The Firebrand (40 page)

TWO DAYS later, Kassandra heard the alarm in the city announcing an Akhaian attack, and saw the men of Troy rushing down to meet the invaders, her brother Paris among them. She was surprised at how commonplace this was beginning to seem, not only to her, but apparently to all the people of Troy. Except for the fighting men, no one seemed to pay much attention to the attacks. The smooth routine of the Temple didn’t alter at all, and from the wall she could see townswomen going calmly to the cisterns with their water jars.

One nonfighting man, however, was still interested in the actions of the Akhaians. At the end of the wall nearest the fighting, Khryse stood scowling as he watched the fight. Kassandra, not wishing to deal with him, slipped away back to the maidens’ rooms.
The people of Troy,
she thought,
are starting to regard the Akhaians with all the concern they would give to a sudden hailstorm. Can’t they see that this will be our destruction? But I suppose that no one can live in a state of terror for years on end. No doubt I’d feel the same complacency if I did not have the visions to unsettle me.

Shortly afterward, a messenger from the city reached her, saying that the Lady Helen was in labor and wished to see her. With Meliantha’s death, Kassandra had few or no obligations in the Sun Lord’s house, and so she did not bother to ask leave, but went down at once to the palace. She found her mother and sisters, except for Andromache, all gathered in Helen’s rooms.

Kassandra inquired about Andromache and was told that she had taken all the littlest children to her room to tell them stories and feed them sweets.

“For if there is anything we do not need in the birthing-chamber,” said Creusa, “it is the babies under our feet.”

Kassandra thought she was most probably right; she wondered if it was good nature on Andromache’s part, or whether she shrank from remembering her own ordeal. It did not matter; in any case, it needed doing, and Andromache’s motives were not important.

The birthing-chamber was quite crowded enough as it was, and most of the women were more obstacles to be stepped around than any kind of help to a woman in early labor; but custom demanded witnesses for a royal birth. Kassandra wondered if the Akhaians had the same custom, and resolved to ask Helen when they had leisure. At the moment, however, Helen was surrounded with so many midwives, waiting-women insistent on curling her hair or showing her some garment or piece of jewelry she might want, priestesses bearing amulets or chanting healing spells, cooks with morsels and drinks to tempt her appetite, that Kassandra could not get near the bed and resolved to wait till Helen asked for her.

Creusa had brought a lap-harp with her, and sat in the corner producing a quiet and calming background strumming. After a time Helen noticed Kassandra in the crowd and beckoned to her.

“Come and sit here beside me, Sister; this is like a festival—and so it is for most of them, I suppose.”

“Like a wedding,” Kassandra said. “Great fun for everyone except the ones most concerned. All we need in here is a few acrobats and dancing-girls, and someone showing off a two-headed rabbit for coppers, and a fire-eater or a sword-swallower ...”

“I’m sure if I wanted them, Hecuba would provide them,” Helen said with a droll lift of her eyebrows. Kassandra noticed that even under these trying circumstances she was ravishingly lovely.

“Acrobats and dancing-girls, at least,” Kassandra said. “Priam has several of them in the palace. I’m not sure about two-headed rabbits.”

“Oh, fie, Kassandra; our royal mother would not—it would be beneath her dignity to take notice of Priam’s dancing-girls or flute-girls,” Creusa said, between chords. Kassandra laughed.

“Don’t you believe that; Hecuba’s business is to oversee the food for every person under this roof. She probably knows how many olives each of them eats at dinner, which ones are greedy for honey and cakes, and which ones are careful never to get with child.”

“Of course; an acrobat can put herself out of work for a year, if she gets pregnant,” Helen said. “I had two girls, sisters, in Mykenae, who used to come and dance for me.” It was the first time she had spoken of her old home that Kassandra could remember. “No working girl wants to be burdened with carrying and birthing. That’s for ladies of leisure—like us.”

“Perhaps we work hardest of all,” Kassandra said. “My mother has borne and suckled seventeen children.”

Helen shivered. “I am already three-and-twenty, and I have only Hermione and Nikos; I am fortunate,” she said—and then a surprised look passed over her face and she grimaced and was silent for a moment.

“That was a fierce one,” she said. “I think it will not be very long now.” She looked around the chamber.

Kassandra asked, “Can I fetch you something?”

Helen shook her head, but she looked sad.
She is alone here,
thought Kassandra.
Among so many women, she has no real friend from her own country.

“Where is your lady Aithra?”

“She has returned to Crete; I would not be the cause of her exile too,” Helen said, and reached out her hand to Kassandra; Kassandra held it tightly.

Helen said, almost in a whisper, “Stay with me, Sister? I do not know these women—and there is none of them I trust.”

Creusa, with her free hand, pulled a stool toward them. Kassandra dropped onto it, disposing her cumbersome robes around her. She noticed that the other woman looked pale now, and drawn. Not now possessed by her Goddess, she was, Kassandra noted with detachment, quite a small woman, whose pale hair was her chief beauty; even now, it fell into smooth dazzling bands on either side of her sweat-stained face. Her eyes looked tired and a little red. Kassandra sat on the stool beside the bed letting Helen grip her hand. Creusa played softly, and music seemed to be helping—or perhaps Helen would have had an easy time of it in any case. Kassandra was curious, but did not feel comfortable asking questions; this experience was still something which seemed to have nothing to do with her.

As the afternoon sun strengthened in the room, Hecuba sent everyone away except the two senior midwives, a servant for running errands and a priestess bearing many amulets, which she came and distributed around the bed. She would have sent away Kassandra too.

“You are a maiden, Kassandra; a birth-chamber is no place for you.”

But Helen clung to her hand.

“She is my friend, Mother. And she is not only a maiden, she is a priestess. No chamber of women is forbidden to a priestess of the Mother.”

“Have you brought holy serpents?” Hecuba asked.

“No; the Temple serpents all died in the earthquake,” Kassandra said.

The priestess, tucking an amulet under Helen’s breasts with a muttered spell, raised her head to say, “Speak not of evil omens here.”

“I cannot see why the deaths of serpents in the Temple of Apollo should be an omen, good or evil, for my baby,” Helen said. “Apollo is not my God, and I have no dealings with Him for good or ill. As for Serpent Mother, She is no Goddess of mine.”

The priestess caught Kassandra’s eye and made a sign against evil fortune. Kassandra agreed with Helen; she was accustomed to the practice which made almost any random occurrence an omen for good or bad, but she still felt it nonsensical.

The priestess went to boil a pot of water over the brazier, and the room was filled with the steamy smell of the healing herbs she cast into it. Shortly before sunset Helen gave birth to a small and wrinkled son, to whom she gave the name Bynomos.

Hecuba looked at the little wriggling form with a slight frown.

“How long have you been among us, Helen? He is small . . . Never have I seen a full-term babe so small. He weighs no more than a chicken trussed for the spit.”

“Nor did I,” said Kassandra, “as you have told me often enough. It’s likely that with all the trouble and excitement—the disruption at the festival, the earthquake—no doubt this little one comes hither some days or weeks before his time. Does it matter, if he is strong and healthy?”

Helen made a face and whispered, “She simply wishes to be certain it is her own son’s son. Wanton I may be, but not so much as that; I knew I bore Paris’ son before we fled from Agamemnon’s house. But I do not know how to tell her what she really wants to know without shocking her further.”

Kassandra giggled, but she did not know what to say either.

Creusa came to take her turn at holding the baby. She said tactfully, “I think he will have his father’s eyes; babies who will be dark-haired have eyes of a smokier blue than those who will be fair.”

Kassandra was startled; she had not expected such support from her half sister. As a child Creusa had always had a talent for making a bad situation worse, as well as a tendency to throw fits of hysteria if she felt herself ignored. Perhaps marriage to Aeneas was giving her more maturity than anyone had expected.

There was a step at the door, and Kassandra, recognizing it, went to let Paris in, saying, “Brother, you have another son.”

“I have a son,” Paris corrected; “and if you prophesy anything of evil about him, Kassandra, I shall rearrange the bones of your face so that people flee from you as from the Medusa.”

“Don’t you dare to make threats to her,” cried Helen. “Your sister is my friend.”

Kassandra took the child in her arms and kissed him. She said, “I have no prophecy given me for this child. He is strong and well, and what fate will be his in manhood is not mine to say.”

She laid the child in Paris’ arms; he bent over Helen, and Kassandra drew her veil over her face.

“Are you going away, Sister?” Helen asked. “I had hoped you would stay and eat the evening meal with us, since Paris will not remain in the women’s quarters.”

“No, I must go down to the market,” Kassandra said. “Did you not hear? We lost all our serpents in the earthquake. Those who did not die forsook us, and have gone deep into the ground and will not return. Apollo’s Temple cannot be without serpents; I must replace them.”

“What a curious omen!” Creusa said. “What do you think it could mean?”

Reluctantly—she did not want to frighten them, nor anger Paris or her mother by repeating what they were so unwilling to hear—Kassandra said, “I think the Gods are angry with the city. This is not the first evil omen we have had.”

Paris laughed. “It takes no evil omen to make snakes take to the deeps in an earthquake—it is simply the way of the serpent-kind. I have seen enough of them in the mountains. But I am sorry for the loss of your pets.” He patted Kassandra lightly on the arm. “Go you to the market, Sister, and choose carefully—perhaps your new snakes will prove more faithful.”

“May the Gods grant it,” Kassandra said fervently, quickly leaving the room.

She decided to stop briefly and see Andromache before leaving the palace.

“Kassandra!” Andromache greeted her with delight. “I knew not that you were here. Were you summoned for the birth?”

“Yes,” Kassandra replied, embracing her friend. “Helen has a son, and both are well.”

“I heard the child was a boy,” Andromache said. “Nurse told me when she came to get the children. But”—she grinned wickedly—“‘Helen’ has a son—not Paris? For shame, Kassandra, to even imply such a thing!”

“For shame, Andromache, to put such a meaning into my words!” Kassandra retorted. “Who was your father? You know full well that I lived among the Amazons long enough to think of a child as its mother’s—particularly when I have just seen him born. Now, if Paris had been lying there in labor . . .”

The two women clung together laughing. “That I would like to see,” said Andromache; “and would he not deserve it well!”

Kassandra sobered abruptly, shivering. Before her she saw an image of Paris, lying convulsed with pain, on the pallet in the hut he had shared with Oenone. Oenone bent over him, wiping his sweating forehead with a cloth, and a golden breastplate lay on the floor beside them.

“Kassandra!” Hands grabbed her shoulders, guided her to a stool, and forced her head between her knees. “I am a fool to keep you standing here when you’ve doubtless not eaten since daybreak! Keep your head down until the faintness passes, and I’ll get you some food.” Andromache went to the door and called to a serving-woman, then poured out a goblet of the wine that stood on a table at the far side of the room.

“Drink this,” she ordered, “and eat at least a piece of the dried fruit.” She extended a plate, and Kassandra took a bunch of raisins, put one in her mouth, and forced her jaws to start chewing on it. “For once, the children didn’t eat everything in sight.”

“Sight.” Kassandra sighed. “I wish I didn’t have it.”

“They’re bringing up bread and meat from the kitchens,” Andromache said. “That will help dispel it. My mother always used to eat hot red meat and all the bread she could hold after a major scrying. And surely priestesses wouldn’t fast before ritual work if it didn’t help the Sight.”

“No doubt,” Kassandra agreed. “And in its own way, childbirth is a ritual.”

“
Very
true,” Andromache said feelingly. “Did Helen have a hard time of it?”

Kassandra shook her head.

“It would be that way for her.” Andromache made a face. “Oh, well, I suppose that if Aphrodite is going to lead her to take lovers, the least She can do is give her the art of bearing children easily. And speaking of children . . . did I see Oenone and her son at the spring planting?”

“You did, and so did I,” Kassandra replied. “She came to catch a glimpse of Paris. I fear she still loves him.”

“Much good may it do her,” Andromache said.

A servant entered with food from the kitchen. When she withdrew, Kassandra continued, “Oenone was my friend. I feel guilty that I cannot help loving Helen. And now Paris forgets even that he has a son by Oenone.”

“I think everyone loves Helen,” Andromache said. “Priam himself is never gruff with her, and he is well versed in the wiles of women and not easily charmed. As for Paris—well, what could you expect? If you had the Goddess of Love for your bed, would you turn away to a river priestess—and how would the Goddess deal with you if you did?”