Cassandra (15 page)

I put both hands over my face and wanted to die.

`So it is true,' said my master thoughtfully. `Arion, I apologise for calling you an obscene-minded wretch whose music was all below his girdle.'

`I forgive you. Boy, is it true?'

I nodded, wordless. I heard Arion draw in a deep breath.

`When we reach the top of the hill and can be overheard only by gods,' he said, `you must tell us all about it, little asclepid. We might have to run if this is known. We will have all the world trying to tear us apart from sheer envy. I might tear you apart myself. We will have to run fast.'

`Very fast,' agreed my master. `You always said that Libya was interesting, Arion.'

`Not Libya. Not far enough. Africa. Or the Hittite kingdoms. They say that they use a different form of music altogether. I may become anxious to study it.'

I set Pyla at the hill at a gallop, anxious to confess everything. At the top, I turned her and Arion scanned the horizon carefully. It was going to be a beautiful day to die. The sun was warm and the sky was a blue cap over the hills. Nothing was moving anywhere, not even birds.

`All right, Chryse, my son,' my master was not angry but there was a double line of pain between his brows, `tell us all.'

I stumbled through a detailed account of everything that had happened, from the questioning of the two servants through Elene's death-anticipating despair, to the transcendent moment when she pulled my mouth down to hers. I described her body, the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair. Arion's eyes glowed like coals. I told them about the woman who had kept the door and how Elene had dismissed me with a kiss and a shove, and how I loved her more than I could say.

`And I regret nothing, master,' I said defiantly. `Nothing. I could not have done otherwise if I was to die now for it. Kill me and I will still love Elene until a draught of the Styx takes my memory and I wander in wealthy Pluton's realm as a voiceless shade. I will yearn for her all my life.'

`The woman who kept the door - she was Elene's nurse?' asked my master. `Arion, your songs will live forever and you are a great and glorious bard.'

`What? I mean, I thank you, brother, for your esteemed opinions, but-'

`The tavern songs you pollute noble halls with, they all talk about the nurse as the accomplice of the lover. One who keeps the mistress' secrets closer than her own.'

`Certainly,' agreed the bard. `Does anyone else know?'

`The Lady Elene,' I said solemnly. `And I think Dikaos suspected something.'

`Yes, that was a rather stilted farewell,' Arion was tugging his beard. `But he will say nothing. He is appointed by the Atreidae, their adherent, and this would make them a laughing stock in every tavern in the Peloponnese. The brothers, those brutes Agamemnon Lord of Men and Menelaus Prince of Sparta, smother one girl with guards only to have her fall into the arms of a healer of Asclepius who is not yet a man? I could make a very funny song about it.'

`But you won't,' said Master Glaucus. Arion guffawed.

`No, I won't. I want to make many more songs and for that I need my full complement of arms and legs, my guts in my belly rather than spilled on the mountain side, my tongue residing in my mouth and my head firmly on my shoulders.'

`Master,' I laid my hand on his sleeve, `have I done a great wrong? I have broken my vows.'

`Wrong, Chryse? No. Fate, perhaps, brought us here into the lady's influence. You told us what she said. Women are unreasoning creatures, she would not have cared about the danger.'

I did not think that my Lady Elene was irrational. She had fought against her caged despair and accepted my solution with speed and intelligence. Everything she had said had been logical and true. There was only truth and love between the most beautiful woman in the world and Diomenes the healer. However, I did not argue with my master. It was still in the hands of fate to whether we would all die.

Then we had an omen.

Out of nowhere came two doves, the favourites of Aphrodite goddess of love. They were silver in the sunlight. No other birds were in the sky. They circled us three times, then came down to rest on my outstretched hands.

Holding my breath, I brought my hands together and they touched beaks and cooed.

Then, while we stared, they took flight together and in a moment they were gone. I could still feel the grip of their delicate claws on my fingers. One silvery grey feather caught and lodged in my hair.

`We are answered,' said Arion quietly. We mounted our horses and rode on for Mycenae.

We camped that night in the mountains. The nearest village was Irion, where I had been born. My master sent me there to buy food and to speak to my father.

I found him in the tavern, drinking red wine and laughing. He had grown old. I had thought of him as tall and strong. Now I was almost his height and his hair was grey. He was stooped with hard labour, his hands gnarled like olive roots. He did not know me.

I came to his side and said, `Father,' but he stared and did not speak. Then he brushed aside my hair and found the scar on my forehead. He gathered me into his arms and shouted, `Chryse! How is it with you? Are you alone?'

`I am travelling with my master, but he is in the mountains talking to the god, father. He sent you this.' It was a gold piece. My father took it and declared to the tavern, `Here is my son who is a healer priest.' The tavern grinned at me and I sat down. `I cannot stay, father. Is all well with you?'

`Well? Very well. The Corinthian woman my wife has given me four sons and two daughters, and they are healthy and beautiful. I bless the day you met with Death, Chryse.' A small boy came to my father's knee and whined to be picked up. My father hoisted him and said, `Here is your brother, Chryse. Give him a healer's blessing.'

I felt utterly alien and alone. Once all I had to look forward to was a life spent with the goats, my only dissipation the occasional bowl of wine at a festival, my only pride my strong sons and perhaps some skill. They might say of me, I had thought while I watched the clouds, that Diomenes was good with the animals or skilled at the harvest. Now I was a priest who had lain with Elene, princess of Sparta, and knew the mysteries of life and death.

I would have given anything, just at that moment, to be Diomenes the goatherd again.

However, I laid my hand on the child's head and blessed him. Then I collected bread and some roasted meat, a large cloth of cheese and, thinking of Arion, three flasks of the best red wine. They would not let me pay.

As I left, I heard the talk break out again. I suppose it was something that I conferred honour on my father by existing.

I walked to Pyla and rode slowly away from my village. No. I rode slowly away from Irion, a village like any other for a wandering healer whose home is in a god who does not exist.

The camp looked cosy in the firelight and I could hear Arion singing, not in his loud carry-to-the-end-of-the-hall-and-into-the-kitchen-to-amuse-the-slaves-voice, but softly and to himself. He was singing:

 

Elene of Sparta was fair as the morning,
Bright as the goddess of dawn.

He saw me coming and added,

 

Dangerous as an army with well-sharpened spears,
Against whom no breastplate of bronze would repel
The arrow that pierces the armoured heart.

 

I put down the food, broke the seal on the first wine flask and put it into his hand without speaking.

I could not bear to say anything of my father and of Irion. The bard swilled a mouthful and sang,

 

It would be sweet to come home,
Sweet to return to the hearth and the home,
But time and distance change the seeker
And changes the thing sought.
The river crossed on another day
Is always another river.

 

`Why do they call you Dolphin-Rider, Arion?' I asked, desperately seeking something which would take my mind off Elene and my lost home.

`Ah, well. I was ravelling, gathering songs, singing in great halls, a famed singer,' he began with a grin of teeth through the black beard.

Master Glaucus cut a piece of meat, salted it, and said dryly, `Famed singer because you sing so much of your own fame.'

`Of course,' responded Arion. `If I didn't, nobody might - not a risk any bard can afford to take. I had taken passage with a crew of what turned out to be Ionian pirates. It was all the fault of the Taureans, who gave me so much gold that I could not hide it all on my body; and those thieving Ionians had discovered it. They offered me a choice - jump or be pushed. I thought that it would be better to jump so I told them that I would sing a last song and then leap into the sea. They were all delighted to hear a song from the most famed singer in Achaea. I put on my singing robes, climbed up on the poop and sang my last song - oh, it would have broken your heart to hear me! - and then I leapt.

`It was cold water and disagreeably deep and I cannot swim, especially not with my robes and all that gold I had bound round my waist. I surfaced and lay as still as I could and then something butted me, hard, and pushed me forward. Then it swam around and did it again and I thought that a monster was about to make a meal of me. Finally the creature lost patience with my slowness and dragged me over its back - here are the marks of its teeth still on my arm.' He stripped back his sleeve and I saw a row of pinpoint dots, white against the brown skin.

`It was a dolphin, creature of Dionysius, which carried me all the way to Tarentum and then shoved me ashore, breaking a couple of ribs with its nose. I crawled up the beach and into the Temple of Dionysius where the priests dried me out and cared for me. I gave them all my gold to make an image of the dolphin.

`Then I travelled to the court, to wait for those pirates to appear. The king asked them for an account of my death, and they made rather a good story of the terrible storm which had swept me overboard minus, of course, my golden baggage. The sight of their faces when I walked from behind the throne in my salt-stained singing robes was wonderful.'

`What happened to them?' I asked.

`I expect they were executed,' said Arion carelessly. `That king was touchy on the subject, having been a pirate himself. Come now, let a bard eat and tell me of Elene of Sparta and how she felt, lying under you in the tapestried bed of the lord of Tiryns.' He grinned at me, wine running down to join the crumbs in his beard.

It was too much for the end of a long day. I walked away from the fire and climbed a tree. I think I chewed bark long after they were asleep, thinking of the beautiful and despairing Elene, of how much I loved her, and how these gross men would never understand the delicacy and purity of what happened between the princess of Sparta and me. Finally I fell asleep myself, and dreamed mercifully of nothing at all.

I do not know what my master said to Arion Dolphin-Rider, but we accomplished the rest of the journey without mention of Elene.

We came to Midea of the mountain about the last watch of the day. I could hear wailing and lamenting, the voices of men reproaching the gods for stealing one of their brothers.

We came gently up the last slope. A huge man was wiping tears from his grimy face with a dirty hand. He must have been bigger than Agamemnon, Lord of Men, and Agamemnon was the biggest man I had ever seen before.

`Healer!' he said and grabbed my master by the sleeve. `In there!'

Glaucus did not dismount but rode Banthos through the partially finished gate and into what would become the acropolis of Midea. The air was full of wailing and stone dust.

The crowd stood around a massive shape which groaned. Glaucus rode the horse into the mob, and Arion and I leapt down, shouting, `Make way for the healer! Glaucus, master of Epidavros, comes! Make way!' We managed to clear the people away so that my master could see his patient.

He was big enough to be the brother of the man at the gate. `Cyclopes,' whispered Arion. `I've never seen them before. Look at the size of him! No wonder they build wide doorways.'

The Cyclope was clutching at his chest and Glaucus took hold of his hands in both of his and commanded, `Chryse, get me water, bandages, and make some more poppy syrup. Arion, find the lord of this place and announce our coming, stable the horses, and find us some food. Now, friend,' he said, using his healer's voice, in which infinite trust could be reposed, `I am going to pull your hands apart and you are going to take a deep breath and help me.'

I did as he ordered. A slave girl brought water in a big cauldron and I set it over a smelter's fire to boil. Nothing but boiled water must touch a wound. Then I melted the remains of the poppy carefully in a small pot, adding honey and hot water to make syrup. The patient stared for a long moment into Glaucus' eyes, then allowed the healer to drag the protecting arms back.

He had a sucking wound in his chest. This means death, because the membrane which holds the lungs in place has been pierced and the vital essence is not being delivered to the heart. Glaucus clapped the palm of his hand over the wound and called to me, `Bring a pad of clean linen, Chryse, dipped in honey.'

I bought it and my master laid it over the wound. The dreadful sucking noise ceased, sealed by the honey. This would not save the Cyclope's life. We bandaged his chest and fed him poppy syrup, which went down, showing his stomach had not been too damaged.

We allowed his fellows to carry him with great care to sit against the most complete wall. They rigged a shelter over him and two of these monsters came to sit beside him and hold his hand. It was very touching. They were so huge and so gentle. From what they said, it appeared that a load-bearing beam had broken, and the shattered end had gone into their comrade's chest. Poor giant.

Arion had located the kitchen, the stables, and lastly the lord of Midea. He was a small and fussy man, an ally of Argos and Mycenae. I never heard his name.

He came busting into the yard where the Cyclope lay dying and demanded, `Why aren't you working?'

The first giant rose slowly to his feet and gripped the shoulder of the lord of Midea. It and the man came up into the air until they were a good yard above the ground. No word was said. Then the giant put the lord down again and resumed his place at his brother's side.