Free Cassandra by Kerry Greenwood

sleep.
    `Where are you?'
    `In the temple,' said the child.
    `What can you see?' came the soft, insinuating voice.
    `Asclepius.'
    `What colour is he?'
    `Gold and white.'
    Itarnes gasped. I said, spattering crumbs, `It is a memory. He has seen the temple before.'
    I spoke too loudly, or perhaps the priest was listening for dissent. He held up a coin before the blind child's eyes.
    `What is this?'
    `Round gold thing,' said the child mechanically. A peasant's child, he would never have seen golden coins.
    `What is the picture on it?'
    `A bird.'
    That silenced me. There might be no gods, but there were healer priests who could restore sight. I had finished my bread and cheese and felt altogether more real. I was also very impressed.
    Macaon ordered that the child was to stay very still for several weeks while the break healed. Still with Hypnos, he had not cried or even blinked. His mother carried him out of the temple, weeping with relief.
    I returned to the herb store and found my master sorting medicinal herbs and arguing with Polidarius.
    `I can't stay here all the time,' he was saying. `Healers must travel, or how are they to learn? The temple will do very well without me. This is not a long journey - I shall be away perhaps a month. I must go to Tiryns and Mycenae, and maybe then to Corinth. They say that there is a plague in the villages and that will spread unless it is checked. I know I could send you or one of the others, and I do not doubt your skill. But I grow stale in this sacred place. Ah, Chryse. Was the child healed?'
    `Yes, Master. He did not even cry. What is this dream of Hypnos?'
    `It works on some - the young and those willing to trust. In that sleep there is no pain, none at all. The child was completely in the hands of Hypnos Priest. If he had ordered, the boy would have seen demons, or felt that he was flying. Hypnos Priest will instruct you when you are older. It is not a skill to be given to the immature. Are you ready to go?'
    I drew a deep breath. `Yes, Master.'
    `Good. My son tells me that you are a good rider. Go choose yourself a horse, then, and order mine made ready. We shall sleep tonight in Kokkinades. West, a day's easy ride.'
    Itarnes escorted me to the stables. The master's horse was called Banthos, the dappled one. He was a proud beast, prone to snap at an importunate hand, but smooth as a husked chestnut and trained to have an easy, comfortable gait. I told the slave to saddle the master's horse, then I walked to the end of the stables and patted noses, looking for my favourite.
    She was a little mare. I called her Pyla because she came from Pylos, an offering to the temple from a merchant cured of an itch which had maddened him enough to consider suicide. He had left without his itch (poultices of fresh marshleaf, dock and lychnis and infusions of valerian and comfrey) and had delivered three colts a month later. Pyla was the colour of good Kriti honey, with an affectionate nature and an especial craving for hawthorn flowers. She was young and strong and used to me. Not perhaps a well-bred horse, but broad in the beam and accustomed to mountains. I found her head gear and saddled her, slinging my rolled cloak across her willing back.
    Then I led her and Banthos out into the sunlight. The master came, still arguing with Polidarius, and mounted, settling his robes. Itarnes hugged me and I returned the embrace. `Good fortune and the gods be with you,' he said, grinning.
    I mounted Pyla and trotted at the master's side out of the gates of the temple of Asclepius and into the road.
    Though I had been on this road before, I had been six and I did not remember it well. When we came out to the north, the road split, one part going west to Tiryns, the other east to the town of Epidavros. I had often gone east with the other apprentices, seeking taverns to sing and drink wine in. But I had never gone west and I had always wondered where the road led.
    Now I was going to find out. I was thirteen years