Cassandra. Kerry Greenwood

a sound, not then, and not when my brothers hauled me across the rough ground. By the time we got home my foot was a mass of broken bones and nothing to be done. I am less than a man, I dare not marry lest my children bear club feet too. I healed, though it would have been better if I died.'

      `I am a man with grown sons, all of them clean and handsome' said Itarnes, exhibiting his deformed foot. `And there was a hero with a swollen foot, worse damaged than you. His name was Oedipus.'

      `And look what happened to him,' said the patient sourly. `Killed his father. Married his mother. Spent the rest of his life wandering blind until he finally died in Theseus' territory and caused a war.'

      `Come now, how many wars have you caused?' Itarnes asked, and the suppliant laughed, almost against his will.

      `He will sell me,' mourned the barren woman to Thorion. `My only chance is to have a child, a son. I love him, and am so afraid! He will sell me to the Corinthians who know not the Mother, or to the barbarians from Caria.'

      `Or to the pygmies, who will make you a goddess,' murmured Thorion, `or to the Massagetae who will teach you to ride a horse and fire a bow. A terrible fate, little sister, to be given to the Amazons who fight like men, or to the Tauraeans who eat human flesh.'

      This did not seem to be a comforting statement and I wondered why Thorion had made it. The woman burst into tears and Thorion continued, `Or to the Trojans who are masters of horse, to live in windy Ilium of the tall towers and scatter grain before the triple goddess. Or to the Hittites, to worship the pillar of the sun and eat porridge. Or to the Phoenicians, to sail on their well-found ships and visit many ports, bargaining for tin as far as the Cloudy Islands, or down the coast of Africa to trade for gold with men as black as night, so far away that the stars are strange. You spirit is in fetters, little sister. The world is wide. Why are you so afraid of it?'

      The woman wept loudly. The impotent man was saying to Asius, `I was given her as a present. My wife is old and has borne many sons. This new girl is a slave and so beautiful - black as a serpent and lithe like a willow. I wanted her, I lay down with her, she was willing, and then - nothing. She laughed at me and I beat her and now she is sullen and my wife is angry with me. I am old and my seed is dry within me. I am as impotent as you, Attis Priest. Sex makes a man. Like this, I am a woman, helpless, laughable, useless.'

      `There are more things that make a man than his sex,' said Asius.

      I listened carefully, trying to sieve meaning out of what sounded like common gossip, to be heard in every agora in any village. Just so had my elders talked when I came with my father to sell goats and cheese in our own village. It was the speech of the women at the market stalls, discussing pregnancy and birth and death and the best lichen brew for dyeing cloth. It was the talk of old men sitting on benches in the shade drinking watered wine and talking, endlessly talking, about old battles and lost heroes and the ways of the neighbours. I could not see the sense in it but I had been ordered to accompany the suppliants and I would never have disobeyed Master Glaucus.

      After hours of this conversation, the suppliants were taken, one by one, into the temple next door, where they were stripped of their clothes and jewellery, bathed with lychnis and warm water and clad in the white robes of those who go to meet the god. I went with the pregnant girl Païs, horrified by the distension of her belly, which curved out abruptly from slim legs and narrow hips.

      There was no shame in nakedness before the god and his priests, although the Achaeans required such modesty of their women that we often received suppliants who had concealed some disease of childbearing so long out of shame that they were incurable except by the god himself. Most of them died. At least at the temple they died without pain, possessed by the sleep of Hypnos the dreamer.

      Païs was carried in Achis' arms to the entrance of the temple. I stripped off my cloak behind a laurel bush, straightened my wreath, and came forward to take her hand.

      `I am your guide, Lady,' I said giving her the honorific for all women - Pronaea, the Mistress, whom the Athenians call Palla Athene. Her hand was strong in mine, sweating and hot. `Can you walk?'

      She leaned on Achis a little and then straightened, her back arched against her burden, walking on her heels with her free hand cradling her belly. `I will walk,' she said proudly. `I will thus die sooner. I want to die.'

      I drew her gently forward into the dark, and the dazzling brightness faded as we paced along a dry, sandy incline. We turned the first corner, and the light was cut off. Her hand clutched mine.

      `Do not let me go!' she cried, and I held tight, saying, `Lady, I will not let you go,'

      First turn to the left, and the first god. Ares, god of war in his golden mask appeared and Païs gasped. `Hatred butchers in the heart,' said the god, and vanished. I led her on, slowly, second to the right and the next god. Aphrodite, goddess of love, masked, scented with jasmine, stroked the suppliant's cheek. `Love is stronger than death,' she said. Païs sobbed. Further into the soft dark, and another goddess; Artemis the virgin, masked and angry; `You betrayed me!' she cried and I felt Païs flinch. Zeus appeared and said nothing, only laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, and Demeter, pregnant with Spring, whispered, `Don't be afraid, little daughter.' Hera, the crowned queen, bent her head in acknowledgement, then we were past into the cavern, Païs sobbing and stumbling behind me, Hermes the guide of the spirits, psychopomp, in purple and gold.

      She lay down in her place and I covered her with a blanket made of the finest white lamb's wool. Achis, who had come the direct way and was waiting for her, sat down at her head and she slept. There was only one more god for her to meet, and it was Apollo, the Sun God, who would come in her dream.

      My next suppliant was the old soldier, Milanion, whose hand was cold and calloused in mine. He started when Ares loomed out of the dark.

      `Your comrades are dead,' said the god in a great voice. `Dead and gone, resting in the Elysian fields or paid the toll to Charon. You cannot call them back, warrior.' Then we went on, past Aphrodite, who smiled; Hera, who frowned; Artemis, who seized his wrist and hissed, `Release my warriors, old man, they are my huntsmen now!'; and Zeus, who extended a shadowy hand and laid it on his head. `Live,' said the god. I led Milanion down into the cavern and delivered him to sleep. He had not said a word.

      I went back to the direct tunnel to the surface, and took the barren woman by the hand. Her skin was chill and dry. She did not speak and never altered, although Ares ignored her, Aphrodite slapped her, and Demeter the Mother sprinkled her with pollen, honey scented in the dusty darkness.

      The others had all been led through the back passages to their sleeping places. I carried the only light, a pearly bead of flame in my oil lamp. Usually I went back to the surface once my task was done - I did not really like the dark - but I had been ordered to watch. I sat down by the wall and cradled my little light.

      Each sleeper lay outstretched, head to the north, feet to the south. Each attendant priest sat at the sleeper's head, listening to whatever words might fall from their lips as they dreamed. I wondered whether I would see a god, one perhaps as splendid as Thanatos had been when I was so young.

      I saw no god. I heard the sleepers muttering. The Achaean with the broken foot began to scream, a hoarse, sobbing cry of mortal pain. It seemed to go on for years. I nudged his attendant, my friend Itarnes.

      `It's all right, little brother,' he whispered. `That is the scream he has been keeping inside all these years. He needed to release it.'

      `Won't he wake the others?'

      Itarnes smiled and shook his head. He was right. Everyone was concerned with their own inner torments.

      A priest in the mask of Demeter approached Païs, knelt, and ran his hands up her thighs, so that she parted them. I could not see what he was doing. My friend explained. `The baby is twisted in the womb and cannot be born. We can move it into the right position and thus she will be lighter of her son.'

      `Then why send her here to lie down in the dark?'

      He hushed me with a finger on my lips. `To give the god a chance to intervene. The gods are benign, but they need means to their hand, and we are their