The Firebrand (83 page)

But she only smiled at him; she had learned that if she smiled, he took it for agreement and was better satisfied than if she spoke.

There was at this season no good weather on the sea, but endless rain and wind, and every time they sailed a little way toward where they wanted to go, the winds would rise and beat them back so that they were always in danger of being driven onto the rocks.

Frequently Agamemnon had to head out into open water to avoid being driven onto a shore that would destroy the ship; it seemed that with days and months of sailing, they were no nearer to where they wished to go. One day, after a fearful hard-driving wind had blown them about for many days out of sight of land, a morning calm left them drifting. A sailor came to Agamemnon saying that they had sighted a stream of green water like a separate current in the sea. Agamemnon went on deck cursing, and she heard him shouting at his men; when he came back he was furious, his face drawn and dark with rage.

“What is the matter?” she asked him. She was lying on the deck, trying desperately to keep down the little bread and fruit she had eaten for breakfast.

He scowled and said, “We have sighted the outpourings of the Nile—the great river of the country of the Pharaohs. Poseidon, who rules the sea as well as the earthquake, has driven us far from home, and onto the shores of Egypt.”

“That does not seem a catastrophe,” she said. “You were saying that we were gravely in need of fresh food and fresh drinking water. Can they not be had here?”

“Oh, yes; but the word of Troy’s fall has been spread all about the world now, and much gold will be expected for supplies,” he muttered. “And everyone has told a different tale about what happened . . .”

“People do not know that Troy fell not to might of arms and soldier-craft, but to the earthquake,” Kassandra said. “You can tell them what tale you will and they will not be rude enough to doubt it.”

He scowled at her; but at that moment a cry came from the lookout in the bow that land had been sighted. Agamemnon went forward and soon returned to say that they had indeed reached Egypt.

Some of the men were sent ashore and eventually returned, bearing an invitation from Pharaoh to dine at the palace. Kassandra had hoped to lie alone in the tent, simply enjoying the cessation of the sea’s motion, but it was not to be. Agamemnon drew from his chests an assortment of silken robes.

“Wear any one of these that pleases you, my dear; and I will send one of the women to dress you and braid your hair with jewels; you must be beautiful—yes, as beautiful as Helen herself—to honor me at the court of Pharaoh.”

For the first time, she pleaded with him. “Oh, no, I beg of you: I am ill—do not ask it of me. I have sought nothing from you, but for the sake of the child I am to bear you, spare me this. It will be easy to tell them that I am ill; do not parade me as a slave before this foreign monarch.”

“I have told you again and again,” he said, sounding less angry than sorrowful, “that you are not slave but my consort. Klytemnestra has never pleased me, and when you bear my son you shall be my Queen.”

She wept in despair; he argued, cajoled and finally stormed out of the room, saying in a tone of command, “I’ll not argue with you further; dress yourself at once, and I’ll send a woman to you.”

She lay helplessly weeping, and roused only when the woman who had been Hecuba’s midwife came into the tent.

“Now, now, Princess, you mustn’t go on crying like this, you’ll hurt the baby. I’ve brought you this.” She held out a clay cup with a potion that steamed with fragrance. “Drink it; it’ll settle your stomach, and you’ll be beautiful to dine at the palace.”

“You are a wicked woman,” Kassandra flung at her. “Why should Agamemnon have his way always? Why have you come to be his most loyal servant? Can’t you give me something that would make me so sick that even he knows I cannot go?”

The woman looked shocked.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that; the King would be very angry,” she said. “Mustn’t make the King angry, mistress.”

Enraged, but knowing there was no help for it, Kassandra let the woman dress her; she refused to choose a gown and let the woman put her into a striped dress of crimson and gold silk which she had seen her mother wear at palace banquets. She drank the potion, which did make her feel better—or maybe it was only her anger. Let Agamemnon parade his captive princess; what did it matter? If Pharaoh—who, she had heard, had well over a hundred wives—knew anything about the fall of Troy, he would know she was not here of her own free will; and if not, it would not matter.

“THERE IS no relying on the winds at this season,” said the bald man who called himself Pharaoh, and was regarded as a God incarnate by his court. “It would please us if you remained as our guest until the seasons change and the winds can be depended on to bear you to Mykenae, or wherever you wish to go.”

“The Lord of the Two Lands is gracious,” Agamemnon demurred, “but I had hoped to make my way home before that.”

“Pharaoh gave this advice to the noble Odysseus, when he guested with us, and Odysseus ignored it,” said one of the courtiers. “Now word has come that bits and pieces of Odysseus’ ship have been cast up on the rocks of Aeaea; he will never be heard from again.”

“Well, well, I suppose it is better to come late home than to arrive early on the shores of nowhere,” said Agamemnon, “and I accept your gracious invitation, for myself and my men.” Kassandra knew he was annoyed; this meant that he would have to ransack his chests of worthy guest-gifts for Pharaoh, and if they stayed too long he would not get any of his plunder home at all. They were not the first from Troy to be cast on these shores; Pharaoh’s hall already displayed recognizable spoils from the city, including the statue of the Sun Lord from the shrine.

In the next few days Kassandra discovered that a few of the priests and priestesses of the Temple of Apollo had taken refuge here, though none of her closest friends to whom she might have appealed. She would have been overjoyed to know that Phyllida, or even Chryseis, was alive.

Egypt was hot and dry, and filled with bitter winds from the desert, which could wipe out all signs of life if people did not take shelter at once; even in Pharaoh’s great stone palace the damage could be seen.

Nevertheless, at least it was on land, and better than being daily battered by wind and sea.

Kassandra was glad of the respite. The Egyptians gossiped about Agamemnon, and one of the waiting-women told her secretly that everyone in Egypt knew that after the death of Iphigenia, Klytemnestra had sworn vengeance and had openly taken a lover, a cousin of hers named Aegisthos, and was living with him in the palace at Mykenae.

Kassandra’s attitude was simply “Well, why shouldn’t she? Agamemnon, away in Troy, was no good to her as a husband.”

But these Egyptians also worshiped male Gods and felt a man’s wife must do what he bade her, and that the worst thing that could happen was for a wife to lie with anyone but her husband. If it was a King’s wife, then the Queen’s behavior brought disgrace upon the whole country. Kassandra could only hope that Agamemnon would not hear the story and have another grievance. He spoke often of putting Klytemnestra away and making Kassandra his lawful Queen, and that was the last thing Kassandra wanted.

She even heard that Klytemnestra, feeling young again when she had taken Aegisthos to her bed, had to all purposes disinherited her remaining daughter, Elektra, by marrying her off to a lowborn man who had been the palace’s swineherd or something of that sort. People who venerated Queens generally felt that a Queen past the age of child-bearing should abdicate in favor of her daughter—and the people of Mykenae accordingly believed that Klytemnestra should have married Elektra to Aegisthos and allowed Elektra to take her place as Queen. It was agreed by everyone that Elektra’s marriage was to a man no one could possibly have accepted as King.

Agamemnon finally heard the story—not about Klytemnestra’s lover; everyone was careful that no breath of that should reach his ears—but about Elektra’s marriage. And about that he was angry.

“Klytemnestra had no right to do that; it was as if she had presumed my death. Elektra’s marriage was mine to make, a dynastic marriage which would have brought me allies. Odysseus had spoken of marrying her to his son Telemachus, and now that Odysseus’ ship is lost, Telemachus will need powerful allies if he is to hold Ithaca against those who would like to take it,” he said.

“Or I might have married her to the son of Akhilles—he was never formally married to his cousin Deidameia, but I heard he seduced the girl and she bore him a son after he went to fight in Troy. Well, when I come home, Klytemnestra will learn that I mean to set my house in order and that her rule is at an end,” he said. “Elektra as a widow will be just as valuable a marriage pawn; the girl cannot be more than fifteen or so. And it is your son and not Klytemnestra’s son Orestes who will sit on the Lion Throne when I am gone.”

Kassandra had noted that the Akhaians thought much of their sons’ coming after them; it seemed to be how they coped with the thought of death, for they seemed to have no concept of an afterlife. No wonder they had no code of decency; they seemed not to believe their Gods would hold them responsible in the next life for anything they did in this one.

THE DAYS in the calm Egyptian land were all so much alike that Kassandra was hardly aware of the passing of time; only by the growth of the child within her did she have any awareness of the days that were hastening by. At last the season was sufficiently advanced that Pharaoh said they might set sail; but that very night Kassandra fell into labor, and at sunrise the next morning she gave birth to a small male child.

“My son,” Agamemnon said, picking up the baby and looking carefully at him. “He is very small.”

“But he is healthy and strong,” said the midwife eagerly. “Truly, Lord Agamemnon, such small children often grow up as big as those who are larger at birth. And the princess is a narrow woman; it would have gone hard with her to bear a son of a proper size to be yours.”

Agamemnon smiled at that and kissed the baby. “My son,” he said to Kassandra; but she looked away from him and said, “Or Ajax’s.”

He scowled, not liking to be reminded of that possibility, and said, “No; I think he has a look of me.”

Well, I hope you enjoy thinking so,
she thought;
it will not make the poor child prettier.

“Shall we name him Priam for your father, then? A Priam on the Lion Throne?”

She said, “It is for you to say.”

“Well, I will give it thought,” Agamemnon said. “You are a prophetess; perhaps we can think of a name full of good omen.” He stooped and laid the baby back to her breast.

But there are no good omens for a son of Agamemnon,
she thought, remembering that Klytemnestra and her new King awaited Agamemnon at home. This son, no more than Klytemnestra’s son Orestes, would never sit on the Lion Throne of Mykenae.

She felt a familiar far-off humming in her head, and the sun blinded her eyes. The child seemed to weigh less in her arms—or was it that her arms had released him? She had believed the Sight was gone from her forever; she had not managed to save her people or her loved ones with her prophecy, and had thought herself free of it at last.

Now she saw the great double-bladed ax that cleft the head of the great bulls in Crete, and Agamemnon staggering, with his eyes full of blood.

She clasped her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.

“Blood,” she whispered, “like one of the bulls of Crete. Go not to the sacrifice. . . .”

He leaned down to stroke her hair.

“What did you say? A bull? Well, for this fine gift no doubt I should give a bull to Zeus Thunderer. But not here in Egypt; we will wait for that till we reach my country, where I have bulls in plenty and need not pay the outrageous amounts of gold the priests here demand for sacrificial animals. I think Zeus can wait till then for the proper sacrifices; but when you can get up you may take a couple of doves to their Earth Mother in thanksgiving for this fine son.”

Maybe that was all I saw,
she thought,
a sacrifice somehow gone wrong
—but all at once her malice was gone; she had hated and despised him, but now she saw him among the dead and wondered if after death he must face all the men he had slain in battle. Hector had said that when he crossed the gate of death he was first greeted by Patroklos. But it would be different for Agamemnon, as it had been somehow different, she knew, for Akhilles.

She lingered abed, knowing that as soon as she could walk, Agamemnon would set sail for the port of Mykenae. And she had been so sick every day of the voyage which had brought them here that now she was in terror of the sea.

She finally decided to call her son Agathon. Before his birth, she could not imagine loving a child conceived like this one, and she had begun to suspect that a good part of her sickness during pregnancy was just revulsion against the very thought that this parasite of rape had fastened on her from within and would not be cast forth. If he had turned out to have been poisoned by her loathing, with two heads or a marred face, she would have thought it only fitting.

And yet he lay on her breast so small and innocent, and she could not see anything about him that was like Agamemnon. He was just like any other newborn child, very small indeed, but everything about him was perfectly formed, down to hands with exquisite little fingernails, and a tiny toenail on each toe.

How strange to think that this soft little being, who could lie at the center of his father’s great shield and leave room for a good-sized dog, might grow up to bring down a mighty city. But for now he was all softness and milky fragrance, and when he nuzzled at her breast she could not help thinking of Honey helpless in her arms. Why should this perfect little creature be blamed for what his father had done?