LITMIR.BIZ

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on the head as though she was blessing me.

      A creature was struggling to be born: a live thing, with consciousness of a vague sort, but with appallingly fierce drive and will. It did not care if it tore its mother apart in the birth; all its force was set on breaking free of the confining prison of the womb and I had to help it. Unconsciously, I embraced Clea closer, and began to breathe in her rhythm. Our hearts beat as one. When she groaned, so did I. When a contraction ripped her, it tore me also. Under my hands with the god-sight, I saw the little animal twist and claw with hands that had all their nails.

      For the first watch it was only pain. I found later that Eleni in Nyssa's arms writhed in agony and nearly frightened her to death until she sent to Tithone and found out what I was doing. Thereafter she told Eleni that this was what his mother had borne to birth him, which subdued him for days.

      Pain, after a while, transcends hurt. Clea was washed with waves, which I translated, once I had the trick of it, into force and pressure. It was not the same pain as a burn or a broken bone, which hurts differently, treated or untreated. This was more like an internal qualm which signifies that one has eaten too many unripe berries and the body is trying to be rid of the poison. Yet it was not that, for the woman was bearing the pain gladly, in order to be lighter of her burden and to bring alive to the goddess a new person.

      At the point when I thought I might die of this pain, I looked imploringly at my teacher. She did not pause in her chant, but made a gesture which seemed to gather something up into a ball. I groaned through another contraction until I realised what she meant.

      It was all one, birth and death and life. At that realisation I got the trick of translating pain into pressure and I got my mind back, so that I could consider what I was doing.

      Troy is ruled by the tides. They dictate when Hector's ships can leave and when they can come in. They wash the beaches clean and bring fish and wrecks to our shores. The moon is mistress of the tides. They wax and wane as she becomes the maiden, mother and crone, vanishing to renew herself in the dark time we call the Night of Hunted Things. This birth was tidal: each new wave washed us further up as the sea-creature wriggled to be free and Clea strove to make her body into something from which it could escape.

      Wash and crash, I conjured tides. I could hear the chant, though Tithone sounded very tired now. I called up the moon-dragged waters, salt and relentless, and felt the baby writhe under my hands. Clea cried out - it was then that I noticed she had been silent for a long time - and Tithone knelt between her legs.

      With a wriggle and a flash and a cry of triumph from Clea and from me, the baby was born into Tithone's hands. There was an instant intoxicating sense of lightness and freedom, which could have come from either Clea or from the baby. I relinquished Clea into her neighbour's embrace and knelt next to my teacher. So small a thing, so perfect, smeared with blood and grease and opening its mouth to scream.

      Tithone laid the baby in a dish full of warm salt water, still attached to its mother by a cord of marvellous complexity the colour of lapis lazuli and coral. No Egyptian worker could have made a twisted enamel so beautiful.

      We lifted her and laid her on her own bed, the red cloth swathing her hips tightly. Tithone took her flint knife and a skein of white thread. She tied the cord and cut it, washing the baby clean of blood and grease. Clea panted and was delivered of a pad of flesh, then sagged back into her attendant's arms.

      It was a girl child, a fact which would add to the rejoicing.

      It was well known that the women of Troy, well skilled and strong, were sought in marriage by many men of the west kingdoms and commanded respect. I marvelled at the small hand which clutched my finger. The newborn opened dark blue eyes. She looked at me coolly, a creature well pleased with the outcome of its struggle, a warrior resting from battle.

      Tithone took the baby up and carried her over to Clea, who lay exhausted, battered, and bruised. Blood was still seeping from her loins. She bared a breast for the baby and winced, then laughed, as the hungry mouth clamped shut.

      `Go,' Tithone ordered the boy who had been sitting outside the door for the whole day and the whole night. `Tell the Mother that there is a new girl child in Troy and tell Clea's man that both of them are well.'

      The boy, who was apprenticed to the priest of Dionysius, sprang to his feet and ran. I heard his hard bare feet striking the cobbles. It was almost dawn. My knees were sore and I was as stiff as a plank, but I was intoxicated with joy. Tithone joined me at the doorway as the sun began to rise in splendour and a cool wind sprang up. The sky was a sea of gold and rose.

      `That is the mystery of birth, little daughter,' she croaked, laying a hard hand on my shoulder. `Are you glad to have it?'

      `It is a terrible mystery,' I heard myself saying, `but yes, teacher. I am glad.'

      Behind us, in the house, Clea's baby began to cry. I felt a jolt in my womb and put down a hand to investigate it. I brought back a palm marked with blood. I had joined the Maidens.

      IV

      Diomenes

      I hid for two days when I discovered that there were no gods. The master left me alone, ordering my friend Itarnes to bring me soup and bread. He tried to talk to me but I did not want to talk and eventually he went away.

      I sat on my sleeping mat in my cell and thought. Sometimes I had to hold my head in both hands because it felt as though my skull was bursting. This was the first serious check my belief in the world had ever had. It was only when I tasted mistletoe in my broth that I realised that Master Glaucus was treating me for hysteria.

      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

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