The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page B

at the sunlight, her mind just touching and skimming over the occasional fears—of wolves, or larger and more dangerous beasts . . . she was the strange boy whose face was her own reflection. Lost in this passionate identification, she was roused by a sudden outcry.
    “Hai! Help, ho, fire, murder, rape! Help!” For a moment she thought it was he who had cried out; but no, it was somehow a different kind of sound, heard with her physical ears; it jarred her out of her trance.
    Another vision, but this one with neither pain nor fear. Do they come from a God? She returned with a painful jolt to awareness of where she was: in the courtyard of the women’s quarters.
    And she suddenly smelled smoke, and the bowl into which she still stared clouded, tilted sidewise, and the water ran out across the floor. The visionary stillness went with it, and Kassandra found that she could move.
    Strange footsteps clattered on the floor; she heard her mother scream, and ran into the corridor. It was empty, except for the shrieking of women. Then she saw two men in armor, with great high-crested helmets. They were tall, taller than her father or the half-grown Hector; great hairy, savage-looking men, both of them with fair hair hanging below their helmets; one of them bore over his shoulder a screaming woman. In shock and horror, Kassandra recognized the woman: her aunt Hesione.
    Kassandra had no idea what was happening or why; she was still halfway within the apartness of her vision. The soldiers ran right past her, brushing so close to her and so swiftly that one all but knocked her off her feet. She started to run after them, with some vague notion that she might somehow help Hesione; but they were already gone, rushing down the palace steps; as if her inner sight followed, she saw Hesione borne, still screaming, down the stairs and through the city. The people melted away before the intruders. It was as if the men’s gaze had the quality of the Gorgon’s head, to turn people to stone—not only must they avoid looking on the Akhaians, but they must not even be looked upon by them.
    There was a dreadful screaming from the lower city, and it seemed that all the women in the palace like a chorus had taken up the shrieks.
    The screaming went on for some time, then died away into a grief-stricken wailing. Kassandra went in search of her mother—suddenly frightened and guilty for not thinking sooner that Hecuba too might have been taken. In the distance she could faintly hear sounds of clashing warfare; she could hear the war-cries of her father’s men, who were fighting the intruders on their way back to the ships. Somehow Kassandra was aware that their fighting was in vain.
    Is what I saw, what I felt, that which will happen to Hesione? That terrible hawk-faced man—will he take her for his captive? Did I see—and worse, did I feel—what will happen to her?
    She did not know whether to hope that she herself need not suffer it, or to be ashamed that she wished it instead upon her beloved young aunt.
    She came into her mother’s room, where Hecuba sat white as death, holding little Troilus on her lap.
    “There you are, naughty girl,” said one of the nurses. “We were afraid that the Akhaian raiders had gotten you too.”
    Kassandra ran to her mother and fell to her knees at her side. “I saw them take Aunt Hesione,” she whispered. “What will happen to her?”
    “They will take her back to their country and hold her there until your father pays ransom for her,” Hecuba said, wiping away her tears.
    There was the loud step at the door that Kassandra always associated with her father, and Priam came into the chamber, girt for battle but with some of his armor’s straps half-fastened as if he had armed himself too quickly.
    Hecuba raised her eyes and saw behind Priam the armed figure of Hector, a slender warrior of nineteen.
    “Is it well with you and the children, my love?” asked the King. “Today your eldest son fought by