The Firebrand

  And she suddenly smelled smoke, and the bowl into which she still stared clouded, tilted sidewise, and the water ran out across the floor. The visionary stillness went with it, and Kassandra found that she could move.

  Strange footsteps clattered on the floor; she heard her mother scream, and ran into the corridor. It was empty, except for the shrieking of women. Then she saw two men in armor, with great high-crested helmets. They were tall, taller than her father or the half-grown Hector; great hairy, savage-looking men, both of them with fair hair hanging below their helmets; one of them bore over his shoulder a screaming woman. In shock and horror, Kassandra recognized the woman: her aunt Hesione.

  Kassandra had no idea what was happening or why; she was still halfway within the apartness of her vision. The soldiers ran right past her, brushing so close to her and so swiftly that one all but knocked her off her feet. She started to run after them, with some vague notion that she might somehow help Hesione; but they were already gone, rushing down the palace steps; as if her inner sight followed, she saw Hesione borne, still screaming, down the stairs and through the city. The people melted away before the intruders. It was as if the men’s gaze had the quality of the Gorgon’s head, to turn people to stone—not only must they avoid looking on the Akhaians, but they must not even be looked upon by them.

  There was a dreadful screaming from the lower city, and it seemed that all the women in the palace like a chorus had taken up the shrieks.

  The screaming went on for some time, then died away into a grief-stricken wailing. Kassandra went in search of her mother—suddenly frightened and guilty for not thinking sooner that Hecuba too might have been taken. In the distance she could faintly hear sounds of clashing warfare; she could hear the war-cries of her father’s men, who were fighting the intruders on their way back to the ships. Somehow Kassandra was aware that their fighting was in vain.

  Is what I saw, what I felt, that which will happen to Hesione? That terrible hawk-faced man—will he take her for his captive? Did I see—and worse, did I feel—what will happen to her?

  She did not know whether to hope that she herself need not suffer it, or to be ashamed that she wished it instead upon her beloved young aunt.

  She came into her mother’s room, where Hecuba sat white as death, holding little Troilus on her lap.

  “There you are, naughty girl,” said one of the nurses. “We were afraid that the Akhaian raiders had gotten you too.”

  Kassandra ran to her mother and fell to her knees at her side. “I saw them take Aunt Hesione,” she whispered. “What will happen to her?”

  “They will take her back to their country and hold her there until your father pays ransom for her,” Hecuba said, wiping away her tears.

  There was the loud step at the door that Kassandra always associated with her father, and Priam came into the chamber, girt for battle but with some of his armor’s straps half-fastened as if he had armed himself too quickly.

  Hecuba raised her eyes and saw behind Priam the armed figure of Hector, a slender warrior of nineteen.

  “Is it well with you and the children, my love?” asked the King. “Today your eldest son fought by my side as a true warrior.”

  “And Hesione?” Hecuba asked.

  “Gone. There were too many for us and they had gotten to the ships before we could reach her,” Priam said. “You know perfectly well that they care nothing for the woman; it is only that she is my sister and so they think they can demand concessions and freedom from harbor tolls—that is all.” He set his spear aside with an expression of disgust.

  Hecuba called Hector to her, fussing over him till he moved away and said irritably, “Have done, Mother—I am not a little one still holding your skirts!”

  “Shall I send for wine, my lord?” Hecuba asked, putting down the child and rising dutifully, but Priam shook his head.

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” he said. “I would not have disturbed you, but I thought you would like to know that your son came honorably and unwounded from his first battle.”

  He went out of the room, and Hecuba said between her teeth, “Battle indeed! He cannot wait to get to his newest woman, that is all, and she will give him unmixed wine and he will be ill! And as for Hesione—much he cares for her! As long as they do not disturb his precious shipping, the Akhaians could have us all and welcome!”

  Kassandra knew better than to ask anything further of her mother at that moment; but that night when they gathered in the great dining hall of the palace (for Priam still kept to the old custom in which men and women dined all together, instead of the new fashion whereby women took their meals separately in the women’s quarters—“so that the women need not appear before strange men,” as the Akhaian slaves put it), she waited until Priam was in a good humor, sharing his finest wine with her mother and beckoning to Polyxena, whom he always petted, to come and sit beside him. Then Kassandra stole forward, and Priam indulgently motioned to her.

  “What do you want, Bright Eyes?”

  “Only to ask a question, Father, about something I saw today.”

  “If it is about Aunt Hesione—” he began.

  “No, sir; but do you think the Akhaians will ask ransom for her?”

  “Probably not,” said Priam. “Probably one of them will marry her and try to claim rights in Troy because of it.”

  “How dreadful for her!” Kassandra whispered.

  “Not so bad, after all; she will have a good husband among the Akhaians, and it will perhaps for this year stave off war about trading rights,” Priam said. “In the old days, many marriages were made like that.”

  “How horrible!” Polyxena said timidly. “I would not want to go so far from home to marry. And I would rather have a proper wedding, not be carried off like that!”

  “Well, I am sure we can arrange that sooner or later,” said Priam indulgently. “There is your mother’s kinsman young Akhilles—he shows signs, they say, of being a mighty warrior. . . .”

  Hecuba shook her head. She said, “Akhilles has been promised to his cousin Deidameia, daughter of Lykomedes; and I would as soon my daughter never came into that kindred.”

  “All the same, if he is to win fame and glory . . . I have heard that the boy is already a great hunter of lions and boars,” countered Priam. “I would gladly have him for a son-in-law.” He sighed. “Well, there is time enough later to think of husbands and weddings for the girls. What did you see today, little Kassandra, that you wanted to ask me?”

  Even as the words crossed her lips, Kassandra felt she should perhaps keep silent; that what she had seen in the scrying-bowl should not be spoken; but her confusion and her hunger for knowledge were so great she could not stop herself. The words rushed out: “Father, tell me, who is the boy I saw today with a face so exactly like my own?”

  Priam glared at her so that she quivered with terror. He stared over her head at Hecuba and said in a terrible voice, “Where have you been taking her?”

  Hecuba looked blankly at Priam and said, “I have taken her nowhere. I do not have the faintest idea what she is talking about.”

  “Come here, Kassandra,” said Priam, frowning ominously and pushing Polyxena away from his knee. “Tell me more about this; where did you see the boy? Was he in the city?”

  “No, Father, I have only seen him in the scrying-bowl. He watches the sheep on Mount Ida, and he looks exactly like me.”

  She was frightened at the abrupt change in her father’s face. He roared, “And what were you doing with a scrying-bowl, you little wretch?”

  He turned on Hecuba with a gesture of rage, and for a moment, Kassandra thought he would strike the Queen.

  “You, Lady, this is your doing—I leave the rearing of the girls to you, and here is one of my daughters meddling with scrying and sorceries, oracles and the like—”

  “But who is he?” Kassandra demanded. Her need for an answer was greater than her fear. “And why does he look so much like me?”

  In
return, her father roared wordlessly, and struck her across the face with such force that she lost her balance and skidded down the steps near his throne, falling and striking her head.

  Her mother shouted with indignation, hurrying to raise her. “What have you done to my daughter, you great brute?”

  Priam glared at his wife and rose angrily to his feet. He raised his hand to strike her, and Kassandra cried out through her sobs, “No! Don’t hit Mother; she didn’t do anything!” At the edge of her vision she saw Polyxena looking at them wide-eyed but too frightened to speak, and thought with more contempt than anger, She would stand by and let the King beat our mother? She cried out, “It was not Mother’s fault, she did not even know! It was the God who said I might—He said when I was grown up I was to be His priestess, and it was He who showed me how to use the scrying-bowl—”

  “Be silent!” Priam commanded, and glared over her head at Hecuba. She could not imagine why he was so angry.

  “I’ll have no sorceries in my palace, Lady—do you hear me?” Priam said. “Send her to be fostered before she spreads this nonsense to the other girls, the proper maidenly ones . . .” He looked around, and his frown softened as his eyes rested on the simpering Polyxena. Then he glared at Kassandra again where she still crouched, holding her bleeding head. Now she knew there was really some secret about the boy whose face she had seen.

  He would not talk about Hesione. He does not care. It is enough for him that she will be married to one of those invaders who carried her off. The thought, coupled with the fear and the shame of the vision—if that was what it had been—made her feel a sudden dread. Father will not tell me. Well, then, I shall ask the Lord Apollo.

  He knows even more than Father. And He told me I was to be His own; if it were I and not Hesione, He would not have let me be carried away by that man. It is enough for Father that she will be married; if that man carried me off, would he let me go to a marriage like that? Her vision of the man with the eagle face was never to leave her. But to block it out, she closed her eyes and tried to summon up again the golden voice of the Sun Lord, saying, You are Mine.

  5

  KASSANDRA’S BRUISES were still yellow and green, the moon faded to a narrow morning crescent. She stood beside her mother, who was laying a few of her tunics in a leather bag, with her new sandals and a warm winter cloak.

  “But it is not winter yet,” she protested.

  “It is colder on the plains,” Hecuba told her. “Believe me, you will need it for riding, my love.”

  Kassandra leaned against her mother and said, almost in tears, “I don’t want to go away from you.”

  “And I will miss you, too, but I think you will be happy,” Hecuba said. “I wish I were going with you.”

  “Then why don’t you come, Mother?”

  “Your father needs me.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Kassandra protested. “He has his other women; he could manage without you.”

  “I am sure he would,” Hecuba said, grimacing a little. “But I do not want to leave him to them; they are not as careful of his health and his honor as I am. Also, there is your baby brother, and he needs me.”

  This made no sense to Kassandra; Troilus had been sent to the men’s quarters at the New Year. But if her mother did not wish to go, there was nothing she could say. Kassandra hoped she would never have children, if having them meant never doing what you wished.

  Hecuba raised her head, hearing sounds down in the courtyard. “I think they are coming,” she said, and took Kassandra’s hand in hers. Together they hurried down the long flight of stairs.

  Many of the housefolk were gathered, staring at the women who had ridden their horses, white and bay and black, right into the court. Their leader, a tall woman with a dark, freckled face, vaulted down from the back of her horse and ran to catch Hecuba in her arms.

  “Sister! What joy to see you,” she cried. Hecuba held her, and Kassandra marveled to see her staid mother laughing and crying at once. After a moment the tall stranger let her go and said, “You have grown fat and soft with indoor living; and your skin is so white and pale, you might be a ghost!”

  “Is that so bad?” Hecuba asked.

  The woman scowled at her and asked, “And these are your daughters? Are they house-mice too?”

  “That you will have to decide for yourself,” Hecuba said, beckoning the girls forward. “This is Polyxena. She is already sixteen.”

  “She looks too frail for an outdoor life such as ours, Hecuba. I think perhaps you have kept her indoors too long; but we will do what we can with her, and return her to you healthy and strong.”

  Polyxena shrank away behind her mother, and the tall Amazon laughed.

  “No?”

  “No; you are to have the little one, Kassandra,” said Hecuba.

  “The little one? How old is she?”

  “Twelve years,” Hecuba answered. “Kassandra, child, come and greet your kinswoman Penthesilea, the chief of our tribe.”

  Kassandra looked attentively at the older woman. She was taller by several finger-breadths than Hecuba, who was herself tall for a woman. She wore a pointed leather cap, under which Kassandra could see tucked-up coils of faded ginger-colored hair, and a short tight tunic; her legs were long and lean in leather breeches which came below the knee. Her face was thin and lined, her complexion not only burned dark by the sun, but spotted with thousands of brown freckles. She looked, Kassandra thought, more like a warrior than a woman; but her face was enough like Hecuba’s own that Kassandra had no doubt that this was her kinswoman. She smiled at Kassandra good-naturedly.

  “Do you think you will like to come with us, then? You are not frightened? I think your sister is afraid of our horses,” she added.

  “Polyxena is afraid of everything,” Kassandra said. “She wants to be what my father calls a proper good girl.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Not if it means staying in the house all the time,” said Kassandra, and saw Penthesilea smile. “What is your horse’s name? Will he bite?”

  “She is called Racer, and she has never bitten me yet,” said Penthesilea. “You may make friends with her if you are able.”

  Kassandra went boldly forward and held out her hand as she had been taught to do with a strange dog so that it could smell her scent. The horse butted its great head down and snorted, and Kassandra stroked the silky nose and looked into the great loving eyes. She felt, returning that wide-eyed gaze, that she had already found a friend among these strangers.

  Penthesilea said, “Well, are you ready to come with us, then?”

  “Oh, yes!” Kassandra breathed fervently. Penthesilea’s thin stern face looked friendlier when she smiled.

  “Do you think you can learn to ride?”

  Friendly or not, the horse looked very large, and very high off the ground; but Kassandra said valiantly, “If you could learn and my mother could learn, I suppose there is no reason I cannot.”

  “Won’t you come up to the women’s quarters and share some refreshment before you must go?” asked Hecuba.

  “Why, yes, if you will have someone look after our horses,” Penthesilea said. Hecuba summoned one of the servants and gave orders to take Penthesilea’s horse and those of her two companions to the stables. The two women with her, dressed as she was dressed, the Amazon leader introduced as Charis and Melissa. Charis was thin and pale, almost as freckled as the Queen, but her hair was the color of brass; Melissa had brown curly hair and was plump and pink-cheeked. They were, Kassandra decided, fifteen or sixteen. She wondered if they were Penthesilea’s daughters but was too shy to ask.

  Climbing to the women’s quarters, Kassandra wondered why she had never noticed before how dark it was inside. Hecuba had called the waiting-women to bring wine and sweets, and while the guests nibbled at them, Penthesilea called Kassandra to her and said, “If you are to ride with us, you must be properly dressed, my dear. We brought a pair of breeches for you. Charis will help you to
put them on. And you should have a warm cloak for riding; when the sun is down it grows cold quickly.”

  “Mother made me a warm cloak,” Kassandra said, and went with Charis into her room to fetch the bag of her possessions. The leather breeches were a little big for her—Kassandra wondered who had worn them before this, for they were shiny in the seat with hard wear. But they were astonishingly comfortable once she had grown used to their stiffness against her legs. She thought that now she could run like the wind without tripping over her skirts. She was threading the leather belt through the loops when she heard her father’s step and his boisterous voice.

  “Well, Kinswoman, have you come to lead my armies to Mykenae to recover Hesione? And such splendid horses—I saw them in the stable. Like the immortal horses of Poseidon’s own herd! Where did you find them?”

  “We traded for them with Idomeneus, the King of Crete,” said Penthesilea. “We had not heard about Hesione; what happened?”

  “Agamemnon’s men from Mykenae, or so we thought,” Priam said.“Akhaians anyhow, raiders. Rumor says Agamemnon is a vicious and cruel King. Even his own men love him not; but they fear him.”

  “He is a powerful fighter,” said Penthesilea. “I hope to meet him one day in battle. If you yourself will not lead your armies to Mykenae to recover Hesione, wait only until I summon my women. You will have to give us ships, but I could have Hesione back to you by the next new moon.”

  “If it were feasible to go against the Akhaians now, I would need no woman to lead my army,” Priam said, scowling. “I would rather wait and see what demands he makes of me.”

  “And what of Hesione, in Agamemnon’s hands?” asked Penthesilea. “Are you going to abandon her? You know what will happen to her among the Akhaians!”

  “One way or another, I would have had to find her a husband,” said Priam. “This at least saves me a dowry, since if it is Agamemnon who has taken her, he cannot have the insolence to ask a dowry for a prize of war.”