.

The days shortened, and a pale winter moon stood in the sky. The herds circled aimlessly, searching for food. Later the mares’ milk failed, and the hungry beasts moved restlessly from exhausted pasture to exhausted pasture.

The loss of the mares’ milk, the Amazons’ staple food, meant there was even less to eat; what there was was saved by custom for the pregnant women and the youngest children. Day after day, Kassandra knew little but sharp hunger; she kept her small allotment of food to eat before she slept, so that she would not wake dreaming of the ovens in Priam’s castle and the rich warm smell of baking bread. In the pastures, as she watched over the horses, she searched endlessly for dried-out fruits or stringy berries clinging to dead vines; like all the other girls, she ate anything she could find, accepting that about half of the food so found would make her sick.

“We cannot stay here,” the women said. “What is the Queen waiting for?”

“Some word from the Goddess,” said the others, and the older women of the tribe went to Penthesilea, demanding that they move on to the winter pastures.

“Yes,” said the Queen, “we should have gone a moon ago; but there is war in the countryside. If we move the tribe with all our children and old women, we shall be captured and enslaved. Do you want that?”

“No, no,” the women protested. “Under your will we will live free, and if we must we will die free.”

Nevertheless, Penthesilea promised that when the moon was full again she would seek counsel of the Goddess, to know Her will.

Seeing her own face once in the water after a hard rain, Kassandra hardly recognized herself; she had grown tall and lean, face and hands burnt brown by the unremitting sun, her features sharp and more like a woman’s than a girl’s—or perhaps like a young boy’s ... There were freckles on her face too, and she wondered if her family would know her if she should appear unannounced before them, or whether they would ask, “Who is this woman from the wild tribes? Away with her.” Or would they, perhaps, mistake her for her exiled twin?

Despite the hardship, she had no wish to return to Troy; she missed her mother sometimes, but not the life in the walled city.

One night at sunset, the young girls, returning to the camp for dry clothing and a share-out of such food as could be found—usually astringent boiled roots, or some hard wild beans—were told not to take the horses out again, but to remain and gather with the other women. All fires in the camp but one had been extinguished, and it was dark and cold.

There was not so much as a mouthful of food to be shared out, and Elaria told her fosterling that the Queen had declared that all must fast before the Goddess was petitioned.