"But what is happening?" Andromache asked. "Is it a festival day?"
Processions were coming forth from the gates, long lines of men and women in holiday garments, animals garlanded with ribbons and flowers, whether for show or sacrifice she could not tell. Then she saw Hector and some of her other brothers wearing only the brief loincloth in which they competed on the field and knew it must be the games. These were no business of women -though her mother had told her once that in ancient times women had competed in the foot-races and in casting of spears and in archery too. Kassandra, who was a good shot, wished she were still small-breasted enough to pretend to be a boy, and shoot with the archers; but if she had ever been capable of such disguise, she was not now. Resignedly, she thought; well, one day my skill at weapons may still be of use to my city—in war, if not at games - and then saw, bringing up the end of the procession, a chariot bearing the shrunken but still impressive figure of her father Priam. She was about to throw herself headlong from the wagon and embrace him, but the sight of his grey hair shocked her; this old man was all but a stranger to her!
Behind him, riding on a smaller chariot, and wearing the insignia of the Goddess, Kassandra saw her mother; Hecuba seemed not to have changed by a single hair. Kassandra got down from the wagon and came forward, bending low before her father in token of respect, then hurrying to throw herself into her mother's arms.
"You are come at a good hour, my darling," Hecuba said, "but what a woman you have become! I would hardly have known this tall Amazon for my little daughter." She drew Kassandra up on the chariot beside her. "Who is your companion, my child?"
Kassandra looked at Andromache, who was still seated on the forward seat of the wagon. She looked very much alone, and out of place. This was not how she had intended to introduce her friend to Troy.
"She is Andromache, daughter of Imandra, Queen of Colchis," said Kassandra slowly. "Imandra our kinswoman sent her to be a wife to one of my brothers. She has a wagonload of treasure of Colchis for a dowry," and as she spoke it seemed crude, making it a mere matter of purchase and queenly expediency, as if Imandra had sent her daughter as a bribe for Priam. Andromache deserved better than that.
"Now I see she has a look of Imandra," said Hecuba. "As for a marriage that is for your father to say; but she is welcome here, marriage or no, as my kinswoman."
"Mother," said Kassandra seriously—after coming all this way Andromache should not be rejected -'she is the only child of the ruling Queen of Colchis; my father has sons and to spare and if he cannot find one of my brothers to marry her for such an alliance he is not as clever as he is reputed to be." She hurried to fetch Andromache, helping her down from the wagon and presenting her to Priam and Hecuba; Hecuba kissed her, and Andromache smiled and dimpled as she made a submissive bow to them. Priam patted her cheek and took her up on the stands beside him, calling her daughter, which seemed a good start. He seated her between himself and Hecuba, while Kassandra wondered why Andromache was being so submissive. She asked, "Where is my sister Polyxena?"
"She has stayed in the house like a proper modest girl," Hecuba reproved in a whisper. "Naturally she has no interest in seeing naked men competing at arms."
Well, Kassandra thought, if I ever had any doubt, now I know I am home again; am I to spend the rest of my life as a proper modest girl? The thought depressed her. She watched with tepid interest, trying to pick out those of Priam's sons whom she knew by sight. She recognized Hector at once, and Troilus who must now, she thought, be at least ten years old. As they set off Hector quickly took the lead and remained there throughout the first lap; then behind him a slighter, dark-haired youth began to gain: almost easily he overtook him and flashed past, touching the mark a fraction before Hector's outstretched hand.
"Bravely run," shouted the other contestants, clustering around him.
"My dear," Priam said, leaning across Andromache to Hecuba, "I do not know that young man, but if he can outrun Hector he is a worthy contestant. Find out who he is, will you?"
"Certainly," Hecuba said and beckoned to a servant. "Go down and find out for His Majesty who is the young man who won the foot-race."
Kassandra shaded her eyes with her hand to look for the winner, but he had disappeared into the crowd. The contestants were now fitting strings to their bows; Kassandra, who had become an expert archer, watched with fascination, and suddenly, dazzled by the sun, felt confused—surely she was herself on the field, nocking an arrow into the bowstring - my parents will be so angry— then, looking down at the strong bare arm so much more muscular than her own, knew what had happened, that her thoughts had again become entangled with those of her twin brother. Now she knew why the young winner of the foot-race had seemed almost painfully familiar to her; this was her twin brother Paris, and as she had foreseen, she was indeed present at his homecoming to Troy.
With that curious double sight, it seemed she was at once on the field and in her seat above it, looking up at Priam as if it were the first time, seeing him at once as her father and as a strange frightening old man with the unfamiliar majestic look of royalty; there were also old men whose names neither of them knew - Paris deduced, rightly, that these must be the Trojan's King's advisers—a sweet-faced old lady he was sure was the Queen, a gaggle of young boys in expensive bright clothing, whom he assumed—correctly - to be Priam's younger sons, not old enough yet to take part in these contests, and some pretty girls who caught his eye mostly because they looked so different from Oenone. He wondered what they were doing here - perhaps the palace women were allowed to watch the Games. Well, he would give them something to watch. Now they were beckoning him forward to shoot at the mark; his first shot went wide because he was nervous, and his second flew past the targets and far beyond.
"Let the stranger shoot again," Hector said. "You are not accustomed to our targets; but if you can shoot so high and so far, surely you cannot be incapable of a proper shot." He pointed out the target and explained the rules; Paris prepared to shoot again, thoroughly surprised at Hector's courtesy. He let fly his arrow, this time straight into the center of the target. The other archers shot one by one, but not even Hector could better his shot. Hector was not smiling now; he looked cross and sullen, and Kassandra knew he was regretting his impulsive generosity.
There were other contests, and Kassandra, pulling herself back into her own mind and body with a fierce effort, watched with interest and pleasure as her twin won them all. He threw Deiphobos almost effortlessly at wrestling, and when Deiphobos got up and rushed him, stretched him out insensible, not to rise till the games were over; he cast the javelin further even than Hector, listening to their shouts of 'He is strong as Hercules' with ingenuous smiles of pleasure.
A servant came to the King and Queen with a message, and Kassandra heard her father repeat aloud, "He says that the young stranger is called Paris; he is the foster-son of Agelaus the shepherd." Hecuba turned white as bone. "I should have known; he has a look of you. But who could have believed it; it has been so long, so long…'