The Firebrand

CHAPTER 15

The winter indeed lingered long on the Great Plain, and within four days after they had spent the night with Penthesilea and the remnant of her Amazons, the sky darkened and snow began to-fall so heavily that Kassandra wondered how her attendants could follow the narrow and ill-marked trail at all. All that day it continued to snow, and all the next, and although they continued to travel, they encountered no sign of human life. Once, far away through the snow, they saw a watching Kentaur outlined against the horizon; and when they would have signalled to him, he wheeled his horse and galloped away.

Kassandra was not surprised; from what Penthesilea had said, she knew that the inhabitants of the Great Plain, never particularly inclined to trust outsiders, were even less inclined to do so now. It was fortunate that she had no need to trade with them for food or any other commodities. Day after day they plodded across the Great Plain, their animals' hooves cutting through the soggy mud where there had been frozen grass, the snow never thick enough to be a danger, the dull rains never enough to thaw the frozen ground. The great steppes were empty and barren; they found little enough food to supplement their dreary travel rations, and Kassandra grew weary of riding over the empty lands, crawling under an endless sky which seemed as grey and hostile as the faces of her companions.

Day followed sullen day while the moon thinned and faded and then swelled again; how long could this winter endure? Then soon after a vagrant sight of a full moon through ragged clouds she woke to hear rushing winds and a heavy thick dripping rain which seemed to be carrying away the very land itself.

The new morning brought a countryside transformed, with little rivers flowing everywhere over the surface of the ground, shining in a new strong sun, and grass springing up everywhere, under warm soft winds. It soon grew so warm that Kassandra discarded her horsehide tunic and rode in her soft cloth chemise, since there was none to see her.

On one of these spring days they came to a village, no more than a cluster of round stone huts on the plain; but surrounding it were fields of greening winter grain uncovered from the fast vanishing snow. Kassandra remembered the blighted village of her journey with the Amazons years ago, where all the children, more or less, had been severely deformed. But if this was the same village they must somehow have survived the blight, for such children as she saw looked strong and healthy. Later though, she saw some of the older girls and boys who had only two fingers on a hand. Before this they had seen no human dwelling for eight or ten days, and when the headwoman of the village came out to meet them, she seemed glad to see them as well.

"The winter has lain long on the land," she said, "and we have seen no humans all this winter but a little band of marauding Kentaurs, so weakened with starvation that they made no attempts on our women, but only begged us for food of any sort."

"That seems sad," Kassandra said, but the headwoman wrinkled her face in disdain.

"You are a priestess; it is your work to have compassion even for such as they, I suppose. They have terrorized us too often for me to have any feeling save satisfaction when I see them brought so low. With luck they will all starve, and then we need never fear them again. Have you metals or weapons for trade? No one passes through here for trade these days; such metals as they have are all bound for the war in Troy and we can get none."

"I am sorry; I have no weapons but my own," Kassandra said. "But we will buy some of your pots if you still make them."

The pots were brought out, and lengthily examined; dark fell while they were still looking them over and the headwoman invited them to dine at her table and continue the trading in the morning. She placed one of the stone huts at their disposal, and bade them to dinner in the central hut. The food was meagre indeed - meat which seemed to be some kind of ground-squirrel, boiled in a stew with bitter acorns and tasteless white roots; but at least it was freshly cooked. Kassandra, recalling the blight, was somewhat reluctant to eat here at all, but told herself not to trouble about it.

For, while I am still of childbearing age, I suppose, I am not wed, nor likely to be. And in any case while these ladies sleep one at either side of my bed, I am scarcely likely to get myself with child. If this village had not somehow recovered from the blight, she thought, it would have vanished when every soul in it died.

A few days later they sighted the iron gates of Colchis, as high and as impressive as ever, and Kassandra attired herself not in her leather riding clothes and chemise, but in her finest Trojan robes, dyed in brilliant colours, and had one of her waiting-women dress her hair in the elaborate plaited headdress she wore in the Sunlord's Temple. At least Queen Imandra would greet her as a princess of Troy, not as a wandering supplicant.

They were welcomed at the iron gate of the city as envoys from-Troy and bidden to lodge at the palace. Kassandra, saying she must pay her respects at the Sunlord's Temple, went to his large shrine which had been built at the very center of the city, and sacrificed a pair of doves to Apollo of the Long Bow. After that, she was taken to the palace, and conducted to a luxurious guest suite, where bath-women and dressing-maids were put at her disposal. During the long process of bathing—or rather of being bathed - she reflected that during the long journey she had all but forgotten the taste of luxury. She enjoyed the steaming water, the fragrant oils, the gentle massaging of her flesh with brushes and the soft hands of the women. Then they dressed her in fine guest-garments and conducted her into the presence-chamber of Queen Imandra.

She had expected that the Queen would look older; she herself was no longer the childlike girl who had come here, shy and tongue-tied, at Penthesilea's side. But the change was more than she could ever have imagined; if she had met this woman anywhere except in this very throne-room, she would never have recognized her as the proud descendant of Medea.

Imandra had grown enormously fatter; she was imposing rather than gross, hung everywhere with gold; but she had ceased to adorn her fleshy body with the coils of living serpents. Her cheeks and lips were stained with red dye, and she wore the richly dyed robes of fine-spun thin cloth which came from the land of the Pharaohs by way of the Eastern roads. Her hair was studded with jewels as always. Amid all this splendour, only the merry dark eyes were the same, almost lost in the folds of flesh.

As Kassandra entered the hall and paused to give her the ritual greeting, Imandra rose from her throne, and walked - or rather, waddled - forward.

"No, my dear, no prostrations from my kinswoman," she said, seizing Kassandra in a warm and scented embrace; the perfume was as familiar as the eyes. "I am more glad than I can say to see you, daughter of Priam; what a long journey you have had! No doubt you bear messages from my daughter—"

"From your daughter and your grandson; Andromache is a mother, and soon to be - no, by this time she has another child if all has gone well," Kassandra said, and Imandra beamed.

"I knew it, I knew it; did I not say, my dear, that enough time had gone by that I should be twice a grand-dam, if my daughter had done her duty?" she asked, addressing a handsomely built young man, attired in gold cloth, like an athlete or the victor of the Games, who had been given the seat near her side. "Tomorrow I must look in the pool of ink and try to see her child, and if all is well with her."

She took Kassandra's hands and drew her to the high table, seating herself between Kassandra and the richly dressed young man. "Now tell me everything which has happened in Troy these last years since you went from me, taking my dearest treasure with you. And what brings you so far without your kinswomen?"

"Perhaps," said the young man,"the Lady Kassandra has come to beseech our assistance in this war against the Akhaians."

"Not if she travelled under Apollo's truce," said Queen Imandra, "I know something of that, dear boy." She turned back to Kassandra. "Even so, you need not break your pledge if you have made it; without any asking, I will send to Priam all the soldiers I can find, men or women, and as much as wagons can carry of metals and weapons too."

"You are more than generous," Kassandra said, and explained her errand. Imandra smiled and kissed her.

"My own priestesses and masters of serpents shall be consulted early on the morrow," she said, "or as soon as they tell me it is an auspicious day for such things. I need hardly say that all the wisdom to be found in all our city is at your command and at the command of the Trojan Apollo. You shall be free to speak with them at any time; but you must promise to pay me a long visit."

"Your Majesty is gracious," Kassandra said; she was weary of travelling and at the moment desired nothing more than a long stay in Colchis.

"Not at all, kinswoman," Imandra replied. "Are you not my fellow priestess, and nearest of all in kin to my daughter? And my soothsayers say the child I bear now will be another daughter, and I find it a good omen that you should be here for the birth."

Kassandra had not had the faintest inkling that the Lady was pregnant; indeed if she had given a moment's thought to the matter she would have believed Imandra old beyond the age of bearing. But now she looked closely she saw indeed that the Queen was indeed in the early stages of pregnancy. When she had taken this in, she complimented the Queen upon her expectations, and asked, "Will this then be heir to Colchis in Andromache's place?"

"It will; Andromache cares nothing for queenship; you must have found that out by now," Imandra said, "and it is not hard to forget about the business of being a queen when a woman is-happy; even if that woman is a queen. Have I not said this to you before, Agon?" she demanded.

And the handsome young man said, "Indeed, my Lady."

Imandra's broad face was wreathed in a grin Kassandra could only describe as 'foolish' as her eyes rested on her favourite, and Kassandra, abruptly understanding the state of affairs, was shocked; the independent Queen Imandra, Lady of Colchis, besotted with a handsome boy no older than her daughter? And besotted she certainly was; the very tone of her voice said so. He shared her plate and wine-cup, and she sought out all the finest delicacies to offer to him.

When they had dined, Kassandra sent for the chests she had carried with her and brought out the gifts which Andromache had sent to her mother; embroidered hangings, bolts of richly dyed fabric, even richly decorated bronze swords and knives; several of these, the Queen, with an indifferent gesture, bestowed at once on her consort.

"But don't tell me you want to go and fight in Troy," she said firmly. "I need you at my side to help me bring up our daughter; and even more if the soothsayers are wrong and it is a son."

"I wouldn't think of leaving you, my Lady," he said, "certainly not to fight in some faraway country. If Agamemnon or any of those fellows comes here trying to take Colchis, that would be quite another matter."

Imandra turned to Kassandra. "Tell me about this war, and this Spartan Queen," she said. "Distant as we are, I know something about her family, of course. What sort of person can she be, to have touched off such a widespread war as this?"

Kassandra said slowly, "I had not expected to like her or respect her. But I do; I think the Gods dealt harshly by her when they put her in the way of my brother Paris."

"Well, she had every right to take a consort," said Imandra, with a sly smile at young Agon, "but it was her mistake that she did not dismiss Menelaus - or have the old sacrifice! These things should be done in order. Her mother was Queen by right in Mykenae, and Sparta was Helen's to rule; her crime - and it was truly a crime for a queen - was leaving Sparta for Menelaus to seize, and this has confused the issue. Have they given it over to her daughter to rule after her? I'll warrant they have not; Hermione is too young to be aware of her queenship. These Akhaian savages try to bring their prattle of "kings" into our civilized world; and their mighty talk of fathering - as if any man could create life. The Goddess alone breathes life into children; yet some of these men are arrogant enough to say that the woman is no more than an oven in which their child—their child, did you ever hear such nonsense—is cooked. That Agamemnon—may he be cursed by every Goddess and all the Furies!" Imandra exclaimed.

"He is the leader of the Akhaian armies from Mykenae itself—" Kassandra said.

"Yes; you knew he was married to Helen's sister, who succeeded her mother in Mykenae? Klytemnestra was the elder twin, and very beautiful, but nothing like Helen. Well, Agamemnon managed to get himself married to Klytemnestra, and they had a daughter, Iphigenia - dedicated to Serpent Mother, and of course Keeper of the Shrine and High Priestess from the time she was still a child. Well, when this war came along, Agamemnon had sworn to come to his brother's aid in all things, and so he had to leave Mykenae; and he was afraid that Klytemnestra would replace him as her consort; she was angry that he had dared to swear such an oath without her leave and so she threatened that if he left her she would take her cousin Aegisthus to her bed. Agamemnon threatened to take away their son Orestes - Klytemnestra told him he might do as he would with the boy, but if he perverted any of her children with his evil Gods she would cast his son out after him. So he made the lad a priest of Poseidon—I think it was Poseidon, the horse God, and sent him to be fostered among the Kentaurs. When his armies were gathered to sail to Troy, he was delayed on shore with poor winds, and he sent to Klytemnestra that her daughter Iphigenia should come and conduct the appointed sacrifices to the winds. So she came, as priestess; and what should he do but sacrifice Iphigenia herself, on false oracles; so that Klytemnestra could not take another consort because her younger daughter was too young to be her successor. And I have heard that this younger daughter Electra has been turned against the worship of Earth Mother; and who could blame her? If she became a priestess like her sister, she might die too. But Klytemnestra has sworn vengeance; and Agamemnon will one day face the vengeance of Earth Mother. And, mistake me not, he will die. The Gods are not mocked in this fashion."

"So then it is all a matter of whether the land shall be ordered by kings or queens?"

"What else? Why should men rule the hearth or the city, where-woman has commanded since first Earth Mother brought forth life? The old way was best; where the king was led out every year to die for his people and there was no question of any man setting up his son to follow him. For thousands of years, until these Akhaian savages came to try and change our ways, that was the rule of life—

"And then, who knows? Perhaps there was war and a king was too skilled a leader to be made to die; or some foolish woman like myself did not wish to lose her young lover." She turned an affectionate look on young Agon. "Then these horse-folk came, and the first kings, and set up their arrogant Gods, even the Sunlord who claimed to have slain Serpent Mother." Imandra yawned. "The world is changing, I tell you; but it is the fault of the women who did not keep their men in their place."

"And you think, then, this is the cause of this war?" Kassandra asked.

"My dear, I am sure of it," said the Queen. "It could never have happened to Colchis."