The Firebrand (26 page)

Very soon she found many friends at the shrine, and after only a few months there were many clients and supplicants who came to deal with her and preferred that it be she who accepted their offerings and gave them advice. Once she asked an older priest: “I do not understand: why do they come to the God to ask these foolish questions for which they do not need a God’s advice, but only the common wits they were born with?”

“Because so many of them are born fools or worse,” said the old priest bluntly; “they think the Gods have nothing better to do than trouble Themselves with human affairs. Myself, I believe the Gods have enough concerns of Their own, in the land of the Immortals, not to worry Themselves very much with the business of ordinary men. Perhaps with the doings of Kings and the great ones; but”—and he lowered his eyes and spoke almost in a whisper—“I have seen little evidence even of that, daughter of Priam.”

Kassandra was a little shocked by this blasphemy, but felt that if the priest had little faith in the God, it was more his loss than anyone else’s. As for herself, while she dwelt in the shrine she had a great and often overpowering sense of the presence of her God, as in the moment when first He had called her.

This was not to say that her time in the Temple was entirely carefree. Some of the maidens in the shrine were openly jealous of her because she was a favorite with the older priests and priestesses, and spoke to her, or of her, with unkindness or spite; but she had never been popular with girls of her own age, not even with her sister and half sisters, except among the Amazons, and had become resigned to that before she was out of childhood.

Mostly she felt she was surrounded with loving attention; what else could it be when she dwelt in the house of her God? There were many women in the shrine who spoke of the Sun Lord as other maidens spoke of a husband or lover; in fact, one of the common names for the priestesses was “brides of the God.” One of the women, Phyllida, was regarded as having been the bride of the God in truth: she had borne a child who was accepted as a son of Apollo.

When Kassandra first heard this, she was annoyed and disgusted with what seemed obvious nonsense.

Is the girl simply a fool, deceived by some quite ordinary seducer? Or was she telling a tale to make up for some forbidden adventure of her own?
Kassandra wondered, for the virgins of the God were forbidden to have anything to do with men; they were carefully watched and not allowed to receive visits or gifts or to meet with even their own brothers or fathers except in the presence of one of the governesses, who chaperoned and cared for the maidens of the Sun Lord.
If I wished to be the bride of any mortal man,
she thought,
my father would be all too happy to arrange a marriage for me.

Sometimes Kassandra would half awaken at night, hearing the unmistakable voice of the God when He had called to her, a shining Immortal who was something more than mere man. More than once she dreamed that she lay fainting within the arms of her God, an ecstasy more than human sweeping through all her senses; from listening to the other girls talk (though out of shyness she took little part in this gossip), she learned that she was not the only girl favored with such dreams.

Once when one of the young maidens was telling her latest dream, filled with erotic detail which Kassandra thought only romantic imagining, she said: “If you dream so much of lying with a man, Esiria, why not send for your father and ask him to find you a husband? Otherwise, can you not find something else to occupy your thoughts and something more useful to talk about?”

“You are only jealous because He does not seek to lie with you even in a dream,” Esiria retorted. “And if He did, would you then refuse Him?”

A curious chill went over Kassandra.

“If He should seek to lie with me,” she declared, “I should try to be very certain that it was in truth the God, and not some lecherous man bent on deceiving a foolish and credulous woman, or romantic girl, who mistakes a mere lecher for a God’s deputy. I know there are men in this Temple who would not be above taking advantage of a silly girl that way; or do you think priests are eunuchs because they have taken a vow of chastity?”

Esiria would say no more, and Kassandra held her peace; but the next day when the women went to draw water at the well, she sought out Phyllida and asked to see her child. Like all mothers, the young woman (for she was not yet Kassandra’s age) was eager to show her little boy.

He was pretty indeed, with big blue long-lashed eyes and a crop of golden curls which made it easy to believe that he was indeed a child of the Sun Lord. Kassandra admired and kissed him, then asked Phyllida in a sufficiently awed tone, “How did you know it was the God who had come to you?”

“At first I did not know,” the girl said. “I thought it was a man in the mask of the God, and I opened my mouth to cry out for one of the governesses. But then—have you ever heard the voice of the God, daughter of Priam?”

Kassandra felt a catch in her throat, remembering that voice. She said, “I have heard . . .” and could not go on.

“Then, if it happens to you, you will know,” said Phyllida abruptly, and said no more.

Kassandra looked again at the little boy and said, “He is beautiful; may I hold him for a moment?”

“Certainly.” The child had fallen asleep, though his baby mouth, like a half-opened rose, still clung to his mother’s nipple; Phyllida lifted him and put him into Kassandra’s arms. He stirred and whimpered, but she jiggled him a little as she had seen his mother do and he was quiet. His weight, damp and soft in her arms, was unlike anything else she had ever felt; even among the Amazons she had never held quite so young a baby. She bent over close to him, touching the soft skin with her lips; it felt exactly like rose petals.

For a moment a vast content came over her; then it seemed as if a cloud covered the sun, and a cold wind blew over her, though she was still sitting in the warm bright court under a sun which almost burned her, so that she drew the end of her veil over the baby lest it damage his eyes or burn his skin. She recognized the darkness of vision and, motionless, awaited what she could not avoid.

Suffering and grief were the essence of it. Somehow she slid through time and knew that years had passed since this quiet moment; the child who lay against her breast was her own, the little head at her bosom was dark and curly, and even as that strange inward surge of happiness touched her it was clouded with despair, the memory of this very moment and an angry revulsion. The vision was so strong that for a moment she was paralyzed; then she knew again where she was. Once more she had managed to prevent the dark waters from drowning her.

She saw Phyllida’s wide childish eyes regarding her in something like dread as she put the babe back into his mother’s arms. Phyllida whispered, “You looked so faraway and strange, Kassandra. They say you can see into the future. What did you see for my child?” And as Kassandra was silent, she entreated, “You would not curse my baby?”

“No, no, of course not, little one,” Kassandra said.

“Will you bless him, then, daughter of Priam?”

Kassandra wished to reassure her, and reached within herself for the distant touch of the Goddess, to draw upon that power for blessing. Instead, she heard herself say: “Alas, there is no blessing for any child of Troy born in this inauspicious year; but perhaps Apollo, his father, will bless him where I may not.” She rose quickly and went away, leaving Phyllida staring after her in wordless dismay.

A FEW DAYS later, a messenger arrived with gifts for the Temple from King Priam’s house and a message for Kassandra herself.

“Your father and mother have asked that you may make a visit to your home for the wedding of your half sister Creusa.”

“I shall have to ask leave,” Kassandra told him, but permission was readily granted—perhaps too readily. Kassandra knew that it would not have been so swiftly given for any of the other young priestesses, and she really wished to be treated as one of them. But she could not fault the priests and priestesses that they did not wish to offend Troy’s King. They only insisted that since she was not yet a full priestess but still in the probationary year, if she wished to spend the night in her father’s house she be properly accompanied and chaperoned by a senior priestess.

The priestess who heard her request said, “It lies in your power to confer a favor, daughter of Priam: whom will you have to accompany you?”

Kassandra was not totally a stranger to this sort of courtly intrigue; whomever she chose, others might feel slighted. Making a choice no one could fault or envy, she chose the elderly Charis, who had first welcomed her to the house of the God.

Dressing herself in the most festive of the few simple dresses she had with her, and with the older woman at her side, she went quietly through the streets, attended only by one of the Temple slaves.

Charis, a lifelong dweller in the house of the Sun Lord, was nevertheless impressed as they approached the Great Citadel of Priam, and said little.

Kassandra was silent too, for she had looked down from the heights and seen again the dark ships in the harbor, not knowing whether they were really there or were yet to come.

As they entered the forecourt, Hecuba came to greet them. Kassandra bent to embrace her mother—Hecuba was a tall woman, but now Kassandra was taller still, and Hecuba lamented as she turned her face up to her tall daughter, “You cannot be still growing! Why, you are taller than most warriors, Kassandra! A man might not wish to have you near—”

“What does it matter, Mother? Since I am not to be married, but to dwell in the house of the God . . .”

“That I shall never accept,” said Hecuba with spirit. “I want to see your children before I die.”

But you never will,
Kassandra suddenly knew. With the memory of holding Phyllida’s child in her lap came the painful knowledge that before she could hold her grandchild—
the bitterness, the despair
—Hecuba’s eyes would forever have closed on this world.

“Mother, let’s not speak of that. If you want a wedding, you have Creusa now to marry off; and Polyxena’s older than I am and still unwed. Find her a husband,” she said, “and do not be concerned with me. Tell me now about Creusa’s betrothed.”

“She is to marry Aeneas, son of Anchises,” Hecuba said—“so handsome, they say he is truly a son of foam-born Aphrodite.”

“She is a Goddess of whom I know nothing,” Kassandra said, before she remembered the beautiful one in Paris’ dream—the Goddess of Love and Beauty.

“If his father claims to be the lover of Aphrodite, I should think the Goddesses would be angry with him,” said Kassandra. “I must see this marvel of a man.”

“Well, Creusa is content with him, and so is your father,” said Hecuba, “and in my youth I would have been more than happy with such a husband.” She turned a little anxiously to Kassandra and said, “Please try not to prophesy doom at this wedding, dear; it upsets people so much.”

Does she think I prophesy for the pleasure of doing it?
Kassandra thought with a surge of anger. But her mother looked so troubled that her anger faded; she kissed her again and said, “I will certainly try not to see any disasters; if the Gods are kind, I may be able to foretell something better.”

“Gods grant it,” murmured Hecuba piously. “Well, come in, my dear; I have missed you very much.”

After a moon spent in the house of the Sun Lord, everything in the palace seemed smaller and gaudy; yet dear and familiar. Andromache, dressed for the wedding in flame-dyed finery, ran out to greet Kassandra. Her pregnancy was very obvious now, and she waddled with the typical walk of a pregnant woman, tilting her body backward for balance. Kassandra, thinking of the lithe young girl in Imandra’s house, felt saddened, but Andromache embraced her joyously.

“Oh, I am so glad to see you! I wish you would marry and come home so we could be together! Just think, in another moon I will have my son in my arms!”

“Where is Oenone? Should she not be among us? A pregnant woman is the luckiest of all guests at a wedding.”

“She is not pregnant now,” said Andromache. “Have you not heard? She bore Paris a son four days ago, and she is still in bed; she had a dreadful time, poor thing—your mother said she was so slender she should have known better than to have a child at all. But when I asked how she could have avoided it, she would not tell me—she said Hector would not like it. Oenone has called her son Corythus. . . . So if Creusa wants a pregnant woman at her wedding, she will have to make do with me.”

“Creusa is fortunate to have you among her guests,” Kassandra said.

Andromache smiled like a kitten lapping cream and said, “I hope she thinks so too.”

“I should go and see Oenone,” Kassandra said.

Andromache took Kassandra’s hand and drew her along the stairs. “You had better not,” she said; “she has been very strange lately. When I went to see her, she would not speak to me. She said I was her husband’s enemy because Hector had sent him away.”

They went into the upstairs suite where the women were dressing the bride. It was the beautiful room with the Cretan murals of bull-dancers, and Kassandra said, “But this is the room my mother had made ready for Oenone.”

“She would not stay in it,” Andromache said. “She said she did not want to lie here day after day looking out on the sea which had borne Paris away from her, so she insisted on moving into a room at the back of the palace where she can look upon Mount Ida, her home. But never mind that now; come and help dress the bride.”

Far below they could hear the sounds of the men in the hall, drinking and toasting the wedding.

Creusa was being covered with an embroidered veil; she put it back for a moment and came forward to greet Andromache with a bow, then kissed Kassandra coolly and said “Welcome, Sister.”