THERE, BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I.
Chapter Six:Daughter of Blood
Hecabe threw herself to the floor before the screaming women beating her bloody fists against the white marble. She reached out and cupped the sides of the young women's head, stilling her furious rocking and forcing her rolling, feral blue eyes to settle. As the young women murmured and burbled, tears running hot and fast down her swollen red cheeks, the Queen whispered in horror, "What have you see, Cassandra? What vision has the All Seeing Apollo bequeathed upon you, daughter-mine?"
Cassandra laughed but the harsh sound cracked and hissed in the back of her throat as her burning eyes fluttered briefly. "Seen?" She croaked, elongating the sound of each letter as if she were tasting the letters to divine there meaning. "Apollo has seen." She began to cackle again.
"Cassandra, dearest, please listen to me-"
"Cassandra!" bellowed Priam as the doors were swept open by silent servants to admit him. The disheveled girl hid her head behind the crinkled, knotted mess of brown-blond curls. The rocking resumed.
Hecabe stood, her hands held out in supplication and her lips ready to speak but Priam silenced her with a dark, decided look. With tears in her eyes the Queen fell back to her knees and fretfully petted her daughters tangled hair. The delicate pink and gold gown was rendered to tattered bits of cloth clinging to her trembling body by threads and the indecent position of her legs seemed unimportant to the crazed princess, but to the father and king that stared down at her, it did not go so unnoticed.
"She's having her fits again." It wasn't a question. Hecabe answered desperately.
"They're not fits, my lord! The god Apollo has given Cassandra a vision of the futu-"
"Of the future that we would all benefit from hearing." Priam finished for her. "Yes, yes, we've heard of her 'vision's' before, have we not, wife? It was her visions that nearly cost us our last born son! I have heard nothing of any substance that would lead me to believe that these fits of hers surrender anything other than twisted delusions that speak of a troubled mind. I have had enough of these disturbances in my household, Hecabe. I am passed all patience!"
Hecabe opened her mouth to defend her daughter but once again Priam spoke over her. Behind him, his seven sons and three other daughters were packed tightly together in the doorway, their faces running the gamut of emotions. Cassandra herself seemed unaware of the proceedings taking part on her behalf, whispering and babbling every few moments about "fire and smoke, black, black smoke" and "screaming women run and run and then they fall, so hard". Her injured hands left bright red smears across her thighs, face, in her hair, and across the front of her mothers fine dress.
"She has gone insane, driven mad by her own need for attention. She will be taken to the cell and kept there until a home can be made for her beyond the city, with a nurse to care for her." Glancing once more at his daughters pale, splotchy face and bloody state of undress, Priam added, "Far from me," then left the room.
Priam never saw Cassandra again.
TBC…
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