The Firebrand

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “I think I will go and join them; if your mother comes, tell her, will you, love?”

  But this can’t be all there is to being dead, she thought. There must be more to it. . . .

  She looked up and saw, standing directly before her, Penthesilea, unwounded, smiling, her face shining, surrounded by half a dozen of the warrior women who had fought with her on that last day. Laughing for joy, Kassandra ran into the Amazon’s arms. She was surprised to find that her kinswoman felt as solid and strong and warm as on the day she had embraced her when she went out to fight before Troy and to die at Akhilles’ hands. Kassandra spoke her surprise aloud.

  “Then I suppose Akhilles must be here somewhere too.”

  “I would have thought so,” said Penthesilea, “but he seems to have gone to his own place, wherever that may be.”

  Beyond Penthesilea the plain of the dead faded away, and Kassandra could see what looked like blinding light—twice the brilliance of the Sun Lord as she had seen Him in her first overpowering vision; and through the light, she made out the form of a great Temple, larger than the one where she had served in Colchis, and even more beautiful.

  She whispered in awe, “Is that where I am to go?”

  Beyond the light she began to hear music: harps and other instruments, swelling and filling the air with harmony like a dozen—no, a hundred voices, all joined together in song, clear and high and coming closer. This was what she had thought the Sun Lord’s house would be. Khryse was standing in the doorway, beckoning to her; his face was free of the dissatisfaction and greed she had seen in it, so that he was at last what she had always believed him. He held out his arms, and she was ready to run into them, as Astyanax had run to Hector.

  But Penthesilea was standing in her way—or was it the Warrior Maiden Herself, wearing the armor of the Amazon? She held Honey, laughing and unwounded, by the hand. So she is dead too.

  “No,” Penthesilea said; “no, Kassandra. Not yet.”

  Kassandra struggled to form words. It was the place she had seen in her dreams, the place where she had always known she belonged. And not only Khryse, but everyone she had loved was there, awaiting her, waiting for her voice to fill the place open in that great blended choir.

  “No.” Penthesilea’s voice was sorrowful, but inflexible, and she held Kassandra back as one restrains a small child. “You cannot go yet; there is still something you must do among the living. You could not leave with Aeneas; you cannot come with me. You must go back, Kassandra; it is not time for you.”

  The beautifully molded face under the shining helmet was beginning to break up into a sunburst of brilliant sparkles. Kassandra fought to keep it in focus. “But I want to go . . . the light . . . the music . . .” she said.

  The light was fading, and around her was darkness; she was aware of a ghastly smell, like death, like vomit; she was lying on the dirt floor of some kind of rough shelter. Then I’m not dead after all. Her only emotion was bitter disappointment. She fought to hold on to the memory of the light, but already it was disappearing. She was conscious of pain in her body. She was bleeding, and part of what she smelled was her own blood on her face and covering her shift. The man who had raped her was lying half across her body. It was his vomit she smelled, and slowly, as if surfacing from a very deep trance, she heard a familiar voice and saw a face—hook-nosed, black-bearded—that had haunted her nightmares for years.

  “I told you she was the one I wanted,” said Agamemnon. “Look, she’s breathing again. If you’d killed her I’d have had you flayed alive; you knew she fell to me in the casting of lots, but you had to try and get ahead of me. You always were spiteful, Ajax.”

  Kassandra felt agony through her whole body; agony mingled with despair.

  So I am not dead after all. The Maiden saved me. For this!

  16

  SHE LAY still, too miserable to try to move.

  “Honey?” she whispered painfully, through the rawness in her throat. But there was no answer. She remembered seeing the pitiable little body, bleeding and broken, flung aside by the man who had used her.

  She must be dead now. I hope she is dead now. Yes, she is with Penthesilea.

  She will be looking for me there.

  I don’t want to live. I want to be back there with Penthesilea, and Father . . . and the music. . . .

  But she could feel her own breathing, the loud intrusive beating of her own heart. She would live. What was it Penthesilea had said? “There is still something you must do among the living.” . . . Had it been to care for Honey, I would have gone back—not willingly, but without complaint. But she is gone. I cannot help her now. Why am I here and everyone I love gone before me?

  She dimly made out that she was lying on the floor of a small building, and around her were boxes and bundles and bales of piled-up goods: silks, rich cloaks, tapestries, vases and pottery, sacks of grain and jars of oil—all the riches of the plundered city. Andromache lay close to her, facedown, covered with a coarse blanket. Kassandra made out her face in the dim light. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying. She opened them and looked at Kassandra.

  “Oh,” she said, “you are awake; they said when they brought you here that you were dead, and Agamemnon would not admit it.”

  “I was sure I was dead,” Kassandra said. “I wanted to be dead.”

  “And I,” Andromache said. “They took Astyanax.”

  “Yes, I know; I saw him—running to his father’s arms.”

  Andromache considered this for a moment. She said, “Yes, if anyone could see beyond death, I suppose it would be you.”

  “Believe me, he is free, and happy, and with his father,” Kassandra repeated. Her voice caught at the memory. “They are better off than we are; I wish I were where they are now.”

  After a moment she said, “Why are we being held here? What is to become of us? Where is this place?”

  “I am not sure; I think it is where the Akhaian captains are making ready to load the ships,” Andromache said.

  “Listen,” Kassandra said, cringing; “someone is coming.” She could hear the fall of heavy footsteps on the ground. But she had lost the preternatural Sight of the trance state, and she felt dull and sick, locked into her ordinary mortal senses. There was a foul taste in her mouth. “Is there any water here?”

  Andromache sighed and stirred, then sat erect. She reached for a jar and carried it carefully to Kassandra, who drank till she was no longer thirsty. She had to sit up to drink, and felt as if her head would split off and roll away. She helped Andromache to replace the jar and lay down again, exhausted by only that small movement.

  Kassandra said, in a whisper, “Honey is dead too. They tore her from me in the very shrine of the Maiden; and raped her, baby that she was . . .” Her voice broke.

  Andromache’s hand closed over hers. “I know how you must feel, even though she was not your own child.”

  Kassandra said dully, “She was my own as much as any child could have been.”

  “You say that, because you have never borne a child,” Andromache said. She pulled her cloak over her face again.

  “Are you all right? Have you been harmed?” Kassandra persisted, trying to break through Andromache’s lifeless despair.

  Andromache turned over to face her. “No, they did not lay a hand on me. I suppose they have taken me because it helps their pride to think of Hector’s wife a slave,” she said. “As for my child—if he had been the son of a lesser man they might have let him live. . . .” After a moment she asked, “But what of you? You have been hurt. . . .” She reached out, stopping short of touching the bleeding cut on Kassandra’s forehead. “Were you—beaten as well as . . .”

  “Raped? Yes,” she said. “I thought—I hoped that I was dead. But for one reason or another, I—was sent back.”

  She remembered painfully Penthesilea’s words: There is still something you must do among the living. But what? They would not have sent her back simply to comfort Andromache and tell
her that her son was safe with his father. But what else? Could she somehow avenge herself on Agamemnon? Ridiculous; not all the armies of Troy could cast him down, and she was no more than a single woman, wounded and ravished.

  A dark form blotted out the light through the door, and a rough voice said, “All right, you, in there with the others,” and someone was pushed inside, stumbled and fell at Kassandra’s side: a woman, small and frail. She moaned and raised her head painfully.

  “Kassandra? Is it you?”

  “Mother!” Kassandra sat up and embraced her. “I thought you were dead. . . .”

  “And I heard Agamemnon had taken you. . . .”

  “He has claimed me,” Kassandra said, trying to speak steadily, “but they have not loaded the ships yet; so at least we have a few moments to say farewell.”

  “They are still quarreling over the spoils,” Andromache said bitterly, sitting up to embrace Hecuba. “Including us.”

  “I do not know where I am to go,” Hecuba said, “nor what good I should be, old as I am, as a slave.”

  “At least, Mother, you need not fear being made a concubine,” Andromache said.

  Hecuba laughed a little, then said, “I never thought I should find anything to laugh about again. But you two are young; even as slaves, you may still find something good left in life.”

  “Never,” Andromache said. “Oh, let us not begin to quarrel about which of us has suffered most!”

  Kassandra froze, whispering, “Someone is coming.”

  It was Odysseus; his broad body seemed to fill the whole doorway. The guard at the door asked him, “What do you want, my lord?”

  “One of the women in here belongs to me. I lost at the draw, but maybe it isn’t all loss; my wife, Penelope, would be angry with me if I brought home a young and pretty slave.”

  “Oh, misery,” Hecuba whispered, clutching at Kassandra’s hand. “And he was so often a guest at our fireside. I cannot bear this humiliation!”

  Odysseus came in and bent over the women. His voice was not unkind.

  “Well, Hecuba, it seems you’re to come with me. Don’t be afraid; I have no quarrel with you, and my wife has less.” He gave her a hand to help her rise, which she did stiffly. Then he bent over Kassandra and whispered, “Don’t be afraid for your mother. I’ll take good care of her; she’ll never be homeless while I live. I’d have been willing to take you home too, Kassandra, but Agamemnon was bound and determined he’d have you, so it looks as if you’ll be a King’s mistress.”

  “Who is to take Andromache?” Kassandra asked.

  “She goes to the country of Akhilles to his father, as part of his estate.”

  “It could be worse,” said Andromache grimly.

  Hecuba asked, “And Polyxena?”

  Odysseus looked down. He said, “She is a companion to Akhilles himself.”

  “What can that mean?” Hecuba demanded, but Odysseus cast down his eyes and would not meet her gaze.

  Kassandra, however, had seen it in his eyes, and blurted it out: “She is dead, sacrificed, her throat cut and her body cast on Akhilles’ pyre as if she were some animal. . . .”

  Odysseus flinched; Hecuba demanded, “Is this true?”

  Odysseus said, “I would have spared you that knowledge. Akhilles had offered to marry her; so they sent her to join him in the Afterworld.”

  Kassandra said gently through Hecuba’s cry, “Don’t grieve, Mother; she is better off than most of us, and you will be with her soon.”

  Hecuba dried her eyes with her dress.

  “Aye, better off than any of us,” she said. “The Afterworld cannot but be better than this, and soon I shall be with my lord and King and the father of my sons. Well, lead on, Odysseus.” She stooped quickly to embrace Kassandra. “Goodbye, my daughter. May we meet again soon.”

  “It cannot be too soon for me,” said Kassandra, as they parted. She lay down, trying to rest her aching head on a bundle of canvas. She knew she would not see her mother again this side of death, and Hecuba would not be alone there.

  The light moved slowly across the floor; it must be past noon. Had it been only this morning the city had fallen? It seemed like weeks—no, years.

  The light was growing duller when she heard an Akhaian voice say apologetically, “You don’t have to wait in there with them, Lady,” and a soft, courteous protest in a familiar voice.

  Then a slender form stepped inside the shelter, saying softly, “Who is there?”

  “Helen?” Kassandra sat up. “What are you doing here?”

  “I would rather be here than thrust aboard Menelaus’ ship for all the sailors to gape at,” said Helen. “He will come and fetch me when the ship is ready to sail.”

  Kassandra lay down again. She knew she should feel some resentment toward this woman, but Helen had only followed her own destiny as she, Kassandra, followed hers. Helen stared, appalled, at Kassandra’s still-bleeding head.

  “Oh, how awful!”

  “It’s all right, I’m not much hurt,” Kassandra said.

  “And you, who deserve the worst of all, have not been touched,” Andromache said bitterly. “Why, you’re even properly dressed.” She looked with resentment at the fresh rust-colored gown, the neatly fastened cloak with gold clasps and belt.

  Helen’s smile was faint. “Menelaus insisted. And he sent Nikos away with the soldiers, saying I wasn’t fit to have the care of a child.”

  “At least your son still lives,” Andromache muttered.

  “But he is lost to me,” Helen said. “And Menelaus has sworn that if this one lives”—and Kassandra remembered that Helen had confided to her that she believed herself to be pregnant again—“he will expose it. Believe me, Andromache, I would rather be going into the hands of a stranger, even if the men threw dice for me. Menelaus will doubtless make me feel his fury for the rest of my life; I would rather be buried peacefully here at the side of Paris, whom I loved.”

  “I do not believe that,” said Andromache grimly. “I am sure you would rather have some new man to captivate with your beauty.” She turned away from Helen and did not speak again.

  Kassandra held out her hand to Helen and the other woman clasped it. She said, “I wonder, do all the women in Troy hold me responsible . . . ?”

  “I don’t,” Kassandra said.

  “No. And I found friends in Troy,” Helen said, bending down to kiss Kassandra. “I wish I had never come here to destroy you all. . . .”

  “It was Poseidon who did that,” said Kassandra, and they were silent, holding hands like young girls. It was not very long before steps sounded outside and Menelaus stooped to come in the low door.

  “Helen?” he said.

  “I am here,” she said meekly, and Kassandra looked up into the blaze of light that seemed to fill the little hut. Helen’s hair was brilliantly golden, and about her was the radiance she had borne when she stood upon the walls of Troy: the very aura of the Goddess.

  Menelaus blinked as if his eyes were dazzled. Then, unwillingly, he bent and murmured, “My lady and my Queen.” As if he were afraid to approach her, he offered his arm, and she stepped slowly toward him.

  They left the hut, Menelaus following Helen a half pace behind.

  It was growing dark outside when at last Kassandra saw the familiar form of Agamemnon thrust his head inside the hut.

  “Priam’s daughter,” he said, “you are to come with me; the ship is ready to sail.”

  Now what am I do to? Submit? Fight? There is no help for it. It is Fate.

  She rose and he took her arm, not roughly, but with a certain proprietary pride. He said, smiling tentatively, “I asked for you alone, from all the spoils of Troy; believe me, I will not ill treat you, Kassandra. It is no small thing to be the beloved of a King of Mykenae.”

  Oh, I believe it, she thought. It occurred to her that Priam might, if Agamemnon had not already been wedded to Helen’s sister, very well have given her in marriage to this man. What lay before her now, e
xcept for a few formal rites and the blessing of her kin, would not be much different from that. A wife to any Akhaian was no less a slave than any slave in Troy. She shivered; and he turned to her solicitously.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. He bent and picked up a cloak from a pile of plundered garments that were stacked in the hut, a blue one she had never seen before.

  “Wear this,” he said magnanimously, draping it around her shoulders. He guided her over the rough ground, down to the water’s edge, and held her hand as she stepped onto the ship. The deck swayed as he led her across it; it was bigger than it had looked from the walls of Troy. The rowers at their oars looked up at her curiously as she tried to walk without tripping over the cloak. On deck there was a small tent, something like the tents in which the Akhaians had camped during the war. He lifted the flap for her to step inside. There were soft rugs, and a lamp burning.

  “You will have privacy here,” he said ceremoniously. “We will sail with the tide, two hours before dawn.” He left her, and she let herself fall on the rugs, feeling the gentle up-and-down sway of the deck. She wondered if she could slip to the other side of the ship, slide off into the water and drown. But no, surely she was watched, and they would seize her before she got to the water. Besides, she had been told that she was not to die, so she would only be sent back again.

  She lay back, trying to resign herself to the moment when Agamemnon would come to her.

  He could not be worse than Ajax. And she had lived through that. She would live through this too.

  17

  AT LEAST she was no longer retching. Kassandra dragged herself out of the tent on deck and into the fresh evening air. She still could not bear the thought of food; the very idea gave her a warning spasm; but she managed to stay upright this time, on her knees—the motion of the ship made it unthinkable to stand without an undignified fall—and looked curiously at the shoreline and the small rocky islands they were passing.

  It seemed they had been at sea forever; last night she had seen the new moon, slim and pale and welcome because she knew it appeared in the southwest and gave some direction—now that she could note directions at all—to the trackless, directionless sea. She thought that her confusion had added to the sickness; there was nothing but a sick and whirling body in the center of a vortex of heaving ocean and lurching deck. At first she had been so ill nothing had mattered—not the smells of the sea or the sounds of the rowers, not Agamemnon’s use of her uncaring body, not the food she regularly refused. At first, she had believed it was mostly the aftermath of the blow she had had from Ajax—head injuries often caused both nausea and confusion, and when it did not subside in a reasonable time she thought that it was the motion of the ship.