Andromache said, "Astyanax is too old for the women's quarters; I cannot even comfort him, nor seek to find comfort seeing his father in his face." Her voice was sadder than tears.
"When I lost - the little ones," Helen said shakily,"they brought Nikos to me for comfort; I will go, Andromache, and bring your son to you."
"Oh, bless you," Andromache cried.
Kassandra said, "Let me take you to your room; you do not want him here among all these drunken women."
"Yes; I will bring him to you there," Helen said. "You still have your son, and that is the greatest of all gifts."
One by one, or in twos and threes, the women, exhausted with grief and the strong wine, were slipping away to their beds. Only Hecuba, and Polyxena in her priestess's robes, took their station at Troilus's head and feet, there to remain until those came who would give his body to the fire. Kassandra wondered if she too should remain; but they had not asked her, not even to do the service of a priestess in purifying the chamber of death.
Andromache and even Helen needed her more; she knew she was as alien among the women of Troy as were the Colchian and the Spartan woman.
She stayed with them until Helen had slipped into Paris's rooms and found Nikos and Astyanax; they had both been crying. Astyanax's face was filthy and smudged with tears. They had evidently told him about his father's death but had been able to offer the child no solace. Helen took both boys to the well at the center of the courtyard, and washed their faces with the corner of her veil.
Astyanax fell gratefully into his mother's arms, then said, bewildered, "Don't cry, Mother. They told me I must not cry because my father is a hero. So why are you crying?"
Helen said gently, "Astyanax, if you cannot cry for your father, at least you can help to dry your mother's tears; it is now your business to care for her, since your father cannot."
At the child's touch Andromache dissolved drunkenly into tears again; Helen and Kassandra took her to her room, put her to bed and tucked the boy in at her side.
"Nikos will stay with me," Helen said. "Oh, why do they take them from us so young?" But when she took Nikos in her arms, he pulled indignantly away.
I'm not a baby, Mother! I shall go back to the men."
Smothering her sobs, Helen said, "As you like, child; but embrace me first."
Grudgingly Nikos complied, and ran away; Helen, tears streaming down her face, watched him go, unprotesting.
"Paris has done no better with him than Menelaus," she observed. "I do not like what men make of boys; making them like themselves. Thanks to the Gods Astyanax has not yet become ashamed to stay with his mother," she said, staring out into the hard grey rain that howled outside the palace.
"Kassandra!" Her voice was so filled with dread and she clutched at the other woman so suddenly that Kassandra almost dropped the torch. "If we fall into the hands of the Akhaians, what will happen to my son? Perhaps the Trojans will stop at nothing to make sure Menelaus cannot reclaim him—"
"Are you saying that you think my father or brothers would kill the child to stop him being taken back to Sparta?" Kassandra could hardly believe her ears.
"Oh, I cannot really believe it, but—"
"If you believe that, then perhaps you should indeed return to Menelaus, and take the child to safety," Kassandra said. "Surely he would welcome you if you came with his son—"
"And I thought he would be so much better off in Troy; that Paris would make a better father to him than Menelaus," Helen said sadly. "And he was, Kassandra, he was; but now - he seems to hate him because he is alive when our own sons died—" Her voice broke and for a moment, clinging to Kassandra, she wept.
"Then you will go—?"
"I cannot," Helen said numbly. "I cannot persuade myself to leave Paris - I tell myself that it is the will of the Gods that I shall stay till this is all played out between us. He no longer loves me, but I would rather be in Troy than Sparta—" she let her voice trail away into silence, then said, "Kassandra, you are weary; I must keep you no longer from your bed. Or will you return and watch by Troilus?"
"No, I do not think they want me there," Kassandra said. "I will return to the Sunlord's house."
"In this rain? Listen to this storm," Helen said. "You are welcome to sleep here if you will; you can sleep in my bed - it is less than likely Paris will come in now: they will all have drunk so much in honor of Hector's spirit that they would lose their way on the stairs. Or I will have the maids make up a bed for you in the other room."
"You are very kind, Sister, but the servants will all be sleeping by now; let them rest," Kassandra said. "The rain will clear my head." She picked up her cloak and put the hood over her head, then embraced Helen and kissed her. She said, "Andromache did not mean what she said—"
"Oh, I know that; in her place I should feel the same," Helen said. "She is afraid; what will become of her now, and Astyanax? Paris has already decided that he will succeed Priam, and leave no place for Hector's son - and if Paris should somehow bring this war to a good end—"
"There is no chance of that," said Kassandra. "Yet you must not be afraid, Helen; Menelaus has not fought all these years for revenge."
"I know that; I have spoken with him," Helen said, surprising her. "I know not why, but it seems he wants me back."
"You've spoken with him? When?" She started to ask how, but remembered that as Paris's wife Helen could go where she would, even down into the Akhaian camp. But why should she go and confer with the captains among the enemy? she thought suspiciously, then mentally absolved her friend of treason: it was no more than reasonable that Helen should wish to bargain for her own fate and that of her son.
She said, "If you speak with him again, ask him if there is something we can do to influence Akhilles and have Hector's body returned to us."
"Believe me, I have tried and will try again," Helen said. "Listen, the rain is slacking a little; if you go now perhaps you will be home before it starts to come down hard again."
She kissed Kassandra again, and went down to the heavy front gate of the palace with her; Kassandra went out into the icy rain. Before she had climbed half a flight of the long stairs the rain began to beat down with renewed fury, and the wind tore at her cloak like a wild beast's claws.
She thought for a moment, regretfully, that she should have accepted Helen's offer of a bed. Aeneas would be feasting and drinking with the men, and would be unlikely to join her tonight. But there was no point in turning back now; she struggled upward against the storm.
As she turned into the street of the Sunlord's house, she heard a light step in the street behind her. After so many years of war she was nervous of strangers, and turned to see, in the pale light of the torches hung up over the gateway, the face and cloaked form of Chryseis. Even in the torchlight she could see that the girl's dress was crumpled and stained with wine, and the cosmetics on her face were smeared. She sighed, wondering in what strange bed the girl had spent much of the night and why she had bothered to leave it in such a storm. She looks like a cat after a night of wandering—except that a cat would have washed her face.
The watchman at the gates of the Sunlord's house greeted them with amazement ('You are abroad late in this cruel weather, Ladies'), but no one had ever shown curiosity about Kassandra's comings and goings; she reflected that she might have had as many lovers as Chryseis, and no one would have known or cared. As they climbed the steep courtyards toward their rooms, located near the highest part of the temple, she slowed her steps to match the girl's.