She knelt beside the fallen man, closing the wide-open eyes, then rose and passed on.
In the room behind the statue, where the offerings were kept, she found loaves of bread, quite stale, but she ate one, dividing it with the little girl, who seemed stunned and did not cry. She thrust another into the fold of her robe - she might need it—and stopped to consider. The Akhaians were already plundering the lower town. Had the palace fallen? Had they all been killed: her parents, Andromache, Helen? Were there any Trojan soldiers left alive to halt the sack? Or were she and her child the only ones left alive to watch the devastation?
She listened for any sound that would prompt her to think that someone else remained living in the Sunlord's house but there was only silence. Perhaps someone still lived in the palace below. Had the warning reached them in time to get out into the courts or gardens?
Although the sun was now quite warm, she shivered. Her warm shawl, and every stitch of her clothing except the shift she stood in, was buried in the ruins of the Sunlord's Temple.
She should go down to the palace; although she was aware of the Akhaian soldiers in the city, she was desperately anxious to know if her mother still lived. She picked up Honey and began to run down the street.
The way was blocked with rubble and the debris of partially fallen houses; the people were mostly stunned-looking women, like herself half-clad and barefoot, and a few half-armed soldiers who had risen early to join Deiphobos. When they saw she was heading for the palace, they followed her.
The palace had not collapsed. The front doors had, and some of the carvings had fallen away, but the walls were still standing, and there was no sign of fire. As she approached she heard a loud wailing, and, recognizing her mother's voice, began to run. On the flagstones of the forecourt, heaved up and uneven now, she saw Priam lying, dead or senseless; she could not tell. Hecuba bent beside him, wailing; Helen wrapped in a cloak, Nikos at her side, and Andromache, clutching Astyanax in her arms were with her.
Andromache raised her eyes to Kassandra and said fiercely, "Are you content, Kassandra, that the doom you prophesied has come on us?"
"Oh, hush!" said Helen. "Don't talk like a fool, Andromache. Kassandra tried to warn us, that is all. I am sure she would rather have left all this unspoken. I am glad to see you unharmed, Sister." She went and embraced Kassandra, and after a moment, Andromache followed suit.
"How is it with Father?" asked Kassandra. She went and bent over her mother, gently lifting her up. "Come, Mother, we must take refuge in the Maiden's Temple."
"No! No, I will stay with my Lord and King," Hecuba protested, her wails turning to sobbing.
Andromache came and embraced her, while Astyanax came and put his arms around Hecuba, saying, "Don't weep, Grandmother; if any harm has come to Grandfather the King, then I will look after you."
"Hush, love," Helen said, as Kassandra knelt beside her father, taking the cold hand in hers, and raised a closed eyelid. There was not the faintest stir of motion or life; the eyes were already filmed over. She knew she should have joined Hecuba in ritual keening, but she only sighed and let his hand fall from hers.
"I am sorry, Mother," she said. "He is dead."
Hecuba's cries began again. Kassandra said urgently, "Mother, there is no time for that; Akhaian soldiers are in the city."
"But how can that be?" Hecuba asked.
"The walls were broken in the earthquake," Kassandra explained, desperately wondering if they were all lacking in wits, or senseless with shock - had they heard nothing? 'Already they are plundering in the streets, and they will surely lose little time coming here. Where is Deiphobos?"
"I think he must be dead," Helen said. "We heard Mother cry out that Father had fallen down in a fit, or a faint. We came at once, and Deiphobos carried him out of his room into the court here, then ran back seeking his own mother. Then the first shock came and the floors fell in and I think some of the roof as well. I had snatched up Nikos and ran out with him after Deiphobos."
"And so we six are alive," said Kassandra, "but we must hide somewhere, unless we wish to fall into the hands of the soldiers. I do not know what is the Akhaian custom with captive women and I do not think I wish to."
"Oh, Helen has nothing to fear from them," said Andromache, staring fixedly at the Argive woman. "Her husband will soon be here to claim her, I am sure, and deck her in all the jewels of Troy and lead her home in triumph. How fortunate for you that Deiphobos died just in time - not that you care."
Kassandra was appalled at her spite.
"This is no time to quarrel, Sister; we should be glad if one of us need not fear capture. Shall we take refuge in the House of the Maiden? That is where we sent the women from the Sunlord's house and I am sure it is still whole." She put her arm round Hecuba, and said, "Come, let us go."
"No, I stay with my King and my Lord," said the old woman stubbornly, dropping again to her knees beside Priam's body.
"Mother, do you truly believe that Father would want you to stay here to be captured by some Akhaian lord?" Kassandra asked in exasperation.
"He was a soldier to his death; I will not abandon him the moment he has fallen," Hecuba insisted. "You are a young girl; go and take shelter somewhere they will not find you, if there is such a place in Troy. I stay with my Lord; Helen will be with me. Even the Akhaians would offer no insult to the Queen of Troy. We have fallen to a God and not to them."
Kassandra wished she felt half that sure. But they could already hear the soldiers approaching, and she seized Honey's hand. Andromache seized her other hand. Astyanax was in her arms, protesting, struggling to get down, but Andromache paid no attention.
"Let us hide in one of these mean houses along here; they would never think of looking in here, where there would be nothing to plunder," Andromache suggested, but Kassandra shook her head.
"I will entrust myself and my daughter to the Maiden of Troy. If our Gods have deserted us, perhaps the Goddesses will not."
"As you wish," Andromache murmured. "I no longer believe in any Gods. Farewell, then. Good fortune to you." She wedged herself into the smallest and dirtiest of the houses, and Kassandra ran on up the hill, to the highest point of Troy, where the Maiden's Temple stood untouched, the statue in the forecourt still unfallen. Kassandra flung herself down at the feet of the statue; surely no man, not even an Akhaian barbarian, would venture to trespass on any woman who took refuge here.
She heard the voices of the other women in one of the inner rooms. In a moment she would join them. She put Honey down and knelt before the altar.
"Ah, there she is!" It was a cry of triumph in the barbarian tongue of the soldiers. Two armored men burst in the door. "I wondered where all the women had gone."
"This one will do for me; it's the princess, Priam's daughter.
She's a prophetess and a virgin of Apollo—but if Apollo wanted to protect his virgins, he'd have done it. You want to check in the inside room for some more of them?"
"No," replied the other. I'll take the little one. When people think they're big enough, they're too old for my taste. Come here, little girl, I've got something nice for you—"
Kassandra turned in horror, to see a giant soldier beckoning to Honey. "No," she shrieked,"she's only a baby! No, no—"
"I like them that way," said the big soldier, grinning, and made a lunge at the child, ripping away her dress. Kassandra flew at him, using nails and teeth to tear Honey from his arms; a savage kick sent her flying half senseless into a corner of the room. She heard Honey screaming, but could not move; her limbs were so heavy she could not stir a finger. She felt the other man seize her and struggled violently; a blow across the face from the man's arm sent her back as all the strength poured out of her like sand from a torn sack.