The Firebrand

CHAPTER 14

True to her prediction, they saw the Kentaurs early in the next day. At first, riding the sea of endless grass, Kassandra could see nothing; then very far away, at the edge of her vision, she could-see movement and shadows, and at last made out a small form… no, two… no, three, riding, dark against the golden waving of the grasses. They seemed to see her little caravan advancing, then drew together, conferring; at one point she thought they would all flee, then they wheeled and came riding toward the Trojans.

Kassandra stopped her donkey but made no other move of withdrawal; she knew from old that one should never let a Kentaur believe you feared him or he would take ruthless advantage of it.

She said softly through the curtains of the litter where the ladies rode, "Nurses, you wanted to see a Kentaur. There is one."

"I?" said Adrea. "Not likely." But nevertheless she thrust her head out and peered between the curtains. Kara followed suit.

"What funny ugly little men they are," she whispered, "and shameless; he is naked as an animal."

"Why should they wear clothing when there is no one to see or care? When they come into cities, they have garments they can wear if they choose," Kassandra said, and looked at the approaching band. The foremost among them was grey-haired and gnarled, his legs even smaller and more bowed than the others. He wore a necklace of lions' teeth about his throat; Kassandra recognized him, shrunken and old as he was.

"Cheiron," she said, and he bowed from his horse's neck.

"Kinswoman of Penthesilea; greeting. When last we met we had honey found in the wild. Our tribe is poor, these days. Many, many travellers on the plain; scare away the game, trample down wild plants. Our she-goats give no milk even for the littlest boys. We hunger much."

"We are travelling to Colchis; can you guide us through these lands?" Kassandra said.

"With pleasure, if it is your wish," the old Kentaur said in his barbarous accent. "But how come ye to be riding away from Troy? The whole world's going there for this war, it seems. If not to fight, then to sell something to the fighters, one side or the other."

This was so true there seemed no purpose in commenting on it.

She had before leaving Troy asked the kitchens for a good half-dozen loaves of bread, knowing that the Kentaurs neither grew nor ground grain and that it was a most unusual luxury for them. When it was unwrapped and given the little man's eyes gleamed - Kassandra thought it was with real hunger - and he said, "Priam's daughter is generous. Does her husband fight in the great battles before Troy? If he does I will gift him with magical arrows which will never fail to bring down her enemies even if they do not strike in a vital part."

"I have no husband," she said. "I am sworn to the Sunlord and will have none but him. And I need none of your arrows, envenomed with poison brewed from toads."

For a moment the little man looked at her and glowered; then he leaned back and broke into a great guffaw of laughter, and did something, Kassandra could not see what, that made his horse rear up and prance, and then bow down.

"Huh-huh-huh," he chortled, "Priam's daughter is clever and good; no man of all my people will harm her as she passes through my country, or anything belonging to her. Not even the old women who peer at my men lustfully from behind their curtains! But if you have no use for the old toads, give them to my men; they are no good for bang-bang—" he accompanied the meaningless syllable with a gesture which made his meaning obscenely clear, "but we could boil them for arrow poison, huh-huh-huh?"

Kassandra struggled to keep her face straight.

"By no means; I do not want to travel without my women; they are good to me," she said, "and I would not travel through your country with young and pretty ones."

"Huh; clever," he said, wheeled his horse and rode quickly away.

She held up her hand to signal that she had not finished her parley and he wheeled and returned a little way. She asked, "Does the wise leader of the Horsepeople know where Penthesilea's women pasture her mares this summer?"

He gestured and gabbled out a quick explanation. Since it would not mean going too far out of their way, Kassandra decided she would ride in that direction. Again she took leave courteously of Cheiron, who had begun sharing out the loaves with his men and already had crumbs around his mouth.

After another long day of riding in the direction the Kentaur had indicated, Kassandra saw in the distance a mounted figure.-The stranger carried a bow, such as Penthesilea's women bore, slung across her back. Kassandra signalled to her and the woman approached.

"Who rides in our country with an escort of men?"

"I am Kassandra, daughter of Priam of Troy, and I seek my kinswoman, Penthesilea the Amazon," she said.

The woman, clad in the leather tunic and breeches of the tribeswomen, her long coarse black hair knotted atop her head, looked at her suspiciously; and finally said, "I remember you as a child, princess. I cannot leave my mares," she gestured at the scattered scrawny herd grazing across the spare grasses of the plain, "and it is not my place to summon the Queen, but I will send a signal that she is wanted, and if it seems good to her she will come."

She dismounted and kindled a small fire, throwing something into the flames which emitted great clouds of smoke, covered it, then let the smoke billow up in successive triple puffs. After some time Kassandra saw a tall figure on horseback, making its way across the plain. When the figure neared, she recognized her kinswoman.

Penthesilea's horse approached and she could see the puzzled look on the Amazon's face; after a moment Kassandra realized that her kinswoman had not recognized her. When Penthesilea had last seen her she had been a little girl, and now, older, robed and attired as a princess, a priestess, she was only a strange woman.

She called out her name. "Don't you know me, Aunt?"

"Kassandra!" Penthesilea's taut sun-browned face relaxed, but she still looked tense and old. She came and dismounted, and embraced Kassandra with affection. Why do you come here, child?"

"Looking for you, Aunt." When she had last seen her kinswoman, Penthesilea had seemed youthful and strong; now Kassandra wondered how old she really was. Her face was lined, with hundreds of small wrinkles around mouth and eyes; she had always been thin but was now positively scrawny. Kassandra wondered if the Amazons, like the Kentaurs, were actually starving.

"How goes the war in Troy?" the older woman asked. "Will you shelter with us this night and tell us about it?"

"With pleasure," Kassandra said, "and we can talk at leisure about this war; though I am weary of it." She gave directions to the bearers to follow the Amazon, and herself rode at Penthesilea's side, toward a cave in a hillside; inside there were a scant half-dozen women, mostly elderly, and a few young girls. When last she had travelled with them there had been a good half a hundred. Now there were no babies, and no young women of childbearing age.

Penthesilea saw the direction of her glance and said, "Elaria and five others are in the men's village. I was afraid, but I knew I must let them go now or I would never dare to let them go again - that's right, you didn't know what happened, did you? Then our shame has not yet been told in Troy—"

"I have heard nothing, Aunt."

"Come and sit down. We'll talk as we eat, then." She smiled and sniffed appreciatively. "We have not eaten this well for many moons. Thank you."

Their meal had been supplemented with dried meat and bread from Kassandra's provisions. Penthesilea said, "All the same, we are not as badly off as the Kentaurs; they are starving, and soon there will be no more. Did you even meet with any of them?"

Kassandra told about her encounter with Cheiron, and the older woman nodded.

"Yes, we can always trust him and his men. In the name of the Goddess I wish—" she broke off. "Last year we arranged to go to one of the men's villages—we made an arrangement for trading metal pots, and horses and some of our milk goats, too. Well, we went as usual and it seemed that all was well. Two moons went by; some of us were pregnant, and we were ready to go. They besought us to stay another month; and we agreed. Then when we were ready to set out, they made us a farewell feast and brought us a new wine. We slept deeply and when we woke - it had been drugged, of course—we were bound and gagged, and they told us that we could not leave them; that they had decided they wished to live like men in cities, with women to tend them year round, and share their beds and their lives—" she broke off, shaking with indignation and grief. "Every animal has a proper mating season," she said. "We tried to remind them of this but they would not hear. So we told them that we would consider it if they would let us go; and they said we should cook them a meal because men in cities had women to cook for them… They even forced some of the women who were already pregnant to bed with them! So we cooked them a meal; and you-can imagine what kind of a meal it was," she grinned fiercely. "But some women wished to spare the fathers of their children -Earth Mother alone knows where they got such ideas. And so some of them had been warned, and when they were all spewing and purging, we made ready to ride; but a few of them forced us to fight. Well, we could not kill them all; and so we lost many of our number - the traitorous ones stayed and did not return to us…"

"They stayed with the men who - who had done this to you?"

"Aye; they said they were weary of fighting and herding," Penthesilea said scornfully. "They will bed with men in return for their bread, no better than harlots in your cities—it is a perversion of those Akhaians; they say, even, that our Earth Mother is no more than the wife of the Thunderlord Zeus—"

"Blasphemy!" Kassandra agreed. "This was not Cheiron's tribe?"

"No, them we can trust; they cling, like us, to the old ways," Penthesilea said. "But when this year Elaria led the women to the men's village we made them swear an oath even they dare not break, and we made them leave with us all the weaned children. We hide here in caves because with our strong young women away we have no warriors to guard our herds…'

Kassandra found nothing to say. It was the end of a way of life which had lasted thousands of years on these plains; but what could they do? She said, "Has there been much of a drought? Cheiron told me that food is harder to find—"

"That too; and some tribes have been greedy to own too many horses, and grazed more than the plains could feed, so they would have them to sell in return for cloth and metal pots and I know not what—and so it is those of us who treat the earth well are dying… Earth Mother has not stretched out her hand to punish them. I know not - perhaps there are no Gods who care any more what men do—" Her face looked strained and old.

"I do not understand," Adrea said. "Why does it trouble you so, that some of your women have chosen to live as all women now live within the cities? You women could live well, with husbands to care for you, and look after your horses; and you could keep your sons as well as your daughters, and you need not spend all your time fighting to defend yourselves. Many, many women live so and find nothing wrong with it; are you saying they are all wrong? Why do you want to live separately from men? Are you not women like any others?"

Penthesilea sighed, but instead of the instant scornful comment Kassandra had expected, she thought for a moment; Kassandra had the feeling that she really wanted this elderly city woman who disapproved of her so much, to understand.

At last she said, "It has been our custom that we live among our own kind and are free. I do not like to live inside walls, and why should we women spin and weave and cook? Do not men wear clothes, that they should not make their own? And surely men eat; why should women cook all the food that is eaten? The men in their own villages cook well enough when there are no women at hand to cook for them. So why should women live as slaves to men?"

"It does not seem slavery to me," the woman protested, "only fair exchange; do you say men are enslaved to women when they herd the horses and goats, then?"

Penthesilea said passionately, "But the women do these things as if it were an exchange for sharing their beds and bearing their children. Like the harlots in your cities who sell themselves -cannot you see the difference? Why should women have to live with men when they can care for their own herds and feed themselves from their own gardens, and live free?"

"But if a woman wishes for children, she needs a man. Even you, Queen Penthesilea—"

Penthesilea said, "May I ask without giving offense, ladies, why is it that you have not married?"

Kara spoke first, saying, "I would gladly have married; but I pledged I would remain with Queen Hecuba while she wished for my company. I have not missed marriage; her children were born into my lap, and I have shared in their upbringing. And like Lady Kassandra, I have met no man I loved enough to separate me from my beloved Lady."

"I honor you for that," Penthesilea said. "And you, Adrea?"

"Alas, I was neither beautiful nor rich; so no man ever offered for me," the old woman said. "And now that time is past. So I serve my Queen and her daughters, even to following Lady Kassandra into this Goddess-forgotten wilderness filled with Kentaurs and other such wild folk—"

"So there are other reasons than simple wickedness why a woman might choose not to marry," Penthesilea said. "If it is well for you not to marry out of loyalty to your Queen, why should Kassandra not remain loyal to her God?"

"It is not that she does not marry," said Adrea, "it is that she does not wish to marry; how can one sympathize with a woman like that?"

This was too much for Kassandra; she exploded with words she had been repressing for days. "I have not asked for your sympathy, any more than for your company; I did not invite you to join me, and you are welcome to return to Troy, where you will be surrounded by proper women, and I shall travel to Colchis with my kinswomen and their escort!" she said hotly. "I have no need of your protection."

"Well, really," said Adrea huffily, "I have known you since you were a baby, my Lady, and what I say is no more than your own mother would say, and all spoken for your own good—"

Penthesilea said peacefully, "I beg you not to quarrel; you have a long road before you. Kassandra, my dear child, even if I were free to travel with you myself to Colchis, I could not keep you safe on your road. I pray that Priam's name and Apollo's peace will do so. Perhaps it is this war, perhaps it is the spread of the Akhaian ways now that the Minoan world has fallen. You have not even told me why you are travelling to Colchis; is it simply that the Lady Imandra is your old friend, or has Priam decided to send even so far afield for allies?"

She told Penthesilea about the earthquake and the defection of the temple serpents, and the Amazon blenched at the omen.

"Still I will trust Apollo; I have none other in whom to trust," Kassandra said, "and if I can come safely to Colchis with no other safeguard than his blessing, I shall take that as a sign of his continued goodwill."

"May he bless you then and guide you," said Penthesilea, "and may Serpent Mother herself await you and give you blessing in Colchis—and everywhere else, my dear."

Soon after this they went to rest, but Kassandra lay long awake. When she slept, her dreams were restless; she was seeking something—a lost weapon, a bow perhaps - but whenever she thought she had found it, it was not the one she wanted, but was broken, or had a broken string, or something of that sort.

What was it that the Gods were saying to her? She was a priestess, she had been taught that all dreams were messages from the Gods, if she could only find the meaning; that she f could not interpret it meant only that she was, as she had long f suspected, unfit to receive the Sunlord's favour, that he had withdrawn from her. Try as she might, she could gain from it only a faint ill omen that whatever she sought on this quest, she would not find it.

In the morning Penthesilea bestowed gifts on her and her women - new saddles, and a warm robe of horsehide.

"You will need it, believe me, in crossing the Great Plain," she said. "The winters have been more severe latterly and there still may be snow."

As she embraced her in farewell, Kassandra felt like crying.

"When shall we meet again, kinswoman?"

"When the Gods will it; if it should ever be the will of Earth Mother that I should end my days in a city, I will come and end -f them in Troy, that I vow to you, my child. I do not think your I mother would fail to welcome the last of her sisters, nor would Priam turn me from his door. Perhaps I should come with my warriors and seek to drive forth some of these Akhaians."

"When that day comes, I will fight at your side," promised Kassandra, but Penthesilea only embraced her with great tenderness and said, "That is not your fate in this life, my love; |make no pledges you cannot keep," and rode away from them without looking back.