The Firebrand

CHAPTER 7

No sooner had they reached the country of the Amazons than the weather changed. One day there was blinding sun from early morning to sunset; overnight, it seemed, there was day long rain combined with damp dripping nights. Being on horseback was no longer a pleasure but toil and exhaustion; to Kassandra every day was a constant battle against cold and damp.

The Amazons kept up fires in their sheltered camps; many lived in caves, others in heavy-walled leather tents set up in thick-leaved groves. Small children and pregnant women stayed inside all day, huddling close to the smoking fires.

There were times when the warmth tempted her, but among the tribe, girls Kassandra's age counted themselves among the warriors, so she covered herself with a heavy robe of thick oil-surfaced wool, and endured the dampness as best she could.

As the rainy season dragged by she grew taller and one day when she dismounted for a rare hot meal in the camp around the fire she realized that her body was rounding, small breasts sprouting under the rough loose garments.

From time to time as they rode she slipped in and out of visions of the boy with her face. He was taller now, the long woven tunic he wore barely covered his thighs, and she shivered in sympathy when he tried to cover himself with his too-short cloak. Surrounded by his flock, he lay on the slopes of the mountain, and once she saw him at a festival, one of a group of boys garlanded and moving in a dance. Another time she sat within him before a blazing fire as he was given a new warm cloak and his long hair was cut for the altar of the Sunlord. Was he too under Apollo's protection?

Once in spring, silent in a group of other boys, he watched a group of little girls - though most of them were as tall as or taller than he - wrapped in bearskins, dancing a ritual dance to the Maiden.

Curious sensations attacked her body; the roughly woven wool of her tunic rubbed her nipples raw and she begged from one of the other women an undergarment of soft cotton cloth. It helped, but not enough; her breasts were sore most of the time.

The days shortened and a pale winter moon stood in the sky. The herds circled aimlessly, searching for food. Later the mares' milk failed and the hungry beasts moved restlessly from exhausted pasture to exhausted pasture.

The loss of the mares' milk, their staple food, meant there was even less to eat; what there was was saved by custom for the pregnant women and the youngest children. Day after day Kassandra knew little but sharp hunger; she kept her small allowance of food to eat before she slept so that she would not wake dreaming of the ovens in Priam's castle and the rich warm smell of baking bread. In the pastures as she watched over the horses, she searched endlessly for dried-out fruits or stringy berries clinging to dead vines; like all the other girls she ate anything she could find, accepting that about half of the food so found would make her sick.

"We cannot stay here," the women said. "What is the Queen waiting for?"

"Some word from the Goddess," said the others, and the older women of the tribe went to Penthesilea, demanding that they move on to the winter pastures.

"Yes," said the Queen, "we should have gone a moon ago; but there is war in the countryside. If we move the tribe with all our children and old women, we shall be captured and enslaved. Do you want that?"

"No, no," the women protested. "Under your will we will live free and if we must we will die free."

Nevertheless Penthesilea promised that when the moon was full again she would seek counsel of the Goddess, to know Her will.

Seeing her own face once in the water after a hard rain, Kassandra hardly recognized herself; she had grown tall and lean, face and hands burnt brown by the unremitting sun, her features sharp and more like a woman's than a girl's - or perhaps like a young boy's… There were freckles on her face too, and she wondered if her family would know her if she should appear unannounced before them, or whether they would ask, "Who is this woman from the wild tribes? Away with her." Or would they, perhaps, mistake her for her exiled twin?

Despite the hardship she had no wish to return to Troy; she missed her mother sometimes, but not the life of the walled city.

Now she seldom thought about indoor life except for a vague constant nag of a time when she was confined to the palace and never allowed outside.

One night at sunset, the young girls returning to the camp for dry clothing and a share-out of such food as could be found -usually astringent boiled roots, or some hard wild beans - were told not to take the horses out again, but to remain and gather with the other women. All fires in the camp but one had been extinguished and it was dark and cold.

There was not so much as a mouthful of food to be shared out, and Elaria told her fosterling that the Queen had declared that all must fast before the Goddess was petitioned.

"That's nothing new," Kassandra said. "I should think we had-done enough fasting in this last month to satisfy any Goddess. What more can she ask of us?"

"Hush," said Elaria. "She has never yet failed to care for us. We are all still alive; there have been many years when there is raiding, and many outlaws in the countryside, when we do not leave our pastures till half our young children are dead. This year the Goddess has not taken so much as a babe at the breast, nor a single foal."

"So much the better for her," Kassandra said. "I cannot imagine what use dead tribeswomen would be to the Goddess, unless she wishes us to serve her in the afterworld."

Aching with hunger, Kassandra got out of her damp riding leathers and slipped into a dry robe of coarsely woven wool. She tugged a wooden comb through her hair and braided it, coiling it low on her neck. In her exhausted and semi-starved state, the very feel of dry clothing and the heat of the fire was sensuous pleasure; she stood for some time simply feeling the heat soak into her body, until one of the other women shoved her aside. In the close air of the tent the smoke was gradually filling the entire space and she coughed and choked until she felt that she would vomit, if her stomach had not been so empty.

Behind her in the tent, she felt the pressure of other bodies, the silent rustle of women and girls and children; all the women of the tribe seemed to be gathered in the dark behind her. They squatted around the fire, and from somewhere came the soft thump of hands on taut skins stretched across a hoop, of gourds with dry seeds, shaken and rattling like the dry leaves, like the rain pattering on the tents. The fire smoked with little light, so that Kassandra could feel only the faint streams of discouraged heat.

Out of the dark silence next to the fire, three of the oldest women in the tribe rose up and cast the contents of a small basket on the fire; the dried leaves blazed up, then smouldered, flinging out thick white clouds of aromatic smoke. It filled the tent with its curious, dry, sweetish perfume, and as she breathed it in, Kassandra felt her head swimming and strange colours moved before her eyes, so that she no longer felt the dull pain of her hunger.

Penthesilea said from the darkness, "My sisters, I know your hunger; do I not share it? Anyone who is unwilling to share our lot, I freely give you leave to go to the men's villages where they will share their food if you lie with them. But do not bring daughters so born back to our tribe, but leave them to be slaves as you have shown yourselves to be. If there are any who wish to leave now let them do so, for you are not fit to stay while we petition our maiden Huntress, who cherishes freedom for women."

Silence; within the smoke-filled tent no woman stirred.

"Then, sisters, in our need let us summon her who cares for us."

Again silence, except for the fingertip drumming. Then out of the silence came a long eerie howl.

"Oww—ooooo-ooooo-ooooow!"

For a moment Kassandra thought it was some animal lurking outside the tent. Then she saw the open mouths, the strained-back heads of the women. The howl came again, and again, the faces of the women no longer looked quite human. The howling screams went on, rising and falling as the women swayed and yelled, and were joined by a sharp short 'yip-yip-yip-yip-yip… yip-yip-yip', until the noise filled the tent; it beat and battered at her consciousness and she could only harden herself to remain apart from it. She had seen her mother overshadowed by the Goddess, but never in the midst of mad commotion like this.

At this moment, for the first time in many moons, Hecuba's face was suddenly before Kassandra's eyes and it seemed she could hear Hecuba's gentle voice:

It is not the custom…

'Why not?

There is no reason for customs. They are, no more…

She had not believed it then and she did not believe it now. There must be a reason why this weird howling should be thought a suitable way to summon the Maiden Huntress. Are we to become as the wild beasts she is hunting?

Penthesilea rose, stretching out her hands to the women; between one breath and the next Kassandra saw the Queen's face blur and the brightness of the Goddess shone through the very skin, the voice altered beyond recognition. She cried out, "Not to the south where the men's tribes wander! Ride to the east past two rivers; there remain until the spring's stars fall!"

Then she crumpled forward; two women of the tribe's elders caught her and supported her in a fit of coughing so violent that it ended in weak retching. When she raised herself her face was her own again.

She asked in a hoarse whisper, "Did she answer us?"

A dozen voices repeated the words she had spoken while she was overshadowed:

'Not to the south where the men's tribes wander I Ride to the east past two rivers; there remain until the spring's stars fall!"

"Then we ride at dawn, sisters," Penthesilea said, her voice still weak. "There is no time to lose. I know of no rivers to the east but if we turn our backs on Father Scamander, and follow the east wind, we will surely come to them."

"What meant the Goddess when she spoke of 'until spring's stars fall'?" asked one of the women.

Penthesilea shrugged her narrow shoulders. "I do not know, sisters; the Goddess spoke but did not explain her words. If we follow her will she will make it known to us."

Four of the women brought in baskets filled with coiled roots and passed round leathern bottles of wine. Penthesilea said, "Let us feast in her name, sisters, and ride at dawn filled with her bounty."

Kassandra realized how long food must have been hoarded for this midwinter feast. She tore into the tasteless boiled roots like the starving animal she felt, and drank her share of the wine.

When the baskets were empty and the last drop had been squeezed from the wineskins, the tribe's few possessions were gathered; the tents taken down and bundled together, a few bronze cooking kettles, a store of cloaks worn by former leaders, were gathered together. Kassandra was still seeing the Goddess's face through and over Penthesilea's own, and hearing the curious alteration in her kinswoman's voice. Kassandra wondered if one day the Goddess would speak through her voice and spirit.

The tribe of women drew their horses into a line of march; Penthesilea and her warriors at the head, the elderly or pregnant women and the smallest girls at the very center, surrounded by the strongest young women.

Kassandra had a spear and knew how to use it, so she took a place among the young warriors. Penthesilea saw her and frowned, but she said nothing; Kassandra took her silence as leave to stay where she was. She didn't know whether she hoped for her first battle or whether she was inwardly praying that the journey would be completely uneventful. Dawn was breaking as Penthesilea called out the signal to ride; a single star still hung in the dark sky. Kassandra shivered in the wool robe she had worn to the ceremony; she hoped there would be no rain this night; she had left her riding leathers in the tent and they had been packed somewhere among the leather bags and baskets.

Her closest companion, a girl of fourteen or so whom her mother called 'Star', rode next to her, and made no secret that she was hoping for a fight.

"One year when I was small there was a war against one of the Kentaur tribes - not Cheiron's band, they're our friends, but one of the tribes from inland. They came down on us just as we left our old camp and tried to steal away the strongest of our stallions," Star told her. "I could hardly see them; I was still riding with my mother. But I heard the men screaming as Penthesilea rode them down."

"Did we win?"

"Of course we won; if we hadn't they'd have taken us to their encampment and broken our legs so we couldn't run away," Star said and Kassandra remembered the crippled woman in the men's camp. "But we made peace with them and we lent them the stallion for a year to improve their herds. And we agreed to visit their village that year instead of Cheiron's; Penthesilea said we have become too close akin to his people by now and should skip a few years because it is not wise to lie with our own brothers and fathers for too many generations. She says when we do the babies are weak and sometimes they die."

Kassandra did not understand, and said so. Star laughed and said, "They wouldn't let you go anyhow; before you go to the men's villages, you must be a woman, not a little girl."

"I am a woman," Kassandra said. "I have been old enough for bearing for ten moons now."

"Still, you must be a tried warrior; I have been grown now for a year and more, and I am not yet allowed to go to the men's villages. But I'm not in a hurry; after all, I might be pregnant for nine moons and bear only a useless male who must be given to his father's tribe," said Star.

"Go to the men's villages? What for?" Kassandra asked, and Star told her.

"I think you must be making it up," Kassandra said. "My mother and father would never do anything like that." She could understand a mare and a stallion, but the thought of her royal parents engaging in such maneuvers seemed disgusting. Yet she remembered, unwillingly, that whenever her father summoned one of the many palace women into his sleeping quarters, sooner or later (more often sooner than later), there would be a new baby in the palace, and if it was a son, Priam would visit the palace goldsmith; and there would be handsome gifts, rings and chains and gold cups, for the newly favoured woman and for her children.

So perhaps this thing Star was telling her was true after all, strange though it seemed. She had seen children born, but her mother had told her it was not worthy of a princess to listen to the tattle of the palace women; now she remembered certain gross jests she had not understood at the time and felt her cheeks burning. Her mother had told her that babies were sent into the wombs of women by Earth Mother, and she had wondered sometimes why the Goddess did not send her one, because she dearly loved babies.

"That's why the city-dwellers keep their women locked up in special women's quarters," Star said. "They say that city women are so lecherous that they cannot be trusted alone."

"They're not," said Kassandra, not sure why she was so angry.

"They are too! Or why would their men have to keep them locked up inside walls? Our women aren't like that," Star said, "but city women are like goats - they will fornicate with any man they see!" With an ill-natured smile at Kassandra, she said, "You are from a city, aren't you? - weren't you locked up to keep you away from men?"

Kassandra's knees tightened on her horse; she lunged forward and flung herself on Star, howling in rage. Star clawed at her, and Kassandra jerked Star's roughly braided hair, trying to drag the girl from her horse. Their mounts neighed and snickered as they fought, slapping and clawing and yelling; Kassandra felt the girl's elbow connect with her nose and blood begin to drip as her nails raked into Star's cheek.

Then Penthesilea and Elaria were both there, laughing as they nudged their horses between the girls. Penthesilea dragged Kassandra from her saddle and held her under her arms while she flailed angrily.

"For shame, Kassandra! If we fight like this among ourselves, how can we hope to have peace with other tribes? Is it so you treat your sisters? What are you righting about?"

Kassandra hung her head and would not answer. Star was still grinning that disgusting grin.

"I said to her that city women are kept locked up because they fornicate like goats," Star jeered, "and if it were not true would she have bothered to fight me about it?"

"Oh, Star, for shame," said Elaria. "It is not that city women are lecherous, but only that their men are so afraid of their own manhood that they do not trust their women. And it is not so in Troy as it is among the Akhaians where women are nothing but slaves!"

Kassandra said angrily, "My mother is no man's slave! Tell her to take it back!"

Penthesilea leaned close to her and said in her ear, "Will your mother be different for her saying it, true or lie?"

"No, of course not. But if she says it—"

"If she says it, you fear that someone will hear it and believe it?" Penthesilea asked, raising a delicate eyebrow. "Why give her that much power over you, Kassandra?"

The girl hung her head and did not answer, and Penthesilea cast her eyes scowling on Star.

"Is this how you treat a kinswoman and guest of the tribe, little sister?"

She leaned from her horse and touched her finger to Star's bleeding cheek. "I will not punish you, for you are already punished; she defended herself well. Next time, show more courtesy to a guest of our tribe. The goodwill of Priam's wife is valuable to us." She turned her back on them and leaned toward Kassandra, still holding her tight against her breast. Kassandra could feel the laughter in her voice. "Are you old enough to ride alone without getting into trouble, or must I carry you before me like a baby?"

"I can ride alone," Kassandra said sulkily, though she was grateful to Penthesilea for defending her.

"Then I shall set you on your horse again," said the Amazon Queen, and gratefully Kassandra felt South Wind's broad back beneath her. Star caught her eye and wriggled her nose at Kassandra and she knew they were friends again. Penthesilea rode to the head of the line of march and called out, and they rode.

A chilly drizzling rain was falling, and gradually soaked through everything. Kassandra drew up her striped wool robe over her head, but her hair was still wet and clung to her head. They rode all day and pressed on into the night; Kassandra wondered when they would reach the new pastures. She had no idea where they were going, but rode in the damp darkness, following the tail of the horse ahead of her.

She rode in a dark dream, and through the darkness without stars, felt curious sensations attacking her body which she could not identify. Then the glow of a fire appeared before her eyes, and she knew she was not seeing it with her own eyes at all. Somewhere Paris sat before this fire, and across the fire he was looking at a slender young woman with long fair hair loosely tied at her neck. She wore the long, loose, tucked-up gown of the mainland women and Kassandra sensed the way in which Paris could not take his eyes from her, the sharp hunger in his body which confused her enough that she took her eyes from the fire and then she was riding again, feeling the dampness of her cloak dripping cold water down her neck. Her body was still alive with the tug of what she knew, without understanding, to be desire. It was the first time she had been so wholly aware of her own body… yet it was not her own. The memory of the girl's great eyes, the tender curve of her cheek, the swell of her young breasts where the robe stood away from her body, the way in which these memories aroused totally physical sensations, troubled her; in a flash she began to associate them with the troubling things Star had been saying, and she was filled with dismay and something she was still too innocent to identify as shame.

Toward morning the rain stopped and the dark ragged clouds blew away; the moon came out and Kassandra could see that they were passing through a narrow gorge of rock, high up; she looked down on broad plains below, covered with small twisted trees, and orderly ploughed fields enclosed by stone walls. They moved slowly down the steep slope, and gradually the leading horses slowed and stopped. The tents were unpacked and the fire-pot was set in a central place. Already the first rays of a red sun were coming up across the gorge they had crossed in the night; they sent the young girls to look for dry wood - there was little to be found after days of soaking rain, but under the thick twisted olive trees Kassandra found a few dry chips where the rain had not penetrated, and she ran back with them to the fire.

The sun came up as they sat there, in a flood of red which told of more rain to come, so they sat there enjoying the damp heat and drying their hair and robes. Then the older women started to supervise the setting up of the tent and took one of the pregnant women inside; the warriors told the young girls to set the herds to grazing, and Kassandra went with them.

She was very tired and her eyes burned, but she was not sleepy; a part of her mind was back in the tent where the women clustered encouraging the labouring woman, and a part of her was still far away, sharing with Paris. She knew he was on the hillside with his flocks, and that his thoughts remained with the girl whose memory obsessed him. She knew the girl's name, Oenone, the sweet mortal sound of it, and knew hauntingly how Paris clung to the memory that wiped out all awareness of what should have been uppermost in his thoughts, his duty to his flock. And even before Paris sensed it himself she heard - or felt, or smelled - the presence of the girl stealing toward him through the groves of trees on the mountainside.

The bitter scent of juniper was all around them. Kassandra hardly knew which of them, Paris or the girl, first saw one another or who moved first to run and crush the other into eager arms. The touch of hungry kisses almost jolted her back into her own body and her own place, but she was ready for it now, and clung to her awareness of his emotions and sensations. The next thing she knew, Oenone was sprawled on the soft grass, while Paris knelt above her, pulling at her garments.

Suddenly aware that this was not a moment to be shared even with a twin sister, she pulled back and away and was astride her own horse with drops of a rain shower on her face. She longed for the sunshine of her own country, Apollo's own sunshine, and ,for the first time since she had ridden away with the Amazons wondered when she would return.

She felt sick, her eyes burned and a queasiness attacked her; the memory of what she had shared answered some of the many questions in her mind, but she was not sure whether it was her brother with whom she had shared this curious experience, or the girl Oenone, whether she was lover or beloved.

She was not certain now that she was within her own body, or whether she was still lying in the soft grass on Mount Ida with her brother and the girl, their bodies still locked in the afterglow of desire. Her mind would not stay within the confines of her body; but spread far beyond her, so that a part of her was here in the circle of horses and young women, and a part of her extended downward into the birthing tent where the woman knelt in a ring of women watching her, crying out instructions and encouragement; she felt the rending pains attacking her inexperienced body. She was racked by confusion, felt the blood leaving her cheeks, heard her own breath rasp in her throat.

She turned round wildly, pulling so hard on the reins that her mare almost stumbled, and dug her heels into the horse's flank, fleeing across the plain, as if by fierce physical effort she could bring all her consciousness back into her own body. Penthesilea saw her riding away from the camp and quickly jumped to the back of her own horse and raced after her.

Kassandra, stretched out along the mare's back desperately' trying to shut out everything outside herself, sensed the pursuit and dug her heels harder. Nevertheless Penthesilea's horse was longer-legged and she was by far the better rider; gradually the gap between the two riders narrowed and the Amazon drew abreast of the girl, seeing with dismay Kassandra's flushed face and terrified eyes.

She held out her arms and scooped Kassandra from the back of her mare, holding her limp on the saddle before her.

She could feel the girl's forehead fire-hot as if with fever. Almost delirious now, Kassandra struggled against her, and the older woman held her tight in her strong arms.

"Hush! Hush! what ails you, bright-eyes? Why, your forehead feels as if you were sun-stricken, yet it is not a hot day!" Her voice was kindly, yet Kassandra felt that the older woman was mocking her, and struggled frantically to be free.

"Nothing is wrong—I did not mean to—"

"No, all is well, child; no one will hurt you, no one is angry with you," Penthesilea held her, soothing her. After a moment Kassandra abandoned her struggles and went limp in her kinswoman's arms.

"Tell me about it—"

Kassandra blurted out, "I was - with him. My brother. And a girl. And I couldn't shut it out, anything, anywhere in the camp—"

"Goddess be merciful," Penthesilea whispered. At Kassandra's age she too had borne the gift (or curse) of the wide-open seeing. Sharing experiences for which the mind or body were unprepared could indeed touch upon inner madness and there was not always a safe return. Kassandra was lying in her arms only half conscious, and her kinswoman was not sure what to do for her.

First she must get her back to the camp; so far from the other women, or the horses, there were likely to be strange lawless men in these wilds, and in Kassandra's present state, such an encounter might drive her sheer over the edge of sanity. She turned about, holding the reins of Kassandra's mare so it would follow her. She cradled the girl against her breast, and when they were within the circle of the camp, lifted her down and carried her inside the tent, where the new mother was resting beside her sleeping infant. Penthesilea laid Kassandra down on a blanket and sat beside her, her firm hand on her niece's brow, covering her eyes, willing her to shut out all the intrusions into her mind.

Silent and at peace, Kassandra's sobbing subsided and she slowly grew calm, turning her face into Penthesilea's hand like a baby, curled up against her.

After a long time Penthesilea asked, "Are you better now?"

"Yes, but—will it come again?"

"Probably. It is a gift of the Goddess and you must learn to live with it. There is little I can do to help you, child. Perhaps Serpent Mother has called you to speak for the Gods; there are priestesses and seeresses among us. Perhaps when it is time for you to go underground and face her…'

"I do not understand," Kassandra said. Then she remembered when Apollo had spoken to her and asked that she should be his priestess. She told Penthesilea of this, and the older Amazon looked relieved.

"Is it so? I know nothing of your Sunlord; it seems to me strange that a woman should seek a God rather than the Earth Mother or our Serpent Mother. It is she who dwells underground and rules over all the realms of women - the darkness of birth and death. Perhaps she too has called you and you have not heard her voice. I have heard that sometimes it is so with the priestess-born; that if they do not hear her call she will set her hand on them through the darkness of evil dreams, so that they may learn how to listen to her voice."

Kassandra was not certain; she knew little of Penthesilea's Serpent Mother, yet she remembered the beautiful serpents in Apollo's house and how she had longed to caress them. Perhaps this Serpent Mother had called her too; not only the bright and beloved Sunlord.

She had hoped that her kinswoman, who knew so much about the Goddess, would tell her what she must do to be rid of this unwanted Sight. Now she began to realize that she must herself control it, must find a way within herself to shut the floodgates before they overwhelmed her.

"I will try—" she said. "Are there any who know about these things?"

"Perhaps among the servants of the Gods. You are a princess of two royal houses; ours of the Amazons, and your father's; I know nothing of those Gods, but as one of us, a time must come when you must go underground to meet the Serpent Mother, and since already she has called you, it should be sooner rather than later. Perhaps at the next moon; I shall speak to the elders and see what they say of you."

Perhaps, Kassandra said to herself, this is why the God called me to be his servant. Yet she had herself opened these doors; she should not complain that she had been given the gift which she had asked.

Day after day the tribe rode, into the fierce winds and the raw icy rain. It grew colder and colder, and at night the women wrapped themselves in all their woollen garments and blankets; but this was not enough; they nestled in twos and threes, sharing blankets. Kassandra curled up next to her horse, sheltering in the warmth of the big sleek body. Eventually the skies grew clear and brilliant and the rain stopped. Still to the east the tribe travelled; when the women asked their leaders when they would rest and find pasture for their horses, Penthesilea only sighed: 'We must first pass two rivers as the Goddess has decreed."

The moon had waxed and waned again when they sighted the first human beings that they had seen on this journey; two solitary men dressed in skins to which hair clung, so that the women guessed that the art of tanning skins was still unknown to them.

There are pastures here, Kassandra thought, this might be the place to rest our herds and remain. But not with these men…

The men stared open-mouthed and loutish at the women, and Penthesilea drew up her horse beside them.

"Who owns these flocks and herds?" she asked, pointing to the sheep and goats grazing on the bright green vegetation.

"We do. What kind of goats be ye riding?" asked the men. "Never did we see goats so big and healthy."

Penthesilea started to say that they were not goats but horses; then decided that in their ignorance there might be some advantage for the tribe. "They are the goats of Poseidon, God of the sea," she told him, and he asked only, "What be the sea?"

"Water from here to the horizon," she said and he gasped, "Oh, my! Never do we see water but what's in some muddy hole that dries in the summer! No wonder they look rich and fat!" Then he smiled craftily and asked in his rude dialect if the ladies would care to pasture their herds beside his own.

"Perhaps for a night or two," said Penthesilea.

"Where be ye menfolks?" he asked.

"We have none; we are free of all men," said the Amazon, "but we will accept the hospitality of your pasture for this night, since we have been riding for a long time. Our animals are weary and will welcome a little of your good grass."

"They are welcome to it," replied one of the men, who seemed a little cleaner than the rest, and his garment a little more whole.

As they were dismounting, Penthesilea whispered to Kassandra that they must be wary, and not sleep, but watch their horses even through the night. "For I do not trust these men, not even a little," she whispered. "I think, as soon as we are sleeping, or they think we are sleeping, they will try to steal our horses, and perhaps attack us."

The men tried to edge their way into the circle of women and to steal furtive touches, and Kassandra thought if they had been city women, inexperienced in guile, they would not have realized what the men were doing. She rose with the other young girls to begin spreading out their blankets. She slipped hobbles over her horse's feet, so that she could not go far away in the night, loosened her leather belt and lay down in her blanket, between Elaria and Star.

"I wonder how far we will ride?" Star murmured, hugging her blanket around her thin shoulders against the dampness. "If we do not soon find food, the children will begin to die."

"It is not as bad as that," Elaria remonstrated. "We have not even begun to bleed the horses. We can live on their blood for least a month before they even begin to weaken. Once when there was a bad year we lived on the mares' blood for two months. My first daughter died, and we were all so near starving that when we went to the men's village, none of us became pregnant for almost half a year."

"I am hungry enough that I would drink mares' blood - or anything else," Star grumbled, but Elaria said, "That cannot be until Penthesilea gives orders; and she knows what she is doing."

"I am not so sure," Star muttered. "Letting us sleep here among all these men—"

"No," said Elaria,"she bid us not sleep."

Slowly the moon rose above the trees, climbing higher and higher. Then across her lowered eyelids Kassandra saw dark forms stealing through the clearing.

She was waiting for Penthesilea's signal when suddenly the stars above were blotted out by a dark shadow and the weight of a man's body was suddenly across hers; hands were tearing away her breeches, fumbling at her breast. She had her hand on her bronze dagger; she struggled to free herself but was pinned down flat. She kicked, and bit at the hand that covered her mouth; her attacker yelped—like the dog he was, she thought fiercely—and she thrust up hard with the hilt of the dagger, striking his mouth; he yelped again and Kassandra felt a spray of blood and curses from his broken lips. Then she got the dagger right way round 'and struck; he yelled and fell across her, just as Penthesilea shouted and all over the grove women sprang to their feet. Someone thrust a torch into the dying coals and the firelight flared up, reflecting light on bronze daggers naked in the men's hands.

"Such is your hospitality to guests?"

Kassandra cried out, "I have taken care of one of them, Aunt!" She scrambled free, pushing the groaning man off her body. Penthesilea strode toward her and looked down.

"Finish him," she said. "Don't leave him to die slowly in pain."

But I don't want to kill him, Kassandra thought. He can't hurt me now and he didn't do me any real harm. All the same, she knew the law of the Amazons; death for any man who attempted to rape an Amazon, and she could not violate that law. Under the cold eyes of Penthesilea, Kassandra bent reluctantly over the wounded man and drew her dagger hard across his throat. He gurgled and died.

Kassandra, feeling sick, straightened and felt Penthesilea's hand hard on her shoulder. "Good work. Now you are truly one of our warriors," she murmured and strode forward into the torchlight toward the assembled men.

"The Gods have decreed that the guest is sacred," Penthesilea chided. "Yet one of your men would have ravished one of my unwilling maidens. What excuse can you give for that breach of hospitality?"

"But who ever heard of women to be riding alone this way," one of the men argued. "The Gods only protect women who are decent wives, and you're not; you don't belong to anyone."

"What God told you that?" Penthesilea inquired.

"We don't need a God to tell us what just stands to reason. Women were made for women's work and to look after men's needs." declared the shepherd. "I never heard of such a thing as women riding so far away from their men. And since you had no husbands, we decided we'd take ye in and give ye what ye needed most, men to look after ye."

"That is not what we need nor what we seek," the Amazon declared, and gestured to the women surrounding the men with their weapons.

"Take them!"

Kassandra found herself rushing forward with the rest, her dagger raised. The man she rushed against made no particular effort to defend himself; she pushed him down and knelt over him with her knife at his throat.

"Don't kill us," the men cried out. "We won't hurt you!"

"Now you won't," Penthesilea said fiercely, "but when we were sleeping and you thought us helpless—you would have killed or raped us!"

Penthesilea thrust with her dagger at his throat and he cringed. "Will you swear by your own Gods never again to molest any women of our tribes—or any other—if we let you live?"

"No, we won't," said the leader. "The Gods sent you to us, and we took you, and I think we did what was right."

Penthesilea shrugged and gestured to cut his throat. The other men screamed that they would swear, and Penthesilea motioned the women to let them go. One by one, except for the leader, they knelt and swore as required.

"But I do not trust even their oath," said Penthesilea, "once they are out of sight of our weapons." She gave orders for their possessions to be gathered together and for the horses to be saddled, so that they could ride at dawn.

After her sleepless night, Kassandra's eyes burned and her head ached; it seemed that she could still feel the man's gross hands on her body. When she wished to move she could not; her body was rigid, locked; she heard someone calling her name but the sound was very far away.

Penthesilea came to her, and the touch of her hand brought Kassandra back to herself.

"Can you ride?" she asked.

Wordlessly, Kassandra nodded and pulled herself up into the saddle. Her foster-mother came and embraced her, saying, "You did well; now you have killed a man, you are a warrior, fit to fight for us. You are a child no more." Penthesilea called out the signal to ride, and Kassandra, shivering, urged her horse into motion. She wrapped her blanket over her shoulders.

Ugh, she thought, it smells of death.

They rode, chill rain in their faces; she envied the women who were carrying covered clay pots of hot coals. Eastward, and further eastward they rode, the wind chilling and growing colder. After a long time the sky lightened to a pale grey, but there was no true daybreak. All round her Kassandra heard the women grumbling, and she ached with hunger and cold.

Penthesilea at last called for a halt, and the women began -setting up their tents for the first time in many days. Kassandra clung to her horse, needing the heat of the animal's body; the aching cold seemed to seep into every muscle and bone of her body. After a time there were fires burning at the center of the encampment and she went like the others and crouched close to the tongues of warmth.

Penthesilea gestured near where they had been riding and the women saw; with astonishment, green fields of half-ripened grain. Kassandra could hardly believe her eyes: grain at this season?

"It is winter wheat," Penthesilea said. "These peoples plant their grain before the first snow falls, and it lies through the winter under the snow, and ripens before the barley harvest. For this cold climate, they have two grains, and it is the rye I seek."

The Amazon Queen gestured to her kinswoman to walk beside her and Kassandra came to her side.

"What land have we come to, Aunt?" she asked.

"This is the country of the Thracians," Penthesilea told her, "and northward," she gestured, "lies the ancient city of Colchis."

Kassandra remembered one of her mother's stories. "Where Jason found the golden fleece, by the aid of the witch Medea?"

"The same. But there is little gold there, these days; though there is much witchcraft."

"Are there people living hereabouts?" asked Kassandra. The countryside seemed so barren after the fertile fields of the Trojan plain, that it seemed impossible that people would choose to live in this desolate place.

"Fields of rye do not plant themselves," Penthesilea reproved her. "Where there is grain, there is always someone, man or woman, to plant it. And here there are people and also—" she pointed, "horses."

Far away on the horizon, hardly visible, Kassandra made out small moving flecks which seemed no larger than sheep; but from the way they moved, she could see they were horses. As they surged nearer, Kassandra made out that they were very different from the horses that she and the other Amazons rode: small and dun-coloured with heavy-set bodies and thick shaggy hair almost like fur.

"The wild horses of the north; they have never been ridden nor tamed," Penthesilea said. "No God has touched them to mark them for mankind or women. If they belong to any God they are the property of the huntress Artemis."

As if moved by one spirit, the whole herd wheeled and dashed away, the lead mare pausing with her head up to stare, nostrils dilated and eyes shining, at the women.

"They smell our stallion," said Penthesilea. "He must be watched; if he scents a herd of mares he might well try to add them to our own and these horses are no use to us. We could not feed them and there would not be enough pasture."

"What are we doing here?" Kassandra asked.

"The Goddess is wise," her kinswoman replied. "Here in the country of the Thracians, we can trade for iron and replenish our weapons. There will be grain for sale in the city of Colchis, if not nearer; and we have items for trade; saddles and bridles, leather work, and more. We will go this afternoon to the village and see if we can buy food."

Kassandra looked at the grey sky and wondered how anyone could tell whether it was morning or afternoon. She supposed that Penthesilea had some way of knowing.

Later that day Penthesilea summoned Kassandra and one of the other young maidens, Evandre, and they rode toward the village which lay at the center of the grainfields lying beneath the snow. As the women entered the village—only a few small round stone houses, and a central building open to the sky where women were working at the shaping of pots - the inhabitants came out to see them.

Many of the women were carrying spindles with wool or goat's hair wrapped round them. They wore long loose skirts of woven goat's hair dyed green or blue; their hair was dark and ragged. Some had children in their arms, or clinging to their skirts.

Kassandra saw, with a little thrill of horror, that many of the children were curiously deformed; one little girl had a raw-looking cleft through her lip, running up through her face till her nostril looked like an open sore; another had but a thumb and one deformed finger on her tiny hand which looked like a claw. She had never seen living children like this; in Troy a child born deformed was immediately exposed on the slopes of Mount Ida for wolves or other wild beasts to destroy. Women and children hung back without speaking, but looked curiously at the Amazons and their horses.

"Where are you going?"

"Northward at the will of our Goddess, and at the moment, to Colchis," said Penthesilea. "We would like to trade here for grain."

"What have you to trade?"

"Leather goods," said Penthesilea, and the women shook their heads. "We make our own leather from the hides of our horses and goats," said a woman who appeared to be a leader among them. "But sell us a dozen of your little girls and we will give you all the grain you can carry."

Penthesilea's face turned pale with anger.

"No woman of our tribe is ever sold into slavery."

"We do not want them for slaves," said the woman. "We will adopt them as our daughters. A sickness has raged here and too many women have died in childbirth, while others cannot bear healthy babies; so you can see women are very precious to us."

Penthesilea was paler than ever. She said softly to Evandre, "Pass the word back that no woman is to dismount from her horse for an instant in this village; not for any purpose, no matter what the need; we will ride on."

"What is the matter, Aunt?" Kassandra asked.

"We must touch none of their grain," Penthesilea said, and said to the woman, "I am sorry for your sickness; but we can do nothing to help you. Nevertheless, if you would be free of it, cut down your standing grain and burn it, do not even let it lie to fertilize the fields. Get yourselves fresh seed corn from somewhere south of here. Examine the seeds carefully for any trace of blight; it is this that has poisoned the wombs of your women."

As they rode away from the village, Penthesilea, riding through the rye fields, bent down and plucked a few of the green stalks. She held them up, pointing to the place where the seeds would be forming.

"Look," she said. Pointing out the purplish threadlike fibers at the tips of the stalks, she held it towards Kassandra. "Smell it; as a priestess you must be able to recognize this whenever you encounter it. Do not taste it, whatever you do, nor eat of it even if you are starving."

Kassandra smelled a curious mouldy, slimy, almost fishy smell.

"This rye will poison any who eat fresh grain, or even the bread which could be baked from it; and the worst form of poisoning is that it kills the children in the womb and can destroy a woman's fertility for years. That village may already be doomed. It is a pity; their women seem handsome and industrious, and their spinning and weaving is notable. Also they make fine pots and cups."

"Will they all die, Aunt?"

"Probably: many of them will eat the poisoned grain and not die of it, but no more healthy children will be born in that village, and by the time they are desperate enough to enforce, perhaps, a year's famine on their people, it may be too late."

"And the Gods permit this?" Kassandra asked. "What Goddess is angry enough to blight the grain in the village?"

"I do not know; perhaps it is not the doing of any Goddess at all," said her kinswoman. "I only know that it comes, year after year, especially when there has been too much rain."

It had never occurred to Kassandra to doubt that the grain of the fields was watched over and made to grow through the direct agency of Earth Mother; this was a frightening heresy and she put it out of her mind as quickly as possible. She was aware again of hunger - she had been without substantial food for so long that she had almost ceased to be aware of it for days at a time.

As they rode, they began to see small animals jumping in and out of burrows in the ground. A young girl quickly strung her bow and loosed a hunting-arrow shaped of fire-hardened wood instead of the precious metal and the animal it struck fell over and lay kicking. The archer leaped off her pony and clubbed it over the head. A flight of other arrows followed the first, but only one or two found their mark. At the thought of hare roasted on the spit, Kassandra's mouth watered.

Penthesilea drew the riders to a halt with a gesture.

"We will camp here, and I promise you, we will not ride on until we are all fed somehow," she said. "You warriors, take your bows and hunt; as for the rest of you, set up the targets and practice with your arrows. We have neglected practicing our hunting and righting skills in these days while we ride. Too many of those arrows went far from the targets. In my mother's day, that many arrows would have brought down enough hares to feed us all."

She added, "I know how hungry you all are - I am no more fond of fasting than any of you, and it has been as long for me as for any of you since I have eaten a good meal. Yet I beg you, my sisters, if you found—or stole - any grain or anything made of it, or any food at all in that village, let me see it before you eat of it. Their grain is cursed, and those who eat of bread made from it may miscarry, or your child may be born with one eye, or only one finger on her hand."

One woman defiantly pulled out a hard and somewhat mouldy loaf of bread from beneath her tunic. She said, "I will give this to some woman past childbearing age who can eat of it safely. I did not steal it," she added. "I bartered an old buckle for it."

One of the oldest women in the tribe said, "I will exchange it for my share of the hare I brought down with my arrow; it has been too long since I tasted bread, and I will certainly never bear any more children to be damaged by it."

The sight of the bread made Kassandra so hungry that she felt she would rather risk miscarriage or damage to a child she might bear some day far in the future; but she would not disobey her kinswoman. Other Amazons brought forth items of food they had bartered - or stolen - in the village, almost all of which Penthesilea confiscated and threw on the fire.

Kassandra went to shoot at targets while the seasoned warriors rode away to seek game and the old women spread out across the flat countryside to seek food of any sort. It was too far into the winter for berries or fruits, but there might be roots or some edible fungus somewhere.

The short winter day was darkening into twilight when at last the hunters returned, and soon the cut-up hares were seething in a cauldron with flat wild beans and some roots; chunks hacked from a larger beast—it had been skinned, but

Kassandra suspected it was one of the rough-furred wild horses, and was hungry enough not to care - were roasting over a great fire. For that night at least they would have their fill, and Penthesilea had promised there would be plenty of food in Colchis.