The Firebrand

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “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’ arm and along Kassandra’s shoulders and around 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 be of little value 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 Sun Lord’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 it 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 more truly be a priestess of the Serpent Mother. 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.

  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 Temple’s priestesses were elderly and frail, for few young women chose to serve the Serpent Mother), she was given such duties 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 Sun Lord’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 a priestess.

  She learned all that the priestesses could teach her about the ways of serpents and snakes. She soon knew how to tell the venomous from the harmless, and how to tame and handle certain 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.

  Nothing of serpent-lore escaped her: how to find and capture snakes 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 Colchis 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 naval-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 have 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 they were walking within half a year.

  Before Paris’ 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, worshiped Hector as if he were Ares Himself.

  Time in Colchis slipped past without incident. Kassandra 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, Kassandra was surprised 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, however, 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 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 labor 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 diviners 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 the woman, 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? 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. 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 tall 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 cozy 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 out to hold up their hands, crying out for fertility and just the good fortune of touching the pregnant Queen who embodied the Goddess. Automatically holding up her serpents, she heard the women crying out 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 expected to defer to their husbands and brothers?

  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 settle Arikia down on her bed in a darkened room, then helped 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?”

  Kassandra tried to reckon up the years; in Troy they did not keep track of a woman’s age once she had arrived at puberty.

  “I think I shall be nineteen or twenty this summer,” she said. “Mother told me I was born near to midsummer.”

  “A year older than my Andromache,” Imandra said. “And you told me that Andromache’s oldest son is old enough for his first bronze helmet and lessons in swordplay. I do not think I know any other woman of your years who is not married. Sometimes I think you should have been my daughter, since you cleave to the old ways in Colchis, and Andromache seems happy in Troy, even as an obedient wife to Hector.” Her lip curled a little, almost in scorn. “But you are Priam’s daughter, and a Trojan. Is it your will to remain unmarried all your days, my dear?”

  “I had thought of nothing else,” Kassandra said. “I am sworn to Apollo Sun Lord.”

  “But you are missing all that makes life worth the living,” Imandra said, and sighed.

  She frowned and lay motionless for a time, then said, “Will you look into the scrying-bowl and let this old woman once set eyes upon my daughter’s child?”

  Kassandra demurred. “Perhaps just now,” she said, “you should think first of this child. You must save all your strength and energy until she is safely here among us, Kinswoman.”

  “Spoken like a priestess—and priestesses are all full of nonsense,” said Imandra crustily.
“I am not a maiden of fifteen in my first childbed; I am a grown woman and a Queen, and no less a priestess than you yourself, Kassandra of Troy.”

  “I had no thought of suggesting—” Kassandra began defensively.

  “Oh, yes you did; don’t deny it,” Imandra said. “Do as I ask you, Kassandra; if you will not, there are others who will, though not many who see so far or so well.”

  Everything Imandra said was true, and Kassandra knew it.

  “Oh, very well,” she agreed, mentally adding you stubborn old creature. “Call your women,” she said, “and let them prepare you for the birth. Hold me harmless of it if what I say gives you pain or sorrow; I am but the messenger, the wings of the bird on which such greetings fly.” She knelt down, making the preparations for kindling the witchfire for the spell of Sight.

  Imandra’s women came and went in the room, making all ready for the birthing. Among them were Kassandra’s two waiting-women, who came to greet her and ask quietly out of earshot of the Queen, “Are we to stay in this foreign city forever, Princess? When shall we return to Troy?”

  “That shall be as Queen Imandra wills,” Kassandra said. “I shall not leave her while she has need of me here.”

  “How can she have more need of you than your own mother, Lady? Do you truly think Queen Hecuba does not long and grieve for you?”

  “You have my leave to return to Troy whenever you will,” Kassandra said indifferently; “this very night if it should please you. But I have made a promise to Imandra and I will not break it.” She rose and strode to the high bed where the women had placed the Queen to rest till it should be time for the birth-chair. The room was slowly filling with the women in the palace, come to witness the royal event.

  “I wonder,” Imandra mused fretfully, “if it ever happens that the Earth Mother sends the babe to the wrong womb? From what I know of her, Hecuba would have thought Andromache her perfect daughter, and you were always misplaced in Troy. . . .” She clung hard to Kassandra’s hand. “No, don’t leave me,” she said; “the Gods will wait on the Sight till our eyes are ready to see.”