Slowly she went back into the Temple of Apollo. At least her own people had listened to her warning; no lives had been lost, and the few fires had been quickly put out. She could do no good in Priam's palace. She went back to the children. They would have been frightened by the quake and they would need her.

The rebuilding began almost at once in the Sunlord's house. So many buildings had been destroyed, and some on such a scale that, Kassandra thought, it would demand the fabulous reputed strength of the Titans to set the walls up again. Some of the great stones could not be restored with the labour currently at their disposal; too many of the able-bodied men in the city were out there fighting Akhaians under Hector's command.

Thanks to Kassandra's timely warning, no lives had been lost in Apollo's Temple. A few of the priests had been injured -broken legs, twisted shoulders, a shattered ankle - by falling over stones which were no longer where they were supposed to be, and there were a good many burns incurred while extinguishing fires. One or two of the serpents had escaped in the confusion, or taken refuge under fallen stones, and had not yet been found. One of the oldest priestesses had gone mad with fright and had not spoken a rational word since; they treated her with herbal potions and played soothing music, but the most experienced healers felt it unlikely that she would ever fully recover her wits.

Still, comparatively, Apollo's household had escaped lightly. In the Temple of the Maiden, it was said, many priestesses died when the roof of their dormitory fell in. No one knew how many had been killed and Kassandra was frantic about her sister Polyxena, but had no leisure to seek news of her. She comforted herself thinking if Polyxena were dead they would send her word.

As always the poorest quarter, with their flimsy wooden houses and inadequately guarded open fires, had suffered most. If the quake had come a few hours earlier it would have been worse, but since the hour was late, fires lighted for cooking the evening meal had mostly been extinguished.

Still, a dreadful number of dead lay in the streets, except where the burning houses had given them funeral pyres. Some corpses still lay under fallen buildings which would have to be torn down to recover them, as the ghosts of the unburied dead all too frequently sent pestilence in revenge. The priests of Apollo worked night and day, but it would take time, and everyone feared the vengeance of so many unburied corpses.

Nor had Priam's palace escaped unscathed. The buildings were of Titan stone that had resisted even the strength of Poseidon's fury, but one room had collapsed - the room where the three sons of Paris and Helen were sleeping. Most of Priam's family, including Paris himself and Helen were uninjured.

Helen's son by Menelaus, young Nikos, had been hiding with his playmate, Astyanax, from their nurses. The two children had been sleeping in a courtyard out of doors (which they had actually been forbidden to do) and both boys had escaped unhurt - and unpunished. Still, the palace was plunged into grief for Paris's sons, and the truce had been briefly extended because of the rites and burial of the children.

Kassandra went down to the women's quarters of the palace—since none of the boys had been as old as seven, the warriors would take no official notice of their deaths, little children still being under the women's care. Paris was there, attempting to comfort Helen. She looked pale and weary, and Nikos, who had been officially committed to his step-father's care only a few days before, was there too, as if to remind his mother that she still had a son.

Helen came at once to Kassandra and embraced her.

"You tried to warn me, sister, and I am grateful to you."

"I am so sorry," Kassandra said. "I only wish—"

"I know," Helen said. "This is not a new grief to me. My second daughter died; she was a year younger than Hermione, and two years older than Nikos. She never breathed, and when Nikos was born strong and healthy, so that I had both a Queen for Sparta, and a son for Menelaus to bring up as a warrior, I swore I would bear no more children; but nothing went as I had decided."

"It seldom does, in this world of mortals," Kassandra said. Paris approached them in time to hear this and said with an angry glare at Kassandra, "So have you come to gloat at us?"

"No," she said wearily, "only to tell you how very sorry I am."

"We need not your sympathy, you crow of ill omen!" Paris said wrathfully. "Your very presence brings us more evil fortune!"

"Be quiet, Paris! For shame!" Helen said. "Have you forgotten that she came to try and warn us of Poseidon's wrath? Or what welcome she had for her pains?"

Paris only scowled; but Kassandra thought he did look somewhat ashamed. Well, she could live without his good opinion; she would rather have Helen's.

The children were duly cremated and their ashes properly entombed; the truce lasted two more days and then was broken by a Trojan captain (he, like the Akhaian who undid the truce before, said that one of the Gods had prompted him, though he refused to say which one) who let off an arrow and wounded Menelaus, painfully, but, (unfortunately, Priam said) not fatally. If Menelaus had been killed, the King said, the Akhaians would have had a good excuse to call it all off and go home. Kassandra was not so sure; perhaps the Gods were, really eager to destroy the city as she had seen in her - had it been only a dream?

Only the women were troubled by the end of the truce. Hector, Kassandra thought, was glad to get back to the fighting. In his chariot he led forth the Trojan armies the next day, riding up and down the long line of foot soldiers, encouraging them while the Akhaians were gathering for battle. The women, as usual, watched from the wall.

"Hector is certainly the finest charioteer," said Andromache, and Creusa laughed.

"You mean he has the finest charioteer," she said, "and I think Aeneas comes at least close to that. Who is Hector's charioteer? He drives like the wind - or a fiend."

"Troilus, Priam's youngest son," Andromache said. "He wanted to take part in the fighting, but Hector wanted the boy under his own eyes. He's worried because he is no more than twelve—and still unseasoned in battle."

"Does Hector really think Troilus will be safer in his chariot? It seems to me that is where the fighting will be thickest, and certainly Hector will have no leisure to protect him," Kassandra said, but Andromache only shrugged.

"Don't ask me what Hector thinks," she said.

Of course, Kassandra thought, Troilus was nothing to her, only her husband's youngest brother. Andromache would mourn his death, but only in the same way that she grieved for Helen's children; from family duty, no more.

Helen still looked wasted and worn with sorrow, her eyes red and burning, and her hair lustreless; she had hardly troubled to pull it back out of her eyes; much less to scent it and brush it with oil. She wore an old bedraggled gown, it was all but impossible to recall the incredible glowing beauty which had inhabited her as the Goddess of Love. Yet Kassandra remembered, with the tenderness she always felt for her sister-in-law. Is this a sign of Paris's neglect? Was it that he cared so little for his children? She could guess Helen was grateful that her Nikos had not been lost in the earthquake, yet she sensed that Paris's sons were dearer to Helen than the son she had borne Menelaus.

She turned her eyes down to the battlefield, where Aeneas, in his splendid chariot, was riding up and down the line, calling out what she imagined was a challenge. Battle among opposing armies, she had seen, usually took the form of a series of duels between champions. It was not at all like the pitched battles she had fought when she rode with the Amazons, where the battle was a muddle of fighting where you killed as many as you could, any way you could.