She added, "I know how hungry you all are - I am no more fond of fasting than any of you, and it has been as long for me as for any of you since I have eaten a good meal. Yet I beg you, my sisters, if you found—or stole - any grain or anything made of it, or any food at all in that village, let me see it before you eat of it. Their grain is cursed, and those who eat of bread made from it may miscarry, or your child may be born with one eye, or only one finger on her hand."
One woman defiantly pulled out a hard and somewhat mouldy loaf of bread from beneath her tunic. She said, "I will give this to some woman past childbearing age who can eat of it safely. I did not steal it," she added. "I bartered an old buckle for it."
One of the oldest women in the tribe said, "I will exchange it for my share of the hare I brought down with my arrow; it has been too long since I tasted bread, and I will certainly never bear any more children to be damaged by it."
The sight of the bread made Kassandra so hungry that she felt she would rather risk miscarriage or damage to a child she might bear some day far in the future; but she would not disobey her kinswoman. Other Amazons brought forth items of food they had bartered - or stolen - in the village, almost all of which Penthesilea confiscated and threw on the fire.
Kassandra went to shoot at targets while the seasoned warriors rode away to seek game and the old women spread out across the flat countryside to seek food of any sort. It was too far into the winter for berries or fruits, but there might be roots or some edible fungus somewhere.
The short winter day was darkening into twilight when at last the hunters returned, and soon the cut-up hares were seething in a cauldron with flat wild beans and some roots; chunks hacked from a larger beast—it had been skinned, but
Kassandra suspected it was one of the rough-furred wild horses, and was hungry enough not to care - were roasting over a great fire. For that night at least they would have their fill, and Penthesilea had promised there would be plenty of food in Colchis.
CHAPTER 8
"There it lies," Penthesilea said, and pointed. "The city of Colchis."
Accustomed to the fortified Cyclopean walls of Troy, rising high above the rivers of the fertile plain, Kassandra was not at first sight impressed by the walls of sun-hardened baked brick, dull in the hazy sunlight. It would, she thought, be vulnerable to attack from anywhere. In her year with the Amazons she had learned something - not formally, but from the other Amazons' tales of sieges and war - of military strategy.
"It is like the cities of Egypt and the Hittites," said Penthesilea. "They do not build impressive fortifications; they do not need them. Inside their iron gates you will see their temples and the statues of their Gods. These are greater than the temples and statues of Troy as the walls of Troy are greater than the walls of Colchis. The story goes that this city was founded by the ancient ship-peoples of the far South; but they are unlike any peoples here, as you will see when we enter the city. They are strange; they have many curious customs and ways." She laughed. "But then, that is what they would say of us, I suppose."
Of all this, Kassandra had heard only iron gates. She had seen little of the metal; once her father had shown her a ring of black metal which he told her was iron.
"It is too costly, and too hard to work, for weapons," he said to her. "Some day when people know more about the art of forging it, iron might be of use for ploughing; it is much harder than bronze." Now Kassandra, remembering, thought that a city and a people which knew enough of iron to forge it into gates must indeed be wise.
"It is because the gates are of iron that the city has not been taken?" she asked.
Penthesilea looked at her and said in some surprise, "I do not know. They are a fierce people, but they are seldom involved in war. I suppose it is because they are so far from the major trade areas. All the same, people will come from the ends of the world for iron."
"Will we enter the city, or camp outside the walls?"
"We will sleep this night in the city; their Queen is all but one of us," Penthesilea said. "She is the daughter of my mother's sister."
So, thought Kassandra, she is my mother's kinswoman too, and mine.
"And the King?"
"There is no king," Penthesilea said. "Imandra rules here, and she has not chosen yet to take a consort."
Behind the city red-rust cliffs rose, dwarfing the gates. The path leading to the city was paved underfoot with gigantic blocks of stone, and the houses, with stone steps and arches, were constructed of wood and lath and brightly plastered and painted. The city streets were not paved, but muddy and trampled, and strange beasts of burden, horned and shaggy, moved between the houses, laden with huge baskets and jars. Their owners whacked them aside as the Amazons, drawn up in almost military formation, rode through the streets. Kassandra, conscious of all the eyes on her, braced her spear against the weariness of riding, and sat erect, trying to look like a warrior.
The city was very different from Troy. Women went everywhere freely in the streets, carrying jars and baskets on their heads. Their garments were long, thick and cumbersome, but, for all their clumsy skirts and eye-paint, the women looked strong and competent. She also saw a forge where a woman, dark-faced and soot-stained, with a warrior's thick muscles, was working. Bared to the waist to tolerate the fierce heat of the bellows and the flying sparks, she hammered on a sword. A younger woman, not much more than a girl, worked the bellows. Kassandra had, in her months with the Amazons, seen women doing many strange things but this was the strangest of all.
The sentries on the walls were women too and might well have been members of the Amazon company, for they were armed and wore breastplates of bronze, and carried long spears. As the Amazons rode through the streets the sentries set up a long whooping battle-cry; and before long half a dozen of them, with their spears laid in rest in token of peace, appeared in the streets before them; their leader rode forward and embraced Penthesilea from the saddle.
"We greet you rejoicing, Penthesilea, Queen of Mares," she said. "The Lady of Colchis sends you greeting and welcomes your return to us. She bids your women make camp in the field within the Southern Wall, and invites you to be her guest in the palace with a friend, or two if you wish."
The Amazon Queen called back the news the sentry had brought.
"And more," the woman of Colchis said,"the Queen sends your women two sheep as a gift, and a basket of bread baked this day in the royal ovens; let your women feast here while you join her at the palace." The Amazons sent up a great cheer at the thought of all this long-untasted food.
Penthesilea saw her women encamped on the field, their tents raised and the sheep slaughtered. Kassandra, standing by as a good rump portion was burnt for the Huntress, noted that the sheep were quite ordinary looking, like the sheep of Troy. Penthesilea, watching her, said, "What is it? Were you expecting to see the sheep of Colchis with golden fleeces? They do not grow that way; not even the herds of Apollo Sunlord are born so. But the Colchians lay their fleeces in the stream to catch the gold that still washes down the rivers; and though there is less gold than, perhaps, in Jason's day, still before you depart from Colchis you shall see these fleeces of gold. Now let us dress to dine at a Queen's table."