The Firebrand (59 page)

She thought of Khryse and said, “It’s true enough, but I do not know how or why it happens. Not, I think, merely by their wishing for it. Helen, I have seen you overshadowed by the Goddess. How can it be brought on?”

“Why, don’t tell me that you wish to show yourself as Aphrodite?” Helen said, laughing. “I thought you were one of Her foes.”

Kassandra made a pious gesture.

“May it be far from me to be the foe of
any
Immortal,” she said. “I do not serve Her, for it seems to me that the Beautiful One is not a Goddess as Earth Mother and Serpent Mother and even the Maiden are Goddesses.”

“When is a Goddess not a Goddess?” asked Helen with a droll smile. “I don’t think I understand you, Kassandra.”

“I mean that the Goddesses of your Akhaian folk are different from the Goddesses of our people,” Kassandra said. “Your Maiden Goddess—the warrior, Athene—She is just such a Goddess as a man would invent, because they say She was not born of any woman but sprang in full armor from the head and the mind of Zeus; yet, for all Her weapons, She is a girl with all the domestic virtues, who would make some God a good wife. She tends to Her spinning and weaving and is patron of the vines, both the olive and the grape. Would not a man create a warrior maiden just like this—brave and virtuous, but still obedient to the greatest of Gods? And your Hera—She is like our Earth Goddess, but your people call Her only the wife of Zeus Almighty and say She is subject to Him in all things, while to us Earth Mother is all-powerful in Herself. She brings forth all things, but Her sons and Her lovers come and go, and She takes whom She will; when the God of Death took Her daughter, She brought the very Earth to a standstill, so that it neither bore nor brought forth fruit. . . .”

“But we too have an Earth Lady,” said Helen: “Demeter. When Hades took Her daughter, She brought, they say, a winter of fearful cold and dark; and in the end Zeus said that the girl must return to her mother—”

“Exactly,” Andromache interrupted. “They say that even Earth Mother is under obedience of this great Zeus. But there’s no sense to it. Why should the Earth Goddess, who was before all else and all-powerful, be subject to any man or any God?”

“Well, if you are going to argue as to which of the Gods is most powerful,” Helen said, “is it not the forces of love which can disrupt all else in men’s lives—and women’s too—and make them blind to all else—”

“Create disorder and disruption, you mean,” Kassandra said.

“You speak that way only because you have never come under Aphrodite’s sway, Kassandra,” said Andromache, “and if you defy Her, She will make you suffer for it.”

Surely this was true; Kassandra remembered the shocking conflict she had felt in Aeneas’ arms.
You do not know She is already making me suffer.
But she could not speak of that, not to any of the women here.

“May that be far from me,” Kassandra said. “I defy no one—certainly no Immortal.” Yet even as she spoke she remembered that Khryse had called her defiance a defiance of Apollo’s self. Was it so, or was he only—like all men—vengeful against a woman who would not serve him and his lust? And she had—if only in a dream—defied Aphrodite’s power.

“Even Apollo Sun Lord,” she said, with a little thrill of dread, as if she flung a challenge even in the Sun Lord’s face, “is said to have slain Serpent Mother, and taken from Her Her power. Yet surely of all men, he who slays the woman from whom he sprang is most wicked—and would the Immortals allow in a God what is most wicked in man? Were this true, Apollo would be no God but the most evil of fiends—which He surely is not.”

“And as for Earth Mother creating a year in which no fruit or flowers came forth, and no crops would bear,” Helen said, “in the year in which Atlantis sank beneath the ocean, so my mother’s father’s father said, there were great earthquakes, and great clouds of ash covered the sun; in that year, it might be said, there was no summer, for the very foundations of the earth had been shaken. But whether it was the doing of any God, who can say? It would not be surprising if men thought that Earth Mother had betrayed them, and sought to put an end to Her misbehavior by giving Her an overlord who would make Her serve men as She ought.”

“I do not think,” Creusa interrupted nervously, “it is well for us to stand here questioning the ways of the Immortals. They do not look to men to make an accounting of what They do, and if we seek to question Them, They may seek to punish us for it.”

“Oh, nonsense!” Kassandra said. “If They were as stupid and jealous of Their power as all that, why would anyone serve Them at all?”

“Do you, who are sworn to serve the Gods, not fear Them at all?” Andromache asked.

“I fear the Gods,” Kassandra said, “not what men say They are.”

In THE Sun Lord’s house, the serpents—so Phyllida told her when Kassandra went to see her charges—seemed unusually disturbed. Some of them withdrew and would not come to be handled or even bathed; others were drowsy and sluggish. As she went from one to another, trying to decide what was troubling them, she remembered the earthquake when Meliantha had died. Was this a warning of just such another blow from the hand of Poseidon?

I should send a message to the palace,
she thought; but when she had last spoken prophecy there, she had been mocked and taunted, and Priam had forbidden her to speak it again.
I would not be believed if I did send a warning,
she thought. And then she knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that she must not refuse to hear the voice which sent her the warning. Not that she could do anything to stay the hand of whatever God might send the earthquake, but that some of the worst of its fury might be averted. Distraught, she caught up a cloak and cried to Phyllida to try to soothe the serpents in whatever way she could. Phyllida had put her own son and Honey to bed, each of them hugging a restless snake. As Kassandra bent to caress each of the children, her mind filled with pictures of the roof collapsing; she swiftly gave orders that beds be made up for them in the courtyard, where if any building should fall, they would not be crushed beneath it.

Then she ran into the courtyard and cried out, “O Lord Apollo! Hold off the hand of Thy brother who shakes the earth! Thy serpents have given me Thy warning; let all Thy servants hear!”

People came running out at her cries. Khryse demanded, “What is happening? Are you ill? Are you smitten by the hand of the God?”

Kassandra fought to control the intolerable shaking of her body. She struggled to speak rationally, make her words even.

“The serpents in the Sun Lord’s house have given me warning,” she shouted, knowing that she sounded distraught, or worse. “As they did when Meliantha died, they are restless and trying to escape; the earth will shake before morning. Whatever is precious must be rescued; and none should sleep beneath a roof this night, lest it fall upon them.”

“She is mad,” Khryse said. “We have known for many years that she raves in prophecy.”

“All the same,” said one of the elder priests, “whatever she may or may not know of the Gods, in Colchis she learned the ways of serpent-lore from a mistress of that art. If the serpents have given her warning—”

Charis commanded, “The warning is given; we may not disregard it. Do what you will, or suffer the consequences; as for me and mine, I will make my bed under the open sky, which will not fall upon us yet, at least.”

The sky was already dark; torches were brought, and the priestesses went quickly about the task of removing out-of-doors anything that might be endangered by the falling of stone or walls. Khryse still grumbled; it was to his advantage, she knew, to have it thought that nothing she said was true.

She ran toward the gates. “Open the doors,” she cried. “I go to warn the folk of the city, and Priam’s palace!”

“No!” Khryse cried out. “Stop her!” He stepped toward her, and reached out to grab her arms, to prevent her forcibly from leaving the Temple. “If warning must be given, sound the alarm; that will bring the folk out of their houses without making it seem that we are all God-smitten and bestirred without reason except a foolish girl’s dreams.”

“Touch me at your peril! I go as the Gods determined, to warn them!”

Her cry shocked him enough that he let her go, and she darted through the door before he could stop her. Once in the street, she screamed at the top of her voice: “Take heed! The serpents of the Sun Lord have given warning: the earth will shake! Take such shelter as ye can find! Let none sleep beneath roofs, lest they fall!”

People, roused by her cries, came flooding out their doors. Driven by a terrible urgency, she ran on, calling out her warning over and over. She heard behind her cries and shouts, some saying, “Hark to the warning of Apollo’s priestess,” and others grumbling, “She is cursed by the God; why should we believe her?”

It was as if she were filled with fire: she was driven, burning with the heat of the warning that cried and raged within her. She fled down the streets, shrieking her warning over and over again. When she came to awareness of where she was, she was standing in the forecourt of the palace, her throat raw, and a dozen or more of the palace folk were standing and staring at her. Hoarsely she gasped out her tale.

“Let none sleep under a roof; the God will shake the land and buildings will fall—will fall. . . . Helen, your children . . . Paris . . .” She grabbed his shoulders; he thrust her away roughly.

“Enough of this! I swear, Kassandra, I have heard too much of your evil prophecies! I will silence you with my own hands!”

His hands clasped around her neck; her consciousness wavered, and almost with relief she felt the hovering darkness take her in a great burst of light exploding somewhere inside her head.

HER THROAT ached; she put her hand weakly to it. A gentle voice said, “Lie still. Take a little of this.”

She sipped at the wine, coughed and choked, but the insistent hand stayed until she swallowed again. It cleared her head; she was lying on the flagstones, and her head felt as if it had been cloven with an ax. Aeneas bent over her and said, “It’s all right. Paris tried to choke you, but Hector and I stopped him. If anyone can be called mad—”

“But I must speak with him,” she insisted. “It is his children—Helen’s . . .”

“I’m sorry,” Aeneas said, “Priam has ordered all the palace folk to bed; he says you have disturbed them all too many times and has forbidden anyone to listen to you. But if it is of any comfort to you, I have ordered Creusa to sleep out in the courtyard with the baby; and I think Hector has heeded you, too, for he says that whatever you may or may not know of the ways of the Gods, you know the ways of serpents. Now drink a little more of this and let me take you back to the Sun Lord’s house. Or if you will, you may stay here and share a bed with Creusa and the baby.”

She wanted to weep at the love in his voice; she knew it was this, and not any great belief in her warning, which had prompted him to this kindness. She got to her feet, feeling as if every bone in her body had been beaten with wooden cudgels. “I must go back,” she said, “and see the folk in the Temple, and the serpents, and my daughter. . . .”

“Ah, yes, Creusa told me you had a little girl. A foundling, I suppose?”

“Yes, as it happens; but how did you know?”

“I know you too well to imagine you would ever disgrace your family by having a child outside of honorable marriage,” he said; and she thought,
Even my own mother did not trust me as much as that.

“Well, then, will you walk up with me?”

“Gladly,” he said, “but you ran out without your cloak. Let me fetch you one, or you will be cold.” He brought her a long, thick garment which she had seen Creusa wear, and she wrapped herself in it. The night had grown chilly, and even in the heavy cloak she shivered, less from cold than from some subtle danger which remained in the air. It was as if far beneath the ground she could hear the very earth groaning; a heaviness weighed intolerably on her mind and heart. She could hardly summon the strength and will to put one foot before the other, and she leaned on his arm. Then, when he bent to kiss her, she moved away.

“No, don’t,” she said. “You should go back—you have a wife and a child at risk to care for when it comes. . . .”

“Don’t remind me of that,” he said, and drew her within the curve of his arm again. After a moment he said, “I love you, Kassandra.”

He was touching her gently in that way she found so disturbing, and she drew away from him.

He said softly, “My poor little love. I swear, if only I had the right, I would beat Paris for hurting you so. If he ever touches you again, I swear he’ll find it the most dangerous thing he ever did. It is not his place to rule you.”

“He does not realize that,” she said. They had reached the great bronze gates of the Sun Lord’s house, but she did not go inside. Sitting on a low wall, she said, “I have no husband, so my brother thinks it is his right to direct me. I suppose, to those who do not see and hear what I do, my prophecy must sound like madness. They try to protect themselves against it by refusing to believe. I am just as ready as anyone else to ignore what I do not want to know.”

“Yes, I have seen that,” said Aeneas, gently and meaningfully, and drew Kassandra against him under his cloak. She let him kiss her, but sighed with weariness, so that he let her go. He said, “We will talk of this again tomorrow, perhaps—”

“If there is a tomorrow,” she said with such exhaustion that he blinked in astonishment.

“If tomorrow should not come, I will regret even beyond death that I have not known your love,” he said, so passionately that Kassandra felt her heart clutch as if a fist had squeezed it.

She said in a whisper, “I think I would regret it too. But I am so tired . . .” and she began to cry.

He kissed her gently and said, “Then let us pray there will be a tomorrow, my love,” and let her go. The weight of the trembling world felt as if it were about to crack and descend on her uneasy head as she watched him walk away.