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when I died that I had not had a chance to be afraid; now I doubt I ever will be.
    That does not mean that I do not fight him when I have to. We have a good understanding, Thanatos the bright angel and I. I save all that can be saved; he comforts all that cannot.
    I told the master of Epidavros all about Thanatos and Morpheus when I awoke the next day, cured even though I had swallowed a handful of nightshade berries (I had seen ravens eating them, so I thought they were edible). He listened politely, until I told him that Death had kissed me. He exclaimed at that, and showed me my face in a silver mirror. I had never seen my own face before. My forehead was pale and high. I have brown eyes, the golden hair that made the boys call me `Chryse' and a long nose which my father said resembled my mother's. I smiled into the mirror, interested, because the boy in the mirror smiled when I smiled.
    But Glaucus, the master of the temple, was looking at my forehead. It was marked. There was a double line, a scar like a burn without puckering, the silvery mark of Death's lips.
    My father did not want to leave me at the Temple of Asclepius but the master gave him such presents - a young woman from Corinth as wife, two farm workers, half a flock of goats and a slip of the sacred olive tree, which bears more fruit than any other - that he left me with the master to learn to be a healer.
    I remember that they washed me in the lustral basin, gave me a clean tunic and cut a lock of my hair. Then they took me to the temple and the priests blew the sacred trumpets and lit incense before Asclepius. There was singing all about me. It was not a miracle - Death is the only god I have ever seen - but as I stood there in the cool carved temple with the morning sun spilling in through the columns, one of the temple snakes came out of its hole, flicked its forked tongue at me, flowed across the altar and coiled up between my hands.
    I was so small that I could only just reach both hands and my chin onto the altar, so I was eye to eye with the snake. It looked at me in the way of its kind, unemotionally, then rose a little to flick its tongue at each hand. Then it lost interest and coiled up again in a patch of sun.
    I thought it was interesting, but it did not impress me as the angel had done. Behind me, I heard the assembled priests gasp. The snake belongs to the Mother, of course; Earth, the mother of all men. But the house snakes in the temple belong to Apollo the Archer, who bestowed the gift of healing on Asclepius and his followers. Master Glaucus embraced me as I came down the steps and told me that I had been greatly favoured.
    I was sleepy and hungry and overawed by the great temple and all the people. The master seemed as tall as a pillar, his white hair flowing, his white beard curling around like tree roots. His face was all bones, his nose like the prow of a ship his eyes as black as midnight and as sharp as a needle. He picked me up, wrapped in his mantle, and I fell asleep on his shoulder.
    He took me into his own house, to be educated with his own sons and other pupils. I was much younger than they were - they were young men and I was a child - so instead of oppressing me they adopted me as `Death's Little Brother'. Macaon and his brother, Podilarius, taught me riding and dicing and how to play the lyre. I was a complete failure at hunting, as I hated killing things, but they did not despise me, saying instead, `Here is Asclepius' tender plant, healer of wounds.'
    Though I could not hunt, I could sing. We sang a lot. Beautiful, delicate harmonies praising the god in the temple, and rough Phrygian and Achaean drinking songs for the tavern. I never sang the war songs, saying my voice was not suited to blood and death and heroes.
    The temple of Asclepius was not a sad place. People died there, it is true, but many people were born there and most of our patients lived. Some were touched by the god. Some were mad. The god sends dreams to