Hubris
So vehement was his desire that even the ferocity of flames surrounding them paled in comparison. There was only the torrid lust inflaming his body and mind, dousing his reason and presenting him with a tantalising vision of the forthcoming satiation. The man almost felt its mellow taste on his palate. For a moment his lips curved into an unwitting boastful smile as - his chosen one was so close. He would let her flee a little longer, making her believe that there was any likelihood of escaping. It was an exquisite pleasure to watch her fruitless attempts to escape. She was hurtling like a fleet-footed hind pursued by tenacious hunters through a savage boscage until that noble animal collapsed out of exertion awaiting with resignation the fatal blow.
He did not waste more time before displaying his true strength. Almost effortlessly he seized her, wresting the sacred figure from her grasp. He had only a split of second to assess her demeanour but what he saw sufficed to satisfy his most audacious expectations. Verily, Priam's daughter was ravishing. At this moment Ajax thanked all gods for blessing him with winning her at dice, because he wouldn't endure Ulysses's having her. Never had he been so close to blasphemy as in that moment when he almost called her Aphrodite. Maugre her unearthly beauty, Cassandra's body was solidly corporeal and he was going to take full advantage of that felicitous fact.
Ajax's ardent eyes cast an eerie glow which made Cassandra shiver and redouble her efforts to escape from him. In a turn of seconds her sumptuous apparel turned into rags as she was scratching him and simultaneously yelling for succour. The warrior heavily slapped the girl calling her a whore. Eventually, he succeeded in muffling the irksome noises that she made, but the man didn't manage to eliminate her sobbing and wailing. Instead, he chose to ignore them so as not to spoil the immense pleasure he experienced. However, the sensation lasted only a moment before his quench returned demanding new enjoyments. Yet there were no other means of appeasing his hunger since the wailing creature laying over there was completely useless. Ajax did not spare her a glance when he left that place to look for something to assuage his thirst.
Laying there on a pile of debris that used to be her beloved city, Cassandra was fiddling with a pebble she held in her outstretched hand. It was rough and sharp like his hands that lacked any tenderness as if humankind had been indeed made out of stones.
Then the woman heard that sound, the unmistakable dulcet tunes of a lyre. She didn't dare to stir. Once again the pain returned like a wave deluging her and cutting of access to oxygen. Barely was Cassandra conscious when Phoebe knelt down at her side and stroke her cheek in mockingly gentle way. Somehow the princess managed to spit at him. Judging from his reaction it was the very first time when someone had treated the golden-haired god without the expected meekness. The pythoness couldn't help but feel satisfied as she observed paling cheeks of all nine Muses and the startlement in their eyes. They tried to console their master's hurt feeling, but he rejected any kind help. With eyes aglow with baleful fire Apollo stroke strings of the lyre. First he played slowly, almost lovingly, yet the tempo was constantly growing faster and the tune was becoming more and more savage. The Earth was trembling and world around them was aflame. So unbridled was his anger that fuelled even further his efforts to cross all borders set by both human beings and deities, leaving behind only ruination. The jarring sounds seized Cassandra's weary body forcing her to gyrate among piles of rubble once again foretelling downfall of Troy. With dishevelled Venetian hair swaying to a tune of a frenzied dance, she was only a straw doll in his hands ready to catch the fire from his ardent eyes. At that moment the princess become his bride, his beloved as well as a reprobate wrongdoer whom the god was obliged to punish. He observed carefully his Bacchante while little by little she was losing contact with reality when a pall of smoke obscured the view carrying her to the faraway realm of visions.
What she descried when haze worn off were indiscernible silhouettes in an immense, tenebrous chamber resembling a cubiculum. In air wafted an intense fragrance of an incense, supposedly it was meant to create a solemn atmosphere but it only succeeded in making it caliginous. Out of sudden Cassandra saw a figure kneeling before an altar. The temple being dimly lit, she did not recognise a woman at first but after a moment recognition hit the prophetess. The mien was too familiar, yet it lacked the divine perfection of Helen's features. Clytemnestra, a progeny of august lineage and a wife to Atreus' son, was standing before the Troy princess. Suddenly the girl recognised a jewel that adorned her neck. It was a finely crafted necklace with a glimmering gemstone that once belonged to Hecuba. Seeing that scarcely did Cassandra refrain from pouncing on Mycenae's queen. Her fury cooled off when she recalled the laws ruling this realm – she was not to interfere into the ways of the destiny. Nevertheless, realization of the fact that the older woman wasn't able to wear the jewels with a grace equal in any terms to the one possessed by her mother, provided her with some kind of consolation.
Driven by an impulse, the Apollo's bride knelt alongside Clytemnestra knowing that her presence was undetectable to any future being. She almost could taste salty tears on her cheeks without causing Leda's to even stir. The view alone gave her bitter satisfaction, inasmuch as she perceived it as a fulfilment of her mother's curses, Troy's wrath imposed on her enemies.
Clytemnestra was praying, albeit even she herself didn't know what she prayed for. Last time she did so, she had only one desire, but then everything changed. With Agamemnon dead, she finally imposed a revenge for her daughter's ruthless murder and the shadowy figures of Erynies disappeared from her life. If only she had been clever enough to realise that they, instead of vanishing, simply had chosen a different shape. Only after a long period of time did the full weight of that fateful decision come to her. She was manumitted by the one who wanted to see her in another type of gyves - the pair created by his own hands. Aegisthus was a weak man, lacking everything but a bitter awareness of his own inadequacies that propelled him to slay every kinsmen of Agamemnon so as to avoid any kind of comparison between him and the deceased king. He slowly begun to tyrannise Clytemnestra in order to erase any remaining memory of days that she spent with the conqueror of Troy. Mayhap he did not realise that forcing one of Leda's daughter into submission wasn't equal to ransacking a proud city for sake of the other.
She slowly raised from kneels forcing herself to overcome her impotence and stay upright in front of the forthcoming death. With irritation the woman noted that her knees were trembling. It didn't beseem a queen to display her emotions even if she was to be killed by her own child. She would stand stoutly and upright to greet her death. Clytemnestra would not beg for her life like her sister. She had no reason to prolong unnecessarily her shameful existence. She was always a prey to any predator sufficiently strong to seize her. Her first husband did not even have a chance to deflower her when Agamemnon, smitten by her comeliness, decided to besiege Pisa. Many a person was slain whose screams still echoed in the woman's ears during countless sleepless nights. Agamemnon's fondling couldn't hush her conscience. Perchance the death would succeed in completing that task.
She once again looked up to the entrance. She was growing more and more impatient. Were they to impose their vengeance, it would be better for them to do it without delay. Did they lack courage to raise arms against their own mother? Hadn't she done enough to justify any action they would take? Clytemnestra raised her eyes to look at marble Artemis's face, but once again her facial features became blurred. In the dusk it resembled so closely the one that she had lost at hands of Agamemnon. She fainted out of dismay and fell on the floor. She didn't regain consciousness when Orestes's sword pierced her bosom like a thunderstone cast to the earth by vindictive deity, whose blinding flash lit up gloomy sky striking up a proud holm oak to asperse ground with its sap.
Apollo carefully observed Cassandra's reactions. He could put her into trance but he had no control over that she would see much as she believed otherwise. He wanted her to understand her position, to force her to beg for forgiveness and to grant it mercifully after seeing her humiliation. Eventually, he would be the one to save her from flames, Greek arms and ignominy. Afterwards she would surely accept his dalliance and plight the troth. From his point of view her sufferings were necessary to her purification. Had everything gone as planned, Cassandra would have experienced the purest form of catharsis provided by a god himself. Instead of desperate pleas Phoebe heard only princess's derisive laugh. It spent chills down his spin. He glared bemusedly at her without any apprehension of her actions. She raised from the ground, straightened the remains of her apparel and stood upright patiently awaiting her destiny. The priestess didn't spare Apollo a glance. She finally grew to understand that even immortals' power were nothing in comparison to Fortune's verdicts. Everyone was Tyche's subject, no matter whether he was a victor or a conquered one. Once she accepted her doom, nothing could have wielded power over her soul. Shackles would become only a strange adornment as long as she shared with her masters the same bed after the inevitable death, far away from any god's schemes.
When Agamemnon came, she calmly looked straight into his eyes and greeted him with a broad grin. Since then, she was strongly rumoured to have lost her wits.