The Firebrand

CHAPTER 21

Ten days they watched the plague raging in the Akhaian camp. On the tenth day the soldiers dragged out a noble white horse and sacrificed it to Apollo, and some time later, a messenger with Apollo's serpent staff came up to the city, and asked for a truce for the purpose of speaking with Apollo's priests.

"A delegation will come down to the camp," they were told. Khryse of course was first among them; Kassandra did not ask if she might join the group; she simply slipped away to put on her ceremonial robes and went with them.

Agamemnon, Akhilles, and several of the other leaders, among whom Kassandra recognized Odysseus and Patroklos, were drawn up in ranks behind the priests of Apollo. The chief priest among the Akhaians, a lean, sinewy man who looked like an athlete, approached Khryse.

"It seems that the Immortal is angry with us, after all," he said, "but I ask you, colleague: will you accept some gift from us?"

Khryse said, "I want my daughter back, or properly married to the man who took her, to whom she went as an innocent maiden—"

Agamemnon snorted, but said nothing; he had apparently agreed to let the priests speak for him.

"It cannot be expected that the King of Mykenae would agree to marry a prisoner of war, when he already has a queen—" began the priest.

"Very well," said Khryse. "If he will not marry my daughter, I want her back, and a proper dowry with her, since she is no longer a virgin and I cannot find a husband for her without a dowry."

The priests conferred for a moment. Finally they said, "Suppose we were to offer you the pick of all the women from all the cities we have sacked in the countryside, maiden for maiden?"

"Do you think I am a lecher?" Khryse asked, his voice simmering with indignation. "I am a grieving father, and I call upon Apollo to right the wrong done me."

"Well, Agamemnon," said the Argive priest, "it seems that there is no alternative; we must act with simple justice, and restore the man's daughter."

Agamemnon stood up to his full height and folded his arms.

"Never! The girl is mine."

"But she isn't," said the priest. "You took her when there should have been a truce, at the spring-planting, and for that impiety the Earth Mother is displeased."

"No woman, even a Goddess, tells me what I may not do," contradicted Agamemnon. Kassandra noticed a visible shiver through the ranks of the men, and Odysseus in particular looked affronted.

"The Immortals," Odysseus said, "hate such pride as belongs only to them, Agamemnon. Come, give the girl back, or go into your own tents and pay the girl's father her lawful bride-price."

"If I give up the girl—" For the first time Agamemnon hesitated, noticing that his fellow chieftains were regarding him with anger. "If I give up the girl," he repeated, "why should all you others keep the prizes you have won, and laugh at me? You, Akhilles; if I am forced to give up mine, will you give up the woman in your tent?"

Akhilles snarled, "I was not fool enough to steal mine from a priest of Apollo, and bring us all under a curse, Agamemnon. My woman came to me because she liked me better than any of Priam's sons inside Troy. And since I came to Troy to please you, Agamemnon, when by right I should have been fighting at the side of my Trojan kinsfolk, I don't see why my woman should come into this at all. She is a good girl; she came to me of her free will, and she is skilled in all kinds of women's work. I had thought to take her home with me - should I ever return from this war—and make her my wife, since, unlike you, I did not have to marry some rotting old hag of a queen to get the rule of her city."

Agamemnon set his teeth; Kassandra could see that he was trying very hard to keep hold of his temper.

"As for my queen," he said, "I remind you, my queen is the twin sister of that Helen who was thought beautiful enough that her loss should start this war. And if she was also queen in her own right of a great city, did that make her worth any less? She has borne me noble children; and let that be enough about her."

Yes," said the chief priest. "Agamemnon; you swore an oath you would do whatever was needed to save us from this plague; so we have determined that the girl Chryseis must be returned to her father. We will all make up the dowry he asks."

Agamemnon's fists were clenched and his jaw set so hard Kassandra wondered if his teeth would shatter.

"Do you all say this?" he demanded. "In spite of all I have done for you? It would serve you all right if I said, "Get another to lead your armies." You, Menelaus, do you too stand with these people to rob me?"

The slight, brown-haired man with a small curly beard, shifted uneasily from foot to foot. He said, "I would rather not suffer Apollo's wrath for your impiety—or your bad luck or bad manners in taking a girl who should have been left alone."

"How was I supposed to know the damned girl's father was a priest, or to care if I did know? Do you think we spent our time discussing her father?" Agamemnon raged.

The priestess behind Kassandra compressed her lips against a giggle and muttered softly, "It's for certain you did not spend it in learning manners," and it was Kassandra's turn to tighten her mouth against a snicker. Agamemnon's head swivelled toward the women and he seemed angrier than ever.

"Very well," he said,"since you all connive against me that I shall be robbed, take the girl and be damned. But I shall then be repaid by having the woman in Akhilles's tent."

Akhilles sprang out from the midst of the Akhaian ranks and yelled, "No! You'll take her only over my dead body!"

"I suppose I could arrange that if you insist," Agamemnon said lazily. Tatroklos, can't you control this wild boy? He's hardly old enough to mix in men's affairs. Come Akhilles, what do you need with a woman at your age? I'll send you the box of toys I gathered for my own son."

Kassandra's eyes narrowed; Agamemnon should not have said that; Akhilles is young, but not young enough to be taunted that way without getting his own back.

The chief priest of the Trojans said, "Khryse, have you a cloak for Chryseis? With plague here, she may not bring any garment into our camp; what she is wearing must be burnt before she enters Troy, and her hair cut off."

Khryse produced a long robe and a cloak. "Burn what clothes these folk have given her," he said. "But her hair too?"

"I am sorry; it is the only way to be certain she does not carry the plague," said the priest. Agamemnon came back from his tent with Chryseis, and Khryse stepped forward to embrace her. But the chief priest stopped him.

"Let the women undress her and take her clothing to be burned, first," he said, and Charis and Kassandra moved to Chryseis, the other women making a circle about her to hide her as her Akhaian dress and over-dress were stripped away and cast to the ground. With dignity, Chryseis ignored them. But when Charis unbraided her hair and took out a knife to cut it, she moved away.

"No. I have borne all else, but you shall not make a mock of me by shorn locks; I feel no need of purification or penance!"

Charis said gently, "It is only for fear of plague; you come from an infected city into one so far clean."

"I haven't the plague nor have I been near anyone who has it," said Chryseis, weeping. "Don't cut off my hair!"

"I'm sorry; we must," said Charis. She seized the long hair and cut it off to the nape of her neck. Chryseis was sobbing inconsolably.

"Oh, look what you've done! What a figure of fun I will be, with everyone laughing and jeering! You have always hated me, Kassandra! And now you have done this to me—"

"What a foolish child you are," Charis said brusquely. "We have done as the priests bade us, no more. Don't blame Kassandra." She laid the robe Khryse had brought over Chryseis's shoulders. "I have no pin; you will have to hold it together over your breasts."

"No," Chryseis said sullenly. "If you don't have a pin, it can fall open for all I care." Charis shrugged.

"If you want every Akhaian soldier gazing on your naked breasts, that is your affair, but it might distress your father. For his sake, hold your robe so your modesty is preserved."

She signalled to the women to open a gap in their circle so that Chryseis could approach her father. Agamemnon took a step toward her, but Odysseus held him back, speaking to him urgently in an undertone.