The Firebrand

CHAPTER 18

Kassandra ran up the steps of the street which traversed the city from lower to highest ground, hardly realizing that the women who dwelled in the crowded houses built along the steep street had come crowding out of the houses, in a flutter of brightly dyed dresses, to watch her precipitous flight. The pounding of her heart forced her to slow her steps to a walk, and then to a full stop.

She bent over, half sick. She had been rigidly schooled always to maintain her decorum before strangers; she pressed the loose sleeve of her dress over her lips, trying to control the nausea and sharp pain in her chest, and sought a step where she could catch her breath. She did not want to appear on the doorstep of the God as a dishevelled fugitive.

A kindly voice said 'Princess—" and she looked up to see an aging woman bent over her, holding a clay cup in her hand. "You have climbed too far, and too swiftly, in this sun. May I offer you a drink of water? Or I can fetch you some cooled wine, if it would please you to step inside."

The thought of going into the cool shaded interior was tempting, but Kassandra was ashamed to show or admit weakness.

How can I be overcome by the sun? I am the beloved of Apollo Sunlord - but she did not say this aloud, murmuring her thanks and setting the cup to her lips. The water tasted a little of clay and was not over cool, but it felt good to her parched lips and throat.

"Will you rest for a moment inside my house, Princess?"

"No, thank you." She kept her eyes averted. "I am quite well; I will sit here and rest for a moment." The light hurt her eyes; she shaded them with her hand, looking down at the clear dazzling reflection of the harbor. For a moment the sun blurred her sight, then she saw clearly and all but cried out; the clear blue of the sea was dark with the sails of many ships.

So many! Where had they come from?

They were not her father's ships; and as she tried to focus on any one of them she was suddenly no longer sure it was there. After a few moments of this, the harbor burned empty with dazzling blue sea, broken only by the shape of one old Cretan ship which had been loading paints and lumber for the past three days.

It had been only a vision, then; a hallucination.

She wrenched her aching eyes from the illusory sea, slowly got to her feet and began to climb upward. She kept her eyes slitted narrowly against the sun, which glared like fire spreading down across the walls of Troy, and kept climbing, slowly, against a growing sense that to run away like this was folly, that one did, not flee to a God like a strayed goat bolting from the flock. She should have come, oh, yes, but she should have come like a princess of Troy, attended properly, and bearing the proper gifts for the House of the God.

Nevertheless it would be wrong to turn back now. Unless the deceitful vision of ships had been meant as a warning…? No; even so, she could not take back her commitment to the God.

She climbed on, approaching the temple of the Sunlord.

A flare of light, haloed by a flash of summer lightning, drew her eyes to the heights, where the Temple of Pallas Athene stood, and suddenly doubt assailed her. She had been made priestess of the Goddess, sent into the Underworld to seek her, and had been accepted; was it not Earth Mother who had called her since her earliest childhood, and had spoken to her with the voice of prophecy? Was she then abandoning her loyalty to the Divine Mother, Maiden and protectress of maidens, forsaking her for the beautiful Sunlord?

Sudden panic flooded her, so that for a moment she thought she would vomit, and swallowed spasmodically; her whole body was filled with a fear she could all but taste. She heard hard steps pursuing her and for a moment the sky above her was dark, and there was but one thought filling her mind to the brim, submerged in the dark waters… I must reach the Temple of the Maiden, there alone will I be safe… no man would dare lay hands on any whom she protects…

Kassandra blinked incredulously. There was no peril, no flame, no pursuer. The harbor gleamed empty and blue; the street around her contained only a few women, watching her climb sedately toward the great gates of the Sunlord's Temple.

Is it the God who has sent madness on me? She paused to catch her breath and stepped over the threshold into Apollo's Temple.

There was a sudden rush of wind, as if a giant hand pushed her across the threshold. Kassandra, patting her hair distractedly into place, looked about, almost disappointed that no one seemed to take notice. What did I expect? That the God himself would come out and make me welcome?

A woman in the ordinary dress of a priestess - a white tunic and a veil dyed with saffron to a sunny golden colour - raised her head and looked at Kassandra; then stood up and came toward her. She said, "Welcome, daughter of Priam; have you come here for an oracle or an omen, or to offer sacrifice?"

"None of these things," Kassandra said, self-consciously, not knowing how to say what she had come to say. "I came - because the God has called me to come - to be his priestess—" and she broke off, feeling more than a little foolish.

But the older woman smiled in a kindly way and said, "Yes, of course; I remember that you came once to us when you were only a little girl, and seemed so much at home here, I thought perhaps one day the Sunlord would call you. So now come inside, my dear, and tell me all about it. First, how old are you?" she asked. "You seem well-grown to womanhood."

"My mother tells me that I shall be seventeen soon after midsummer," Kassandra answered as they went inside. She remembered the waiting room where many years ago she had eaten a piece of sweet melon while her mother awaited the oracle, and found it hard to believe that it had changed so little in so many years. She wondered about the serpents she had seen and caressed at that time; they had been a short-lived species, probably they were long dead. The thought saddened her.

The priestess gestured to her to sit.

"Now tell me about yourself; everything which makes you think you have been called to our Temple."

When Kassandra had finished the priestess spoke. "Well, Kassandra, if you wish to be one of us, you must live for a year here within the Temple, to learn to interpret the oracles and the omens and to speak for the God."

Kassandra said, feeling a surge of upswelling happiness, "I shall be happy to live in the House of the God."

"Then you must send one of the Temple servants to fetch your belongings; only a few changes of clothing and perhaps a warm cloak, for you must wear the common dress of a priestess; we are all as sisters here, and you may not wear jewels and ornaments while you dwell in the shrine."

"I do not care for jewels," Kassandra said, "and indeed I have very few. But why is it not permitted?"

The old woman smiled. "It is a rule of the Temple," she said, "and I do not know why it is so. Perhaps it is because many of the folk who come here to consult us are poor, and if we were hung with jewels they might feel that we were enriching ourselves upon their offerings. My name is Charis," she said, "which is one of the names of Earth Lady. I have dwelt in the house of the Sunlord since I was nine winters old, and now I am seven-and-forty. We are long-lived here, unless we are chosen to bear a child to the God and it should chance that we die in childbirth; but that does not happen often, and many of our brothers and sisters are healer-priests. Have you your mother's or your father's leave to dwell in the House of the God?"

Kassandra said, "I do not think my mother will object; I have spoken with her of this. As for my father, he has so many sons and daughters, I do not think he will know or care whether I am in the God's house or his. I have never been one of his favourites." 'But tell me," she asked the priestess, "may I have my serpent to live with me in the Temple? She was a gift from Imandra, Queen and priestess of Colchis, and no one else in Troy loves her; I fear she will be neglected if I am not there to care for her."

"She will be welcome," Charis said. "You may have her brought here."

The old priestess now summoned a servant, and Kassandra instructed her as to which of her possessions she wanted fetched from the palace. "And go to my mother Queen Hecuba," she said, "and tell her that I beg for her blessing."

The servant bowed and went away. "And now, if you wish," Charis said, "I will show you the dormitory where the virgins of Apollo sleep."

So began the time that Kassandra remembered later as the happiest and most peaceful of her entire life. She learned to consult the oracles, to read the omens, and to serve the shrine with the appointed offerings. She cared for the sacred serpents, and learned to interpret the meanings of their movements and behaviour.

As she had foreseen, her mother made no difficulties; she sent by the servant the requested belongings, and a message: 'Say to my daughter Kassandra that I bless her and approve what she has done; tell her I send her many kisses and embraces."

Very soon she found many friends at the shrine, and after only a few months there were many clients and supplicants who came to deal with her and preferred that she should accept their offerings and give them advice.

Once she asked an older priest: 'I do not understand; why do they come to the God to ask these foolish questions for which they do not need a God's advice, but only the common wits they were born with?"

"Because so many of them are born fools or worse," said the old priest bluntly,"they think the Gods have nothing better to do than to trouble themselves with human affairs. Myself, I believe the Gods have enough concerns of their own, in the land of the Immortals, to worry themselves very much with the business of ordinary men. Perhaps with the doings of Kings and the great ones; but—" and he lowered his eyes and spoke almost in a whisper, "I have seen little evidence even of that, daughter of Priam."

Kassandra was a little shocked by this blasphemy, but felt that if the priest had little faith in the God, it was more his loss than anyone else's. As for herself, while she dwelt in the shrine she had a great and often overpowering sense of the presence of her God, as in the moment when first he had called her.

This was not to say that her time in the Temple was entirely carefree. Some of the maidens in the shrine were openly jealous of her because she was a favourite with the older priests and priestesses, and spoke to her, or of her, with unkindness or spite; but she had never been popular with girls of her own age, not even with her sister and half-sisters, except among the Amazons and had become resigned to that before she was out of childhood.

Mostly she felt she was surrounded with loving attention; what else could it be when she dwelt in the house of her God? There were many women in the shrine who spoke of the Sunlord as other maidens spoke of a husband or lover; in fact one of the common names of the priestesses was 'brides of the God'. One of the women, Phyllida, was regarded as having been the bride of the God in truth; she had borne a child who was accepted as a son of Apollo.

When Kassandra first heard this she was annoyed and disgusted with what seemed obvious nonsense.

Is the girl simply a fool, deceived by some quite ordinary seducer? Or was she telling a tale to make up for some forbidden adventure of her own? Kassandra wondered, for the virgins of the God were forbidden to have anything to do with men; they were carefully watched and not allowed to receive visits or gifts or to meet even with their own brothers or fathers except in the presence of one or two of the older governesses. If I wished to be the bride of any mortal man, my father would be all too happy to arrange a marriage for me, she thought.

Sometimes Kassandra would half awaken at night, hearing the unmistakable voice of the God when he had called to her, a shining Immortal who was something more than mere man." More than once she dreamed that she lay fainting within the arms of her God, an ecstasy more than human sweeping through all her senses; from listening to the other girls talk (though out of shyness she took little part in this gossip), she learned that she was not the only girl so favoured with such dreams.

Once when one of the young maidens was telling her latest dream, filled with erotic detail which Kassandra thought only romantic imagining, she said: 'If you dream so much of lying with a man, Esiria, why not send for your father and ask him to find you a husband? Otherwise, cannot you find something else to occupy your thoughts and something more useful to talk about?"

"You are only jealous because he does not visit you even in a dream," Esiria retorted. "And if he did, would you then refuse him?"

A curious chill went over Kassandra.

"If he should visit me," she declared, "I should try to be very certain that it was in truth the God, and not some lecherous man bent on deceiving a foolish and credulous woman, or romantic girl who mistakes a mere lecher for a God's deputy. I know there are men in this temple who would not be above taking advantage of a silly girl that way; or do you think priests are eunuchs because they have taken a vow of chastity?"

Esiria would say no more; and Kassandra held her peace; but the next day when the women went to draw water at the well she sought out Phyllida and asked to see her child. Like all mothers, the young woman (for she was not yet Kassandra's age) was eager to show her little boy.

He was pretty indeed, with big blue long-lashed eyes and a crop of golden curls which made it easy to believe that he was indeed the child of the Sunlord. Kassandra admired and kissed him, then asked Phylhda in a sufficiently awed tone, "How did you know it was the God who had come to you?"

"At first I did not know," the girl said, "I thought it was a man in the mask of the God, and I opened my mouth to cry out for one of the governesses: but then - have you ever heard the voice of the God, daughter of Priam?"

Kassandra felt a catch in her throat, remembering that voice; she said, "I have heard—" and could not go on.

"Then, if it happens to you, you will know," said Phyllida abruptly, and said no more.

Kassandra looked again at the little boy and said, "He is beautiful; may I hold him for a moment?"

"Certainly." The child had fallen asleep, though his baby mouth, like a half-opened rose, still clung to the nipple; Phyllida lifted him and put him into Kassandra's arms. He stirred and whimpered, but she jiggled him a little as she had seen his mother do and he was quiet. His weight, damp and soft in her arms, was unlike anything else she had ever felt; even among the Amazons she had never held quite so young a baby. She bent over close to him, touching the soft skin with her lips; it felt exactly like rose-petals.

For a moment a vast content came over her; then it seemed as if a cloud covered the sun, and a cold wind blew over her though she was sitting still in the warm bright court under a sun which almost burned her, so that she drew the end of her veil over the baby lest it should damage his eyes or burn his skin. She recognized the darkness of vision, and, motionless, awaited what she could not avoid.

Suffering and grief were the essence of it; somehow she slid through time and knew that years had passed since this quiet moment; the child who lay against her breast was her own, the little head in her bosom was dark and curly, and even as that strange inward surge of happiness touched her it was clouded with despair, the memory of this very moment, and an angry revulsion. It was so strong that for a moment it paralysed her then she knew where she was again; for once she had managed to prevent the dark waters from drowning her.

She saw Phyllida's wide childish eyes regarding her in something like dread as she put the babe back into his mother's arms. Phyllida whispered, "You looked so far away and strange, Kassandra. They say you can see into the future; what did you see for my child?" And as Kassandra was silent, she entreated, "You would not curse my baby?"

"No, no, of course not, little one," Kassandra said.

"Will you bless him then, daughter of Priam?"

Kassandra wished to reassure her, and reached within herself for the distant touch of the Goddess, to draw upon that power for blessing; instead she heard herself say: 'Alas, there is no blessing for any child of Troy born in this inauspicious year; but perhaps Apollo, his father, will bless him where I may not." She rose quickly and went away, leaving Phyllida staring after her in wordless dismay.