After that it was only a few minutes till they went inside and Hecuba sent serving women to Andromache and Kassandra to dress them for the feast. They were in the room which Kassandra had shared with Polyxena when they were little children; but it was no longer a simple nursery. The walls had been painted in the Cretan fashion with murals of sea-creatures, strange curving squid and tentacled octopus entangled in coils of seaweed, and nereids and sirens. The tables were of carven wood, littered with cosmetics and scent bottles of blue glass carved into the shapes of fish and mermaids. There were curtains at the windows, Egyptian cotton, dyed green, through which the late sunlight entering the rooms came in as if through waves, giving a curious underwater light.
The wagonload of gifts from Colchis had been unloaded and carried into the palace and Andromache rummaged in the boxloads for a suitable wedding gift for her new husband.
The Queen sent up for Kassandra a fine gown of Egyptian gauze, and Andromache found among the chests from Colchis a gown of silk, full-skirted but so fine that the entire garment could be pulled through a ring, and dyed with the priceless crimson of Tyre.
The Queen also sent her own maids, who set out tubs of warmed water and bathed and perfumed both girls. They curled their hair with heated tongs, then sat them down and painted their faces with cosmetics. They put on red lip-salve that smelled of fresh apples and honey; then they applied kohl from Egypt to darken their brows and underline their eyes, and painted their eyelids with a blue paste that felt like powdered chalk but smelled of the finest olive oil. Andromache accepted all this attention as if she had been accustomed to it all her life, but Kassandra made nervous jokes as the women tended her.
"If I had horns I am sure you would gild them," she said. "Am I a guest, or one of the sacrifices?"
"The Queen ordered it, Lady," said one of the waiting-women. Kassandra supposed that Hecuba had ordered all of this so that the Colchian princess might think Troy no less luxurious than her own faraway city.
The waiting-woman said, "She ordered that you should be no less fine than herself; and rightly so, for the old song says every lady is a Queen when she rides her bridal cart. And this is the way I have dressed the Lady Polyxena for every festival since she was grown."
She frowned as she rubbed Kassandra's hands with scented oil that smelt of lilies and roses. "Your hands are calloused, Lady Kassandra," she said reprovingly. "They will never be as soft as the princess's hands, which are like rose petals—as a lady's should be."
"I am sorry, there is nothing I can do about it," Kassandra said, twisting the maligned hands. It was at that moment that she first realized how much she would miss the outdoor life as she already missed her horse. Penthesilea had given her a fine mare for a parting gift; but Kassandra's last act of the journey had been to send the horse back with the Amazon guard; she knew she would not be allowed to ride freely and she did not want to see her noble companion penned up in the stables or, worse, given to one of her brothers to pull a chariot.
The sun was setting; the waiting-women lighted torches and put a gold brooch into the shoulder of Kassandra's tunic, and laid a new cloak woven of striped wool over her shoulders. Andromache slid her feet into gilded sandals.
"And here is a pair for you, just like them," she said, bending to put them on Kassandra's feet.
"You will be as fine as the bride," said the attendant, but Kassandra felt that Andromache, with her shining curls, was more beautiful than any woman in all of Troy.
The two girls hurried out to the stairs; but Kassandra could not run in the elaborate sandals and they had to walk carefully step by step down the long flights of stairs.
The great feasting-hall flared with many torches and lamps; Priam was already seated on his high throne, and looked displeased because they were late. But when the herald called out 'The Lady Kassandra and Princess Andromache of Colchis', Priam stretched out his hand good-naturedly to the girls to approach him. He seated Andromache in the favoured position beside him, sharing his own gold plate and goblet.
Hecuba signalled Kassandra to sit beside her, and whispered, "Now you truly look a princess of Troy, not a wild tribeswoman, my darling. How pretty you are."
Kassandra thought she must look like a painted doll, like the little effigies which came from Egypt and were intended for the tombs of Queens and Kings. That was what Polyxena looked like; but if her mother was pleased she would not protest.
When everyone was seated Priam proposed the first toast, raising his cup.
"To my splendid new son Paris, and to the kindly fate which has restored him to me and his mother, a comfort in our old age."
"But, Father," Hector protested in an undertone, "have you forgotten the prophecy at his birth, that he would bring down disaster on Troy? I was only a child, but I remember it well."
Priam looked displeased, Hecuba seemed about to cry. Paris looked unsurprised; Agelaus must have told him. But it was rude of Hector to mention it at a feast.
Hector was in his finest robes, a tunic embroidered with gold which Kassandra recognized as the work of the Queen's own hands; Paris too had been given a fine robe and a new cloak like Kassandra's, and looked splendid. Priam surveyed them both with satisfaction as he said, "No, my son, I have not forgotten the omen which came not to me, but to my Queen. But the hand of the Gods has restored him to me, and no man can argue with Fate or the will of the Immortals."
"But are you certain," Hector persisted,"that it was the Gods," and not perhaps the work of some evil Fate bent on destroying our royal House?" Paris's dark face looked like a thundercloud, but Kassandra could not read her twin's thoughts now.
Priam said with a frown of warning which made Kassandra cringe, "Peace, my son! On this subject alone I will not hear you. I had rather see all Troy perish, if it came to that, than any harm come to my splendid new-found son."
Kassandra shuddered. Priam, who scorned prophecy, had just uttered one.
He smiled benevolently at Paris, who was seated at Hecuba's other side, his fingers tightly clasped in hers. Her face was wreathed in smiles, and Kassandra felt a stab of pain; the discovery of Paris meant that such welcome as her mother might have given her was quite lost. She felt sad and heart-sore but told herself that in any case Penthesilea had become her true mother; among the Amazons a daughter was useful and welcome, while here in Troy a daughter was always thought of only as not being a son.
Priam urged Andromache to drink every time the cup went round, forgetting that she was a young girl who would ordinarily not be allowed or encouraged to drink this way. Kassandra could see that already her friend was a little fuddled and tipsy. Just as well perhaps, she thought, for at the end of this feast she is to be sent quite unprepared to my brother Hector's bed. And he is quite drunk too.
It suddenly occurred to her to be glad that Andromache was not marrying Paris as had been suggested; with the mind-link between them, she probably could not have avoided sharing in the consummation of the marriage. The thought made her hot and cold by turns; her sensitivities were honed to fever pitch.
Where was Oenone? Why had Paris not bidden her, as his wife, to the wedding?
Hector, perhaps because he was drunk, chose to pursue the subject. "Well, my father, you have chosen to honor our brother; will you not consider that he should be allowed to earn the honor you have bestowed upon him? I entreat you to send him at least on a quest to the Akhaians, so that if the evil prophecy still stands, it may be diverted to them."