Chapter Text
What Cassandra does next will set up the eventual deaths of Helen and Menelaus. Agamemnon’s was waiting for him in Mycenae, in the rage of his wife over Iphigenia. So as not to use her gift and have them misconstrue her words, she wails as her nephew is hauled from king to king, stopping only when he is placed in front of Menelaus and pleading with her eyes as she is regarded. What he finds in her expression of grief must register in his mind and he announces he will take the boy, raise him as a future heir to marry his daughter and assure his lineage. Grateful that her plan worked, Cassandra slumps to the ground and allows herself to be manhandled by the men in power.
Odysseus and his men take their places on the 12 ships back to Ithaca. As he looks back on Troy, victorious King Odysseus asks that Cassandra be brought to him. When he asks her about her resistance on the shores of Troy, wondering why she thought it was dangerous. Cassandra refuses to speak, knowing Odysseus and his men would think her a liar.
After their detour in the land of the Cicones, Odysseus continues to question Cassandra, hoping to understand her. He thinks perhaps she is just afraid and uncomfortable, waiting to be used the way a treasure of war usually was. In an attempt to get her comfortable with him and his crew he assures her she will be left completely alone, but that he would really appreciate it if she spoke. When still, Cassandra refused to speak, he tried bringing up her family. He commends Hector for his prowess on the battlefield and Odysseus has no problem speaking of Hector’s loyalty to his family. Odysseus, like Hector, had a wife and son at home and in his yearning for his own family, Odysseus speaks highly of the fallen prince because he truly respects Hector for being a family oriented man.
Talk of Hector makes Cassandra’s heart ache. Her thoughts go to Astyanax, the son that would never grow up and she decides to take this sadness and anger over the baby’s murder out on Odysseus by not telling him of the lotus eaters’ treachery. When he returns with his men and manages to get them on the boat, he sees Cassandra smirking conspiratorially. When asked why she looked pleased, Cassandra simply shrugged and said she’d seen it coming.
The next trip to the land of the Cyclopes brought another terrible moment for the Ithacan soldiers. As Odysseus and his men ride out of Polyphemus’ cave, they are met by the rest of the soldiers and Cassandra who looks clearly distraught. The visions she’d seen of her captor and his soldiers in that cave were daunting and she regretted omitting them as she saw the men walking up to the ships. Perhaps they would have been more careful had they known that there was a cyclops in the cave. She thought briefly that maybe her great visions of the downfall of Troy were her punishment and now that Troy had been defeated, others may believe her now. With one last shred of hope left, Cassandra told the king of Ithaca that she saw how he defeated the cyclops. She recounted the visions she;d seen and as he sat there, Odysseus wondered why she hadn't said anything earlier. He tells her how her prophetic gift would be a blessing that gets him home sooner and implores that she never keep the visions from him, if they could help him in his return home.
Cassandra weeps that night, for the years she had a gift that went misunderstood, for a prophecy ignored that took her family from her, for the ache of years going unheard, and the possibility that now she’d finally be taken seriously.