Touched by the words, Kassandra kissed him on the cheek as she would hardly have dared with her own father.
"I need no gifts to remember you, Odysseus; but I will wear this whenever I am permitted. Where was it made?"
"In Khem, the land where Pharaoh rules, and the Kings build great tombs which make the whole city of Troy look like a little village," he said, and she was so accustomed already to his fantastic tales that she did not know for many years that for once he was speaking only the simple truth.
The gifts bestowed, he asked Priam: 'When are you going to make me free of the straits, so that I can come and go without paying taxes like those other Akhaians?"
"You are certainly different from the others," Priam temporised, "and I would be ungrateful indeed if after so many gifts I should extort more from you, my friend. But I cannot allow anyone and everyone to travel through my waters. The tax I ask of you is only to tell me what is happening in the world faraway. Is there peace in the islands where those Akhaians reign?"
"There will be peace there, perhaps, when the sun rises in the west," Odysseus said. "As with Akhilles, the kings think of warfare as their greatest pleasure. I will go to war only when my own lands and peoples are threatened; but they think of battle as a pastime more virtuous than any games… the great game at which they would gladly spend all their lives. They think me unmanly and cowardly that I have no love for fighting, though I am better at fighting than most of them."
"For years they have been trying to provoke us to war," Priam said, "but I have made a policy of ignoring insults and provocations, even when they stole my own sister. You live among the Akhaians, old friend; if they make war will you too come against us?"
"I will try not to be drawn into any such war," Odysseus said. "I have only one oath binding me; when the woman who is now Queen of Sparta was wed, there were so many suitors that none of them would yield to another and it looked as if only a war would settle it. Then it was I who created a compromise, and I am proud of it."
"What did you do?" Priam asked.
Odysseus grinned hugely. He said 'Picture this: perhaps the most beautiful woman who ever borrowed the girdle of Aphrodite, and all of us standing about calling out what gifts we would give to her father, and offering to fight for her, with the winner to take bride and dowry of Sparta… and I suggested that she herself should choose, with all of us swearing an oath we would protect the one she chose, should anyone interfere with his wife—"
"Whom did she choose?" asked Hecuba.
"Agamemnon's brother Menelaus; a poor thing, but perhaps she thought he was as wise and strong as his brother," Odysseus said. "Or perhaps it was just out of love for her sister, who had been married to Agamemnon the year before. Sisters marrying brothers… it creates confusion in the family, or so I should imagine."
"Yet if Aeneas had a brother I should be willing to marry him," Polyxena whispered into Kassandra's ear, "if the brother had but half of his good looks and kindliness."
"So should I," Kassandra whispered back, "if the brother but looked at me the way Aeneas looks on Creusa."
Hecuba murmured in a fussy voice, "It is rude to whisper, girls; speak to the company or be silent. Anything not fit to be said aloud is not fit to be said at all."
Kassandra was tired of her mother's strictures of courtesy. She said aloud, "I for one am not ashamed of what we were saying; we said only that either of us would willingly marry a brother to Aeneas if Aeneas is anything like his brothers."
She was rewarded with a swift blazing look from Aeneas; he said, smiling, "Alas, daughter of Priam, I am my father's only son; but you make me wish I were twins or even triplets for I would willingly share a marriage cup with all three of you. What about it, my lord?" he asked Priam. "Is it fitting for me to have as many wives as you do? If you are eager to marry off your daughters I will gladly take all three of them, if Creusa gives me leave."
Polyxena dropped her eyes and blushed; Kassandra heard herself giggle. Creusa reddened and said, "I would rather be first and only wife; yet the law permits you to have as many wives as you will, my husband."
"Enough; this is no jest," Priam said. "A king's daughters are not to be lesser wives or concubines, son-in-law."
Aeneas smiled in friendly fashion and said, "I meant your daughters no insult, sir," and Priam answered, clasping his hand in a friendly, somewhat drunken clasp, "I know that well; late in a banquet when the wine has been round a few times more than is wisest, jests far more unseemly than that may be forgiven.
And now perhaps it is time for the women to take your bride away, before the party grows too rough for maiden ears."
Hecuba gathered the women together and they surrounded Creusa, with their torches, Kassandra, whose voice was the clearest, leading the wedding hymn. Creusa kissed her father and he laid her hand in Aeneas's; then the women led her up the stairs. Creusa, close to Kassandra, whispered, "Will you prophesy good fortune for my wedding, sister?"
Kassandra pressed her hand and whispered, "I like your husband well; you heard me say I would gladly marry him myself. And such good fortune as may come to any wedding in this year will surely be yours; I see long life and good fame for your husband and for the son you will bear him."
Andromache touched Kassandra's shoulder and whispered, "Why had you no such prophecy for me, Kassandra? We have been friends and I love you."
Kassandra turned to her friend and said gently, "I do not prophesy what I wish, Andromache, but what the Gods send me to say. If I could choose prophecy I would wish you long life and honor, and many sons and daughters to surround you and Hector in your honorable old age on the throne of Troy."
And only the Gods know how much I wish that had been the prophecy sent me…
Andromache smiled and took Kassandra's hand.
"Perhaps, my dear, your goodwill may count for more than your prophecy," she said. "And can you see enough into the future to know how long before Hector's child is born - and if it is a son? My mother would have had me bring a daughter first into the light; but here Hector talks of nothing but his son, so I too wish for a boy - and will I live through childbirth to see his face?"
With enormous relief, Kassandra clasped her friend's slender fingers in hers.
"Oh, it is a boy," she said. "You will have a fine strong boy, and you will live to guide him toward manhood…'
"Your words give me more courage," Andromache said, and Kassandra felt a catch in her throat, remembering the fires which had been all she could see at Andromache's wedding. Perhaps, she thought, it was madness after all and not true prophecy; this is what my mother believed. I would rather be mad than to believe, in this quiet place under these peaceful stars, that fire and disaster should fall on all of these I love.
"Kassandra, you are daydreaming again; come and help us undress the bride," demanded Andromache. "We cannot undo these knots you have tied into Creusa's hair."
"I am coming," Kassandra said quickly, and went to help the other girls at making her sister ready for her husband's coming. With all her heart she was glad she had foreseen for them no disaster.
CHAPTER 20
After all the noise and excitement of the wedding the House of the God seemed even more silent and peaceful, more separated from the disturbances of ordinary life. Ten days after Creusa's wedding, Kassandra was summoned again to a celebration at the palace: for the birth of a son to Hector and Andromache, Priam's first grandson.