Kassandra, daughter of Priam, have you forgotten me?
She whispered under her breath, "Never, Lord."
Have you forgotten that I have set my hand upon you and called you for my own?
Again she whispered, "Never."
Your place is in my Temple; come, I bid you.
"I will come," she said, half aloud, gazing on the luminous form. Then the overseer strode through the yard, and the young man shimmered, wavered in the sun which blurred Kassandra's eyes…
The vision was gone. For a moment Kassandra wondered if she had indeed been bidden to the Sunlord's Temple? Should she fetch her cloak and her serpent, climb up to the High Place of the Gods at once? She hesitated - if she had actually dreamed it and it had never happened, what would she say in the Temple to the priests and priestesses? Surely there were penalties for blasphemy of that kind…
No. She was Priam's daughter, a princess of Troy, and she had been made a priestess of the Great Mother. She might be mistaken, but it was certainly no blasphemy nor anything to be ignored. Silently she went into the palace, under her breath whispering, "If I have not been called, Sunlord, send me a sign."
On the great stairway, she encountered Hecuba, wrapped in a workaday smock, frown lines drawn between her brows making her look older.
"You are idle, daughter," Hecuba rebuked her. "If you cannot find any reason to keep yourself occupied, I will myself find you some task; henceforth you will not leave the women's quarters on any morning until your share of spinning and weaving is done. For shame, to leave your work to your sister. Was it only laziness you learned among the women of my tribe?"
"I am not idle!" Kassandra replied angrily. Was this the sign for which she had asked? 'I have been sent for by the God, and I am required in his Temple."
Hecuba frowned at her, narrowing her eyes.
"Kassandra, the Gods choose their priestesses from among simple folk; they do not call to a princess of Troy."
"Do you think me less worthy than another?" Kassandra flared out. "I have known since I was a child that Apollo Sunlord wanted me for his own, and now he has summoned me!"
"Oh, Kassandra!" Hecuba sighed. "Why do you talk such nonsense?" but Kassandra was no longer listening to her. She turned away and ran down the stairs and out through the great gates, hurrying up the hill toward Apollo's Temple.
CHAPTER 18
Kassandra ran up the steps of the street which traversed the city from lower to highest ground, hardly realizing that the women who dwelled in the crowded houses built along the steep street had come crowding out of the houses, in a flutter of brightly dyed dresses, to watch her precipitous flight. The pounding of her heart forced her to slow her steps to a walk, and then to a full stop.
She bent over, half sick. She had been rigidly schooled always to maintain her decorum before strangers; she pressed the loose sleeve of her dress over her lips, trying to control the nausea and sharp pain in her chest, and sought a step where she could catch her breath. She did not want to appear on the doorstep of the God as a dishevelled fugitive.
A kindly voice said 'Princess—" and she looked up to see an aging woman bent over her, holding a clay cup in her hand. "You have climbed too far, and too swiftly, in this sun. May I offer you a drink of water? Or I can fetch you some cooled wine, if it would please you to step inside."
The thought of going into the cool shaded interior was tempting, but Kassandra was ashamed to show or admit weakness.
How can I be overcome by the sun? I am the beloved of Apollo Sunlord - but she did not say this aloud, murmuring her thanks and setting the cup to her lips. The water tasted a little of clay and was not over cool, but it felt good to her parched lips and throat.
"Will you rest for a moment inside my house, Princess?"
"No, thank you." She kept her eyes averted. "I am quite well; I will sit here and rest for a moment." The light hurt her eyes; she shaded them with her hand, looking down at the clear dazzling reflection of the harbor. For a moment the sun blurred her sight, then she saw clearly and all but cried out; the clear blue of the sea was dark with the sails of many ships.
So many! Where had they come from?
They were not her father's ships; and as she tried to focus on any one of them she was suddenly no longer sure it was there. After a few moments of this, the harbor burned empty with dazzling blue sea, broken only by the shape of one old Cretan ship which had been loading paints and lumber for the past three days.
It had been only a vision, then; a hallucination.
She wrenched her aching eyes from the illusory sea, slowly got to her feet and began to climb upward. She kept her eyes slitted narrowly against the sun, which glared like fire spreading down across the walls of Troy, and kept climbing, slowly, against a growing sense that to run away like this was folly, that one did, not flee to a God like a strayed goat bolting from the flock. She should have come, oh, yes, but she should have come like a princess of Troy, attended properly, and bearing the proper gifts for the House of the God.
Nevertheless it would be wrong to turn back now. Unless the deceitful vision of ships had been meant as a warning…? No; even so, she could not take back her commitment to the God.
She climbed on, approaching the temple of the Sunlord.
A flare of light, haloed by a flash of summer lightning, drew her eyes to the heights, where the Temple of Pallas Athene stood, and suddenly doubt assailed her. She had been made priestess of the Goddess, sent into the Underworld to seek her, and had been accepted; was it not Earth Mother who had called her since her earliest childhood, and had spoken to her with the voice of prophecy? Was she then abandoning her loyalty to the Divine Mother, Maiden and protectress of maidens, forsaking her for the beautiful Sunlord?
Sudden panic flooded her, so that for a moment she thought she would vomit, and swallowed spasmodically; her whole body was filled with a fear she could all but taste. She heard hard steps pursuing her and for a moment the sky above her was dark, and there was but one thought filling her mind to the brim, submerged in the dark waters… I must reach the Temple of the Maiden, there alone will I be safe… no man would dare lay hands on any whom she protects…
Kassandra blinked incredulously. There was no peril, no flame, no pursuer. The harbor gleamed empty and blue; the street around her contained only a few women, watching her climb sedately toward the great gates of the Sunlord's Temple.
Is it the God who has sent madness on me? She paused to catch her breath and stepped over the threshold into Apollo's Temple.
There was a sudden rush of wind, as if a giant hand pushed her across the threshold. Kassandra, patting her hair distractedly into place, looked about, almost disappointed that no one seemed to take notice. What did I expect? That the God himself would come out and make me welcome?
A woman in the ordinary dress of a priestess - a white tunic and a veil dyed with saffron to a sunny golden colour - raised her head and looked at Kassandra; then stood up and came toward her. She said, "Welcome, daughter of Priam; have you come here for an oracle or an omen, or to offer sacrifice?"
"None of these things," Kassandra said, self-consciously, not knowing how to say what she had come to say. "I came - because the God has called me to come - to be his priestess—" and she broke off, feeling more than a little foolish.
But the older woman smiled in a kindly way and said, "Yes, of course; I remember that you came once to us when you were only a little girl, and seemed so much at home here, I thought perhaps one day the Sunlord would call you. So now come inside, my dear, and tell me all about it. First, how old are you?" she asked. "You seem well-grown to womanhood."