The Firebrand (85 page)

Kassandra bowed to the ground; the word had come. Still she had no idea how she would travel or what would become of her; but she was once again under the protection of the Voice which had called her first when she was no more than a child.

Truly had the priestess in Colchis said,
The Immortals understand one another.

“I beg leave to depart at once,” she said.

And Klytemnestra replied, “Whom a God has called we must not detain. But will you not have rest, fresh clothing, food for yourself and the babe?”

Kassandra shook her head. “I need nothing,” she said, knowing that with the gold Agamemnon had given her she was well provided. She wished to accept nothing from Klytemnestra—or from the Goddess of this place.

She departed within the hour.

Her child tied in her shawl, she went to the harbor, where she would find a ship to take her and the baby on the first step of the arduous journey halfway to the world’s end, which would bring her at last to her kinswoman Imandra and the iron gates of Colchis. And above all, she was no longer blind and deprived of Sight; she was herself again, and after all the sufferings she knew the Goddess had not yet forsaken her.

On the docks a woman approached her, clad in a ragged earth-colored tunic, her face covered by a tattered shawl.

“Are you the Trojan princess?” she asked. “I am bound for Colchis, and I have heard you are going there.”

“Yes, I am, but why—”

“I too seek Colchis,” the woman said. “A God has called me there; may I bear you company?”

“Who are you?”

“I am called Zakynthia,” the woman said.

Kassandra stared at her and could see nothing. Perhaps the woman was bound to her by Fate; in any case, no God forbade it. And even Klytemnestra had doubted her ability to make this long journey alone with an unweaned child. With a sigh of relief she unslung the shawl in which she had tied her son, and passed him over.

“Here,” she said. “You can carry the baby till I need to feed him again.”

Epilogue

THE WOMAN was soft-spoken and obedient, even submissive; she cared for the baby, rocking him and keeping him quiet. Kassandra, prey to renewed seasickness, had little opportunity to pay much attention to her child or the woman, though she did watch unobserved for several days to make certain that the servant—about whom, after all, she knew nothing—could be trusted not to ill-treat or neglect the baby when no one was watching. But she seemed conscientious, attentive to the infant, singing to him and playing with him as if she were really fond of children. After a few days Kassandra decided that she had been fortunate in finding a good servant to care for her child, and relaxed her vigilance somewhat.

And yet Kassandra began to suspect her companion was not what she professed to be. Underneath the ragged garments the woman seemed strong and healthy; Kassandra could only guess her age—perhaps thirty or even more. When Kassandra was near she was modest in her manner, but her voice was rough and hoarse, and her demeanor with the sailors and crew was free as an Amazon’s. Then one day on the deck, Kassandra saw a stray wind blow Zakynthia’s garments hard against her chest, and it seemed that her bosom was too flat to be womanly. Her legs, Kassandra noticed, were hairy and muscular; and her face looked as if it had never known cosmetics or smoothing oils. The thought came to Kassandra that perhaps it was possible Zakynthia was not a woman, but a man.

Why would any man, she wondered, have sought her out in woman’s guise? Yet if he was a man, she thought, he might try to have his way with her—although, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in a basin of water, she could not imagine that any man would desire her as she was now: pale from seasickness, dressed in ragged garments, her body still shapeless after childbirth. Even so, she took to sleeping with Agathon in her arms; if the suckling at her breast did not deter a ravisher, probably nothing would, except her knife.

One night of storm, when the ship was tossed about like a cork on the heavy waves, Zakynthia spread her blanket close to Kassandra’s and offered to take the baby into her own bed. The waves slammed their blanket rolls together, sliding them first uphill and then downhill in the cramped little cabin, until at last Zakynthia, who was larger and heavier, took Kassandra in her arms.

Kassandra, sick and weary, felt nothing but relief at the shelter her companion’s body offered against the constant battering.

After this incident some of her fear subsided; surely no ordinary man would have ignored such an opportunity. She began to consider other possibilities. Perhaps he was a eunuch, or a healer-priest under vows of chastity. But why, then, did he wear women’s garments and profess himself a woman? Finally she decided that it did not matter and after a time it occurred to her that she no longer cared whether her companion was a woman or a man; he or she was simply a friend she trusted and was beginning to love. The baby loved her companion too, and was willing to leave his mother’s arms to be held and rocked by Zakynthia.

When at last the ship came to shore and they disembarked, she sought through the market for horses.

“But surely, Lady,” said the merchant, “you will not travel overland, with a baby and a single servant, into the country of the Kentaurs.”

“I did not know any of them remained alive,” Kassandra said. “And I am not afraid of them.” She hoped that on their journey they would meet some of that vanished race. She bartered a single link of gold for horses and food for the journey; she also bartered for a cloak for herself which could double as a blanket for sleeping, or as a tent.

“We should also have another tunic for you, Zakynthia,” she said, turning over in her hand a remnant of woven cloth which might make a cloak for the child. “You are so ragged that you might be a street-sweeper. And as for me, I have been thinking that before we go on, perhaps I should cut my hair and wear a man’s garment. The babe can soon be weaned, and surely they raise goats hereabout. It might be somewhat safer for traveling in this wild country. What would you think of that? You are taller and stronger than I; you would perhaps be more convincing as a man.”

Her companion stood very still, but she had heard the caught breath of consternation before the other said quietly, “You must do as you think best, Lady; but I cannot put on a man’s garment nor travel as one.”

“Why not?”

Zakynthia did not meet her eyes.

“It is a vow. I may say no more.”

Kassandra shrugged. “Then we shall travel as women.”

KASSANDRA LOOKED up at the gates of Colchis and remembered the first time, as a young girl in the Amazon band of Penthesilea, she had seen them. She had changed and the world had changed; but the great gates were just the same.

“Colchis,” she said quietly to her companion. “The Gods have brought us here at last.”

She set Agathon on his feet; he was beginning to toddle at last. If the journey had not been so long, she thought, he might have been really walking already; but she had been forced to carry him much of the time instead of letting him crawl or walk around. He was almost two years old now, and she could see in the strong development of his little chin, in his dark eyes, and dark curly hair, that he was Agamemnon’s son.

Well, at least he would not be trained into Agamemnon’s version of manhood.

It had been a long road; but not, she knew now, endless, as it had seemed. They had traveled overland mostly at night, hiding by day in woods and ditches. She had worn out several pairs of shoes and the clothing she wore was threadbare; she had had little opportunity to replace it.

There had been encounters on the road with soldiers—veterans of the sack of Troy—but she had seen and heard nothing of the Kentaurs; most of the people to whom she spoke of them believed they were only a legend, and either frankly accused her of telling tales or secretly smiled with contempt when she said she had seen them in her youth.

They had hidden from wandering bands of men, bribed themselves free, used their wits and sometimes their knives to get out of danger. They had gone cold and hungry—sometimes food was not to be had even for gold—and had stopped once or twice for a whole season to find work as spinners, or as handlers of animals.

Once they had traveled for a time with a man who was exhibiting “dancing” serpents. They had joined once or twice with other lone travelers, and had lost their way for long distances.

And after so many adventures that Kassandra knew she would never dare to try to recount them, they had arrived safely in Colchis.

She picked up the child again as they walked through the gates. She knew she looked like a beggar-woman. Her cloak was the same one with which Agamemnon had covered her on board his ship—once crimson, but now faded to a grayish colorlessness. Her gown was a shapeless tunic of undyed wool, her hair loosely bound with a scrap of leather thong which had once been used to tie a sandal. Zakynthia looked even worse, if possible; less like a beggar-woman than some kind of ruffian. Her sandals were worn almost through, and she would have had to find another pair in Colchis even if it had not been her destination.

But they had managed to keep the child well and warmly dressed. His tunic—though he was outgrowing it—was from a good piece of wool which she had bought two towns ago and was fastened with a pin made from one of her last bits of gold, and his sandals were stout and strong. Sometimes she thought he looked less like Agamemnon than like her brother Paris.

“Now we are at journey’s end,” she said to her companion.

She asked a passerby the way to the palace, and asked if Queen Imandra still reigned here.

The woman said, “Yes, though she is growing old; there was a rumor from the palace that she was mortally ill, but I do not believe it.” She stared at Kassandra’s threadbare cloak and asked, “And what can the likes of you want with our Queen?”

Kassandra merely thanked the woman for her help and did not answer. She set off for the palace. Zakynthia picked up the child and carried him.

Climbing the palace stairs, Kassandra nervously smoothed her hair with her fingers. Perhaps she should have stopped in the market and provided herself with proper clothing to visit the Queen.

She spoke to the guard on duty—an old woman guard whom Kassandra actually recognized from her stay so long ago in Colchis.

“I would like audience with Queen Imandra.”

“I’m sure you would,” said the woman, sneering, “but she doesn’t see every ragtag and bobtail who comes looking for her.”

Kassandra called the woman by name. “Don’t you know me? Your sister was one of my novices in the house of Serpent Mother.”

“Lady Kassandra!” the woman exclaimed. “But we heard you were dead—that you had perished at Mykenae; that when Agamemnon died, Klytemnestra murdered you too.”

Kassandra chuckled. “As you see, I am here alive and well. But I beg you to take me to the Queen.”

“Certainly; she will rejoice to know you survived the fall of Troy,” the woman said. “She mourned for you as for her own daughter.”

The woman wished to take her to a guest chamber to make her ready for her audience; but Kassandra refused. She bade Zakynthia await her, but her companion shook her head.

“I too was bidden here by the hand of the Goddess,” her companion said. “And I can reveal only to Imandra why I have come.”

Eager to know her fellow traveler’s story, Kassandra agreed. A few moments later, she was in her kinswoman’s arms.

“I thought you dead in Troy,” Imandra said. “Like Hecuba and the others.”

“I thought Hecuba went with Odysseus,” Kassandra said.

“No; one of her women made her way here and said Hecuba died—of a broken heart, she said—as the ships were loading. It is just as well; Odysseus was shipwrecked, and no one has heard of him since, and ’tis now close on three years. Andromache was taken back to one of the Akhaian Kings; I cannot remember his barbarian name, but I heard that she lives. And this is your child?” Imandra picked up the little boy and kissed him. “So some good came from all your sorrows?”

“Well, I have survived and made my way here,” Kassandra said, and they fell to talking of other survivors of Troy. Helen and Menelaus were still reigning in Sparta, it seemed, and Helen’s daughter Hermione was betrothed to the son of Odysseus. Klytemnestra had died in childbirth a year before, and her son Orestes had killed Aegisthos and taken back Agamemnon’s Lion Throne.

“And have you heard anything of Aeneas?” Kassandra asked, remembering, with a sweet sadness, starlit nights in the last doomed summer of Troy.

“Yes, his adventures are widely told; he visited in Carthage and had a love affair with the Queen. They say, when the Gods called him away, she killed herself in despair, but I believe it not. If any Queen was fool enough to kill herself over a man, so much the worse for her; she cannot be much of a woman, and still less of a Queen. Then the Gods called him to the north, where, they say, he took the Palladium from the Trojan Temple of the Maiden, and founded a city.”

“I am glad to hear he is safe,” Kassandra said. Perhaps she should have gone with Aeneas to his new world; but no God had called her. Aeneas had his own fate, and it was not hers. “And Creusa?”

“I fear I do not know her fate,” Imandra said. “Did she even escape Troy?”

Kassandra began to wonder. She remembered parting from Creusa, but it had been so long ago she wondered if she had dreamed it. All things surrounding the fall of the city were like dreams to her now.

“And you remember my daughter Pearl,” Imandra said. “Come here, child, and greet your kinswoman.”

The child came forward and greeted Kassandra with such poise that Kassandra did not kiss her as she would have done any other child her age. “How old is she now?” she asked.

“Nearly seven,” Imandra said, “and she will rule Colchis after me; we still keep to the old ways here. With good fortune, that will never change.”