the-song-books.yossr

Chapter Nine
THE NEXT MORNING I WOKE TO THE SOFT SOUNDS OF Chiron getting breakfast
readyy. The pallet was thick beneath me; I had slept well, and deeplyy. I
stretched, startling a little when myy limbs bumped against Achilles, still
asleep beside me. I watched him a moment, rosyy cheeks and steadyy breaths.
Something tugged at me, just beneath myy skin, but then Chiron lifted a hand
in greeting from across the cave, and I lifted one shyylyy in return, and it was
forgotten.
That dayy, after we ate, we joined Chiron for his chores. It was easyy,
pleasurable work: collecting berries, catching fish for dinner, setting quail
snares. The beginning of our studies, if it is possible to call them that. For
Chiron liked to teach, not in set lessons, but in opportunities. When the
goats that wandered the ridges took ill, we learned how to mix purgatives
for their bad stomachs, and when theyy were well again, how to make a
poultice that repelled their ticks. When I fell down a ravine, fracturing myy
arm and tearing open myy knee, we learned how to set splints, clean wounds,
and what herbs to give against infection.
On a hunting trip, after we had accidentallyy flushed a corncrake from its
nest, he taught us how to move silentlyy and how to read the scuffles of
tracks. And when we had found the animal, the best wayy to aim a bow or
sling so that death was quick.
If we were thirstyy and had no waterskin, he would teach us about the
plants whose roots carried beads of moisture. When a mountain-ash fell, we
learned carpentryy, splitting off the bark, sanding and shaping the wood that
was left. I made an axe handle, and Achilles the shaft of a spear; Chiron
said that soon we would learn to forge the blades for such things.
Everyy evening and everyy morning we helped with meals, churning the
thick goat’s milk for yyogurt and cheese, gutting fish. It was work we had
never been allowed to do before, as princes, and we fell upon it eagerlyy.
Following Chiron’s instructions, we watched in amazement as butter
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