I do not want to be false to my vows. I am sworn to Apollo, and it is he who has forsaken me; I would never betray him with any mortal man, yet that blasphemous priest has had me disgraced in the Temple… for his sake I am defiled in their eyes when I am innocent of all wrong-doing.
Would the Goddess she had served during her time with the Amazons have taken the part of a man against her sworn priestess? Was it only that a God, when a man and a woman contended, could not take a woman's part, whatever the rights of the matter? She was the property of the God, just as if she had married a mortal man.
Yet Khryse and I both belong to Apollo and so we should have been equal in his sight.
She came through the great bronze doors, and the night Watchman bent to her in reverence.
"You are abroad late, princess."
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"I have been at the palace with my father and mother," she said. "A good night to you."
"Good night, Lady," he said, and she went towards the rooms at the back where the women slept. She slipped out of her sandals and gown, and laid herself down to sleep.
Her eyes were still aching, and as she relaxed her muscles she felt tears stealing unbidden down her face. The memory of Aeneas's embrace returned, and for a moment she played in her mind with the memory; if she would, she could take him from her sister, and Creusa would not even be angry with her, she would be pleased to be free of her wifely obligations to him…
Who would be harmed if she should yield to Aeneas? Should she truly forget her vows, since she had had no good from them? Or was it that foreign Goddess of lawless love sending to tempt her? Then before her eyes the face of Aeneas was lost in the blazing memory of the Sunlord's face, the soft unforgettable music of his voice as he said Kassandra…
As she drifted into sleep she wondered; how could any woman choose a mere man above a God? Perhaps it was better to be forgotten or ignored by the Sunlord than loved or cherished by any living man.
CHAPTER 8
It began to be rumoured in the city that the Akhaians had given up and would not return; Kassandra knew better than that, for there were still times when she would look down from the high-house of the Sunlord, and see for a moment the city swallowed in flames. From this she knew that the gift of prophecy had not deserted her.
It was no use to her; when she spoke of it, no one would listen. Nevertheless, O Lord Apollo, whatever may have been taken from me, a day will come when they will remember what I said and know I did not lie.
She wondered at times: This is only a curse, since no one believes what I say; why must I suffer in knowing and being unable to speak? Yet when she would have prayed that the Sight might be withdrawn, she thought: Oh, no! how much worse to walk blind and unknowing into whatever the Fates have decreed.
Yet if this was the fate of all men; how, then, did they manage to endure it?
Day after day the seas were free of warships or of raiders. Other ships came, bound northward to Colchis and the country of the North Wind, paying their tribute to Troy, and from Colchis Queen Imandra sent gifts and greetings to her daughter, and to Kassandra too.
One morning Kassandra found her snake lying dead in its pot; and this she took for the worst of omens. She had had but little time to spare for the creature lately, and blamed herself for not having seen that it was ailing. She asked leave to bury it in the temple grounds. When this was done, Charis sent for her and set her in charge of all the serpents in Apollo's Temple.
"But why?" Kassandra asked. "I am not worthy; I tended mine so ill that it sickened and died."
"Why do we give you this task? Because you are not happy, Kassandra; do you think us blind? You are dear to me - dear to Us all," and as Kassandra made a gesture of protest, she said,
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"No, this is true; do you think us unaware of what Khryse has done to you? If we were free to turn him from the door, believe me, there are many who would do so. And now we have an excuse to give you a duty where you need not encounter him at every day and in every hour."
She still did not understand; why were they not free to turn him away from the temple? He had attempted to rape a virgin of the God. It was a riddle she could not read; nor did Charis give any explanation, saying no more; evidently they were not even free to explain why Khryse had this hold over them.
There was a very old priestess in the temple who had all kinds of serpent-lore; older than Hecuba - at least as much older than Queen Hecuba as Hecuba was older than her daughter. Kassandra, eager to avoid for the other serpents in the temple the fate which had befallen her own snake, took to spending many hours with the old woman. Her hair was white and mostly fallen out, and her eyes sunken into her head like a skeleton's. She suffered from a palsy of age, her hands shaking so that she could not grasp her own feeding-spoon; it was this ailment which decreed she had to be relieved of the care of the serpents.
Kassandra spent all her hours with the old woman, lifting her and feeding her, and when the priestess was strong enough to talk to her, learning all about every kind of snake and serpent, including many kinds they no longer kept in the temple. Sometimes Kassandra thought she would like to make a long journey simply to secure for the temple some of these strange creatures for the house of Apollo: the ones who dwelt in the deserts far to the south, or one of the kind called Python, larger around than a child, and able to swallow a kid at a meal, or even a whole sheep. Kassandra was not entirely sure she believed in such a creature, but she liked hearing such tales, and would sit and listen all day to the old woman's.
After the serpents had been fed there was little to do, except for seeing to old Meliantha's needs, and Kassandra would listen and daydream, thinking of her meeting with the Goddess as Serpent Mother in the underworld and wondering how the story had arisen of Apollo Sunlord slaying the Python.
The year was advancing; belated winter rains swept softly in from the sea and on some bare branches could be seen little lumps where leaves would eventually unfold. One day she stood high atop the Sunlord's house and heard a faraway shrill crying.
"Look, the cranes are flying north again." I wonder, she thought, to what faraway lands they travel, beyond the country of the North Wind. But her companions had more practical thoughts in their minds.
"Soon it will be time for the spring planting festival," said Chryseis, and there was a greedy gleam in her eyes. "I am tired of being shut in with the women." Kassandra was struck with fear; surely with spring, the Akhaians would come. The last winter moon swelled and shrank and there came days grey with soft rains; and a few days after the northward flight of the cranes, the clouds cleared, and the narrow new moon in the sky announced the coming of spring and the planting festival.
On the first day after the new moon, Kassandra was summoned to the palace to her mother's presence; she found her with her women, making implements for the planting rites, and a priestess of Earth Mother was there supervising the work.
Kassandra did not know what she was going to say until she heard herself saying it.
"Are you planning the festival so that the Akhaians can enjoy it? Surely to hold a festival now is only inviting them to come and despoil it!"
The priestess, an aging woman Kassandra did not know well, scowled at her.
"What would you suggest as an alternative, Lady Kassandra? We cannot refrain from planting the grain—"
"Oh, I know that the grain must be sown," Kassandra said, almost frantic, "but must we draw attention to it with a festival?"