"Kassandra!" Her voice was so filled with dread and she clutched at the other woman so suddenly that Kassandra almost dropped the torch. "If we fall into the hands of the Akhaians, what will happen to my son? Perhaps the Trojans will stop at nothing to make sure Menelaus cannot reclaim him—"
"Are you saying that you think my father or brothers would kill the child to stop him being taken back to Sparta?" Kassandra could hardly believe her ears.
"Oh, I cannot really believe it, but—"
"If you believe that, then perhaps you should indeed return to Menelaus, and take the child to safety," Kassandra said. "Surely he would welcome you if you came with his son—"
"And I thought he would be so much better off in Troy; that Paris would make a better father to him than Menelaus," Helen said sadly. "And he was, Kassandra, he was; but now - he seems to hate him because he is alive when our own sons died—" Her voice broke and for a moment, clinging to Kassandra, she wept.
"Then you will go—?"
"I cannot," Helen said numbly. "I cannot persuade myself to leave Paris - I tell myself that it is the will of the Gods that I shall stay till this is all played out between us. He no longer loves me, but I would rather be in Troy than Sparta—" she let her voice trail away into silence, then said, "Kassandra, you are weary; I must keep you no longer from your bed. Or will you return and watch by Troilus?"
"No, I do not think they want me there," Kassandra said. "I will return to the Sunlord's house."
"In this rain? Listen to this storm," Helen said. "You are welcome to sleep here if you will; you can sleep in my bed - it is less than likely Paris will come in now: they will all have drunk so much in honor of Hector's spirit that they would lose their way on the stairs. Or I will have the maids make up a bed for you in the other room."
"You are very kind, Sister, but the servants will all be sleeping by now; let them rest," Kassandra said. "The rain will clear my head." She picked up her cloak and put the hood over her head, then embraced Helen and kissed her. She said, "Andromache did not mean what she said—"
"Oh, I know that; in her place I should feel the same," Helen said. "She is afraid; what will become of her now, and Astyanax? Paris has already decided that he will succeed Priam, and leave no place for Hector's son - and if Paris should somehow bring this war to a good end—"
"There is no chance of that," said Kassandra. "Yet you must not be afraid, Helen; Menelaus has not fought all these years for revenge."
"I know that; I have spoken with him," Helen said, surprising her. "I know not why, but it seems he wants me back."
"You've spoken with him? When?" She started to ask how, but remembered that as Paris's wife Helen could go where she would, even down into the Akhaian camp. But why should she go and confer with the captains among the enemy? she thought suspiciously, then mentally absolved her friend of treason: it was no more than reasonable that Helen should wish to bargain for her own fate and that of her son.
She said, "If you speak with him again, ask him if there is something we can do to influence Akhilles and have Hector's body returned to us."
"Believe me, I have tried and will try again," Helen said. "Listen, the rain is slacking a little; if you go now perhaps you will be home before it starts to come down hard again."
She kissed Kassandra again, and went down to the heavy front gate of the palace with her; Kassandra went out into the icy rain. Before she had climbed half a flight of the long stairs the rain began to beat down with renewed fury, and the wind tore at her cloak like a wild beast's claws.
She thought for a moment, regretfully, that she should have accepted Helen's offer of a bed. Aeneas would be feasting and drinking with the men, and would be unlikely to join her tonight. But there was no point in turning back now; she struggled upward against the storm.
As she turned into the street of the Sunlord's house, she heard a light step in the street behind her. After so many years of war she was nervous of strangers, and turned to see, in the pale light of the torches hung up over the gateway, the face and cloaked form of Chryseis. Even in the torchlight she could see that the girl's dress was crumpled and stained with wine, and the cosmetics on her face were smeared. She sighed, wondering in what strange bed the girl had spent much of the night and why she had bothered to leave it in such a storm. She looks like a cat after a night of wandering—except that a cat would have washed her face.
The watchman at the gates of the Sunlord's house greeted them with amazement ('You are abroad late in this cruel weather, Ladies'), but no one had ever shown curiosity about Kassandra's comings and goings; she reflected that she might have had as many lovers as Chryseis, and no one would have known or cared. As they climbed the steep courtyards toward their rooms, located near the highest part of the temple, she slowed her steps to match the girl's.
"It is growing so late that it is almost early," she said. "Do you want to come into my room and wash your face before you are seen like this in the temple?"
"No," Chryseis said. "Why should I? I am not ashamed of whatever I do."
"I would spare your father the sight of you like this," she said. "It would break his heart."
Chryseis's laughter was brittle as breaking glass.
"Oh, come, surely he cannot still cherish any illusions that I came from Agamemnon's bed a virgin!"
"Perhaps not," Kassandra said. "He cannot blame you for the fortunes of war; but to see you like this would distress him—"
"Do you think I care for that? I was well content where I was, and I wish he had minded his own affairs, and left me there."
"Chryseis," Kassandra said gently,"do you have any idea how dreadfully he grieved for you? He thought of little else—"
"Then the more fool he."
"Chryseis—" Kassandra looked at the girl, wondering what was in her heart or indeed if she had one. She asked at last curiously, "Doesn't it shame you at all, to stand before all men in Troy, and know that all men know and recognize you for having been Agamemnon's concubine?"
"No," Chryseis said, defiantly, "no more than it shames Andromache to have all men know she is Hector's, nor Helen to have it common knowledge that she belongs to Paris."
There was a difference, Kassandra knew, but she could not muster her thoughts to tell this confused girl what it was.
"If the city should fall," Chryseis said, "all of us will be given into the hands of some man or other; so I give myself where I choose while I still can. Will you, Kassandra, keep your own maidenhood so that it may be taken by a conqueror by force?"
For that I cannot fault her at all. Kassandra could not speak, she only turned and went into her own room.
Inside, some neglectful servant had left the shutters wide open; the rain and wind were beating in through the window. Honey's bed was soaked with rain and the child had rolled off the quilts and on to the stone floor against the wall under the window to escape the rain. Even so she was soaked.
Kassandra closed the shutters, and lifted the child into her own bed. Honey felt as cold as a little frog and whimpered when Kassandra lifted her, but did not wake. Kassandra wrapped her in blankets and rocked her, holding her close against her breasts until she felt the icy little feet and hands beginning to warm and at last Honey was sleeping the heavy sleep of any healthy child.
She put the little girl down, and laid herself beside her, wrapping them both in her warm cloak. The noise of the storm outside the closed windows was muffled, but still rattled the shutters with its force. She closed her eyes, trying to move her spirit forth from where she lay.