"It's odd," Helen said reflectively,"the way people think, or refuse to think about death. Paris for one - it seems as if he thinks that since our children have died, perhaps the Gods will accept the sacrifice of their lives and spare ours!"
"If a God would accept the innocent to expiate the sins of the guilty I could have no reverence for her, and yet there are some peoples who do believe in Gods who accept the sacrifice of innocent blood," Kassandra said. "Perhaps it is an idea the Gods—or fiends - put into all men's heads; did not Agamemnon sacrifice his own daughter on the altar of the Maiden for a fair wind to bring his fleet to Troy?"
"It is so," said Helen, softly,"though Agamemnon will not now hear it named, and says the sacrifice was of his wife's - my sister's—doing, a sacrifice to her Goddess. The Akhaians fear the old Goddesses, saying they are tainted. The bravest of men flee in terror from women's mysteries."
Kassandra looked round the shadowed room, where the women were drinking and talking in little groups.
I wish somehow we could inspire them with this terror now," she said, and remembered how she had visited Akhilles's tent in a trance - or only in dream? The thought stirred in her mind that perhaps she still might have some such access to the mind of the Akhaian hero; she would attempt it at the first opportunity. She raised her cup silently and drank; Helen, meeting her eyes over the rim, did the same.
There was a sudden strong draught in the room; the door opened and Andromache stood there, holding a torch with long flaming streamers blowing in the strong wind from the corridor. Her long hair was dripping with rain and her dress and cloak were soaked. She came through the room like a walking ghost, softly chanting one of the funeral hymns. She bent over Troilus's wrapped body and kissed the pale cheek.
"Farewell, dear brother," she said in her clear reedy voice. "You go before the greatest of heroes, to speak to the Gods of his eternal shame."
Kassandra went quickly to her, and said softly, yet audibly, "Shame done to the brave is shame only to the one who commits the crime, not to the one who suffers it." Yet Hector willingly fought Akhilles, playing this game of scoring on one another. He did only what his whole life had taught him to do.
She poured out a cup of the spiced wine—it was heavy now, even less diluted than what had been in the pitcher when it was fuller. Perhaps it was better; Andromache would go from here to sleep and some ease of her horror, if not of her grief. She set the cup in her cousin's hand, smelling on her breath the heaviness of wine—wherever she had spent the night, she had been drinking.
"Drink, my sister," she said.
"Ah, yes," Andromache said, tears spilling down her face, "with you I came to Troy when we were girls, and you told me, as we came here, so many stories of how brave and handsome he was - my child was born into your hands - you are my dearest friend for all our lives." She embraced Kassandra and clung to her, swaying, and Kassandra realized that she was already drunk. Kassandra herself was not unaffected by the cup of wine she had drunk; she sensed Andromache's restlessness and her seeking.
Andromache bent again to kiss the dead face of Troilus. She said to Hecuba, "You are fortunate, my mother, that you can adorn his corpse and weep; my Hector lies mouldering in the rain, unmourned, unburied."
"Not unmourned," said Kassandra gently. "All of us mourn for him. His spirit will hear your tears and lamentations, whether his body rests here, or yonder with Akhilles's horses." Her voice broke; she was thinking of a day soon after Andromache had come to Troy, when Hector had forbidden her to bear weapons and threatened to beat her. She had spoken to try and comfort Andromache, but suddenly she wondered if she had made things worse; Andromache's eyes were cold and tearless. She drew Andromache toward the seat, but when Andromache saw Helen there, she drew back, her lips drawing back over her teeth in a dreadful mask-like grimace which transformed her face almost into a skull.
"You, here, pretending to mourn?"
"The Gods know I pretend nothing," said Helen quietly, "but if you prefer it, I will go - you have the better right to be here."
"Oh, Andromache," Kassandra said,"don't speak so. You came both to this city as strangers, and found a home here. You have lost your husband, and Helen her children; at the hands of the Gods. You should share sorrow, not turn and rend one another. You are both my sisters and I love you." With one hand she drew Helen close; with the other arm embraced Andromache.
"You are right," said Andromache. "We are all helpless in their hands." She snuffled and drank the last of her wine; her voice was unsteady as she said drunkenly, "Sister, we are both victims in this war - the Goddess forbid this madness of men should sep—separate us." Her tongue stumbled clumsily on the words and they were both weeping as they embraced. Hecuba came to enfold all three of them in her arms; she was crying too.
"So many gone! So many gone! Your precious children, Helen! My sons! Where is Hector's son, my last grandchild?"
"Not the last, mother; have you forgotten? Creusa and her children were sent to safety; they risk nothing," Kassandra reminded her. "They are all out of range of Akhilles's madness or the Akhaian armies."
Andromache said, "Astyanax is too old for the women's quarters; I cannot even comfort him, nor seek to find comfort seeing his father in his face." Her voice was sadder than tears.
"When I lost - the little ones," Helen said shakily,"they brought Nikos to me for comfort; I will go, Andromache, and bring your son to you."
"Oh, bless you," Andromache cried.
Kassandra said, "Let me take you to your room; you do not want him here among all these drunken women."
"Yes; I will bring him to you there," Helen said. "You still have your son, and that is the greatest of all gifts."
One by one, or in twos and threes, the women, exhausted with grief and the strong wine, were slipping away to their beds. Only Hecuba, and Polyxena in her priestess's robes, took their station at Troilus's head and feet, there to remain until those came who would give his body to the fire. Kassandra wondered if she too should remain; but they had not asked her, not even to do the service of a priestess in purifying the chamber of death.
Andromache and even Helen needed her more; she knew she was as alien among the women of Troy as were the Colchian and the Spartan woman.
She stayed with them until Helen had slipped into Paris's rooms and found Nikos and Astyanax; they had both been crying. Astyanax's face was filthy and smudged with tears. They had evidently told him about his father's death but had been able to offer the child no solace. Helen took both boys to the well at the center of the courtyard, and washed their faces with the corner of her veil.
Astyanax fell gratefully into his mother's arms, then said, bewildered, "Don't cry, Mother. They told me I must not cry because my father is a hero. So why are you crying?"
Helen said gently, "Astyanax, if you cannot cry for your father, at least you can help to dry your mother's tears; it is now your business to care for her, since your father cannot."
At the child's touch Andromache dissolved drunkenly into tears again; Helen and Kassandra took her to her room, put her to bed and tucked the boy in at her side.
"Nikos will stay with me," Helen said. "Oh, why do they take them from us so young?" But when she took Nikos in her arms, he pulled indignantly away.
I'm not a baby, Mother! I shall go back to the men."
Smothering her sobs, Helen said, "As you like, child; but embrace me first."
Grudgingly Nikos complied, and ran away; Helen, tears streaming down her face, watched him go, unprotesting.
"Paris has done no better with him than Menelaus," she observed. "I do not like what men make of boys; making them like themselves. Thanks to the Gods Astyanax has not yet become ashamed to stay with his mother," she said, staring out into the hard grey rain that howled outside the palace.