The Firebrand

CHAPTER 11

As soon as they returned to Troy, Priam set all the people of the household to frenzied activity, stripping the palace of golden ornaments, demanding the golden necklaces, earrings and rings of the women; and gold cups from the table even before he opened the treasure room and had the gold carried up to the walls.

Priam sent for a priest from the Sunlord's temple to rig up a pair of scales. It was Khryse, and for once he was genuinely too busy to take the slightest notice of Kassandra as he worked with pulleys and weights. She watched him work, understanding the principles of what he was doing, but knowing she had not the skill with her hands or knowledge to do it herself. When he had the strange-looking balance strung up he asked her to lie on one of the platforms so that it could be tested.

"Just pretend you are a dead weight," he said.

"As you like." She took her place, watching as the people of the household piled gold on the other part of the scale. She was surprised at the smallness of the heap which balanced her, lifting her slowly into the air. He saw her look and said, "Gold is heavier than most people think."

She was sure Akhilles knew to the ounce how much gold he would be getting. She began to sit up as they took off the gold and piled it up.

"Your weight in gold, Kassandra," Khryse said. "If it were mine I would offer it all to you for a bride-price."

She sighed and said, "Do not begin that again, my brother."

He looked crestfallen, "Must you always destroy any hopes I might have for happiness in this world?"

"Oh, if what you want is a wife," she said with an angry laugh,"there are women enough and to spare in Troy."

"You know that for me there is no woman save you alone—" Khryse said.

"Then I fear you will live and die unwed," Kassandra said firmly, "even if yonder gold were your own and you could dower me with it." She slid to her feet, looking at the heap of gold which equalled her weight. She had never cared for jewellery, and she could only marvel that this cold stuff excited so much greed in so many people. Somehow, even knowing Akhilles as she did, she had not thought he could be swayed with gold alone; she had thought he might attempt some additional humiliation on the royal house of Troy.

Above them, lighting the top of the stones, the sun was rising; Kassandra stepped to the top of the wall and extended her arms silently in the morning salutation to the Sunlord.

"Sing the morning hymn, Kassandra," Khryse urged. "Your voice is sweet but we so seldom hear it lent to us now, even for Apollo's sake."

Stubbornly she shook her head; if she sang, he would accuse her again of trying to entice him. "I prefer to sing but in the presence of the God alone," she murmured and was silent.

Priam, coming with his servants and another basketful of gold - even though the precious stuff barely covered the bottom of the basket it was so heavy that it had to be carried between two men - said, "Well, priest, are the scales ready?"

"They await your pleasure, my lord."

"My pleasure? You fool, do you think I take any pleasure in this business?" Priam demanded crustily. He was still wearing the white robe of a suppliant, streaked with mud from the earthworks; his bare feet were caked with mud.

Polyxena whispered to him, but Priam said aloud, "Are you saying that for that villain Akhilles I should bathe and comb my hair and put on fair garments, as if this were a wedding and not a funeral? And I care not if this is the chief among the Sunlord's priests, he is no less a fool for all that!"

Kassandra covered her mouth with her fingertips; it would be unseemly to smile at this moment. Surely there was little to smile about, except the discomfiture on Khryse's face; it seemed to her that her father spoke with the peevish sound of senility.

Priam motioned to the servants to put the basket down by the rest of the gold. "Now we await Akhilles's will. It would be like him to make such a degrading bargain as this and make us wait all day - or not to come at all."

He made the bargain before witnesses," Polyxena reminded her father."They will make him come. They are eager to get on with this war, now they don't have Hector to face."

There was silence while the King's household slowly gathered below the wall; Hecuba and Andromache stood on either side of the King.

Kassandra was not sure exactly what it was that she expected; perhaps Akhilles's chariot galloping at his usual breakneck speed toward the walls. She looked into the rising sun till her eyes ached.

Khryse stood at her side and put his arm under hers as if to lend her support; she was exasperated but did not want to draw attention to herself by moving away. The priest said, "They are astir in the Argive camp; what are they waiting for?"

"Perhaps to humble my father further by seeing him faint with exhaustion from the heat," she murmured. "I swear to you, Khryse, compared to Akhilles, Agamemnon is noble and kindly."

"I know little of him," Khryse said, "but enough to know I would not willingly see the fate of Troy in his hands; and Priam's health and strength are now all the hope we have for Troy."

Little hope that is, she thought, but remained silent. She had no wish to discuss her fears for her father with anyone, and certainly not with a man she distrusted.

"Look," Polyxena said, and pointed, barely raising her arm. Far out on the plain, figures were moving; as they came nearer, Kassandra made out Akhilles, his pale hair shining in a blinding streak of sunlight. He was walking at the head of a small procession; behind him, eight of his soldiers carried a body on a pallet - it could only be that of Hector - and behind them came a half dozen Akhaian chieftains, in full armor, but bearing no weapons.

At least for once Akhilles has kept his word. She let out her breath, only now realizing that until she saw Hector's body she had not for a moment expected him to do so.

They were nearer now; she could make out individual faces and even see the details of the embroideries on the pall that covered Hector's body. Akhilles bowed before Priam and said, "As I promised, my Lord of Troy, behold the body of your son."

"The ransom awaits you, Prince Akhilles," Priam said, and went to the pall, folding back the heavy covering to expose the face. "First let me make certain that it is truly the body of my son—"

Hecuba came to stand beside him as he rolled back the pall, with Penthesilea ready beside her should she need support. Kassandra was braced to hear her mother break into wailing or shrieking, but she simply nodded gravely and bent to kiss the cold white forehead. Priam said, "The scales have been set up by a priest of Apollo Sunlord who is skilled in such things. If you would like to check the weights for yourself—"

"No, no," said Akhilles with a bizarre geniality, "I know very little of such things, my lord."

Khryse said, conducting Akhilles to the edge of the scales. "You worked against your own best interest, Prince Akhilles, when you allowed Hector's body to become so mangled; in perfect condition it would have brought you more gold." The jest seemed gross and inappropriate. Kassandra wondered, looking at Khryse's shaking hands and the over-brilliant pupils of his eyes, if he had been drinking unmixed wine, or a brew of wine and poppy-seeds so early in the day that he had forgotten in whose presence he was.

Priam turned pale and said stiffly, "Let's get on with this." He gestured, and the body of Hector was hoisted up to lie on the platform. Priam's slaves began to scoop out the gold on to the other platform, a few pieces at a time. Akhilles watched, barely smiling, as the platform bearing the body trembled and began to rise from the ground. Kassandra wondered if the other watchers found the scene as grotesque as she did.

The scale quivered and briefly, shook hard so that the bound corpse slid to one side, but it did not fall off. On the heights above Troy the wind was rising, but here below the walls the air was agonizingly still—still enough to smother breath. It occurred to Kassandra that nowhere in the city did she hear the sound of a single bird's song. Was this a part of the warning such as she had been given before? Was Poseidon about to strike? Let him strike then and end this obscenity, this travesty of decency and honor. She fixed her gaze firmly on one of the pulley ropes and would not look away. The rope trembled as she watched, and a few gold ornaments fell off; oh, come, Poseidon, is that the best you can do for Hector?

One of Priam's slaves scooped up the ornaments and replaced them. He added a heavy gold breastplate, and the platform containing the gold sagged down, now obviously outweighing the body.

Too heavy," Priam said and removed it, replacing it with a multistranded gold necklace.

"A hair too light now," said Akhilles, his eyes dwelling covetously on the breastplate. Polyxena stepped forward, pulled her long gold-wire earrings from her earlobes and flung them on the platform. The scales trembled, then stopped still, evenly balanced.

"There," she said, "it is enough. Take your gold, and go."

Akhilles looked from the gold to Polyxena, his eyes brightening as he looked.

"For the gold, a golden girl would suffice," he said. "King Priam, I will forgive you half the ransom for this woman, even if she is one of your slaves or concubines."

"I am Priam's daughter," Polyxena said, "and I serve the Maiden, who is no friend to lust even in a king or a king's son. Be content with your gold and your pledged word, Prince Akhilles, and leave us with our dead."

Akhilles clenched his lips tight, and Kassandra saw a vein throbbing in his forehead. He said between clenched teeth, "Is it so? Then will you give her to me—honorably, in lawful marriage—in return for a three days' truce to bury your son? Otherwise, the war will resume at noon—"

"No," the voice of Odysseus boomed out from among the silent ranks of Akhaian chieftains,"this is too much. Akhilles; honor your word, as you have sworn, or you will find yourself fighting me at noon. We pledged Priam three days' truce for Hector's funeral, and so it shall be."

Akhilles glowered, but said, "So be it," and raised his hand to his men. They shared out the gold in baskets, each carrying one, and marched away across the plain the same way they had come.

Kassandra did not stay to hear the planning of the funeral games, pleading duties in the temple - she must go at once and see what the serpents portended. No one else had apparently noted the touch of the hand - or the fingertip - of Poseidon. She went up quickly the long steep way toward the Sunlord's house; after a moment she was aware that Khryse was following her. Well, let him follow, he had just as much right to enter the Sunlord's house as she did herself. But he did not approach her or speak until they had passed through the great gates.

"I know what is in your mind, Princess," he said. "I felt it too. The God is angry with Troy." He looked pale and haggard, what had he been drinking so early? Something perhaps to sharpen his visions, if not his ordinary wits?

"I was not certain that I felt it," she began. "I was not sure I did not dream or imagine it."

"If you did, then I too dreamed," he said. "It is now only a question of time; how long can Apollo Sunlord delay the full fury of Poseidon's blow? I too have seen them struggling for Troy—"

Recalling her own vision, she said, "It is true. No mortal can break the walls of Troy. But if a God should breach them—"

"There is an army outside more powerful than all the might of Troy," Khryse said. "And our greatest champion awaits the funeral pyre, while they have at least three warriors greater than our best."

"Three? I grant you Akhilles, but—"

"Agamemnon, who could best Paris and Deiphobos together if he must, and Odysseus and Ajax are the equal of Hector, though neither ever bested him."

"Well," said Kassandra, wondering where this was leading, "while our walls stand it does not matter; and if it is foreordained that they must fall—well, we will meet that fate when it comes."

"I do not want to remain and see the city fall; if I were a warrior I would stay and fight, but I was never trained to use weapons and I would be no help even to defend myself—far less the ones I love. Will you come away with me, Kassandra? I do not want you to die when the city falls."

"I wish I had only death to fear."

"I mean to go to Crete in the first ship I can find, and I have heard there is a Phoenician ship standing out to sea down beyond the cove," Khryse said. "Come with me and you need fear nothing."

"Nothing, that is, but you."

"Can you never forgive me that moment of folly?" Khryse demanded. "I mean you all honor, Kassandra; I will marry you if you will, or if you are still resolved not to marry, I will swear any oath you like that we shall travel as sister and brother, and I will lay not so much as a finger's weight on you."

But I would not even trust your oath, not if you swore by your own mother's virtue, she thought, and shook her head, not unkindly.

"No, Khryse. Believe me, I thank you for the thought. But the Gods have decreed that I have something more to do in Troy. I do not know yet what they have ordained for me, but no doubt they will tell me when it lies before me."

"You certainly will be of no use as one more spear when the city falls," said Khryse. "Are you staying to comfort your mother and sister when they are carried off as captives of the Argive captains? What good will that do them?"

Kassandra looked sharply at him. He looked as if he had not touched food for a long time, yet he had not quite the look of starvation alone. Her heart ached for him; she did not love him as he wished, but she had known him for a long time, and no longer wished him ill.

A moment's touch of the God now would kill him, she thought, and was saddened.

"If that is the only task the Gods lay on me," she said firmly,"then that is the one I will fulfill."

"It seems hardly worth going alone to Crete or Thera," said Khryse. "You could come with me as you went to Colchis, to study serpent-lore; or to Egypt, where they always welcome priestesses. In Egypt there is always much building going on, and always work—as at Knossos - for a man who is handy with weights and measures. I have heard they will rebuild the palace which was reduced to rubble with the last touch of Poseidon Earthshaker."

"Then don't go alone," Kassandra said. "Take Chryseis with you. She has never been happy here, and you do not want her to fall captive again to Agamemnon's bed, do you?"

"It is not Chryseis that Agamemnon wants," said Khryse, "and you know it as well as I do."

Kassandra shivered, hearing the sound of truth in the priest's voice; but she said, "I abide my fate as you, my brother, abide your own; go then to Knossos or Egypt, or wherever your fate leads you, and all the Gods keep you safe there." She moved her hand in a gesture of blessing. "I wish you nothing but good; but we part here, Khryse, and forever."

"Kiss me but once," he pleaded, dropping to his knees before her.

She bent and lightly laid her lips against his wrinkled forehead, like a mother kissing a small child.

"May you bear the Sunlord's blessing wherever you go; and remember me with kindness," she said.

She climbed up past him, leaving him still kneeling and dumb. His wits are no longer sound, she thought; perhaps it is a mercy. He will suffer less when his fate strikes him; it cannot be long now. Not for any of us.

In the hall of the serpents she found the priestesses all running about half dressed, struggling to recapture the snakes; this morning quite a number of them had deserted their proper places and taken refuge in the garden. One or two of the most docile, on being rounded up and carried back to their places, had bitten the handlers. Kassandra was dismayed. Phylhda had indeed tried to tell her of this, but she had not listened. The omen was bad indeed, but the time to be afraid had passed.

"The Sunlord did not send his people a false warning," she said. "The hand of Poseidon Earthshaker did in fact strike us; but only the lightest of blows. Listen, the birds are singing once more; the danger is past, at least for this day."

Nevertheless some of them looked troubled.

"The Great Snake, the Mother of Serpents, has not come forth ' for her food for three days," said Phyllida. "We have tempted her with mice and newborn rabbits, then a young pigeon, and even with a saucer of fresh goat's milk." (This last was a rare delicacy now in Troy. So many goats had had to be slaughtered for lack of fodder; what milk remained was kept only for young babies, or for women in early pregnancy who could tolerate no other food.) 'What does this omen portend, Kassandra? Is the Mother angry with us? And what can we do to turn away her anger?"

"I do not know," she said. "I have not been given any message from the Goddess to say she is angry with us. I think perhaps we should all put on festival robes and sing to her." (That at least could do no harm.) 'And then we shall all go down and perform a dance of devotion at Hector's funeral feast."

This brought exclamations of pleasure from the women; as she had supposed, it quickly banished their fears about the omen. But Phyllida, who had learned from Kassandra much of the serpent-lore of Colchis, delayed for a moment when the others had gone to change into their robes.

"This is all very well, my dear; but what if the Great Serpent refuses to feed again?"

"I suppose we must simply accept it as the most evil of omens," Kassandra said. "Even the Mother of Serpents is but a beast after all; and no beast starves itself without reason. I have force-fed smaller serpents; but I do not feel equal to the task of force-feeding this one; do you?" Phyllida silently shook her head and Kassandra nodded. "So all we can do is to offer her such food as may tempt her most, and pray she will see fit to take it."

"In short, exactly what we would do with one of the Immortals," Phyllida said with a cynical smile. "I wonder more and more; what good are the Gods?"

"I don't know either, Phyllida; but I beg you not to say that to the other girls," Kassandra said, "and I suppose we had better go and put on our dancing robes too."

Phyllida patted her cheek; she said, "Poor Kassandra, you cannot feel much like dancing and feasting when Hector lies dead."

"Hector is better off than most of us still living in the city," Kassandra said. "Believe me, my dear, I rejoice for him."

"None of my kin are fighting," said Phyllida, "and it is so long since I feasted that I would be joyful about it even if the feast were in honor of my own father. So we will dance for Serpent Mother and in memory of Hector, and I hope one gets as much out of it as the other." She slipped away and Kassandra bent before the great artificial cave in the wall which had been built for the Great Snake.

She hesitated, to be certain that Apollo would not speak to forbid her entry, then crawled inside with a lighted torch in her hand to investigate. The ancient serpent knew her smell and would not harm her, but she would not willingly approach a lighted torch either. Inside the cave, in the semi-dark, she smelled the ancient smell, fear to the very center of the bones of humankind; but she had been trained to ignore that.

She crawled on, avoiding a patch of filth in the cave; snakes were cleaner than cats under normal conditions; this one would not have fouled her own place if all was well. She began to make out the great heap of scaled coils, and murmured soothingly and crawled on. She put out a hesitant hand and stroked gently; but in place of the warm scales she anticipated, she touched what felt like cold pottery. She pressed more firmly. Unstirring beneath her hand; the Great Serpent lay dead.

So that's why she didn't come out to eat. The omen was worse than the girls knew, Kassandra thought, sighing and lying for a moment quietly at the side of the dead creature.

She found herself wondering: if she went out on the grey plain of death where Hector lingered awaiting his son, would she find the Serpent Mother there, and would the snake speak to her priestess in a human voice?

Well, it would make no difference; if she had occasion to cross that plain again, maybe she would find out; there were so many questions to be answered about death, she could never understand why anyone should fear it or face it with anything except eager curiosity.

She crawled backward out of the cave and placed the lighted torch in a stand before it, a signal not to disturb the occupant. Phyllida came back and asked, "Did you go into the cave? Is it well with her?"

"Very well," Kassandra said steadily. "She has cast her skin and must not be disturbed."

Phyllida was relieved. "Oh, but you haven't changed your robe - nor put on your dancing shoes."

"Oh, Hector will not care about my robes," she said 'and I can dance barefoot as well as in my sandals."

As the girls gathered again in the shrine, she led them through the steps of the dance, which was older than Troy. At the finish,-she cried out the final wailing cry, murmuring under her breath a prayer for the old Snake, then wondered; was it proper to pray for the soul of a beast who probably had none? Well, if she had a soul she was welcome to the prayer, and if not, at least it would do her no harm.

"And now for the feast," she said, and led the women down the hill to the palace.

Priam had not expected them, but they were welcomed anyway, and Hecuba was pleased that they had come for this tribute to Hector. Kassandra stood at the center of the dance, watching as the long spiral of the women with their white robes fluttering wound round her and then led the unwinding of the coils of the ancient dance of the labyrinth. When the dance and song came to its end Kassandra signalled the priestesses to help in filling the cups of the guests before they sat down, and herself poured a cup of wine and bore it to Penthesilea. Weary and heart-sore, she felt there was no one else in this hall to whom she could speak except the old Amazon. Not even to Aeneas, though he smiled and beckoned to her, could she bear to speak.

Penthesilea did not trouble her with questions; she simply pulled her down on the couch beside her and shared her cup of wine. Not till then did she ask:

"What is it, little one? You look so weary. It is not only grief for Hector—?"

Kassandra felt tears welling up in her eyes. To everyone else in Troy she was the priestess, the bearer of burdens, the answerer to whom all questions must be brought. It never occurred to anyone that she might have fears or questions of her own.

"There are times when I wish I too had chosen to be a warrior," she blurted. "I cannot see what use it is to anyone that I am a Priestess."

Penthesilea's voice was stern. "Our lives are often chosen for us, Kassandra—"

"Then why is it some people are able to choose?"

"I think perhaps some of us have the choices made for us by the choices we have already made - if not in this life then in another," Penthesilea said.

"Do you really believe that?" demanded Kassandra.

"Oh, my dear, I don't know what I believe; I only know that like all of us, I do the best I can with the choices offered me at any moment," said Penthesilea, "and so do you. But you should not sit here discussing all the ins and outs of life's vagaries with an old woman; look, Aeneas has been trying and trying to catch your eye. A few minutes with your lover will do more to cheer you than all of my philosophy."

It might be so, thought Kassandra, but she resented it. Nevertheless she looked at Aeneas and returned his smile. He rose and came to her, and accepted another cup of wine -although she noted that it was so diluted that it was more water than wine.

"The dance was lovely; I have never seen anything like it before," he said. "Is it one of the old dances of Troy?"

"Yes, it is very old," she told him, "but I think it may be from Crete; it is the labyrinth dance - the spiral of the coils of the Earth Snake. It has been danced in the Sunlord's house since before he slew the Great Serpent, they say."

And once again, the Great Serpent lies dead, and the Sunlord gave us no warning or omen, she thought, overwhelmed by her dread… what could all this mean? Surely the death of Hector was only the beginning of a procession of evils…

Aeneas was bending over her anxiously, troubled by her distress. She did not want to frighten him too; with him she might even find some surcease from this endless despair.

"Let me bring you something," he said. "You have hardly tasted of the feast; and there is roast kid and lamb—Priam has spared nothing, and Hector would not want you to be miserable; wherever our dear brother may be, we can be sure it is well with him, and will be none the better for our mourning."

This sounded so near to what she had been trying to say that she was overjoyed; at least Aeneas understands when I speak, I need not try to fight my way through a mountain of fear and superstitious nonsense about death! His face seemed to glow in the torchlight; she remembered that she had seen him coming undamaged from the ruin of Troy; he was going to live, and the light in his face was simply the light of life, where the pallor of death lay over everyone else.

"I want nothing to eat," she said, though a little while ago she had been hungry.

"Well, then, let us get out of this hall of mourning. All the Gods may witness I loved Hector, but I do not see how his fate or our understanding of it can be bettered by everyone sitting around and eating till they can hardly move, and drinking themselves into a stupor," he said, and slipped his arm round her; enlaced, they went out on to the balcony and looked down into-the dark expanse of the Argive camp; there were a few scattered lights but all else was dark.

"What are they doing down there?" Aeneas asked.

"I don't know; I may be a prophetess, but I cannot see that far," she said. "Building an altar to Poseidon, I should think. But it is too late for that, and they should know it."

"Perhaps their soothsayers,are not as good as you are," he said, holding her tightly. "Kassandra, let me come to your room—"

She hesitated; but finally said, "Come then." Tomorrow would be enough time to deal with dead serpents and dying cities.

On their way up the steep street, a star fell, with such a dizzying sweep across the sky that for a moment it felt as if it was the earth that tipped; and she clutched Aeneas's arm, remembering how she and Andromache had watched falling stars in Colchis when she was only a young girl. Since that night, though she had watched the skies diligently, she had not seen another falling star until this moment. Was it a portent of some kind? Or did it mean anything at all?

"What is it?" Aeneas asked, bending over her and speaking with great tenderness.

"Only the star—"

"Star?" he asked, "I saw nothing, my love."

Now I am imagining things. Enough, then, for tonight, she said firmly to herself, and drew Aeneas into her room, knowing with a sudden stab of pain that it would be the last time.