Dionysus descended to Troy's citadel, remaining unseen, blinding the eyes of any who might have espied him. He wandered Priam's palace savoring the bright, smooth stone, and rich wall hangings, wondering at the luxury that still showed despite the poverty visited on the city by the ongoing war. There had been no celebrations to honor him in a long time there, as the war was soaking up every drop of available resource. It was night-time and almost everyone was abed, conserving oil and escaping the horrors of war-time reality. Those who were not, amounting to a small number of servants finishing up their tasks, rustled by him, noticing only a faint tingle like the beginnings of the heady rush of wine into the blood, and that only for a fleeting moment as he passed.
He came at last to the room of the so-called mad princess Cassandra, passing first by the door to her nurse Semrais' room. The girl is too old for a nurse, but they do think her witless at times. Such a shame. He sank the servant next door into a deeper sleep and approached the princess. He had seen her sorrowful face many a time, and it conjured sympathy for the girl in his heart. He also saw that she would meet her violent end, as the Fates decreed soon. He admired her porcelain skin, made transparent by her woes and slight malnutrition, starkly contrasted with her night-dark hair, usually braided into a crown or arrayed in an ornate weave at the back of her head, now in a simple single braid for sleeping. Her dark eyes usually seemed to look into nothing since she parted ways with, had been cast into a false darkness by Phoebus Apollo. Because of her prophecies and uncontrollably violent reactions to the visions she saw, she had long been accounted mad by all who knew her. This was the brilliantly rendered curse: that her prophecies would never be believed, though each one was true; that none would remember the verity of her foresights nor recall her brief affair with the god.
This night she stood by her window which looked westward over the heights of the Skaian gate, and beyond to the Greek camp and the wine-dark sea. As Dionysus closed the distance between them, her filmy curtains stirred just a little and brushed her bare arms. She did not move at all. He appraised what he could see of her form through her diaphanous gown. Again he thought of her particular travesty: Enlightenment for her never brings anything but sorrow. Her clairvoyances never throw her into the particular frenzy of my Maenads, they enjoy the ecstasy of my revelry—intoxication, dancing, and other pleasures of the flesh. She is denied all of these sumptuous things. "Not tonight," he remarked aloud.
Just before he spoke, she had been thinking of her heroic brother Hector, and his death which she had foreseen, and was wondering how he slept. She envisioned him fitful, losing the precious rest which would restore his body for fresh battle on the morrow. All of the bloodshed he's seen must give him terrible dreams. I've seen the death's he's caused graven on his face. Her thought was interrupted when the wine-god spoke, 'Not tonight.'
The princess went rigid and shut her eyes against what she feared must be another Apollo-bestowed frightful vision that would never hold weight with anyone. With her eyes tightly sealed and body atremble, she turned to face the voice. Dionysus drew nearer to her so that they were scarcely a pace apart. Her head was bent downward so that when she dared to open her eyes, she saw her toes gleaming in the moonlight on the marble floor. The god's gaze turned thence also and she felt a sudden warmth as if the floor was attempting to cast the chill of off her from the ground up.
Cassandra slowly raised her head to meet his eyes. His countenance was that of a youthful, but unspeakably handsome man, with a slight hint of a roguish demeanor playing around his lips. His face and body seemed to promise that they could provide pleasure proportionate to his visage. He had deep brown hair and gleaming skin with such a golden tone that it would make Achilles tarnish in comparison. He was donning purple robes on his body and his customary ivy circlet adorned lustrous curls.
As he gazed into her eyes, he could understand why Apollo had become so besotted with her, and he reminded himself of the other god's response when he inquired about visiting the princess. The golden god's face darkened when he responded to Dionysus: "You must not let anyone perceive that you and all Olympus knows that she is not mad. The mortals must think what I will them to, and not be shown that her vision is clear."
She still shook, unable to speak and she shied away, nearly stumbling backwards. She could see that his eyes burned too brightly, in an unimaginable hue that danced somewhere between chestnut and amber.
He tried to calm her, "Do not be afraid Princess." Her immediate response to this was a little gasp that escaped her lips as she shook her head, trying to deny what she was seeing.
Trying again to calm her, Dionysus took her hand, and she looked just as horrified as she had before, but she did not recoil from his touch, she'd learned the price of resisting Olympians. Her words came out as an inexorable whisper. "But I am afraid, you are from Olympus—I… I can see your fierce spirit burning. Have… have you come to taunt me?" She was angry and afraid, bewildered but powerless. There were times when Apollo came to see just how she was tormented by his double-edged gift. Times when he wanted to question her rejection of him as a lover, when he wanted to scorn with his scalding temper.
Dionysus could read this in her thoughts, but he already knew that Phoebus did this, as far as the wine-god was concerned, it was his right, Apollo had claimed Cassandra for himself when she was but a young girl. But that was not why he was there. "No, nothing could be further from my intent. I have come to ease your burden for a short time. " His voice was thick and rich as honey, and the air around him was fragrant: sweet and smoky.
She still held back, apprehensive, unable to convince herself that any divinity would be interested in offering her any comfort. Dionysus ventured further to soothe her, he picked her up and laid her gently on her couch. She still trembled, even after he stepped back apace.
"Cassandra, I know that you are not mad. You shine like a pale star in your father's court," he knelt beside her, looking into her eyes. He produced two chalices filled with sweet wine and handed one to her.
"Dionysus…" she whispered as she took it, realizing only then who it was that had come to her. She was trembling violently, eyes still locked with his, not consciously realizing it, but drinking it because she had been so thirsty… so unbearably thirsty. From the first taste she wanted more, and drank deeply of the cup. From the moment she first tasted it she felt new warmth spreading from inside outward, all the way from her toes to her scalp, and her skin twittered with the warmth that brought an unshakable calm with it. She stopped trembling altogether shortly thereafter, and her glances grew less furtive.
The god smiled at the apparent change in her, and he knew again, as always that his elixir has worked its wonder.
Cassandra's mind was racing, He desires me, there is no other reason why he would come. Will he save me from the horror of this curse? She studied his face then. How different he is from Apollo—as youthful, as perfectly formed—with the same divine aura, but his fire is not as harsh. He is beautiful. All of this thought was not hers alone, the god eased her mind into these notions, and she could not easily distinguish her thoughts from his subtle suggestions. She concluded that Dionysus was quintessentially more—human. He has such sympathy in those eyes, so bright, such a subtle curve to his brow, such fine features. For a moment she recognized his intoxication as such but succumbed to its oblivion again within seconds.
She finished her first cup and as soon as its dregs were drained, by his craft it was filled again. After long moments of silent drinking and gazing she spoke. "You are very kind to speak to me."
He smiled warmly and nodded slightly. "And you are kind to allow an unwanted visitor to stay. Is the wine to your liking?"
"Yes, it is very good," she smiled, "I think that I have not had a drop since…" she cut herself off thinking, and her smile melted away, and suddenly frustration wrinkled her face, "since I broke with Lord Apollo."
Dionysus sat sprawled languidly on the floor beside her and thenceforth led the conversation to more pleasant topics, carefully steering their thoughts away from the war or people who brought her heartbreak every day with their pity and disappointment. Their talking wandered to the topics of plays, songs, and old tales, and lasted for hours. So charming was his voice, so intriguing and lovely that she listened rapt as he spoke. He was delighted by her intelligence and sharp insight. Her mind was unclouded and unencumbered when it was neither the past nor the future she turned her regard upon. So it was that while they spoke he summoned succulent food for her: roast meat, ripe fruit and herbed bread. Since she had eaten little in the past months, he noticed that she ate with all of the gusto of one who was tasting food for the first time after famine. Color returned to her face as it had not for far too long, and she was an image of her former more wholesome fairness restored.
When she was sated, she blinked and no traces of the dishes she had just partaken of remained. Furthermore, the god was nowhere to be seen. She blinked again, apparently confused when she smelled the sweetness of perfumed oil. No sooner did she recognize the smell of sandalwood than she felt his warm hands upon her shoulders, gently caressing her skin. He slipped his hands in circular motions about her shoulders, kneading her tense flesh into submission. He loosed her hair from the braid so that it cascaded unconfined down her back. For an enchanted time she concerned herself with nothing but those breath-taking caresses. She was as relaxed as he ever could have hoped by the time she spoke again.
"Lord Dionysus, do you sing as well as inspire song?"
"Yes Cassandra," he enjoyed the sound of her name, the act of saying it, "I will sing for you if you would like that."
She nodded and he sang her a song of the wonders he had seen in Petraea and India and another of lovers from those strange lands. When he had done with his wild but dulcet harmonies, she was astonished by the immediacy of longing she felt. She stood and slipped into his arms and they ended up on her bed. So they spent the night loving, clinging to each other as vines onto trellises.
When the love games were over, after the long sweet hours of the night were spent, she fell to sleeping. The god rested a little before he sat up on one elbow gazing at the princess. He touched her hair, so dark, so long that it seemed to rampantly engulf the pillows beneath her head. She slept soundly, for once, he'd seen to that with a mixture of carnal prowess and divine touch. He watched the fabric of her linens gently swell and sigh with her breath until Phoebus neared the horizon.
Yet it was long after Artemis was gone with Selene before he spoke, "Princess," he nuzzled her neck and spoke softly into her ear, "Cassandra, wake."
She stirred slowly and smiled heavy with sleep. Dionysus was so skilled in making each moment full by engaging many of the senses at once so that the time seemed to pass slowly, perhaps that is what led the princess to say "But why, my Lord, do we not have forever?" She had been dreaming dreams of wandering the vales of Nysaea with the god, under canopies of strange trees so dense that the severe light of Apollo barely reached through.
"No we do not, I vowed to Apollo that I would be gone ere morning light—"
"He could not bear the thought of warming our bodies," her voice was stiff, distant, she knew at once that her curse was not gone, and that Dionysus had not come to save her as she had foolishly hoped. She sat up slowly, no longer smiling, and gathered the linens around herself, looking blankly towards the windows, and the unmistakable coming dawn.
Dionysus would not speak ill of Apollo he better understood the strange hollows of a god's heart, and of the way Olympian's laid their curses. He has sworn on the Styx that he would be discreet, and thus could not risk anyone finding him there. He kissed her temple and willed her to soften again. She yielded and sank against him. "I only wanted to ease your mind for a time," he took her hand which was still clutching the sheet and kissed her knuckles lightly. "You know the fate that awaits you, and you deserved to have sweetness to remember along with the sorrow, not that this will be the last of it. There are things yet to come which even you cannot discern."
The princess began to softly weep, thinking of the hard-faced queen who would cruelly kill her, a woman whose face she did not know, but whose betrayal and rage she could easily read in flashing eyes. "Will you not come back to me again?" She gently pled, the sky was pink now in the east.
"I may, but do not hope for it. You may still find solace in the cup so turn there at need." He kissed her hair, turned her to face him, and kissed her full on the lips. He held her blue eyes open with his gaze and gave her over to sleep. Then with a slight hesitation, he took his leave and returned to Olympus where he wintered, to await Apollo's return.
A dozen new casks of wine were found in the palace that night, and all the house rejoiced in it. Even Hector drank of the miraculous stuff, encouraged because that night he had slept soundly.