Soldier of Arete Page 17

  Oeobazus fell silent until Io asked, "Didn't he do it?"

  "Yes, he did. He nodded and smiled again, and promised me that all three would be left behind in Susa. Next morning, when the army marched north, my sons lay beside the road with their throats cut, so that every soldier who passed might see with his own eyes what happened to those whose—" Oeobazus stood up, and seemed for a moment to wash his face in his hands. "I apologize. You asked why I was trying to get to Thought, and instead of the straightforward reply to which you were entitled, I've inflicted this rigmarole on you. If you'll excuse me now, I think a quiet ride around the city might help me sleep."

  When the door had shut behind him, Acetes cleared his throat and spat into the fire. "He really ought to have somebody with him, but you can put me down for an idiot if I see how we can do it."

  A boy's voice from the back of the room called, "I'll go, sir. He won't see me."

  I turned around to look, as did everyone else. It was not the richly clad youth from Parsa (as I had expected), but a boy a good deal younger, clothed in a ragged sheepskin.

  Io shouted, "Polos!" as he slipped out the door; a moment later we heard the clatter of hooves as he galloped away. Io was on her feet. "Master—"

  "Absolutely not!" I caught her arm and forced her down again.

  "I just wanted to ask him where he'd been," Io explained. "I haven't seen him since last night."

  "He was with us before?"

  Hegesistratus told me, "Yes, in the Great Mother's sacred cave. This morning you said he had been talking with you beside your fire last night, but had gone for water and never returned. I suppose he must have followed us."

  Elata, who I think must seldom speak to more than one, now said, "He makes himself useful whenever he can and bears a happy heart— I'm glad that he's decided to stay with us. But, Io, your master's right. The night streets of this troubled city are no place for a young girl."

  The black man nodded emphatically.

  Hegesistratus refilled his cup. "They will be back soon, I think; if either was going into danger, I did not sense it. Io, this seems to me a good time for sharing nuts and telling ghost stories, not worrying about absent friends. You told me a fine one on the ship—how your master was present when a necromancer raised a dead woman, remember? I know he cannot recall it, and I doubt that the others have heard it; so why not tell it again?"

  Acetes exclaimed, "That! By the Maiden, I've never been so frightened in my life. Io wasn't there. I suppose she got it from the poet— he was from Hill, too. You don't do that sort of thing, do you, Hegesistratus?"

  "Necromancy?" The mantis shook his head. "I have laid a ghost or two, and I questioned one once." He swirled the wine in his cup and peered into it, seeing more in the flickers of firelight reflected there than I would have, I think. At last he said, "Our ghosts are becoming worse, have you noticed? It used to be they were no more than lost souls who had wandered away from the Lands of the Dead, or perhaps never reached them, spirits no worse dead than they had been alive, and frequently better. Such were the ghosts of which my masters told me when I was younger; such, indeed, were those I myself encountered as a young man. Now something evil is moving among them." He paused again. "Have any of you heard about the things that happened to Captain Hubrias? Do you know about the White Isle?"

  Acetes shook his head; so did the black man, Io, and I.

  "It was two years before the war, so he told me. His ship was off the mouth of the Ister, becalmed in fog, when the man at the masthead called down that he heard music and the beating of many wings. They had been talking on deck, I imagine, but after that they listened, and they heard the same sounds. Soon they realized that what they had taken for a thicker bank of fog was in fact an island with white stone cliffs and a beach of white sand. Hubrias told me he had sailed those waters since he was a child, and he knew perfectly well that there was no such place—but there it was."

  Io asked, "What did he do?"

  "Nothing, really," Hegesistratus continued, "until a man in armor appeared upon the beach. He waved and shouted for them to send a boat; Hubrias assumed he wanted to be taken off, so being curious about the island, he had four of his crew row him over. He soon realized, however, that this man was more than a common soldier; he was as handsome as a god, Hubrias said, and looked as strong as a bull. As soon as they had sand under the bottom, Hubrias jumped out and saluted him, assuring him that he and his ship were ready to serve him in any way he wished.

  " 'I am Achilles,' the ghost informed him, 'and I require a favor from you.' As you may imagine, Hubrias told him that he needed only to name it. 'Then go to the temple of Athena Ilias,' the ghost told him. 'There you will find a slave called Chryse. Buy her from the priests and bring her to me.'

  "Hubrias swore he would, naturally, and jumped back in the boat as quickly as he dared. Just as they were putting out, the ghost told him, 'She is the last of Priam's line—treat her with honor!'

  "They sailed to the Troad with fair winds all the way, and Hubrias located this girl; she was about fourteen, he said, and had been keeping house for one of the priests. He paid a stiff price for her and lodged her on his ship in as much comfort as a ship permits, requiring her to do no work. He told her that she was intended as a gift for the king of an island in the Euxine, and she promised quite willingly always to speak well of him to this king."

  Acetes asked, "What happened when he got back to the island?" I myself was wondering whether Hubrias would be able to find it a second time.

  "Off the mouth of the Ister they met with fog again." The mantis shook himself and emptied his cup, tossing the lees into the flames. "But this time there was a good wind. Hubrias said they had to reef their sail again and again; even so they nearly ran aground on the White Isle. The ghost was there, waiting for them on the sand; and standing beside him was the most beautiful woman that Hubrias had ever seen. It had been over a year when I talked with him, yet his eyes lit up still each time he tried to describe her to me. There was something in her that beckoned to you, he told me. You knew she was the proudest woman in the world—and the most humble. There was not a man alive, he said, who would not have laid down his life for her, and been happy to do it.

  "He had tricked out this Chryse in amber beads and so on, and they put her in the boat and rowed her over. She knelt to the ghost and the woman—who was a ghost as well, no doubt—and they clasped hands when they saw her.

  " 'My friend,' the ghost told Hubrias, 'you have served me well. Go in peace, and I promise you will not go unrewarded.' Hubrias said that after that he could not seem to make an error in navigation, or even do a bad trade. He paid silver and was repaid in gold, as the saying goes. If he wanted to go south, the wind was in the north; and when he was ready to come back, it was in the south. He was already a local magnate when I spoke with him. He owned an estate near Tower Hill and was thinking of buying another."

  "Well, that doesn't sound like such a bad ghost to me," Io said. "I don't think I'd have minded meeting that one."

  Hegesistratus shrugged. "Perhaps not. But as Hubrias was sailing away, he heard a scream. He turned then, he said, and looked behind him. The ghost was holding Chryse above his head by an arm and a leg, while the beautiful woman watched. Chryse screamed again, calling Hubrias by name, begging him to return and save her. Then the ghost tore her apart."

  I heard the long O-o-o-h! of Io's indrawn breath before Elata laughed. "Is that really true?" I asked Hegesistratus. "Did it actually happen?"

  He shrugged. "I did not see it. But I myself talked with Hubrias, and I believed him. No player from Thespiae could have looked as he did when he described the woman, or sweated as he did when he described the death of the slave girl. Acetes, tell us about the raising of the dead woman in Thought. Was that as bad?"

  Acetes had just crushed a walnut between the heels of his hands; he picked at the meat as he spoke. "Worse. I've seen a man killed by a bear, and I don't think that what your ghost did to the
slave girl could have been much worse than that. This was. We'd all gone to a hetaera's—Hypereides, the kybernetes, the poet, a couple of other fellows, and me. Latro belonged to this hetaera then, and he was on hand to keep us in line. There was lots of good wine and some of the best food I ever ate, and the girls were real lookers—"

  Someone—I suppose that it must have been the black man—had barred the door after Oeobazus and the boy had left. Now someone pounded on it, and I heard the boy shout, "Let us in!" The black man and I hurried over, lifted the bar, and pulled open the heavy door. Oeobazus and Polos stumbled into the firelight, half-carrying a fat old man with blood streaming down his face.

  TWENTY-THREE

  At This, My Zygite Bench

  I MUST FINISH WHAT I began writing last night. I have just now reread it all, and I confess that I think myself rather foolish for having recorded Hegesistratus's story in as much detail as I did; but the time we spent about the fire, between the time the Mede left and the moment when he and Polos returned with Cleton, seems very precious to me; I think that Io and I cannot have had many such moments, times of comfort, free from danger. Perhaps that is why Io speaks of Kalleos's house in Thought as she does. Kalleos was the hetaera Actes mentioned, she says.

  The old man was nearly unconscious when Oeobazus and Polos carried him in. While Hegesistratus and Elata saw to his wound, Acetes, the black man, and I questioned Oeobazus. He said that he knew Cleton because Cleton had come to see him while he was a prisoner in the temple of Pleistorus. He had seen him standing in the street arguing with half a dozen Thracians. There had been a woman servant beside him holding a lamp—its light had attracted his eye. He had just recognized Cleton when one of the Thracians cut at him with a sword. The woman had dropped her lamp and fled; and the boy—Oeobazus had not known his name—had dashed up to help. Together they had lifted Cleton onto Oeobazus's mount and brought him here.

  "He'd said he was a friend of your master's," Oeobazus told me, "and I know he was a friend to me while I was imprisoned—the only person who offered me any hope."

  "He was," Hegesistratus confirmed, glancing up from binding Cle-ton's wounds. "Or rather, I should have said he is. I don't think this is going to kill him."

  Elata nodded, and winked at me.

  "The sword was not heavy enough or the arm strong enough— whichever way you care to put it. The blade bit into the bone, and deeply, too; but a skull is thick this high above the ear."

  Cleton (whose name I had heard by that time from Oeobazus) muttered, and Elata held a wine cup to his lips. "He's dry—it's how I often feel as the vine laps my roots. He must have water to make new blood."

  He drank all the cup held, and we laid him before the fire. That is when I wrote what I did, starting when Io showed me our old camp; for she had said (this as we whispered among ourselves and listened for the old man's rasping breath) that he had come to see us there, speaking to me as well as to Hegesistratus. I asked her whether I had written of that and whether she thought I should read it now, but she said she had overheard everything that had been said and would tell me at need.

  After a long time, Cleton spoke to Hegesistratus and the black man, who helped him sit up. That was when I ceased to write. They set him beside the hearth, with his back to its warm stones.

  "They took Hypereides," he told us. This was the captain mentioned earlier.

  "Who did?" Acetes demanded.

  "Nessibur and Deloptes."

  Hegesistratus said, "Do not excite yourself—that can only do harm. Do you know where they have taken him?"

  "To the palace."

  "I see. Oeobazus has indicated that there were more than two Thracians confronting you when he caught sight of you—six at least. I take it that the rest were retainers of these two?"

  Cleton nodded wearily.

  Hegesistratus turned to Acetes. "In that case, those he names are certainly two of the aristocrats who sought to protect King Kotys. Presumably they slipped out of the palace through a side entrance."

  Cleton nodded again.

  Acetes said, "They got him from your house, fellow? How'd they know he was in there?"

  Cleton's clouded eyes went from his face to Hegesistratus's, from Hegesistratus's to mine, from mine to the black man's, and at last to Elata's. I thought then what a terrible thing life is, in which a man grown old and weak may find that some ill-considered act of his has doomed a friend. "I told them," he said. "I told Thamyris. He sent them... they said so."

  Acetes cursed and asked Hegesistratus, "Do you understand the political situation here?"

  "Not as well as he does," Hegesistratus told him. "Perhaps not even as well as you do yourself. You've been to the palace and talked with Thamyris, I know. I never have."

  "And I'm going back, as soon as I can get my men together. Will you come with us?"

  "Certainly," Hegesistratus told him. Oeobazus, the black man, and I nodded together.

  Io had squeezed between the black man and me; now she asked Cleton, "You were a spy for this Thamyris, weren't you? Besides for Hypereides—and you seemed so nice!"

  At that Cleton managed a smile and took one of her hands in his. "I've tried to be," he assured her. "Honestly, I have. I sent you more arrows. Did you know that?"

  Io nodded.

  "Do you think I could have done that without friends among the Thracians? That I could live and trade here at all?" His hand left hers to grope for his cup. Elata held it for him.

  When he had drunk he said, "I gave you good advice, child. I did. Kotys was a hothead, but Thamyris had his ear—sometimes anyway. Didn't want the Mede killed, afraid the Amazons might kill Kotys, wanted to let everyone go."

  Hegesistratus said, "The other aristocrats must hate him, if he was so near the throne—most of them at least. I would guess that those standing with him now are family connections, sons and cousins and so on."

  Cleton nodded again. "Nessibur's his grandson. Deloptes is a nephew."

  Hegesistratus pursed his lips. "And who do the others want crowned? A younger brother of Kotys?"

  "His son. He's only three."

  Oeobazus told us, "But now Thamyris has my unknown friend to bargain with. He'll threaten the rest with phantom armies from Hellas—make them appoint him regent for the young prince, perhaps."

  Cleton spoke to Io and me. "Hypereides came to see me this afternoon. We're old friends, done business together for years. This time he needed wine, I had it. We struck our bargain, and I told my people to take the wine to his ship. He promised he'd bring the money tonight."

  Acetes said, "So when he left, you told Thamyris he'd be coming back."

  "Sent word to him," Cleton whispered. "Told him the Rope Maker's man of business would be in my house. Maybe... trading rights. Keep the others out."

  I said, "But Thamyris didn't come. He sent the two lords."

  Cleton sighed, and sipped from his cup again. "I didn't expect him to—just send somebody who could bargain for him. But they wanted to take Hypereides back to the palace, and he wouldn't go. Said he'd come in the morning and bring the Rope Maker. I think they thought he was lying. Maybe he was, maybe he felt they couldn't win."

  I nodded.

  "They got him and bent his arms back. I followed them out into the street, tried to explain to them that he was my guest, my customer."

  Io said, "And they tried to kill you."

  Under his breath Acetes added, "And probably believe they have— that they've killed their own agent. They're desperate. These are players who have to win the next throw."

  Io asked, "What are we going to do?"

  Acetes straightened up. "Get the men together, go there, and get him out."

  I asked how many he had.

  "Shieldmen? Five, and two bowmen."

  "Cleton, do you have hoplons and breastplates among your goods? Helmets and so forth?"

  His head moved less than a finger's width. "Yes, four."

  "Four of everything?"

  Aga
in the feeble motion.

  "Good. Acetes, find out where they're stored, arm the four largest sailors, and teach them how to behave like shieldmen—they probably know already. Take Hegesistratus, this Mede, and the black man with you. When you reach the palace, insist that they let everyone inside."

  Acetes nodded. "You're right—that's just what a real Rope Maker would do."

  "I'll join you if I can't get in. What's it like?"

  I felt Io's grasp tighten on my hand.

  "You'll have to slip past the Thracians outside first," Acetes warned me.

  "I know, but how is the palace laid out? Where might they keep Hypereides?"

  Cleton gasped for breath. "Square. Hear me, son. I've been in it many times... A wall, not too high. No towers. Inside's courtyard, stable in back. Palace square, too. Hall and kitchen... ground. Sleeping rooms up steps... captives down. Underground. Turn right, five streets."

  Hegesistratus tried to remonstrate with me, but I brushed him aside and got out the door before even the black man could halt me.

  The streets were dark and oozing with filty mud, so that I had to walk slowly. I had not gone far before I nearly collided with a woman, but it was not until she spoke that I realized she was Elata.

  "Latro," she said, "stop, and listen to me. Do you know I cure?"

  "Of course," I told her. "I saw you helping Hegesistratus with Cleton tonight."

  "And I would cure you, Latro, if I could. I can't, but I do understand how utterly you forget. I think I'm the only one who does, even now, though Io knows better than the rest. You don't remember who Hypereides is, nor do you care. Nor should you. My tree is old already, yet it and I will live for a great many seasons after Hypereides is dead and forgotten. You must guard your seed, Latro. Tonight you're risking it for nothing. Why?"

  I did not understand what she meant by her tree, for women do not have that; but I told her, "I am doing it so that I will never be as Cleton is tonight. Let that be enough for you." I kissed her and ordered her to go back before someone harmed her. I, too, had drunk a good deal of wine; yet though she had chewed resin to sweeten it, her breath tasted of more.