Andromache sighed.
"Perhaps not; but he would get used to it, I suppose, as I have got used to keeping indoors and spinning until my fingers are sore," she said restlessly. "Now that you have returned, Kassandra, perhaps we can manage some excursions outside the walls…'
"If the Akhaians allow it—"
"Or if they get tired of sitting outside the walls and throwing rocks at the guards," Andromache said. "That is about all they have accomplished in the last few months; though once or twice they have tried to storm the walls, and even brought-extra-long ladders. But Hector had the idea of emptying the big soup kettle boiling for the guards' dinner over their heads, and they went down a great deal faster than they had come up, I assure you." She laughed heartily. "Now they always keep a great kettle of something boiling up there, and if it is something no worse than soup, the assailants are lucky. Last time it was oil, and they have not tried again since then; ai, the screams we heard that night from the Akhaian camp! All their healer-priests were out chanting, and sacrificing to Apollo until past dawn. That will teach them to come sneaking up the wall when they thought all the guards were sleeping!"
"You do not bear weapons now—but you have not lost your taste for warfare," Kassandra commented.
"I have a child to protect." Andromache replied, and Kassandra remembered that she herself had indeed been ready to kill when the soldiers threatened Honey.
"And I many children; but they are all of an age to fight for themselves," Hecuba said. "And now, Kassandra, tell me; when you passed through the country of the Amazons, did you encounter our kinswoman? And had Penthesilea any message for me?"
"I saw her only on the outward journey," Kassandra said, and told her mother about the meeting with the Amazons, and how many of the women had chosen to settle into villages with men. Then, more troubled, she told about the starving Kentaurs on the return journey, and that she saw no sign of any women of the tribes.
"May the Goddess be with her," said Hecuba fervently. "I have no sense that she is dead; and I think I might know. We have always been as close as if we were twins; but she is four years younger than I. It is not beyond all possibility that one day we may see her in Troy."
"May that day be far," Kassandra said, "for she told me that if the war went desperately against us, she would come and end her days in Troy." And with a curious flicker of light, as if the sun went behind a cloud, she saw Penthesilea riding through the gates of Troy… in triumph, or in defeat? She could not tell; the vision was gone, and they spoke of other things.
At last she rose and stretched herself. "I sit like any old gossip among women," she said, "and I have duties awaiting me in the Sunlord's house. But it has been good to gossip and be idle—" and, she thought, to talk of women's matters like the raising of children. She had once thought it must be very boring, but since having a child of her own, she began to understand that such woman's talk could be absorbing. But to speak of nothing else for a lifetime…
"It is not every day that you return from a journey of such length," Andromache said. "Helen will want to see you, and show you her babes - and Creusa to show you your namesake. She is more like Polyxena, with red hair and blue eyes—and as pretty as if Aphrodite had laid the gift of beauty in her cradle. She will marry a prince, if this war leaves any of us alive to think about marriages."
"I think no one will ever call my little one beautiful," Kassandra said, "but to a mother I suppose even the plainest children are lovely. In any case I intend, if the Gods are kind, to send her to Penthesilea to be brought up a warrior. I still wish I might have been."
"Oh, you cannot mean that, Kassandra," said Hecuba, coming to embrace her in farewell.
"Can I not? Mother, if anything of Imandra's gifts has survived the Akhaians, I will send them to you as quickly as the cart can be unloaded," she said, and took her leave. Andromache said she would walk with her a little way.
"For I get out so seldom, and Hector is always very troubled if I go out alone; but he cannot refuse me the chaperonage of my own husband's sister," she said discontentedly. "I often walk with Helen, but she did not come down today: Paris took a small wound in the last fight; nothing to worry him, but enough to give him a good excuse to stay indoors and be cosseted. Otherwise I am sure she would have come to greet you."
A few steps afterwards they parted, Andromache to return to the palace and Kassandra turning up to the Sunlord's high house.
She had turned Honey over to one of the governesses, and had started across the courtyard to check on the snakes when she encountered Khryse.
He looked weary and worn; there were new lines in his once-handsome face, and lines of dull silver in his fair hair. It was hard to realize that there had been a time when in this temple there had been those who considered him nearly as handsome as the Sunlord himself.
He recognized her at once, and cried out in welcome.
"Kassandra! We have all missed you," he exclaimed, and came quickly to embrace her. She would have recoiled, but it was not unpleasant to see a familiar face and to know herself so welcomed; so she allowed the embrace and at once regretted it, though she managed to twist her face so that his kiss fell only on her chin.
Quickly disentangling herself, she retreated out of reach.
"It seems that all has gone well with you while I was absent," she remarked. "You look well and thriving." Not for worlds would she have told him that it was his face in an oracle which had prompted her to return to Troy.
"But that is not true," he said. "Never again shall I have health or joy until the Gods choose to restore to me my poor dishonored child."
"Khryse," said Kassandra gently. "Is it not near upon three years that Chryseis has been in the camp of the Akhaians?"
"I care not if it is a lifetime," Khryse said passionately. "I will mourn and protest and cry out to the Gods—"
"Cry, then," Kassandra said, "but expect not that they will hear. It is your own pride you mourn and not your daughter," she went on sharply. "I saw her this morning in the Akhaian camp; she seems well and happy and content, and when I asked if I should try to arrange for her exchange, she told me to mind my own affairs. I truly think she is content to be Agamemnon's woman, even if she cannot be his queen."
Khryse's handsome face grew dark with wrath.
"Have a care, Kassandra; you say this to hurt me, and I believe not a word of it."
"Why should I wish to hurt you?" she asked. "You are my friend, and your daughter was like my own child. Think only of her happiness, Khryse, and leave her where she is. I warn you, if you press further in this matter, you will bring down the wrath of the Gods upon our city."
His face twisted in anger.
"And I am supposed to believe you have my good at heart? You care nothing for me; I who have so long loved you…'
"Oh, Khryse," she said, holding out her hands to him in absolute sincerity, "please, please, don't begin to talk of this again. Why must you think I wish you ill because I do not desire you?"
"Then what would you do if you wished me ill? When you have destroyed any kindness I might have in my heart—"
"If such kindness is destroyed, why do you say it is my fault? Cannot a man take any woman seriously unless she is willing to lie with him?" she asked. "I speak to you in all friendship, Khryse; do not press this matter."
"You are willing to see my daughter disgraced and insult offered to Apollo—"