Time in Colchis slipped past without incident. She was always welcomed at the palace, and Imandra often sent for her; sometimes simply for her company, occasionally to look into a scrying-bowl and tell her how it went with the war, or sometimes to search out the Amazons to be certain it did not go too badly with Penthesilea and her band. With her days filled with study and duties, it surprised her to discover that she had been gone from Troy for more than a year. Among women, birth was always a festival and someone in the palace was always having a baby; the women sworn to Serpent Mother did not marry and most of them had taken formal vows of chastity, so there were no births in their temple. She wondered when the Queen would have her child.
Soon she heard in the city that the Queen would walk abroad to bless her subjects in the name of Earth Mother; Kassandra vaguely remembered - it was almost her first memory - that
Hecuba had done this before Troilus was born. In Troy it was simply an old custom half-remembered and informally observed: whenever the Queen showed herself in the streets women would rush up to her and ask her blessing; in Colchis where the customs were kept in the old way, Kassandra was not surprised to find there it was a formal procession. But surely they had left it to very late; the time of birth must be imminent. Imandra would not walk the streets but would be carried in a sedan chair, and Arikia, the earthly representative of Serpent Mother, would be carried with her, the serpents of wisdom adorning her from head to foot, so that all women in the city could seek blessing not only from the pregnant queen but from the Serpent Mother.
"But why now? Do they want the Queen to fall into labour in the streets?" she asked.
"Well, it has happened before," Arikia said. "This would not be the first child of a Queen of Colchis to be born in the streets of the city. There will be many court midwives in the procession. But the Queen's astrologers have chosen this as an auspicious day; and of course, the nearer to her time Imandra is, the more blessing she can confer."
"Yes, of course." Kassandra could understand that. It was the morning of the procession, and Kassandra along with her fellow priestesses was helping to dress and adorn Arikia, winding the serpent matriarch about her waist and two smaller serpents about her arms. It would be tiring for her, for the serpents must be held up so that the people could see them. Kassandra wished that she, who was younger and stronger, could take the older woman's place. She said so, but Arikia only said, "It is harder still on the Queen, my dear; she is as big as a python who has swallowed a cow. Perhaps next time, my dear; Imandra is an old friend and I am happy to ride in her procession. She has been more than kind to you, too. A little more of the crimson paint on my left cheek, if you please, and some of the herbal powder to be burned in the brazier; the serpents love it, and they give far less trouble when they can smell it. Will you ride with me, Kassandra? And you can feed the brazier, and stand ready to take the smaller snakes from me if they should be restless. It is not likely, but of course anything can happen."
Kassandra knew this was a privilege of which other priestesses in the temple would be envious; but they deferred to her as princess of Troy and she was entitled to these honors. She went and put on her best ceremonial robe at once, and wrapped her arms with two or three of the smaller serpents, binding two others around her brow so that they formed a crown. Thus arrayed (and thinking that perhaps the statues of the legendary Medusa might have been inspired by such a serpent crown) she went out to the street and as Arikia was lifted into the high raised chair, let herself be lifted in after her.
It was cold; a high wind was blowing through the streets between the high buildings; and all the leaves were gone from the trees and bushes. She sat holding her serpents high so that the women in the streets could see them clearly. Imandra's chair was ahead; Kassandra could see the Queen's form, heavily pregnant now, her loosened hair flowing down her back. The streets were crowded with women, many of them pregnant, rushing up to the carriages, pushing through the guards, reaching up their arms to beg for the blessing.
The wind chilled her; she was glad for the cosy weight of the serpent about her waist. The snakes were sluggish; they do not like the cold any better than I do, she thought, longing for the warm sun of her home.
She fell almost into a trance, looking at the tall figure of Imandra on her carriage, shadowed with the powerful magic and glamour of the Goddess. Women rushed to hold up their hands, crying out for good fortune, fertility, and just the good luck of touching the pregnant Queen who embodied the Goddess. Automatically holding up her serpents, she heard the women calling to Imandra and Earth Mother, to Arikia, and the Serpent Mother, and then from somewhere in the crowd she actually heard someone call, "Look, it is the Trojan priestess, the beloved of Apollo!"
That brought her to sudden awareness. Was it still true? Or had Apollo forgotten her? Perhaps it was time, she thought, that she should return to Troy and her own people and her own Gods; serving the Goddess, women were more free here, but what good was the freedom if she must dwell forever among strangers? Then her heart smote her; she was well loved here and had many friends, could she bear to abandon them and to return to a city where women were regarded as little better than prostitutes or slaves?
The sun grew hotter; she pulled her veil over her head and dipped her kerchief into a bowl of water to moisten the snakes' heads. "Soon, little ones," she murmured,"this will be over and you will be where it is cool and dark." One of the serpents was trying to crawl into the darkness of her dress; the crowds were thinning, so she did not try to prevent it.
The chair-bearers slowed; then came to a halt. Servants were carefully lifting Imandra down from her seat - not easily. She walked heavily toward the chair where the priestesses sat surrounded by their serpents.
"Kassandra, my friend, will you come this evening to the palace and look for me into your scrying-bowl?"
"With pleasure," Kassandra replied. "As soon as I have cared for my serpents - if Arikia will give me leave," she added, glancing at the senior priestess, who smiled and nodded permission.
At the temple of Serpent Mother, she helped the bearers to settle Arikia down on her bed in a darkened room; then she helped to unwind the snakes and bathe them in the fountain in the inner court. After swallowing a little fruit and bread, she dressed herself in her simplest robe and went out again into the chill of early afternoon. It was a little warmer—what heat there was in the sun was full strength now—and the noonday streets were full of people, but none of them recognized the slight dark-haired woman in her plain tunic as the priestess who had been carried, robed and crowned in her serpents, through the streets.
The Queen's women conducted Kassandra to the royal apartments. It was pleasantly warm there, with a fire in a fireplace. Imandra was lying in a hammock, her hair unbound and her huge body mounded high against the cushions. She had shed the glamour of the Goddess and now looked weary, her drawn face would have been pale, except that she had not even troubled to remove the paint from her cheeks.
She should have kept Andromache here in Colchis instead of sending her to Troy; then she would not need to expose herself to the dangers of a belated childbearing, Kassandra thought, surprised at herself; now she needs a daughter to rule after her in Colchis. As if some hint of Kassandra's thought had reached her, the Queen opened her eyes.
"Ah, daughter, you have come to keep me company," she said. "I am glad; I think the little one—" she laid her hand across her belly, "may be born today; but at least the procession was completed and I need not give birth to their Queen in the streets. Soon I will summon the palace women—they will be cross if they are not told at once; they are entitled to their festival. Kassandra, how old are you, my dear?"