"I would find it a pleasure," Kassandra murmured, as Imandra scooped the snake from her wrist; it crawled swiftly up her arm and slithered down into the Queen's dress.
"Then I shall welcome you another day, daughter of Hecuba. Farewell."
As they returned, with the woman guards walking two paces behind them, Kassandra thought they were more like prisoners being escorted, than honored guests being protected. Nevertheless as they walked through the busy streets, she heard scufflings in alleys and once a muffled scream, and felt that here in this strange city it might not, after all, be entirely safe for women who were not a part of Colchis.
CHAPTER 9
Ten days later, Penthesilea rode out of Colchis with a picked group of Amazon warriors, Kassandra among them. They would accompany the caravans of tin, unloaded from the harbor ships, on their way southward to the faraway country of the Hittite kings.
Secretly Kassandra was remembering the words spoken in, prophecy: 'There remain till the spring stars fall!' Was her kinswoman then defying the command of the goddess? But it was not her place to ask questions. Across her shoulder she carried the Scythian bow, formed of a double span of horn, strung with the braided hair of her horse's tail. At her side was the short metal-tipped javelin of an Amazon warrior. Riding next to Star she remembered that her friend had already fought in a battle.
Yet it seemed so peaceful this morning, the bright clear air adazzle with pale sunlight, a few clouds flying overhead. Their horses' hooves made a muffled sound on the road beneath, a counterpart to the heavy rumble of the carts, each drawn by two teams of mules, piled high with the wrapped bundles and crude ingots of the dull/shiny metal and covered with black cloth as heavy as a ship's sail.
The night before she had stood, with the other warriors, guarding the loading of the wagons; remembering the dense blackness of the ingots of iron, the dullness of the lumps of tin, she wondered why this ugly stuff should be so valuable. Surely there was enough metal in the depths of the earth that all men could have a share; why should men—and women - fight wars over the stuff? If there was not enough for all those who wished for it, certainly it would be easy enough to bring more from the mines. Yet it seemed that Queen Imandra took pride in the fact that there was not enough for everyone who wanted a share.
That day was uneventful; the Amazons rode along in single file over the great plain, slowed to the pace of the trundling wagons. Kassandra rode beside one of the blacksmith-women of Colchis, talking with her about her curious trade; she discovered to her surprise that the woman was married and had three grown sons.
"And never a daughter I could train to my trade!"
Kassandra asked, "Why can you not teach your sons your trade of a smith?"
The small muscular woman frowned at her.
"I thought you women of the Amazon tribes would understand," she said. "You do not even rear your own men-children, knowing how useless they are. Look, girl; metal is ripped from the womb of the Earth Mother: what would be her wrath should any man dare to touch or mould her bounty? It is a woman's task to shape it into earthly form for men to use. No man may follow the smith's trade or the Earth Mother will not forgive his meddling."
If the Goddess does not wish this woman to teach her sons her craft, Kassandra thought, why did she give the woman no daughters? But she was learning not to speak every thought that crossed her mind. She murmured, "Perhaps you will yet have a daughter," but the blacksmith grumbled, "What? Risk bearing again when I have lived almost forty winters?" and Kassandra made no answer. Instead she pulled her horse ahead to ride beside Star. The older girl was cleaning dirt from under her fingernails with a little chipped bone knife.
"Do you really think we shall have to fight?"
"Does it matter what I think? The Lady thinks so, and she knows more about it than I do."
Rebuffed again, Kassandra withdrew into her own thoughts. It was cold and windy; she drew her heavy mantle about her shoulders and thought about fighting. Since she had lived among the Amazons, she had been set every day to practice shooting with the bow, and had some skill with the javelin and even with the sword. Her eldest brother Hector had been in training as a warrior since he was old enough to grasp a sword in his hand; his first set of armor had been made for him when he was seven years old. Her mother too had been a warrior maiden, yet in Troy it had never occurred to anyone that Kassandra or her sister Polyxena should learn anything of weapons or of war. And although like all Priam's children she had been weaned on tales of heroes and glory, there were times when it seemed to her that war was an ugly thing and that she was better out of it. But if war was too evil a thing for women, why then should it be good for men? And if it were a fine and honorable thing for men, why should it be wrong for women to share the honor and the glory?
The only answer she could summon to solve her perplexity was Hecuba's comment: It is not the custom.
But why? she had asked, and her mother's only answer had been: Customs have no reason; they simply are.
She believed it no more now than she had believed it then.
Withdrawing into herself, she found herself seeking inward for her brother. Troy, and the sunny slopes of Mount Ida, seemed very far away. She thought of the day when he had pursued, and caught, the girl Oenone, and the curious passionate sensations their coupling had roused within her. She wondered where he was now and what he was doing.
But, except for a brief and neutral glimpse at the sheep and goats grazing on the slopes of Mount Ida, there was nothing to see. Usually, she thought, it is men who travel and women who remain at home; here I am far afield, and it is my brother who remains on the slopes of the sacred mountain. Well, why should it not be so once in the world?
Perhaps she would be the hero then, rather than Hector or Paris?
But nothing happened; the carts trundled along slowly and the Amazons rode behind them.
When the early-winter sunset stretched the shadows to ragged wavering forms, and the Amazons gathered their horses in a tight circle to camp, surrounding the wagons, Penthesilea voiced what had been in all their minds.
"Perhaps, with the caravan so guarded, they will not attack at all; perhaps we will simply waste a weary long journey."
"Wouldn't that be the best thing that could happen? For them never to attack at all, and the caravan to reach the end of its journey in peace?" one of the women asked. "Then it would be settled without war…?"
"Not settled at all; we would know they were still lurking and the moment the guard was withdrawn they would swoop down again; we could waste all the winter here," another said. "I want to see these pirates disposed of once and for all."
"Imandra wants the lesson taught that the caravans from Colchis are not to be attacked," said one of the women fiercely. "And that lesson will be a good thing—"
They cooked a stew of dried meat over the fires and slept in a ring around the wagons; many of the women, Kassandra noted, invited the men from the wagons into their blankets. She felt lonely but it never occurred to her to do the same. She had also discovered during her time with the Amazons that many of the women, especially the young girls, chose lovers among themselves; sometimes she wished that someone would choose her, but she had no close friend among them. She was shy and solitary, knowing herself different. Little by little the camp fell silent, with no sound except the eternal wind of the plains; and they slept.
It seemed that the same day was repeated over and over again; they crawled like an inchworm wriggling across a leaf, keeping pace with the heavy wagons, and at the end of that time Kassandra, looking back over the vast plain, thought they seemed no more than a single good day's ride on a good fast horse from the iron-gated city of Colchis and its harbor of ships.