Madman

by Tracy Groot

  “Samir?” she asked, surprised enough to leave off her glare. She glanced toward the barn where the slave stayed. “What do you mean he looks at you funny?”

  “I don’t know. Funny. Like he thinks I’m up to something—I think he’s up to something. This whole place feels odd. It’s much more pleasant in the city.”

  The barn still had her thoughtful attention. Then she looked at Tallis, and the thoughtful look hardened. “Then why stay here?” She flicked her hand toward Hippos. “Go to the city and pay for pleasant.”

  Tallis grimaced and settled back into his brood. Pride forbade him from telling her the Inn-by-the-Lake was the cheapest place he could find.

  Both of them gazed sourly on the waters, Tallis sitting in his seat and the innkeeper’s daughter standing. It grew increasingly uncomfortable, her being with him in his private place. He shifted in his seat a few times, hoping she’d take the hint. Why didn’t she leave? Didn’t he have enough to think on? Then he remembered.

  He scratched the back of his head. “I tried to deliver your loaf . . .” He saw her quickened expression, saw she realized the news wasn’t what she had hoped.

  Her shoulders sagged just a fraction, but she shrugged stiffly. “No matter.”

  “They think he’s in Caesarea.” And he sounds like a wharf rat, so you’re better off. “The bread was delicious, by the way,” Tallis said. “Best I ever had.”

  When she didn’t respond, he offered, “I will likely be sick because I ate the whole thing. Couldn’t stop myself.”

  She didn’t seem to hear. Her gaze on the lake had gone vacant. After a moment, she turned and started down the path, and this time her step was not lithe.

  Tallis rose from his seat and followed her a few steps down the path. “Wait . . . please,” he called over a sudden gust of wind off the lake.

  She turned, the wind silhouetting her form in her rippling indigo tunic.

  “What is your name? I’ve been here a week—it is ridiculous that I do not know.”

  He didn’t like this Demas for the disappointment in her face. Tallis knew enough actors. Traveling actors and low morals were synonymous. Demas was probably handsome, athletic, and spoke with the honey tongue of a god, the scoundrel. Taking advantage of peasant women who didn’t know any better.

  This young woman was just pretty enough to interest a wharf rat. Her face was clear and beautifully freckled and proud. But her eyes were mistrustful. What was it with the people around here? At least hers seemed an honest mistrust.

  She had not yet answered, she simply regarded him with that sullen unhappiness. Likely she was thinking on Demas—either that or he had broken a local taboo by asking for her name. Too bad they didn’t hand him a list of Palestinian taboos when he docked in Caesarea.

  A movement behind the maid caught his eye. The girl noticed and turned to see.

  A man stood at the back doorway of the inn’s kitchen. He looked just as grim as the rest of the locals, but his dress was unusual. Most of the people around Kursi wore common tunics, while this man wore a gray robe frayed at the bottom, belted, layered over with a long, darker gray vest. He was notably tall, his thin frame accenting his height. His untrimmed beard spilled like gray moss to his chest, making Tallis think of Patroclus.

  He seemed surprised to see Tallis notice him, and not happily. He fetched up the basket just inside the doorway and strode away.

  Tallis watched him go. “Who is that man?”

  “Do you know him?” the girl asked.

  Did he? He had a strange force of presence. He seemed elusively familiar. Seemed he should be familiar.

  Tallis did not know he had muttered aloud until he saw the girl looking full into his eyes.

  “What is elusive?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

  He considered her. “It means many things. It’s the color of your eyes. I thought they were brown. I see now they are green.”

  He turned to watch the man walk away, but the barn concealed his path on the road. Elusive means I cannot tell why this man seems familiar to me.

  “Do you know him?” she asked again.

  Elusive is the way I feel now, Tallis thought, his gaze coming back to her, because you have asked me twice about him, and there is worry in your voice.

  “No,” Tallis finally replied, because it was more truthful than not. He did not miss the change in her demeanor—a relief she could not hide, because she was not entirely skilled at whatever intrigue she was playing at.

  “My full name is Kes`Elurah. I am called Kes.” She smiled her rare smile, and Tallis was sure it was only because he did not know the stranger.

  He smiled back, and she turned and walked the path down to the inn.

  “Kes`Elurah.” Tallis tried out the unfamiliar name, strolling back to his seat over the Galilee.

  Early the next morning, one of the theater students told Patroclus to go look at the public boards. Patroclus thought it would be a reviling review of the last comedy he’d put on, and, if so, the comedy deserved it. Not the talent, the talent was fine. The comedy itself should have never seen a public stage. He was fully prepared for the backlash, and even, in a perverse sort of way as the master of the theater, looked forward to it—hoped it was blistering. Hoped someone in this city had the taste to call it a debacle. When he read what the student meant for him to read, he understood why it had been Urbanus who told him, and in such a way that the other students could not hear.

  Calmly Patroclus removed the nails from the scrap of stiff leather, as if he himself had posted the message. He rubbed the leather between his fingers as he wove through the marketplace. He had checked the boards two days ago. This message wasn’t there then, he was sure of it. How long had it been up? Who else had read it?

  He had known someone would come—it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t until the man had given his name that Patroclus realized who he was. He had last seen Tallis eight years ago, serving at the house of Callimachus in Athens.

  I seek information regarding the former Academy of Socrates, which used to meet in the portico of the temple. I also seek information regarding an association called the Decaphiloi. Inquire at the Inn-by-the-Lake, on the road to Damascus, just south of Kursi. Ask for Tallis.

  Patroclus halted, fingering the scrap of leather, tempted by the almond roaster’s fire. One toss would end it. The seller thought he had a sale, and offered a steaming pouch to Patroclus.

  He could destroy this, but Tallis would learn of it and post more. He might even launch an official inquiry. It would not take long for him to learn what he wanted to know, with everything hidden in plain sight. No one had ever cared enough to learn the truth. Until now.

  Julia still lived near Hippos, and there was Polonus. If Tallis found either of them, he would learn enough. Patroclus gripped the leather and walked away from the fire, followed by a mild curse from the seller.

  Who else had seen the message? What if Portia got wind of it?

  Was it time for truth?

  He stopped short at this. He thought on it, turned it over in his mind as he turned the scrap of leather in his fingers. He resumed walking.

  He told himself he had let the progress reports lapse because he didn’t have time to write them.

  “Fine performance last night, Master Patroclus,” someone said in passing.

  He smiled and nodded, looked again to see if it was any particular critic he needed the favor of, and let the man pass with no further comment.

  Was it time for truth? Was he glad to have been caught? Was that why he’d let the reports lapse, because he wanted to be caught? Was he finished punishing Callimachus?

  “I’m getting old,” he muttered. He left the marketplace and walked the side alleys.

  The theater was beginning to do well. He didn’t need Cal’s money anymore. A few new patrons had been added from the wave of new blood from Antioch, and they were easily impressed fools, some of them newly come to riches, who felt that patronage of th
e theater was only suitable to their standing. Who cared if they loved the comedies? They and the comedies paid the bills and made it possible to put on the real works.

  “I am glad to have been caught,” he said in surprise to himself as he strolled the byways. Writing the progress reports had grown tiresome. But was this Tallis ready for the truth? Callimachus had spoken fondly of his servant, and the servant had seemed equally fond of Cal. Honest, trusting, naïve Callimachus. His blithe belief in the goodness of all mankind had murdered people. Good people. The best.

  Patroclus rubbed the leather scrap in his pocket. Callimachus wanted to know what happened? Very well. Callimachus would find out. He hoped it brought hell on his soul.

  “By the way, Tallis of Athens,” Patroclus muttered on his way back to the marketplace, “I have indeed read your Day of Odysseus, and I’m glad I know who wrote it. It will see stage time, but not on mine—I’d sooner face Portia as Dionysus incarnate than put on a play from a servant of Callimachus.”

  The madman did not speak anymore. If he tried, the words came out wrong, as if he spoke through a mouthful of stones. It was a strange impediment laid upon his tongue.

  Ironic, he would have thought, if he could have thought clearly, considering how much he used to talk, how his friends always told him to shut up. Now he could never say what he meant to.

  What he was trying to say now was water. They were always thirsty. If he could have thought clearly, he would have laughed at the word he wanted to say. Fancy, him taunting Them. The thought to say it came from a mysterious place. Maybe from a place They had not yet found. Maybe the place where he was safe, and this poor man wasn’t really him.

  Poor man!

  “Wuahh . . .”

  He saw a face across the clearing, and rage came. He screamed and lunged—and jerked short in midair, dropping like a felled deer.

  Leg iron. Prisoner, imprisoned. Nothing enraged him more.

  He screamed and clawed at the chains. Then he threw himself wide, arching taut, and freed himself to Them. He did not know how he did it. They filled him and he hated it—he was wrong to let Them go there. They shouldn’t go there, it was wrong.

  He knew it was wrong the first time—knew with dreadfulness he couldn’t take it back. They had slithered down into the last of himself while the shell called the body concealed their invasion from the world. Rape, incubated.

  He snapped the leg iron as if it were brittle glass. Filled with Them, suffused with foul intoxication, he forgot the face across the clearing and began to run.

  Run, stupid man—run! They lashed him on and so he ran, up the hills and down the hills. He tore up the southern slope of the el-Kursi Valley, where he had played as a child, tore down the slope into the floor of the Wadi Samakh, raced the half mile across, slogging through muck in the middle, tore up the northern slope of the valley.

  He ran long into the night, past exhaustion, but They weren’t done. He wasn’t done. He hated, and he gloried in, the venomous power.

  Run, human maggot! Dog of a slug of a pig! Run!

  Foul hot breath on his neck. Whooping malevolent glee. Run!

  He ran.

  He saw villages light up in the course of the night, and on he ran.

  Foolish people. So blinded to the Realms.

  III

  TALLIS WAITED for three days for someone to show up in response to his message on the board.

  He tried to keep busy. He brushed his toga with a stiff-bristled brush and managed to take some of the grime away. He started another letter to Callimachus, which sat half-finished on the tiny writing table under the tiny window. It had no real news, and Cal hated trivialities—though he might appreciate the comical little fellow Tallis had made out of an ink splotch in the margin.

  He tried to put time to his third play, Alexander and Barsine, but the Muses were off frolicking on Capri with debauched old Tiberias. He tried to analyze his dreams because he’d once overheard a philosopher back home say the gods communicated through dreams. If so, the gods were trying to scare him to death. Last night he had a nightmare such as he hadn’t had since he was a boy. But he could not remember any details—only fear. His dream analysis came to no appreciable conclusion.

  His own forum message held him hostage at the inn. He could not venture far for fear of missing anyone who came in response. Mostly he sat and watched the fishermen on the Galilee.

  He missed the clamor and the craziness back home. Every day there was something new for Callimachus to tell him at mealtime. He’d no sooner have his master settled in and his wine poured than Cal would sound his trademark declaration: “Much has transpired since last we conversed, Tallis, old friend.” And he’d tell of the latest political brewings from Rome, or the newest philosopher-king scouring Athens for support in a nostalgic bid to retake old Greek independence. Much has transpired since last we conversed, Tallis, old friend. . . .

  Yesterday he allowed himself a quick excursion to Kursi, with strict instructions to Kes`Elurah to tie up anyone who came for him. He walked the half mile north and toured the city in ten minutes. Not much to see, not much to do there. He learned that the trade of Kursi was fish and livestock. Shepherds tended hogs in the rocky hill country while fishermen hauled in catches at the fishing grounds by the mouth of the Wadi. Hippos afforded far more beguilement than Kursi.

  On the way back, he had climbed to the top of a slope overlooking the small Kursi harbor because he could not resist. He allowed himself a few moments to gaze on the glittering Galilee and on the austere beauty all around. Some of the hills were dun-colored and barren, others forest green, mottled with rock. The mountain range far north of the Galilee had a crest of snow and an aura of cool purple. Directly below him was the valley of el-Kursi, the Wadi Samakh, which brought down the winter rains to the sea.

  He found an area on the top of the slope that perplexed him at first, then surprised him—he was in a graveyard. He wondered how old the rock mounds were, if some of the buried dead were Macedonian colonists settled in this area by Alexander. He found a half-buried tablet of commemoration, but the script was old and worn, and not in a language he could read. He saw the bones of a few small animals and, curiously, a set of broken shackles, the kind slaves wore on their ankles at the slave market. An escaped slave must have stopped here until he freed himself from his bonds.

  He sat now in his chair overlooking the place the locals had the temerity to call a “sea.” His favorite time was not long off, late afternoon. The breezes off the lake became cool and the sun became friendly, casting a luminous golden pathway across waters made pebbly from the wind. Sea grasses in the fore spiked a dark contrast to the pearly background of the lake.

  He couldn’t stand much more of this uselessness. Today he’d asked Jarek if he could help hang the new barn door, but was politely put off and had to watch instead as Jarek and the slave, Samir, did the work. Sometimes the slave sent considering glances his way, glances that became unnerving. Once Tallis glared back to put him in his place, but the man received the glare with an unperturbed calm, and Tallis ambled off to watch Kes`Elurah feed the chickens.

  Tallis couldn’t tell Samir’s age because he had very brown, very oily skin—perhaps the oils concealed wrinkles. He worked slowly but steadily, and smiled only at the little boy on the premises, the son of the servant girl in the common room. Samir always wore an ivory-colored caplike head covering; none of the other men Tallis saw wore such things. He likely called a long-distant tribe his home. Tallis couldn’t find out because the fellow acted as though he didn’t speak the language. He had tried to engage him in the simplest of conversation, “Good morning, nice day,” but if he even came near him, Samir found reason to ease away. From a distance he regarded Tallis with a silent wary interest.

  Kes`Elurah wasn’t pleased with Tallis watching her feed the chickens. Her glances became scowls, and he finally ambled off to watch the fishermen. He hadn’t meant to be rude—he wasn’t watching her. He was only bore
d, interested in new people with different ways, desperate for talk. But the people around here did not talk, and he realized it had been a relief to visit Hippos every day. Too long he had been with Cal, where life itself was a running dialogue. Here at the inn, where one supposed a livelihood in accommodation would imply at least friendliness, the mood was morose, and Tallis hated morose. The girl did not speak to her father, and the father avoided the girl. Jarek spoke more with the slave and the young child named Zagreus than he did with his own daughter.

  The man had an affability easily tapped into, and when it was, it came to the surface with relief. Tallis watched well-known customers do that to Jarek, watched as they seemed to raise him to an old familiar place. Then he would exchange good-natured insults, and flick boys on their heads with his forefinger, and sometimes take a mug from a customer to test the ale himself. Those around would laugh, and the customer would holler a protest. Jarek would act surprised, offended, and then hand back the ale, chuckling, his big belly shaking.

  The fishermen from the lake took special care to tap into the innkeeper’s good nature. They all seemed to share some trial—perhaps the Roman government tacked unjust assessments on inns and the fishing trade. An old salt called Bek seemed especially solicitous of the innkeeper. Tallis saw it in those first few days he hung about in the common room. He saw them first share a grim, knowing look, then saw old friends settle into a routine. Kes`Elurah would greet them and bring a platter; Jarek would serve their ale and sit with them for a time.

  They’d sit quiet at first. Then Bek would calmly offer comments, watching Jarek’s face. Soon Jarek would talk, and by the time they left, Jarek and the fishermen would be joking. What the fishermen did not see, perhaps, was the way Jarek stood at the doorway watching them go, arms folded over his belly, the contented look on his face settling into something Tallis found oddly poignant. It was wistful, sad, and finally grim. He’d gaze at the northern Kursi landscape, and when he turned back into the inn, his look was back to the workaday moroseness.