In the outer court, she spied one of her mother's women, and hid behind a statue, fearing that the woman might have been sent to search for her. There was always a fuss now, whenever she went outside the women's quarters.
Such folly! Staying inside did not help Hesione, she thought, and did not know what she meant by it. Thinking of Hesione filled her with a sudden dread, and she did not know why, but it occurred to her that she should warn her. (Warn her? Of what? Why? No, it would be no use. What must come will come.} Something within her made her wish to run to Hesione (or to her mother, or to Polyxena, or to her nurse, anyone who could ease this nameless terror which made her knees tremble and her stomach wobble). But whatever her own mission might be it was more urgent to her than any fancied or foreseen dangers to anyone else. She was still crouched, hiding, behind the pillar; but the woman was out of sight. I was afraid that she would see me.
Afraid? No! I have not known the meaning of the word! After the terror of that vision in the harbor, Kassandra knew that nothing less would ever make her feel fear. Still she did not wish to be seen with this compulsion upon her; someone might stop her from doing what must be done. She hurried to the women's quarters and found a clay bowl which she filled with water drawn fresh from the cistern, and knelt before it.
Staring into the water, at first she saw only her own face looking back, as from a mirror. Then as the shadows shifted on the surface of the water, she knew it was a boy's face she looked on: very like her own, the same heavy straight dark hair, the same deep-set eyes, shadowed beneath long heavy lashes. He looked beyond her, staring at something she could not see…
Troubled with care for the sheep, each one's name known, each footstep placed with such care; the inner knowledge of where they were and what must be done for each of them, as if directed by some secret wisdom. Kassandra found herself wishing passionately that she could be trusted with work as responsible and meaningful as this. For some time she knelt by the basin, wondering why she had been brought to see him and what it could possibly mean. She was not aware that she was cramped and cold, nor that her knees ached from her unmoving posture; she watched with him, sharing his annoyance when one of the beasts stumbled, sharing his pleasure at the sunlight, her mind just touching and skimming over the occasional fears, of wolves, of larger and more dangerous beasts… she was the strange boy whose face was her own reflection. Lost in this passionate identification, she was roused by a sudden outcry.
"Hai! Help, ho, fire, murder, rape! Help!" For a moment she thought it was he who had cried out; but no, it was somehow a different kind of sound, heard with her physical ears; it jolted her out of her trance.
Another vision, but this one with neither pain nor fear. Do they come from a God? She returned with a painful jolt to awareness of where she was: in the courtyard of the women's quarters.
And she suddenly smelled smoke, and the bowl into which she still stared clouded, tilted sideways, and the water ran out across the floor. The visionary stillness went with it, and Kassandra found that she could move.
Strange footsteps clattered on the floor; she heard her mother scream, and ran out into the corridor. It was empty, except for the shrieking of women. Then she saw two men in armor, with great high-crested helmets. They were tall, taller than her father or the half-grown Hector; great hairy savage looking men, both of them with fair hair hanging below their helmets; one of them bore over his shoulder a screaming woman. In shock and horror, Kassandra recognized the woman: her aunt Hesione.
Kassandra had no idea what was happening or why; she was still partially within the stilled apartness of her vision. The soldiers ran right past her, brushing past so close to her and so swiftly that one all but knocked her off her feet. She started to run after them, with some vague notion that she might somehow help Hesione; but they were already gone, rushing down the palace steps; as if her inner sight followed she saw Hesione borne, still screaming, down the stairs and through the city. The people melted away before the intruders. It was as if the men's gaze had the quality of the Gorgon's head, to turn people to stone—they must not only avoid looking on the Akhaians but they must not even be looked upon by them.
There was a dreadful screaming from the lower city and it seemed that all the women in the palace like a chorus had taken up the shrieks.
The screaming went on for some time, then died away into a grief-stricken wailing. Kassandra went in search of her mother -suddenly frightened and guilty for not thinking sooner that Hecuba might have been taken, too. In the distance she could faintly hear sounds of clashing warfare; she could hear the war-cries of her father's men, who were fighting the intruders on their way back to the ships. Somehow Kassandra was aware that their righting was in vain.
Is what I saw, what I felt, that which would happen to Hesione? That terrible hawk-faced man—will he take her for his captive, Did I see—and worse, did I feel—what will happen to her?
She did not know whether to hope that she herself need not suffer it, or to be ashamed that she wished it instead upon her beloved young aunt.
She came into her mother's room, where Hecuba sat, white as death, holding little Troilus on her lap.
"There you are, naughty girl," said one of the nurses. "We were afraid that the Akhaian raiders had got you too."
Kassandra ran to her mother and fell to her knees at her side. "I saw them take Aunt Hesione," she whispered. "What will happen to her?"
"They will take her back to their country and hold her there until your father pays ransom for her," Hecuba said, wiping away her tears.
There was the loud step at the door that Kassandra always associated with her father, and Priam came into the chamber,-ready for battle but with some of his armor's straps half-fastened as if he had armed himself too quickly.
Hecuba raised her eyes and saw behind Priam the armed figure of Hector, a slender warrior of nineteen.
"Is it well with you and the children, my love?" asked the King. "Today your eldest son fought by my side as a true warrior."
"And Hesione?" Hecuba asked.
"Gone. There were too many for us and they had got to the ships before we could reach her," Priam said. "You know perfectly well that they care nothing for the woman; it is only that she is my sister and so they think they can demand concessions and freedom from harbor tolls, that is all." He set his spear aside with an expression of disgust. Hecuba called Hector to her, fussing over him till he moved away and said irritably, "Have done, Mother - I am not a little one still holding your skirts!"
"Shall I send for wine, my lord?" Hecuba asked, putting the child down and rising dutifully, but Priam shook his head.
"Don't trouble yourself," he said. "I would not have disturbed you, but I thought you would like to know that your son came honorably and unwounded from his first battle."
He went out of the room, and Hecuba said between her teeth, "Battle indeed! He cannot wait to get to his newest woman, that is all, and she will give him unmixed wine and he will be ill! And as for Hesione - much he cares for her! As long as they do not disturb his precious shipping, the Akhaians could have us all and welcome!"
Kassandra knew better than to ask anything further of her mother at that moment; but that night when they gathered in the great dining-hall of the palace (for Priam still kept to the old custom where men and women dined all together, instead of the new fashion where women took their meals separately in the women's quarters 'So that the women need not appear before strange men' as the Akhaian slaves put it) she waited until Priam was in a good humour, sharing his finest wine with her mother, and beckoning Polyxena, whom he always petted, to come and sit beside him. Then Kassandra stole forward and Priam indulgently motioned to her.