`Thank you, sister,' she said, and the Amazons left abruptly, which is a way that Amazons have.
We fought death for our sister Oenone all night, the next day and into the following night. She floated in the green water, wailing to be allowed to die, and Tithone would not let her. `You have a task,' she told Oenone briskly. `You won't evade it by dying, daughter.' Even so, dosed with all the herbs we could think of, massaged and supported, she could not deliver and she was weakening fast. Tithone summoned me from the hall, where I had been dismissed to eat. I came to her with my piece of barley bread in my hand.
`Go up to the temple,' she said. `Ask the god. In this matter the goddess has done all that she can.'
I bolted my bread as I ran, up the steep street to the Temple of the Sun God and in through the door. I found my brother Eleni there and ran into his embrace. I had not realised how terribly bereft I had been until I felt his gentle touch and buried my face in my accustomed place beside his neck. A wave of love swept over me. Eleni had missed me as I had missed him, like a crippled woman misses her right hand.
Mysion, the priest of the Temple of the Sun God, was watching us. He was a tall thin man with delicate features who usually moved like a cat, but now he grabbed both of us and hustled us into the shrine.
`The god is calling you,' he urged. `Kneel and speak to him!'
The shrine glowed gold with the presence of the god. Eleni and I shut our dazzled eyes and knelt, holding hands. `Eleni and Cassandra,' we announced, `here to learn the will of the god.'
There was a voice, although we did not hear it with our ears.
`Both is more than two,' it said. `Go to the river god's daughter, both of you. Turn the child in the womb. You have my favour, twins. Come in three days at noon and bring the nymph's son. Run!' boomed the golden voice. `I can only wrestle Death for a little time.'
We turned and ran. I believe that I ran most of the way with my eyes shut. We burst into the Palace of Maidens completely in defiance of the rules that no man may enter, just as no woman may enter the Palace of Youths. Perseis made a place for us and we splashed into the pool.
We did not know how to proceed but the god guided us as we felt and fumbled at the entrance to the womb. There was a gasping scream and the baby emerged, spilling blood into the pool. Eleni and I caught the creature in our clasped hands, holding its head above the water. A red face contorted with fury.
Eleni and I embraced in the blood-stained pool, as the daughter of the river god was at last delivered of Pariki City-Destroyer's child. With his beloved body in my arms, I refused all evil premonitions.
It was a difficult audience, even for Arion.
The hall at Mycenae is very large, taking up most of the main building on the acropolis. Because the Cyclopes prefer to build in circles and spheres - I wondered if it had anything to do with their religion - it is an oval shape and fully eighty paces from one door to the other. A hole in the roof let out the smoke from a huge fire burning on the central hearth. There must have been a hundred men in that room, all drunk, chewing bones and throwing them down to start irritable snapping fights among the hunting dogs which every guest seemed to have brought.
Slaves threaded the crowd with difficulty, carrying ewers and refilling the flat wine cups which the Achaeans use. They are called kylixes and that is the only useful information I got out of my seatmate, a dour youth who glowered into his cup and muttered to himself about Argive Elene, most beautiful of women, and how she would never look at him. He seemed very hurt when I instantly agreed. After that I sampled and pushed aside some roast goat which tasted dangerously aged, drank a little diluted wine and amused myself by surveying the men who had come to settle this most dangerous of marriages.
The dais was unoccupied, but the first tables were crowded with princes jealous of their standing. There were two men fully as big as Agamemnon - it appeared that they were both called Aias. Several men were engaged in a high-pitched argument which was becoming acrimonious. Knives had been drawn. The smell of unwashed flesh, expensive scented oil and smoke was overwhelming. I turned my gaze inward and I remembered Elene, the strength of her arms, the softness of her breasts, the scent of her hair. My reverie was not to last. Somewhere to the left, a slave went flying as a clubbed fist punished him for spilling wine on a nobleman. He fell at my feet, bleeding from the jaw.
I began to wonder if I was going to like the Achaeans. I began to wonder why anyone liked them. My master had not allowed me to help with the injuries and illnesses in the palace, saying that such brutal language was not for young ears, so I was feeling professionally slighted. Here was someone I could help.
I hauled the offending server up and felt for broken bones. The mandible was dislocated. His teeth were out of alignment and his tunic front was stained with saliva and blood. As Arion began to sing, I escorted the slave out of the hall and into the anteroom, where a distracted person began to roar at me, noticed my healer's clothes, and waved me into the kitchen.
The kitchen was as hot as a smithy. I could not operate in such conditions, so I led the man outside and sat him on a low wall.
`Heracles went forth,'
began Arion in a voice which would have silenced a bigger army than the crowd in the great hall.
`Child-Killer Heracles, Battle rage gone, pursued by the Kindly Ones, Heracles went forth,'
he bellowed the last line and the babble of voices cut off. No one, however lofty, dared offend a bard. The populace was still laughing at Arion's ballads about a certain miserly monarch who had refused a thirsty bard sufficient wine. The man had been called `coin arse' ever since, in reference to where Arion said he hid his money.
The slave was shivering as I turned his face into the available light from the kitchen door.
`It's all right,' I said softly, in imitation of my master's tone. `It's not broken, just dislocated. You aren't badly hurt.'
I put one hand under his jaw and one to the side and gave a controlled blow which clicks the joint back into place. He gave a yelp, spat out a tooth, and passed a trembling hand over his face. I produced a flask of mingled poppy and wine - we had replenished our medical supplies - and made him drink it.
`Take some of this,' I said, sitting beside him. `Can you speak Achaean?' He looked blank so I tried Phrygian, Carian, the island speech and then Trojan. At the sound of the words his eyes lit and he dropped to his knees and embraced my feet.
`I am Eumides the Trojan,' he whispered, the sibilants hissing through the missing teeth, `Master.'
`I am not your master. I am the healer Chryse and I am only an acolyte. Come, sit next to me. I will explain to the cook,' I added, as he cast a fearful glance at the kitchen door. I left Eumides washing his damaged mouth with water and went to the kitchen door. The harassed man looked up at my entry.
`Your slave is hurt. I will sit with him a while,' I said arrogantly. No more than one offends bards, will anyone obstruct an asclepid if he says that things will be thus or so.
`As you say,' he mumbled. `He's useless anyway. And an army coming, they say - what will become of us? I can't feed another army.'
`When the league is signed they will all go home,' I said soothingly, snaring a loaf of wheat bread and ladling myself a large bowl of what smelt like meat soup. I took a handful of olives and several figs and sent a kitchen slave for a jug of diluted wine. I had this meal carried out to Eumides. The soup and bread were for him, the figs and olives for me. I had not been hungry in the great hall, but now I was reminded that men must eat. He looked up at me as gratefully as a dog does, and it made me ashamed. I was uncomfortable and spoke sharply.
`You can eat if you do it slowly and try not to chew,' I instructed. `Your jaw will be sore for several days and any sidelong blow will throw it out again.'
`They beat me for not understanding their language,' he said matter of factly, `but I will duck next time. And it was worth it to see this much food. Agamemnon Lord of Men has no provender to spare for the unfree.'
He broke the bread into the soup, and began to eat, savouring each mouthful. I watched him as the moon rose high and silvery and full. After he had cleaned the bowl I gave him a little more wine and I sat eating figs and staring out onto the walls.
`There is a strong guard,' I said idly. I could see a forest of spears.
`We expect a siege, when the suitors of Elene arrive. If the Lord Agamemnon gets here first, the nimble one may be able to stitch together a league which will make a truce possible. Otherwise, Elene will not get unravished to Sparta.'
I winced at the thought.
`You speak Trojan very well,' he noted. `Where did you learn?'
`We learn all languages at Epidavros because all people come there,' I said, struck with how long ago and very far away that haven of peace seemed.
`You are a healer priest,' he said. `I thank you for my healing, and for your kindness to a slave, and even more for your words in my own tongue which I never thought to hear again.'
`How long have you been here?'
`Three years. I was a sailor who was wrecked off the coast of Pelop's land. Most of the others drowned. There was a woman, but she has been married off for a long time. The Argives like Trojan women and she was a very good spinner. Ah, Healer, it is good to speak like a man again. What can I do to repay you?'
`Speak, if you are not in too much pain.'
`What shall I speak of?'
`The House of Atreus.' I knew that he needed to do something for me and I wanted to know. `Tell me about the Atreidae.'
`Ah, long and terrible,' said the Trojan slave, `long and full of horrors is the tale of the House of the Double Axe.'
He turned so that his back was against the wall and his voice fell into the story-teller's chant. I suddenly realised that he was quite young, maybe only a few years older than me.
`It began with Tantalus,' he said, careful of his broken teeth. `He who stole nectar from the gods and sold it to men, Zeus' son, the mischievous gossip who told tales of the gods. He wanted to offend Zeus, so he invited him to a meal and cooked his son Pelops as the main course. It offended Zeus as he had planned.
Now Tantalus spends all eternity in crystal water which withdraws as he tries to drink it, in reach of apples which fly away when he tries to bite them. His thirst is measureless, his hunger monstrous, and there he stands fast until this day for offending the king of the gods, Cloud-Compelling Zeus the Father.'
`What happened to Pelops?'
`Zeus uncooked him, except for his shoulder which had been burned off. He replaced it with an ivory one. Pelops decided to marry Hippodameia, whose father Oenomaus bested all her suitors in a chariot race. The daughter sawed through her father's axle, so that he fell and Pelops won. Then Pelops slew the father and married the daughter and they had two children, Atreus and Thyestes. Ah, the hatred between brothers! Atreus married Aerope, but she lay with Thyestes and bore him two children. Cuckoos in a nest! Atreus invited his brother to a dinner to make peace between them, and the main dish was...'
`No, no, it can't be, it is too awful.' I protested.
`Both children,' said Eumides with relish. `Dead and roasted like suckling pigs. Thyestes ran: he is supposed to have lain with his own daughter - she was a priestess - and they say there was a child because of this incest, the cousin of the lord, Aegisthus. Atreus had two sons, Menelaus and Agamemnon, who are very close. Perhaps the taint has gone. Menelaus has married the Lady Elene - is she really the most beautiful woman in the world, Healer?'
`Yes. Go on.'
`And Agamemnon, Lord of Mycenae, married Clytemnestra, the mortal sister of Elene. He took her from her husband and killed him, then tore her baby from her arms and dashed it by the heels against the wall. She has had several children by him.'
`But...' I could not think of any words to express my outrage and my Trojan was deserting me. The slave leaned against my knee and smiled.
`Orestes, Electra, Iphigenia. Beautiful children, but with that blood in them, the blood of the house of Atreus...' mused Eumides.
`The blood of the house of Atreus,' said a cool voice behind me, in Achaean. As I turned, Eumides leapt to his feet and fled.
Odysseus of Ithaca sat down next to me. I heard his leather armour creak as he settled down. He smelt of something cold - perhaps water. He must have just bathed. `What were you listening to, Asclepid?'
`The history of this house,' I said. `A terrible history, if what Eumides told me was true.'
`Terrible and true. You speak Trojan well.'
`So do you,' I realised. He laughed softly.
`Asclepid priest, Chryse God-Touched,' he said. `By what god?'
`Death, Lord.'
`Ah, yes.' He took up Eumides' abandoned cup and filled it with wine. `You interest me, Chryse.'
But I was offended with him; he had scared away my patient and he was drinking my wine. `Lord?' I acknowledged.
`You tended the slave - why?'
`Because he was injured and I am an asclepid.'
`And our god would be affronted if you did not care for all?'
`There are no gods, Lord, just Thanatos Lord of Death. My own self would be offended if I did not care for those who need me.'
`Most interesting indeed, my healer priest. Does your master think the same?' His voice was not sweet like Arion's. It was smooth, full and strong, a very persuasive voice. I wondered if he was trying to trap me into saying something about my master which he could later use against him. So I replied primly, `That is for my master to say, Lord.'
`I'm not trying to snare you with words, Chryse. Did you think of this yourself, or were you taught it?'
`Lord, I thought of it myself.'
`Hmm. Did you? A most unusual priest. Let me tell you something. I entirely agree with you. If there are gods, then they have other things to do. The interventions for good or ill that men proclaim are the work of gods, are accident; pure accident. Or there is another view, much argued on Cnidus. If gods exist, they take notice of men only in the way, perhaps, of moving them like pieces on a board. But they have no hearts to be moved; no pity, no mercy, no love, no interest in the puppet twitching of the dolls that dance to their piping.'