Silence; within the smoke-filled tent no woman stirred.
"Then, sisters, in our need let us summon her who cares for us."
Again silence, except for the fingertip drumming. Then out of the silence came a long eerie howl.
"Oww—ooooo-ooooo-ooooow!"
For a moment Kassandra thought it was some animal lurking outside the tent. Then she saw the open mouths, the strained-back heads of the women. The howl came again, and again, the faces of the women no longer looked quite human. The howling screams went on, rising and falling as the women swayed and yelled, and were joined by a sharp short 'yip-yip-yip-yip-yip… yip-yip-yip', until the noise filled the tent; it beat and battered at her consciousness and she could only harden herself to remain apart from it. She had seen her mother overshadowed by the Goddess, but never in the midst of mad commotion like this.
At this moment, for the first time in many moons, Hecuba's face was suddenly before Kassandra's eyes and it seemed she could hear Hecuba's gentle voice:
It is not the custom…
'Why not?
There is no reason for customs. They are, no more…
She had not believed it then and she did not believe it now. There must be a reason why this weird howling should be thought a suitable way to summon the Maiden Huntress. Are we to become as the wild beasts she is hunting?
Penthesilea rose, stretching out her hands to the women; between one breath and the next Kassandra saw the Queen's face blur and the brightness of the Goddess shone through the very skin, the voice altered beyond recognition. She cried out, "Not to the south where the men's tribes wander! Ride to the east past two rivers; there remain until the spring's stars fall!"
Then she crumpled forward; two women of the tribe's elders caught her and supported her in a fit of coughing so violent that it ended in weak retching. When she raised herself her face was her own again.
She asked in a hoarse whisper, "Did she answer us?"
A dozen voices repeated the words she had spoken while she was overshadowed:
'Not to the south where the men's tribes wander I Ride to the east past two rivers; there remain until the spring's stars fall!"
"Then we ride at dawn, sisters," Penthesilea said, her voice still weak. "There is no time to lose. I know of no rivers to the east but if we turn our backs on Father Scamander, and follow the east wind, we will surely come to them."
"What meant the Goddess when she spoke of 'until spring's stars fall'?" asked one of the women.
Penthesilea shrugged her narrow shoulders. "I do not know, sisters; the Goddess spoke but did not explain her words. If we follow her will she will make it known to us."
Four of the women brought in baskets filled with coiled roots and passed round leathern bottles of wine. Penthesilea said, "Let us feast in her name, sisters, and ride at dawn filled with her bounty."
Kassandra realized how long food must have been hoarded for this midwinter feast. She tore into the tasteless boiled roots like the starving animal she felt, and drank her share of the wine.
When the baskets were empty and the last drop had been squeezed from the wineskins, the tribe's few possessions were gathered; the tents taken down and bundled together, a few bronze cooking kettles, a store of cloaks worn by former leaders, were gathered together. Kassandra was still seeing the Goddess's face through and over Penthesilea's own, and hearing the curious alteration in her kinswoman's voice. Kassandra wondered if one day the Goddess would speak through her voice and spirit.
The tribe of women drew their horses into a line of march; Penthesilea and her warriors at the head, the elderly or pregnant women and the smallest girls at the very center, surrounded by the strongest young women.
Kassandra had a spear and knew how to use it, so she took a place among the young warriors. Penthesilea saw her and frowned, but she said nothing; Kassandra took her silence as leave to stay where she was. She didn't know whether she hoped for her first battle or whether she was inwardly praying that the journey would be completely uneventful. Dawn was breaking as Penthesilea called out the signal to ride; a single star still hung in the dark sky. Kassandra shivered in the wool robe she had worn to the ceremony; she hoped there would be no rain this night; she had left her riding leathers in the tent and they had been packed somewhere among the leather bags and baskets.
Her closest companion, a girl of fourteen or so whom her mother called 'Star', rode next to her, and made no secret that she was hoping for a fight.
"One year when I was small there was a war against one of the Kentaur tribes - not Cheiron's band, they're our friends, but one of the tribes from inland. They came down on us just as we left our old camp and tried to steal away the strongest of our stallions," Star told her. "I could hardly see them; I was still riding with my mother. But I heard the men screaming as Penthesilea rode them down."
"Did we win?"
"Of course we won; if we hadn't they'd have taken us to their encampment and broken our legs so we couldn't run away," Star said and Kassandra remembered the crippled woman in the men's camp. "But we made peace with them and we lent them the stallion for a year to improve their herds. And we agreed to visit their village that year instead of Cheiron's; Penthesilea said we have become too close akin to his people by now and should skip a few years because it is not wise to lie with our own brothers and fathers for too many generations. She says when we do the babies are weak and sometimes they die."
Kassandra did not understand, and said so. Star laughed and said, "They wouldn't let you go anyhow; before you go to the men's villages, you must be a woman, not a little girl."
"I am a woman," Kassandra said. "I have been old enough for bearing for ten moons now."
"Still, you must be a tried warrior; I have been grown now for a year and more, and I am not yet allowed to go to the men's villages. But I'm not in a hurry; after all, I might be pregnant for nine moons and bear only a useless male who must be given to his father's tribe," said Star.
"Go to the men's villages? What for?" Kassandra asked, and Star told her.
"I think you must be making it up," Kassandra said. "My mother and father would never do anything like that." She could understand a mare and a stallion, but the thought of her royal parents engaging in such maneuvers seemed disgusting. Yet she remembered, unwillingly, that whenever her father summoned one of the many palace women into his sleeping quarters, sooner or later (more often sooner than later), there would be a new baby in the palace, and if it was a son, Priam would visit the palace goldsmith; and there would be handsome gifts, rings and chains and gold cups, for the newly favoured woman and for her children.
So perhaps this thing Star was telling her was true after all, strange though it seemed. She had seen children born, but her mother had told her it was not worthy of a princess to listen to the tattle of the palace women; now she remembered certain gross jests she had not understood at the time and felt her cheeks burning. Her mother had told her that babies were sent into the wombs of women by Earth Mother, and she had wondered sometimes why the Goddess did not send her one, because she dearly loved babies.
"That's why the city-dwellers keep their women locked up in special women's quarters," Star said. "They say that city women are so lecherous that they cannot be trusted alone."
"They're not," said Kassandra, not sure why she was so angry.
"They are too! Or why would their men have to keep them locked up inside walls? Our women aren't like that," Star said, "but city women are like goats - they will fornicate with any man they see!" With an ill-natured smile at Kassandra, she said, "You are from a city, aren't you? - weren't you locked up to keep you away from men?"