The Firebrand (39 page)

Kassandra joined in the cry which rose to heaven:

“Earth Mother, nourish Your children, we cry to You.”

Baskets of seed were relayed to all the fertile women, and they began passing them down the field, scattering the grain. Priam, shoved in rude haste to the edge of the field, stumbled, and measured his length on the soil, staining his garb. There were gasps at this evil omen, and he was picked up and borne off tenderly to where the rest of the men were surrounding the field now, watching the sowing. The sun was high, beating down with dazzling force.

“Maybe the earth would bear no matter what we do or don’t do,” a big rough man Kassandra had never seen before suggested. “I have been in heathen places where they know nothing of our Gods, and crops grow there too, just the same as here.”

“You be quiet, Ajax; we don’t need any of your foolish ideas,” said a strong deep voice Kassandra identified as that of Aeneas. “Whether it has to do with the Gods or not, this is the way things are done for decency and custom; and why not?”

Thunder rumbled in the distance and clouds moved across the face of the sun. Kassandra felt the insects in the hedges grow silent. Then a few drops of rain rattled against the dry branches of the hedges, and within moments the flimsy garments of the women were flattened against their bodies. They sent up a cry: “Thanks be to Earth Mother, who sends rain to nourish us!”

The songs had quieted as the rain grew hard. Now the women finished sowing the last of the seed, and everyone, including the little girls and the women who were old and barren, ran out onto the field to assist in covering the last of the grain. Kassandra had started to run and join Oenone when a dark surge came before her eyes, and she paused, dizzy, not sure that the ground had not rocked beneath her feet.

Then there was a war cry, and she saw men in dark tunics rushing out onto the field, shouting and yelling. A man in armor seized Oenone and, flinging her over his shoulder, rushed for the dark line of ships that had appeared while all eyes were on the plowing and sowing.

By old custom, the Trojans had brought no weapons to the field; most of them now were running for the city wall where they had left them. Paris was one of the first to reappear on the wall, shooting arrow after arrow into the throng of strange soldiers. The man who held Oenone fell struggling, struck through the heart, and Oenone freed herself. There were many arrow and javelin shots, and many of the Akhaians fell; most of the others who had also seized women dropped them, and managed to reach the ships before the hailstorm of arrows cut them down. Oenone reached Hecuba’s side and looked round for her child; finding him safe, she joined the small knot of women around the Queen. Kassandra was still in the protection of the hedge. She saw Helen beside Oenone, and wondered what, if anything, Paris’ two wives found to say to each other. She noted, too, Helen’s shapely body, obviously swollen in pregnancy.

She wondered if Menelaus had seen. If so, Menelaus would now surely rather go home and leave Helen to Paris; he would not keep fighting for the mother of some other man’s child.

Kassandra, choosing her moment carefully, left the hedge and raced across the field, breathlessly crowding into the circle near the Queen, taking her place beside Oenone. All the women were looking down fearfully at the Akhaians nearing their ships. She picked out the tall beaked figure of Agamemnon; he was no monster now, only a man, rougher, stronger and crueler than most, but the sight of him still made her blood run cold.

Hecuba was looking around and counting her women. “Are you all here? Has anyone been taken?”

A group of women from the Sun Lord’s house was clustered together at the fringe of Hecuba’s women. Phyllida was unobtrusively counting them; she cried out, “Oh, where is Chryseis? Was she not with you, Kassandra? I thought I saw her at your side.”

“Yes, she was with me; perhaps she is still in the hedge. Shall I go back and see? All of—of
them
have gotten back to their ships, I think.”

“No,” Phyllida said firmly, “you must not expose yourself; remember, you are Priam’s daughter, and you would be a great prize to any one of the invaders. Stay here close to your mother,” she admonished, as Hecuba came and grasped Kassandra’s hand.

“So you are safe? I was worried about you,” Hecuba said. “How did you know they would attack us?”

“I thought it likely,” Kassandra said, “and so it was.”

“But they have not taken any captives,” Hecuba said, “and so they have had all their trouble for nothing.”

“No, we did not come off untouched,” Kassandra said. “They managed to take one of the maidens from Apollo’s Temple.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” Hecuba said with a gasp.

Kassandra privately thought the loss a small one; the girl had been a troublemaker from the first, and it was not even certain that she was a maiden.

She was grateful that the attack had done so little harm. She decided to seek out Helen and ask when her child would be born. Once again it seemed that Helen was under the spell of the Goddess; even at the most unattractive stage of pregnancy, she seemed beautiful and glowing. It was not only Paris whose eyes followed her as bits of lint follow amber.

Helen smiled at Kassandra with such intense welcome that Kassandra felt almost weak in the knees. The favor of the Goddess was to be treasured. Without it the women here might have torn the Spartan Queen to pieces; after all, she had brought the men of Troy into the dangers of this war.
But I have no husband or lover,
thought Kassandra,
for whom I must fear.
Helen embraced her, and Kassandra returned the greeting warmly.

“When is the baby due?”

“At autumn harvest,” said Helen.

“And it is Paris’ child? Then perhaps,” Kassandra suggested, “Menelaus will go away and be content to leave you here.”

Helen smiled cynically. “If he should say it, no one would listen,” she said. “Come, Kassandra, you know as well as I that my body and my adultery are only a pretext for this war; Agamemnon has been seeking a good excuse for years to attack Troy. If I sought to return to Menelaus tonight under cover of darkness, I would wager anything you like that my dead body would be found hanging on the wall and the Akhaians would keep fighting on the pretext of avenging me.”

This was so likely true that Kassandra did not bother to comment. Helen said in annoyance, “There have been many times when I felt it would be best if I had been sworn a virgin to the Moon Maiden. Even now I am tempted to forswear men forever in Her shrine; would She have me, do you think?”

“How should I know?” Kassandra replied hesitantly.

“Well, you are a priestess . . .”

“All I know is that She denies no woman who comes before Her,” Kassandra said, “but it seems to me that your destiny is to become a symbol of strife among men; and no one can argue with destiny.”

“It would be too good to be true, I suppose, that I should be able to seek the Goddess and in Her shadow avert the known pattern of my fate,” Helen said. “But how do I know it is a God who has determined this fate and not that I have simply become entangled between two willful men who care nothing for the Gods?”

“I think this is the kind of thing no one can ever know,” Kassandra said. “Yet I do feel the hand of some God in this; I know how Paris was driven to seek you.”

“Then you mean that this war between Troy and my people was determined by the Immortals?” Helen asked. “Why? I mean, why me and not some other?”

“If I knew that,” said Kassandra, “I should then be the most favored seer of the Gods. I can only guess that the Goddess who favored you with such beauty had this purpose in mind.”

“And I still ask: why me and not some other?”

“Ask as much as you will,” Kassandra said, “and if you receive an answer, come and share it with me.”

KASSANDRA DREAMED that the Gods were angry with the city and were fighting above Troy; They towered to the sky, Their spears clashing with thunderbolts, and the glare of Their great swords was like lightning. She woke to a day of heavy dripping rain, and a dull ache in her eyes.

Surprisingly, she missed Chryseis; she had grown used to the girl’s company and could not help dwelling with fear and disgust on what must have befallen her in the camp of the Akhaians—they had, after all, been there for several months without their own women. Although she knew that some of the women of the town slipped out through the walls into the shoreline camp to sell their bodies, she did not suppose it was the same. However, when she thought to pity Chryseis, she found herself thinking that this had been exactly what the girl wanted; she had been eyeing the foreigners over the wall for some months now.

Dismissing the girl from her thoughts, Kassandra threw on a robe and went to care for the serpents and the old priestess.

When she entered the room set apart for the old woman and the serpents, she found confusion; two or three statues had been overturned and were lying broken about the room, and there was not a single snake anywhere. She called out—she had heard that snakes were deaf and could hear nothing, but she was not certain about that, and calling would do no harm—and old Meliantha’s voice came feebly from an adjacent room: “Is that you, Kassandra, daughter of Priam?”

Kassandra went quickly to the dark inner room, where the old woman lay on a pallet.

“What ails you, Meliantha? Are you ill?”

“No,” said the aged priestess, “I am dying.” Kassandra saw by the dim light that her face had shrunk even further; her eyes were dimmed and covered with a white film. “You need not call out to the serpents, for they have gone; all of them. They have left us and retreated deep into the earth. Those that are still here are lying dead in their pots—look and see.” Kassandra went to investigate, and saw a few unbroken pots lying in place; inside them, the serpents lay cold and still. She returned to the old priestess to ask what had happened.

“Did you not feel the anger of the Earth Shaker in the night? Not only the pots, but all my statues are broken.”

“No, I heard nothing; but I had evil dreams of the anger of the Gods,” Kassandra said. “Is it Serpent Mother who is angry with us?”

“No,” said the old priestess scornfully. “She would not punish Her serpents to show Her anger with us; rather She would slay us for the well-being of Her little folk. Whichever God has done this, Serpent Mother had nothing to do with it.”

The old woman looked so agitated that Kassandra wished to comfort her. “Will you have bread and wine, Lady?”

“No; I cannot think of such things at a time like this,” the old woman said. “Dress me in my priestess’ robes, and paint my face, and then carry me out into the sunlight in the courtyard, so that I may look one more time upon the face of the Sun Lord for whom I have spent my life.”

Kassandra did as she was bidden, assisting the old woman into the elaborate robe of pleated linen dyed brilliant yellow with saffron. She found a pot of cosmetics and as the old woman wished, hesitantly painted her cheeks and lips brilliant red with dye, though she thought it looked grotesque. At last she stooped and picked up the old priestess in her arms and carried her into the brilliant light of the courtyard, where she laid her down on some cushions. The old woman, exhausted, lay back, and Kassandra could see the pulse in her blue vein beating away hard in her temple. Her breath was a hoarse, exhausted rasp.

“Shall I not summon a healer to you, Lady?”

“No; it is too late for that,” Meliantha said. “I am glad I will not live to see the days that are coming to Troy. But you have been good to my little people, and I shall pray with my dying breath that somehow you may escape what the Fates have determined for this wretched city.” She shut her eyes for a moment, and Kassandra bent forward to hear if she still breathed. Meliantha put out a wavering hand.

“Closer, my child, I cannot see your face,” she said, “yet it shines before me like a star; the Sun Lord has not forsaken you.” Then she kissed Kassandra with her wrinkled lips and, opening her filmed old eyes, she cried out, “Apollo, Sun Lord! Let me see Thy face bright before me!”

She trembled violently and fell back upon the cushions, and Kassandra knew she was gone.

Now it could not hurt her to be left alone, so Kassandra ran to tell Charis what had happened.

“She was the oldest of us all,” Charis said. “I came here as a child of nine and she was already old then. I felt the Earth Shaker in the night, and I should have gone to her; but it was just as well. I could have done her no good. Well, we must bury her as befits a priestess of Apollo,” she said, and sent the women for flowers to make garlands and for honey cakes and wine.

“We do not mourn when one of our own goes to the eternal realms,” she chided the sobbing women. “We rejoice because after a long life of service the Serpent Mother has taken her. And see”—she indicated the dead snakes lying in their pots—“her little friends have gone before her to welcome her into those realms; there she can see them again and play with them, as she always loved to do.”