Free The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller Page B

was neutral and calm, factual. “Sometimes a limb must go. Those are for cutting, those for suturing. Often by removing some, we may save the rest.” He watched me staring at them, taking in the sharp, saw-toothed edges. “Do you wish to learn medicine?”
    I flushed. “I don’t know anything about it.”
    “You answer a different question than the one I asked.”
    “I’m sorry, Master Chiron.” I did not want to anger him. He will send me back.
    “There is no need to be sorry. Simply answer.”
    I stammered a little. “Yes. I would like to learn. It seems useful, does it not?”
    “It is very useful,” Chiron agreed. He turned to Achilles, who had been following the conversation.
    “And you, Pelides? Do you also think medicine is useful?”
    “Of course,” Achilles said. “Please do not call me Pelides. Here I am—I am just Achilles.”
    Something passed through Chiron’s dark eyes. A flicker that was almost amusement.
    “Very well. Do you see anything you wish to know of?”
    “Those.” Achilles was pointing to the musical instruments, the lyres and flutes and seven-stringed kithara. “Do you play?”
    Chiron’s gaze was steady. “I do.”
    “So do I,” said Achilles. “I have heard that you taught Heracles and Jason, thick-fingered though they were. Is it true?”
    “It is.”
    I felt a momentary unreality: he knew Heracles and Jason. Had known them as children.
    “I would like you to teach me.”
    Chiron’s stern face softened. “That is why you have been sent here. So that I may teach you what I know.”
    I N THE LATE AFTERNOON LIGHT , Chiron guided us through the ridges near the cave. He showed us where the mountain lions had their dens, and where the river was, slow and sun-warm, for us to swim.
    “You may bathe, if you like.” He was looking at me. I had forgotten how grimy I was, sweat-stained and dusty from the road. I ran a hand through my hair and felt the grit.
    “I will too,” Achilles said. He pulled off his tunic and, a moment after, I followed. The water was cool in the depths, but not unpleasantly so. From the bank Chiron taught still: “Those are loaches, do you see? And perch. That is a vimba, you will not find it farther south. You may know it by the upturned mouth and silver belly.”
    His words mingled with the sound of the river over its rocks, soothing any strangeness there might have been between Achilles and me. There was something in Chiron’s face, firm and calm and imbued with authority, that made us children again, with no world beyond this moment’s play and this night’s dinner. With him near us, it was hard to remember what might have happened on the day by the beach. Even our bodies felt smaller beside the centaur’s bulk. How had we thought we were grown?
    We emerged from the water sweet and clean, shaking our hair in the last of the sun. I knelt by the bank and used stones to scrub the dirt and sweat from my tunic. I would have to be naked until it dried, but so far did Chiron’s influence stretch that I thought nothing of it.
    We followed Chiron back to the cave, our wrung-dry tunics draped over our shoulders. He stopped occasionally, to point out the trails of hare and corncrakes and deer. He told us we would hunt for them, in days to come, and learn to track. We listened, questioning him eagerly. At Peleus’ palace there had been only the dour lyre-master for a teacher, or Peleus himself, half-drowsing as he spoke. We knew nothing of forestry or the other skills Chiron had spoken of. My mind went back to the implements on the cave’s wall, the herbs and tools of healing. Surgery was the word he had used.
    It was almost full dark when we reached the cave again. Chiron gave us easy tasks, gathering wood and kindling the fire in the clearing at the cave’s mouth. After it caught, we lingered by the flames, grateful for their steady warmth in the cooling air. Our bodies were pleasantly tired, heavy from our exertions, and our legs and feet tangled