The Firebrand

CHAPTER 8

Kassandra had seen the Amazons fight many times before; she wished that she were riding forth with them. Yet if she had thought the morning's battle was fierce, that was nothing to the ferocity of this battle for Hector's body.

Time after time the Trojan soldiers made what seemed like a suicidal dash at Akhilles's chariot trying to overturn or crash it and cut free the body; but the joined forces of Hector's soldiers and the Amazons could not come near him. It seemed that the War-God himself rode with Akhilles and more than a dozen of the soldiers and seven of the Amazon warriors died in these charges before Agamemnon's charioteers, led by Diomedes and the strongest of the Spartan archers, came and drove them off a final time.

When it was almost too dark to see, at last the Trojans retired and when Troilus fell to an arrow shot by Akhilles himself, Aeneas finally yielded and called off the attack, carrying Troilus inside the walls.

"He didn't want to live," Hecuba wept over his body. "He blamed himself—I heard him—that his brother died—"

In the flaming sunset, the cloud of dust behind Akhilles's chariot was undiminished. "It looks as if he means to keep that up all night," said Paris. "There is nothing else we can do."

"I can probably see better in the dark than his horses," said Aeneas. "We might try again by moonlight—"

"There is no reason to do that," said Penthesilea. "You have one brother to bury and to mourn; tomorrow will be time to think again about Hector."

Hecuba, kneeling before Troilus's corpse, raised her face, swollen with tears, looking suddenly twenty years older.

"If I must, I will go to Akhilles and beg him, for the love of his own mother, to let me bury my son," she said. "Surely he has a mother and pays honor to her."

"Do you truly think anything human gave birth to that monster?" wept Andromache. "Surely he was hatched from a serpent's egg!"

"As a keeper of serpents, I resent that on their behalf," Kassandra said. "No serpent was ever wantonly cruel; they kill only for food or to defend their young, and no serpent ever made war against another, whatever God they may serve."

"Let us leave it for tonight," Andromache said. "Perhaps a new day may bring him reason." She turned away from the wall, deliberately looking away from the sight of Akhilles's chariot and the cloud of dust where Hector's body was hidden. She raised Hecuba up gently by the arm taking, Kassandra noted, a good deal of the older woman's weight. Together the two went up the steep street toward the palace.

Kassandra bent over the lifeless body of Troilus. She remembered when he had been born, what a sweet red round-faced baby he had been, squalling and thrusting out his little fists. How her mother had prayed for a son, and how happy she had been when he had arrived, her fourth or fifth actually. But then she had always been happy with every son born in the palace, even those born to the concubines; the Queen was always the first to have every baby in her arms, however humble the mother.

Well, she had promised to tell Polyxena; she went slowly up the steep streets of the city toward the Maiden's Temple. The winds at that height dragging against her cloak and hair, she reached the outer court, where the statue of the maiden stood.

She had now spent so many years as a priestess that she had almost ceased to trouble herself about the nature of Gods or Goddesses, whether they were truly from some place beyond humanity, or whether they were from some soul of humankind seeking to worship the greater virtues and the divine within. Yet now, looking at the serene face of the Maiden in the outer court, where her statue stood, she wondered again; could anything, human or divine, be brought unmothered to birth and was not that very concept a blasphemy against all that was divine? She herself had brought no child to birth; yet within her the unfed passion for motherhood had brought Honey into her arms and she knew she would protect her with her very life, as any other mother would do.

With her own mother she now shared a passionate grief. She had been guilty of underestimating Akhilles; she should have known that his madness made him ever more dangerous; as even a house dog may turn vicious and untrustworthy.

Yet if she had warned them they would never have listened.

One of the attendants of the shrine recognized her and came to ask deferentially how she could serve the daughter of Priam.

"I would speak with my sister Polyxena," she said, and the servant went at once to fetch her.

Before very long, she heard a step and Polyxena came into the room, knowing at once from Kassandra's face and crying out, "You bear evil news, sister! Is it our mother, our father—"

"No; they live still, though I know not what this news will do to them in the end," Kassandra said. Polyxena was now a tall woman in her late twenties; but she had still the soft face of a child. She came and embraced Kassandra, weeping.

"What do you mean? Tell me—"

"Hector," Kassandra said, and felt herself almost at the edge of tears.

"The worst," she said. "Not only Hector, but Troilus." Her throat closed and she could hardly speak. "Both dead in a single hour, at Akhilles's hands, and that madman drags Hector's corpse behind his chariot and will not hear of giving up his body for burial—"

Polyxena burst into sobs and the sisters clung to one another, united as they had not been since they were little children.

"I will come at once," Polyxena said. "Mother will need me; let me but fetch my cloak." She hurried away, and Kassandra reflected sorrowfully that this was true; she could not comfort her mother. Even Andromache was closer to Hecuba than she was. All her life it had been so: that of all their children Hector was closest to her parents, and Kassandra had been the least loved. Was it only that she had always been so different from the others?

It broke her heart that even in this dreadful moment she could not turn to her mother. Because she could always retain her composure and because she was not beside herself with grief, it would never have occurred to anyone that she was in need of consolation. Her bottomless, tearless sadness seemed to her mother, she knew, cold and inhuman; quite unlike the aspect of a woman at all.

Polyxena returned, in the pale cloak of a priestess, with something tied in a cloth at her waist. Her eyes were red, but she had stopped crying; however, Kassandra knew she would weep again at the sight of her mother's tears.

I wish I could; Hector is worthy of all the tears we might all shed for him. And she wondered despairing, "What is wrong with me, that for all my grief I cannot weep for my dearest brothers—

Yet in her heart a small rational voice said, Hector was a fool; he knew Akhilles was a madman who did not abide by any civilized rules for warfare, and nevertheless for something he called honor he rushed to his death. This honor was dearer to him than life, or Andromache or his son, or the thought of the grief his parents would feel. And for all the horror of it, she could not feel any additional disgust or dismay at what Akhilles had done to his corpse. Hector was dead, and that was bad enough. What would make it worse?

And we are all going to die anyhow; and few of us as quickly or mercifully; why do we not rejoice that he is spared further suffering?

Polyxena handed her the cloth; she felt something hard within it.

"What jewels I have," she said. "Father may need them to ransom Hector's body; Akhilles is just as greedy for gold as for what he calls glory; perhaps this will help."

"He is welcome to mine, too," said Kassandra,"though I have few; only my pearls from Colchis."

Together they went down the hill toward the palace. It was growing late; the low sun was hidden behind a heavy bank of cloud, and the brisk wind held a smell of rain. On the plain, there was no sign of Akhilles's chariot. He had given up his gruesome work, at least for the night.

"Perhaps they will make a foray in the dark to rescue him," Polyxena said. "And if it rains, Akhilles may agree to accept a ransom; he will not want to drive a chariot all day in a storm."

"I don't think it will make any difference to him," Kassandra said. "It seems to me that the sensible thing to do would be to accept this and do what he does not expect; let him keep Hector's corpse. Muster all our forces tomorrow and throw everything we have into an all-out attempt to kill Akhilles and Agamemnon and perhaps Menelaus as well."

Polyxena stared at her in utter dismay, the beginning rain mingling with the tears on her cheek.

"I beg of you, sister, say nothing like that to our mother or rather," she said. "I did not think even you could be so heartless as to leave Hector unburied in the rain."

It is not Hector who lies unburied," Kassandra said fiercely. It is a dead body like any other."

I do not know if you are very stupid, or simply very malicious," Polyxena said, "but you speak like a barbarian and not a civilized woman, a princess and a priestess of Troy." She turned away her eyes and Kassandra knew she had only made things worse. She looked away from Polyxena to hide the tears in her eyes, while knowing perversely that Polyxena would think better of her for them. They did not speak again.

When they reached the palace, a servant (Kassandra noticed that the old woman's eyes were as swollen and red as her mother's - everyone down to the kitchen drudges had loved Hector, and all the palace women remembered Troilus as a small petted child) took their soaked cloaks, dried their hair and feet with towels, and showed them into the main dining hall.

It looked almost the same as always, a roaring fire casting light around the room and branched candlesticks spreading brilliance by which the paintings on the walls wavered as if seen underwater. The carved bench where Hector habitually sat was empty, and Andromache sat between Priam and Hecuba, like a child between her parents.

Paris and Helen were nearby, clinging to one another's hands. They came to greet Polyxena, who went to kiss her parents; Kassandra sat down in her accustomed place near Helen, but when the servants put food on her plate she could not swallow and only nibbled at a dish of boiled vegetables and drank a little watered wine. Paris looked sad, but Kassandra knew that he was very well aware that he was now Priam's eldest son and commander of the armies. If there is to be any hope for Troy, someone must disabuse him of that notion, she thought, he is no Hector. Then she was astonished at herself; she had known so long that there was no hope for Troy, why did these unconquerable thoughts of hope keep rising again and again?

Did this mean her visions of doom were simply hallucinations or brain-sickness, as everyone said? Or did it mean that somehow with Hector gone there was new hope for Troy? No, that was certainly madness; he was the best of us all, she thought, and knew that someone - Paris? Priam? - had actually said it aloud.

"He was the best of us all," Paris said, "but he is gone, and somehow we must manage the rest of this war without him. I have no idea how we will do it."

"It is in essence your war," Andromache said. "I told Hector he should have left it to you all along."

Someone sobbed aloud; it was Helen. Andromache turned on her in sudden rage.

"How dare you! If it were not for you he would be alive, and his son not fatherless!"

"Oh, come, my dear," Priam said in a conciliatory tone. "You really mustn't talk like that to your sister - there is enough grief in this house this night."

"Sister? Never! This woman from our enemies, from whom all our troubles have arisen - look, she sits and gloats because now her paramour will command all Priam's armies—"

"The Gods know I do not gloat," Helen said, stifling her tears. "I grieve for the fallen sons of this house which has become my house, and for the grief of those who are now my father and my mother."

"How dare you…" Andromache began again, but Priam took her hand and held it, whispering to her.

"How would you have me prove my grief?" Helen stood up and came to Priam's high seat. Her long golden hair was unbound, hanging over her shoulders; her blue eyes, deep-set in her face and shadowed with weeping, were luminous in the candlelight.

"Father," she said to Priam, "if it is your will I will go down to the Greek camp and offer myself to the Akhaians in return for the body of Hector."

"Yes, go," said Hecuba swiftly, almost before Helen had finished speaking, and before Priam could answer. "They will do you no harm."

Andromache chimed in, "It might be the one good act of a lifetime and atone for all else you have done to this house."

Kassandra was riveted to her seat, though her first impulse was to rise up and cry out, "No, no!" Nevertheless she remembered what she had prophesied when Paris first stood at the gates of Troy: he was a firebrand who would kindle a fire to burn down all the city; a prophecy repeated when he had brought Helen here. That was long ago; she no longer blamed Helen for what would come to the city; that was the fate ordained by the Gods. And her father and brothers - no, even Hector himself -they had not heeded her then; and whatever she said they would certainly do exactly the opposite. Better to keep silent.

Priam said gently, "Helen, it is a generous offer, but we cannot possibly allow you to do this. You are not the only cause of this war. We will ransom Hector's body—with all the gold of Troy if we must. Akhilles is not the only captain of the Akhaians. Surely there are some there who will listen to reason."

"No." Andromache rose and stood looking at Helen with a sombre gaze; Kassandra realized that some people would think her more beautiful than Helen, though her beauty was of a different kind, dark where Helen was fair, lean where Helen was rounded. "No, father, let her go, I beg of you. You owe me something too; I have borne Hector's son. I beg you, let her depart, and if she does not, drive her forth with whips. This woman has never been anything but a curse to all of us in Troy."

Paris rose to his feet. "If you drive out Helen, I go with her."

"Go then," cried Andromache wildly. "That too would be a blessing to our city! You are no less a curse than she! Your father did well when he sought to send you away!"

"She is raving," Deiphobos said roughly. "Helen shall not go from us while I live; the Goddess sent Helen to us, and no other roof shall shelter her while my brothers and I live."

Priam looked down the hall. "What shall I do?" he asked half aloud. "My Queen and the wife of my Hector have said to us—"

"She must go," Andromache cried. "If she remains here, I will depart this night from Troy - and I call upon all the women of Priam's house to go forth with me; shall we remain under one roof with her who has cast our city down into the dust?"

"And yet the walls of Troy stand firm," Paris said. "All is not lost." He rose and came to Andromache, taking her hand gently and raising it to his lips.

"I bear you no grudge, poor girl," he said. "You are distraught with your grief, and no wonder. I'll answer that Helen shall hold no malice toward you."

Andromache jerked away.

""Women of Troy, I call on you, come forth from the accursed roof that shelters that false Goddess, who would bring us all to ruin and slavery—" Her voice had risen, high and hysterical; she picked up a torch and cried, "Follow me, women of Troy—"

Priam rose in his place and thundered, "Enough! We have trouble enough without this! My child," he said to Andromache, "I understand your pain; but I beg of you, sit down and listen to us. Nothing would be solved by driving Helen forth. Soldiers have fallen in battle long before Hector was born - or I." He reached out to embrace Andromache, and after a moment she collapsed against his breast, sobbing. Hecuba came to enfold her in her arms.

"Peace," she said sombrely. "We have Troilus to mourn and to bury before the sun rises; and you women, collect your jewels to offer for Hector's ransom."

Kassandra, joining the women as they gathered together to assemble by Troilus's body, found herself wondering whether Andromache had been justified. Andromache alone among the women did not follow Hecuba; she remained at Priam's feet, crying out desolately, "I have not even a body over which to mourn." Then she raised her voice and called after the women, "Let not Helen touch Troilus's body, Mother! Know you not the old tale - a corpse will bleed if his murderer touches it - and he has little blood left to spare, poor lad!"