CHAPTER 13
The dawn was just paling in the sky when a woman entered the room, unannounced, and flung open the draperies. Andromache buried her head under the blankets against the light, but Kassandra sat up in bed and looked at her. She was a woman of Colchis, dark and sturdily built, with the self-confident bearing of one of Penthesilea's warrior women; she wore a long robe of bleached linen, pure white and unadorned. About her wrist coiled a small green serpent, and Kassandra knew she was a priestess.
"Who are you?" Kassandra asked.
"My name is Evadne, and I am a priestess sent to prepare you," she said. "Is it you or your companion who is to face the Goddess this day? Or, perhaps, both of you?"
Andromache uncovered one eye and said, "I was initiated last year; it is my cousin only." She shut her eyes and seemed to sleep again. Evadne gave Kassandra a droll smile, then became very serious again.
"Tell me," she said, "all women owe service to the Immortals; and all men too; do you mean that you will do them service when they ask it of you or that you will devote your life to serving them?"
"I am willing to devote my life to that service," Kassandra said, "but I do not know what it is that they ask of me."
Evadne handed her the robe Andromache had laid over a bench. "Let us go into the outer room so we will not disturb the princess," she said. When they were in the outer chamber she said, "Now tell me, why do you wish to become a priestess?"
Kassandra then told the story again of what had happened to her in the Sunlord's House, for the first time speaking without an instant of hesitation; this woman knew the Immortals, and if anyone alive could understand, she would be the one. Evadne listened without comment, smiling slightly at the end.
"The Sunlord is a jealous master," she said at last, "and it comes to me that he has called you. All the same, the Mother owns every woman, and I cannot deny you the right to face her."
Kassandra said, "My mother told me that Serpent Mother and the Sunlord are ancient enemies. Tell me, Lady—" the term of respect came naturally to her lips,"she said that Apollo Sunlord fought Serpent Mother and that he slew her; is this true? Am I disloyal to the Sunlord if I serve the Mother, then?"
"She who is the Mother of All was never born - and so she can never be slain," Evadne said, making a reverent gesture. "As for the Sunlord, the Immortals understand one another and they do not see these things the way we might. Earth Mother, so they say, first had her shrine where Apollo built his Oracle; and they say that while the shrine was a-building, a great serpent or dragon came out of the very navel of the earth, and the Sunlord - or, perhaps his priest, it makes no difference—slew the beast with his arrows. And so, I think, some ignorant folk put it about that he had a quarrel with the Serpent Mother; but the Sunlord, like all other created beings, is her child."
"Then, although it is the Sunlord who has called me, I may answer the call of the Mother?"
"All created beings owe service to her," said the priestess, repeating her reverent gesture, "and more than that I may not say to the uninitiated. Now, I think, you should wash and make yourself ready to join the others who will make this journey with you. Later, if you wish, I can tell you some tales of the Goddess as she is worshipped here."
Kassandra hastened to obey, neatly arranging the gown she had so quickly thrown on. Andromache's robe was too long for her, and hung loose about her ankles; she tucked it up through her girdle so that she could walk easily. Then she combed her dark hair and left it unbound, as she had been told was seemly for virgins in this city, though it was troublesome to feel it hanging loose and blowing in the wind instead of being neatly braided.
Outside in the street she could hear the sounds of the festival; women were coming out of the houses and were running about carrying green branches and bunches of flowers. Evadne came and led her into the throne room where a number of girls about her own age were gathered; the throne was empty today, covered with a cloth of woven gold, on which coiled Imandra's great snake.
"Look," whispered one of the girls. "They say the Queen is also a priestess who can transform herself into a snake."
"What nonsense," Kassandra said. "The Queen is elsewhere and has left her serpent on the throne as a symbol of her power."
Penthesilea was among the women waiting. Kassandra stole to her kinswoman's side and the Amazon Queen took her hand and held it tight; although Kassandra was not exactly frightened, she was glad of the reassurance of the touch. Imandra was there among them too, but at first Kassandra had not recognized her, for the Queen wore the ordinary dress of a priestess. This seemed reasonable to Kassandra—it was also the custom in Troy that the Queen should be the mortal representative of the Great Goddess.
She was surprised not to find Andromache also among them; if her cousin had been initiated last year, why did she not join the other priestesses? Still, it seemed Andromache was not particularly involved in religion; was this, she wondered, another reason Imandra hesitated to have her daughter succeed her as Queen? She had not known this was how Imandra felt till now; but she was growing accustomed to knowing or hearing the unspoken and seeing the invisible.
Imandra gestured the chattering girls to silence; the women who were already initiated priestesses gathered around her. Kassandra realized that she was the eldest of the candidates remaining; probably it was the custom in this city to initiate women somewhat younger. She wondered if all of these girls were to dedicate their lives to the Goddess, or only to 'offer service when it was asked of them', which was the alternative Evadne had suggested. Either way this was a preliminary initiation and taken for granted, it seemed, as a first step to service to the Immortals.
The older women gathered the uninitiated girls into a circle in their midst, with Imandra at their center. Behind them Kassandra heard from somewhere the beating of a drum, a soft incessant sound like a heartbeat.
"At this time of the year," Imandra intoned, "we celebrate the return of Earth's daughter from the underground where she has been imprisoned during the chill of the winter season. We see her coming as the green of spring spreads over the barren lands, clothing the meadows and woods with the brightness of leaves and flowers."
Silence, except for the unending thrumming of the drums beaten by the women behind them.
"Here we sit in darkness, awaiting the return of Light; here we shall descend, each of us, to seek Earth's daughter, into the realms of darkness. Each of us shall be purified and learn the ways of Truth."
The story went on in a monotone, telling the tale of Earth's daughter, and how she had been lured into the underground realms, and how the serpents had comforted her and sworn that no one of them would ever harm her. Kassandra had heard only scraps of the story before this; either because the story was not known to the uninitiated, or was not considered suitable hearing for outsiders. She listened intently, fascinated, her head aching with the sound of the drums that went on and on, never ceasing, behind the voices.
It began to seem as if she were caught in a dream that went on and on for many days, knowing she was awake, but never fully conscious. Some time later she became aware, without the slight-, est idea how or where it had happened, that they were no longer in the throne room, but in a great dark cave with water trickling from the damp walls that rose far overhead into great echoing spaces which made the voices ring hollow and drowned even the sound of the drums.