Kassandra was not surprised; from what Penthesilea had said, she knew that the inhabitants of the Great Plain, never particularly inclined to trust outsiders, were even less inclined to do so now. It was fortunate that she had no need to trade with them for food or any other commodities. Day after day they plodded across the Great Plain, their animals' hooves cutting through the soggy mud where there had been frozen grass, the snow never thick enough to be a danger, the dull rains never enough to thaw the frozen ground. The great steppes were empty and barren; they found little enough food to supplement their dreary travel rations, and Kassandra grew weary of riding over the empty lands, crawling under an endless sky which seemed as grey and hostile as the faces of her companions.
Day followed sullen day while the moon thinned and faded and then swelled again; how long could this winter endure? Then soon after a vagrant sight of a full moon through ragged clouds she woke to hear rushing winds and a heavy thick dripping rain which seemed to be carrying away the very land itself.
The new morning brought a countryside transformed, with little rivers flowing everywhere over the surface of the ground, shining in a new strong sun, and grass springing up everywhere, under warm soft winds. It soon grew so warm that Kassandra discarded her horsehide tunic and rode in her soft cloth chemise, since there was none to see her.
On one of these spring days they came to a village, no more than a cluster of round stone huts on the plain; but surrounding it were fields of greening winter grain uncovered from the fast vanishing snow. Kassandra remembered the blighted village of her journey with the Amazons years ago, where all the children, more or less, had been severely deformed. But if this was the same village they must somehow have survived the blight, for such children as she saw looked strong and healthy. Later though, she saw some of the older girls and boys who had only two fingers on a hand. Before this they had seen no human dwelling for eight or ten days, and when the headwoman of the village came out to meet them, she seemed glad to see them as well.
"The winter has lain long on the land," she said, "and we have seen no humans all this winter but a little band of marauding Kentaurs, so weakened with starvation that they made no attempts on our women, but only begged us for food of any sort."
"That seems sad," Kassandra said, but the headwoman wrinkled her face in disdain.
"You are a priestess; it is your work to have compassion even for such as they, I suppose. They have terrorized us too often for me to have any feeling save satisfaction when I see them brought so low. With luck they will all starve, and then we need never fear them again. Have you metals or weapons for trade? No one passes through here for trade these days; such metals as they have are all bound for the war in Troy and we can get none."
"I am sorry; I have no weapons but my own," Kassandra said. "But we will buy some of your pots if you still make them."
The pots were brought out, and lengthily examined; dark fell while they were still looking them over and the headwoman invited them to dine at her table and continue the trading in the morning. She placed one of the stone huts at their disposal, and bade them to dinner in the central hut. The food was meagre indeed - meat which seemed to be some kind of ground-squirrel, boiled in a stew with bitter acorns and tasteless white roots; but at least it was freshly cooked. Kassandra, recalling the blight, was somewhat reluctant to eat here at all, but told herself not to trouble about it.
For, while I am still of childbearing age, I suppose, I am not wed, nor likely to be. And in any case while these ladies sleep one at either side of my bed, I am scarcely likely to get myself with child. If this village had not somehow recovered from the blight, she thought, it would have vanished when every soul in it died.
A few days later they sighted the iron gates of Colchis, as high and as impressive as ever, and Kassandra attired herself not in her leather riding clothes and chemise, but in her finest Trojan robes, dyed in brilliant colours, and had one of her waiting-women dress her hair in the elaborate plaited headdress she wore in the Sunlord's Temple. At least Queen Imandra would greet her as a princess of Troy, not as a wandering supplicant.
They were welcomed at the iron gate of the city as envoys from-Troy and bidden to lodge at the palace. Kassandra, saying she must pay her respects at the Sunlord's Temple, went to his large shrine which had been built at the very center of the city, and sacrificed a pair of doves to Apollo of the Long Bow. After that, she was taken to the palace, and conducted to a luxurious guest suite, where bath-women and dressing-maids were put at her disposal. During the long process of bathing—or rather of being bathed - she reflected that during the long journey she had all but forgotten the taste of luxury. She enjoyed the steaming water, the fragrant oils, the gentle massaging of her flesh with brushes and the soft hands of the women. Then they dressed her in fine guest-garments and conducted her into the presence-chamber of Queen Imandra.
She had expected that the Queen would look older; she herself was no longer the childlike girl who had come here, shy and tongue-tied, at Penthesilea's side. But the change was more than she could ever have imagined; if she had met this woman anywhere except in this very throne-room, she would never have recognized her as the proud descendant of Medea.
Imandra had grown enormously fatter; she was imposing rather than gross, hung everywhere with gold; but she had ceased to adorn her fleshy body with the coils of living serpents. Her cheeks and lips were stained with red dye, and she wore the richly dyed robes of fine-spun thin cloth which came from the land of the Pharaohs by way of the Eastern roads. Her hair was studded with jewels as always. Amid all this splendour, only the merry dark eyes were the same, almost lost in the folds of flesh.
As Kassandra entered the hall and paused to give her the ritual greeting, Imandra rose from her throne, and walked - or rather, waddled - forward.
"No, my dear, no prostrations from my kinswoman," she said, seizing Kassandra in a warm and scented embrace; the perfume was as familiar as the eyes. "I am more glad than I can say to see you, daughter of Priam; what a long journey you have had! No doubt you bear messages from my daughter—"
"From your daughter and your grandson; Andromache is a mother, and soon to be - no, by this time she has another child if all has gone well," Kassandra said, and Imandra beamed.
"I knew it, I knew it; did I not say, my dear, that enough time had gone by that I should be twice a grand-dam, if my daughter had done her duty?" she asked, addressing a handsomely built young man, attired in gold cloth, like an athlete or the victor of the Games, who had been given the seat near her side. "Tomorrow I must look in the pool of ink and try to see her child, and if all is well with her."
She took Kassandra's hands and drew her to the high table, seating herself between Kassandra and the richly dressed young man. "Now tell me everything which has happened in Troy these last years since you went from me, taking my dearest treasure with you. And what brings you so far without your kinswomen?"
"Perhaps," said the young man,"the Lady Kassandra has come to beseech our assistance in this war against the Akhaians."