Imandra said, "Must she lodge in the temple, Lady Arikia? I would be happier to have her in the palace as my guest, and she could attend at the temple services whenever you wished for her."
"No, that will not do; she must live among us and learn to live with us and our serpents," Arikia said. "Is this disagreeable to you, Kassandra?"
"Not at all," Kassandra said. "I honor the Lady Imandra as my mother's kinswoman and my friend; but I am more than willing to dwell in the house of the Mother as is seemly for a priestess."
Imandra embraced her, and Adrea, and they took their leave. When they had gone the old priestess, who had observed Kassandra's close watching of the snake that was still coiled motionless about her body, asked, "Are you afraid of the serpent folk, Kassandra?"
"Not at all, Lady." She added impulsively, "This is a very beautiful one."
"She is a true matriarch among serpents," Arikia agreed. "Would you care to hold her?"
"Certainly, if she will come to me," Kassandra said, though she had never handled such a large serpent. "She is not poisonous, I suppose?"
"Can't you tell by looking at her? Well, that is one of the first things we must teach you. But of course she is not; I would not venture to handle one of the venomous snakes like this; they are seldom so good-tempered, and they are almost never as large as this one."
Arikia held the huge snake's tail away from her body. "Look, this will make her uncoil, since she cannot brace herself against my body when I hold her like this. Hold out your hand and let her smell you." Kassandra obeyed, not flinching as the great head moved close, the forked tongue flicking in and out, just touching her hand. Then the snake moved, flowed smoothly as folds of silk along the older priestess's arm and along Kassandra's shoulders and round her waist. The big wedge-shaped head came up toward Kassandra's; Kassandra took it in her hand and began to rub gently under the chin. She was surprised to feel all the tension go out of the snake's body as the surprising weight settled round her.
"Good, she likes you," Arikia said. "It would do little good for me to accept you here if she did not. All the same, sooner or later if she is frightened or startled while you are holding her, she may bite; do you know what to do if she does?"
Old Meliantha in the Sunlord's house had taught Kassandra that.
"Yes; don't frighten her more, or try to pull away, but get someone else to unwind her, beginning with the tail," Kassandra said, and held out her hand and displayed the small scars where one of the temple serpents had chewed on her hand during her time as Meliantha's attendant. Arikia smiled.
"Good; but what have you to learn from us then?"
"Oh, all manner of things," Kassandra said eagerly. "I wish to know how to find and take snakes from the wild where they breed; how to hatch them out from eggs and train them to come and go as I have seen done; how to feed them and care for them for long life, and how to win their confidence and keep them content so they will not run away."
The old woman chuckled, holding out her hand to circle the head of the big snake.
"Good; I think here we can teach you all these things. You had better let me take her now; I am accustomed to her weight, and I do not think a slender creature like you can carry her very far. You must eat well and get fat, like me, or like Imandra, before you can be a true Serpent Mother. Although a day may come when you will sit and display her to the people; she likes to be on display, or so it seems. One more thing; some of the girls are too soft-hearted or sentimental about little animals - doves, mice, rabbits - to feed the serpents. Will that trouble you?"
"Not at all; it is not I, but the Gods who have determined that some animals shall be fed on other living things; I did not create them and it is not for me to say on what they should be fed," Kassandra replied. She had heard Meliantha say this once when a young girl in the temple had been squeamish about feeding living mice to snakes.
"Well," said Arikia, "we must find you a room of your own, and an attendant priestess, and make you known to the rest of us who live here. You are a princess of Troy and I hope it will not be too small and mean for you."
"Oh, no," Kassandra said, "I am eager to be one of you." Arikia embraced her lovingly, and led her into the house of Serpent Mother.
CHAPTER 17
Then began for Kassandra a time like no other in her life. Since she was already a priestess, there were no wearying ordeals or trials; although as the youngest - many of the priestesses of-Serpent Mother were elderly and frail, for few young women chose to serve the Serpent shrine - she had to take her turn at the more troublesome duties such as caring for the animals being raised for feeding the serpents, cleaning pots, and accepting and tallying temple offerings. She was welcomed by everyone and treated in accordance with her station; Queen Imandra herself received no more deference, and soon Arikia came to love her as a daughter.
In many ways her stay in the Serpent Mother's Temple was like her early years in the Sunlord's house, with one great difference: all the devotees of Serpent Mother were women, and she had nothing like her early troubles with Khryse; the only men in the house of the Serpent were slaves and none of them would have dared make any advances to any of the priestesses.
She learned all that the priestesses could teach her about the ways of serpents and snakes; how to tell the venomous from the harmless, how to tame and handle certain kinds of harmless serpents which looked identical to certain poisonous snakes so that any onlooker would believe that she was defying death. She herself had no fear of even the largest snakes, and soon was one of the preferred handlers; often when the enormous matriarch of serpents was carried in processions, Kassandra was one of those chosen to carry her.
No facet of serpent lore escaped her; how to find and capture them in the wild, how to feed and keep them, how to bathe them and care for them when they shed their skins. She even hatched one herself, carrying the egg between her breasts for more than a month, and sheltering the baby snake against her body when it crawled out of the egg. For this she was given the coveted title of honor among the priestesses, Snake Mother.
She seldom thought of Troy. Word came to them now and again, perhaps distorted by the long journey, of how the war went. Idomeneo of Crete, and the Minoan Kings, became Troy's allies; most of the mainlanders stood with the Akhaians. The Islanders, because of alliances forged when Atlantis still ruled the seas, held with Priam and the Goddesses of Troy and Colchis.
Sometimes at the full moon, Kassandra kindled witchfire and looked into her scrying-bowl by its light; and so she knew when Andromache bore Hector a second son who died before his navel-string was healed; she wished that night that she could have been in Troy to comfort her friend's grief.
She knew, too, when Helen bore Paris twin sons, which did not entirely surprise her; Paris, after all, was a twin—and Helen too had a twin sister. It occurred to her that if she herself ever bore children, she might produce twins, perhaps twin daughters. Helen's twins were strong and healthy children, though they hadn't the beauty of either their mother or father, and grew so fast that within half a year they were walking.
Before Paris's younger sons were weaned, Priam suffered a fall in a skirmish on the shore, and the thunderbolt stroke, during the illness that followed, left the right side of his face twisted and sagging, and he limped thereafter on his right foot. He made Hector the official commander of his armies—to no one's surprise. The soldiers, though they were loyal, and cheered Priam when on rare occasions he appeared before the armies, worshipped Hector as if he were Mars himself.