Read Online The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online

suppose there is no reason I cannot.”
    “Won’t you come up to the women’s quarters and share some refreshment before you must go?” asked Hecuba.
    “Why, yes, if you will have someone look after our horses,” Penthesilea said. Hecuba summoned one of the servants and gave orders to take Penthesilea’s horse and those of her two companions to the stables. The two women with her, dressed as she was dressed, the Amazon leader introduced as Charis and Melissa. Charis was thin and pale, almost as freckled as the Queen, but her hair was the color of brass; Melissa had brown curly hair and was plump and pink-cheeked. They were, Kassandra decided, fifteen or sixteen. She wondered if they were Penthesilea’s daughters but was too shy to ask.
    Climbing to the women’s quarters, Kassandra wondered why she had never noticed before how dark it was inside. Hecuba had called the waiting-women to bring wine and sweets, and while the guests nibbled at them, Penthesilea called Kassandra to her and said, “If you are to ride with us, you must be properly dressed, my dear. We brought a pair of breeches for you. Charis will help you to put them on. And you should have a warm cloak for riding; when the sun is down it grows cold quickly.”
    “Mother made me a warm cloak,” Kassandra said, and went with Charis into her room to fetch the bag of her possessions. The leather breeches were a little big for her—Kassandra wondered who had worn them before this, for they were shiny in the seat with hard wear. But they were astonishingly comfortable once she had grown used to their stiffness against her legs. She thought that now she could run like the wind without tripping over her skirts. She was threading the leather belt through the loops when she heard her father’s step and his boisterous voice.
    “Well, Kinswoman, have you come to lead my armies to Mykenae to recover Hesione? And such splendid horses—I saw them in the stable. Like the immortal horses of Poseidon’s own herd! Where did you find them?”
    “We traded for them with Idomeneus, the King of Crete,” said Penthesilea. “We had not heard about Hesione; what happened?”
    “Agamemnon’s men from Mykenae, or so we thought,” Priam said.“Akhaians anyhow, raiders. Rumor says Agamemnon is a vicious and cruel King. Even his own men love him not; but they fear him.”
    “He is a powerful fighter,” said Penthesilea. “I hope to meet him one day in battle. If you yourself will not lead your armies to Mykenae to recover Hesione, wait only until I summon my women. You will have to give us ships, but I could have Hesione back to you by the next new moon.”
    “If it were feasible to go against the Akhaians now, I would need no woman to lead my army,” Priam said, scowling. “I would rather wait and see what demands he makes of me.”
    “And what of Hesione, in Agamemnon’s hands?” asked Penthesilea. “Are you going to abandon her? You know what will happen to her among the Akhaians!”
    “One way or another, I would have had to find her a husband,” said Priam. “This at least saves me a dowry, since if it is Agamemnon who has taken her, he cannot have the insolence to ask a dowry for a prize of war.”
    Penthesilea scowled, and Kassandra too was shocked: Priam was rich; why should he begrudge a dowry?
    “Priam, Agamemnon already has a wife,” said Penthesilea: “Klytemnestra, the daughter of Leda and her King, Tyndareus. She bore Agamemnon a daughter who must be seven or eight years old by now. I cannot believe they are so short of women in Akhaia that they must resort to stealing them . . . nor that Agamemnon is so much in need of a concubine that he would carry one off when he could have any chief’s daughter within his kingdom.”
    “So he married the daughter of Leda?” Priam frowned for a moment and said, “Is that the one who was, they said, so beautiful that Aphrodite would be jealous, and her father had to choose among almost forty suitors for