No; that was no more than a dream; it might never happen after all. The death of Patroklos and the return of Akhilles had changed some tide in the currents of what might befall, she knew that; now even the Gods must make new plans. The night appeared to sparkle with glimmers of moonlight, and it seemed, as she drifted ghostlike down toward the Akhaian camp, that great forms drifted through the dark. No mortal thing, she knew, could see her in this form, but the Gods might catch sight of her as she spied in this world of ghosts…
She had no idea where she was going, but for some unknown reason a firm sense of purpose drove her on. She lingered a moment in Agamemnon's tent; he lay sleeping—he was not really larger than life-size, only a narrowly built, mean-looking man with a troubled look on his face. This man was married to Helen's sister, and had offered his own daughter as sacrifice for a fair wind… did the Gods of the Akhaians truly demand such hideous things or did they have priests who said so to suit their own corrupt purposes? She supposed that an evil man was evil everywhere, and among the Akhaians it must be easier. As she lingered, he rolled over on his back and opened his eyes; it seemed to Kassandra that he could see her, and perhaps if he was dreaming he could.
He said in a whisper - though she did not think he actually spoke - 'Have you been sent to tempt me, maiden?"
She replied, "You are only dreaming I am here. I am the spirit of the daughter whom you sent to death, and may the Gods send you evil dreams." She drifted through the wall of the tent, but behind her she heard him wail in sudden terrified waking. She would not wish to be he this night.
She moved on and found herself in the tent of Akhilles. The Akhaian prince was awake, stretched on his back, his eyes wide open; and lying on a stretcher at the other side of the tent lay the body of Patroklos. Kassandra did not understand; he should surely have been burned, or buried or even exposed to the great scavenger birds, as some of the tribes of the great steppes did. Yet the body had been embalmed; and Akhilles kept vigil beside it. His strange pale eyes were swollen as if he had been weeping for a long time; and he was crying inaudibly.
"Oh, Mother!" he cried out through his sobs, and Kassandra had no idea whether he was invoking his earthly mother or calling upon a Goddess. "Oh, Mother, you told me that Zeus Thunderer had promised me honor and glory, and look what has happened to me; taunted by Agamemnon and now my only friend is gone from me!"
She thought, You should have been the kind of person who-could have more than one friend in a lifetime. She heard him moan wordlessly again and then cry out to Patroklos:
"How could you leave me? And what shall I say to your father? He told you to stay at home and mind the affairs of your own kingdom; but I pledged to him that no harm should come to you, and that I would bring you home covered with honor and glory! Aye, I will bring you home - but there is no honor or glory for you now." His sobbing became uncontrollable.
For a moment Kassandra almost pitied the Akhaian prince's grief, but she had heard too much of his mad battle-lust. He killed without mercy, inflicting as much suffering as he could; but when it came his turn to suffer he had little bravery. And if he had come out and fought for himself this would never have happened; Patroklos had been killed for being where Akhilles should have been. Suddenly she knew what she had come to do.
"Akhilles," she called softly, imitating the accent she had heard in the Akhaian camp.
He sat up, staring around him, his eyes rolling with terror.
"Who calls me?"
"Ghosts have no names," she said, deepening her voice. "I am numbered among the dead."
"Is it you, Patroklos? Why have you come to haunt me, my friend? Why do you stay here rather than passing to your rest?"
"While I remain unburied I cannot rest; my spirit remains to haunt those who compassed my death."
"Then go and haunt the Trojan Hector," Akhilles cried in terror, his eyes almost starting from his head. "It was his spear cast out your life, not mine!"
"Alas," Kassandra wailed, "I remain here for I was killed in your armor, and in that place which should have been yours in battle—" and then, with sudden inspiration, "Do you love me no more because I have passed the doors of death?"
Akhilles wailed, "The dead have no more place among the living; reproach me not, or I shall die of grief—"
"I do not reproach you," Kassandra moaned in the sepulchral voice. "I leave that to your own conscience; you know I died the death that should have been yours—"
"No!" Akhilles cried out. "No! I will not hear this! Help! Guards!"
What the devil! she thought. Does be truly believe that his guards can cast out a ghost? Four armed men rushed into his tent.
"You called us, my prince?" asked the first of them, avoiding looking at the body of Patroklos where it lay.
"Search the tent and the camp," Akhilles commanded. "Some intruder has entered unseen and spoke dreadful things to me in the voice of Patroklos. Find him and drag him here - and I will have his eyeballs on sticks to roast! I will tear out his gizzard and fry it before his eyes! I will - but find him for me first!" He shook his fist and the men rushed out.
Her mission finished, Kassandra drifted after them, and heard one of them say, "I knew it. He's been mad since he shut himself up in his tent and it's driven him further out of his senses, it has."
"Do you think there's a spy?"
"I wouldn't wear meself out looking, lad," said the first speaker cynically. "Inside his poor sick brain, that's where ye'll find your ghost."
Kassandra would have laughed if she had been capable of it. Like a wraith of fog she moved up the long hill to the windswept heights of Troy, and silently slipped downward and merged with her body, still wrapped in Aeneas's arms.
She slept without dreams.
Now that she had a man among the warriors, she told herself she understood the impulse which sent the women down to the wall to watch the fighting. She left Phyllida to care for the serpents, and the other priestesses to the task of healing the wounded. This morning the line of chariots seemed more brilliantly painted and polished, weapons shining with a more terrible menace that ever before. Hector was leading, flanked by Aeneas and Paris, armored and imposing as if they were the
Gods of war in person. Behind the line of chariots came long lines of foot-soldiers in their polished leather armor with their javelins and spears. She thought, if she were among the Akhaians and saw this formidable host approaching, she might well run away.
The Argive troops, already lined up along the earthworks they had built between the plain and the shoreline where their ships were beached, did not flinch even when Hector gave the command to charge, and the Trojan war cry rang out. The chariots thundered forward, toward the unbreaking Argive line. The Akhaians loosed a flight of arrows and, as if in one concerted movement, the Trojan shields went up; most of the arrows fell harmlessly on the roof thus formed by the shields of the Trojans. A second flight of arrows quickly followed the first; one or two soldiers in the ranks fell, or stumbled out of line back toward the walls; but this did not interrupt the charge of the chariots.
A great cry went up from both ranks; at the top of the earthworks stood a great bronze chariot ablaze with golden wings and a rayed sun, and in it a glittering figure; Akhilles had joined the battle, dominating the line of Akhaians as a rooster dominates a henyard; everyone on either side of the battle seemed smaller and drabber by contrast.