"No!" Hecuba cried, falling to her knees before him in an agony of despair. "We have already seen he has no respect for customary honor, or Hector would even now be upon his funeral pyre! If you go within his reach, he will certainly kill you or mistreat you, and perhaps offer the same kind of insult to your corpse that he has offered to Hector's. You cannot go to him unguarded."
"If I must I will go first to our old friend Odysseus, who will bring me safely to Akhilles," Priam said, "and we know he wants the good opinion of Odysseus; he will offer me no insult in his presence."
"That's not enough," Hecuba declared, clinging tightly to his knees. "If you are bent on this folly you shall not take a single step; for I will not let you go at all."
Priam tried to shake her loose, but she would not be dislodged. He stood scowling crossly.
"Come, my lady," he said at last. "What would you have me do, then? If I go to Akhilles with armed men, he will only think I am challenging him to single combat; is that what you want?"
"No!" Hecuba cried, but she refused still to loose her hold.
"Well, then, what do you want me to do? Why can a woman never be reasonable?" Priam demanded.
"I don't know, my lord and my love; but you're not going down to that madman alone!"
"Let me go," said Andromache with quiet dignity. "Let him explain to Hector's widow and to his child why he will not ransom him."
"Oh, my dear—" Priam began, but Hecuba started up in indignation.
"If you think I'd let you take my grandson within a league of that fiend—"
"A better thought," Helen said,"take a priest—if only as a witness before the Gods; Akhilles fears the Gods—"
"Better yet," said Priam, "I will take two priestesses; Kassandra and Polyxena. One serves Apollo and one the Maiden, so whichever Immortal Akhilles fears may bear witness of his impiety."
He turned to Kassandra and said, "You are not afraid to go with your old father into Akhilles's presence, are you, girl?"
"No, Father," she said, "and I will go unarmed if you will, or weaponed; have you forgotten I was trained as a warrior?"
"No," Polyxena said in her childish voice, "no weapons, Sister; we go barefoot with our hair unbound, praying for his mercy. It will flatter his vanity to have us kneeling at his feet. Go and robe yourself in an unadorned white tunic without embroidery or bands, and comb out your hair - or better yet," she added, seizing the scissors from Paris, "cut it in token of mourning." She hacked vigorously at her long brown curls, disregarding her mother's cries of protest. Then she began to cut away Kassandra's, and as Kassandra looked, shocked, at the waist-length tresses lying on the floor, she exclaimed, "Do you grudge your vanity for Hector?"
I wouldn't if I thought it would make a fingernail's worth of difference to Hector, Kassandra thought, but was wise enough not to say the words aloud. She let Polyxena take off her rings and the necklace of pearls she wore; her sister then stripped off her own jewels. Priam kept only one large and beautiful emerald ring on his finger - a gift for Akhilles he said - and removed his own sandals. Kassandra took a torch in her hand, and Polyxena another; and with their father went down from the palace. At the gates of Troy Priam bade his servants turn back.
"I know you do not want to desert me," he said, "but if we cannot do this alone it probably cannot be done at all. If Akhilles will not listen to a grieving father and sisters, he would not listen to the whole armed might of Troy. Go back, my children."
Most of them wept, and cried out with grief and fear for him; but at last, one by one, they turned back, and the three suppliants went through the opened gates, and began moving, deliberately, by the light of their two torches, across the plain.
The ground was still muddy underfoot from last night's rain; and it was very dark, for the sky was covered with thick clouds which now and then opened to show a withering moon. Kassandra shivered in her plain robe, the cold rising up through her muddy feet, and wondered if the sky would open for a further downpour. Such a useless errand; and yet if it gave peace of mind to her father, how could she refuse?
Priam moved slowly, she noticed with a pain at her heart, as if his legs would hardly carry him and he was borne along by his strength of will alone. Will this then be his death? Oh, damn Hector for having the bad luck and the bad sense to go and get himself killed! she thought, stumbling along behind Polyxena with her eyes so full of tears that she could hardly see where she was going.
Was Hector still here on this plain, bound somehow to that lump of decaying flesh tied behind Akhilles's chariot? Why did he not come and speak with them, forbid his father to humble himself to Akhilles? No, Hector had bidden her farewell and said they would not meet again. If she had told her father and mother that she had seen the ruin of Troy, would they have believed her? Or would it have made them even more eager to see all things done in order while there was still time enough?
A solitary watchman challenged them:
"Who goes there?"
Priam's voice sounded thin and quavering; Kassandra had never realized quite how old and feeble he sounded.
"It is Priam, son of Laomedon, King of Troy; I seek a parley with the Danaan lord Akhilles."
There was a muttering of voices, and after a time a lantern flashed on them.
"My lord of Troy, you are welcome, but if you have an armed guard you must leave them here."
"No guard at all, armed or unarmed," Priam said. "I come only as a suppliant to Akhilles; my only company is my two young daughters."
It made them sound, Kassandra thought, as if they were little girls, not grown women past twenty. As if explaining this, Priam added, "They are both sworn priestesses; one of Apollo and one °r the Maiden; not the wives of warriors." k
"Why are they here, then?"
"Only to support our father if his steps should stumble by the way," said Polyxena, as the torch flashed in their faces.
Kassandra added, "I am known to the Akhaian captains; I was present at the negotiations for the return of Chryseis, daughter of Apollo's Priest." After she said this she wondered if she should have mentioned it; Akhilles had not come out of that encounter so well that he would wish to be reminded of it.
But the watchman evidently didn't know, or didn't care about that. He said, "Let them come, then," and lowered the torch, saying, "Follow me."
He led the way across the ground, rutted by chariot wheels, toward the light that streamed from the tent of Akhilles. Inside was warmth and even a certain degree of comfort; chairs covered with furs and skins, tapestry hangings, and a table spread with fruits and wine. Akhilles sat at the center of the tent, looking as if he had arranged himself to give audience. At the far end of the tent, in the shadows between the light of half a dozen lamps, stood the shrouded and mummified figure of Patroklos, just as Kassandra had seen it in her vision. Nearer the door stood Agamemnon and beside him Odysseus with a cup of wine in his hand; they looked as if they had been set up for a tableau. Akhilles was apparently just fresh from his bath; he looked very clean, his skin as pink as a little child's; his hair, which had been cut short, silver-gilt in the light, was being combed by a slave, whom Kassandra recognized as her mother's woman Briseis. As his gaze fell on Priam, he put up his hand to stop the combing, and the woman drew back.
"Well, my lord of Troy," he said, his thin lips stretching back in what Kassandra thought of as a grin of contempt, "what brings you out into a dark night like this?"
As if he didn't know perfectly well! But it was obvious to all of them that Akhilles was all set to enjoy this. Priam came forth into the lantern light; Kassandra and Polyxena drew together, watching him. Priam knelt clumsily down, extending his hands in a pleading gesture toward the younger man.