Cassandra - Kerry Greenwood The Delphic Women

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to the suppliant. More commonly the dream would be rich with symbolism, obscure, requiring the wise priests to sit and talk for days with the dreamer before they could find out the core and seed of their illness.

      As Hermes, I took the seekers by the hand, one by one and led them through the tunnels and mazes underground, where various priests in the masks of gods spoke to them out of the darkness.

      Master Glaucus said, `Today, instead of just waiting for the suppliants to come to the tunnel, you shall stay with them from the beginning. Then you may see how the god reveals himself to men. How many herbs do you know now, Chryse?'

      `One hundred and three, Master, and most of the combinations,' I said proudly.

      `What treatment would you give a woman of thirty suffering from yellow jaundice and dropsy, boy?'

      `Hot water baths, Master, and infusions of vervain and dog's grass in barley broth.'

      `Why would you give barley?'

      `It soothes, master. Also it is good with vervain, they complement each other.'

      `Why not use rue for the jaundice?'

      `Master, rue is cold and wet and her complaint is also cold and wet. She needs hot dry herbs.'

      `Barley is hot and wet, boy.'

      `Yes, master, but combined with vervain it is drying, and stimulates excretion of liquids.'

      `Good, very good. What herb is in your wreath?'

      `Vervain, Master.' I reached up to touch the spray of leaves which encircled my head and confined my hair. I was already clad in the psychopomp's purple tunic and golden harness.

      `Why do you wear vervain?'

      `It is the divine herb, master, revealed to Asclepius by the god himself.'

      `Tell me of the four humours.'

      It was getting on to dawn. A small cold wind sprang up. In the light of the flammifer on the temple gate, my master was as tall as a tree. I could not see his face, but his voice was gentle.

      `The four humours are sanguine, which is hot and wet; bilious, which is cold and dry; choleric, which is hot and dry; and phlegmatic, which is cold and wet. As above, so below, Master, they are the four elements, air, fire, water and earth.'

      `Good. As we walk, tell me how to reduce a broken nose.'

      I fell in at his side and took his hand. Like those of all physicians, his nails were short and his hands were always clean. To be otherwise would be like leaving blood or matter on a temple floor - displeasing to the god.

      `Master, one washes the blood away and feels the cheekbones and jaw for breaks.'

      `How do you detect a break?'

      `Master, it feels soggy.'

      The shadows of the cypress trees which grew all through the temples were black as ink, and their aromatic scent was all about me. As I tried to match my pace to master's stride, the owls of the lady hooted a warning about the coming day.

      `Then the suppliant should drink a soothing infusion of poppy, vervain and marshleaf. If there are no other breaks, I would take two rolls of bandage and gently push the nose back into line from inside the nostrils, then leave the bandages in place for three days until the nose begins to heal.'

      `What warnings for this treatment?'

      `Er... oh, yes, Master, the suppliant must not lie down on his back to sleep, but on his side or front, in case blood fills his throat and he chokes.'

      `Your are a good pupil, little Golden One.'

      I trotted faster to keep up with him and said, `I have good masters, Lord.'

      `Here we are. Now, Chryse, you will accompany the suppliants all the way to the dormiton and tholos. After that, you may come and see me and we will talk again. Do not interject with questions,' he added, smiling at me, `but save them for me when you have seen all there is to see.'

      I nodded, and he patted my shoulder and left me.

      There were seven people waiting in the reception temple. They were tired and dusty and priests were serving them with the sleepy broth, composed of chicken's flesh and onions, sage, rue and vervain, comfrey, barley and poppy. It nourished those who had fainted on the road and soothed the over-stretched nerves of the anxious.

      When I entered the temple the priest hurried over to order me out. `The master told me to follow the suppliant,' I protested.

      He cast me a harried look and muttered, `You cannot be seen here, dressed like that! Put this cloak on, boy. The psychopomp must not be visible until the cavern entrance.'

      I wrapped and pinned the himation which covered my purple tunic, and sat down against the wall as unobtrusively as I could. I had noticed that if I concentrated hard on not being seen, people's eyes skated over me. Besides, the patients were concerned with their own ills.

      There were four men and three women. Milanion, a soldier, with a spear point lodged in his jaw. Cleones, a woman with dropsy, swelled and uncomfortable, her skin so stretched that it seemed about to split. A pregnant girl who could not be delivered, panting and red faced with the effort of staying upright and conscious, her arms cradling her swollen belly.

      Mindful that no one was allowed to die or be born in the sacred precinct, I knew that the attendants would carry her out of the tholos as soon as her labour became productive.

      A child of perhaps four in the arms of his mother, whimpering in a strange monotonous voice. He had fallen down a cliff, chasing a goat, and hit his head, and now he was blind. His mother would lie down with the god and dream for him.

      There was a man seeking help for impotence, a woman hoping to be cured of barrenness and an Achaean with a bandaged foot, which had been broken and healed without setting properly, so that he could hardly walk. A bony man of perhaps forty clutched his belly, complaining that he could not digest his food any more and that his insides had rebelled against him.

      As Eos, the goddess of the dawn, trailed her golden draperies over the horizon, the suppliants began to talk, encouraged by the seven listening priests. I watched, secure as a mouse in a mouse hole, as the suppliants talked and the appropriate priest found the right patient.

      Milanion spoke confidently to Telops, who had been a soldier, when he would not have been comfortable with Achis, the slender Kritian. The pregnant girl held out a sweating hand to Achis, however, recognising something essentially female and understanding in him. The barren woman leaned into Thorion's shoulder, comforted by his bulk and strength, while the impotent man spoke quickly to Asius the eunuch, Attis Priest. Lapith the Corinthian spoke to the dropsical woman in her own dialect while the club-footed Itarnes was seized by the wounded Achaean.

      The temple was a babble of voices and I could only hear snatches of the conversations.

      `I got it at the battle of the deep valley,' the soldier was saying. `Near enough to killed me. There my brothers died and my father and uncle. I am the only one left of my grandfather's kin.'

      `I was given to him by my uncle, for my father is dead,' the pregnant girl gasped to Achis. `I hate him. He has said that he will kill me if I bear him a girl. I wish I were dead. I have been so long in labour that my bones are racked. I want to die.'

      `Death cannot be what life is, little sister,' said Achis gently. `The cup of death is empty, and in life there is always hope.'

      She began to cry. Achis gave her some more broth and his shoulder to rest her head.

      `It catches me here,' said the bilious man, `especially after a feast. I must have offended some god - but I've made offerings before them all, and nothing does me any good.'

      `We were ambushed and we had to run,' the Achaean said to Itarnes, `across the stream and up the ridge. We were hiding under a brow of stone when a boulder fell and crushed my foot. I couldn't scream. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. The scouts would have heard a fly rubbing its wings together. I did not

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