Hecuba's eyes, almost swollen shut with crying, turned to her angrily.
"How can you laugh?"
"But can't you see, dearest Mother, how foolish it all is? Look, there in the shadow of the earthworks; Hector is laughing at his foolishness - look at the sun shining on his hair—"
Hecuba gave Kassandra her resigned But of course, she is mad and cannot be expected to feel anything like a normal person look, but Kassandra seized her mother's arms.
"Mother, what I tell you is true; last night I spoke with Hector in the Land Beyond Death and I tell you all is well with him."
"You dreamed it, my darling," said Hecuba gently.
"No, Mother dear, I saw him as I see you, and touched him."
"I wish I could believe you—" Tears gathered slowly and dropped from the old woman's eyes.
"Mother, truly, you must believe me! And he said to tell you that you must not grieve—-'
"Last night I could almost have believed it - I thought once that I heard Troilus's voice—"
"You did, Mother, I tell you you did," Kassandra cried out, in excitement, full of her message. "I did not see or speak with Troilus, because Hector said that he stayed with you, trying to comfort you, trying to make you hear him—"
Hecuba said slowly, "When Polyxena and I were too weary to watch longer - already the sun was rising—I stepped into the garden for a moment, and I thought I felt Troilus touch my hair as he did when he grew too tall to kiss me except on the top of the head. He was such a sweet little boy, the dearest of all my sweet boys—" her eyes filled and spilled over again, and Kassandra hugged her mother close.
"He was certainly at your side," she said, "I swear it to you."
"And Hector - you say he too is at peace - but how can his spirit be free when we have not his body to give it decent burial and pay honor to his spirit," Hecuba demanded. "And if it be so, then why have funeral rites been ordained?"
"I know only what I have seen, Mother."
"It is no use," said Hecuba despairing, after considering this for a time. "I cannot think of his spirit as free while I see his poor body - look how the dust rises, even after a full night of heavy rain!" she exclaimed, and began to cry again.
Kassandra tried to dry her mother's tears with her veil, chiding her. "It would break Hector's heart to see you cry like this. Akhilles cannot hurt him now, whatever he might do. Even if he should cut up Hector's body and feed it to his dogs, it would not harm the part of Hector we knew, not at all."
Hecuba cringed and looked sick. "How can you say such things, Kassandra?"
"I am sworn by Apollo to speak the truth; to those who will not hear it I can only say that this does not excuse me from speaking it," Kassandra replied, wondering why only her mother could make her this angry even—or especially - when she was trying to say nothing which could upset her.
"But here you are saying that we could feed our Hector to the dogs—"
"Mother, I said no such thing!" Kassandra was furious now, but with an effort she kept her voice steady and calm. "You did not hear me aright! I said only that if Akhilles in his madnesss should do such a thing it would make no difference to Hector, but only to us."
"But you were saying - I heard you—that we did not need to give him funeral rites—" Hecuba repeated, and Kassandra sighed as if she were dragging a very heavy weight uphill.
"Mother, I do not think funeral rites matter at all to Hector or to the Gods, but only to us," she repeated, as if she were trying to explain to Honey why she could not eat a dozen cakes.
Hecuba thrust out her chin. "And I say this is only one of your wild notions," she said, and turned away.
"Yes, very likely, Mother," Kassandra said, stifling her rage. She is old; I cannot expect her to understand anything which is new to her.
"But I beg you to say nothing like that to Andromache, Kassandra; she has already enough grief to bear without that."
"Without what?" asked Andromache, stepping up to the wall in time to hear the last words.
"I was saying to her," Kassandra began, and Hecuba flashed an angry Don't you dare glance at her; Kassandra realized that the argument with her mother had made her forget the exact words she had intended to speak.
She said wearily, "Only that in a vision last night I spoke to Hector and he bade you be comforted, because he is content and at peace, whatever they may do to his body." There was more; Hector had bidden her to say to Andromache - what? That he would come to take his son… but no! I can't say to her that her son will die, when she has lost Hector too… I can't say that she… what was it… that she wouldn't want her son to live in the days that are coming…
Andromache was watching her with arched-brow skepticism; Kassandra said, "He bade me say that—that he would remain to watch over his son."
"Much good that does either of us," Andromache said, with the wide-open eyes of suppressed tears, "when he has left us—"
"But he does not want you to cry and grieve," Kassandra said. "It cannot help him now."
"Every seer and soothsayer tells us that," Andromache said, and she sounded bitter. "I had hoped for something better from you, Kassandra, if indeed you can see beyond death."
"I speak as the God bids me speak in such words as people are willing to hear," Kassandra said, and turned away. Out on the field Akhilles went on whipping his horses to an ever more maniacal fury.
All day, as the sun rose and declined over Troy, this went on. Twice Paris led out a party to try and capture Akhilles's chariot and Hector's body, and twice the troops of Agamemnon drove them off again; three of Priam's lesser sons by his palace women were killed, and at last they realized Akhilles was simply too well protected.
"No more," Priam said after the third attack. "The sun is setting; when it is dark, I will myself go down to Akhilles and try to bargain with him to ransom my son's body."
How foolish, Kassandra thought, and how useless; Hector is not in that lump of rotting flesh out there tied behind Akhilles and his damned chariot. Why could she see this when her parents could not? Should they not be wiser than she was? It frightened her that they were not.
She felt ill and faint; she had stood all day by her mother and had not even partaken of the hard bread and oil portioned out to the soldiers at noon. She went and ate a little bread, washing it down with a few sips of watered wine, then went with Hecuba, who was assisting Priam's body-servants to dress him in his richest robes.
"If I go to Akhilles without robing myself in my finest," he said, "he may believe I do not think him worthy of honor. I don't, of course, but I don't want him to think so."
"I'm not so sure, Father," Paris said; he was standing beside his father, trimming his beard meticulously with the scissors Helen used for her tapestry. "Perhaps that madman's vanity would be more flattered if you went to him robed simply in mourning, as a suppliant."
"Yet showing him the gold of Troy may arouse his greed if we cannot appeal to his honor," Andromache said.
"We can hardly appeal to his honor," said Paris. "It seems obvious to me that he has none." He shook his head impatiently. "I'm not at all concerned with his honor," he said. The question is how can we best persuade him to give us Hector for burial."
"I will go to him as a suppliant," Priam said. Already he was energetically tearing off his robes. "Bring me the plainest garment I own. Also I will go to him alone—"