They lifted up their voices in the oldest of marriage hymns, the one to Earth Mother, and Kassandra felt surrounded with as much joy and gaiety as if it were her own wedding. For once, she thought, 7 can be as carefree as any other young girl. She was briefly aware that others did not observe themselves in this way; what was the difference? But for once she had an answer to that painful sense of difference. I am a priestess and need not be like the others; if I can somehow manage to seem like the rest it is enough.
They were at the very threshold of the feasting-hall when they heard a cry of surprise and welcome.
Priam called out, "Odysseus, you old cheat! Right enough, you know just when to come to sample our best wine for a wedding! Come in and have a drink, old comrade!"
Kassandra reached out and pulled Creusa back.
"Let our father welcome his guest first."
Creusa said sulkily, "I didn't want that old pirate at my wedding!"
Andromache whispered, "I have heard all my life of the stories he can tell; he has sailed further than Jason and has many traveller's tales. He visited my mother in Colchis and brought her a mother-of-pearl comb that he said was given him by a mermaid."
"Perhaps he has brought you a wedding gift too, Creusa," Kassandra said. "In any case even the Gods must show hospitality; let us go in."
She took up the first line of the hymn to the Maiden, always sung at weddings, and the other girls joined in. Priam looked up and gestured them forward; Kassandra saw a handsome young man, tall and slender, with curly light-brown hair, and a scattering of dark freckles just gilding his face. She supposed, from the ornate crimson tunic he wore, that this was the bridegroom. Just approaching the high seat was a short, burly man of middle age, with crisply curled hair and a red face, weather-beaten and hook-nosed, with deep-set blue eyes that seemed to look out on immense distances. She supposed, even before she saw the recognition in Andromache's eyes, that this was the famous seafarer and pirate, her father's old friend Odysseus.
The seafarer turned and cried out, "What a bunch o' beauties, old friend. These cannot all be your daughters, Priam; or can they? I seem to remember you've somewhat more'n your share of womenfolk."
Priam summoned them to him with a wave of his hand.
Kassandra found herself enveloped in a great bear hug.
"Your second daughter, isn't it? Is this the bride? Well, why not, in the name of all the demons?" He smelled of salt air and faintly of wine. She could not be offended by the embrace; it was as kindly and enthusiastic as a gust of the sea wind. "You'd like one as beautiful as this, wouldn't you, Aeneas, my friend?"
Kassandra could see that Aeneas's eyes rested on her with appreciation and that Creusa was almost crying.
She pulled back from Odysseus gently and said, "Don't, sir. I am not for any man; I am a virgin of Apollo Sunlord, and content to be so."
"Hellfire!" His swearing was enormous as everything else about him. "What a waste, beautiful; I'd marry you myself, except I have a wife already back in Ithaca and Hera, my protecting Goddess, is a Goddess of marital fidelity; I'll have trouble with her if I go sniffing round other women. Not that I haven't had my share, but I couldn't marry anyone else, and besides you want some beautiful young fellow, not an old walrus like me." She giggled; with his huge moustache, he really did look like a walrus.
"And this is Hector's bride?" he said, turning to Andromache. "Hector, you won't mind if an old man kisses your wife, will you? Customary in my part of the world, you know." He took Andromache by the arms, patted her bulging belly. "Can't get close enough to you now for a real kiss, can I, girl? Well, some other time, maybe." He kissed her smackingly on the cheek.
"I brought some things in my pack - loot from a Cretan ship -bride-gifts for your daughter, Priam, and gifts for that fine grandson this pretty girl here's going to give you in a few days—no? And since this one won't marry, I'll give gifts to the Sunlord's temple for her."
"In Apollo's name I thank you, sir," said Kassandra courteously, but Odysseus pulled her down to sit at his side.
"Here, sit beside me, drink from my cup; you're the only unattached girl here, and such flirting as I can do before your father and mother will do you no harm, hey?"
"My sister Polyxena is not married," Kassandra said with a glimmer of mischief, and Odysseus said, laughing, "Won't be long if I know your father, my girl; Polyxena's pretty enough, but just between you and me I like a girl with a little more meat on her bones. You'll do just fine."
She poured his cup and mixed his wine, and when the servers went round filled his plate; she found herself feeling a kindly warmth for the old man.
Priam said, "Now tell us your news, Odysseus. And I need your advice, too, friend; I have had an offer for Polyxena, from Akhilles son of Peleus; if you were in my place, would you accept? He is noble and I hear that he is also brave—"
"Brave he certainly is," Odysseus said, "but he has no pleasure except in killing. If I had a daughter I'd cut her throat before I married her off to that madman."
"He has the strength of Herakles—" Hector began.
"And many of his other faults," Odysseus interrupted. "Like Herakles, he's no man for women; takes a fancy to one now and then and is likely to kill her in a moment of madness. I sailed with Herakles; just once. That was enough; I got tired of his moping over his boy friends and his sudden rages. Akhilles is too like him for my taste. There are enough fine young men in Troy - or even fine honorable Akhaians if that's what you want for her - but she looks like a nice young girl; find her someone else. That's my best advice." Then he shouted to a servant and requested that his chests be brought into the hall, and from each of them he brought out strange and beautiful things, gifts for everyone in the hall, presenting them lavishly to Priam and to his sons and daughters. For Hecuba there was a little cup, no larger than a closed fist, of beaten gold.
"From the House of the Bulls in Crete," he said. "I found it myself in the remains of what was once the Labyrinth; God knows how it escaped the earlier looters."
"Maybe some God preserved it for you."
"Maybe," said Odysseus. "See the bulls?"
Hecuba looked admiringly at the cup, then passed it round the admiring circle of women. Kassandra examined it in her turn, exclaiming over the finely chiselled carvings; a bull in nets as finely carved as thread, with young men in a chariot, and a cow to lure him.
"But this is a priceless treasure," she said, "you should keep this for your own wife."
"I have just as many fine things again," Odysseus said with great good-nature, "for my wife and my son. Never think I would give away all my best."
For Andromache he had a golden comb and for Creusa a bronze mirror with gold-washed beads about the edge.
"A mirror fit for Aphrodite herself," he said. "I got this when I spent the night in the cave of a sea-nymph. All night we loved and when we parted in the morning she gave me this because she said she'd never look in it again if she wasn't beautiful enough for me to stay with her." He winked and said, "So now you're a bride and can make yourself beautiful for your husband."
Kassandra's gift was a necklace of blue beads which looked like glass, oblong in shape, and simply made, except for the plain gold clasp which held them at the ends.
"It is a small thing," he said, "but I seem to remember that priestesses are not allowed to wear elaborate ornaments, and this is simple enough, perhaps, that you may wear it in memory of your father's old friend."