Cassandra - Kerry Greenwood The Delphic Women

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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

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