The Firebrand (84 page)

But she knew that just as Klytemnestra had done, she would be sure to send this son away so that Agamemnon could not school him in king-craft. She found no pleasure in the thought that her son might one day sit on the Lion Throne. She did not wish her son to be brought up as the Akhaians brought up their sons.

She supposed that Helen by now had borne Paris’ last son, and she wondered if Menelaus had carried out his threat to expose the child. It was the sort of thing he would do; these Akhaians seemed to care only for their
own
sons, as if a child could be anyone’s except the mother’s who bore it.

Even Agamemnon had no knowledge whether this child was his or Ajax’s—or, for that matter, Aeneas’. She would take care not to remind him again of that. This was
her
son, and no man’s. But she would hold her peace and let Agamemnon think it his if he wished, for its safety.

She gathered the babe up in the swaddling clothes that had been provided in Pharaoh’s palace, and went through the streets of the city with one of the women of the royal household who had borne a child the day before. In the Temple of the Goddess—a repulsive statue of a woman with huge breasts like a cow, and the head of a crocodile—she sacrificed a pair of young doves, and kneeling before the statue, tried to pray.

She was a stranger in this land and a stranger to this Goddess. She supposed there was not so much difference between the Goddess of crocodiles and the Goddess of snakes; but no prayer would come, nor could she look even a little way into the future and see whether it would be well with her child.

She should seek the Sun Lord’s house; here in Egypt, the Sun Lord was the greatest God, and He was called by the name of Re. But she still mistrusted the God who had been unable—or unwilling—to save her city, and would not approach Him.

The next day Agamemnon’s goods were prepared and loaded, he gave final guest-gifts to Pharaoh, and they departed.

Kassandra had been in terror of renewed seasickness; but this time she felt only a little queasy the first night the crew lifted anchor. The next morning she felt perfectly well. She ate fruit and the hard ship’s bread with good appetite, and sat on deck with the baby at her breast. The illness, then, had been a side effect of her head injury and then of her pregnancy.

She knew nothing of ships and sailing, but Agamemnon seemed pleased with the strong winds that day after day drove them across the clear blue waters. The baby proved as good a sailor as his father. He suckled strongly, and it seemed that she could see him growing every day, his small hands becoming more formed, his nose and chin, from mere blobs, taking a real shape. She felt that perhaps, considering the shape of his chin, he might be Agamemnon’s child after all. His father liked to hold him and joggle him in his arms, trying to make him laugh. This was the last thing she had expected. Well, Hector and even Paris had enjoyed playing with their children. Painful as it was to admit it, Akhaians were not greatly different from other men.

One morning, just as it was getting light, she had gone on deck to rinse the child’s swaddlings in a bucket of seawater and spread them to dry. The ship was silent except for a single steersman at the stern, for the winds were strong enough that the rowers were not needed except for maneuvering at close quarters to land.

She looked from horizon to horizon; the sea was peaceful, and they were passing between two shores. One was a high mountain rising steeply above them, its shadow reaching almost to the ship itself. On the other side was a long, low, treeless headland. Suddenly on the side of the mountain a streak of fire flared upward to the sky, like a flower of flame blooming there. The steersman let out a shout of exultation and yelled for one of his fellows to come and steer.

Agamemnon appeared on deck and shouted to the crew, “There it is, my brave lads! The beacon on our own headland! After all these years, we’ve come home at last! A bull to Zeus Thunderer!”

The sunlight glinted in his eyes—
as red as blood,
Kassandra thought. Her own eyes felt strained and dry, and it struck her that he should hardly be so overjoyed at coming home: who knew what he would find there?

She came to the rail, the child in her arms, and stood beside him.

“What is it?”

“When I left home,” he said, “I gave orders that a great pile of wood should be made on the headland, and a watchman kept there at all times. When I set sail, I sent a message by a swift courier that a watch should be kept for my ship. Now we have been sighted, and word will be sent to the palace; a feast and a welcome will be prepared for us.

“It will be good to be home again. I am eager to show you my country and the palace where you will be Queen, Kassandra.” He took the child from her, bending over the little face and saying, “Your country, my son; your father’s throne. You are silent, Kassandra.”

“It is not my country,” she said, “and it is certain Klytemnestra will have no joyful welcome for me, eager as she may be to see you again. And I am afraid for my child: Klytemnestra—”

“You need not fear anything like that,” he said arrogantly. “Among the Akhaians, our women are dutiful wives. She will not dare say a word of protest. She has had a free rein while I was away; she will soon learn what I expect of her, and she will do as she is told or be the worse for it, believe me.”

“It is cold,” she said. “I must go and fetch my cloak.”

“It seems warm and fine to me,” he said, “but perhaps it is because this is the port of my native city. Look, now you can see the palace on the hill, and the walls, built by Titans centuries ago. The port here is called Nauplia.”

She went to fetch a cloak and stood beside Agamemnon at the prow, letting the woman who had been her mother’s midwife take the baby.

The great sail had been lowered, and the rowers had taken their places to maneuver the ship in the harbor; it glided smoothly along inside the sheltered waters in the lee of the headland.

Now she could see a number of people collecting along the pier. As the ship drew in close, one man raised a cheer, and Agamemnon’s soldiers, clustered along the side of the ship, began waving and yelling to people they recognized on shore.

But for the most part the watchers were silent as the ship drew slowly closer to the pier. To Kassandra the silence seemed ominous. She shivered, although the rich cloak she wore was warm, and took the baby back from the serving-woman, to clutch him close against her body.

The prow of the ship bumped gently against the land. Agamemnon was the first to step ashore; at once he fell to the ground and solemnly kissed the stones of the pier, crying in a loud voice, “I give thanks to the Thunder Lord who has returned me safe to my own country!”

A tall red-haired man with a gold torque about his throat stepped up to him and said with a bow, “My lord Agamemnon, I am Aegisthos, a kinsman of your Queen; she has sent me with these men to escort you with great honor to the palace.”

The men closed in around Agamemnon and marched away. It looked to Kassandra as if he were a guarded prisoner rather than a King receiving an escort of honor. Agamemnon was scowling—she could see he had little liking for this. Nevertheless, he went with them unprotesting.

One of the men on the pier climbed aboard and came to Kassandra. “You are the daughter of Priam of Troy? The Queen sent word you would be coming and you were to be shown all regard,” he said. “We have a cart for you and your child, and your woman.”

He gave her his hand and helped her ashore, settling her in the cart with the baby on her knees and the serving-woman crouched at her feet.

In spite of this luxury—and the road up to the palace was so steep that she had dreaded climbing it on foot—Kassandra felt uneasy. The stone walls of the great palace, almost as massive as the fallen walls of Troy, seemed to frown above her, deep in shadow. They passed under a great gate above which two lionesses, painted in brilliant colors, kept watch face to face. As the cart trundled through the Lion Gate, she wondered if they represented the ancient Gods of the place or were Agamemnon’s private emblem. But they were lionesses, not lions, and anyhow, Agamemnon had come here as a consort of the Queen in the old way. Klytemnestra’s symbol, then?

Ahead of the cart marched Agamemnon and his honor guard with Aegisthos. Just inside the Lion Gate was a city built on the hillside on the same pattern as Troy: palace, temples, gardens, one above another, the walls rising in many terraces and balconies. It was beautiful; yet it seemed shadowed darkly, the depths of the shadow falling on Agamemnon where he walked at the center of the soldiers.

On the steps of the palace, a woman appeared, tall and commanding, her hair, elaborately dressed in ringlets fresh from a curling iron, flaming gold in the morning sun. She was dressed richly in the Cretan style, a laced bodice low across her breasts, a flounced skirt dyed in many colors, one for each flounce.

Kassandra saw at once the close resemblance to Helen. This would be her sister Klytemnestra. The Queen came through the escort and bowed low to Agamemnon; her voice was sweet and clear.

“My lord, a great joy to welcome you to these shores and to the palace where once you ruled at my side,” she said. “We have long awaited this day.”

She held out her two hands to him; he took them ceremoniously and kissed them.

“It is a joy to return home, Lady.”

“We have prepared a celebration and a great sacrifice suitable to the occasion,” she said.
“I can hardly wait to kill you.”

No,
Kassandra thought in shock,
that cannot have been what she said; but it is what I heard.

What Klytemnestra had actually said was, “I can hardly wait to see you take the place we have prepared for you.”

“All is prepared for your bath and the feast,” Klytemnestra said. “We are entirely ready to
see you lying dead among the sacrifices.
”

Once again Kassandra had heard what Klytemnestra was thinking, not what her lips had actually spoken. So again foresight, undesired, had come upon her.

Klytemnestra gestured Agamemnon toward the palace steps.

“All is prepared, my lord; go in and officiate at the sacrifice.”

He bowed and began to walk up the steps. Klytemnestra watched him go with a smile which made Kassandra shudder. Couldn’t he
see
?

But the King moved without hesitation. Just as he reached the great bronze doors at the top of the stairs, Aegisthos, armed with the great sacrificial ax, flung them open and thrust him inside. The doors closed after him.

Klytemnestra came down the stairs to the cart. She said, “You are the Trojan princess, Priam’s daughter? My sister sent word to me that you were the one friend she had found in Troy.”

Kassandra bowed; she was not sure that Klytemnestra’s next move would not be to thrust a knife through her heart.

“I am Kassandra of Troy, and in Colchis I was made a priestess of Serpent Mother,” she said.

Klytemnestra looked at the baby on her breast. She said, “Is that Agamemnon’s child?”

“No,” said Kassandra, not knowing whence came the courage which bade her speak so boldly, “he is
my
son.”

“Good,” said Klytemnestra, “we want no King’s sons in this land. He may live, then.”

At that moment, a great shout arose from within the bronze doors; someone thrust them open from inside, and Agamemnon appeared in flight at the top of the steps, with Aegisthos behind him, bearing the great double-bladed sacrificial ax. He whirled it high and brought it down into the fleeing King’s skull. Agamemnon staggered and tripped over the edge of the stairs, falling and rolling down the steps almost to Klytemnestra’s feet.

She screamed, “Witness, you people of the city: thus the Lady avenges Iphigenia!”

There was a tremendous cheer and cry of triumph; Aegisthos came down with the bloody ax and handed it to her. A few of Agamemnon’s soldiers started a cry of outrage, but Aegisthos’ guard quickly struck them down.

Klytemnestra said fiercely to Kassandra, “Have you anything to say, princess of Troy who thought perhaps to be Queen here?”

“Only that I wish I could have held the ax,” replied Kassandra, gasping in a wild joy. She bowed to Klytemnestra, and said, “In the name of the Goddess, you have avenged wrongs done to Her. When a woman is wronged, She is wronged too.”

Klytemnestra bowed to her and took her hands. She said, “You are a priestess, and I knew you would understand these things.” She looked into the face of the sleeping child. “I bear you no grudge,” she said. “We will have the old ways returned here. Helen has not the spirit to do so in Sparta, but I do. Will you remain here and be the Lady’s priestess, then? You may enter Her Temple if you will.”

Kassandra was still breathing hard, her heart pounding at the suddenness of her release. Through Klytemnestra’s features she still saw the hunger for destruction; this woman had avenged the dishonor offered the Goddess, but Kassandra still feared her. The Goddess took many forms, but in this form Kassandra did not love Her. Never before had she faced so strong a woman: princess and priestess. For once she had encountered a force stronger than her own.

Or did she but see in Klytemnestra the ancient power of the Goddess as She had been before male Gods and Kings invaded this land? She could not serve this Goddess.

“I cannot,” she said, as calmly as she could. “I—this is not my country, O Queen.”

“Will you return to your own country, then?”

“I cannot return to Troy,” Kassandra said. “If you will give me leave to depart, Lady, I will seek my kinswomen in Colchis.”

“A journey like that, with a baby still at the breast?” Klytemnestra asked in astonishment.

Then a curious change came across Klytemnestra’s face. An unearthly peace relaxed the sharp features, and she seemed to glow from within. A voice Kassandra knew well said,
Yes, I call you home. Depart at once from this place, My daughter.