The priestess asked, frowning, "Do you expect to enjoy the gifts of the Goddess without doing her honor?"
Kassandra, hardly knowing what to say wanted to cry. She thought, If the Goddess is so great and benevolent, surely she would give us the grain without demanding so much. Is the Earth Goddess an old market woman to haggle with us - so much grain for so many songs and dances? Since she could not say that, she said nothing at all, and knew the priestess was frowning at her with disapproval.
"What has the festival to do with you, who have chosen to remain a virgin in the house of the Sunlord, and do not pay her your due?"
"It was not altogether by choice," she said meekly. "The Sunlord called me, and Earth Goddess made no protest. If she had demanded of me that I serve her I would have obeyed."
And why did she not stretch forth her bow to save me from
the Sunlord, then? Am I no more than a fleeing animal before the strife of these Gods?
But the priestess was still scowling at her, seeming to demand an answer, and Kassandra said, "Since I too am fed by her bounty, I see no reason for a festival which will make the planting useless. For if the Akhaians come to destroy our festival, we will reap little from this planting."
"Are you saying to me that even the Akhaians do not pay honor to the Goddess?"
"I say only that I fear their impiety," said Kassandra. "If you believe that they pay honor to the Goddess, why not ask one of their devotees, or send a messenger to negotiate a truce and a pledge that they will not interfere with Earth Mother's rites?"
And for that fear I am badgered as if the impiety were mine own; I should learn to keep silence.
She bowed in silence to the priestess; her warning given. It was no part of her duty to say more. Her mother had been looking on in silence, and Kassandra crossed the room to join her.
"Can you not understand my fear, Mother?"
"I trust to the goodness of the Goddess; surely she can raise her hand if she will to strike against these Akhaians," said Hecuba reprovingly. "You are too full of fears, Kassandra."
"You have served Earth Mother all these years; has she ever lifted her hand to protect you?" asked Kassandra.
Her mother looked deeply displeased and said, "Such questions are not for women to ask; you who are a priestess should know better than to say such things. The Gods are not slow to punish those who speak against or question them."
I should have been the one to say that, thought Kassandra. I have lived in the Sunlord's house and seen how he strikes - and how he protects - his own. She sighed and said no more.
Her mother said gently, "I am not reproving you, Kassandra; but if you have found no happiness in the Sunlord's house you should return to us here. I cannot think it entirely a good thing for a girl of your years to remain this long a maiden; if you return to Priam's house, your father will find you a husband. It would please me well, to see you married and with a child in your arms. And then there would be no more of these evil dreams and prophecies to torment you."
In spite of her mother's loving tone, Kassandra felt a wave of anger so great that it choked her. Ah, that is the remedy for all things that are wrong with women - if a woman is unhappy, or if she makes a mistake, or does not do what everyone else wants her to do; then she would be better for a husband; if she had a child it would be the remedy for all her ills. She said to her mother, "Ah, you too, Mother? When you rode with Penthesilea and her women, would you have been so quick to say that was what ailed me? Would you give me to a husband or see me pregnant just so I would not speak the truth and frighten people?"
Hecuba was dismayed at her angry tone. She patted Kassandra's knotted fingers and smoothed them gently, trying to. unlock them. "Don't be angry, my dear; I don't know why you are always so angry. I only want to see you happy, my child."
"I am angry because I am surrounded by fools," said Kassandra, "and your only answer would be to make me one of them."
She stood up and flung herself out of the room. Her mother was hopeless, and yet there had been a time when she was strong and self-sufficient; Kassandra had her weapons to prove it. And why had she let her mother divert her from the real issue, which was the danger to the spring planting? Her mother had chosen to divert her to the old issue of marriage - as if a married woman automatically gained wisdom. Andromache was certainly no wiser for her marriage to Hector, nor Creusa for being married to Aeneas.
If I thought that it could work some such great change in me, then would I be not only willing, but eager, to marry!
CHAPTER 9
A little before daybreak Kassandra heard the jingling of bells and the sounds of movement in the city below. As she raised her head a wave of sickness rolled over her; it seemed to her that the quiet room was alive with shrieks and the clash of arms. Oh, no, she thought, falling back on her pillow, and pulling the blanket over her head. For a few minutes she lay unmoving - she had vowed that if there was to be catastrophe, it would happen when she was far from it. She had delivered the warning and that was quite enough.
But outside her room, the sounds of festival went on; soon they would come and call her, and at last she rose and dressed herself, and went to care for the temple serpents, half expecting that on a day of such evil omen she would find them all hiding inside their pots and holes; but they seemed to be behaving exactly as always. She fetched food from the kitchens and fed old Meliantha bread soaked in watered wine. When all had been done that she could find to do, she looked over the wall and saw hundreds of women streaming down from the gates of Troy and down to the fertile area between the rivers. She did not put on her holiday garment, nor stop to fashion a garland for herself; but she braided her dark hair loosely to keep it out of her eyes, then left the temple. On the path below she recognized before her a familiar figure and a head of reddish golden hair. She hurried to catch up with the woman.
"Oenone, what are you doing here? Are there no crops to be sown on Mount Ida, my sister?"
Encouraged by her words, Oenone smiled affectionately at Kassandra; but she did not speak, and after a moment Kassandra knew, as if the other woman had told her, she hoped for a glimpse of Paris. Kassandra could give her no encouragement or hope in this, so she lifted her hands to the chubby toddler riding on his mother's shoulder.
"How big he grows! Is he not heavy to ride on your shoulder this way?"
"His eyes are dark and he looks more and more like his father," Oenone said, not answering Kassandra's question. Indeed the boy's eyes, smoky blue at birth like all babies', had darkened to a glowing hazel not unlike Paris's or Kassandra's own.
Much good may that do him, Kassandra thought, so angry that she could hardly speak. Because she could not chide Oenone for this hopeless and absurd quest, she said crossly, "Go home, Oenone, tend to the crops on Mount Ida. Little good will come of this planting here. The gods are angry with Troy. Paris will not be here; this festival is for women - I should think you know our customs well enough by now to know that."
"Still I will come and pray with the others if there is need, to turn away the anger of Earth Mother," said Oenone, and Kassandra knew that nothing she said would make the slightest difference.
So she said, "Let me carry the baby for you," and held out her arms for the child. He was heavy indeed, but she had offered and would not withdraw her help. A pity Paris would not come and carry his own son, she thought. Among the women coming down from the palace she saw her mother, and Andromache with Hector's son Astyanax, now tall enough to walk at his mother's side, clutching to her skirt.