He scoffed, "Why, are you now going to speak as a prophetess? I have no love for such warnings."
"Still I must give it," Oenone said, and threw herself weeping into his arms.
"Paris, I beg you, for love of me, stay." She put her hand shyly over her swollen small belly and entreated timidly, "For his sake if not for mine?"
"It is for his sake all the more that I must go and seek good fortune and fame," Paris said. "His father will be something more than Priam's herdsman."
"What is wrong with being the son of a herdsman?" Oenone asked. "I am proud to be a herdsman's wife."
Paris scowled at her and said, "Beloved, if you do not give me your blessing, I must even go without it; would you wish me ill?"
"Never, my love," she said seriously, "but I have the most terrible feeling that if you go you will never return to me."
"Now that is the greatest folly I have ever heard," he said, and kissed her again. She clung to him still, so at last he gently disengaged her clinging hands and set off down the mountain; but he knew that she watched him till he was out of her sight.
Kassandra slowly became aware again of where she was; the darkness of the wagon, not the bright autumn sunlight of Mount Ida. And they were hardly into summer; they would reach Troy in the autumn, perhaps. At her side Andromache still slept quietly; cramped and cold, Kassandra crept into the blankets beside her, grateful for the warmth of her cousin's body.
He is in Troy; perhaps he will be in Troy when I come there; I shall see him at last. The thought was almost too exciting to endure; Kassandra slept no more that night.
CHAPTER 15
It was Andromache rather than Kassandra who first saw the great high walls of Troy rising in the distance. She sounded overwhelmed as she said, "It really is bigger than Colchis."
"I told you so," Kassandra remarked.
"Yes, but I didn't believe you; I could not believe that any city could really be bigger than Colchis. What is the shining building high at the top of the city? Is that the palace?"
"No; it is the Temple of the Maiden; in Troy the highest places are reserved for the Immortals. And she is our patron Goddess who gave us the olive and the vine."
"King Priam cannot be a truly great King," Andromache said. "It is forbidden in Colchis for any house—even a Goddess's house - to be higher than the royal palace."
"And yet I know your mother is a pious woman who respects the Goddess," said Kassandra. She recalled that when she had first come to Colchis, it had seemed blasphemy to her to build a mortal's house so high. Her eyes sought out the Sunlord's house with its golden roofs, rising a terrace above the palace; she pointed out the palace to Andromache.
"It is not built so high; but it is as fine a palace as any in Colchis," she told Andromache. Now that they were actually within sight of the city, Kassandra examined her own feelings warily, like biting on a sore tooth: she did not know how she felt about returning to Troy itself after her years of freedom. She realized that she was almost painfully eager to see her mother and her sister Polyxena, and without trying she felt her mind reach out for that insubstantial and confusing link with the twin brother who was at times even more real than her self.
I will not be caged again. Then she amended it a little: I will never let them cage me again. No one can imprison me unless I am willing to be imprisoned.
She looked round at her escort, half wishing she might return to the Amazon country with them. Penthesilea was not among them; she said that after their long absence she must remain to set the affairs of the tribe in order. Kassandra knew that if she was dwelling among the Amazons now she would be sent with the other women of childbearing age to the men's villages to bear a child for the tribe. She felt she would even be willing to observe that custom, if it was the price of remaining with Penthesilea's tribe, but that was not among the choices offered to her.
"But what is happening?" Andromache asked. "Is it a festival day?"
Processions were coming forth from the gates, long lines of men and women in holiday garments, animals garlanded with ribbons and flowers, whether for show or sacrifice she could not tell. Then she saw Hector and some of her other brothers wearing only the brief loincloth in which they competed on the field and knew it must be the games. These were no business of women -though her mother had told her once that in ancient times women had competed in the foot-races and in casting of spears and in archery too. Kassandra, who was a good shot, wished she were still small-breasted enough to pretend to be a boy, and shoot with the archers; but if she had ever been capable of such disguise, she was not now. Resignedly, she thought; well, one day my skill at weapons may still be of use to my city—in war, if not at games - and then saw, bringing up the end of the procession, a chariot bearing the shrunken but still impressive figure of her father Priam. She was about to throw herself headlong from the wagon and embrace him, but the sight of his grey hair shocked her; this old man was all but a stranger to her!
Behind him, riding on a smaller chariot, and wearing the insignia of the Goddess, Kassandra saw her mother; Hecuba seemed not to have changed by a single hair. Kassandra got down from the wagon and came forward, bending low before her father in token of respect, then hurrying to throw herself into her mother's arms.
"You are come at a good hour, my darling," Hecuba said, "but what a woman you have become! I would hardly have known this tall Amazon for my little daughter." She drew Kassandra up on the chariot beside her. "Who is your companion, my child?"
Kassandra looked at Andromache, who was still seated on the forward seat of the wagon. She looked very much alone, and out of place. This was not how she had intended to introduce her friend to Troy.
"She is Andromache, daughter of Imandra, Queen of Colchis," said Kassandra slowly. "Imandra our kinswoman sent her to be a wife to one of my brothers. She has a wagonload of treasure of Colchis for a dowry," and as she spoke it seemed crude, making it a mere matter of purchase and queenly expediency, as if Imandra had sent her daughter as a bribe for Priam. Andromache deserved better than that.
"Now I see she has a look of Imandra," said Hecuba. "As for a marriage that is for your father to say; but she is welcome here, marriage or no, as my kinswoman."
"Mother," said Kassandra seriously—after coming all this way Andromache should not be rejected -'she is the only child of the ruling Queen of Colchis; my father has sons and to spare and if he cannot find one of my brothers to marry her for such an alliance he is not as clever as he is reputed to be." She hurried to fetch Andromache, helping her down from the wagon and presenting her to Priam and Hecuba; Hecuba kissed her, and Andromache smiled and dimpled as she made a submissive bow to them. Priam patted her cheek and took her up on the stands beside him, calling her daughter, which seemed a good start. He seated her between himself and Hecuba, while Kassandra wondered why Andromache was being so submissive. She asked, "Where is my sister Polyxena?"
"She has stayed in the house like a proper modest girl," Hecuba reproved in a whisper. "Naturally she has no interest in seeing naked men competing at arms."
Well, Kassandra thought, if I ever had any doubt, now I know I am home again; am I to spend the rest of my life as a proper modest girl? The thought depressed her. She watched with tepid interest, trying to pick out those of Priam's sons whom she knew by sight. She recognized Hector at once, and Troilus who must now, she thought, be at least ten years old. As they set off Hector quickly took the lead and remained there throughout the first lap; then behind him a slighter, dark-haired youth began to gain: almost easily he overtook him and flashed past, touching the mark a fraction before Hector's outstretched hand.