Cassandra (23 page)

`They drank wine here and she stayed with him until she died an old woman. But it was too dry here for women and goats, so Pan struck this place with his olive-staff and water sprang up. If it was not for the fountains of Pan our master, there would be no men in Agamemnon's great city.'

They passed the cup around again. I had grown up with men like these.

`I herded goats,' I said, and they laughed. `Yes,' I insisted, `I lay in the grass all day and chewed thyme and watched the clouds and thought each sun's journey as long as years. Give me your pipe, master, and I will show you.'

The old man gave me a shepherd's pipe. It had been a long time since I had played one, but I lifted it to my lips and blew gently down. Music, sweet and breathy. I managed to remember all the calling tunes for the goats and the one I had learned from an old man in my village. At that they sat up.

`Where did you learn that, Asclepid?' demanded the old man.

`Pithias, the goatherd who came to the market at Irion,' I said remembering him well, old and gnarled like these herd masters. `He taught me that tune and another which I cannot recall, and to use honey and verbena for treating staggers.'

Heads nodded around the circle. `He was a wise man, your Pithias,' they agreed. `That is a calling tune, but it is not for a goat - no, not a goat.'

`What, then?'

`For the god of goats,' the oldest man whispered. `It is a secret.'

`I will keep it,' I vowed. I went to sleep eventually, with the sound of the pipes in my ears, leaning on Eumides' warm bare shoulder.

I was summoned from Dion's embrace by the elegant Apollo Priest, who came in the middle of the afternoon and told me to wait upon the god at noon the next day. Noon was the sun's highest point and the azimuth of Apollo's power. Mysion seemed distant, not pleasant as he had been, but I could not tell in what manner I had offended. It was cold and I had only a light tunic on. I ran back to Dion's bed on rapidly freezing feet and dived into his arms.

`You have done nothing to offend Apollo Priest,' he soothed, taking my cold ankles into his warm hands and defrosting my toes. `You worry too much, Cassandra, my bright lady. Naturally he is not going to approve of me. There is a new god in the city of Tros and that will unbalance the powers until they get used to it.'

My Dion had acquired a sophisticated taste for politics which I had not anticipated. He was not a simple fisherman any more. He was, however, still gentle and comforting. I leaned back onto his shoulder and pulled at a tress of his kelp-brown hair. He smelt of the sea, tempered with scented oil from Lemnos which had been levied from an Argive ship as tax for passing the Pillars of Heracles. Priam as an act of devotion to the God of the Sea had given three months' tolls to the newly erected Temple of Poseidon.

I turned to find his mouth and kissed him. He was after all, Apollo's gift to me, his favoured maiden.

 

At noon the next day I walked with Perseis to the temple. She was pleased with me, although I had learned no craft. It appeared that she had come from fisherfolk herself and the lack of the Blue-Haired One in Troy had always bothered her.

`Cassandra, you are blooming like a flower,' she said. It was true. My breasts had grown full, my waist slender, my hair long and curly and golden. In the silver mirror my face had rounded and grown beautiful, even to me. `Dion Poseidon Priest has cherished you. Do you still have bad dreams?'

`No, not at all.' It had been months since I had seen the sea covered in black ships. `No, I sleep well.'

`There is nothing like a young man to improve a maiden's sleep,' she agreed with a quirk to her mouth. `Now, here we are, and I will wait for you.'

I went confidently into the temple and knelt before the altar. The suns on the walls blazed with the glow and silence of noon.

Then the light struck me. I fell down. There was a roaring in my ears, stronger than a million bees. The voice of the god came, like the striking of bells, and I felt my body quiver. I clawed for support; Eleni's mind was shuttered and I could never reach Dion. A weight pinned me flat and supine under the god.

`Cassandra,' snarled the voice, golden and dangerous as a lion, `you betrayed me!'

`Never!' I gasped under what felt like paving stones. `Lord Apollo, never!'

`I gave you a lover, faithless woman, I gave you Dion, my beloved, for your joy. I lay with you in love. I gave you prophecy, daughter of Priam. All these things I gave you, woman of Troy.'

`Yes!' my spine felt as if it would crack. `Yes, Lord, you gave me love and great gifts and I am grateful!'

`Traitor,' roared Apollo. Now the weight on me was hot and animal, a beast's weight. Taloned paws held me down, stabbed through thigh and breast. I think I screamed in pain and astonishment. `You brought my rival Poseidon back into Ilium! You let my own beloved Dion become a priest of Earth-Shaker!'

Teeth closed on my throat. The magnitude of my folly choked me. The jaw shut. I was shaken and dragged by the predator.

Then something opened my lips and the beast's tongue, rank with carrion, licked into my mouth.

`I cannot retrieve my gifts,' the voice blazed, `but I can make them useless, despised and disgraced of Apollo. You shall never be believed again. You shall know, and you shall hear, and you shall see the fates of all and you will not speak them, Cassandra,' the voice dropped to a hissing purr like smith's charcoal. `Never until the city falls and you are captive of the Argives will you prophesy again.'

Then he was gone. I felt my body spasm so hard that I thought that my bones would break. I fell into blackness.

I woke with Tithone beside me. I was lying on the stones of the temple steps, where someone had dropped me. The taste in my mouth was so foul that I retched repeatedly.

`I heard,' she said grimly. `You can walk. Get up.' She seemed very angry. I stumbled to my feet and followed her to her house in the lower city.

`Now,' she said, sitting me down and applying a wound-herb compress to the worst of the bites, `drink some wine and I will tend to you, daughter of Priam.'

`He said...' I began to weep, `the god said-'

`Gods!' snorted Tithone. `Keep still. This jealous god has nearly bitten out your throat.'

The wounds were not deep but they hurt. I tried not to cry out. Tithone was stiff-spined with outrage. I could not bear her displeasure as well as the god's. I put a hand on her arm.

`Don't be angry with me,' I pleaded. `I can't endure it, Lady.'

`Angry with you? By all the gods excluding one, I am not angry with
you
. I am angry with Apollo. Take back his gift, indeed,' she snorted.

`The Mother gave you that gift, daughter of Priam, not the Sun God. And back to the Mother you will go as soon as I can patch you up enough to walk further without bleeding to death. Mother Gaia is older than any Sun God, older and wiser. The gods ought to behave better than men, Cassandra, but they don't.'

`What should I have done?' I whispered. `The boat was about to be crushed and we would all have been killed. Me and Maeles and Ethipi and the wise-eyed boat and Dion... It is no use calling for Apollo at sea.'

`I can't for the life of me think of what else you could have done, Cassandra, but that will make no difference to this jealous boy of a god. When Perseis came to fetch me it was known what had happened; the cat-foot priest heard it all.

`Just when we might need a prophecy, too,' she added in an undertone, `he has to cripple the pre-eminent seer in Troy. Do not despair, Cassandra. You are not the beloved of a god anymore, but that is a fate shared by most people. There. Now. What else hurts?'

`There is slime in my mouth...' I bent to the drain and vomited the wine.

Tithone gave me water and began to pound herbs in a mortar. I saw mother's leaf, a dried mushroom and sage beaten into a pulp with salt.

`Scrub your mouth out with this,' she ordered. `Don't swallow.'

I did as she ordered. My mouth felt numb but the dreadful rotten savour was gone.

`Good. I thought so. The Mother is more powerful,' she said with satisfaction. `Now you may drink this,' it was a strong infusion of wine, valerian and all-heal, `and then you will come with me. The Mother will guard you, my golden daughter. I never did approve of this fashion for male gods,' she added, ushering me out of her house and along the lane. `Men are not reliable, useful though they may be for certain purposes.' She was still too angry to grin. `Come along, daughter.'

The force of her personality impelled me along the streets. People who saw me went in and closed their doors. I was hurt by this. Tithone noticed, and the next time it happened made such a frightful sign in the air that I wondered that the door did not shatter. I had not previously known that she was a priestess of Hecate Destroyer, as well as of Gaia the nurturing mother.

I was inside the temple and kneeling at the feet of the Pallathi before I was prepared. I had no prayer ready. I was shaking and in pain and all I could think of was to cry, `I couldn't help it! Mother, have mercy on me!'

I heard nothing from the goddess, but what I saw was the city in flames, beloved Ilium burning. When I tried to speak, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth and I convulsed. I rolled to the feet of the Pallathi and heard Tithone and another woman conversing over my body. I wondered if I was dead.

`So that is what he has done,' said the Mother's priestess. `Petty, cruel and self-involved, that is a male god, except for our Lord Dionysius, of course.'

`Petty and cruel beyond belief, but will she survive it? She has lost her twin and now is likely to lose her reason. I would not have my own dear daughter die on a god's whim.' Tithone spat with fury, like Státhi when someone trod an armoured sandal on his tail.

`We will all die one day,' said the older voice, `but not yet. She is strong, this daughter of Gaia. She will live. Come, we can lift her.'

`I can hear you!' I tried to cry. I heard my own throat issue a croaking noise like a marsh frog.

I was lifted and laid in the sanctuary.

Later that day Perseis came to take me back to the Temple of the Maidens. She was sorry for me, as were my companions. Even Cycne did not comment on the tooth-marks on my throat. They brought me watered wine and talked soothingly of the preparations for Hector's marriage feast, of strange tales and stories brought back by the sea-captains about Achaea and Thrace. Finally I slept.

I was careful of myself for the next seven days, moving as though I was made of terracotta, untrusting of everything, unwilling to speak. I found my voice again with great trepidation.

`They say that the most beautiful woman in the world is now princess of Sparta,' observed Eirene. `Her name is Elene and her father was the Achaean Father God Zeus.'

`Cloud-Compeller, Master of Storms,' I murmured, finding that I could speak the names of gods without my tongue twisting. We were lying in the cool green water. I had anchored myself to the edge by one toe and was floating. My hair spread around me like a nymph's. I could feel the drag as I turned my head. No one commented on the fact that I had spoken at last, but I felt their attention.

`Her mother was Leda, seduced by the god in the shape of a swan,' scoffed Andromache. `Beast gods. I do not like the gods of the Argives.'

`They are powerful, nonetheless. Why shouldn't a god be in the form of an animal? Angry Apollo came to Cassandra as a lion,' said Cycne. `Glug,' she added as Polyxena grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her under.

`Have you seen Andromache's tunic and cloak for the wedding? Purple of the finest spinning and the gown is of Egyptian gauze. And Hector has sent jewels,' said Eirene quickly. `There is no need to drown her, Polyxena. Even barbarians learn tact eventually.'

`Not this barbarian,' said Cycne ruefully, wiping her hair out of her eyes. `Sorry, Cassandra. Tell us about Dion,' she added, compounding her offence. `Does he still please you? I lay with a fisherman once, but he was rough and hasty and I did not go back to him. Besides, I would not risk the docks,' she shuddered. `I will not be a slave again.'

`I have not seen him,' I said carefully, waiting for another attack. `He comes every day to call for me but I have not... I have not dared.'

`We will go to the Temple of Poseidon tomorrow,' announced Perseis. `Come, maidens, we must send our sister Andromache to her husband with splendour. Cycne, are the wedding pots glazed yet?'

`Yes, Lady, with crimson and saffron flowers, they need another coat of glaze and then will be fired again. They are the best things I have ever made,' said Cycne, climbing out of the pool and wringing her hair into a rope.

`Eirene, how goes the spinning?'

`It is finished, and the weavers are working on it now. I think that there will be enough cloth for five chitons. Polyxena has made a fast rose, and a very pretty green,' said Eirene, hugging my little sister. `And Iris had nearly completed the gold brooch, she is looking for the perfect pearl.'

`Good. Cassandra will fill the cosmetic bag when Aia has finished decorating it and Oenone has made rush baskets for the gifts. The wedding is only five days away, daughters of Priam. We must be as industrious as the bees of the Mother. Now, tomorrow we are going, as I said, to Poseidon. You will consider a suitable offering to welcome back our Exiled God. He likes anything blue or green, but if you can't think of anything else a gift of sea shells will do. Cassandra, I believe that you have your perfume to distil.'

`Yes, Lady,' I dragged myself out of the green water. I was feeling better in the undemanding company of my sisters. I had found out my limits. I could not speak a prophecy. I could try, but would spasm and choke and no words could be understood. Apollo my god was revealed as a vicious, jealous child; and I was crippled. More of me had gone; I felt that only a thin slice remained of the happy Cassandra who had been Eleni's twin and Apollo's favourite.

But with that sliver I was still myself. I spent the afternoon distilling the five essences - hawthorn, myrrh, pine, hyacinth and jasmine - into a perfume of great sweetness for my sister Andromache's marriage to my brother Hector.