The Firebrand

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Hellfire!” His swearing was as enormous as everything else about him. “What a waste, Beautiful! I’d marry you myself, except I have a wife already back in Ithaca, and Hera, my protecting Goddess, is a Goddess of marital fidelity; I’ll have trouble with Her if I go sniffing round other women. Not that I haven’t had my share; but I couldn’t marry anyone else—and besides, you want some beautiful young fellow, not an old walrus like me.” She giggled; with his huge mustaches, he really did look like a walrus.

  “And this is Hector’s bride?” he said, turning to Andromache. “Hector, you won’t mind if an old man kisses your wife, will you? Customary in my part of the world, you know.” He took Andromache by the arms, patted her bulging belly. “Can’t get close enough to you now for a real kiss, can I, girl? Well, some other time, maybe.” He kissed her smackingly on the cheek.

  “I brought some things in my pack—loot from a Cretan ship: bride-gifts for your daughter, Priam, and gifts for that fine grandson this pretty girl here’s going to give you in a few days—no? And since this one won’t marry, I’ll give gifts to the Sun Lord’s Temple for her.”

  “In Apollo’s name I thank you, sir,” said Kassandra courteously, but Odysseus pulled her down to sit at his side.

  “Here, sit beside me, drink from my cup; you’re the only unattached girl here, and such flirting as I can do before your father and mother will do you no harm, hey?”

  “My sister, Polyxena, is not married,” Kassandra said with a glimmer of mischief, and Odysseus said, laughing, “Won’t be long, if I know your father, my girl; Polyxena’s pretty enough, but just between you and me, I like a girl with a little more meat on her bones. You’ll do just fine.”

  She took his cup and mixed his wine, and when the servers went round, she filled his plate; she found herself feeling a kindly warmth for the old man.

  Priam said, “Now tell us your news, Odysseus. And I need your advice, too, friend: I have had an offer for Polyxena from Akhilles, son of Peleus. If you were in my place, would you accept? He is noble, and I hear that he is also brave—”

  “Brave he certainly is,” Odysseus said, “but he has no pleasure except in killing. If I had a daughter, I’d cut her throat before I married her off to that madman.”

  “He has the strength of Herakles—” Hector began.

  “And many of his faults,” Odysseus interrupted. “Like Herakles, he’s no man for women; takes a fancy to one now and then and is likely to kill her in a moment of madness. I sailed with Herakles—just once. That was enough; I got tired of his moping over his boyfriends and his sudden rages. Akhilles is too like him for my taste. There are enough fine young men in Troy—or even fine honorable Akhaians, if that’s what you want for her. She looks like a nice young girl; find her someone else. That’s my best advice.” Then he shouted to a servant and requested that his chests be brought into the hall, and from each of them he lifted out strange and beautiful things, presenting them lavishly to Priam and to his sons and daughters. For Hecuba there was a little cup, no larger than a closed fist, of beaten gold.

  “From the House of the Bulls in Crete,” he said. “I found it myself in the remains of what was once the Labyrinth; the Gods know how it escaped the earlier looters.”

  “Maybe some God preserved it for you.”

  “Maybe,” said Odysseus. “See the bulls?”

  Hecuba looked admiringly at the cup, then passed it round the admiring circle of women. Kassandra examined it in her turn, exclaiming over the finely chiseled carvings: a bull in nets as finely incised as thread, with young men in a chariot, and a cow to lure the bull.

  “But this is a priceless treasure,” she said; “you should keep this for your own wife.”

  “I have just as many fine things again,” Odysseus said with great good nature, “for my wife and my son. Never think I would give away all my best.”

  For Andromache he had a golden comb, and for Creusa a bronze mirror with gold-washed beads about the edge.

  “A mirror fit for Aphrodite herself,” he said. “I got this when I spent the night in the cave of a sea-nymph. All night we loved, and when we parted in the morning she gave me this because she said she’d never look in it again if she wasn’t beautiful enough for me to stay with her.” He winked and said, “So now you’re a bride and can make yourself beautiful for your husband.”

  Kassandra’s gift was a necklace of blue beads which looked like glass, oblong in shape, and simply made, held by a plain gold clasp at the ends.

  “It is a small thing,” he said, “but I seem to remember that priestesses are not allowed to wear elaborate ornaments, and this is simple enough, perhaps, that you may wear it in memory of your father’s old friend.”

  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 Egypt, 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 temporized, “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 people 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 am bound by only one oath. 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 the matter. 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 so many men standing about calling out what gifts they 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 choose, with all her suitors swearing an oath they would protect her choice.”

  “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.

  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.”

  Ka
ssandra 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, were the brother anything like him.”

  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, Son-in-Law, are not to be lesser wives or concubines.”

  Aeneas smiled in friendly fashion and said, “I meant your daughters no insult, sir,” and Priam answered, gripping 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, and Kassandra, whose voice was the clearest, led the wedding hymn. Creusa kissed her father and he laid her hand in Aeneas’; then the women led her up the stairs. Creusa, close to Kassandra, whispered, “Can you prophesy good fortune for my marriage, 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 marriage 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 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 believe, in this quiet place under these peaceful stars, that fire and disaster will 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 half sister ready for her husband’s coming. With all her heart she was glad she had foreseen for them no disaster.

  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.

  “But it is not Priam’s first grandson,” Kassandra said. “There is Oenone’s son by Paris.”

  “That’s as may be,” the messenger said, “but Priam chooses to call Hector’s son his first grandson, and as far as I know, the King has the right to choose whom he’ll name his next heir after Prince Hector.”

  This was true; but, Kassandra thought, it was hard on Oenone to see her son passed over as was his father.

  She had come to treasure the peace and calm of the Temple and resented anything which broke into it, but she got leave to pay a visit to Andromache. She found her in the elaborate suite with the murals of sea-creatures, sitting propped up on pillows, the small red-faced baby in a wicker basket at her side. She looked healthy and blooming, with a good color in her cheeks, and Kassandra was relieved; so many women died in childbirth or soon after, but Andromache looked quite well.

  “What is all this nonsense about Hector’s son?” she asked, only half joking. “It was you who went to the trouble of carrying him for the best part of a year, and you who went through all the pain and fuss of birthing him. I would call him Andromache’s son!”

  Andromache grimaced, then giggled. “Maybe you have the best of it, being sworn to the God and forbidden to men! After all that, I am in no hurry to welcome Hector back to my bed. Childbirth is a much-overrated pastime; I would as soon wait a few years before I try it again. And they say women are too fragile to handle weapons for fear of wounds? I wonder how brave my dear Hector would have been in this battle!”

  Then she chuckled. “Can’t you hear it now?—we change all the customs, and bards will make ballads about the bravery of Hecuba, mother of Hector! Well, and why not?—she has triumphed in that battle at least a dozen times, which means she has more bravery than I ever hope to have! They tell us about the delights of marriage . . . Every girl is brought up to think of nothing else; but the delights of childbearing we are left to discover for ourselves. Ah, well . . .” She leaned over, grimaced with the pain of movement and beckoned to one of the servants to put the baby into her arms; the look of delight on her face as she held him close belied her words. “I think,” she said, “my prize of battle is worth more than the sack of a city!”

  “Well, I should think so,” said Kassandra, touching the tiny curled fist. “What will you call him?”

  “Astyanax,” said Andromache. “So Hector desires. Did you know that when he is carried down to the naming-feast, he will be laid in Hector’s shield and carried that way? Imagine it—what a cradle!”

  Kassandra tried to visualize the infant laid at the center of Hector’s great war-shield. Suddenly she shuddered and went rigid, seeing the great shield, and the child—how old was he? Surely too young for a warrior!—the child’s broken body laid out as for burial. It was like a wave of icy water; but Andromache, happily holding her baby at her breast, did not see.

  Kassandra closed her eyes in hopes that that would drive the bloody sight away. “How is it,” she asked, “with Creusa?”

  “She seems happy; she says she cannot wait to be pregnant. Shall I tell her all of what lies in store for her?”

  “Don’t be unkind,” said Kassandra. “Let her enjoy her first happiness; there will be time enough for everything else later.”

  “You are right; there are enough old witches who try to spoil everything for young brides by warning them of everything in store for them in the fullness of years,” Andromache agreed. “And no matter what, I would not have wanted to miss my little darling.” She buried her lips in the baby’s soft neck, and snuffled at him ecstatically. As when she had seen Phyllida holding her child, Kassandra was touched and almost envious.

  “Is there any other news?”

  “Yes; the ship of
Paris has been sighted; a runner from the mountain lookout came to tell the King so,” said Andromache. “Paris is your twin, but I do not think him so much like you.”

  “I am told we are much alike in looks,” Kassandra said, hesitating. “I do not think we are much alike otherwise. There are some who think him the handsomest man in Troy.”

  Andromache said lightly, stroking Kassandra’s hand, “I am not among them, of course; for me no man is the equal of Hector, whether in looks or otherwise.”

  This pleased Kassandra; she felt herself responsible for this marriage and rejoiced that Andromache was content with her husband. And Hector had no reason to be dissatisfied either.

  “And everyone thinks you beautiful,” Andromache went on, “but I do not think your face would well suit a man: it is too delicate. I do not remember that you were as like as that; is he so girlish, then?”

  “I don’t think so, and surely he is manly enough, for he won so many events at the Games,” Kassandra said. “He is a fine archer and athlete and wrestler, and a very devil in a chariot. But I think,” she added with a touch of mischief, “if we were matched on the field, he would be no better warrior than I.”

  “My mother said,”Andromache remarked,“that you had the soul of a great warrior in the body of a field mouse.”

  Kassandra giggled, and put her face down to the baby Astyanax; she felt she had somehow wronged him in giving way to her visions.

  “May all the Gods bless him, and you too, my dear,” she said.

  “Will you not stay to drink to his good fortune at the naming-feast?”

  “No, I think not,” Kassandra said. “I will come home, perhaps, for a day or two when Paris returns. For now I will go and embrace my mother, and then return to the Temple.”

  She took an affectionate farewell of Andromache, knowing that she was closer to her than to Polyxena or any of her half sisters, and went briefly to Hecuba for her blessing. Then she went to the simple rooms at the back of the house where Oenone dwelt with a couple of servants, quiet girls who had been, she knew, votaries of the River God.