The Firebrand

CHAPTER 16

Throughout the evening Kassandra thought that this was more of a celebration of Paris's welcome to the family than a wedding feast for Hector and Andromache, though once Priam had decided to solemnize the wedding he went to considerable trouble to leave nothing undone. He sent to the royal cellars for the best wine, and Hecuba went to the kitchens for delicacies to be added to the evening meal: fruits, honeycomb, all kinds of sweetmeats. Musicians, jugglers, dancers and acrobats were summoned for entertainment.

A priestess from the Temple of Pallas Athene was summoned to supervise the sacrifices which were such a necessary part of a royal wedding. Kassandra stayed close to Andromache, who, now that it was actually at hand, looked pale and frightened -or perhaps, Kassandra thought, with an irony which astonished her, this was Andromache's idea of how a properly modest woman should behave on the eve of her wedding.

As they stood together in the courtyard, solemnly watching the sacrifices being gathered, Andromache leaned toward Kassandra and whispered, "I should think the Gods would have had enough sacrifices for one day. Do you suppose they ever get bored with watching people kill animals for them? A slaughterhouse wouldn't entertain me." Kassandra had to choke back a giggle which would have been scandalous; but it was true; there had already been many sacrifices at the games. The couple stood side by side, hands clasped on the sacrificial knife, and Hector bent and whispered to Andromache. She shook her head, but he insisted, and it was her hand which drew the knife unhesitatingly across the throat of the white heifer. To Kassandra, who had eaten nothing since early morning, the smell of the roasting meat was like ambrosia.

After that it was only a few minutes till they went inside and Hecuba sent serving women to Andromache and Kassandra to dress them for the feast. They were in the room which Kassandra had shared with Polyxena when they were little children; but it was no longer a simple nursery. The walls had been painted in the Cretan fashion with murals of sea-creatures, strange curving squid and tentacled octopus entangled in coils of seaweed, and nereids and sirens. The tables were of carven wood, littered with cosmetics and scent bottles of blue glass carved into the shapes of fish and mermaids. There were curtains at the windows, Egyptian cotton, dyed green, through which the late sunlight entering the rooms came in as if through waves, giving a curious underwater light.

The wagonload of gifts from Colchis had been unloaded and carried into the palace and Andromache rummaged in the boxloads for a suitable wedding gift for her new husband.

The Queen sent up for Kassandra a fine gown of Egyptian gauze, and Andromache found among the chests from Colchis a gown of silk, full-skirted but so fine that the entire garment could be pulled through a ring, and dyed with the priceless crimson of Tyre.

The Queen also sent her own maids, who set out tubs of warmed water and bathed and perfumed both girls. They curled their hair with heated tongs, then sat them down and painted their faces with cosmetics. They put on red lip-salve that smelled of fresh apples and honey; then they applied kohl from Egypt to darken their brows and underline their eyes, and painted their eyelids with a blue paste that felt like powdered chalk but smelled of the finest olive oil. Andromache accepted all this attention as if she had been accustomed to it all her life, but Kassandra made nervous jokes as the women tended her.

"If I had horns I am sure you would gild them," she said. "Am I a guest, or one of the sacrifices?"

"The Queen ordered it, Lady," said one of the waiting-women. Kassandra supposed that Hecuba had ordered all of this so that the Colchian princess might think Troy no less luxurious than her own faraway city.

The waiting-woman said, "She ordered that you should be no less fine than herself; and rightly so, for the old song says every lady is a Queen when she rides her bridal cart. And this is the way I have dressed the Lady Polyxena for every festival since she was grown."

She frowned as she rubbed Kassandra's hands with scented oil that smelt of lilies and roses. "Your hands are calloused, Lady Kassandra," she said reprovingly. "They will never be as soft as the princess's hands, which are like rose petals—as a lady's should be."

"I am sorry, there is nothing I can do about it," Kassandra said, twisting the maligned hands. It was at that moment that she first realized how much she would miss the outdoor life as she already missed her horse. Penthesilea had given her a fine mare for a parting gift; but Kassandra's last act of the journey had been to send the horse back with the Amazon guard; she knew she would not be allowed to ride freely and she did not want to see her noble companion penned up in the stables or, worse, given to one of her brothers to pull a chariot.

The sun was setting; the waiting-women lighted torches and put a gold brooch into the shoulder of Kassandra's tunic, and laid a new cloak woven of striped wool over her shoulders. Andromache slid her feet into gilded sandals.

"And here is a pair for you, just like them," she said, bending to put them on Kassandra's feet.

"You will be as fine as the bride," said the attendant, but Kassandra felt that Andromache, with her shining curls, was more beautiful than any woman in all of Troy.

The two girls hurried out to the stairs; but Kassandra could not run in the elaborate sandals and they had to walk carefully step by step down the long flights of stairs.

The great feasting-hall flared with many torches and lamps; Priam was already seated on his high throne, and looked displeased because they were late. But when the herald called out 'The Lady Kassandra and Princess Andromache of Colchis', Priam stretched out his hand good-naturedly to the girls to approach him. He seated Andromache in the favoured position beside him, sharing his own gold plate and goblet.

Hecuba signalled Kassandra to sit beside her, and whispered, "Now you truly look a princess of Troy, not a wild tribeswoman, my darling. How pretty you are."

Kassandra thought she must look like a painted doll, like the little effigies which came from Egypt and were intended for the tombs of Queens and Kings. That was what Polyxena looked like; but if her mother was pleased she would not protest.

When everyone was seated Priam proposed the first toast, raising his cup.

"To my splendid new son Paris, and to the kindly fate which has restored him to me and his mother, a comfort in our old age."

"But, Father," Hector protested in an undertone, "have you forgotten the prophecy at his birth, that he would bring down disaster on Troy? I was only a child, but I remember it well."

Priam looked displeased, Hecuba seemed about to cry. Paris looked unsurprised; Agelaus must have told him. But it was rude of Hector to mention it at a feast.

Hector was in his finest robes, a tunic embroidered with gold which Kassandra recognized as the work of the Queen's own hands; Paris too had been given a fine robe and a new cloak like Kassandra's, and looked splendid. Priam surveyed them both with satisfaction as he said, "No, my son, I have not forgotten the omen which came not to me, but to my Queen. But the hand of the Gods has restored him to me, and no man can argue with Fate or the will of the Immortals."

"But are you certain," Hector persisted,"that it was the Gods," and not perhaps the work of some evil Fate bent on destroying our royal House?" Paris's dark face looked like a thundercloud, but Kassandra could not read her twin's thoughts now.

Priam said with a frown of warning which made Kassandra cringe, "Peace, my son! On this subject alone I will not hear you. I had rather see all Troy perish, if it came to that, than any harm come to my splendid new-found son."

Kassandra shuddered. Priam, who scorned prophecy, had just uttered one.

He smiled benevolently at Paris, who was seated at Hecuba's other side, his fingers tightly clasped in hers. Her face was wreathed in smiles, and Kassandra felt a stab of pain; the discovery of Paris meant that such welcome as her mother might have given her was quite lost. She felt sad and heart-sore but told herself that in any case Penthesilea had become her true mother; among the Amazons a daughter was useful and welcome, while here in Troy a daughter was always thought of only as not being a son.

Priam urged Andromache to drink every time the cup went round, forgetting that she was a young girl who would ordinarily not be allowed or encouraged to drink this way. Kassandra could see that already her friend was a little fuddled and tipsy. Just as well perhaps, she thought, for at the end of this feast she is to be sent quite unprepared to my brother Hector's bed. And he is quite drunk too.

It suddenly occurred to her to be glad that Andromache was not marrying Paris as had been suggested; with the mind-link between them, she probably could not have avoided sharing in the consummation of the marriage. The thought made her hot and cold by turns; her sensitivities were honed to fever pitch.

Where was Oenone? Why had Paris not bidden her, as his wife, to the wedding?

Hector, perhaps because he was drunk, chose to pursue the subject. "Well, my father, you have chosen to honor our brother; will you not consider that he should be allowed to earn the honor you have bestowed upon him? I entreat you to send him at least on a quest to the Akhaians, so that if the evil prophecy still stands, it may be diverted to them."

"That's a good thought," murmured Priam, himself now the worse for a good deal of wine, "but you do not want to leave us already, do you, Paris?"

Paris murmured correctly that he was eternally at the disposal of his father and his king.

"He has charmed us all," replied Hector, not without malice. "So why not let him try this irresistible charm upon Agamemnon and persuade him to ransom the Lady Hesione."

"Agamemnon," said Paris, looking up sharply. "Is he not the brother of that same Menelaus who married Helen of Sparta? And is he not himself married to the sister of the Spartan Queen?"

"It is so," Hector said. "When these Akhaians came from the north with their chariots and horses and their Thunder Gods, Leda, the Lady of Sparta, wedded one of these kings, and it was rumoured that when she bore him twin daughters, that one of them had been fathered by the Thunder Lord himself."

"Well, Helen married Menelaus," Hector said, "although she was said to be fair as a goddess, and could have married any king from Thessaly to Crete. There was, I heard, much dissension at Helen's wedding, so that it nearly resulted in a war then and there. You are not ill-looking, my Andromache," he said, coming close and looking attentively at her face, "but not so beautiful, I think, that I will need to keep you imprisoned lest all men envy me and covet you." He took her chin in his hands and looked down at her.

"My lord is gracious to his humble wife," said Andromache with a small grin which only Kassandra recognized as sarcasm.

Paris was watching Hector so closely that Kassandra could not help but notice. What was he thinking? Could he be jealous of Hector, who was neither as handsome nor as clever as he? With a beautiful wife like Oenone, he could hardly envy Hector Andromache just because she was a princess of Colchis. Or was he envious of Hector because Hector was the older, and his father's established favourite? Or was he angry because Hector had, after all, insulted him?

She sipped slowly at the wine in her cup, wondering how Andromache really felt about this marriage; she could not imagine anyone being overjoyed at being married to the bullying Hector but she supposed Andromache was not displeased at eventually being a Queen in Troy. Surreptitiously - her mother had always warned her that it was not proper to stare at men -she looked round the room, wondering if there was any man there she would willingly marry. Certainly none of her brothers, even supposing she were not their sister; Hector was rough and contentious; Deiphobos was shifty-eyed and a sneak; even Paris, handsome as he was, had already neglected Oenone. Troilus was only a child, but when he grew up he might be gentle and kindly enough. She remembered how even among the Amazons the girls had talked all the time about young men, and there too she had felt the weight of being different on her heart. Why was it she cared nothing for what was so important to them?

There must be something worthwhile in marriage or why would all women be so eager for it? Then she remembered the words of the Colchian priestess: You are priestess-born, called and set apart. At least this was a valid reason for difference.

Her eyelids were drooping, and she blinked and sat up straight, wishing this was over; she had been awake and travelling before daylight and it had been a long day.

Priam had called Paris to his side, and they were talking about ships, the route for sailing to the Akhaian islands, and how best to approach Agamemnon's people. Andromache was half asleep. This was, thought Kassandra, the dullest feast she had ever known—though after all she had not attended so many.

Finally Priam was proposing a toast to the wedded pair, and calling for torches to escort Hector and his bride to the bridal chamber.

First among the women, Hecuba led the procession with a flaming torch in her hand. It flickered and flared brilliantly coloured lights along the walls as the women, with Kassandra and Polyxena on either side of Andromache, led her up the stairs, followed by every woman in the palace: Priam's lesser wives and daughters, and all the servants down to the kitchen maids. The torches smoked and hurt Kassandra's eyes: it seemed to her that they were flaming high, that beyond the walls was a dreadful fire, even within the bridal chamber, that they led Andromache forth to some dreadful fate—

Clasping her hands to her head as if to shut out the sight, she heard herself screaming; "No! No! The fire! Don't take her in there!"

"Be quiet!" Hecuba gripped her wrists till Kassandra writhed with the pain. "What is the matter with you? Are you mad?"

"Can't you hear the thunder?" Kassandra whispered. "No, no, there is only death and blood… fire in there, lightning, destruction—"

"Be still," Hecuba commanded. "What an omen at a bride's bedding! How dare you make such a scene—"

"But can't they hear, can't they see—" Kassandra felt as if she brimmed with darkness and could see nothing but darkness shot through with fire. She put her hands over her eyes to shut it out. Was it no more than the smoking torches, distorting her sight.

"For shame," her mother was still scolding as she dragged her along, "I thought the princess of Colchis was your friend; would you spoil her bridal night with this fuss? You have always been jealous whenever anyone else is the center of attention; but I thought you had grown out of that—"

They led Andromache into the bridal chamber. It too had been painted, with sea-creatures so realistic that they seemed to wriggle and swim on the walls. Hecuba had told her at supper that workmen from Crete had been in the palace for a year, redecorating the walls in the Cretan style, and that the carved furniture was tribute from the Queen of Knossos.

On the table beside the bed there was a little carved statue of Earth Mother, her breasts bared over a tightly laced bodice, a flounced skirt, a serpent clasped in each hand. Andromache, as the women were stripping off her bridal finery and putting her into a shift of the Egyptian gauze whispered to Kassandra, "Look, it is Serpent Mother; she has been sent from my home to bless me this night—"

For a moment the dark flooding waters inside Kassandra again threatened to swell up and take over, she was drowning with fear; it was all she could do to keep from shrieking out the terror and apprehension that threatened to strangle her.

"Fire, death, blood, doom for Troy—for all of us—"

Her mother's face, stern and angry, held her silent. She embraced Andromache with a numb dread, thrusting the beautiful little statue at her and murmuring, "May she bless you with fertility, then, little sister." Andromache seemed no more than a tall child in her shift, her hair brushed out of its elegant curls and streaming over her shoulders, her painted eyes enormous and dark with the kohl smudged around the lids. Kassandra, still submerged in the dark waters of her vision, felt ancient and withered among all these girls playing at weddings without the faintest idea what lay beyond.

Now they could hear the chanting of the men as they led Hector up the stairway to claim his bride. Andromache clung to her and whispered, "You are the only one who is not a stranger to me, Kassandra. I beg you, bless me and wish me happiness."

Kassandra's throat was so dry she could hardly speak.

If only it were as easy to bestow happiness as it is to wish it. She murmured through dry lips, "I do wish you happiness, sister."

But there will be no happiness, only doom and the greatest grief in the world…

She could almost hear the shrieks of anguish and mourning through the joyous singing of the marriage hymn, and as Hector, led by his friends, came into the room the streaked red torchlight made their faces crimson with blood… or was it only the bones of their faces standing out like skulls?

The priestess standing by the bed gave them the marriage cup. Kassandra thought, That should have been my task, but her face was frozen in dread, and she knew she would never have had the heart to set it in her friend's hand.

"Don't look so woebegone, little sister," Hector said, touching her hair lightly. "It'll be your turn soon enough; at supper our father was talking of finding you a husband next. Did you know, the son of King Peleus, Akhilles, has made an offer for you? Father says there's a prophecy that he'll be the greatest hero of the ages. Maybe marriage to an Akhaian would settle these stupid wars; though I'd rather fight Akhilles and have the glory of it."

Kassandra gripped frantically at Hector's shoulders.

"Have a care what you pray for," she whispered. "For some God may grant it to you! Pray that you never meet with Akhilles in battle!"

He looked at her in distaste and firmly removed her hands from his shoulders.

"As a prophetess, you are a bird of ill-omen, sister, and I would rather not hear your croakings on my wedding night. Get you to your own bed, sister, and leave us to ours."

She felt the dark waters drain away leaving her hollow and empty and sick, without the slightest idea what she had been saying. She murmured, "Forgive me; I mean no harm; surely you know I wish you nothing but good, you and our kinswoman from Colchis—"

Hector brushed her forehead with his lips.

"It has been a long day, and you have travelled far," he said. "And the Gods alone know what madness you have been taught in Colchis. It is no wonder you are all but raving with weariness. Good night then, little sister, and - this for your omens!" He took the torch beside the bed and swiftly crushed out the flame. "May they all come to nothing, just like this!"

She turned away, her feet unsteady, as the remaining women raised their voices in the last of the marriage songs. She knew she should join in, but felt that for her very life she could not utter a single note. On groping feet she blundered away from the bed and out of the marriage chamber, hurrying to her own room. She fell on her bed, not even bothering to take off her finery, or wipe the smeared cosmetics from her face. She fell into sleep as the dark waters surged over her again, drowning out the remaining echo of the joyous hymns.