The Firebrand

CHAPTER 19

As the cart clattered across the space before the walls of Troy, Kassandra realized that all the sentries on the walls must have seen what had happened to it. The plundering of a cart must not be an unusual occurrence or they would have interfered, at least by shooting arrows down into the Akhaian camp. No doubt better informed travellers with goods bound for Troy knew enough to do as she should have done, and approach from the landward side.

Kassandra still had the serpents destined for the Sunlord's Temple. She herself was unharmed, and they had not seriously threatened Honey. It could have been worse. But it meant that the level of hostilities had escalated; she should have had the forethought to inform herself of how the war was progressing.

In front of the gates an armed Trojan soldier stopped her, and after a moment she recognized Deiphobos, Priam's son by one of his palace women.

He bowed.

"The main street is too steep for the cart, Princess," he told her. "You will have to have it driven around to the landward side. But for you we will open the small gateway beside the great gate. The great gate is never opened now for fear the Akhaians will rush it; so long as it stays shut, it can't be breached unless some God or other, Poseidon perhaps, decides to break it," he added, quickly making a gesture against evil luck.

"May that day be far," Kassandra said. "Can you find someone to take the cart to the Temple of Apollo? There are serpents for the Sunlord's house in the cart, and they must not be frightened, or allowed to get too cold."

"I'll send a messenger at once to the Sunlord's house," Deiphobos promised her courteously. ""Will you go at once to the palace, Sister?"

"Yes; I am longing to see my mother," Kassandra said. "I hope she is well?"

"Queen Hecuba? Oh, yes; though like us all, she grows no younger," said Deiphobos.

"And our father? He lives still in health? I heard he had suffered some illness…'

"Word came of this as far as Colchis? He suffered the stroke of the God; he is lame, and his face stricken on one side," the young officer told her. "And now Prince Hector leads the armies of Troy."

"Yes, this I had heard," Kassandra said, "but on the long road from Colchis I had no news at all, nor was the journey favourable for the Sight; for all I knew he might have died since then."

"No, I rejoice to say that though he grows old, he is well enough to come out every day on the wall to see what happens," Deiphobos said. "As long as Priam still leads us, Hector will not be too foolhardy. Akhilles—" he made a contemptuous gesture toward the Akhaian camp, "is always trying to lure Hector out to single combat; but my brother has more sense than that. Besides, we all know how Agamemnon played a filthy trick on his own daughter, so it's not likely they'd observe the rules of single combat; more likely they'd rush him ten or more at a time. You can't trust an Akhaian as far as you can throw him; they say, if one of 'em kisses you, count your teeth, thieving bastards. But I see they let you through safe—"

"Safe, but I encountered their thieving ways," Kassandra told him. "What they left unstolen was only because they feared Apollo's serpents—and I do not think that was from any reverence for the God, but only fear of the serpents themselves. And they have taken both of my mother's waiting-women—who were not Apollo's servants but mine, or rather Hecuba's."

Deiphobos came and gently patted her shoulder.

"Never fear, Sister, we'll get your waiting-women back. But let me send to the Sunlord's Temple for men to unload your cart; and for you, an escort up to the palace; it isn't fitting for a princess to walk alone through the city. Better yet, let me send to the palace for a sedan chair; it's what the Lady Andromache uses when she comes down to greet Hector every day before the battles start."

Kassandra wanted to protest that she was certainly capable of walking; but Honey was heavy in her arms and she agreed to use the chair.

Before long servants in the distinctive robes of the Sunlord's house appeared, and Kassandra gave careful instructions about the serpents, promising that she would herself come to supervise their care after she had greeted her parents. Then Deiphobos conducted her through the side gate into a small guard-house. There he fetched her wine and refreshment while she awaited the chair which was to carry her to the palace.

She was unaccustomed to the sun's glare, its heat even in this season. It soon seemed frighteningly hot to her. Also, she was worrying about Kara and Adrea.

Honey was crawling on the floor of the little guard-house; Kassandra noticed that she was getting her tunic very dirty, and her knees not much less so, but she was far too tired to care. Deiphobos guided her attention to a small stairway carved out from the stone, which led up actually inside the wall.

"Would you care to have a look from the top of the wall? You can see everything that goes on in the Akhaian camp from here. The King is coming down now to have a look - he comes every day about this time," Deiphobos said. "I hear his guards." He glanced at Honey. "The baby will be safe here," he said. "She's big enough that no one will step on her." He picked up a spear that was leaning against the wall, and slung it in his belt. "There - nothing else she can hurt herself with. Come along."

Kassandra followed him up the narrow steep stairs; he turned back at the top to give her a hand up. It was true; from here she could see all through the Akhaian camp. He pointed out to her the large ornamented tent that was Agamemnon's, the somewhat smaller but more ornamental one that belonged to Akhilles and Patroklos, the quarters of Odysseus, which looked as if he had moved a ship's cabin ashore. "And many others. There's a long roster of the ships out there which belong to the Akhaians -some bard was making a song about it," he said. "To hear them tell it, every hero from the mainland has turned up to help Agamemnon and his crew. There's a sizeable list of our allies too, but I don't suppose you're interested in that."

"Not particularly," Kassandra confessed. "I heard enough about both sides in Colchis."

"Colchis," he said thoughtfully, "come to think of it, Colchis hasn't come out for either side; why hasn't their King sent soldiers for Troy?"

"Because Colchis has no king," Kassandra informed him. "Colchis is ruled by a queen; and this last year she has been pregnant; her heir - a daughter - was born a few days before I left."

"No king, and a woman's rule? Seems a funny way to run a city." Before he had time to say anything more, the sound of soldiers approaching interrupted them, and Priam, accompanied by several of his soldiers—many of whom Kassandra recognized as the sons of his palace women—came up on the top of the wall.

It was well she had been warned by the Sight; otherwise she might have recognized her father only by the rich cloak he wore. He had been a hale and hearty man with a fresh colour, verging on middle age; now she saw an old man, his skin greyish and wrinkled, his face fallen away at one side with a drooping eyelid, the corner of his mouth sagging. His speech too was heavy and thick.

He demanded of Deiphobos, "What was going on in the Akhaian camp this morning? Was it those Akhaians intercepting weapons again? If this keeps up, we'll be melting down our old swords to make new ones. We need a couple of wagon-loads of iron from Colchis, but we'd have to arrange special escort or bribe somebody to let it through…'

He broke off and said, "How many times have I told you; no women here unless the Queen herself is present to make certain they behave themselves? You know as well as I do, the kind of women who come here to gawk at the soldiers—"

Kassandra said, "No, Father; it is not Deiphobos's fault; he offered me shelter from the sun and a view from the wall after the Akhaians captured my wagon—"

She did not finish, but she did not need to; Priam recognized her and said, "So you have come back like an ill omen, Kassandra! I thought you had determined to pass the rest of the war in Colchis, one less woman for me to worry about should the city fall. But your mother has missed you." He came and dutifully kissed her on the forehead. "Do you mean that the Akhaians dared to break Apollo's truce?"

When she was a small child Kassandra had found Priam's anger terrifying; now he simply sounded peevish, like an overgrown spoilt child. She said gently, "It doesn't matter, Father; no one has been hurt, and Apollo's property—including me, I suppose—is quite safe. And as soon as my chair is here I shall go and reassure my mother."

"You are strong and healthy; why should you need a chair to carry you?" he demanded crossly.

The war is not going as he wishes it, she translated to herself, and said demurely, "Yes, Father, I am sure you are right."

"Your chair is waiting for you," Deiphobos said, and Kassandra saw it drawing up inside the wall. She went down the stairs and picked up Honey, wishing she could find a way to have the baby washed and fed before bringing her to her mother; but there was no help for it now. She herself was dishevelled from long travelling, and from the interlude in the dusty Akhaian camp, as well as from holding the dirty child; but there was no help for that either. And why should I put on my finest robe and tidy my bands and face for my mother* she asked herself. But when she was brought into Queen Hecuba's presence, and saw her mother's disapproving stare, she knew.

"Well, Kassandra! My dear, dear daughter!" Hecuba exclaimed and came to embrace her, then drew back with a little grimace of dismay.

"But what have you been doing with yourself, my dear! Your dress is a disgrace, and your hair—"

"Mother, after encountering the Akhaians this morning, it is fortunate they even left me a dress to wear before you," she said with a smile. "I fear that the gifts I brought you from your kinswoman Imandra were left in the Akhaian camp."

Hecuba looked deeply distressed, "They did not - offer you insult?"

"Nobody raped me, if that's what you mean," Kassandra said, laughing.

"How can you make a joke of such a thing?" her mother demanded.

Kassandra said, kissing her, "Why, how can I do anything else? They are fools, all of them, but there is foolery enough in Troy, if it comes to that."

Hecuba's eyes fell on the child in Kassandra's arms.

"Why, what's this? A child, and such a young one - her hair - it curls like yours did when you were that age - why, what - who -how—?"

"No, Mother," Kassandra said quickly,"she is not mine - or rather, I did not bear her; she is a foundling." Hecuba still looked sceptical, and Kassandra, sighing—why was her mother always ready to think evil of her? - said, "Would it be easy to find a man who would have my bed when it was occupied with a serpent, even one so small as this?" She reached inside her dress for the one who always coiled there during her waking hours; Hecuba gave a little scream.

"A snake—and in your very bosom!"

"She is my child far more than the baby," Kassandra said laughing, "for I hatched her myself from an egg; but anyone in my train can tell you how I found Honey on a hillside in a snowstorm; cast out to die by some mother who chose not to rear a girl this year."

Hecuba came and looked closely at the child. She said, "Now I look well, she is not at all like you—"

"I told you that."

"So you did. I am sorry; I would not willingly believe…'

Not willingly, perhaps, but you would have believed it, Kassandra thought.

But then her mother asked the question she had been evading.-'And where are Kara and Adrea?"

"In the tents of Agamemnon and Akhilles," she said, "but not by choice." She explained what had befallen them.

"So we must somehow arrange to ransom them, or exchange them, perhaps for Akhaian prisoners," she said.

"Arrange to exchange them? Why should we do business with the Akhaians?" asked a familiar voice, and Andromache came into the room. "Oh, Kassandra! My dear sister!" and she flew to embrace her, ignoring the dirt on her robe. "So you have returned! I knew you were not traitorous enough to remain all through the war in Colchis! What a darling baby!" she exclaimed, staring at Honey. "Is she yours? No? Oh, what a shame!" Then she saw the snake and recoiled a little.

"So you are still at your old game of playing with serpents! I should have remembered."

Honey, seeing the snake, began to cry and reach out her hands for it. Kassandra, laughing, allowed the little girl to wind it about her waist. Andromache shrank away with a glance of revulsion, but the child's delight in the snake was unmistakable.

"Why not get her a kitten, Kassandra?" Hecuba suggested. "It would be an altogether more seemly pet."

Kassandra laughed. "She is content with such pets as I give her; you should see her with our very matriarch of serpents - the one who is almost as big around as she is."

"Are you not afraid—snakes have not very good eyesight - the snake will make a mistake and swallow her by misadventure?" Andromache protested.

But Kassandra said, "They know their own; Honey has fed her with doves and rabbits. But Mother, this is not a proper subject for your rooms."

Hecuba asked, laughing, "The snake—or the baby?"

"Both," Kassandra replied, hugging her mother again. "Let me call someone to take her away for a bath and clean clothing. She will be prettier then and besides, she has had nothing to eat since early morning." Then, with a glance at Hecuba for permission, Kassandra summoned a servant to take child and snake to the house of the Sunlord.

"I too should present myself there soon, I fear," she said, "although I am sure they would gladly give me leave to pay my respects to my mother and to my family. And I would like to see Helen's sons," she added.

"Ah, Helen's sons," Hecuba said dryly. "There are jokes in the Akhaian army that Helen is raising up an army for Troy."

"As I cannot for Hector," said Andromache and her eyes were full of tears. "But that Akhaian woman, no sooner has she whelped than she is in pup again."

"What a thing to say," Hecuba protested. "You had back luck, that is all. You have borne Hector a fine son—and every man in the army knows his name and admires him. What more do you want?"

"Nothing," Andromache said, "and just between us women, I am glad enough to be spared the business of bearing every year or two; I told Hector that if he wishes for fifty sons like his father, he must get them as his father does. But so far he wishes only to share my bed and even refused one of the captured Akhaian women. Perhaps I am not as fond of children as Helen, but I would like to have a daughter before I am too old. And speaking of daughters, Kassandra, did you know that Creusa had named her second daughter "Kassandra"?"

"No, that I had not heard," Kassandra said, and wondered if it were Creusa's doing or that of Aeneas.

"And now before you go," said Andromache,"tell me of my mother."

Kassandra told Andromache of the birth of the heir to Colchis; and Andromache sighed.

"I wish that I might go to Colchis so that Hector might be the King there; perhaps when this wretched war is over that can be arranged."

"Imandra feels that her little pearl princess will be reared to be Queen," Kassandra said. "And Hector would not be content to sit at the foot of the throne, as your mother's consort does, and amuse himself with hunting and fishing with his companions."

Andromache sighed.

"Perhaps not; but he would get used to it, I suppose, as I have got used to keeping indoors and spinning until my fingers are sore," she said restlessly. "Now that you have returned, Kassandra, perhaps we can manage some excursions outside the walls…'

"If the Akhaians allow it—"

"Or if they get tired of sitting outside the walls and throwing rocks at the guards," Andromache said. "That is about all they have accomplished in the last few months; though once or twice they have tried to storm the walls, and even brought-extra-long ladders. But Hector had the idea of emptying the big soup kettle boiling for the guards' dinner over their heads, and they went down a great deal faster than they had come up, I assure you." She laughed heartily. "Now they always keep a great kettle of something boiling up there, and if it is something no worse than soup, the assailants are lucky. Last time it was oil, and they have not tried again since then; ai, the screams we heard that night from the Akhaian camp! All their healer-priests were out chanting, and sacrificing to Apollo until past dawn. That will teach them to come sneaking up the wall when they thought all the guards were sleeping!"

"You do not bear weapons now—but you have not lost your taste for warfare," Kassandra commented.

"I have a child to protect." Andromache replied, and Kassandra remembered that she herself had indeed been ready to kill when the soldiers threatened Honey.

"And I many children; but they are all of an age to fight for themselves," Hecuba said. "And now, Kassandra, tell me; when you passed through the country of the Amazons, did you encounter our kinswoman? And had Penthesilea any message for me?"

"I saw her only on the outward journey," Kassandra said, and told her mother about the meeting with the Amazons, and how many of the women had chosen to settle into villages with men. Then, more troubled, she told about the starving Kentaurs on the return journey, and that she saw no sign of any women of the tribes.

"May the Goddess be with her," said Hecuba fervently. "I have no sense that she is dead; and I think I might know. We have always been as close as if we were twins; but she is four years younger than I. It is not beyond all possibility that one day we may see her in Troy."

"May that day be far," Kassandra said, "for she told me that if the war went desperately against us, she would come and end her days in Troy." And with a curious flicker of light, as if the sun went behind a cloud, she saw Penthesilea riding through the gates of Troy… in triumph, or in defeat? She could not tell; the vision was gone, and they spoke of other things.

At last she rose and stretched herself. "I sit like any old gossip among women," she said, "and I have duties awaiting me in the Sunlord's house. But it has been good to gossip and be idle—" and, she thought, to talk of women's matters like the raising of children. She had once thought it must be very boring, but since having a child of her own, she began to understand that such woman's talk could be absorbing. But to speak of nothing else for a lifetime…

"It is not every day that you return from a journey of such length," Andromache said. "Helen will want to see you, and show you her babes - and Creusa to show you your namesake. She is more like Polyxena, with red hair and blue eyes—and as pretty as if Aphrodite had laid the gift of beauty in her cradle. She will marry a prince, if this war leaves any of us alive to think about marriages."

"I think no one will ever call my little one beautiful," Kassandra said, "but to a mother I suppose even the plainest children are lovely. In any case I intend, if the Gods are kind, to send her to Penthesilea to be brought up a warrior. I still wish I might have been."

"Oh, you cannot mean that, Kassandra," said Hecuba, coming to embrace her in farewell.

"Can I not? Mother, if anything of Imandra's gifts has survived the Akhaians, I will send them to you as quickly as the cart can be unloaded," she said, and took her leave. Andromache said she would walk with her a little way.

"For I get out so seldom, and Hector is always very troubled if I go out alone; but he cannot refuse me the chaperonage of my own husband's sister," she said discontentedly. "I often walk with Helen, but she did not come down today: Paris took a small wound in the last fight; nothing to worry him, but enough to give him a good excuse to stay indoors and be cosseted. Otherwise I am sure she would have come to greet you."

A few steps afterwards they parted, Andromache to return to the palace and Kassandra turning up to the Sunlord's high house.

She had turned Honey over to one of the governesses, and had started across the courtyard to check on the snakes when she encountered Khryse.

He looked weary and worn; there were new lines in his once-handsome face, and lines of dull silver in his fair hair. It was hard to realize that there had been a time when in this temple there had been those who considered him nearly as handsome as the Sunlord himself.

He recognized her at once, and cried out in welcome.

"Kassandra! We have all missed you," he exclaimed, and came quickly to embrace her. She would have recoiled, but it was not unpleasant to see a familiar face and to know herself so welcomed; so she allowed the embrace and at once regretted it, though she managed to twist her face so that his kiss fell only on her chin.

Quickly disentangling herself, she retreated out of reach.

"It seems that all has gone well with you while I was absent," she remarked. "You look well and thriving." Not for worlds would she have told him that it was his face in an oracle which had prompted her to return to Troy.

"But that is not true," he said. "Never again shall I have health or joy until the Gods choose to restore to me my poor dishonored child."

"Khryse," said Kassandra gently. "Is it not near upon three years that Chryseis has been in the camp of the Akhaians?"

"I care not if it is a lifetime," Khryse said passionately. "I will mourn and protest and cry out to the Gods—"

"Cry, then," Kassandra said, "but expect not that they will hear. It is your own pride you mourn and not your daughter," she went on sharply. "I saw her this morning in the Akhaian camp; she seems well and happy and content, and when I asked if I should try to arrange for her exchange, she told me to mind my own affairs. I truly think she is content to be Agamemnon's woman, even if she cannot be his queen."

Khryse's handsome face grew dark with wrath.

"Have a care, Kassandra; you say this to hurt me, and I believe not a word of it."

"Why should I wish to hurt you?" she asked. "You are my friend, and your daughter was like my own child. Think only of her happiness, Khryse, and leave her where she is. I warn you, if you press further in this matter, you will bring down the wrath of the Gods upon our city."

His face twisted in anger.

"And I am supposed to believe you have my good at heart? You care nothing for me; I who have so long loved you…'

"Oh, Khryse," she said, holding out her hands to him in absolute sincerity, "please, please, don't begin to talk of this again. Why must you think I wish you ill because I do not desire you?"

"Then what would you do if you wished me ill? When you have destroyed any kindness I might have in my heart—"

"If such kindness is destroyed, why do you say it is my fault? Cannot a man take any woman seriously unless she is willing to lie with him?" she asked. "I speak to you in all friendship, Khryse; do not press this matter."

"You are willing to see my daughter disgraced and insult offered to Apollo—"

"In the name of all the Gods, Khryse, the question is not what you feel, but what your daughter feels," she said in exasperation, remembering Chryseis's proud look when Patroklos had turned to her for help in translation. But she did not wish Khryse's anger to make more trouble; there was already enough bitterness and this could only make it worse. She spoke with what friendliness she could summon. "If you do not believe me, why not go down to the Akhaian camp - they will honor Apollo's truce for his priest - and ask her for yourself if she feels disgraced. If she wishes to leave Agamemnon, I swear to you I shall go to Priam and leave nothing undone to have her released or exchanged. But if she is happy with Agamemnon and he with her—believe me, she is no prisoner; they were calling upon her to translate when they took my waiting-women from me, and they are elderly women who truly do not wish to remain in the camp of the Akhaians. But I promise you: if Chryseis wishes to return I will do everything I can before the King and the Queen."

"But the disgrace - my daughter to be Agamemnon's concubine—"

"Cannot you see that you are unreasonable? Why is it so disgraceful for her to be Agamemnon's woman? And if this makes you shudder so with shame, why were you so eager to convince me that it would do no harm if I should be yours? Is it different for your daughter than Priam's daughter?" she asked harshly, losing patience at last. Now he was really angry; and she was just as well pleased; it meant she need no longer fear that he would try to grab at her.

"How dare you mention my daughter as if she were like you?" he charged her angrily. "You do not care what happens to my daughter. As long as you can follow your own unnatural ways and refuse to give yourself, to humiliate any man—"

"Humiliate you? Is that what you think?" she asked wearily. "Khryse, there are hundreds of women on this earth who would be happy to give themselves to you. Why should you choose one - perhaps the only one - who does not want you."

"I did not choose to desire you," he said, glaring at her, "but I find I wish for no other. You have bewitched me, out of some evil wish to humble me; I…' He stopped, gulped and said, "Do you think, sorceress, that I have not tried to break this spell you have cast on me?"

For a moment Kassandra almost pitied him. She said, "Khryse, if you are under a curse, some other has done it and not I. I swear by Serpent Mother and by Earth Mother and by Apollo himself whom we both worship; I bear you no malice and no evil will, and I will entreat any God to free you from any such spell. I want no power over you, and I would bless your manhood, providing you find some other woman on whom to exercise it."

"So you still have no pity on me? Even knowing what you have brought me to, you still deny yourself to me?"

"Khryse," she said, "enough. I am awaited above, and I must show myself to Charis and to the priestesses. I wish you good night."

She turned away, but he muttered between his teeth, "You will be sorry for this, Kassandra; even if I die for it I swear you will regret this."

I travelled all the way to Colchis and back to escape this man's bitterness; and I return no better off than I left, except that his wrath has had two years to grow.

Lord Apollo, was it your will that I should have given myself to this man I dislike so much? she wondered; almost frightened at her own thought. Even if Apollo demanded it, would I have given myself to Khryse?

But he had not demanded it. And Khryse—he was always a troublemaker; must she be part of his troublemaking?