The Firebrand (73 page)

“You know that for me,” Khryse said, “there is no woman save you alone.”

“Then I fear you will live and die unwed,” Kassandra said firmly, “even if yonder gold were your own and you
could
dower me with it.” She slid to her feet, looking at the heap of gold which equaled her weight. She had never greatly cared for jewelry, and she could only marvel that this cold stuff excited so much greed in so many people. Somehow, even knowing Akhilles as she did, she had not thought he could be swayed with gold alone; she had thought he might attempt some additional humiliation on the royal house of Troy.

Above them, lighting the top of the stones, the sun was rising; she stepped to the top of the wall and extended her arms silently in the morning salutation to the Sun Lord.

“Sing the morning hymn, Kassandra,” Khryse urged. “Your voice is sweet, but we so seldom hear it lent to us now, even for Apollo’s sake.”

Stubbornly she shook her head; if she sang, he would accuse her again of trying to entice him. “I prefer to sing only in the presence of the God alone,” she murmured, and was silent.

Priam, coming with his servants and another basketful of gold—even though the precious stuff barely covered the bottom of the basket, it was so heavy that it had to be carried between two men—said, “Well, priest, are the scales ready?”

“They await your pleasure, my lord.”

“My pleasure? You fool, do you think I take any pleasure in this business?” Priam demanded crustily. He was still wearing the white robe of a suppliant, streaked with mud from the earthworks; his bare feet were caked with mud.

Polyxena whispered to him, but Priam said aloud, “Are you saying that for that villain Akhilles I should bathe and comb my hair and put on fair garments, as if this were a wedding and not a funeral? And I care not if this is the chief among the Sun Lord’s priests, he is no less a fool for all that!”

Kassandra covered her mouth with her fingertips; it would be unseemly to smile at this moment. Surely there was little to smile about, except the discomfiture on Khryse’s face; it seemed to her that her father spoke with the peevish sound of senility.

Priam motioned to the servants to put the basket down by the rest of the gold. “Now we await Akhilles’ will. It would be like him to drive such a degrading bargain as this and make us wait all day—or not to come at all.”

“He made the bargain before witnesses,” Polyxena reminded her father. “
They
will make him come. They are eager to get on with this war, now they don’t have Hector to face.”

There was silence while Priam’s household slowly gathered on the wall, Hecuba and Andromache standing on either side of the King.

Kassandra was not sure exactly what it was that she expected: perhaps Akhilles’ chariot galloping at his usual breakneck speed toward the walls. She looked into the rising sun till her eyes ached.

Khryse stood at her side and put his arm under hers as if to lend her support; she was exasperated, but did not want to draw attention to herself by moving away. The priest said, “They are astir in the Argive camp; what are they waiting for?”

“Perhaps to humble my father further by seeing him faint with exhaustion from the heat,” she murmured. “Khryse, compared with Akhilles, Agamemnon is surely noble and kindly.”

“I know little of him,” Khryse said, “but enough to know I would not willingly see the fate of Troy in his hands; and Priam’s health and strength are now all the hope we have for Troy.”

Little hope that is,
she thought, but remained silent. She had no wish to discuss her fears for her father with anyone, and certainly not with a man she distrusted.

“Look,” Polyxena said, and pointed, barely raising her arm. Far out on the plain, figures were moving; as they came nearer, Kassandra made out Akhilles, his pale hair shining in a blinding streak of sunlight. He was walking at the head of a small procession; behind him, eight of his soldiers carried a body on a pallet—it could only be that of Hector—and behind them came a half dozen Akhaian chieftains, in full armor, but bearing no weapons.

At least, for once Akhilles has kept his word.
She let out her breath, only now realizing that until she saw Hector’s body she had not for a moment expected him to do so.

They were nearer now; she could make out individual faces and even see the details of the embroidery on the pall that covered Hector’s body. Akhilles bowed before Priam and said, “As I promised, my lord of Troy, behold the body of your son.”

“The ransom awaits you, Prince Akhilles,” Priam said, and went to the pall, folding back the heavy covering to expose the face. “First let me make certain that it is truly the body of my son. . . .”

Hecuba came to stand beside him as he rolled back the pall, with Penthesilea ready beside her should she need support. Kassandra was braced to hear her mother break into wailing or shrieking, but she simply nodded gravely and bent to kiss the cold white forehead. Priam said, “The scales have been set up by a priest of Apollo Sun Lord who is skilled in such things. If you would like to check the weights for yourself—”

“No, no,” said Akhilles with a bizarre geniality, “I know very little of such things, my lord.”

Khryse said, conducting Akhilles to the edge of the scales, “You worked against your own best interest, Prince Akhilles, when you allowed Hector’s body to become so mangled; in perfect condition it would have brought you more gold.” The jest seemed gross and inappropriate. Kassandra wondered, looking at Khryse’s shaking hands and the overbrilliant pupils of his eyes, if he had been drinking unmixed wine, or a brew of wine and poppy seeds, so early in the day that he had forgotten in whose presence he was.

Priam turned pale and said stiffly, “Let’s get on with this.” He gestured, and the body of Hector was hoisted up to lie on the platform. Priam’s slaves began to scoop out the gold onto the other platform, a few pieces at a time. Akhilles watched, barely smiling, as the platform bearing the body trembled and began to rise from the ground. Kassandra wondered if the other watchers found the scene as grotesque as she did.

The scale quivered and, briefly, shook hard, so that the bound corpse slid to one side, but it did not fall off. On the heights above Troy the wind was rising; but here below the walls, the air was agonizingly still—still enough to smother breath. It occurred to Kassandra that nowhere in the city did she hear the sound of a single bird’s song. Was this a part of the warning such as she had been given before? Was Poseidon about to strike? Let Him strike, then, and end this obscenity, this travesty of decency and honor. She fixed her gaze firmly on one of the pulley ropes and would not look away. The rope trembled as she watched, and a few gold ornaments fell off.
Oh, come, Poseidon, is that the best You can do for Hector?

One of Priam’s slaves scooped up the ornaments and replaced them. He added a heavy gold breastplate, and the platform bearing the gold sagged down, now obviously outweighing the body.

“Too heavy,” Priam said, and removed it, replacing it with a multistranded gold necklace.

“A hair too light now,” said Akhilles, his eyes dwelling covetously on the breastplate. Polyxena stepped forward, pulled her long gold-wire earrings from her earlobes and flung them onto the platform. The scales trembled, then stopped still, evenly balanced.

“There,” she said; “it is enough. Take your gold, and go.”

Akhilles looked from the gold to Polyxena, his eyes brightening.

“For the gold, a golden girl would suffice,” he said. “King Priam, I will forgive you half the ransom for this woman, even if she is one of your slaves or concubines.”

“I am Priam’s daughter,” Polyxena said, “and I serve the Maiden, who is no friend to lust even in a King or a King’s son. Be content with your gold and your pledged word, Prince Akhilles, and leave us with our dead.”

Akhilles clenched his lips tight, and Kassandra saw a vein throbbing in his forehead. He said between clenched teeth, “Is it so? Then will you give her to me—honorably, in lawful marriage—in return for a three days’ truce to bury your son? Otherwise, the war will resume at noon.”

“No!” The voice of Odysseus boomed out from among the silent ranks of Akhaian chieftains. “This is too much. Akhilles, honor your word, as you have sworn, or you will find yourself fighting
me
at noon. We pledged Priam three days’ truce for Hector’s funeral, and so it shall be.”

Akhilles glowered, but said, “So be it,” and raised his hand to his men. They shared out the gold in baskets, each carrying one, and marched away across the plain the same way they had come.

Kassandra did not stay to hear the planning of the funeral games, pleading duties in the Temple; she must go at once and see what the serpents portended. No one else had apparently noted the touch of the hand—or the fingertip—of Poseidon. She went quickly up the long steep way toward the Sun Lord’s house. After a moment she was aware that Khryse was following her. Well, let him follow; he had just as much a right to enter the Sun Lord’s house as she did herself. But he did not approach her or speak until they had passed through the great gates.

“I know what is in your mind, Princess,” he said. “I felt it too. The God is angry with Troy.” He looked pale and haggard; what
had
he been drinking so early? Something, perhaps, to sharpen his visions, if not his ordinary wits?

“I was not certain that I felt it,” she began. “I was not sure I did not dream or imagine it.”

“If you did, then I too dreamed,” he said. “It is now only a question of time; how long can Apollo Sun Lord delay the full fury of Poseidon’s blow? I too have seen Them struggling for Troy. . . .”

Recalling her own vision, she said, “It is true. No mortal can break the walls of Troy. But if a God should breach them . . .”

“There is an army outside more powerful than all the might of Troy,” Khryse said. “And our greatest champion awaits his funeral rites, while they have at last three warriors greater than our best.”

“Three? I grant you Akhilles, but—”

“Agamemnon, who could best Paris and Deiphobos together if he must, and Odysseus and Ajax are the equal of Hector, though neither ever bested him.”

“Well,” said Kassandra, wondering where this was leading, “while our walls stand it does not matter; and if it is foreordained that they must fall—well, we will meet that fate when it comes.”

“I do not want to remain and see the city fall. If I were a warrior I would stay and fight; but I was never trained to use weapons, and I would be no help even to defend myself—far less the ones I love. Will you come away with me, Kassandra? I do not want you to die when the city falls.”

“I wish I had only death to fear.”

“I mean to go to Crete in the first ship I can find, and I have heard there is a Phoenician ship standing out to sea down beyond the cove,” Khryse said. “Come with me and you need fear nothing.”

“Nothing, that is, but you.”

“Can you never forgive me that moment of folly?” Khryse demanded. “I mean you all honor, Kassandra; I will marry you if you will, or if you are still resolved not to marry, I will swear any oath you like that we shall travel as sister and brother, and I will lay not so much as a finger’s weight on you.”

But I would not trust your oath, not even if you swore by your own mother’s virtue,
she thought, and shook her head, not unkindly.

“No, Khryse. Believe me, I thank you for the thought. But the Gods have decreed that I have something more to do in Troy. I do not know yet what They have ordained for me, but no doubt They will tell me when it lies before me.”

“You certainly will be of no use as one more spear when the city falls,” said Khryse. “Are you staying to comfort your mother and sister when they are carried off as captives of the Argive captains? What good will that do them?”

Kassandra looked sharply at him. He looked as if he had not touched food for a long time, yet he had not quite the look of starvation alone. Her heart ached for him; she did not love him as he wished, but she had known him for a long time, and no longer wished him ill.

A moment’s touch of the God now would kill him,
she thought, and was saddened.

“If that is the only task the Gods lay on me,” she said firmly, “then that is the one I will fulfill.”

“It seems hardly worth going alone to Crete or Thera,” said Khryse. “You could come with me as you went to Colchis, to study serpent-lore; or to Egypt, where priestesses are always welcome. In Egypt there is always much building going on, and always work—as at Knossos—for a man who is handy with weights and measures. I have heard they will rebuild the palace that was reduced to rubble with the last touch of Poseidon Earth Shaker.”

“Then don’t go alone,” Kassandra said. “Take Chryseis with you. She has never been happy here. And you do not want her to fall captive again to Agamemnon’s bed, do you?”

“It is not Chryseis that Agamemnon wants,” said Khryse, “and you know it as well as I do.”

Kassandra shivered, hearing the sound of truth in the priest’s voice; but she said,“I abide my fate as you, my brother, abide your own; go, then, to Knossos or Egypt, or wherever your fate leads you, and all the Gods keep you safe there.” She moved her hand in a gesture of blessing. “I wish you nothing but good; but we part here, Khryse, and forever.”

“Kiss me but once,” he pleaded, dropping to his knees before her.

She bent and lightly laid her lips against his wrinkled forehead, like a mother kissing a small child.

“May you bear the Sun Lord’s blessing wherever you go; and remember me with kindness,” she said.

She climbed up past him, leaving him still kneeling and dumb in the street.
His wits are no longer sound,
she thought;
perhaps it is a mercy. He will suffer less when his fate strikes him; it cannot be long now. Not for any of us.