She thought she was probably not the first of the temple women to bring a lover in this way; it was the sort of thing she would have expected of Chryseis. She did not want to think of herself on the same terms as that alley-cat girl; but she must accept it, she was no better. She gave Aeneas her hand to steady him as she stepped down and felt her breath catch in her throat; she had so often chided Chryseis in her mind for this kind of thing.
If Creusa does not object—and if the Lord Apollo does not speak to prevent it—then there is no one, man or woman or God, who has any right to object, she told herself firmly. She led him along the deep shadows at the edge of the wall; and rather than conducting him to the door of the priestesses' dormitory and through the corridor to her room, took him to the window which opened into the street, and stepped through.
Inside it was dark and still, a single rushlight burning on a platter - just enough to see her bed and the pallet where Honey usually slept. As she approached the bed, Kassandra saw the little girl's dark head on the pillow; and as she bent to lift her, the long blunt form uncoiled upward, eyes gleaming like two flat pebbles. She saw Aeneas recoil and said softly, "She will not harm you; she is not poisonous."
"I know," Aeneas said. "My mother was a priestess of Aphrodite, and shared her bed with stranger things than snakes. Your pet will not trouble me—"
"I can put her in the child's bed if you like," Kassandra said, lifting Honey and laying her in the pallet; the child whimpered and Kassandra sat with her crooning softly to soothe her back to sleep.
"It does not matter to me," Aeneas said, "but I am a stranger to her; perhaps she will spend a quieter night in the child's bed." Kassandra felt heat rising in her cheeks as she rose and picked up the snake, laying her down close to Honey; the serpent glided down, wrapping her coils close around Honey's waist. Reassured by the familiar touch, Honey slept, and Kassandra came back, taking Aeneas's cloak and laying it aside.
"I did not know your mother was a priestess of Aphrodite," she said, and Aeneas replied, "When I was a child, they told me my mother was Aphrodite's self. Later, I knew who she really was and came to know her as a mother. I am not surprised if she seemed like the Goddess herself to my father; she was very beautiful. I think the priestesses of Aphrodite are chosen for their beauty."
"And if they serve the Goddess," Kassandra said,"she would certainly lend them her beauty."
"It cannot be only that," Aeneas said, "or you would long ago have been chosen to her service."
The remark made her shiver. Was she then being deceived into the service of that Goddess who thrust the disorderly worship of carnal love into the lives of men and of women? Was it then that despised Goddess who had sought now to lay a hand on her and win her away from the pledge she had made to Apollo?
Already she had seen how Aphrodite disrupted the lives of those who worshipped her. Aeneas was her child; did he worship her too?
She could not ask him these things. He sat on the edge of her narrow bed, drawing off his sandals. She came to him and he reached for her, with a single gesture pulling the pin from her hair and letting it fall free to hide her face and all her questions. It no longer mattered. All the Goddesses, whatever their name, were one and she should serve them as every woman served them.
She heard the rustle of the snake as she shifted her coils. Aeneas reached for her, his arm around her waist.
"It is no wonder you have remained so long a virgin, with such a guardian of your chastity," he murmured, laughing. "Have all of the Sunlord's maidens such chaperones to safeguard them?"
"Oh, no," she said, laughing and lay back in his arms. Then she raised herself to extinguish the rushlight. Darkness filled the room and she heard him laugh again, softly. Beyond the laughter she heard, very far away, a ripple of thunder; then the sudden rush and rattle of rain outside.
"Shining Aphrodite, if I must serve you as all women, after so many years of refusing your service, lay then some of your gifts on me," she whispered, and felt a shimmer of light round her -or was it only a random flicker of the lightning outside as Aeneas touched her in the dark?
At dawn she slipped quietly from her bed, to sit at the window, remembering and savouring every detail of the night. She sat overlooking the pearly mists below. Soon the winds at the summit would blow the mists away. At the highest point of the Sunlord's house the wind already roared noisily around the walls;, and Aeneas stood not yet armed.
"There is no reason for arming, if I am to compete in wrestling and boxing," he said. "I will take on any contestant save Akhilles himself. I dreamed last night—"
Kassandra asked, "Did the God send you a lucky dream?"
"Whether lucky or unlucky I do not know," said Aeneas. "My good fortune, it seems to me, I have already won." He bent and kissed her. "Promise me; you have no regrets, my beloved?"
"None," she said; it no longer mattered to her; so many years she had waited to give herself, refusing even, as she thought, the Sunlord's self; and here in the midst of war, in the shadow of death, she had found love and knew it could not last.
When Honey at the far end of the room stirred and cried with some nightmare, she moved quickly to quiet the child. She soothed her gently, rocking, crooning to her, and saw Honey's eyes turn to the unfamiliar person in the room; and was suddenly, confusedly glad that the little girl was too young to voice her surprise or curiosity.
Now as they stood close together, she thought of all the other women of Troy who for all these years had been fastening on their men's armor and sending them out to fight - or to die— and that for once she shared the concerns and fears of these women.
She helped him to buckle the final strap on his breastplate; the rest of his armor would be donned in the field. The trumpet which blew at dawn to summon the men had not yet sounded; and this morning it was uncertain whether it would be heard at all; only those who were competing in Patroklos's funeral games need rise or go out this day, although a careful watch would be kept in case the Akhaians attempted to break the truce.
Come, kiss me, love, I must go," he said, holding her tight in a last embrace, but she protested: 'Not yet; shall I find you some bread and a little wine?"
"I must breakfast with the soldiers of my mess, sweetheart; don't trouble yourself." He hesitated and held his face against her cheek. "May I come to you again tonight?"
She did not know what to say, and he mistook her silence. "Ah, I should not have - your brothers are my friends, your father my host—"
"As for my father or brothers, there is no man in all of Troy to whom I must account for my doings," Kassandra said sharply. "And your wife, my sister, said to me when we parted that she grudged you nothing that would make you happy."
"Creusa said that? I wonder - well, I am grateful to her, then. I could have told you that, but better you should hear it from her—" Impulsively he caught her to him again. "Let me come," he begged. "We may not have much time… and who knows what may happen to either of us; but these days of the truce—"
All over Troy, she thought, women fresh from their men's beds were fastening on armor, using these last little delaying moments and kisses, trying not to think of the vulnerability of the flesh they had caressed.
Aeneas stroked her hair. "Even with Aphrodite I have now no quarrel - for it was she, I think, who brought you to me. I shall sacrifice a dove to her as soon as I can."
There were doves enough in Apollo's shrine; but Kassandra felt a certain reluctance to suggest he buy one of them. Aeneas in one way had stolen something belonging to Apollo - though she did not know now and had never known why it should have belonged to anyone but herself. Then she told herself sharply not to be foolish; she was certainly not the first of the Sunlord's maidens to take a man to her bed, and would hardly be the last. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him and said, "Until tonight then, my dearest love."