The Firebrand (37 page)

“I thank you; it is very beautiful, but I would not be allowed to wear it. Should you not bestow it directly as a gift to the Sun Lord?”

Odysseus took back the necklace, frowning.

“It suits you so well; and the Sun Lord, though I have no quarrel with Him”—he made a pious gesture—“has no need of such gifts as I can give.” He looked round the room, and his eyes fell on Helen, sitting modestly in Paris’ shadow.

Helen said in her gentle voice, “Dear old friend, I will keep the necklace for Kassandra, and she shall have it back whenever she wants to ask for it.” She was quite obviously pregnant by now, but Kassandra saw with a sigh that it seemed to make her even more beautiful. Andromache had been strong and healthy throughout, but she had looked pale and bloated, while Creusa had been sick all during her pregnancy, unable to hold down any food, and so wasted that she looked like a rat dragging about a stolen melon. Helen looked, Kassandra thought, just like one of the carven pregnant Goddesses she had seen in Colchis; or like Aphrodite if the Goddess of Love would allow Herself to be seen pregnant.

Helen took the necklace from Odysseus’ hands. She said gently, almost affectionately, to Kassandra, “Who knows, my sister? You may not always be in the Sun Lord’s service. I give you my word, this necklace is yours anytime you ask for it.”

Against her will, Kassandra was warmed by the glow of Helen’s presence. She said, more affectionately than she intended, “Thank you, my sister,” and Helen pressed her hand and smiled at her.

Priam interrupted testily, “It is all very well to stand here as my guest and bestow trinkets on the girls, Odysseus, but tell me, did I not see your ship among the raiders’, and were you not among the enemy at the walls? I thought you had promised to me that you would not be drawn into war against me with those Akhaians.”

“That is true, my old friend,” said Odysseus, grinning and draining the wine from his cup at one draft. Polyxena came to refill the cup, and he smiled up at her—almost a leer—and patted her rounded buttocks. “Would that I were still unwedded, pretty thing; if your father could have given you to me—even if I am old enough to be your grandsire, and I am not given to seeking brides in their cradles—then Agamemnon could not have tricked me into coming against old acquaintances this way.”

Priam looked politely skeptical. “I confess, my friend, I do not understand.”

“Well,” said Odysseus, and Kassandra reflected that Odysseus would certainly make a good story of it, truth or falsehood. “You do remember that I stood with the suitors for Helen when she wedded Menelaus. Helen, I think, has forgiven me that
I
was not one of her suitors—I wanted only to marry Penelope, daughter of Ikarios.”

Helen smiled. “May the Gods of Truth forgive you as firmly as I have done, my friend. I only hoped I might gain a husband as faithful to me as you to your Penelope.”

Odysseus continued, “And when all the suitors were fighting, it was I who created the compromise that broke the deadlock: that Helen choose for herself and that all of us take an oath to defend her chosen husband against all contenders. So when this war broke out, there was I, caught in my own trap; Agamemnon sent for me to come fulfill the oath I had taken to Menelaus.”

Priam scowled, though Kassandra could tell that her father was not really angry; he wanted the rest of the story. “And what of your oath to be my guest and friend?”

“I did my best to honor it, Priam, I vow to you,” said the old seaman. “I have seen enough of the world; I wanted to stay home and look after my own acres. So I had Penelope send a message that I was sick and could not come; that my wits were astray, that I was a poor madman. And when Agamemnon came, I put on my plowman’s old hat, and yoked my horse and my ox together, and started to plow a field of thistle. And do you know what that”—he hesitated; “well, there are ladies present—that
Agamemnon
did?” He gave the name the force of an obscenity, and looked round to survey the effect of his story on his rapt audience. “He picked up my little son, Telemakhos—he was just toddling; about the size of your Astyanax, Hector—and he set him down in the field right in front of where I was plowing. So what was I supposed to do—plow right over the child? I swerved the team, and Agamemnon laughed to split his sides and said, ‘Come on, old fox; you’re no madder than I am!’ and demanded I honor my oath to defend Menelaus. So I came; but believe me, it was I who sent them home to do their spring planting. They’ll be back after that; I came to warn you all.”

Priam had laughed as hard as anyone; then he sobered and said, “I can see how you could do no other than you have done, Odysseus. For all that, you are still my friend.”

“I am,” Odysseus said, and helped himself to fish and bread.

“And may you always be so,” Priam replied, “as I am yours.”

Kassandra narrowed her eyes, looking at Odysseus as if seeking the Sight. Try as she might, she saw only a harmless old man, genuinely torn between old friends and unwelcome neighbors with whom he must, for the safety of his own family, keep the peace. Yes, he would be their friend—as long as it was to his advantage to do so. Unless there was a good joke or a good story to be made out of his own cleverness or even treachery. No friendship would stand against that; not for Odysseus.

She quickly finished her own meal and, rising, asked her father for permission to withdraw. He gave it absentmindedly; she kissed her mother and Andromache, lifted little Astyanax in her arms and kissed him too, though he squirmed and insisted he was too big to be kissed, and left the hall.

After a minute she realized that someone had followed her. Thinking it was one of her sisters with a question to be asked of a priestess which was too private to ask before men, she stopped to wait. Then strong male arms went round her; and for a moment she rested in Aeneas’ arms, before, regretfully, she drew away from him.

“Aeneas, no; you are my sister’s husband.”

“Creusa would not mind,” Aeneas said in a whisper. “Since our child was born, she cringes whenever I come to her bed. She has no desire for me, I swear it. She would rejoice if I found love elsewhere.”

“You will not find it with me,” Kassandra said, sadly. “I too am sworn, my brother; sworn to the Sun Lord, and it would be a braver man than you who would contend with Him for a woman.”

Aeneas said, “I will strive with Him if you want me to, Kassandra. For you I would dare even His wrath.”

“Oh, hush,” she said, holding her fingers over his mouth. “You did not say that. I did not hear it. But this much I will say, my dear,” she went on, the endearment slipping from her lips almost without volition: “if we were both free, I would willingly have you, as husband or as lover—whatever you would. But I have seen the wrath of Apollo Sun Lord, and I would not knowingly dare it for any man; certainly not for you, whom I could well have loved.”

“The Gods forbid,” said Aeneas piously, “that I should contend against a God, unless you should demand it of me. If you are content to be the Sun Lord’s bride and no other’s . . .” He stepped back. “Be it as you will. Yet I swear by Apollo Himself”—and he raised her slender hand respectfully to his lips—“I shall be forever your faithful friend and your brother, and should you ever desire my help, I swear you shall have it, against any man—or any God.”

She said, shaken, “I thank you for that; and I shall ever be your friend and your sister, whatever happens.”

He held her gently by the shoulders. “Kassandra, my dear, you do not look happy. Are you truly content in Apollo’s Temple?”

“If I were,” she said in a whisper, “I would have run away from you before it ever came to this.”

She drew away from him and went quietly out of the palace, her heart still beating so loudly she felt that Aeneas must have heard it. As she climbed the long hill toward the Sun Lord’s house, she felt tears unshed pressing at her eyes.

I do not want to be false to my vows. I am sworn to Apollo
,
and it is He who has forsaken me; I would never betray Him with any mortal man, yet that blasphemous priest has had me disgraced in the Temple. For his sake I am defiled in their eyes when I am innocent of all wrongdoing.

Would the Goddess she had served during her time with the Amazons have taken the part of a man against Her sworn priestess? Was it only that a God, when a man and a woman contended, could not take a woman’s part, whatever the rights of the matter? She was the property of the God, just as if she had married a mortal man.

Yet Khryse and I both belong to Apollo
,
and so we should have been equal in His sight.

She came through the great bronze doors, and the night watchman bent to her in reverence.

“You are abroad late, Princess.”

“I have been at the palace with my father and mother,” she said. “A good night to you.”

“Good night, Lady,” he said, and she went toward the rooms at the back where the women slept. She slipped out of her sandals and gown, and laid herself down to sleep.

Her eyes were still aching, and as she relaxed her muscles, she felt tears stealing unbidden down her face. The memory of Aeneas’ embrace returned, and for a moment she played in her mind with the memory. If she would, she could take him from her half sister, and Creusa would not even be angry with her; she would be pleased to be free of her wifely obligations to him. . . .

Who would be harmed if she should yield to Aeneas? Should she truly forget her vows, since she had had no good from them? Or was it that foreign Goddess of lawless love sending to tempt her? Then before her eyes the face of Aeneas was lost in the blazing memory of the Sun Lord’s face, the soft, unforgettable music of His voice as He said,
Kassandra . . .

As she drifted into sleep she wondered: how could any woman choose a mere man above a God? Perhaps it was better to be forgotten or ignored by the Sun Lord than to be loved or cherished by any living man.

IT BEGAN to be rumored in the city that the Akhaians had given up and would not return. Kassandra knew better than that, for there were still times when she would look down from the high house of the Sun Lord, and see, for a moment, the city swallowed in flames. From this she knew that the gift of prophecy had not deserted her.

It was of no use to her or to anyone; when she spoke of it, no one would listen.
Nevertheless, O Lord Apollo, whatever may have been taken from me, a day will come when they will remember what I said and know I did not lie.

She wondered at times,
This is only a curse, since no one believes what I say; why must I suffer in knowing and being unable to speak?
Yet when she would have prayed that the Sight might be withdrawn, she thought,
Oh, no! How much worse to walk blind and unknowing into whatever the Fates have decreed.

Yet if this was the fate of all men, how, then, did they manage to endure it?

Day after day the seas were free of warships or of raiders. Other ships came, bound northward to Colchis and the country of the North Wind, paying their tribute to Troy, and from Colchis Queen Imandra sent gifts and greetings to her daughter, and to Kassandra too.

One morning Kassandra found her snake lying dead in its pot; and this she took for the worst of omens. She had had but little time to spare for the creature lately, and blamed herself for not having seen that it was ailing. She asked leave to bury it on the Temple grounds. When this was done, Charis sent for her and set her in charge of all the serpents in Apollo’s Temple.

“But why?” Kassandra asked. “I am not worthy; I tended mine so ill that it sickened and died.”

“Why do we give you this task? Because you are not happy, Kassandra; do you think us blind? You are dear to me—dear to us all”; and as Kassandra made a gesture of protest, she said, “No, this is true; do you think us unaware of what Khryse has done to you? If we were free to turn him from the door, believe me, there are many who would do so. And now we have an excuse to give you a duty where you need not encounter him on every day and at every hour.”

She still did not understand: why were they not free to turn him away from the Temple? He had attempted to rape a virgin of the God. It was a riddle she could not read; nor did Charis give any explanation, saying no more; evidently they were not even free to explain why Khryse had this hold over them.

There was a very old priestess in the Temple who had all kinds of serpent-lore; older than Hecuba—at least as much older than Queen Hecuba as Hecuba was older than her daughter. Kassandra, eager to avoid for the other serpents in the Temple the fate that had befallen her own snake, took to spending many hours with the old woman. Her hair was white and mostly fallen out, and her eyes sunken into her head. She suffered from a palsy of age, her hands shaking so that she could not grasp her own feeding-spoon; it was this ailment which had decreed that she had to be relieved of the care of the serpents.

Kassandra spent all her hours with the old woman, lifting her and feeding her, and when the priestess was strong enough to talk to her, learning all about every kind of snake and serpent, including many kinds no longer kept in the Temple. Sometimes Kassandra thought she would like to make a long journey simply to secure some of these stranger creatures for the house of Apollo: the ones who dwelt in the deserts far to the south, or one of the kind called Python, larger around than a child, and able to swallow a kid at a meal, or even a whole sheep. Kassandra was not entirely sure she believed in such a creature, but she liked hearing such tales, and would sit and listen all day to the old woman.

After the serpents had been fed there was little to do, except for seeing to old Meliantha’s needs, and Kassandra would listen and daydream, thinking of her meeting with the Goddess as Serpent Mother in the Underworld and wondering how the story had arisen of Apollo Sun Lord slaying the Python.