Then she saw Priam, standing tall and imposing as she remembered him from when she was a little girl. He smiled at her and said, "The city's gone, isn't it? I suppose we're all dead, then?"
"Yes, I think so," she said.
"Where's your mother, my dear? Not along yet? Well, I'll wait for her here…' he said, gathering himself together to look round. "Oh! There's Hector and the boy—"
"Yes, Father," she said, feeling a lump in her throat; he sounded so happy.
"I think I will go and join them; if your mother comes, tell her, will you, love?"
But this can't be all there is to being dead, she thought. There must be more to it…
She looked up and standing directly before her, she saw Penthesilea, unwounded, smiling, her face shining, surrounded by half a dozen of the warrior women who had fought with her on that last day. Laughing for joy, she ran into the Amazon's arms. She was surprised to find that her kinswoman felt as solid and strong and warm as on the day she had embraced her when she went out to fight before Troy and to die at Akhilles's hands. She spoke her surprise aloud.
"Then I suppose Akhilles must be here somewhere too—"
"I would have thought so," said Penthesilea, "but he seems to have gone to his own place, wherever that may be."
Beyond Penthesilea the plain of the dead faded away, and Kassandra could see what looked like blinding light; twice the brilliance of the Sunlord as she had seen him in her first overpowering vision, and through the light, she made out the form of a great temple, larger than the one where she had served in Colchis, and even more beautiful.
She whispered in awe, "Is that where I am to go?"
Beyond the light she began to hear music; harps and other instruments swelling, and filling the air with harmony like a dozen - no, a hundred - voices, all joined together in song, clear and high and coming closer. This was what she had thought the Sunlord's house would be. Khryse was standing in the doorway, beckoning to her; his face was free of the dissatisfaction and greed she had seen in it, so that he was at last what she had always believed him. He held out his arms, and she was ready to run into them, as Astyanax had run to Hector.
But Penthesilea was standing in her way - or was it the Warrior Maiden herself, wearing the armor of the Amazon? She held Honey laughing and unwounded by the hand. So she is dead too.
"No," Penthesilea said, "no, Kassandra; not yet."
Kassandra struggled to form words. It was the place she had seen in her dreams, the place she had always known she belonged. And not only Khryse, but everyone she had loved was there, awaiting her, waiting for her voice to fill the place lacking in that great blended choir.
"No," Penthesilea's voice was sorrowful, but inflexible, and she held her back as one restrains a small child. "You cannot go yet; there is still something you must do. You could not leave with Aeneas; you cannot come with me. You must go back, Kassandra; it is not time for you."
The beautifully moulded face under the shining helmet was beginning to break up into a sunburst of brilliant sparkles. Kassandra fought to keep it in focus. "But I want to go - the light—the music—" she said. The light was fading; and around her was darkness; she was aware of a ghastly smell, like death, like vomit; she was lying on the dirt floor of some kind of rough shelter.
Then I'm not dead after all. Her only emotion was bitter disappointment. She tried to hold on to the memory of the light, but already it was disappearing. She was conscious of pain in her body. She was bleeding and part of what she smelled was her own blood on her face and covering her dress. The man who had raped her was lying half across her body. It was his vomit she smelled, and slowly, as if surfacing from a very deep trance, she heard a familiar voice and saw a face—hook-nosed, black bearded - that had haunted her nightmares for years.
"I told you she was the one I wanted," said Agamemnon. "Look, she's breathing again. If you'd killed her I'd have had you flayed alive; you knew she fell to me in the casting of lots, but you had to try and get ahead of me. You always were spiteful, Ajax."
Kassandra felt agony through her whole body; agony mingled with despair.
So I am not dead after all; the Maiden saved me. For this!
CHAPTER 16
She lay still, too miserable to try and move.
"Honey?" she whispered painfully, through the rawness in her throat. But there was no answer. She remembered seeing the little body, bleeding and broken, flung aside by the man who had used her.
She must be dead now. I hope she is dead now. Yes, she is with Penthesilea.
She will be looking for me there.
I don't want to live. I want to be back there with Penthesilea, and Father… and the music…
But she could feel her own breathing, the loud intrusive beating of her own heart. She would live. What was it Penthesilea had said? 'You still have something to do…' Had it been to care for Honey, I would have gone back - not willingly, but without complaint. But she is gone, I cannot help her now. Why am I here, and everyone I love gone before me?
She dimly made out that she was lying on the floor of a small building, and around her were boxes and bundles and bales of piled-up goods: silks, rich cloaks, tapestries, vases and pottery, sacks of grain and jars of oil, all the riches of the plundered city. Andromache lay close to her, face down, covered with a coarse blanket. Kassandra made out her face in the dim light. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying. She opened them and looked at Kassandra.
"Oh," she said, "you are awake; they said when they brought you here that you were dead and Agamemnon would not admit it."
"I was sure I was dead," Kassandra said. "I wanted to be dead."
"And I," Andromache said. "They took - Astyanax."
"The Akhaians? Yes, I know; I saw him - running to his father's arms."
Andromache considered this for a moment. She said, "Yes, if anyone could see beyond death I suppose it would be you." 'Believe me, he is free, and happy, and with his father."
Kassandra repeated. Her voice caught at the memory. "They are better off than we are; I wish I were where they are now."
After a moment she said, "Why are we being held here? What is to become of us? Where is this place?"
"I am not sure; I think it is where the Akhaian captains are making ready to load the ships," Andromache said.
"Listen," Kassandra said, cringing,"someone is coming." She could hear the fall of heavy footsteps on the ground. But she had lost the preternatural sight of the trance state; she felt dull and sick, locked into her ordinary mortal senses. There was a foul taste in her mouth. "Is there any water here?"
Andromache sighed and stirred, then sat erect. She reached for a jar and carried it carefully to Kassandra, who drank till she was no longer thirsty. She had to sit up to drink, and felt as if her head would split off and roll away. She helped Andromache to replace the jar and lay down again, exhausted by only that small movement.
Kassandra said, in a whisper, "Honey is dead too. They tore her from me in the very shrine of the Maiden; and raped her, baby that she was—" Her voice broke.
Andromache's hand closed over hers. "I know how you must feel, even though she was not your own child."
Kassandra said dully, "She was my own, as much as any child could have been."
"You say that because you have never borne a child," Andromache said. She pulled her cloak over her face again.