The Firebrand (80 page)

“I am sorry, Mother,” she said. “He is dead.”

Hecuba’s cries began again. Kassandra said urgently, “Mother, there is no time for that; Akhaian soldiers are in the city.”

“But how can that be?” Hecuba asked.

“The walls were broken in the earthquake,” Kassandra explained, desperately wondering if they were all lacking in wits, or senseless with shock—had they heard nothing? “Already they are plundering in the streets, and they will surely lose little time in coming here. Where is Deiphobos?”

“I think he must be dead,” Helen said. “We heard Mother cry out that Father had fallen down in a fit, or a faint. We came at once, and Deiphobos carried him out of his room into the court here, then ran back seeking his own mother. Then the first shock came and the floors fell in and I think some of the roof as well. I had snatched up Nikos and ran out with him after Deiphobos.”

“And so we six are alive,” said Kassandra, “but we must hide somewhere, unless we wish to fall into the hands of the soldiers. I do not know what is the Akhaian custom with captive women, and I do not think I wish to.”

“Oh, Helen has nothing to fear from them,” said Andromache, staring fixedly at the Argive woman. “Her husband will soon be here to claim her, I am sure, and deck her in all the jewels of Troy and lead her home in triumph. How fortunate for you that Deiphobos died just in time—not that you care.”

Kassandra was appalled at her spite.

“This is no time to quarrel, Sister; we should be glad if one of us need not fear capture. Shall we take refuge in the house of the Maiden? That is where we sent the women from the Sun Lord’s house and I am sure it is still whole.” She put her arm around Hecuba and said, “Come, let us go.”

“No, I stay with my King and my lord,” said the old woman stubbornly, dropping again to her knees beside Priam’s body.

“Mother, do you truly believe that Father would want you to stay here to be captured by some Akhaian lord?” Kassandra asked in exasperation.

“He was a soldier to his death; I will not abandon him the moment he has fallen,” Hecuba insisted. “You are a young woman; go and take shelter somewhere they will not find you, if there is such a place in Troy. I stay with my lord; Helen will be with me. Even the Akhaians would offer no insult to the Queen of Troy. We have fallen to a God and not to them.”

Kassandra wished she felt half that sure. But they could already hear the soldiers approaching, and she seized Honey’s hand. Astyanax was in Andromache’s arms, protesting, struggling to get down, but his mother paid no attention.

“Let us hide in one of these mean houses along here; they would never think of looking in here, where there would be nothing to plunder,” Andromache suggested, but Kassandra shook her head.

“I will entrust myself and my daughter to the Maiden of Troy. If our Gods have deserted us, perhaps the Goddesses will not.”

“As you wish,” Andromache murmured. “I no longer believe in any Gods. Farewell, then. Good fortune to you.” She wedged herself into the smallest and dirtiest of the houses, and Kassandra, with Honey, ran on up the hill, to the highest point of Troy, where the Maiden’s Temple stood untouched, the statue in the forecourt still unfallen. Kassandra quickly set Honey down and flung herself at the feet of the statue; surely no man, not even an Akhaian barbarian, would venture to make bold with any woman who took refuge here.

She heard the voices of the other women in one of the inner rooms. In a moment she would join them.

“Ah, there she is!” It was a cry of triumph in the barbarian tongue of the soldiers. Two armored men burst in the door. “I wondered where all the women had gone.”

“This one will do for me; it’s the princess, Priam’s daughter. She’s a prophetess and a virgin of Apollo—but if Apollo had wanted to protect His virgins, He’d have done it. You want to check in the inside room for some more of them?”

“No,” replied the other, “I’ll take the little one. When people think they’re big enough, they’re too old for my taste. Come here, little girl. I’ve got something nice for you.”

Kassandra turned in horror, to see a giant soldier beckoning to Honey. “No!” she shrieked. “She’s only a baby! No, no—”

“I like them that way,” said the big soldier, grinning, and made a lunge at the child, ripping away her dress. Kassandra flew at him, using nails and teeth to tear Honey from his arms; a savage kick sent her flying half senseless into a corner of the room. She heard Honey screaming, but could not move; her limbs were so heavy she could not stir a finger. She felt the other man seize her and struggled violently; a blow across the face from the man’s arm sent her back as all the strength poured out of her like sand from a torn sack.

She kept on hearing Honey’s helpless cries until, even more terribly, they stopped. She was aware—though she could neither move nor speak—when the man tore away her shift and shoved her down onto the marble paving.

Goddess! Will you let this happen in Your very shrine before Your eyes?
she implored—and then in shock remembered: she no longer honored the Immortals; why should the Maiden protect her?

Then fierce pain ripped her apart as the man thrust violently into her, and she felt darkness closing in on her.

She felt herself step out of her pain-racked body, conscious of the man still jerking away at her limp form, of Honey naked and torn, bleeding on the stone, still moving a little, whimpering through bruised lips. She rose and moved away, stepping over the flat and featureless plain. The sun had dimmed into the grayness that was all that was here. She walked down through the plain that was, and was
not,
the city of Troy where the wooden horse had kicked down the walls and, though no longer on its feet, rose still whole and nightmarish over the dead city.

She saw others on this plain: Akhaian soldiers, a few of the Trojans. They seemed confused, looking about for a leader. Then she saw Deiphobos, half clad, still carrying his mother in his arms, his face and hands singed with fire. So they had died together, as Helen had suspected.

He tried to call to her, but she had no wish to speak to him. She turned and hurried the other way, wondering what had happened to Andromache.

There was Astyanax, his head bleeding, his clothing torn. He looked stunned, but as she watched, his face brightened, and he began to run across the plain, crying out in joy. She saw him swept up into Hector’s arms and smothered in kisses. So Hector had claimed his son; she was not surprised that the Akhaian soldiers had not let him live. Andromache would grieve; she did not know that her son was with his father, as Hector had promised. Kassandra hoped the child had not known too much terror before he met his end on an Akhaian spear—or had they hurled him from the walls?

Then she saw Priam, standing tall and imposing as she remembered him from when she was a little girl. He smiled at her and said, “The city’s gone, isn’t it? I suppose we’re all dead, then?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said.

“Where’s your mother, my dear? Not along yet? Well, I’ll wait for her here,” he said, gathering himself together to look around. “Oh! There’s Hector and the boy . . .”

“Yes, Father,” she said, feeling a lump in her throat; he sounded so happy.

“I think I will go and join them; if your mother comes, tell her, will you, love?”

But this can’t be all there is to being dead,
she thought.
There must be more to it. . . .

She looked up and saw, standing directly before her, Penthesilea, unwounded, smiling, her face shining, surrounded by half a dozen of the warrior women who had fought with her on that last day. Laughing for joy, Kassandra ran into the Amazon’s arms. She was surprised to find that her kinswoman felt as solid and strong and warm as on the day she had embraced her when she went out to fight before Troy and to die at Akhilles’ hands. Kassandra spoke her surprise aloud.

“Then I suppose Akhilles must be here somewhere too.”

“I would have thought so,” said Penthesilea, “but he seems to have gone to his own place, wherever that may be.”

Beyond Penthesilea the plain of the dead faded away, and Kassandra could see what looked like blinding light—twice the brilliance of the Sun Lord as she had seen Him in her first overpowering vision; and through the light, she made out the form of a great Temple, larger than the one where she had served in Colchis, and even more beautiful.

She whispered in awe, “Is that where I am to go?”

Beyond the light she began to hear music: harps and other instruments, swelling and filling the air with harmony like a dozen—no, a hundred voices, all joined together in song, clear and high and coming closer. This was what she had thought the Sun Lord’s house would be. Khryse was standing in the doorway, beckoning to her; his face was free of the dissatisfaction and greed she had seen in it, so that he was at last what she had always believed him. He held out his arms, and she was ready to run into them, as Astyanax had run to Hector.

But Penthesilea was standing in her way—or was it the Warrior Maiden Herself, wearing the armor of the Amazon? She held Honey, laughing and unwounded, by the hand.
So she is dead too.

“No,” Penthesilea said; “no, Kassandra. Not yet.”

Kassandra struggled to form words. It was the place she had seen in her dreams, the place where she had always known she belonged. And not only Khryse, but everyone she had loved was there, awaiting her, waiting for her voice to fill the place open in that great blended choir.

“No.” Penthesilea’s voice was sorrowful, but inflexible, and she held Kassandra back as one restrains a small child. “You cannot go yet; there is still something you must do among the living. You could not leave with Aeneas; you cannot come with me. You must go back, Kassandra; it is not time for you.”

The beautifully molded face under the shining helmet was beginning to break up into a sunburst of brilliant sparkles. Kassandra fought to keep it in focus. “But I want to go . . . the light . . . the music . . .” she said.

The light was fading, and around her was darkness; she was aware of a ghastly smell, like death, like vomit; she was lying on the dirt floor of some kind of rough shelter.
Then I’m not dead after all.
Her only emotion was bitter disappointment. She fought to hold on to the memory of the light, but already it was disappearing. She was conscious of pain in her body. She was bleeding, and part of what she smelled was her own blood on her face and covering her shift. The man who had raped her was lying half across her body. It was his vomit she smelled, and slowly, as if surfacing from a very deep trance, she heard a familiar voice and saw a face—hook-nosed, black-bearded—that had haunted her nightmares for years.

“I told you she was the one I wanted,” said Agamemnon. “Look, she’s breathing again. If you’d killed her I’d have had you flayed alive; you knew she fell to me in the casting of lots, but you had to try and get ahead of me. You always were spiteful, Ajax.”

Kassandra felt agony through her whole body; agony mingled with despair.

SHE LAY still, too miserable to try to move.

“Honey?” she whispered painfully, through the rawness in her throat. But there was no answer. She remembered seeing the pitiable little body, bleeding and broken, flung aside by the man who had used her.

But she could feel her own breathing, the loud intrusive beating of her own heart. She would live. What was it Penthesilea had said? “There is still something you must do among the living.” . . .
Had it been to care for Honey, I would have gone back—not willingly, but without complaint. But she is gone. I cannot help her now. Why am I here and everyone I love gone before me?

She dimly made out that she was lying on the floor of a small building, and around her were boxes and bundles and bales of piled-up goods: silks, rich cloaks, tapestries, vases and pottery, sacks of grain and jars of oil—all the riches of the plundered city. Andromache lay close to her, facedown, covered with a coarse blanket. Kassandra made out her face in the dim light. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying. She opened them and looked at Kassandra.

“Oh,” she said, “you are awake; they said when they brought you here that you were dead, and Agamemnon would not admit it.”

“I was sure I was dead,” Kassandra said. “I wanted to be dead.”

“And I,” Andromache said. “They took Astyanax.”

“Yes, I know; I saw him—running to his father’s arms.”

Andromache considered this for a moment. She said, “Yes, if anyone could see beyond death, I suppose it would be you.”

“Believe me, he is free, and happy, and with his father,” Kassandra repeated. Her voice caught at the memory. “They are better off than we are; I wish I were where they are now.”

After a moment she said, “Why are we being held here? What is to become of us? Where is this place?”

“I am not sure; I think it is where the Akhaian captains are making ready to load the ships,” Andromache said.

“Listen,” Kassandra said, cringing; “someone is coming.” She could hear the fall of heavy footsteps on the ground. But she had lost the preternatural Sight of the trance state, and she felt dull and sick, locked into her ordinary mortal senses. There was a foul taste in her mouth. “Is there any water here?”

Andromache sighed and stirred, then sat erect. She reached for a jar and carried it carefully to Kassandra, who drank till she was no longer thirsty. She had to sit up to drink, and felt as if her head would split off and roll away. She helped Andromache to replace the jar and lay down again, exhausted by only that small movement.