REHEARSAL:
CASSANDRA (Weeping) Apollo said you wouldn’t believe me.
HECUBA (Cuddling her) Well, old Apollo can go scratch himself, of course Mother believes her little girl….
ANDROMACHE Cassandra. What difference does it make if they believe? Perhaps it’s better not if all you see is blood and splintered bone.
CASSANDRA YOU don’t understand.
ANDROMACHE. Well, stop crying and explain it to me.
CASSANDRA I am Cassandra! To be Cassandra is to prophesy! But if they will not hear me when I speak, then who am I but some poor fleshless thing, a ghost that no one sees!
HECUBA Shh, daughter. You are no less than Andromache. You are no less than I. At least the name ‘Cassandra’ is your own! One time I had the name of Priam’s Queen. Once Priam died there was no Priam’s Queen. Andromache was known as Hector’s wife, but when her Hector died, whose wife was she? Our place was here at many-towered Troy, and when it fell, what place was ours to hold? All that we were, we were by others’ strength; all that we had, we had because of place. Place gone, strength gone, we are nothing today. At least the name ‘Cassandra’ means yourself.
CASSANDRA (Thoughtful) There are worse things than having one’s own name.
AFTER HER NINE-YEAR’S ABSENCE AT THE ACADemy at Abbyville, Stavia had found it difficult to come back to her old place in Morgot’s house and think of it as home. The idea of “home” summoned up the room she had occupied at the academy, scarcely more than a closet and yet a place very much her own, with only her own things about her. Once back at Marthatown, returned to the room she had occupied since she was a child, she saw it with new eyes as a cluttered, other-peopled space with too many things in it. Bits and pieces left over from herself as she had once been. Perhaps things left over from other parts of herself which she was not sure existed any longer or things other people had thrust upon her. Books she no longer wanted. Toys she could not remember ever having played with. Ornaments and oddities that had always been there, that could have belonged to unknown people long ago. After a week or two of discomfort, during which she circled, constantly, like a dog trying to find a place to lie down, she asked the new servitor who had taken Donal’s place to find some crates and bring them to her room.
“Is this enough?” he asked, thrusting a stack of empty boxes through the door. “I figured a lot of small ones would be easier to move than one big one, and the storeroom had lots of them.”
“I don’t know,” she said rather helplessly, looking at the room around her. “What was your name, again?”
“Corrig. I came back through the gate with Habby.”
“Did you?! I left for the academy shortly before that.” She turned to give him a closer look. Tall, slender, yet roped with long muscles; strange, light eyes almost like Morgot’s and her own; thick, dark hair drawn up into the servitor’s plait except for locks around his forehead and ears which had escaped; a wide, mobile mouth with the upper lip turned under so that one could only see the fullness of the lower one; huge, beautifully shaped hands. And a deep, vibrant voice which had already brought him to the attention of the choir director. “Where did you go? You didn’t come here right away. Donal was still here when I left.”
“I was assigned to the house of a Council member who lived over by the eastern gate. I was there three years, until she died. Donal was being sent out of the city for some special kind of education, and I felt I already knew the family because of Habby, so I asked to be assigned here in Donal’s place. It seems like home to me now. Does it seem strange to you?”
“There have been changes in Marthatown,” she said musingly. “People grown up. People gone. Commander Sandom dead.”
Corrig nodded. “With his Vice-Commander and several other officers, too.”
“Several of the older Councilwomen are gone.”
“I meant did the house seem strange?”
“It’s odd, but the house is wholly familiar. It’s only this room that seems weird to me. Foreign, somehow. Do you like the place? Have you been contented?”
“Your mother is strong and interesting. I enjoy Joshua enormously. The fraternity is supportive and understanding. Your sister was very upset at my coming. I think Morgot asked her to leave soon after that.”
“Yes,” mused Stavia. “I heard.”
Stavia had run into Myra one day at the grain warehouse.
“I didn’t know you were back,” Myra said rather coldly. “From your education.”
“Oh yes. Some time ago as a matter of fact.”
“I must say you’ve changed.” Myra gave her a critical look. “You’re a raving beauty. I suppose you know that.”
“No. I didn’t. Don’t. Nice of you to say so, though. How do you like where you’re living?”
“Better than Morgot’s,” Myra smirked unpleasantly.
“No servitors, for one thing. Aunt Margaret is much more sympathetic than Morgot ever was. She understands how a person feels.”
“Well, I’m sure Morgot tried….”
“She did not. Ill never forgive her for sending me away. Never!”
“But you didn’t like living with servitors, Myra.”
“Morgot had her choice who she got rid of,” she said darkly. “And she chose to keep him and let me go. Never mind her. I’ve got my own life to live. Marcus has gone down to the garrison. Baby Barten goes soon, and there’ll be only one left at home….”
“You’ll have others.”
“No. I can’t. I had an infection after the last one. The doctors had to do a hysterectomy….”
“I’m sorry,” Stavia mumbled. “Truly sorry.”
“I’m not. Three boys is enough. Even Morgot says that. Now I can do what I want to do.”
Stavia did not ask what that
