“Perhaps we work hardest of all,” Kassandra said. “My mother has borne and suckled seventeen children.”
Helen shivered. “I am already three-and-twenty, and I have only Hermione and Nikos; I am fortunate,” she said—and then a surprised look passed over her face and she grimaced and was silent for a moment.
“That was a fierce one,” she said. “I think it will not be very long now.” She looked around the chamber.
Kassandra asked, “Can I fetch you something?”
Helen shook her head, but she looked sad. She is alone here, thought Kassandra. Among so many women, she has no real friend from her own country.
“Where is your lady Aithra?”
“She has returned to Crete; I would not be the cause of her exile too,” Helen said, and reached out her hand to Kassandra; Kassandra held it tightly.
Helen said, almost in a whisper, “Stay with me, Sister? I do not know these women—and there is none of them I trust.”
Creusa, with her free hand, pulled a stool toward them. Kassandra dropped onto it, disposing her cumbersome robes around her. She noticed that the other woman looked pale now, and drawn. Not now possessed by her Goddess, she was, Kassandra noted with detachment, quite a small woman, whose pale hair was her chief beauty; even now, it fell into smooth dazzling bands on either side of her sweat-stained face. Her eyes looked tired and a little red. Kassandra sat on the stool beside the bed letting Helen grip her hand. Creusa played softly, and music seemed to be helping—or perhaps Helen would have had an easy time of it in any case. Kassandra was curious, but did not feel comfortable asking questions; this experience was still something which seemed to have nothing to do with her.
As the afternoon sun strengthened in the room, Hecuba sent everyone away except the two senior midwives, a servant for running errands and a priestess bearing many amulets, which she came and distributed around the bed. She would have sent away Kassandra too.
“You are a maiden, Kassandra; a birth-chamber is no place for you.”
But Helen clung to her hand.
“She is my friend, Mother. And she is not only a maiden, she is a priestess. No chamber of women is forbidden to a priestess of the Mother.”
“Have you brought holy serpents?” Hecuba asked.
“No; the Temple serpents all died in the earthquake,” Kassandra said.
The priestess, tucking an amulet under Helen’s breasts with a muttered spell, raised her head to say, “Speak not of evil omens here.”
“I cannot see why the deaths of serpents in the Temple of Apollo should be an omen, good or evil, for my baby,” Helen said. “Apollo is not my God, and I have no dealings with Him for good or ill. As for Serpent Mother, She is no Goddess of mine.”
The priestess caught Kassandra’s eye and made a sign against evil fortune. Kassandra agreed with Helen; she was accustomed to the practice which made almost any random occurrence an omen for good or bad, but she still felt it nonsensical.
The priestess went to boil a pot of water over the brazier, and the room was filled with the steamy smell of the healing herbs she cast into it. Shortly before sunset Helen gave birth to a small and wrinkled son, to whom she gave the name Bynomos.
Hecuba looked at the little wriggling form with a slight frown.
“How long have you been among us, Helen? He is small . . . Never have I seen a full-term babe so small. He weighs no more than a chicken trussed for the spit.”
“Nor did I,” said Kassandra, “as you have told me often enough. It’s likely that with all the trouble and excitement—the disruption at the festival, the earthquake—no doubt this little one comes hither some days or weeks before his time. Does it matter, if he is strong and healthy?”
Helen made a face and whispered, “She simply wishes to be certain it is her own son’s son. Wanton I may be, but not so much as that; I knew I bore Paris’ son before we fled from Agamemnon’s house. But I do not know how to tell her what she really wants to know without shocking her further.”
Kassandra giggled, but she did not know what to say either.
Creusa came to take her turn at holding the baby. She said tactfully, “I think he will have his father’s eyes; babies who will be dark-haired have eyes of a smokier blue than those who will be fair.”
Kassandra was startled; she had not expected such support from her half sister. As a child Creusa had always had a talent for making a bad situation worse, as well as a tendency to throw fits of hysteria if she felt herself ignored. Perhaps marriage to Aeneas was giving her more maturity than anyone had expected.
There was a step at the door, and Kassandra, recognizing it, went to let Paris in, saying, “Brother, you have another son.”
“I have a son,” Paris corrected; “and if you prophesy anything of evil about him, Kassandra, I shall rearrange the bones of your face so that people flee from you as from the Medusa.”
“Don’t you dare to make threats to her,” cried Helen. “Your sister is my friend.”
Kassandra took the child in her arms and kissed him. She said, “I have no prophecy given me for this child. He is strong and well, and what fate will be his in manhood is not mine to say.”
She laid the child in Paris’ arms; he bent over Helen, and Kassandra drew her veil over her face.
“Are you going away, Sister?” Helen asked. “I had hoped you would stay and eat the evening meal with us, since Paris will not remain in the women’s quarters.”
“No, I must go down to the market,” Kassandra said. “Did you not hear? We lost all our serpents in the earthquake. Those who did not die forsook us, and have gone deep into the ground and will not return. Apollo’s Temple cannot be without serpents; I must replace them.”
“What a curious omen!” Creusa said. “What do you think it could mean?”
Reluctantly—she did not want to frighten them, nor anger Paris or her mother by repeating what they were so unwilling to hear—Kassandra said, “I think the Gods are angry with the city. This is not the first evil omen we have had.”
Paris laughed. “It takes no evil omen to make snakes take to the deeps in an earthquake—it is simply the way of the serpent-kind. I have seen enough of them in the mountains. But I am sorry for the loss of your pets.” He patted Kassandra lightly on the arm. “Go you to the market, Sister, and choose carefully—perhaps your new snakes will prove more faithful.”
“May the Gods grant it,” Kassandra said fervently, quickly leaving the room.
She decided to stop briefly and see Andromache before leaving the palace.
“Kassandra!” Andromache greeted her with delight. “I knew not that you were here. Were you summoned for the birth?”
“Yes,” Kassandra replied, embracing her friend. “Helen has a son, and both are well.”
“I heard the child was a boy,” Andromache said. “Nurse told me when she came to get the children. But”—she grinned wickedly—“‘Helen’ has a son—not Paris? For shame, Kassandra, to even imply such a thing!”
“For shame, Andromache, to put such a meaning into my words!” Kassandra retorted. “Who was your father? You know full well that I lived among the Amazons long enough to think of a child as its mother’s—particularly when I have just seen him born. Now, if Paris had been lying there in labor . . .”
The two women clung together laughing. “That I would like to see,” said Andromache; “and would he not deserve it well!”
Kassandra sobered abruptly, shivering. Before her she saw an image of Paris, lying convulsed with pain, on the pallet in the hut he had shared with Oenone. Oenone bent over him, wiping his sweating forehead with a cloth, and a golden breastplate lay on the floor beside them.
“Kassandra!” Hands grabbed her shoulders, guided her to a stool, and forced her head between her knees. “I am a fool to keep you standing here when you’ve doubtless not eaten since daybreak! Keep your head down until the faintness passes, and I’ll get you some food.” Andromache went to the door and called to a ser
ving-woman, then poured out a goblet of the wine that stood on a table at the far side of the room.
“Drink this,” she ordered, “and eat at least a piece of the dried fruit.” She extended a plate, and Kassandra took a bunch of raisins, put one in her mouth, and forced her jaws to start chewing on it. “For once, the children didn’t eat everything in sight.”
“Sight.” Kassandra sighed. “I wish I didn’t have it.”
“They’re bringing up bread and meat from the kitchens,” Andromache said. “That will help dispel it. My mother always used to eat hot red meat and all the bread she could hold after a major scrying. And surely priestesses wouldn’t fast before ritual work if it didn’t help the Sight.”
“No doubt,” Kassandra agreed. “And in its own way, childbirth is a ritual.”
“Very true,” Andromache said feelingly. “Did Helen have a hard time of it?”
Kassandra shook her head.
“It would be that way for her.” Andromache made a face. “Oh, well, I suppose that if Aphrodite is going to lead her to take lovers, the least She can do is give her the art of bearing children easily. And speaking of children . . . did I see Oenone and her son at the spring planting?”
“You did, and so did I,” Kassandra replied. “She came to catch a glimpse of Paris. I fear she still loves him.”
“Much good may it do her,” Andromache said.
A servant entered with food from the kitchen. When she withdrew, Kassandra continued, “Oenone was my friend. I feel guilty that I cannot help loving Helen. And now Paris forgets even that he has a son by Oenone.”
“I think everyone loves Helen,” Andromache said. “Priam himself is never gruff with her, and he is well versed in the wiles of women and not easily charmed. As for Paris—well, what could you expect? If you had the Goddess of Love for your bed, would you turn away to a river priestess—and how would the Goddess deal with you if you did?”
Kassandra shivered. “I do not like this Akhaian Goddess,” she said. “May She never lay Her hands on me.”
Andromache looked very serious. “I would not wish for that,” she said. “I would be sorry to think you should never know what it is to love.”
“What makes you think that I do not?” Kassandra asked curiously. “I love my brothers and my mother, my serpents, my God . . .”
Andromache smiled a little sadly.
“I am fortunate,” she said; “my love is for the man I was given for my husband, and I cannot imagine loving another. From what little talk I have had with Helen, I understand it was so with her until the Goddess laid Her hand on her; and then she could think only of Paris.”
“Surely, then, such love is a curse and not a gift,” Kassandra said, “and I pray it may never befall me.”
Andromache embraced her gently and said, “Have a care what prayers you make, Kassandra. I wished to travel forth from Colchis, and to have a husband of great honor and renown. And that prayer brought me here away from my mother and my Gods, to a city at the far corner of the earth, in these dark times.” She caught up a little of the salt that lay at hand on the tray with the meat and cast it into the air with a whispered word Kassandra could not hear. Kassandra, cutting herself a small slice of the roasted meat and laying it on a piece of bread, raised her eyebrows in question.
“I prayed for you,” Andromache said, “that your prayers might be answered only in the way you would have it.”
Kassandra embraced her friend and said impulsively, “I do not know if the Gods ever honor such requests—but I am grateful to you.”
When she had finished her evening meal with Andromache, and helped her put Astyanax to bed, she left the palace. She was strolling through the darkened stalls of the evening market when she remembered that she had intended to ask Andromache what it might mean when serpents deserted a Temple. Then she recalled that Andromache would have nothing to do with serpents.
She resolved to ask all the priestesses she could find if they knew of a lore-mistress or master, a priest or priestess of Serpent Mother or of the Python, before she bought a single snake for the house of the Sun Lord. Somewhere in this great city of Troy there must be someone versed in such wisdom.
11
SINCE THE RAID at spring planting, Khryse had fallen into a deep depression; he neglected his assigned duties in the Temple, spending much of his time standing near the high rampart which looked down on the Akhaian camp below.
“Please go and tell him to come down,” Charis said to Kassandra. “He likes you; perhaps you can persuade him that life is not over.”
“It is not liking he has for me,” Kassandra remonstrated; but she did feel compassion for the troubled man, and later that day she joined Khryse on the high place.
“The evening meal is prepared,” she said, “and they await you.”
“Thank you, Kassandra, but I am not hungry,” he said. He had not bathed or shaved since the raid; he looked unkempt and dirty, and smelled of strange herbs. “How can I eat and sleep in comfort when my child has been taken? I cannot bear to think of my poor little girl down among those savage soldiers.”
“You cannot improve her lot by fasting and neglecting your person,” Kassandra pointed out fastidiously. “Or is it that you think that seeing you in this condition will soften the hearts of the Akhaians?”
“No, but it might soften the heart of some God,” he said, surprising her with the sincerity in his voice.
“Do you really believe that?”
“Perhaps not,” he said, sighing so heavily that the sound seemed ripped from the very depths of his body. “But I have no heart for food or rest when she is there. . . .”
“She has certainly not been given to the soldiers,” Kassandra said; “she will be a cherished prize for one of the leaders, perhaps even for Agamemnon himself.”
“Do you think that is any comfort to me?” He sounded despairing; Kassandra would have tried to speak comfort, but a surge of darkness rippled before her eyes and for a moment she did not know where she was or what she had been saying.
“Why did I guard her maidenhood so carefully all those years only to bring her here? I might as well have sold her to a brothel-keeper!”
Now Kassandra was angry.
“No; you sold her to Apollo Sun Lord, in return for a life of comfort for yourself. As for the girl, if maidenhood dwells not in the soul, it is useless to guard the body. If you wish for Apollo’s protection, or for revenge, I cannot advise you. I can say only that He is unlikely to intervene when you have made yourself worthless to us all. If you want His help—or His mercy—you must first serve Him well; you cannot bargain with a God.”
She stared over the rampart at the thick sea-fog obscuring the Akhaian ships below. It had come to where she hated to look on the sea because of that dark fringe of ships against the ocean’s edge. Khryse turned on her with such fury that for a moment she thought he would strike her; then he restrained himself, visibly sinking back into his apathy.
“You are right,” he said slowly. “I will go to the evening meal—but first I will go and bathe and restore myself to the proper appearance for a priest of the Sun Lord.”
She said softly, “This is wise, my brother,” and saw something kindled in his eyes that she would rather not have seen; cursing herself for her momentary impulse of sympathy, she went on her way.
EARLY THE NEXT morning there was a sound at her door, and when she went to answer it, she found one of the youngest priests, who were used as messengers within the Sun Lord’s house.
“You are the daughter of Priam?” he asked respectfully. “You are wanted at once in the room at the gatehouse; a man there says he is your uncle and must have speech with you at once.”
Kassandra wrapped herself in her cloak, wondering what—or who—it could possibly be. She did not know any of her father’s brothers, and certainly Hecuba had none. Too late, she began to wonder if it was a trick of some sort, and when, within the room, she had a glimpse of three men in Argive
cloaks, she started back, ready to call out for help.
“It is I, Kassandra,” said a familiar voice, and the man pulled back the hood concealing his face.
“Odysseus!” she exclaimed.
“Not so loud, my girl; you will get us all killed!” he implored. “I must see your father—and as things are now, I could not land among these Akhaians and walk through them up toward the gates of Troy for a parley; they’d have lynched me. My ship lies hidden in a cove I discovered when I was among pirates; I stole in last night under cover of the fog, and I must speak with Priam and see if there is still any honorable way to avert this war. I thought perhaps here, in this Temple, some way could be contrived.”
“But you cannot just go out at the front gate and down to the palace either,” she said. “I am sure there are Akhaian eyes and ears in the market, and even here in the Sun Lord’s House: pilgrims; spies in the guise of petitioners. You would be recognized at once. Let me see first if I can contrive something. For you, I am sure, my father will waive the vow he has sworn to make no civil parley with any Argive. But who are your companions?”
“Take off your cloak, Akhilles,” Odysseus said, and the young man at his side put back his hood. He was not particularly tall, but had the heavily muscled shoulders of a wrestler. His hair was still worn long about his shoulders—he was not yet old enough to be shorn in manhood’s rites; the hair was cloudy fair, almost silvery. The face had strongly marked features: fierce—but it was the eyes to which Kassandra returned, the steely eyes of a bird of prey.
He said to Odysseus, “You promised to take me to this war, with my soldiers; you promised, and now you talk of avoiding it—as if there were anything honorable about the avoiding of war. That is girl’s talk, not man’s talk, and I have already heard too much of that!”
“Be quiet, Akhilles,” said the other young man, who was taller, and slightly built, with the long, smooth muscles of a runner or a gymnast. He was a few years older than Akhilles, about twenty. “There is more to war than honor or glory; and certainly whatever Odysseus can do is guided by the Gods. If you want war, there has never been any shortage of it in any man’s life. We don’t need to speed to destruction—but isn’t it just like you, to rush into war for the fun of it!” He smiled at Kassandra and said, “That’s how this wily old pirate”—he turned his eyes affectionately toward Odysseus—“got him to come here in the first place.”