"Don't look so woebegone, little sister," Hector said, touching her hair lightly. "It'll be your turn soon enough; at supper our father was talking of finding you a husband next. Did you know, the son of King Peleus, Akhilles, has made an offer for you? Father says there's a prophecy that he'll be the greatest hero of the ages. Maybe marriage to an Akhaian would settle these stupid wars; though I'd rather fight Akhilles and have the glory of it."
Kassandra gripped frantically at Hector's shoulders.
"Have a care what you pray for," she whispered. "For some God may grant it to you! Pray that you never meet with Akhilles in battle!"
He looked at her in distaste and firmly removed her hands from his shoulders.
"As a prophetess, you are a bird of ill-omen, sister, and I would rather not hear your croakings on my wedding night. Get you to your own bed, sister, and leave us to ours."
She felt the dark waters drain away leaving her hollow and empty and sick, without the slightest idea what she had been saying. She murmured, "Forgive me; I mean no harm; surely you know I wish you nothing but good, you and our kinswoman from Colchis—"
Hector brushed her forehead with his lips.
"It has been a long day, and you have travelled far," he said. "And the Gods alone know what madness you have been taught in Colchis. It is no wonder you are all but raving with weariness. Good night then, little sister, and - this for your omens!" He took the torch beside the bed and swiftly crushed out the flame. "May they all come to nothing, just like this!"
She turned away, her feet unsteady, as the remaining women raised their voices in the last of the marriage songs. She knew she should join in, but felt that for her very life she could not utter a single note. On groping feet she blundered away from the bed and out of the marriage chamber, hurrying to her own room. She fell on her bed, not even bothering to take off her finery, or wipe the smeared cosmetics from her face. She fell into sleep as the dark waters surged over her again, drowning out the remaining echo of the joyous hymns.
CHAPTER 17
For many days now the harbor had rung with the sound of hammers and adzes as the ship grew in the cradle where the keel had been laid, and harpers had come almost every evening to the Great Hall to sing the lay of Jason and the building of the Argo.
For weeks provisions had been loaded for the voyage while sailmakers stitched with their huge needles on the voluminous sail where it was laid out on the white sand of the beach; to dry or smoke barrels of meat, fires burned night and day in the courtyard; baskets of fruits and great jars of oil and wine, and always more and more weapons. It seemed to the women that for months now all the smiths in the kingdom had been hammering away at arrowheads of bronze, swords of bronze or iron, armor of all kinds.
Dozens of Priam's best warriors were going with Paris, not to make war but in case they encountered pirates in the crossing of the Aegean, whether the notorious plunderer Odysseus (who came sometimes to Priam's palace to sell his loot, or sometimes only to pay the toll Priam exacted of all ships northbound through the straits) or some other pirate. This expedition, laden with gifts for Agamemnon and the other Akhaian kings, was not to be plundered; the mission, or at least so Priam said, was to negotiate an honorable ransom for the Lady Hesione.
Kassandra watched the ship growing under the builders' hands, and wished passionately that she were to sail in her with Paris and the others.
On two or three days while the warriors were training in the courtyard, she borrowed one of Paris's short tunics, and, concealing herself under a helmet, practiced with them at sword and shield. Most people believed it was Paris fighting; since he seldom appeared on the practice field, she was not at once discovered. Even though she knew it was pretense, she enjoyed it immensely and for a considerable time her long-limbed skill and muscular strength kept her identity unknown.
But one day a friend of Hector's matched her and knocked her down; her short tunic flew up above her waist and Hector himself came and jerked the helmet from her head; then, angrily, wrested the sword out of her hand, turned it edgeways and beat her hard on the backside with it.
"Now get inside, Kassandra, and tend to your spinning and weaving," he snarled at her. "There is enough women's work for you to do; if I catch you masquerading out here again I will beat you bloody with my own hands."
"Let her alone, you great bully," cried Andromache, who had been watching from the sidelines; she had been fitting a crimson cushion to Hector's chariot and tacking the last bits of gold thread on it. Hector turned on her angrily.
"Did you know she was here, Andromache?"
"What if I did?" demanded Andromache rebelliously. "My own mother, and yours too, fights like a warrior!"
"It's not suitable that my sister, or my wife, be out here before the eyes of soldiers," Hector said scowling. "Get inside, and attend to your own work; and no more conniving with this wretched hoyden here!"
"I suppose you think you can beat me bloody too!" Andromache said pertly. "But you know what you shall have from me if you try!" Kassandra saw, in astonishment, the line of embarrassed crimson that crept upward in her brother's face.
Andromache's dark hair blew out around her face in the fresh wind; she was wearing a loose tunic almost the same colour as her wedding gown, and looked very pretty. Hector said at last, so stiffly that Kassandra knew that he was stifling whatever he really wanted to say as not being suitable before an outsider, even a sister, "That's as it may be, wife; nevertheless, it is more seemly for you to go the women's quarters and mind your loom; there is plenty of women's work to be done, and I would rather you do it, than come out here learning Kassandra's ways. Still, if it makes you feel better, I will not beat her this time. As for you, Kassandra, get inside and attend to your own affairs, or I will tell Father and perhaps he can put it in such a way that you will mind his words." She knew that the sulkiness on her face reached him, for he said, a little more kindly, "Come, little sister, do you think I would be out here wearing myself into exhaustion with shield and spear if I could stay cool and comfortable inside the house? Battle may look good to you when it is only playing with spears and arrows with your friends and brothers, but look." He bared his arm, rolling up the woollen sleeve of his tunic past the bright embroidered edgework and showed her a long red seam, still oozing at the center. "It still pains me when I move my arm; when there are real wounds to be given and received, war does not look so exciting!"
Kassandra looked at the wound marring her brother's smooth and muscular body, and felt a curious sickening tightness under her diaphragm; she flinched and remembered cutting the throat of the tribesman who would have raped her. She almost wanted to tell Hector about it - he was a warrior and would certainly understand. Then she looked into his eyes. There, perhaps, she misjudged him; he was not altogether without imagination; but he would never, she thought, see beyond the fact that she was a-girl.
"Be glad, little sister, that it was only I who saw you stripped like that," he said, not unkindly. "For if you were revealed as a woman on the battlefield… I have seen woman warriors ravished and not one man protest. If a woman refuses such protection as is lawful for wives and sisters, there is no other protection for her." He pulled down his helmet and strode away, leaving the women staring after him, Kassandra angry and knowing she was supposed be ashamed, Andromache suppressing giggles. After a moment the giggles surfaced.