"No; I cannot think of such things at such a time as this," the old woman said. "Dress me in my priestess's robes, and paint my face, and then carry me out into the sunlight in the courtyard, so that I may look one more time upon the face of the Sunlord for whom I have spent my life."
Kassandra did as she was bidden, assisting the old woman into the elaborate robe of pleated linen dyed brilliant yellow with saffron. She found a pot of cosmetics and as the old woman wished, hesitantly painted her cheeks and lips brilliant red with dye, though she thought it looked grotesque. At last she stooped and picked up the old priestess in her arms and carried her into the brilliant light of the courtyard, where she laid her down on some cushions. The old woman, exhausted, lay back, and Kassandra could see the blue pulse in her veins beating away hard in her temple. Her breath was a hoarse, exhausted rasp.
"Shall I not summon a healer to you, Lady?"
"No; it is too late for that," Meliantha said. "I am glad I will not live to see the days that are coming to Troy. But you have been good to my little people; and I shall pray with my dying breath that somehow you may escape what the fates have determined for this wretched city." She shut her eyes for a moment and Kassandra bent forward to hear if she still breathed. Meliantha put out a wavering hand.
"Closer, my child, I cannot see your face," she said. "Yet it shines before me like a star; the Sunlord has not forsaken you." Then she kissed Kassandra with her wrinkled lips and, opening her filmed old eyes, she cried out, "Apollo Sunlord! Let me see thy face bright before me!"
She trembled violently and fell back upon the cushions, and Kassandra knew she was gone.
Now it could not hurt her to be left alone, so Kassandra ran to tell Charis what had happened.
"She was the oldest of us all," Charis said. "I came here as a girl of twelve and already she was old then. I felt the Earthshaker in the night, and I should have gone to her; but it was just as well. I could have done her no good. Well, we must bury her as befits a priestess of Apollo," she said, and sent the women for flowers to make garlands and for honey cakes and wine.
"We do not mourn when one of our own goes to the eternal realms," she chided the sobbing girls. "We rejoice because after a long life of service the Serpent Mother has taken her and see—" she indicated the dead snakes lying in their pots, "her little friends have gone before her to welcome her into those realms; there she can see them again and play with them, as she always loved to do."
Two days later, Kassandra heard the alarm in the city announcing an Akhaian attack, and saw the men of Troy rushing down to meet them, her brother Paris among them. She was surprised at how commonplace this was beginning to seem, not only to her, but apparently to all the people of Troy. Except for the fighting men, no one seemed to pay much attention to the attack. The smooth routine of the temple didn't alter at all, and from the wall she could see townswomen going calmly to the cisterns with their water jars.
One non-fighting man, however, was still interested in the actions of the Akhaians. At the end of the wall nearest the fighting Khryse stood scowling as he watched the fight. Kassandra, not wishing to deal with him, slipped away back to the maidens' rooms. The people of Troy, she thought to herself, are starting to regard the Akhaians with all the concern they would give to a sudden hailstorm. Can't they see that this will be our destruction? But I suppose that no one can live in a state of terror for years on end. No doubt I'd feel the same complacency if I did not have the visions to unsettle me.
Shortly afterward, a messenger from the city reached her, saying that the Lady Helen was in labour and wished to see her. Since Meliantha's death, Kassandra had few or no obligations in the Sunlord's house and so she did not bother to ask leave, but went down at once to the palace. She found her mother and sisters, except for Andromache, all gathered in Helen's rooms.
Kassandra inquired about Andromache and was told that she had taken all the littlest children to her room to tell them stories and feed them sweets.
"For if there is anything we do not need in the birthing-chamber," said Creusa, "it is the babies under our feet."
Kassandra thought she was most probably right; she wondered if it were good nature on Andromache's part, or whether she shrank from remembering her own ordeal. It did not matter; in any case it needed doing and Andromache's motives were not important.
The birthing-chamber was quite crowded enough as it was, and most of the women were more obstacles to be stepped around than any kind of help to a woman in labour, but custom demanded witnesses for a royal birth. Kassandra wondered if the Akhaians had the same custom, and resolved to ask Helen when they had leisure. At the moment, however, she was surrounded with so many midwives, waiting-women insistent on curling her hair or showing her some garment or piece of jewellery she might want, priestesses bearing amulets or chanting healing spells, cooks with morsels and drinks to tempt her appetite, that Kassandra could not get near the bed and resolved to wait till Helen asked for her.
Creusa had brought a lap-harp with her, and sat in the corner producing a quiet and calming background strumming. After a time Helen noticed Kassandra in the crowd and beckoned to her.
"Come and sit here beside me, Sister; this is like a festival -and so it is for most of them, I suppose."
"Like a wedding," Kassandra said. "Great fun for everyone except the ones most concerned. All we need in here are a few acrobats and dancing girls, and someone showing off a two-headed rabbit for coppers, and a fire-eater or a sword-swal-lower—"
"I'm sure if I wanted them, Hecuba would provide them," Helen said with a droll lift of her eyebrows. Kassandra was aware that even under these trying circumstances she was ravishingly lovely.
"Acrobats and dancing-girls, at least," Kassandra said. "Priam has several of them in the palace. I'm not sure about two-headed rabbits."
"Oh, fie, Kassandra; our royal mother would not - it would be beneath her dignity to take notice of Priam's dancing-girls or flute-girls," Creusa said, between chords. Kassandra laughed.
"Don't you believe that; Hecuba's business is to oversee the food for every person under this roof. She probably knows how many olives each of them eats at dinner - which ones are greedy for honey and cakes, and which ones are careful never to get with child."
"Of course; an acrobat can put herself out of work for a year, if she gets pregnant," Helen said. "I had two girls, sisters, in Mykenae, who used to come and dance for me." It was the first time she had spoken of her old home that Kassandra could remember. "No working girl wants to be burdened with carrying and birthing. That's for ladies of leisure - like us."
"Perhaps we work hardest of all," Kassandra said. "My mother has borne and suckled seventeen children."
Helen shivered. "I am already three-and-twenty and I have only Hermione and Nikos; I am fortunate," she said, and then a surprised look passed over her face and she grimaced and was silent for a moment.
"That was a fierce one," she said. "I think it will not be very long now." She looked around the chamber.
Kassandra asked, "Can I fetch you something?"
Helen shook her head, but she looked sad. She is alone here, thought Kassandra. Among so many women, she has no real friend from her own country.
"Where is your lady, Aithra?"
"She has returned to Crete; I would not be the cause of her exile too," Helen said, and reached out her hand to Kassandra; Kassandra held it tight.
Helen said, almost in a whisper, "Stay with me, Sister? I do not know these women—and there is none of them I trust."
Creusa pulled a stool toward them with her free hand. Kassandra dropped on it, disposing her cumbersome robes around her. She noticed that the other woman looked pale now, and drawn. Not now possessed by her Goddess; she was, Kassandra noted with detachment, quite a small woman, whose pale hair was her chief beauty, for even now, tired and sweat-stained, it fell into smooth dazzling bands on both sides of her face. Her eyes looked tired and a little red. Kassandra sat on the stool beside the bed letting Helen grip her hand. Creusa played softly, and music seemed to be helping - or perhaps Helen would have z had an easy time of it in any case. Kassandra was curious, but did not feel comfortable asking questions; this experience was still something which seemed to have nothing to do with her. As the afternoon sun strengthened in the room, Hecuba sent everyone away except the two senior midwives, a servant for running errands, and a priestess bearing many amulets which she came and distributed around the bed. She would have sent Kassandra away too.