The Firebrand

CHAPTER 12

For a few days after, Kassandra watched, from the heights of the temple, the arrival of Akhilles's soldiers; they were nicknamed 'Myrmidons'—ants - and from this height they seemed indeed as numerous and ugly as insects swarming over the beach. So far, however, they made no attempt to move on the city, but marched back and forth over the plain, running, drilling and performing military exercises. Akhilles was clearly visible among them, outstanding not only for his brightly dyed cloak, but for his shining silver gilt hair and the straight posture of his body.

A few days later, she went down to visit her mother; she was troubled by the deepening lines of age on Hecuba's face. As she approached the Queen's quarters, she was shocked by the sounds of strife, she could not make out the words, only the sound of women's voices raised in anger. As she came into the main room near the great loom, she heard the sound of a ringing slap, and a muffled cry, then Hecuba's voice, crying out, "Never!"

"Then," said a young voice, "I shall go without your leave, Lady, or your blessing either."

The voices of women fell silent as they recognized Kassandra and drew back to give her room. It seemed that all the women in the palace were crowded there, surrounding Hecuba, who was wearing an old gown, her hair falling down from its usual coil in grey straggly locks, and one of her sewing women, a girl Kassandra did not know by name though she had often admired her expert work.

"Here is the princess! She is a priestess, she will know what to say to her."

Kassandra came into the circle of women, who were suddenly quiet except for a murmur or two.

"What's wrong, Mother?" she asked. "What's happening?"

The young woman, her cheek reddened from the blow, spoke up proudly. She was slender and pretty, with soft brown hair which she had been interrupted in the middle of dressing, so it hung half curled almost to her waist, her big dark eyes shaded by long lashes.

"The God has spoken to me," she said, "and I have chosen my lord."

"This foolish girl," Hercuba said,"this stupid child, has taken it into her head - oh, I am almost ashamed to tell you! That any woman could so degrade, so demean herself - she is no servant or slave but well-born; she is one of my best embroiderers and I have treated her as my own daughter here in the palace. She has wanted for nothing—"

"Well, tell me, what has she done?" asked Kassandra. "Has she opened the gates for the Greeks to invade the city?"

"No, it has not come to that yet," Hecuba admitted.

"She's mad," Creusa said. "At the feast a few days ago she set eyes on Akhilles, and since then she's talked of nothing else; how strong he is, how skilled at arms, how beautiful - if a man can be beautiful - and now something has put it into her head to go down and offer herself—"

"To the Akhaians?" Kassandra asked in consternation.

"No," said the girl softly, her eyes glowing,"to my lord Akhilles."

"Not even King Priam would send you to him as a slave," Kassandra said.

"It could never be slavery, because I love him," the girl said. "Since first I laid eyes on him I have known there could never be any other man for me in this world."

"My mother is right; you have lost your wits," Kassandra said. "Don't you realize what an animal he is, what a brute? He thinks of nothing but war, takes pleasure in nothing but killing; certainly there is no room in his life for any woman, nor the love of a woman; if he loves any, it is his comrade-in-arms, Patroklos."

"You are wrong," said the woman, "he will love me."

"And if he did, it would be the worse for you," Kassandra said. "I tell you, the man is deranged, mind-sick with the lust for death."

"No, I saw how he looked at me," said the young woman. "How can you say such a thing? The handsomest man the Gods ever made; such beauty must be good, too. Those eyes—"

With a shudder Kassandra remembered the woman in the Kentaurs' village, her ankles pierced with a rope; defending her mutilation as an act of love. It was quite hopeless to talk to any woman in this state.

Yet she must try, if only because they were both women and therefore sisters.

"You - what is your name?" she began.

"Briseis," said Hecuba. "She is a Thracian—"

"Briseis, listen to me," said Kassandra. "Can't you even see how you are deceiving yourself? This is some mad fancy put into your head by a demon, not by a God. You have invented a man from your own dreams, and called it by the name of Akhilles. Do you really believe that if you leave us and go down among the Akhaians you will mean any more to him than any harlot or slave?"

"I could not possibly love him so much without kindling some love in return," said Briseis.

Creusa came and shook her.

"Listen to us, you mad thing! This kind of love is a silly girl's fantasy! If you are simply hungry for a man, I will speak to my father and he will arrange a marriage for you; there are soldiers and chiefs here from all over the world, and your father is a reputable man in his own country; my father will find you a worthwhile husband."

"But I don't want a worthwhile husband," said Briseis, "I only want Akhilles; I love him. You are jealous because love has not come to you this way. If it had you would know I can do nothing else - there is nothing else in the world for me but Akhilles; I cannot eat or sleep for thinking of him - of his eyes, his hands, his voice—" The very sound of her voice as she spoke the name convinced Kassandra that they might as well be speaking to the wind blowing.

"Let her alone," she said hopelessly. "This is a fever like that of Paris for Helen, a curse of their Goddess of Love. She'll come to her senses soon enough once she's had him, but then it will be too late," she said.

"If only I can have him, I don't care what happens to me afterward," Briseis said, and Hecuba brushed the tears from her eyes.

"Poor child," she said, "I cannot prevent you. Go, if you will, and take the consequences of your folly. I will send to Priam, and you shall be carried down in a litter, with a message that you are a gift for Akhilles; and if he deigns to accept you, and does not throw you to the common soldiers to show his contempt for our gifts

For an instant the girl blanched, but then she said, "When he sees how much I love him, he must love me in return."

And if he should, you will be worse off than before, Kassandra thought, but she did not say the words aloud. She watched them making Briseis ready; Hecuba even hung her neck with a golden necklace. When she was ready Kassandra almost envied her—she looked so joyous.

Women dream of this kind of love. And then comes the rope piercing the ankles, the slavery, the degradation.

I should be in her place; Akhilles asked for me, and he would certainly receive me as befits my rank. And then while he slept, a dagger for the throat, and perhaps an end to this war… the great Akhilles, conquered by no hero but by a woman, by his own passion where all the warriors of Troy could not bring about his doom.

Is that woman meeting my fate, my destiny?

No; the Gods may sometimes give us what belongs to another, as Paris has the wife of Menelaus, but another's destiny none may live…

I trust this is so, I believe it; for if it is not true I will never know how to bear my guilt.

A few days later Kassandra descended again to Priam's palace, and found Helen in the courtyard, looking down at the Akhaian camp. Her son was running about now, and Kassandra, counting in her mind, realized that Helen had now been with them for the better part of two years. It was hard to remember the women's quarters without her, or that there had been a time when there was not war.

Three years ago I was riding with the Amazons, she thought, and wished she were back on the plains, free of city or palace walls.

Would I leave the House of the Sunlord?

He has forgotten me; he no longer speaks to me, Kassandra thought; I am no other than any woman; but it is a God I love, not a man… I suppose it is better to love a God than a man like Paris, or Akhilles…

She thought of Briseis, and sought out the tent of Akhilles below; she could see standing near it the brightly coloured hangings of the litter in which Hecuba had sent the girl down. And now, she could make out the straight slender body of the warrior standing near the doorway of the tent; and nearby the smaller, rounder, brightly clad form of a woman. Briseis? So at least he had not scorned the gift, nor thrown her to the common soldiers. Kassandra wondered if she was happy and content.

"At least she has what she most wished for," said Helen, walking towards Kassandra and gesturing down at the girl, wrapped in her saffron-dyed veils. "So there is at least one woman in Troy who has what she most desired."

"Other than you, Helen?"

"I don't know," said Helen. "I love Paris… at least under the blessing of the Lady of Love, I loved him, but when she is not with me… I don't know."

So she too loves only at the will of a God… why is it that the Gods intrude into our lives? Haven't they enough to do in their own divine realms, that they must come meddling with the lives of mortal men and women? But she only asked, "Do you think there will be a raid today?"

"I hope so; the men are getting bored cooped up inside the walls," Helen said. "If the Akhaians do not raid us in a day or two, our men will go out and raid the Akhaians, just for something to occupy their time. Why, Kassandra, what's the matter with you? You've turned pale."

"It occurred to me," Kassandra said, speaking with difficulty,"that if this war goes on for long, no son of Troy will survive to be a warrior."

"Well, I would as soon that my son were something other than a warrior," said Helen. "Like Odysseus, perhaps, to live peacefully in his home country and be a wise judge of his people… If you had a son, Kassandra, what would you want for him?"

That she had never considered. "Anything," she said. "Whatever made him a happy man. A warrior, a king, a priest, a farmer or shepherd… anything, except for a slave to the Akhaians."

Helen turned to her child and held out her arms; he came running up to her. She said reflectively, "Before this one was born, I still had it in my power - and often I thought of it - to stop this war. To steal quietly down to the camp and to Menelaus; I think then he would have agreed to go home, and when there was nothing more to fight for - or at least no further excuse to fight - the Akhaians would have had to turn round and go back to our own islands. But now…' she shivered a little, "he would not take me back; not with another man's son at my breast—"

Kassandra said quietly, "Leave him here, then, in Troy; his father will care for him, and so will I, Helen, if that is what you truly want." After she said it, she realized that Helen was almost the only person in Troy to whom she could talk these days; her mother no longer understood her, nor her sisters. She would miss Helen, if she should return to the country of Sparta.

Helen frowned. She said, "Why should I give up my own child, because Menelaus is a fool?" After a moment she added, "To tell the truth, Kassandra - unless you are under the spell of Aphrodite, there is not much difference between one man and another; but children are not so easily set aside. I am not responsible for this war; and I think Agamemnon would have made war sooner or later, whatever I did or did not do." She sighed and let her head rest against Kassandra's shoulder. "My sister, I am not as brave as I think I am; I could summon the courage to return to Menelaus, even to leave Paris; but I cannot bring myself to leave my child." She picked up the toddler leaning against her knee, and pressed him to her heart.

"To leave your child? And why should you, after all?" asked Andromache, coming to the wall with Creusa just in time to hear her last words. "No woman could bring herself to leave a child she has borne… or if she could, she would be no better than a whore."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Helen. "I was trying to tell myself that it was my duty to return to Menelaus—"

"Don't even think of such a thing," said Andromache, hugging Helen. "You belong to us now, and we would not let you go for every Akhaian down there; even if Paris and Priam and all the men wanted you to go - and they do not. The Gods have sent you to us and we will keep you - won't we, Creusa?" she added to the other woman, who nodded and laughed.

"The Goddess has blessed you, and we will not let you go."

Helen smiled faintly." That is good to hear. All my life men have been kind to me, but women never; it is good to have friends among you."

"You are too beautiful for women to love you much," said Andromache, "but you have been here for two years now; and unlike many beautiful women, you make no attempt to seduce our husbands."

"Why should I do that? I already have one more husband than I need; what should I want with yours?" Helen asked laughing. "I have no great love for Troy, indeed, and would willingly see more of the world; but women cannot travel…'

Whenever Kassandra heard anyone say such a thing as Women cannot… she was always eager to do just that very thing. She said, "But I am about to travel at the will of my God; and if you wanted to come with me, Helen, I would willingly have your company."

"And I yours; but again, I cannot leave so young a child," Helen said. ""Where do you go and why?"

"To Colchis; to seek Queen Imandra and ask of her serpent-lore," Kassandra said. "A moon past, our serpents died or fled from us; I do not want to replace them until I am sure that nothing I did or failed to do was responsible…'

She told the story, and Andromache looked wistful.

"Bear my greetings to my mother; and tell her I am happily wed and that I have Hector's son."

"Why not come and bring her your own greetings? Your son is old enough to leave with Hecuba and his father."

"I wish I could," Andromache said. "If you had told me this a month ago - but I am pregnant again. Perhaps this time it will be a daughter who can be a warrior for Troy."

"A warrior?"

"Why not? You are, Kassandra, and your mother before you."

"Did you not hear what Paris said, when last I would have borne my bow to the walls?" Kassandra asked in disgust. "I could shoot now—and kill Akhilles - and end this war without sending Helen forth from us. But this would not please the men; they do not want to end this war—"

"No," said Andromache,"they want to win it; Hector has reserved Akhilles for himself and will never agree to any other way to end the fighting. Can you tell me when this will happen and how much longer must we fight?"

Kassandra smiled wryly. "Hector has forbidden me to prophesy doom," she said, "and believe me, I have nothing else to tell."

"Perhaps it is as well you are travelling to Colchis," Helen said. "Kassandra, my friend, the Gods have spoken to me as well as to you, and they have spoken to me nothing of disaster."

"Then may your Gods speak truth and mine be false," Kassandra said. "Nothing would please me more than to return and find Akhilles dead at Hector's hand, and all of them gone away again."

But it will not, it cannot be so…