Helen came at once to Kassandra and embraced her.
"You tried to warn me, sister, and I am grateful to you."
"I am so sorry," Kassandra said. "I only wish—"
"I know," Helen said. "This is not a new grief to me. My second daughter died; she was a year younger than Hermione, and two years older than Nikos. She never breathed, and when Nikos was born strong and healthy, so that I had both a Queen for Sparta, and a son for Menelaus to bring up as a warrior, I swore I would bear no more children; but nothing went as I had decided."
"It seldom does, in this world of mortals," Kassandra said. Paris approached them in time to hear this and said with an angry glare at Kassandra, "So have you come to gloat at us?"
"No," she said wearily, "only to tell you how very sorry I am."
"We need not your sympathy, you crow of ill omen!" Paris said wrathfully. "Your very presence brings us more evil fortune!"
"Be quiet, Paris! For shame!" Helen said. "Have you forgotten that she came to try and warn us of Poseidon's wrath? Or what welcome she had for her pains?"
Paris only scowled; but Kassandra thought he did look somewhat ashamed. Well, she could live without his good opinion; she would rather have Helen's.
The children were duly cremated and their ashes properly entombed; the truce lasted two more days and then was broken by a Trojan captain (he, like the Akhaian who undid the truce before, said that one of the Gods had prompted him, though he refused to say which one) who let off an arrow and wounded Menelaus, painfully, but, (unfortunately, Priam said) not fatally. If Menelaus had been killed, the King said, the Akhaians would have had a good excuse to call it all off and go home. Kassandra was not so sure; perhaps the Gods were, really eager to destroy the city as she had seen in her - had it been only a dream?
Only the women were troubled by the end of the truce. Hector, Kassandra thought, was glad to get back to the fighting. In his chariot he led forth the Trojan armies the next day, riding up and down the long line of foot soldiers, encouraging them while the Akhaians were gathering for battle. The women, as usual, watched from the wall.
"Hector is certainly the finest charioteer," said Andromache, and Creusa laughed.
"You mean he has the finest charioteer," she said, "and I think Aeneas comes at least close to that. Who is Hector's charioteer? He drives like the wind - or a fiend."
"Troilus, Priam's youngest son," Andromache said. "He wanted to take part in the fighting, but Hector wanted the boy under his own eyes. He's worried because he is no more than twelve—and still unseasoned in battle."
"Does Hector really think Troilus will be safer in his chariot? It seems to me that is where the fighting will be thickest, and certainly Hector will have no leisure to protect him," Kassandra said, but Andromache only shrugged.
"Don't ask me what Hector thinks," she said.
Of course, Kassandra thought, Troilus was nothing to her, only her husband's youngest brother. Andromache would mourn his death, but only in the same way that she grieved for Helen's children; from family duty, no more.
Helen still looked wasted and worn with sorrow, her eyes red and burning, and her hair lustreless; she had hardly troubled to pull it back out of her eyes; much less to scent it and brush it with oil. She wore an old bedraggled gown, it was all but impossible to recall the incredible glowing beauty which had inhabited her as the Goddess of Love. Yet Kassandra remembered, with the tenderness she always felt for her sister-in-law. Is this a sign of Paris's neglect? Was it that he cared so little for his children? She could guess Helen was grateful that her Nikos had not been lost in the earthquake, yet she sensed that Paris's sons were dearer to Helen than the son she had borne Menelaus.
She turned her eyes down to the battlefield, where Aeneas, in his splendid chariot, was riding up and down the line, calling out what she imagined was a challenge. Battle among opposing armies, she had seen, usually took the form of a series of duels between champions. It was not at all like the pitched battles she had fought when she rode with the Amazons, where the battle was a muddle of fighting where you killed as many as you could, any way you could.
"There," said Creusa, "he has found someone to take his challenge. Who is that?"
"Diomedes," said Helen.
"The one who exchanged armor—?"
"The same, yes," Andromache said, "but I think Aeneas is a stronger fighter, certainly with that chariot and those horses—"
"His mother was a priestess of Aphrodite - some say Aphrodite's self," Creusa said, "and she gifted him with these horses when he came to Troy - look, what's going on?"
Below them, Diomedes had ridden like a madman at Aeneas, and managed with his spear to overturn the chariot, tumbling Aeneas out on the ground. Creusa screamed, but her husband sprang to his feet, evidently unharmed, his sword out and ready. But Diomedes had cut the harness of the horses and seized their reins; it was obvious from his gestures that he claimed horses and chariot as his prize. Aeneas shouted in protest and rage, so loudly that the women could clearly hear his voice but not the words; he turned on Diomedes, and as they watched, he seemed before their eyes to grow taller, and his head to glow with a shining aura. It flashed through Kassandra's mind, Why, I did not know his hair is the same colour as Helen's! Then she knew that she saw before her the beautiful Goddess herself, turning on Diomedes in the fury of an Immortal. Diomedes visibly flinched; he had not been prepared for this, but his courage did not fail; he dashed at the towering form of Aphrodite and thrust with his sword, wounding the form of the Goddess in the hand.
Abruptly it was Aeneas who stood on the field, screaming like a woman, and shaking his hand from which blood was pouring.
Diomedes did not lose the advantage, but put up shield and sword in defense. Aeneas, however, attacked wildly, and after a moment Diomedes went down full length on the ground; a few seconds later, Agamemnon and four of his men were backing up Diomedes, driving Aeneas off in a fury of blows. Hector's chariot dashed by, and Hector jumped to the ground, briefly engaged Agamemnon in a wild exchange of swordplay, and lifted Aeneas into his chariot. They dashed back toward the gates of Troy, while a handful of Hector's soldiers drove off Agamemnon and his men from Aeneas's chariot and managed to recapture the horses.
"He's hurt," Creusa cried, and ran down the stairs, the other women following in haste, just in time to greet Hector's chariot. Hector swung down and motioned them away.
"Get back so we can get these gates closed, unless you want Agamemnon and half the Akhaian army in here," he said. The women surged back, and the men joined hands pushing the gates closed, cutting down one luckless Akhaian soldier who was trapped inside.
"Throw him over the wall to his friends," Hector said. "They want him, and we don't."
Creusa was holding Aeneas tight, summoning healers to bandage up his hand. He seemed dazed; but when Kassandra came and took over the bandaging, he smiled up at her and asked, "What happened?"
"If you don't know," said Hector, "how are we to tell? You were fighting Diomedes and suddenly you stopped…'
"It was not you but Aphrodite," Helen said. "She fought through you—"
Aeneas chuckled. "Well, I don't remember anything except being in a rage at Diomedes for trying to claim my chariot and horses; the next thing I remember, my hand was bleeding and I heard someone scream—"