"Drink, my sister," she said.

"Ah, yes," Andromache said, tears spilling down her face, "with you I came to Troy when we were girls, and you told me, as we came here, so many stories of how brave and handsome he was - my child was born into your hands - you are my dearest friend for all our lives." She embraced Kassandra and clung to her, swaying, and Kassandra realized that she was already drunk. Kassandra herself was not unaffected by the cup of wine she had drunk; she sensed Andromache's restlessness and her seeking.

Andromache bent again to kiss the dead face of Troilus. She said to Hecuba, "You are fortunate, my mother, that you can adorn his corpse and weep; my Hector lies mouldering in the rain, unmourned, unburied."

"Not unmourned," said Kassandra gently. "All of us mourn for him. His spirit will hear your tears and lamentations, whether his body rests here, or yonder with Akhilles's horses." Her voice broke; she was thinking of a day soon after Andromache had come to Troy, when Hector had forbidden her to bear weapons and threatened to beat her. She had spoken to try and comfort Andromache, but suddenly she wondered if she had made things worse; Andromache's eyes were cold and tearless. She drew Andromache toward the seat, but when Andromache saw Helen there, she drew back, her lips drawing back over her teeth in a dreadful mask-like grimace which transformed her face almost into a skull.

"You, here, pretending to mourn?"

"The Gods know I pretend nothing," said Helen quietly, "but if you prefer it, I will go - you have the better right to be here."

"Oh, Andromache," Kassandra said,"don't speak so. You came both to this city as strangers, and found a home here. You have lost your husband, and Helen her children; at the hands of the Gods. You should share sorrow, not turn and rend one another. You are both my sisters and I love you." With one hand she drew Helen close; with the other arm embraced Andromache.

"You are right," said Andromache. "We are all helpless in their hands." She snuffled and drank the last of her wine; her voice was unsteady as she said drunkenly, "Sister, we are both victims in this war - the Goddess forbid this madness of men should sep—separate us." Her tongue stumbled clumsily on the words and they were both weeping as they embraced. Hecuba came to enfold all three of them in her arms; she was crying too.

"So many gone! So many gone! Your precious children, Helen! My sons! Where is Hector's son, my last grandchild?"

"Not the last, mother; have you forgotten? Creusa and her children were sent to safety; they risk nothing," Kassandra reminded her. "They are all out of range of Akhilles's madness or the Akhaian armies."

Andromache said, "Astyanax is too old for the women's quarters; I cannot even comfort him, nor seek to find comfort seeing his father in his face." Her voice was sadder than tears.

"When I lost - the little ones," Helen said shakily,"they brought Nikos to me for comfort; I will go, Andromache, and bring your son to you."

"Oh, bless you," Andromache cried.

Kassandra said, "Let me take you to your room; you do not want him here among all these drunken women."

"Yes; I will bring him to you there," Helen said. "You still have your son, and that is the greatest of all gifts."

One by one, or in twos and threes, the women, exhausted with grief and the strong wine, were slipping away to their beds. Only Hecuba, and Polyxena in her priestess's robes, took their station at Troilus's head and feet, there to remain until those came who would give his body to the fire. Kassandra wondered if she too should remain; but they had not asked her, not even to do the service of a priestess in purifying the chamber of death.

Andromache and even Helen needed her more; she knew she was as alien among the women of Troy as were the Colchian and the Spartan woman.

She stayed with them until Helen had slipped into Paris's rooms and found Nikos and Astyanax; they had both been crying. Astyanax's face was filthy and smudged with tears. They had evidently told him about his father's death but had been able to offer the child no solace. Helen took both boys to the well at the center of the courtyard, and washed their faces with the corner of her veil.

Astyanax fell gratefully into his mother's arms, then said, bewildered, "Don't cry, Mother. They told me I must not cry because my father is a hero. So why are you crying?"

Helen said gently, "Astyanax, if you cannot cry for your father, at least you can help to dry your mother's tears; it is now your business to care for her, since your father cannot."

At the child's touch Andromache dissolved drunkenly into tears again; Helen and Kassandra took her to her room, put her to bed and tucked the boy in at her side.

"Nikos will stay with me," Helen said. "Oh, why do they take them from us so young?" But when she took Nikos in her arms, he pulled indignantly away.

I'm not a baby, Mother! I shall go back to the men."

Smothering her sobs, Helen said, "As you like, child; but embrace me first."

Grudgingly Nikos complied, and ran away; Helen, tears streaming down her face, watched him go, unprotesting.

"Paris has done no better with him than Menelaus," she observed. "I do not like what men make of boys; making them like themselves. Thanks to the Gods Astyanax has not yet become ashamed to stay with his mother," she said, staring out into the hard grey rain that howled outside the palace.

"Kassandra!" Her voice was so filled with dread and she clutched at the other woman so suddenly that Kassandra almost dropped the torch. "If we fall into the hands of the Akhaians, what will happen to my son? Perhaps the Trojans will stop at nothing to make sure Menelaus cannot reclaim him—"

"Are you saying that you think my father or brothers would kill the child to stop him being taken back to Sparta?" Kassandra could hardly believe her ears.

"Oh, I cannot really believe it, but—"

"If you believe that, then perhaps you should indeed return to Menelaus, and take the child to safety," Kassandra said. "Surely he would welcome you if you came with his son—"

"And I thought he would be so much better off in Troy; that Paris would make a better father to him than Menelaus," Helen said sadly. "And he was, Kassandra, he was; but now - he seems to hate him because he is alive when our own sons died—" Her voice broke and for a moment, clinging to Kassandra, she wept.

"Then you will go—?"

"I cannot," Helen said numbly. "I cannot persuade myself to leave Paris - I tell myself that it is the will of the Gods that I shall stay till this is all played out between us. He no longer loves me, but I would rather be in Troy than Sparta—" she let her voice trail away into silence, then said, "Kassandra, you are weary; I must keep you no longer from your bed. Or will you return and watch by Troilus?"

"No, I do not think they want me there," Kassandra said. "I will return to the Sunlord's house."

"In this rain? Listen to this storm," Helen said. "You are welcome to sleep here if you will; you can sleep in my bed - it is less than likely Paris will come in now: they will all have drunk so much in honor of Hector's spirit that they would lose their way on the stairs. Or I will have the maids make up a bed for you in the other room."

"You are very kind, Sister, but the servants will all be sleeping by now; let them rest," Kassandra said. "The rain will clear my head." She picked up her cloak and put the hood over her head, then embraced Helen and kissed her. She said, "Andromache did not mean what she said—"

"Oh, I know that; in her place I should feel the same," Helen said. "She is afraid; what will become of her now, and Astyanax? Paris has already decided that he will succeed Priam, and leave no place for Hector's son - and if Paris should somehow bring this war to a good end—"