"No, Khryse. Believe me, I thank you for the thought. But the Gods have decreed that I have something more to do in Troy. I do not know yet what they have ordained for me, but no doubt they will tell me when it lies before me."
"You certainly will be of no use as one more spear when the city falls," said Khryse. "Are you staying to comfort your mother and sister when they are carried off as captives of the Argive captains? What good will that do them?"
Kassandra looked sharply at him. He looked as if he had not touched food for a long time, yet he had not quite the look of starvation alone. Her heart ached for him; she did not love him as he wished, but she had known him for a long time, and no longer wished him ill.
A moment's touch of the God now would kill him, she thought, and was saddened.
"If that is the only task the Gods lay on me," she said firmly,"then that is the one I will fulfill."
"It seems hardly worth going alone to Crete or Thera," said Khryse. "You could come with me as you went to Colchis, to study serpent-lore; or to Egypt, where they always welcome priestesses. In Egypt there is always much building going on, and always work—as at Knossos - for a man who is handy with weights and measures. I have heard they will rebuild the palace which was reduced to rubble with the last touch of Poseidon Earthshaker."
"Then don't go alone," Kassandra said. "Take Chryseis with you. She has never been happy here, and you do not want her to fall captive again to Agamemnon's bed, do you?"
"It is not Chryseis that Agamemnon wants," said Khryse, "and you know it as well as I do."
Kassandra shivered, hearing the sound of truth in the priest's voice; but she said, "I abide my fate as you, my brother, abide your own; go then to Knossos or Egypt, or wherever your fate leads you, and all the Gods keep you safe there." She moved her hand in a gesture of blessing. "I wish you nothing but good; but we part here, Khryse, and forever."
"Kiss me but once," he pleaded, dropping to his knees before her.
She bent and lightly laid her lips against his wrinkled forehead, like a mother kissing a small child.
"May you bear the Sunlord's blessing wherever you go; and remember me with kindness," she said.
She climbed up past him, leaving him still kneeling and dumb. His wits are no longer sound, she thought; perhaps it is a mercy. He will suffer less when his fate strikes him; it cannot be long now. Not for any of us.
In the hall of the serpents she found the priestesses all running about half dressed, struggling to recapture the snakes; this morning quite a number of them had deserted their proper places and taken refuge in the garden. One or two of the most docile, on being rounded up and carried back to their places, had bitten the handlers. Kassandra was dismayed. Phylhda had indeed tried to tell her of this, but she had not listened. The omen was bad indeed, but the time to be afraid had passed.
"The Sunlord did not send his people a false warning," she said. "The hand of Poseidon Earthshaker did in fact strike us; but only the lightest of blows. Listen, the birds are singing once more; the danger is past, at least for this day."
Nevertheless some of them looked troubled.
"The Great Snake, the Mother of Serpents, has not come forth ' for her food for three days," said Phyllida. "We have tempted her with mice and newborn rabbits, then a young pigeon, and even with a saucer of fresh goat's milk." (This last was a rare delicacy now in Troy. So many goats had had to be slaughtered for lack of fodder; what milk remained was kept only for young babies, or for women in early pregnancy who could tolerate no other food.) 'What does this omen portend, Kassandra? Is the Mother angry with us? And what can we do to turn away her anger?"
"I do not know," she said. "I have not been given any message from the Goddess to say she is angry with us. I think perhaps we should all put on festival robes and sing to her." (That at least could do no harm.) 'And then we shall all go down and perform a dance of devotion at Hector's funeral feast."
This brought exclamations of pleasure from the women; as she had supposed, it quickly banished their fears about the omen. But Phyllida, who had learned from Kassandra much of the serpent-lore of Colchis, delayed for a moment when the others had gone to change into their robes.
"This is all very well, my dear; but what if the Great Serpent refuses to feed again?"
"I suppose we must simply accept it as the most evil of omens," Kassandra said. "Even the Mother of Serpents is but a beast after all; and no beast starves itself without reason. I have force-fed smaller serpents; but I do not feel equal to the task of force-feeding this one; do you?" Phyllida silently shook her head and Kassandra nodded. "So all we can do is to offer her such food as may tempt her most, and pray she will see fit to take it."
"In short, exactly what we would do with one of the Immortals," Phyllida said with a cynical smile. "I wonder more and more; what good are the Gods?"
"I don't know either, Phyllida; but I beg you not to say that to the other girls," Kassandra said, "and I suppose we had better go and put on our dancing robes too."
Phyllida patted her cheek; she said, "Poor Kassandra, you cannot feel much like dancing and feasting when Hector lies dead."
"Hector is better off than most of us still living in the city," Kassandra said. "Believe me, my dear, I rejoice for him."
"None of my kin are fighting," said Phyllida, "and it is so long since I feasted that I would be joyful about it even if the feast were in honor of my own father. So we will dance for Serpent Mother and in memory of Hector, and I hope one gets as much out of it as the other." She slipped away and Kassandra bent before the great artificial cave in the wall which had been built for the Great Snake.
She hesitated, to be certain that Apollo would not speak to forbid her entry, then crawled inside with a lighted torch in her hand to investigate. The ancient serpent knew her smell and would not harm her, but she would not willingly approach a lighted torch either. Inside the cave, in the semi-dark, she smelled the ancient smell, fear to the very center of the bones of humankind; but she had been trained to ignore that.
She crawled on, avoiding a patch of filth in the cave; snakes were cleaner than cats under normal conditions; this one would not have fouled her own place if all was well. She began to make out the great heap of scaled coils, and murmured soothingly and crawled on. She put out a hesitant hand and stroked gently; but in place of the warm scales she anticipated, she touched what felt like cold pottery. She pressed more firmly. Unstirring beneath her hand; the Great Serpent lay dead.
So that's why she didn't come out to eat. The omen was worse than the girls knew, Kassandra thought, sighing and lying for a moment quietly at the side of the dead creature.
She found herself wondering: if she went out on the grey plain of death where Hector lingered awaiting his son, would she find the Serpent Mother there, and would the snake speak to her priestess in a human voice?
Well, it would make no difference; if she had occasion to cross that plain again, maybe she would find out; there were so many questions to be answered about death, she could never understand why anyone should fear it or face it with anything except eager curiosity.
She crawled backward out of the cave and placed the lighted torch in a stand before it, a signal not to disturb the occupant. Phyllida came back and asked, "Did you go into the cave? Is it well with her?"
"Very well," Kassandra said steadily. "She has cast her skin and must not be disturbed."