Cassandra (5 page)

`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 make a sound, not then, and not when my brothers hauled me across the rough ground. By the time we got home my foot was a mass of broken bones and nothing to be done. I am less than a man, I dare not marry lest my children bear club feet too. I healed, though it would have been better if I died.'

`I am a man with grown sons, all of them clean and handsome' said Itarnes, exhibiting his deformed foot. `And there was a hero with a swollen foot, worse damaged than you. His name was Oedipus.'

`And look what happened to him,' said the patient sourly. `Killed his father. Married his mother. Spent the rest of his life wandering blind until he finally died in Theseus' territory and caused a war.'

`Come now, how many wars have you caused?' Itarnes asked, and the suppliant laughed, almost against his will.

`He will sell me,' mourned the barren woman to Thorion. `My only chance is to have a child, a son. I love him, and am so afraid! He will sell me to the Corinthians who know not the Mother, or to the barbarians from Caria.'

`Or to the pygmies, who will make you a goddess,' murmured Thorion, `or to the Massagetae who will teach you to ride a horse and fire a bow. A terrible fate, little sister, to be given to the Amazons who fight like men, or to the Tauraeans who eat human flesh.'

This did not seem to be a comforting statement and I wondered why Thorion had made it. The woman burst into tears and Thorion continued, `Or to the Trojans who are masters of horse, to live in windy Ilium of the tall towers and scatter grain before the triple goddess. Or to the Hittites, to worship the pillar of the sun and eat porridge. Or to the Phoenicians, to sail on their well-found ships and visit many ports, bargaining for tin as far as the Cloudy Islands, or down the coast of Africa to trade for gold with men as black as night, so far away that the stars are strange. You spirit is in fetters, little sister. The world is wide. Why are you so afraid of it?'

The woman wept loudly. The impotent man was saying to Asius, `I was given her as a present. My wife is old and has borne many sons. This new girl is a slave and so beautiful - black as a serpent and lithe like a willow. I wanted her, I lay down with her, she was willing, and then - nothing. She laughed at me and I beat her and now she is sullen and my wife is angry with me. I am old and my seed is dry within me. I am as impotent as you, Attis Priest. Sex makes a man. Like this, I am a woman, helpless, laughable, useless.'

`There are more things that make a man than his sex,' said Asius.

I listened carefully, trying to sieve meaning out of what sounded like common gossip, to be heard in every agora in any village. Just so had my elders talked when I came with my father to sell goats and cheese in our own village. It was the speech of the women at the market stalls, discussing pregnancy and birth and death and the best lichen brew for dyeing cloth. It was the talk of old men sitting on benches in the shade drinking watered wine and talking, endlessly talking, about old battles and lost heroes and the ways of the neighbours. I could not see the sense in it but I had been ordered to accompany the suppliants and I would never have disobeyed Master Glaucus.

After hours of this conversation, the suppliants were taken, one by one, into the temple next door, where they were stripped of their clothes and jewellery, bathed with lychnis and warm water and clad in the white robes of those who go to meet the god. I went with the pregnant girl Païs, horrified by the distension of her belly, which curved out abruptly from slim legs and narrow hips.

 

There was no shame in nakedness before the god and his priests, although the Achaeans required such modesty of their women that we often received suppliants who had concealed some disease of childbearing so long out of shame that they were incurable except by the god himself. Most of them died. At least at the temple they died without pain, possessed by the sleep of Hypnos the dreamer.

Païs was carried in Achis' arms to the entrance of the temple. I stripped off my cloak behind a laurel bush, straightened my wreath, and came forward to take her hand.

`I am your guide, Lady,' I said giving her the honorific for all women - Pronaea, the Mistress, whom the Athenians call Palla Athene. Her hand was strong in mine, sweating and hot. `Can you walk?'

She leaned on Achis a little and then straightened, her back arched against her burden, walking on her heels with her free hand cradling her belly. `I will walk,' she said proudly. `I will thus die sooner. I want to die.'

I drew her gently forward into the dark, and the dazzling brightness faded as we paced along a dry, sandy incline. We turned the first corner, and the light was cut off. Her hand clutched mine.

`Do not let me go!' she cried, and I held tight, saying, `Lady, I will not let you go,'

First turn to the left, and the first god. Ares, god of war in his golden mask appeared and Païs gasped. `Hatred butchers in the heart,' said the god, and vanished. I led her on, slowly, second to the right and the next god. Aphrodite, goddess of love, masked, scented with jasmine, stroked the suppliant's cheek. `Love is stronger than death,' she said. Païs sobbed. Further into the soft dark, and another goddess; Artemis the virgin, masked and angry; `You betrayed me!' she cried and I felt Païs flinch. Zeus appeared and said nothing, only laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, and Demeter, pregnant with Spring, whispered, `Don't be afraid, little daughter.' Hera, the crowned queen, bent her head in acknowledgement, then we were past into the cavern, Païs sobbing and stumbling behind me, Hermes the guide of the spirits, psychopomp, in purple and gold.

She lay down in her place and I covered her with a blanket made of the finest white lamb's wool. Achis, who had come the direct way and was waiting for her, sat down at her head and she slept. There was only one more god for her to meet, and it was Apollo, the Sun God, who would come in her dream.

My next suppliant was the old soldier, Milanion, whose hand was cold and calloused in mine. He started when Ares loomed out of the dark.

`Your comrades are dead,' said the god in a great voice. `Dead and gone, resting in the Elysian fields or paid the toll to Charon. You cannot call them back, warrior.' Then we went on, past Aphrodite, who smiled; Hera, who frowned; Artemis, who seized his wrist and hissed, `Release my warriors, old man, they are my huntsmen now!'; and Zeus, who extended a shadowy hand and laid it on his head. `Live,' said the god. I led Milanion down into the cavern and delivered him to sleep. He had not said a word.

I went back to the direct tunnel to the surface, and took the barren woman by the hand. Her skin was chill and dry. She did not speak and never altered, although Ares ignored her, Aphrodite slapped her, and Demeter the Mother sprinkled her with pollen, honey scented in the dusty darkness.

The others had all been led through the back passages to their sleeping places. I carried the only light, a pearly bead of flame in my oil lamp. Usually I went back to the surface once my task was done - I did not really like the dark - but I had been ordered to watch. I sat down by the wall and cradled my little light.

Each sleeper lay outstretched, head to the north, feet to the south. Each attendant priest sat at the sleeper's head, listening to whatever words might fall from their lips as they dreamed. I wondered whether I would see a god, one perhaps as splendid as Thanatos had been when I was so young.

I saw no god. I heard the sleepers muttering. The Achaean with the broken foot began to scream, a hoarse, sobbing cry of mortal pain. It seemed to go on for years. I nudged his attendant, my friend Itarnes.

`It's all right, little brother,' he whispered. `That is the scream he has been keeping inside all these years. He needed to release it.'

`Won't he wake the others?'

Itarnes smiled and shook his head. He was right. Everyone was concerned with their own inner torments.

A priest in the mask of Demeter approached Païs, knelt, and ran his hands up her thighs, so that she parted them. I could not see what he was doing. My friend explained. `The baby is twisted in the womb and cannot be born. We can move it into the right position and thus she will be lighter of her son.'

`Then why send her here to lie down in the dark?'

He hushed me with a finger on my lips. `To give the god a chance to intervene. The gods are benign, but they need means to their hand, and we are their instruments. Hush, little brother. You are here to watch.'

I watched. I saw Milanion's finger scratching at his jaw, where the spear point was immovably fixed in the hinge of the bone. I had examined him myself. The injury had partially locked the jaw, and no force would have removed the metal. Now he was so relaxed by poppy-laced broth and the holy sleep that he was clawing a slit in the skin and removing the spear point with his own fingers.

A priest in the mask of Apollo lay down next to the barren woman. In her sleep, she moaned, an animal noise full of desire, and pulled at the robe, dragging the priest on top of her. I do not know who it was, the mask covers the whole head. Should she have opened her drugged eyes she would have seen the golden face of the god looming over her, a man's body caught in her arms.

I watched in astonishment as the suppliant's robe was pushed aside and the bodies joined. The barren woman cried aloud in what sounded like triumph.

Itarnes laid a whole hand over my mouth, sensing that I was about to say something unwise and far too loud.