When they reached the palace, a servant (Kassandra noticed that the old woman's eyes were as swollen and red as her mother's - everyone down to the kitchen drudges had loved Hector, and all the palace women remembered Troilus as a small petted child) took their soaked cloaks, dried their hair and feet with towels, and showed them into the main dining hall.
It looked almost the same as always, a roaring fire casting light around the room and branched candlesticks spreading brilliance by which the paintings on the walls wavered as if seen underwater. The carved bench where Hector habitually sat was empty, and Andromache sat between Priam and Hecuba, like a child between her parents.
Paris and Helen were nearby, clinging to one another's hands. They came to greet Polyxena, who went to kiss her parents; Kassandra sat down in her accustomed place near Helen, but when the servants put food on her plate she could not swallow and only nibbled at a dish of boiled vegetables and drank a little watered wine. Paris looked sad, but Kassandra knew that he was very well aware that he was now Priam's eldest son and commander of the armies. If there is to be any hope for Troy, someone must disabuse him of that notion, she thought, he is no Hector. Then she was astonished at herself; she had known so long that there was no hope for Troy, why did these unconquerable thoughts of hope keep rising again and again?
Did this mean her visions of doom were simply hallucinations or brain-sickness, as everyone said? Or did it mean that somehow with Hector gone there was new hope for Troy? No, that was certainly madness; he was the best of us all, she thought, and knew that someone - Paris? Priam? - had actually said it aloud.
"He was the best of us all," Paris said, "but he is gone, and somehow we must manage the rest of this war without him. I have no idea how we will do it."
"It is in essence your war," Andromache said. "I told Hector he should have left it to you all along."
Someone sobbed aloud; it was Helen. Andromache turned on her in sudden rage.
"How dare you! If it were not for you he would be alive, and his son not fatherless!"
"Oh, come, my dear," Priam said in a conciliatory tone. "You really mustn't talk like that to your sister - there is enough grief in this house this night."
"Sister? Never! This woman from our enemies, from whom all our troubles have arisen - look, she sits and gloats because now her paramour will command all Priam's armies—"
"The Gods know I do not gloat," Helen said, stifling her tears. "I grieve for the fallen sons of this house which has become my house, and for the grief of those who are now my father and my mother."
"How dare you…" Andromache began again, but Priam took her hand and held it, whispering to her.
"How would you have me prove my grief?" Helen stood up and came to Priam's high seat. Her long golden hair was unbound, hanging over her shoulders; her blue eyes, deep-set in her face and shadowed with weeping, were luminous in the candlelight.
"Father," she said to Priam, "if it is your will I will go down to the Greek camp and offer myself to the Akhaians in return for the body of Hector."
"Yes, go," said Hecuba swiftly, almost before Helen had finished speaking, and before Priam could answer. "They will do you no harm."
Andromache chimed in, "It might be the one good act of a lifetime and atone for all else you have done to this house."
Kassandra was riveted to her seat, though her first impulse was to rise up and cry out, "No, no!" Nevertheless she remembered what she had prophesied when Paris first stood at the gates of Troy: he was a firebrand who would kindle a fire to burn down all the city; a prophecy repeated when he had brought Helen here. That was long ago; she no longer blamed Helen for what would come to the city; that was the fate ordained by the Gods. And her father and brothers - no, even Hector himself -they had not heeded her then; and whatever she said they would certainly do exactly the opposite. Better to keep silent.
Priam said gently, "Helen, it is a generous offer, but we cannot possibly allow you to do this. You are not the only cause of this war. We will ransom Hector's body—with all the gold of Troy if we must. Akhilles is not the only captain of the Akhaians. Surely there are some there who will listen to reason."
"No." Andromache rose and stood looking at Helen with a sombre gaze; Kassandra realized that some people would think her more beautiful than Helen, though her beauty was of a different kind, dark where Helen was fair, lean where Helen was rounded. "No, father, let her go, I beg of you. You owe me something too; I have borne Hector's son. I beg you, let her depart, and if she does not, drive her forth with whips. This woman has never been anything but a curse to all of us in Troy."
Paris rose to his feet. "If you drive out Helen, I go with her."
"Go then," cried Andromache wildly. "That too would be a blessing to our city! You are no less a curse than she! Your father did well when he sought to send you away!"
"She is raving," Deiphobos said roughly. "Helen shall not go from us while I live; the Goddess sent Helen to us, and no other roof shall shelter her while my brothers and I live."
Priam looked down the hall. "What shall I do?" he asked half aloud. "My Queen and the wife of my Hector have said to us—"
"She must go," Andromache cried. "If she remains here, I will depart this night from Troy - and I call upon all the women of Priam's house to go forth with me; shall we remain under one roof with her who has cast our city down into the dust?"
"And yet the walls of Troy stand firm," Paris said. "All is not lost." He rose and came to Andromache, taking her hand gently and raising it to his lips.
"I bear you no grudge, poor girl," he said. "You are distraught with your grief, and no wonder. I'll answer that Helen shall hold no malice toward you."
Andromache jerked away.
""Women of Troy, I call on you, come forth from the accursed roof that shelters that false Goddess, who would bring us all to ruin and slavery—" Her voice had risen, high and hysterical; she picked up a torch and cried, "Follow me, women of Troy—"
Priam rose in his place and thundered, "Enough! We have trouble enough without this! My child," he said to Andromache, "I understand your pain; but I beg of you, sit down and listen to us. Nothing would be solved by driving Helen forth. Soldiers have fallen in battle long before Hector was born - or I." He reached out to embrace Andromache, and after a moment she collapsed against his breast, sobbing. Hecuba came to enfold her in her arms.
"Peace," she said sombrely. "We have Troilus to mourn and to bury before the sun rises; and you women, collect your jewels to offer for Hector's ransom."
Kassandra, joining the women as they gathered together to assemble by Troilus's body, found herself wondering whether Andromache had been justified. Andromache alone among the women did not follow Hecuba; she remained at Priam's feet, crying out desolately, "I have not even a body over which to mourn." Then she raised her voice and called after the women, "Let not Helen touch Troilus's body, Mother! Know you not the old tale - a corpse will bleed if his murderer touches it - and he has little blood left to spare, poor lad!"
CHAPTER 9
All night Kassandra heard the rain and wind, beating and tearing around the high palace of Priam, as the women of Priam's household gathered together, wailed for Troilus. They washed and dressed his corpse, covered it with precious spices and burned incense to cover the sickly smell of death. In the grey lull between darkness and sunrise they ceased their nightlong mourning to drink wine and listen to a song from one of the minstrels in the room. She praised the beauty and bravery of the dead youth, singing that he had been felled because his beauty was such that the War-God desired him, and took the form of Akhilles in order to possess him.