The Firebrand (34 page)

Andromache knelt beside Kassandra and put her arms around her, saying, “Never mind. I should not have frightened you; I should have known better.”

Kassandra could almost hear her thinking,
Poor thing, she is mad
;
Apollo has cursed her after all.

There was no way to argue with that, so she abandoned her warning and asked Andromache, “What of Oenone?”

“She has returned to the mountain, and taken her child with her,” Andromache said. “Paris wished to keep the babe—his firstborn son, after all—but Oenone said he could not have it both ways; if it was
his
son, and he chose to acknowledge it, then she was his lawful first wife and this foreign woman only a second wife or concubine.”

“And serves him right,” Kassandra said. “It seems that Paris has neither honor nor decency; Father should have left him on Mount Ida with his sheep, if they’d have him.” She was deeply disappointed in her brother; she wanted Paris to be regarded as the people of the city regarded Hector: their champion, their hero, as much for his goodness and honorable behavior as for his handsome face.

“I must return to the palace. But tell me, what will we do if there is a war, Kassandra?” Andromache asked her.

“Fight it, of course; even you and I may be glad for our weapons, if as many Akhaians rise against us as Agamemnon intends,” Kassandra said, despairing.

Andromache embraced her and took her leave. After she was out of sight, Kassandra went out the highest gate of Apollo’s house, climbing higher and higher, toward the Temple of Pallas Athene. As she went, sweat soaking through her tunic in the heat, she tried helplessly to form a prayer. But nothing would come, and she went on climbing.

She looked down toward the harbor, black with ships as she had seen it so many times before this. She did not know whether the ships were really there or not, but this time it did not matter. If they were not there now, they would come soon enough.

She went up into the high Temple of Pallas Athene, at the very summit of the city, and into the shrine. Recognizing her either as Priam’s daughter or as a priestess of the Sun Lord (or perhaps both), the guardians drew aside, letting her into the shrine, before the great image of the Goddess, shown as a young woman wearing the unbound locks and garland of a virgin.

She looked at the drawn curtains of the innermost shrine, which contained the image of Pallas, drawn from heaven, ancient and crude, and remembered the Goddess of the Amazon women.

She had not truly expected an answer, but deep in her mind she felt the surging motion of the dark waters of the Goddess.

Obscurely comforted, she went away down the hill to the Temple, to take up her duty of tallying the offerings.

Khryse was there as usual, marking his symbols on wax tablets, noting numbers of jars of oil, of grains—barley and millet; offerings of wine or honeycombs, of hares and pigeons and kids. She was still unwilling to look at him, although she told herself it was not she who should be ashamed.

A jar carried by one of the younger priestesses had been let fall and had broken another, so that a heap of barley and the sticky contents of a honeycomb lay intermingled, and the efforts of the young girl to clear it away had only made a worse mess; Kassandra sent her for a twig broom and a water jar, and herself took over the task of cleaning it up. She was directing the girl to get a cage of pigeons out of the way, when she heard the familiar and hated voice.

“You should not be doing this yourself, Lady Kassandra; this is work for a slave.”

“We are all slaves in the eyes of the Immortals, you as well as I, Khryse,” said Kassandra, her eyes on her broom.

“A correct statement; but when was the Lady Kassandra anything but correct—whatever it may cost her or anyone else?” said Khryse. “Kassandra, we cannot go on like this, with you forever afraid to look at me.”

Stung, she looked up angrily into his face.

“Who dares to say I am afraid?”

“If you are not, why do you always avoid my eyes?”

Her voice was caustic. “Are you so fair an object that you think I should find pleasure in looking at you?”

“Come, Kassandra,” he said, “can there not be peace between us?”

“I bear you no particular ill will,” she said, still not looking at him. “Stay away from me, and I shall return the courtesy, if that is what you want from me.”

“No,” Khryse said, “you know what it is I want from you, Kassandra.”

Kassandra sighed. “Khryse, I want nothing from you except that you leave me in peace; is that plain enough for you?”

“No,” the man said, clasping her hands in his. “I want you, Kassandra; the image of you is in my mind day and night. You have bewitched me; if you cannot love me, then at least free me from your spell.”

“I do not know what to say to you,” she said, dismayed. “I have cast no spell on you; why should I do such a thing? I do not desire you; I do not like you at all, and if I had my way you would be in Crete, or in one of the hells, or even farther away than that. I do not know how I can make it any plainer to you, but if I could think of a clearer way to say it, I would. Is that understandable?”

“Kassandra, can you not forgive me? I do not seek to dishonor you. If it is your will, I will go, humble poor priest that I am, and ask your father for your hand in marriage. You must feel some kindness for me, for you have been kind to my motherless child—”

“I would be just as kind to any stray kitten,” Kassandra interrupted. “For the last time, I would not marry you if you were the last man the Gods ever made. If the alternative was to live virgin all my life or to marry a blind beggar lying in the marketplace, or even a—an Akhaian, I would choose him before you.”

He stepped away, his face as white as the marble walls of the shrine. He said through clenched teeth, “Someday you will regret this, Kassandra. I may not always be a powerless priest.”

His face was drawn; she wondered suddenly if he had been drinking unmixed wine so early in the day. But the wine at the priests’ table was always well watered; nor did he have the flushed look he would have had in that case. His breath did not seem to smell of wine—but there was a strange scent that seemed to cling to his clothing. She could not identify it, but supposed it was some medicine the healer-priests had given him for his seizures.

She turned away, but he caught at her hand and pulled her close, backing her against the wall. His body pressed hard against hers, and one of his hands gripped both of hers painfully hard. With his free hand he tried to wrench apart her gown, his mouth jamming hard against hers.

“You have driven me mad,” he gasped, “and no man can be blamed for punishing a woman who has driven him to frenzy!”

She struggled and would have screamed; finally she bit down into his lip. He jerked back and she thrust at him with both her hands, so that he tripped and fell. She stumbled as he clung to her, wrenched her hands furiously free of his, and ran. He tried to raise himself and she kicked him in the ribs. She ran from the shrine and did not stop running till she was safe in her own room.

KASSANDRA AWAKENED from a dream of fire sweeping up the hill of Troy toward the palace to a smell of smoke and voices clamoring in the halls of the Sun Lord’s house. It was the darkest part of the night, when the moon is down and the stars are going out; but there was the smell of torches. Snatching up a cloak to cover the short tunic in which she slept, she ran out into the courtyard.

Far below in the harbor she could see dim lights from ships, and torches, presumably carried in human hands, making their way up the hill.

All she could think was
It has come.
She cried out, and then she heard the clamor of the alarm, a great wooden rattle sounded from Priam’s keep. It called for women and children and the old to take refuge in the main citadel and the soldiers to turn out. She stood watching the lights moving through the city below her, and hearing the clash of weapons seized, and at last the loud voices of officers ordering soldiers to their posts.

She felt a gentle tug on her sleeve and found Chryseis standing beside her.

“What is it, Kassandra?”

“It is the Akhaians; they have come, as we foresaw,” she said, and was astonished at how calm she felt. “We must make ready to take shelter in the citadel.”

“My father—”

“Hush, dear; he will have to go with the soldiers. Go quickly and dress.”

“But he has the falling sickness—”

“If the Akhaians take him, he will have something worse. Quickly, child.” She took Chryseis’ hand, and led her within, dressing her quickly in a heavy tunic against the night chill, fastening her cloak and binding sandals on her feet. As soon as Chryseis was dressed, they went into the courtyard. Charis was gathering the women around her, and telling them to go down toward the main keep of the palace.

Kassandra, the girl’s hand in hers, walked quickly down the steep road. It seemed wrong to be going
toward
the torches and the clash of arms; surely the Akhaians would never come so high as this: what they sought was in the palace, not up here in the Temple. Now she could hear the chilling war cries, and the bellowing of Hector as he rallied his men.

The other women crowded around them as Kassandra led the way through the palace gates. The guards and soldiers were hurrying the women inside, each one then taking up a spear from a huge pile stacked at the entrance to the armory.

Kassandra thought of taking a spear and going down with the soldiers; but Hector would be angry.
All the same, a time may come when he does not despise my skill at arms.
For the moment, she decided to go with the women. They were a disheveled crew, most of them half-dressed, having been roused from sleep. Many of them had not troubled to dress, or do more than clutch a blanket over their nakedness, like their children; and babies howled or fretted in the arms of mothers or wet-nurses. Kassandra and the other priestesses of Apollo were almost the only ones who were properly dressed for public appearance, or who kept their composure. Most of the women were tear-stained or crying, keening and shouting for explanations or for help.

Helen too stood composed among the hysterical women. Every lock of hair was in place, and she looked as if she had this moment come from the hands of her bath-attendant. She was holding a small boy of five or six by the hand; he was neatly dressed, his hair combed into place, and though his knuckles were white as he clung to her fingers, his face was scrubbed clean, and he was not crying.

She looked across the room with great composure, and her eyes met Kassandra’s. Then she crossed the room, threading her way quietly through the crowding, wailing women, and came toward Kassandra.

“I remember you,” she said; “you are my husband’s twin sister. It is good to see someone who is not turned foolish with terror. Why are you not weeping and screaming like everyone else?”

“I don’t know,” Kassandra said. “Perhaps I am not as easily frightened; and perhaps I prefer not to cry until I am hurt.”

Helen smiled. “Ah, good. Most women are such fools. Is there danger, do you think?”

“Why do you ask me?” Kassandra countered. “Surely they have not neglected to tell you that I am mad.”

“You do not have the look of a madwoman,” Helen said. “In any case, I prefer to make up my own mind.”

Kassandra frowned a little and turned away. She did not want to like this woman or to find anything admirable in her. It was bad enough that when she looked at her she saw something of what Paris saw.

“Then you can make up your own mind as to whether there is danger,” she said curtly. “I know only that I was awakened by the watchman’s rattle, and I came down here to obey. I suppose, since I saw Akhaian ships in the harbor, that it has something to do with you; and so, though there may be something for us to fear, there is certainly nothing for you to be afraid of.”

“You think not?” Helen said. “Agamemnon is certainly no friend of mine; his only thought would be to turn me over to Menelaus, and he would certainly stand by to see that I did not escape unscathed.”

The unnaturally neat little boy clinging to Helen’s hand flinched; Helen felt it, and looked gently down at him. Kassandra did not know why this surprised her; why had she thought that the Spartan woman could not also be a tender and concerned mother?

She asked, “How old is your son?”

“Five years old at Midsummer,” Helen said, and beckoned across the crowded room to a thin, aristocratic-looking woman dressed in the full skirt and low-cut bodice of a Cretan woman. “Aithra, will you take Nikos and put him down somewhere to sleep, my dear?” She kissed the child, who clung to her; but she said gently, “Go now and sleep, like a good boy,” and he went without protest, trotting along obediently at the tall woman’s side.

“Is that Menelaus’ son?” asked Kassandra.

“Perhaps you would say so,” Helen said indifferently. “I say he is
my
son. In any case, I do not choose to leave him with his father; I do not like the way he treats his children. It will not harm my daughter, Hermione, to be nothing but his precious gilded toy; but the only thought in Menelaus’ mind is to make Nikos over in his own image—or worse yet, in the image of his wonderful brother. I sent Nikos away because someone unwisely said in his hearing that if his father came after us, he would kill us both; and Aithra also has cause to fear.”