The Firebrand (41 page)

Kassandra shivered. “I do not like this Akhaian Goddess,” she said. “May She never lay Her hands on me.”

Andromache looked very serious. “I would not wish for that,” she said. “I would be sorry to think you should never know what it is to love.”

“What makes you think that I do not?” Kassandra asked curiously. “I love my brothers and my mother, my serpents, my God . . .”

Andromache smiled a little sadly.

“I am fortunate,” she said; “my love is for the man I was given for my husband, and I cannot imagine loving another. From what little talk I have had with Helen, I understand it was so with her until the Goddess laid Her hand on her; and then she could think only of Paris.”

“Surely, then, such love is a curse and not a gift,” Kassandra said, “and I pray it may never befall me.”

Andromache embraced her gently and said, “Have a care what prayers you make, Kassandra. I wished to travel forth from Colchis, and to have a husband of great honor and renown. And that prayer brought me here away from my mother and my Gods, to a city at the far corner of the earth, in these dark times.” She caught up a little of the salt that lay at hand on the tray with the meat and cast it into the air with a whispered word Kassandra could not hear. Kassandra, cutting herself a small slice of the roasted meat and laying it on a piece of bread, raised her eyebrows in question.

“I prayed for you,” Andromache said, “that your prayers might be answered only in the way you would have it.”

Kassandra embraced her friend and said impulsively, “I do not know if the Gods ever honor such requests—but I am grateful to you.”

When she had finished her evening meal with Andromache, and helped her put Astyanax to bed, she left the palace. She was strolling through the darkened stalls of the evening market when she remembered that she had intended to ask Andromache what it might mean when serpents deserted a Temple. Then she recalled that Andromache would have nothing to do with serpents.

She resolved to ask all the priestesses she could find if they knew of a lore-mistress or master, a priest or priestess of Serpent Mother or of the Python, before she bought a single snake for the house of the Sun Lord. Somewhere in this great city of Troy there must be someone versed in such wisdom.

SINCE THE RAID at spring planting, Khryse had fallen into a deep depression; he neglected his assigned duties in the Temple, spending much of his time standing near the high rampart which looked down on the Akhaian camp below.

“Please go and tell him to come down,” Charis said to Kassandra. “He likes you; perhaps you can persuade him that life is not over.”

“It is not liking he has for me,” Kassandra remonstrated; but she did feel compassion for the troubled man, and later that day she joined Khryse on the high place.

“The evening meal is prepared,” she said, “and they await you.”

“Thank you, Kassandra, but I am not hungry,” he said. He had not bathed or shaved since the raid; he looked unkempt and dirty, and smelled of strange herbs. “How can I eat and sleep in comfort when my child has been taken? I cannot bear to think of my poor little girl down among those savage soldiers.”

“You cannot improve her lot by fasting and neglecting your person,” Kassandra pointed out fastidiously. “Or is it that you think that seeing you in this condition will soften the hearts of the Akhaians?”

“No, but it might soften the heart of some God,” he said, surprising her with the sincerity in his voice.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Perhaps not,” he said, sighing so heavily that the sound seemed ripped from the very depths of his body. “But I have no heart for food or rest when she is there. . . .”

“She has certainly not been given to the soldiers,” Kassandra said; “she will be a cherished prize for one of the leaders, perhaps even for Agamemnon himself.”

“Do you think that is any comfort to me?” He sounded despairing; Kassandra would have tried to speak comfort, but a surge of darkness rippled before her eyes and for a moment she did not know where she was or what she had been saying.

“Why did I guard her maidenhood so carefully all those years only to bring her here? I might as well have sold her to a brothel-keeper!”

Now Kassandra was angry.

“No; you sold her to Apollo Sun Lord, in return for a life of comfort for yourself. As for the girl, if maidenhood dwells not in the soul, it is useless to guard the body. If you wish for Apollo’s protection, or for revenge, I cannot advise you. I can say only that He is unlikely to intervene when you have made yourself worthless to us all. If you want His help—or His mercy—you must first serve Him well; you cannot bargain with a God.”

She stared over the rampart at the thick sea-fog obscuring the Akhaian ships below. It had come to where she hated to look on the sea because of that dark fringe of ships against the ocean’s edge. Khryse turned on her with such fury that for a moment she thought he would strike her; then he restrained himself, visibly sinking back into his apathy.

“You are right,” he said slowly. “I will go to the evening meal—but first I will go and bathe and restore myself to the proper appearance for a priest of the Sun Lord.”

She said softly, “This is wise, my brother,” and saw something kindled in his eyes that she would rather not have seen; cursing herself for her momentary impulse of sympathy, she went on her way.

EARLY THE NEXT morning there was a sound at her door, and when she went to answer it, she found one of the youngest priests, who were used as messengers within the Sun Lord’s house.

“You are the daughter of Priam?” he asked respectfully. “You are wanted at once in the room at the gatehouse; a man there says he is your uncle and must have speech with you at once.”

Kassandra wrapped herself in her cloak, wondering what—or who—it could possibly be. She did not know any of her father’s brothers, and certainly Hecuba had none. Too late, she began to wonder if it was a trick of some sort, and when, within the room, she had a glimpse of three men in Argive cloaks, she started back, ready to call out for help.

“It is I, Kassandra,” said a familiar voice, and the man pulled back the hood concealing his face.

“Odysseus!” she exclaimed.

“Not so loud, my girl; you will get us all killed!” he implored. “I must see your father—and as things are now, I could not land among these Akhaians and walk through them up toward the gates of Troy for a parley; they’d have lynched me. My ship lies hidden in a cove I discovered when I was among pirates; I stole in last night under cover of the fog, and I must speak with Priam and see if there is still any honorable way to avert this war. I thought perhaps here, in this Temple, some way could be contrived.”

“But you cannot just go out at the front gate and down to the palace either,” she said. “I am sure there are Akhaian eyes and ears in the market, and even here in the Sun Lord’s House: pilgrims; spies in the guise of petitioners. You would be recognized at once. Let me see first if I can contrive something. For you, I am sure, my father will waive the vow he has sworn to make no civil parley with any Argive. But who are your companions?”

“Take off your cloak, Akhilles,” Odysseus said, and the young man at his side put back his hood. He was not particularly tall, but had the heavily muscled shoulders of a wrestler. His hair was still worn long about his shoulders—he was not yet old enough to be shorn in manhood’s rites; the hair was cloudy fair, almost silvery. The face had strongly marked features: fierce—but it was the eyes to which Kassandra returned, the steely eyes of a bird of prey.

He said to Odysseus, “You promised to take me to this war, with my soldiers; you promised, and now you talk of avoiding it—as if there were anything honorable about the avoiding of war. That is girl’s talk, not man’s talk, and I have already heard too much of that!”

“Be quiet, Akhilles,” said the other young man, who was taller, and slightly built, with the long, smooth muscles of a runner or a gymnast. He was a few years older than Akhilles, about twenty. “There is more to war than honor or glory; and certainly whatever Odysseus can do is guided by the Gods. If you want war, there has never been any shortage of it in any man’s life. We don’t need to speed to destruction—but isn’t it just like you, to rush into war for the fun of it!” He smiled at Kassandra and said, “That’s how this wily old pirate”—he turned his eyes affectionately toward Odysseus—“got him to come here in the first place.”

“How dare you say
wily,
Patroklos!” said Odysseus in an offended tone. “Hera, Mother of Wisdom, was my guide at every step. Let me tell you about it, Kassandra.”

“With pleasure,” she said. “But you must all be hungry and weary. Let me call for breakfast, and you can tell me while we eat.”

She summoned servants and had bread brought, and olive oil and wine, and Odysseus told his tale.

“When Menelaus summoned us all to keep our vow to fight for Helen,” he said, “I foresaw this war, and so did others; Thetis, priestess of Zeus Thunderer—”

“My mother,” Akhilles interrupted under his breath.

“Thetis sought to know from prophecy what would befall her son, and the prophecy stated—”

“I am weary of prophecies and old wives’ tales,” Akhilles muttered. “They are moonshine. I love my mother, but she is no more than an idiot, like all women, when it comes to war.”

“Akhilles, if you will stop interrupting me, we will have this tale done,” said Odysseus, dipping his bread calmly into the oil. “Thetis, who is almost as wise as Earth Mother, read the omens and was told that if her precious son fought in this war, he could be killed—which takes no more of Sight than forecasting snow on Mount Ida in winter. Therefore, she thought to help him escape his fate; dressed him in women’s garments and concealed him among the many daughters of King Lycomedes of Skyros—”

“And a pretty maiden he must have been!” exclaimed Patroklos, “with those shoulders of his! I’d have liked to see that darling with his hair curled and done in ribbons—”

Akhilles gave his friend a great thump between the shoulder blades that sent him to his knees, and he growled, “Well, you’ve had your laugh, my friend; mention it again and you can go laugh at it in Hades! Not even you can say that of me!”

“Don’t quarrel, boys,” Odysseus said with unusual mildness. “It’s but a sorry joke that parts sworn friends. Be that as it may, I too sought omens, and my Goddess told me that it was Akhilles’ fate to join in this war; but I thought perhaps he had been made cowardly by his woman’s rearing, so I gathered up many gifts for the daughters of the King, and I spilled them all out—dresses and silks and ribbons; but among them I concealed a sword and a shield, and while the other girls were squabbling over all the pretty things, Akhilles grabbed at the sword; and so of course I brought him away.”

Kassandra laughed.

“Bravo, Odysseus,” she said, “but your test was not entirely sure; I too have borne weapons—I rode with the Amazons, and if I had been among that King’s daughters, I would have done exactly the same. One need not be a hero to be desperately weary of the gossip of women’s quarters.”

Akhilles laughed with contempt.

“Penthesilea said once,” she observed, “that only those who hate and fear war are wise enough to wage it.”

“A woman,” said Akhilles scornfully. “What would a woman know of war?”

“As much as you—” Kassandra began, but Odysseus, looking very tired, interrupted: “Will you help us, Kassandra?”

“Gladly,” she said. “Let me go and warn my father to be ready to meet with you tonight.”

“You are a good girl,” said Odysseus, embracing her, and she flung her arms around the old man and kissed his leathery cheek. Then, a little surprised at her own boldness, she said, “Well, you said you were my uncle—they will be expecting it.”

Patroklos said, chuckling, “I will be your uncle too, if you will kiss me like that, Kassandra.”

Akhilles scowled, and Kassandra blushed. She said, “Odysseus is an old friend; I have known him since I was a little girl. I do not kiss any man younger than my father.”

Odysseus said, “Forget it, Patroklos; she is sworn a virgin of Apollo. I know you. When you see her brother Paris you will forget her; they are as alike as two birds on a bush.”

“A man with her beauty? I would wish to see that,” said Patroklos.

Akhilles said angrily, “Oh, is
that
one Paris? The pretty coward?”

“Coward? Paris?” demanded Kassandra.

“I saw him on the wall yesterday when Odysseus landed me with my soldiers,” he said, “before I slipped away at night to join Odysseus where the ship lay hidden. I said then, these Trojans are cowards; they stand on the wall like women, and shoot with arrows so that they need not come within range of our swords.”

All Kassandra could think of to say to this was “The bow is the chosen weapon of Apollo.”

“It is still the weapon of a coward,” said Akhilles, and she thought,
That is simply how he sees the world, all in terms of fighting and honor. Maybe, if he lived long enough, he might grow out of that. But men who see the world that way do not live long enough to learn better. It is almost a pity; but perhaps the world is better without such men.

Kassandra’s visitors were waiting for her to speak. She suggested that they remain hidden during the heat of the day; then, under cover of night, she said, she would lead them to the palace and to Priam.

“This goes against me,” Akhilles said, “slinking about in disguise. I am not afraid of all the Trojans ever whelped, or any of Priam’s horde of sons and soldiers; I will fight them all the way down to the palace and back.”

“You young fool,” said Patroklos with affection, touching his shoulder, “no one doubts your courage; but why waste yourself on that when you can await the great battle and challenge any or all of the leaders of Priam’s armies? There is enough fighting ahead of you, Akhilles. Do not be so impatient.” He smiled and put his arm through his friend’s.