Marion Bradley: The Firebrand

"Are they warriors?"

"No, child; among the horse-tribes, the women are the warriors. The men are healers and magicians, and they know all kinds of wisdom and about the lore of trees and herbs."

"When I am older can I go to live with them?"

"The Kentaurs? Of course not; women cannot be fostered in a man's tribe."

"No; I mean with your tribe, the riding women."

"I do not think your father would like that," said Hecuba, thinking that this small, solemn daughter might well have grown to be a leader among her own nomad people, "but perhaps some day it can be arranged. Among my tribe a father has authority only over his sons, and it is the mother who decrees the destiny of a daughter. You would have to learn to ride and to use weapons."

She took up the small, soft hand in hers, thinking that it was hardly the hand of a warrior woman.

"Which Temple is that - up there?" Kassandra asked, pointing upward to the highest of the terraces above them, indicating the building which gleamed brilliantly white in the sun. From where they stood they were high enough to see a series of terraces below them; Kassandra could look down, leaning on the wall that guarded the winding stairway upward, and see the roofs of the palace and the small figures of the women laying out washing to dry, small trees in tubs, the bright colours of their clothing and the mats where they lay to rest in the sun; and far below that, the city walls looking out over the plain.

"It is the Temple of Pallas Athene, the greatest of the Goddesses of your father's people."

"Is she the same as the Great Goddess, the one you call Earth Mother?"

"All the Goddesses are one, as all the Gods are one; but they show themselves with different faces to mankind, in different cities and at different times. Here in Troy Pallas Athene is the Goddess as Maiden, because in her temple under the care of her maidens is guarded the holiest object within our city. It is called the Palladium." Hecuba paused, but Kassandra, sensing a story, was mouse-silent, and Hecuba went on in a reminiscent tone.

"They say that when the Goddess Athene was young she had a mortal playmate, the Libyan maiden Pallas, and when Pallas died Athene mourned her so greatly that she added her name to her own and was thereafter known as Pallas Athene; she fashioned an image of her friend and set it up in the temple of Zeus on Olympos. At that time, Erechtheus, who was king in Crete -your father's forefather before his people came to this part of the world—had a great herd of a thousand beautiful cattle, and-Boreas, the son of the North Wind, loved them, and visited them as a great white bull; and these sacred cattle became the Bull-Gods of Crete."

"I did not know that the kings of Crete were our forefathers," Kassandra said.

"There are many things you do not know," Hecuba said in reproof, and Kassandra held Ker breath - would her mother be too cross to finish the story? But Hecuba's frown was fleeting, and she went on.

"Has, the son of Erechtheus, came to these shores and entered the sacred Games here. He was the victor of the Games, and as his prize he won fifty youths and fifty maidens. And rather than making them his slaves, he said, "I will free them, and with them I will found a city." And so he set forth in a ship at the will of the Gods - and he sacrificed to the North Wind to send him to the right place for his city, which he meant to call Ilion; which is another name for the city of Troy."

"And did the North Wind blow him here?" Kassandra asked.

"No; he was blown from his course at sea by a whirlwind, and when he came to rest near the mouth of our holy Scamander, the Gods sent one of these cows, a beautiful heifer, a daughter of the North Wind, and a voice came to Has, crying out, "Follow the cow! Follow the cow! Where the cow lies down, there establish your city!" And they say that the cow wandered to the bend of the river Scamander and there she lay down; and there Has built the city of Troy. And one night he awoke hearing another voice from Heaven, saying, "Preserve the image I give you; for while Pallas dwells within your city, your city shall never fall." And he woke and beheld the image of Pallas, with a distaff in one hand and a spear in the other, like Athene's self. So when the city was built, he built this temple first, on the high place, far up here, and he dedicated it to Athene - she was quite a new face of the Goddess, then, one of the great Olympians, worshipped even by those who honor the Sky Gods and the Thunderer - he made her the patron of the city. And she brought to us the arts of weaving and the gifts of the vine and the olive, wine and oil."

"But we are not going to her Temple today, Mother?"

"No, my love; though the Maiden Goddess is also patron of childbirth and I should sacrifice also to her. Today we seek the Sunlord Apollo. He is the Lord of the Oracles as well; he slew the great Python, the Goddess of the Underworld, and became Lord of the Underworld as well."

"Tell me, if the Python was a Goddess, how could she be slain?"

"Oh, I suppose it is because the Sunlord is stronger than any Goddess," her mother said, as they began to climb the hill at the center of the city. The steps were steep, and Kassandra's legs felt tired as she struggled up them. Once she looked back; they were so high, so near the God's house, that she could see down over the wall of the city, to the great rivers where they flowed down across the plain and came together in a great flood of silver toward the sea.

Then for a moment it seemed to her that the surface of the sea was shadowed and that she saw ships blurring the brightness of the waves. She wiped her eyes and said, "Are those my father's ships?"

Hecuba looked back and asked, "What ships? I see no ships. Are you playing some game with me?"

"No; I really see them. Look there, one has a grey sail - no, it was the sun in my eyes—I cannot see them now." Her eyes ached and the ships were gone—or had they ever been more than the glare on the water?

It seemed to her that the air was so clear, filled with little sparkles like a thin veil, that at any moment the veil might tear or slip aside, revealing a glimpse into another world beyond this one. She could not remember ever seeing anything like this before. She felt, without knowing how, that the ships she had seen were there in that other world, perhaps they were something which she was going to see some day. She was young enough not to think this in any way strange. Her mother had moved on ahead and for some reason it seemed to Kassandra that it would disturb the Queen if she spoke again about the ships she had seen and could not see now. She hurried after her mother, her legs aching as she strained up the steps.

The Temple of Apollo Helios the Sunlord stood more than halfway to the summit of the hill upon which was built the great city of Troy. It was overlooked only by the great height of the maiden Temple of Athene far above; but it was itself the most beautiful of the temples of the city. It was built of shining white marble, with tall columns at either side, on a foundation of stonework set up - so Kassandra had been told more than once - by Titans before even the oldest men in the city were born, with high walls which, she had been told, those giants had built. The light was so fierce that Kassandra shaded her eyes with her hands. Well, if this was the very home of the Sun God, what would it-be except strong and perpetual light?

In the outer court, where merchants were selling all manner of things, animals for sacrifice, small clay statues of the God, various foods and drinks, her mother bought her a slice of sweet melon. It slid deliciously down her throat, dry from the long and dusty climb. Under the portico of the next court it was cool and shadowy; there a number of priests and functionaries recognized the Queen and beckoned her to come forward.