The Firebrand

CHAPTER 13

Kassandra had believed that once she made the decision to travel to Colchis it would be a simple matter of getting leave of the chief priest and priestess, gathering together the clothing she wished to take with her, choosing a travelling companion (or perhaps two) and setting forth.

But it was not nearly so easy as that. She was reminded that there was officially a state of war between the Akhaians and Troy, so that it must be arranged (by lengthy messages sent back and forth from one Temple of Apollo to the next) that she should travel under the Peace of Apollo, being a woman and a sworn priestess and having nothing to do with the war on either side; and she was given to understand that this was more difficult because she was Priam's daughter and closely related to the main combatants of the war. Long before the official safe-conducts and permissions could be arranged Kassandra was heartily sick of the whole idea and wished she had never thought of it. In the end she swore a sacred oath by every God she had ever heard of (and some she hadn't) that she would deliver no messages relating to the war from either party, and she was declared an official messenger of Apollo and permitted to travel wherever she wished.

Khryse wished to travel with her, and she had some sympathy for him; he was still mourning the fate of his daughter in the Greek camp, and knowing that Agamemnon had chosen the girl for his own mistress did not help. However, though he swore to her that he would respect her virginity as if she were his own child, she did not trust even his oath, and refused to have him in her party. Since he was a highly respected priest of Apollo, it seemed for a time that they would not allow her to travel without his escort; but she finally appealed to Charis, saying she would remain within walls till her hair turned grey rather than travel a single step in his company; and at last the matter was dropped.

Then Priam wished to send messages to many friends along her path, and she had to swear that they were family matters, or religious matters with nothing to do with the war; she could see reason in this because often travellers under religious immunities had taken advantage of this for spying on one side or the other. And finally her mother refused to allow her to travel without adequate chaperonage, so that in the end Kassandra, who would have preferred to travel alone or with a single companion, preferably an Amazon rider like Penthesilea, had to accept two of her mother's oldest and most timid waiting-women, and to promise that on the road she would always share her bed with one or the other of them.

"What can she be thinking of?" she asked herself, "If I wished to indulge myself in lechery, I would certainly not wish to travel to the ends of the world and do so on the hard ground after a day's riding when I could just as easily do so in my own bed."

But she knew it was her mother's way, and there was really nothing she could do about it; and so she accepted Hecuba's choice of women.

"For if I refuse," she said to Phyllida when at last it finally seemed that all the obstacles had been cleared and she would set forth the next day,"she will believe that I wish somehow to escape her supervision; and she cannot think of any reason I might wish to do so unless I wish to misbehave myself in one way or the other. What is it in women that makes them suspect such things of one another, Phyllida?"

Phyllida sighed. "Experience, I suspect," she said. "Did you not tell me that you had Chryseis watched night and day and still could not vouch for her innocence?"

Kassandra knew that was true; but it made her angry. She remembered Star saying that city women were so lecherous that they must be locked up behind walls.

Women, Kassandra thought - except the Amazons - spend their time sitting about and thinking about whom they love, only because they have nothing else to occupy their minds. If they had a flock of sheep or a herd of horses to tend they would be better off. But that had not saved Oenone from pining, she realized, when Paris deserted her.

She lay awake much of that last night thinking about this mysterious emotion which transformed otherwise sensible women into halfwits capable of thinking only of the men who had inspired them to love.

It had been determined that she should depart at daybreak; she rose as soon as light began to appear in the sky, and breakfasted on a little bread and a cup of watered wine. She had hoped to ride on a swift horse, but her companions were too old and staid for that, so she had chosen a sedate elderly donkey and to have the older women carried in chairs. Her chair-bearers and attendants—almost guards—were strong young servants of Apollo's Temple.

She had expected to slip quietly away; but as she approached the gates she saw a little group of people gathered there; Khryse, Phyllida, and a few others who wished to bid her goodbye.

Phyllida embraced and kissed her and wished her a pleasant journey and a safe return; Khryse came and embraced her too, • rather against Kassandra's will.

"Come back to us soon and safely, my dear," he murmured with his lips close to her ear. "I shall miss you more than I can say. Say that you will miss me too."

She thought, I shall miss you as I would miss a toothache, but was too courteous to say so. "May the Gods keep you safe and bring Chryseis back to you," she said, thinking that she did not wish him ill, but she would like it if he would find himself a wife and stop troubling her. Then she clucked to her donkey and they rode forth.

Before leaving the coast they had to pass the Greek ships; here would Apollo's truce first be tested.

A watchman outside the Akhaian camp roused and called out; and one of the captains, lavishly armored with metal trimmed with gilt, came toward them.

"Who passes? Is the Trojan King trying to escape the city and the siege?" he taunted. "I knew they were cowards."

"No such thing," said the guards. "The lady is a priestess of Apollo and travels under his pledge of peace."

"Indeed?" the captain said, and looked into Kassandra's face so directly and rudely that for the first time in her life Kassandra could see the sense of the custom bidding the Akhaian women wear veils. "A priestess, hey? Of the Lady Aphrodite? She is beautiful enough for that."

"No; she is one of the Sunlord's sworn virgins," said the leader of her guard, "and she is forbidden to any man save the God."

"A virgin, eh? What a waste," the man said regretfully, "but it would take a braver man than I to argue with Lord Apollo for one of his maidens. And what beauties hide inside the chairs?" he demanded, pulling back the draperies.

Kassandra was tired of hiding behind her guard. "Two of my mother's waiting-women," she said. "To care for me and see that no man offers me any offense."

"Quite safe from me, and I dare say from any man," said the soldier, drawing back respectfully.

"I'm sorry my ladies don't meet your approval," Kassandra said, "but they are for my convenience, not yours, sir; and I am on Apollo's business, not yours, so I beg you let me pass."

"Where are you going? And what business has the Sunlord outside his temple?"

"I am going to Colchis," she said. "And indeed I travel on the God's business; I seek a mistress of serpent-lore so that his serpents may be properly cared for in his temple."

"A little lady like you going so far alone? If you were my daughter, I wouldn't have it; but I suppose the God knows that what belongs to him is safe anywhere," said the soldier. "Pass, then, Lady, and may Apollo guard you. Give me his blessing, I beg you," he added with a reverential gesture.

That was the last thing she had expected, but she extended her hands in a gesture of blessing and said, "Apollo Sunlord bless and guard you, sir," and rode past.

She could see so far from the top of the walls of Troy that she had forgotten how long it took to travel; they camped that night and several nights thereafter within sight of the city and woke seeing the flash of sunlight on the house of the Sunlord. She remembered her trip with the Amazons; she could hardly believe that from that hour to this, she had dwelled behind the imprisoning walls of her city. Troy, her home, and her prison. Would she ever see it again?

In the long interval between proposing the trip and finally managing to leave she had had ample time for preparations and she had had two tents made: a lightweight one of oiled linen cloth, and one of leather such as the Amazons had used in rainy weather. For the first days the weather was fine and the tent under the stars was pleasantly cool at night, although her two chaperones, interpreting her mother's instructions literally, made her sleep with her blankets spread between the two of them. Kassandra, always a restless sleeper, lay awake sometimes for hours, feeling every rock and lump of ground under the tent's floorcloth dig into her hips, hating to change position for fear of disturbing one or the other of her companions. Nevertheless, she could hear the wind and feel the cool breeze outside the tent, and at least it was different from the unchanging wind at the heights of Troy.

Day after day, their little caravan toiled without incident slowly across the great plains. They met few travellers on the road, except for one great train of wagons bringing iron bound for Troy, and when they heard that the city was under siege, they wondered if they should turn about and go northward into Thrace or even back toward Colchis.

"For the Akhaians will not trade with us for metal," said the leader. "They prefer their own kind of weapons, and most likely they will not let us pass into the city at all; then we will have to go back with only the journey for our pains; or else the Akhaians will seize our whole caravan."

Kassandra thought this was very likely indeed.

"Do you know any of the Akhaians who are there?"

"Akhilles, son of Peleus; Agamemnon, King of Mykenae, and Menelaus of Sparta; Odysseus—"

"Now that's different," said the caravan leader. "We can trade with Odysseus, same as we would with Priam; he's an honest man and an honest trader." He raised his voice to his drivers, "Looks like we'll be going to Troy after all, fellows." And then of course he wanted to know what she was doing, travelling alone and when she answered he gave the now expected reply that if she was his daughter he wouldn't permit it.

"But I suppose your father knows what he's about," he concluded, doubtfully. And Kassandra saw no point in explaining that Priam had not been asked for his permission and had been given no chance to consent or refuse.

"Can I carry any messages for you to Troy, little lady?"

"Only to let it be known in the Sunlord's house that I am alive and well. They will pass the message along to my mother and father." And with mutual expressions of goodwill and blessings they parted, moving slowly apart across the great plain like two streams in opposite directions. After a few more nights, she knew, her party would arrive within the borders of the country of the Kentaurs.

"The Kentaurs?" said Adrea, one of her chaperones.

"Oh, not the Kentaurs!" cried Kara, the other.

"Why, yes, Nurse, they live in this country and we must pass through their territories. It is almost inevitable that we shall meet one or more of their wandering bands."

But the women had been brought up on the old nursery tales.

"Are you not afraid of the Kentaurs, mistress Kassandra?" asked Kara, and Kassandra replied, "No, not at all."

She supposed that was an unwomanly answer; Kara looked as if the very fact that any woman might escape the fear of what frightened her so much actually gave offense. Kassandra sighed, and finished the wine in her cup. "We must drink this up; it is beginning to turn sour and will not keep in the heat. We can get some more at the next village, in a day or perhaps two," and the rest of the talk was of simpler things.