"I'll have your wounds clean, your back dried up, every inch of you healing properly and your fever cooled before morning. Here, Agathemer, help get him abed."
They washed my back and laid me, naked as I was, on the quilt laid over the bed of leaves, then they covered me with the other quilt.
"You two keep close till I come back," Chryseros advised. "Someone else might use this path. I'll be back soon and I'll arrange to excite no suspicion."
When he returned he had me out on the flat-topped stone, washed my back and wounds, and then bathed them with some lotion which, when first applied, felt cooling and soothing, but almost at once burnt into me till every part of my back, my hip and both my shoulders smarted worse than had the one shoulder as the brand seared it: at least that was how I felt. I writhed and groaned.
"Keep still!" Chryseros admonished me. "Keep quiet! This is doing you good."
And he chafed my back, inundating it with his fiery liniment till I was on the verge of fainting from mere pain. Half fainting I was as the two raised me to my feet and put the tunic on me, as they helped me back to my bed in the little grotto. When I was recumbent Chryseros made me drink a nauseous, black, bitter liquid and then lie flat.
"Keep there till morning," he said, "and fast. Food can do you no good while you have such a fever and fasting can do you no harm."
Actually I was asleep before I knew it and slept all day and all night, not waking until Agathemer, when Chryseros ordered it, roused me. They pressed on me a quart bowl of milk warm from the cow, and I drank most of it. I felt much better and Chryseros pronounced me free from fever and after he had inspected my back and wounds and again inundated them with his fiery lotion, declared all inflammation had vanished and that I was healing up properly. He enjoined Agathemer to let me have no food but milk, said he would bring more after sunset, and told us to keep close in the niche. I slept all day long, and after a second draught of milk at dusk, all night till the sun was well up.
I woke feeling stiff and sore, uncomfortable on my back, hip and shoulders, but with no positive pain anywhere: also I felt like my usual self. And I may say here, parenthetically, that I never had another day's illness through all the vicissitudes of my flight, hiding, adventures and misfortunes.
Chryseros brought me milk; excellent wheat bread; a smooth and appetizing veal-stew, with beans and lentils in it and seasoned with spices; cheese newly made from fresh curds, and luscious plums. He let me eat my fill and drink all the milk I wanted. But he would not let me taste the wine of which Agathemer drank moderately.