Electra (22 page)

It was not even full. Eumides, who had been expecting treasure, sighed. There was a case, such as the Asclepids use to hold surgical instruments. Three folded tunics. A shell-shaped white stone, identical with the one I had seen in my dream. A very fine healer's chiton, embroidered with gold around the neck and in bands down the front. A chunk of rock with amethysts in it. Perhaps forty coins, some Phrygian trading silver and some gold of Mycenae.

Chryse scrabbled under the tunics and came up with a pair of small sandals, worn through at the heels. He sat with them in his lap for a long time, and he did not speak.

I wondered for the first time about the string of amber beads which Chryse always wore around his neck. A charm-bundle was attached to them, something closely packed and precious sewn up in a bag of oiled kidskin. I had seen it a thousand times but never wondered what it was. Now I wanted to know. I wanted to know very badly.

Eumides caught my thought, but we could not break our friend's reverie.

Master Glaucus looked in and beckoned, and I rose and went to him.

'Princess,' he drew me outside into the dazzling hall. 'I ask as an old man, and one who considers Chryse his son. What is your will with him, Lady?'

I took no offence. He was plainly as worried about Chryse as we were.

'I mean to love him, my Lord, and I mean to stay with him and our sailor. I have lost Troy, Master Glaucus, and Priam and all his lordship have passed. I have no rank now. I am just Cassandra.'

'Arion says,' he paused, then went on, 'I have never known that old scoundrel wrong about matters of love or fate, Lady. That, perhaps, is what being a bard means. He knew that Chryseis the golden maiden would die - he knew it months before it happened.'

'He is a bard of great skill and his Goddess is with him,' I agreed impatiently. 'What says the old man?'

'He says that Chryse cannot stay here. Because you and the sailor cannot stay here.'

'Is Epidavros still afraid of the mere remnants of Troy, Master?' I was surprised and affronted.

He laid an old hand on my shoulder. 'No, Princess, I do not explain myself well. You are a healer, a dedicated woman, a priestess of the Mother Demeter, are you not?'

I nodded.

'You could stay in the temple of the Mother in Epidavros village, tending to her worship as a true daughter of Hygeia, though you could not act as a healer in this temple. But you are a disgraced and dismissed priestess of Apollo also?'

'That is true.'

'This is a shrine of Apollo, Lady. He would not allow you to stay here.'

'In Delphi they said that he had cast me out,' I said. 'Pythia said that he had released me.'

'And yet, Lady.' His eyes were deep and wise, and I understood him. He was right. We had brought Chryse home, but I could not stay here. My eyes filled with tears against my will, and I turned my head so that the old man should not seem them.

Eumides, coming behind me, encircled my waist and demanded 'What have you been telling the princess, Master?'

'That she cannot stay here in Apollo's shrine. I am distressed to have hurt her, but my oath requires the truth. But there is nothing to hinder you going wherever you like, Trojan.'

'The world is wide,' he agreed, holding me close. 'But hollow without our Asclepid. He will pine without us, even in this peaceful place. Ask the bard, Master.

'I am only a simple fisherman and do not understand these great matters, but there are certain birds, Master, the soaring geese who mark the turning of the year for the Trojans, and if one is shot, her mate will mourn until he dies; as she would for him. We have rescued the widower-bird, but it took two of us. He cannot live without us, Master of Epidavros. Nor we without him. We are trios.'

'So Arion says. But you may stay for at least a while, most welcome guests. You are xenos of the temple and you may not sail until the end of summer.

'I must accustom myself to losing my dearest son,' Master Glaucus said sadly. 'And Chryse has something which he must face.'

'What is it, Master?' He gave us a long look, then bent and whispered. Eumides and I drew closer together.

We knew the secret, and it was a cruel one.

In a week we had learned the ways of the temple of Epidavros. The acolytes, some as young as nine or ten, were each allotted a tutor, and they accompanied him as he made his rounds, tending to the wounds of the world.

Each suppliant was given that sleeping potion, and lay down in the tholos underground to wait for their cure to be revealed in a dream. Priests in masks confronted them on their journey into the earth, so that they were in the proper frame of mind when the drug overtook them, and dreamed to a purpose.

It seemed pointless to me. Then I remembered my own teacher, Tithone, whose hair was considered lucky. She always tied it close and wore a veil, telling me with a wry smile that a charm, if it was to work, must be rare and hard to obtain. Thousands came to Epidavros with intractable illnesses and left cured. The method obviously worked. I hoped it would succeed with our friend.

We watched as Chryse was led by the hand by a child dressed like Hermes into the bowels of the earth. Itarnes the Asclepid took us by a straight, paved path into the circular chamber and we sat at Chryse's feet as he closed his eyes.

'We listen for his dreams,' said the priest, solemnly.

'How?' asked Eumides.

'He will speak,' said Itarnes. 'They all speak.'

For a long time we sat in the darkness and heard the sleepers moan. One cried out, shockingly loud in that confined space, crying for mercy, for help, and no one answered, no one soothed him with soft words or touch. Eumides held me in my place, stilling my urge to spring up and do something to stop that heart-racking scream.

Then Chryse began to talk. We leaned close to hear the words.

'Lost,' he mourned. 'Lost, lost, are they alive?' Then he murmured so that we could not decipher any meaning, until he cried aloud, 'Oh, Chryseis, that you should die for them to live! Come Furies, come Strife and Chaos, kill them, they have no right to live, no right to live, no right…' he mumbled his way into incoherence again.

We sat looking at each other. It was worse than we had feared. It was not loss which hollowed our Chryse's heart. It was hatred; so deep that we had never felt it, burning out his insides.

We found the bard, Arion, sitting in the courtyard, tuning his lyre. He sounded better. His colour was high and he breathed deeply, and I heard no wheezing when I laid my ear to his chest. He held my head close to him for a moment, then kissed my forehead.

'A song,' he announced. The three of us sat down on a bench in the sun and prepared to be amused, instructed or enlightened, as he wished.

When the flesh is cold as stone,

When the pulse of heart is gone,

On cold pathways I will travel,

Crystal waters I will drink.

Then I will forget, forget,

Then I will forget,

Forget the flutter of maiden's tunics

Forget the taste of wine.

 

When the fire scalds out my eyes,

When the blindness steals my sight,

On hot winds I will be blown,

Fierce furnaces will suck my breath.

Then I will forget, forget,

Then I will forget.

Forget the wind, forget the clouds,

Forget the scents of earth.

Therefore rejoice, living men,

Breathing ones with beating hearts.

Therefore rejoice in hearth and field,

Rejoice in byre and hall.

Remember flesh, remember love,

Remember the kiss of lips,

Remember grape and the taste of bread,

Rejoice in the hyacinth.

'I composed that after seeing the spring again, after Troy had fallen,' he said comfortably. 'Have some wine, Asclepid, you look pale. Have you heard the news? Odysseus is missing again. Someone sighted him off Circe's isle, heading west, but no one has heard of his landfall.'

'He will fall on his feet,' said Eumides admiringly. 'Or someone else's. That is a cunning man, the Prince of Ithaca.'

'And there is trouble at home,' Arion said. 'I hope he gets there soon. The dark-skinned ones, the Dorians, are threatening to take his wife, Penelope, and thus the kingship; saying he is dead. She refuses to believe it, but she may be overborne. And Penelope is the only person that Odysseus, Prince of Ithaca, loves.'

'He spoke to me of her,' said Chryse, tempted into conversation. 'A woman of unparalleled beauty and virtue, he said. He will be furious when he hears. They brought him into the war by threatening his son, Telemachus. Penelope. Yes. He said she was the only human he trusted.'

'Not otherwise a trusting man, then?' I asked, hoping that he would continue to talk.

'No.'

'You met the monster Achilles, Chryse,' said Eumides. 'What was he like?'

'As beautiful as a girl, with long fleecy golden hair and strange grey eyes. And the Gods had made a stone of his heart,' replied the Asclepid.

Arion sent the boy back for some more wine and began to pluck the lyre again.

Elene of Sparta was fair as the morning,

he began, looking at Chryse.

Bright as the Goddess of Dawn.

Dangerous as an army with well-sharpened spears

Against whom no breastplate of bronze would repel

The arrow that pierces the armoured heart.

For some reason, Chryse slammed down his cup and ran out of the courtyard towards our room.

'What was that about?' I demanded.

The bard grinned his enchanting, lopsided, grin, settling his singing robes around him.

'It was an exceptionally well-made ballad about Elene of Sparta,' he answered; which was no answer at all.

Chryse dreamed, but we could not enter his dream. We could not soothe him and we could not seduce him, and we refused to make love with each other while he lay stone-faced and alone. He spent hours staring at the line of suppliants coming up the white road to the temple, and would not confide in us.

After a month of this, Eumides was getting restless. We were sitting together on the cool marble bench in the Master's courtyard when he said in Trojan, 'Perhaps I was wrong.'

'Wrong about what?'

'Wrong about Chryse. Perhaps we should leave him, Cassandra. Perhaps he will heal if we are gone.'

'No, we can't! What of Arion and trios? How can he live without us?'

'Is he happy with us?' he asked. I curled a strand of his black hair around my finger.

'No,' I agreed. 'But that is not us. The secret is eating him. He is here, in his master's house. He can no longer ignore it - ignore them. He must face it. And perhaps we are helping him, Eumides. Perhaps we are useful to him, just by being here.'

'And that is true,' said a quiet voice, in Trojan, behind us. Chryse stood there. He was as pale as the marble bench, his courage screwed together for some great test.

'Come with me now,' he said, and we came, going through Master Glaucus' hall and the main room and into a room behind. An old woman, brushing a squirming child's hair, looked up in surprise.

Chryse sat down on her bed, and two children leapt for him, fascinated by his golden hair and the amber necklace.

'They are my children,' he said flatly. 'They are called Chryse and Chryseis.'

They were identical, golden-haired, with Chryse's wide grey eyes and strong, stocky bodies. '
Kala
,' they cooed, swarming up into his lap and stroking his face with soft little fingers. '
Kala
, pretty, pretty.'

'Their mother died bearing them,' he said in that same distant voice, as Eumides' hand met mine and clasped hard enough to hurt. 'I cursed them when they were born, and I have hated them all their lives. But it is not their fault that Chryseis is gone. They have a right to live, and a right to my love.

'I have let her go,' he said desolately. 'I have, at last, let my golden maiden go.' And he began to cry out his loathing into their golden curls, while they pouted at his tears and kissed them away like good children. Their nurse slid out from between Chryse and the wall and left the room without a word, returning with Master Glaucus.

And still Chryse wept as if his heart was broken, and the twins hugged as much of him as their arms could encompass. I was holding my breath that they would not decide to do something inappropriate which would break his relieving tears, but they were as close as Eleni and I had been. We must have appeared so, I and my lost Eleni. I realised that I had not thought of him in months, and began to cry as well, which brought Eumides in, and we all sat on the floor of the little room and wept for our lost loves, until Chryse and Chryseis, catching the mood, began to roar and hiccup, and Chryse, their father, stopped crying to comfort them.

The nurse brought honeycakes, which stilled our tears, and we talked to the twins.

They knew their names, their numbers, and Chryse broke into tears again when he heard his son declare, 'There are two herbs to be used in all cases, given to us by the Lord Apollo. They are vervain and basil, the king of herbs.'

After an hour, the Asclepid looked up at the Master and said, 'By the help of the God, Master, I am healed.'

This was evidently a ritual phrase, for Glaucus laid a hand on his head and replied, 'May health be yours for the rest of your life, and may you never need healing again. The blessing of the God go with you, my son.'

'Here is my replacement,' he said, patting his son on the belly so that the child giggled. 'And here is my Chryseis reborn. You will marry her well, to a kind man?'

'As if she were the daughter I never had,' said Master Glaucus.

'Then they are yours,' said our Chryse. 'And tomorrow, Master, we will leave.'

That night we slept wrapped together in relief and exhaustion, and never heard the cock crowing for our journey.

Eumides was occupied in Kenchraie, a typical seaside village: stone houses, driftwood fires and the scent of drying fish. The boat-builder's yards were slowing down for high summer when we came and hired a space and bought the tools and woods we needed to build a well-found, hollow ship, the kind that the Achaeans call deep-bosomed.