Monsters of Greek Mythology, Volume Two (29 page)

“This man is Melampus, the healer. So miraculous are his skills that he pulls people back from the brink of death. In fact, he has been known to retrieve those who have gone over the brink. Thus, he robs Hades of subjects and is loathed by that dread lord. Empusae were sent against him today. The next time it may be Furies, and they are a different matter, a thousand times worse. They'll scourge the flesh from his bones. His only hope is to let the dying die and not meddle with the dead at all.”

“True, true,” muttered the man. He ruffled Palaemona's hair and arose. “You're all right, my girl. You'll be able to take that bandage off in a day or so.”

“Let us go, Master,” said the serpent. “The sooner we're back in Thessaly, the better. You'll have to stay there no matter how many fishermen get their stupid heads bashed in.” The serpent turned to Palaemona. “He promised me he'd keep out of sight until Hades cooled off. But this message came—that the river clans here had begun to fight over fishing grounds, and battered bodies were strewn about the banks. So he forgot all his promises.”

“I took precautions,” said Melampus. “I came in deepest secrecy. No welcome, no torches, no display. Slipped in, worked fast, and slipped out.”

“Deepest secrecy,” said the serpent. “That's why the Empusae knew exactly where to find you.”

“They wouldn't have known if we hadn't stopped to do what had to be done.”

“Yes,” said the serpent. “We would have been in Thessaly by now except he heard some bees bragging about people stung to death and the honor of the hive upheld. So the good doctor left his skiff and came inland, restored the others and worked on you all night. Delighted to see that you're yourself again, little one, but now I must get him into hiding before Hades learns that he has been deprived of three perfectly good corpses in one night.”

Melampus had put on his black cloak. “I'm ready,” he said.

“Take me with you,” said the girl.

“What?”

“I want to go with you.”

“Oh, no!”

“Please, sir, I'm so lonesome. The people I lived with, the woodsman's family, were all killed or kidnapped—all except me. And I have no friends here except a few animals … and this young man who doesn't even know he's my friend. So please take me.”

“Impossible.”

“Please. I need to go with you.”

“You don't know what you're asking. I live alone except for this fellow now and then, and some other attendant beasts. Because of Hades' anger I don't even treat humans anymore, if I can avoid it. Just animals. I live the simplest, roughest kind of life.”

“Sounds wonderful. Please take me.”

She moved close but did not dare touch him. She turned her face up so that he could see all she meant.

“As I see it, doctor,” said the serpent, “she might be useful. I licked her ears, you know. She understands the language of beast and bird. You could use an unsalaried assistant in that unpaid practice of yours.”

“Why did you come to her with the gift of tongues?”

“I was sent.”

“I see.”

He had not looked down into her face. Now he did. The black fire of his eyes stabbed down into hers. “By all the fiends of hell, have I not troubles enough that I have to take on this weird little runaway?”

She shivered in the rough music of his voice.

“Oh, thank you,” she whispered.

Again that night the black skiff slid down the river, towed by the serpent. There was no moon, and Melampus sat in the stern with his head unhooded. Palaemona crouched in the bow, listening to the frogs and the birds who fell silent as the snake passed. This smooth rush through the darkness, the faint chorus of strange, intelligible voices resembled the voyages of sleep, and she was terrified lest she awake in the woodsman's hut, having dreamed the bloody head and swift Rhoecus and the giant bee—having dreamed the hands of Melampus. Must she awake to find herself as she had been before dread and joy? But she was awake; it was all happening. She was on her way to Thessaly with him. And the joy swelled until she could not sit still. She wanted to laugh, shout, sing. She wanted to jump in the river and swim. But she had been told that she must not even whisper until they came out of the river into the sea.

Her thoughts began to float. She bit her hand to keep herself awake. She resolved not to sleep until they reached Thessaly. Until then there was still some chance she might awaken into the old mode—dwarfed, frozen, calling after playmates who ran away.

The trees paled; birds clamored. Palaemona slept. They passed through the mouth of the river and into the sea. The serpent pulled the boat around a headland and held it still as Melampus raised sail and fixed a rudder oar. The serpent swam to the stern and raised his head.

“I must go now,” he said.

“Thank you, friend,” said Melampus.

“I'll come to you as soon as I can.”

“I know.”

“Please go into hiding.”

“I mean to keep out of sight.”

“Farewell,” said the snake, and slid away.

Palaemona awoke to a tilting sail and a new movement—a surge and a lilt. She rubbed her eyes. They had come out of the darkness into a great wash of light. Melampus sat in the stern, steering with a big, hinged oar. The wind tugged at his hair and beard.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Where did the serpent go?”

“To his master.”

“Doesn't he belong to you?”

“No one owns him, not even Apollo, whom he serves. He is an oracular serpent, one of the seven sacred pythons of Delphi. But he is the wiliest of all, and other gods borrow him for special tasks. Befriending me was his own idea. He comes to me whenever he can, but it cannot be often, for I am no favorite of the gods.”

“I thought only Hades hated you.”

“He is the worst.”

“Has he always pursued you?”

“Well, ever since I took up the family trade, which I started training for when I was a lad. Actually, the feud goes back much farther. It began with my ancestor, Asclepius, who was a healer such as the world has never seen. He answered every call, took no fee, and descended upon battlefields more swiftly than the vultures to work among the wounded. He saved so many people that he kindled the wrath of Hades, that black curdling rage that will pursue the Asclepiads unto the last generation …”

He fell silent, and gazed across the water.

“Tell! Tell!” cried Palaemona.

“Well,” said the man, “Hades came like a whirlwind out of Tartarus, roaring up the slope of Olympus. He appeared before Zeus and lodged his complaint. The King of the Gods listened attentively to his eldest brother, who accused Asclepius of trespass, robbery, and sacrilege, of offending the dignity of all the gods by challenging the authority of any god.

“Zeus nodded. He hurled a thunderbolt. Asclepius was in a hut in Thessaly, tending a shepherd lad who had been crushed by a falling rock. Thunder spoke from a clear sky. A tongue of flame hooked down, touching the straw roof of the hut. It flared like a torch. Asclepius was burned to death. The shepherd also, and his parents, and his dog.”

“I hate Zeus!” cried the girl.

“Hush! Never say that.”

“I don't care! I do! I hate Hades and I hate Zeus.”

He clapped his hand over her mouth. “Hush, I said.” She began to weep. He drew her down to his lap and held her. A dolphin leaped clear over the boat. The sea was a million points of light. He stroked her hair. She tried to stop crying but could not. She thought of Asclepius—whom she pictured as looking exactly like Melampus—saw the flames, heard the screams of the shepherd lad. Tears poured down her face and into her mouth.

He pushed her off his lap and stood up, holding her by the arms. “You know,” he said, “I think you've grown taller.” She stopped crying. “Look,” he said, “we met only three days ago. You came just to here on me. Remember? Now you come up to here. You've grown that much in three days.”

“I don't believe it,” she whispered. “You're just trying to …”

“I'll tell you why. It's because you did the other kind of crying.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are two kinds. Mostly we weep because we are sorry for ourselves. And these tears of self-pity diminish us. But there is another kind of grief, one that pierces an unsullied heart when others suffer. Such tears enlarge us. You weep for Asclepius dead. And you grow, my child.”

She stared at him silently.

“And you know what?”

“What?”

“I shall tell you many sad stories, and we shall catch your tears in a jug and pour them into a barrel. When you have a barrelful you may drink it, and—”

She whipped away from him, huddling in the boat's stern, looking back at the wake. “A barrel isn't enough,” she said. “I'm so hatefully small I'd have to drink a lakeful.”

“Careful,” he said. “You're beginning to grieve for yourself. You'll shrink again.”

“I don't care.”

“Yes, you do. So do I.”

Her yellow eyes flared. He smiled. “Now Palaemona, if you're very good and believe all my sad stories and weep barrelsful, you shall drink of them. And instead of being the smallest girl in the world, you will be the tallest.”

He saw that her face was wet. He drew her to him and kissed her eyes. “Too salty to drink,” he said.

She shuddered. His lips were gentle and cold, like those of a nurse kissing a child.

5

The Garden

Palaemona had not eaten meat since seeing the flies clot on the head she had broken with a rock. At first she thought her distaste would vanish with time. But then she had learned the language of animals, and it became unthinkable to eat anything she could talk to. Melampus, who had conversed with bird and beast since childhood, also refrained from meat, and had come to consider a spare diet essential to health. He did not forbid meat to his patients, but encouraged substitutes such as cheese, nuts, and unfertilized eggs.

It was important then to grow a garden near the cave in which they dwelt, an abandoned bear's den in a foothill of Mount Pelion. Melampus dug the garden in a flat, sunny spot near the base of the hill and, after some weeks, left it wholly in Palaemona's care. During her lonely childhood she had helped the woodsman's wife care for a kitchen garden, and knew about mulching, manuring, weeding—but Melampus taught her much more. He taught her to listen to the plants.
Listen
isn't quite the right word, however, for much of what they uttered could not be heard; most of it was gesture, which he taught her to read. It is a difficult language, but less so when you have learned to converse with a creature like a turtle, who has almost nothing to say and says it badly.

She learned the language of plants and was able to understand when they told her of their changing needs in all weathers and all seasons. She grew beans, onions, tomatoes, pepper, garlic. She had a garden of herbs and a small stand of barley. She did not have a separate flower garden because Melampus had taught her that certain flowers sowed among the rows of the vegetable patch served to drive away harmful insects.

Melampus also kept goats: three milk goats and a billy goat. They also fell into her keeping. Being able to speak to them, she controlled them by voice and did not need the services of the big shaggy dog whom she kept for companionship, and who insisted nevertheless in officiously herding the goats here and there.

So her days were very full, although Melampus was rarely there. Despite the danger, he had not stopped treating humans. His only bow to prudence was in trying to limit his practice to the poor and obscure, people whom Hades would be less likely to notice had been pulled out of his clutch. The shepherds' byres and farmers' huts he visited were miles apart, and his rounds consumed the daylight hours. But he returned to the cave each night and, no matter how weary he was, always had a meal with Palaemona and spent some hours talking to her.

He played the lyre superbly, and taught her to play. And, as he touched the strings in the firelit cave, his deep voice wove itself in and out of the simple melody, singing her the old, old story-songs of Thessaly.

Sometimes, he played without speaking. At such time, she knew, he liked her to ask him questions so that he might build a story upon the answer. It was his way of teaching; he preferred to do so without seeming to. This night she said, “Tell me about the centaurs. Are they really half person, half horse?”

“Not really.”

“Is it all a lie?”

“Not exactly. It's a rumor based on a mistake. Actually, I'm the reason that story started. In the mountains up there live some very quarrelsome tribes, always invading each other's hunting grounds. So between border skirmishes and tribal feuds, not to mention private quarrels, I get a lot of bone setting and wound stitching to do.”

“Where do the centaurs come in?”

“I'm getting to them. It's rough country up there, and I've been lame since birth, so I depend for transportation on the kindly oreades, who are mountain nymphs, you know—huge powerful lasses, very kind and generous if they like you. And when I'm faced with a long journey one of them always carries me on her back. So rumors spread about creatures that were half woman, half mare. And the story grew as stories do, and became the legend of the centaurs.”

“Will you take me to see them sometime?”

“Of course, if you want to go.”

“Yes, I want to.”

“My next trip then. But I don't quite know when that will be. Black fever has flared in the lowlands, and I'll be busy there.”

“Will you take me to the lowlands?”

“Too much fever.”

“If I catch it you'll make me better.”

“If you don't I won't have to. It's a thing to avoid. Besides, who will take care of the garden?”