She was not precisely frightened; but she was nervous and a little troubled. For so many years her life had been the life of a priestess, and virginity had been at the very center of that life. She found herself remembering all the arguments she had mustered against Khryse, and wondered if she were behaving like a hypocrite; now that she had resolved to surrender, and she was surrendering to her sister's husband. But she had Creusa's own word that it did not matter; she need have no scruples on Creusa's part.

And as for the God? She had long lost the belief that it would matter to Apollo Sunlord what she did. He had abandoned her; but if he had spoken to forbid this step, even now, she knew she would not defy him. There was within her a small glowing center of angry desolation; be did not care, it did not even matter to him that one of his chosen was to abandon her pledge to him.

But that thought was buried very deeply indeed; on the surface of her mind there was room for nothing except Aeneas.

They were approaching the great gates; a priest stood there to guard entrance and exit, and she stopped and turned away so that he would not see her.

"We cannot go in there," she said. "If I bring you inside and do not take you out again at once—"

He understood at once.

"No, indeed," he said. "You must take care of your reputation - I would not endanger it, Kassandra. Perhaps we should have remained in the palace this night—"

"No," she said softly, "I would not want that. I am not ashamed—it is not that—"

"But you must not cause a scandal," he said, and walked toward the low wall where it fell away to the streets below. Kassandra felt awkward; she had not thought of this till this moment. She had brought out Akhilles and Odysseus in the cloaks of novice priests; but she could not do that with Aeneas, even if she could somehow lay hands on the cloaks. She frowned, trying to think of a way to bring him in unseen; letting him depart again in the morning was no particular problem. She said in an undertone, "There is a place where the wall crumbled away in the great earthquake; even the little children can climb it. It has not been repaired because all the attention of the workmen has been put to repairing the city gates, down below. This way," she said and led him along the outer wall. It was nowhere very high, and this had once been a door at the side; it had been blocked up only a generation or two ago, and when the old arch had crumbled it left a pile of easily scaled rubble which no one thought it necessary to guard or observe. Even in her long skirt Kassandra found it easy to climb, though the sound of the stones turning, under her feet and Aeneas's behind her rattled loudly.

She thought she was probably not the first of the temple women to bring a lover in this way; it was the sort of thing she would have expected of Chryseis. She did not want to think of herself on the same terms as that alley-cat girl; but she must accept it, she was no better. She gave Aeneas her hand to steady him as she stepped down and felt her breath catch in her throat; she had so often chided Chryseis in her mind for this kind of thing.

If Creusa does not object—and if the Lord Apollo does not speak to prevent it—then there is no one, man or woman or God, who has any right to object, she told herself firmly. She led him along the deep shadows at the edge of the wall; and rather than conducting him to the door of the priestesses' dormitory and through the corridor to her room, took him to the window which opened into the street, and stepped through.

Inside it was dark and still, a single rushlight burning on a platter - just enough to see her bed and the pallet where Honey usually slept. As she approached the bed, Kassandra saw the little girl's dark head on the pillow; and as she bent to lift her, the long blunt form uncoiled upward, eyes gleaming like two flat pebbles. She saw Aeneas recoil and said softly, "She will not harm you; she is not poisonous."

"I know," Aeneas said. "My mother was a priestess of Aphrodite, and shared her bed with stranger things than snakes. Your pet will not trouble me—"

"I can put her in the child's bed if you like," Kassandra said, lifting Honey and laying her in the pallet; the child whimpered and Kassandra sat with her crooning softly to soothe her back to sleep.

"It does not matter to me," Aeneas said, "but I am a stranger to her; perhaps she will spend a quieter night in the child's bed." Kassandra felt heat rising in her cheeks as she rose and picked up the snake, laying her down close to Honey; the serpent glided down, wrapping her coils close around Honey's waist. Reassured by the familiar touch, Honey slept, and Kassandra came back, taking Aeneas's cloak and laying it aside.

"I did not know your mother was a priestess of Aphrodite," she said, and Aeneas replied, "When I was a child, they told me my mother was Aphrodite's self. Later, I knew who she really was and came to know her as a mother. I am not surprised if she seemed like the Goddess herself to my father; she was very beautiful. I think the priestesses of Aphrodite are chosen for their beauty."

"And if they serve the Goddess," Kassandra said,"she would certainly lend them her beauty."

"It cannot be only that," Aeneas said, "or you would long ago have been chosen to her service."

The remark made her shiver. Was she then being deceived into the service of that Goddess who thrust the disorderly worship of carnal love into the lives of men and of women? Was it then that despised Goddess who had sought now to lay a hand on her and win her away from the pledge she had made to Apollo?

Already she had seen how Aphrodite disrupted the lives of those who worshipped her. Aeneas was her child; did he worship her too?

She could not ask him these things. He sat on the edge of her narrow bed, drawing off his sandals. She came to him and he reached for her, with a single gesture pulling the pin from her hair and letting it fall free to hide her face and all her questions. It no longer mattered. All the Goddesses, whatever their name, were one and she should serve them as every woman served them.

She heard the rustle of the snake as she shifted her coils. Aeneas reached for her, his arm around her waist.

"It is no wonder you have remained so long a virgin, with such a guardian of your chastity," he murmured, laughing. "Have all of the Sunlord's maidens such chaperones to safeguard them?"

"Oh, no," she said, laughing and lay back in his arms. Then she raised herself to extinguish the rushlight. Darkness filled the room and she heard him laugh again, softly. Beyond the laughter she heard, very far away, a ripple of thunder; then the sudden rush and rattle of rain outside.

"Shining Aphrodite, if I must serve you as all women, after so many years of refusing your service, lay then some of your gifts on me," she whispered, and felt a shimmer of light round her -or was it only a random flicker of the lightning outside as Aeneas touched her in the dark?

At dawn she slipped quietly from her bed, to sit at the window, remembering and savouring every detail of the night. She sat overlooking the pearly mists below. Soon the winds at the summit would blow the mists away. At the highest point of the Sunlord's house the wind already roared noisily around the walls;, and Aeneas stood not yet armed.

"There is no reason for arming, if I am to compete in wrestling and boxing," he said. "I will take on any contestant save Akhilles himself. I dreamed last night—"

Kassandra asked, "Did the God send you a lucky dream?"

"Whether lucky or unlucky I do not know," said Aeneas. "My good fortune, it seems to me, I have already won." He bent and kissed her. "Promise me; you have no regrets, my beloved?"