Cassandra (8 page)

There were no gods in Epidavros - only Death. All healers come to terms with Death - we must understand and accept him, or give up and die in our turn. I had seen death. I had held the hands of an old man while he was dying. I had seen the body slacken, the throat relax, the hand grow heavy and loose in mine as the breath escaped and the soul took flight. I had seen no god then, not even Thanatos.

But the old man had seen a god. I remembered this and sat up. The old man had seen Ares, the war god, leading a company of his old comrades in a charge; he said he was swept up in the rush of their onset and, in saying that, the death-rattle had started in his throat. `Onward!' he had cried with his last breath, calling his old friends, long dead, by their names.

My head drooped again into my hands. The man was old and probably mad; his mind had gone. There were no gods populating the dark of the temple's most sacred place, only priests in masks, persuading men to accept healing by mimes and tricks. I thought of the man with the pain in his belly, told by the god to forgo roasted meat and wine and honey for his soul's sake. I thought of the statue of Asclepius, seated in his carved chair, with the snakes in his hands and his dog at his feet, ivory and gold, flickering in the lamplight. I thought of the temple snake flicking his tongue at my hands and the master telling me that I had been greatly honoured, and I heard myself laugh bitterly.

Someone had come in. I did not look up.

`There are no gods,' said the master's voice.

`No,' I replied.

`Foolish boy,' he reproved. `They are all around you. Not as men would like to see them, in men's bodies, subject to men's lusts and greed, walking about the world granting each petty wish. They are in the earth, Chryse, in the sky, in the wind, in the fire and water and in breath. You will find that the gods are reliable,' he continued as I stared at him, `if you do not rely on them for small things.'

`For life and death, Master?'

`They are small things to the gods. When we are gone' - he waved his hand at the temple and the walls of Epidavros - `when we little men are dead and forgotten, the earth will go on. The sky will arch overhead, the moon will wax and wane and unknown women will give birth to men who have never heard our names. The world is old, Chryse. It will get much older before the end. And you will find, Diomenes my son,' he pulled me to my feet and into his strong embrace, `that you have more power than you know in these hands of yours, and that, too, comes from the gods. Now. You have spent enough time thinking?'

It was a good question. I felt suddenly that if I had not spent enough time, I had spent all the time that I had. I nodded and he kissed me, his beard bristling my cheek.

`Wash your face, pack a spare tunic, and meet me in the herb store. Wear your most comfortable sandals.'

`Why, Master? Where are we going?'

`Wandering,' he said, and swept out.

I gathered my belongings, including a comb made of the cypress wood of the temple trees, an oil flask, a wine flask and my dagger. It was a present from a grateful patient, sharp as a razor and decorated with a strange Egyptian beast like a small lion without a mane, stalking ducks in reeds which Asius Attis Priest called lotus. I washed my face as I had been told, rolled my goods into a suitable bundle tied about with thongs so that I could carry it on my back, and ran to the herb store.

The master was not there. Itarnes told me that he had bidden me to watch the healing of the child who had fallen down the cliff. Apparently it had just been revealed to the mother who had slept for him in the temple that the child's sight might well be restored. Revealed to the mother! More fraud! However, I had spent enough time thinking and my thoughts were not comforting.

I staggered a little as I turned and Itarnes supported me. He was barrel chested, very strong, and smelt agreeably of olives.

`You've been on too low a diet lately for all this running, little brother,' he said. `Lean on me, now.'

`Itarnes, I'm sorry...' I began. His good-natured, ugly face turned to me. I noticed that he had dark brown eyes, alight with kindness. I felt ashamed for snubbing him.

`It's nothing, little brother. When I found out I punched a temple wall and refused to wash for a week.'

`Why did you refuse to wash?' We passed the row of pine trees and came into the place in front of the main temple. It was bright daylight and the air smelt resinous and fresh. I had been inside too long.

`If cleanliness is pleasing to a god and there are no gods, then why wash?'

I laughed. He had a valid point. `Master Glaucus would say that cleanliness promotes health,' I said slyly. He clipped me lightly over the ear.

`Health is a god,' he said, making a pun on the title of Hygeia, female patron of medicine and daughter of Asclepius. `Come on, Chryse. And remember, this insight is for the priests alone. If men did not believe in gods, what would heal them? To the temple, Chryse. Macaon is going to operate. This will be fascinating. The child is blind from a skull fracture. The bone is depressed, it appears.'

`Depressed?'

`The skull, little brother, is like a pot. It protects the brain like a hard shell protects a tortoise. If a sharp blow strikes a pot, what happens?'

`It breaks.'

`Yes. Now surround the pot with a goatskin, shrunken to fit it closely. Strike the pot and break it. What happens?'

`The broken piece is retained by the skin,' I said slowly, thinking it out. `But it presses inward.'

`Fill the pot with cheese and there you have it. The cheese will be dented by the pressure of the broken piece. Now how do you mend it?'

`If it was a pot I would put my hand in and push the broken piece out.'

`Very good, little brother, but you cannot touch the cheese.'

`I don't know. I can't imagine. Pressing on the piece would drive it in further. How?'

`You will see. Wait now, we should get you something to eat. Sit down here and I'll fetch something - shall we say bread and cheese?'

We both laughed. I noticed that my voice was shaky and I was suddenly ravenous. Itarnes lowered me into a seat not too far from the altar of the temple and bustled away.

The woman was seated in front of the altar with the child on her lap. The priest of Hypnos the Dreamer was talking to the child in a low monotonous murmur. The child's unfocused eyes were open, but it obviously did not see. The woman was sitting very still. Hypnos Priest took a sharp pin from his belt and stuck it into the child's hand, and there was no squeal of pain. He nodded and stood back.

Macaon approached, carrying a strange object. I had seen something like it before. I ransacked my memory and found it. It was a screw, such as the farmers use to break up rocks. It was made of bronze, suspended in a triangle of wood, small enough to hold in one hand.

Itarnes returned with bread and cheese and I ate hungrily, watching as Macaon fitted the triangle and began to turn the screw forcefully into the child's head. It was a horrible sight, unnatural and cruel.

`He must be in agony!' I exclaimed with my mouth full. `Why doesn't he cry?'

`Hypnos is with the suppliant,' said Itarnes. `He dreams and feels nothing. In any case the skull is not very sensitive. There - see - the screw is fixed. Now the lever.'

Macaon operated a lever at the side of his triangle and lifted the fracture. When he saw the skin tugging, he fitted a bolt across the lever and removed it. The priest Hypnos knelt by the child and began to ask him questions. The child replied in an eerie voice, such as is heard in sleep.

`Where are you?'

`In the temple,' said the child.

`What can you see?' came the soft, insinuating voice.

`Asclepius.'

`What colour is he?'

`Gold and white.'

Itarnes gasped. I said, spattering crumbs, `It is a memory. He has seen the temple before.'

I spoke too loudly, or perhaps the priest was listening for dissent. He held up a coin before the blind child's eyes.

`What is this?'

`Round gold thing,' said the child mechanically. A peasant's child, he would never have seen golden coins.

`What is the picture on it?'

`A bird.'

That silenced me. There might be no gods, but there were healer priests who could restore sight. I had finished my bread and cheese and felt altogether more real. I was also very impressed.

Macaon ordered that the child was to stay very still for several weeks while the break healed. Still with Hypnos, he had not cried or even blinked. His mother carried him out of the temple, weeping with relief.

I returned to the herb store and found my master sorting medicinal herbs and arguing with Polidarius.

`I can't stay here all the time,' he was saying. `Healers must travel, or how are they to learn? The temple will do very well without me. This is not a long journey - I shall be away perhaps a month. I must go to Tiryns and Mycenae, and maybe then to Corinth. They say that there is a plague in the villages and that will spread unless it is checked. I know I could send you or one of the others, and I do not doubt your skill. But I grow stale in this sacred place. Ah, Chryse. Was the child healed?'

`Yes, Master. He did not even cry. What is this dream of Hypnos?'

`It works on some - the young and those willing to trust. In that sleep there is no pain, none at all. The child was completely in the hands of Hypnos Priest. If he had ordered, the boy would have seen demons, or felt that he was flying. Hypnos Priest will instruct you when you are older. It is not a skill to be given to the immature. Are you ready to go?'

I drew a deep breath. `Yes, Master.'

`Good. My son tells me that you are a good rider. Go choose yourself a horse, then, and order mine made ready. We shall sleep tonight in Kokkinades. West, a day's easy ride.'

Itarnes escorted me to the stables. The master's horse was called Banthos, the dappled one. He was a proud beast, prone to snap at an importunate hand, but smooth as a husked chestnut and trained to have an easy, comfortable gait. I told the slave to saddle the master's horse, then I walked to the end of the stables and patted noses, looking for my favourite.

She was a little mare. I called her Pyla because she came from Pylos, an offering to the temple from a merchant cured of an itch which had maddened him enough to consider suicide. He had left without his itch (poultices of fresh marshleaf, dock and lychnis and infusions of valerian and comfrey) and had delivered three colts a month later. Pyla was the colour of good Kriti honey, with an affectionate nature and an especial craving for hawthorn flowers. She was young and strong and used to me. Not perhaps a well-bred horse, but broad in the beam and accustomed to mountains. I found her head gear and saddled her, slinging my rolled cloak across her willing back.

Then I led her and Banthos out into the sunlight. The master came, still arguing with Polidarius, and mounted, settling his robes. Itarnes hugged me and I returned the embrace. `Good fortune and the gods be with you,' he said, grinning.

I mounted Pyla and trotted at the master's side out of the gates of the temple of Asclepius and into the road.

Though I had been on this road before, I had been six and I did not remember it well. When we came out to the north, the road split, one part going west to Tiryns, the other east to the town of Epidavros. I had often gone east with the other apprentices, seeking taverns to sing and drink wine in. But I had never gone west and I had always wondered where the road led.

Now I was going to find out. I was thirteen years old and I was out in the world again.

 

The world was wide and scented with resin and dust. It was autumn, I realised. All the trees in the temple are evergreen; it takes concentration to notice the changing of the seasons.

Pyla trotted politely at the side of the master's horse. For a few hours we travelled in silence, but it was a pleasant silence and I had a lot to look at. The grapes were ripening well, it seemed, the plump purple patches almost too heavy for the vines. I recalled being a child who tended the goats and lay a whole day in the thyme-scented grass, looking at the shadows of the mountains and making beasts and faces out of clouds. I thought of the small Chryse with pity. He was so ignorant of the world and of men.

We came into Kokkinades at an easy pace and found no one about in the agora, which was odd. It still lacked several hours until sunset and usually the marketplace of such villages has a cast of inhabitants fully as well known as a satyr-play. The old men on benches by the shady side of the square, market women arguing with customers and proclaiming the merits of their cheese or their weaving, and maidens passing to the well for water with amphorae on head or hop.

But in the main square of this village there was no none. I shivered.

`Men of Kokkinades!' called Master Glaucus in a loud voice.

I did not hear anything but the master went to a house on the far side of the square and wrenched open a door. It was a stone house with two windows. I felt sure that it must belong to the chief family of Kokkinades.

He looked inside, stepped back, and stood silent for a moment. I wanted to look inside but he pushed me roughly away.

`Chryse,' he said slowly, `take the horses and walk out along the road, to the west. When you are 500 paces away, stop and call out in a loud voice that a healer has come.' Master Glaucus' own voice was taut with some strong emotion.

`Yes, Master. What do I do then?'

`Wait. I will not be long. Take my cloak, boy, I will have to burn this tunic. Go on, Chryse!'

Puzzled, I walked both horses, who were restive because they had expected to be fed and stabled in the village, 500 paces along the white road. The slopes of the hills were covered in poppies, I remember, and I saw seven varieties of thyme and a sun-coloured butterfly. I felt very foolish when I reached the prescribed place, but I had my orders. Tethering Banthos and Pyla to a convenient olive tree, I cupped my hands and called to the silent hills, `A healer has come!' I waited, then repeated it.

Since I could not see anyone, I sat down and took a drink of water - our water skin would need replenishing soon - and ate a broken piece of barley bread which I found in the ration-bag. I wondered what had happened to Kokkinades. I could not see any sign of bandit attack; no arrows, no spear marks or blood, and the houses had not been broken into or damaged. Bandits usually set villages on fire after they left. I would have assumed that the people were all away on some festival - the Dionysiad was near - if it had not been for that strained note in my master's speech.