by Tracy Groot
Was it all a mistake? It was a question to haunt the days he watched Kardus writhing on the ground, screaming as if under a hail of invisible blows. Gods, the screaming . . . his own hell to listen.
Was it so wrong to convince the child that he was great—and he was—that he was gifted—and he was? He only spoke the truth, and how that child needed truth. How he needed someone to tell him he believed in him. In Kardus, there was never a doubt that greatness lay within.
Soon Polonus had dreams of presenting to the world his own Alexander the Great, from the hand of Aristotle-Polonus, he who tutored all of the bad out of the boy, tutored the good of life and the joy of learning and the breath of understanding into him. His was a rare intellect. If he told Kardus something once, he remembered. Once! And his intuitive grasp of Alexander’s tactics was nearly as singular as the tactics themselves. He had to scour for more books because the boy ran him out of learning. He was glad to have rescued him from that godforsaken inn, glad to throw a rope into that dark pit. . . .
How prideful Polonus was. How prideful Kardus became. How insufferable.
He couldn’t wait to give him a teaching position so he could talk all he wanted to, beguile those who truly wanted to listen to him. Yes, Kardus had charm and an irresistible effervescence—but his personality, so attractive at first, led the unaware to an encampment where none but Kardus was the object of illumination. Polonus grew sick of it, sick of the unattractive boasting, sick of Kardus’s mission to endlessly inform the masses of all he knew.
He tried out a new observation of himself, not entirely certain this one would make it to parchment: “I was jealous. Yes—I was jealous of you.”
The truth of the matter was this: That jealously had led to loathing, and loathing led to the game with Julia. They had no business foisting Kardus onto Portia, because in his heart Polonus knew what kind of a woman she was. The truth was this: They introduced him to Portia in hope that he wouldn’t plague them anymore, in hope he would find romance so that Polonus could be left in peace . . . left alone in the knowledge that Kardus was more brilliant than he would ever be. One day, people would know the name of Kardus as they knew the name of Socrates. They would never know Polonus.
Polonus didn’t like drink, so where could he find consolation? In another student? He was too old to raise another prodigy. He’d never find another student like Kardus. So Polonus feigned solace in new books and new ideas and new teaching methods, and Kardus found new pleasures in the arms of one of the Decaphiloi . . . the most dangerous woman he had ever met.
“You warned me, Antenor, and I did not listen,” Polonus whispered, staring down at the filthy ruin of Kardus the Great. “I tried to get rid of him once, pushing him off onto her, and now I will never be rid of him.”
Kardus once had light-brown hair with a touch of copper, thick and waving and stylishly cropped. Now it was matted and stiff and dully gray, infested with vermin. He once had alert eyes, bright with confidence and interest and pride, but he never looked at anyone anymore. Polonus had caught a staring moment only once, and tried to see if any bit of Kardus was in there. What he saw he could never explain, not even to himself. It was the look of an animal. If he had seen a void of nothingness, it would have made more sense, because Kardus wasn’t there anymore. But he saw an animal look. He saw something.
Kardus moaned in his fitful unconsciousness, limbs twitching, sometimes jerking.
“You became charming and unbearable. Someone I didn’t like very much. But I never wished this on you.”
A flitting from the corner of his eye made Polonus look and see.
“Who’s there?” Polonus looked around him. “Is someone there?”
He thought he had seen someone. Seen a flicker of yellow. Grimly he turned back to Kardus. Someone spying on them, that’s what it felt like lately. Morbid freaks who wanted to enjoy someone else’s anguish.
“Freaks!” he suddenly shouted. “I know you’re watching!”
No response, just the echo of his own shout. He settled down to his vigil, eyes as watchful on Kardus as on the peripheries.
IV
TALLIS DIDN’T WANT TO GO to sleep. He didn’t want the gods to communicate again. Especially now that Dionysus had awakened.
He sat at the writing table wedged beneath the small window, head on his fist. His eyes drooped, but he wouldn’t lie down. What if he sat all night and watched the fires across the lake? Light from a half-moon shone softly on the Galilee, and tiny fires lit the cities on the other side. Tiberias was a little to the south, directly across from Hippos. A soft, ringed glow was about the city, making even darker the surrounding countryside with its occasional tiny fire pit.
He had left Dionysus behind a long time ago, a grim world he had managed to forget as eagerly as he learned the scholarly world of Callimachus. Each year that passed was a bandage laid upon the wound until, so buffered, it hardly caused him notice at all. Pain had surprised him today. He didn’t realize how thoroughly he had forgotten.
A knock startled him from his drowse. He sat in the darkness, wondering who it could be. Perhaps Kes`Elurah, making sure the guests had their lamps lit. He took the small lamp from his bedside table and went to the door.
It was the servant girl, Arinna. She saw he had his lamp ready. “Oh.” She smiled at him and lit the wick from her candlestick. “Mistress Kes wants to know if you’re hungry. You didn’t come out for supper.”
She seemed so young to have a child like Zagreus. Rather, she seemed foolish next to his earnest little solemnity. She wore cheap perfume meant to entice, but right now it only nauseated.
“I’m not hungry,” he replied. He started to shut the door, but she slid her foot in the way. He followed the foot to her eyes.
“Would you like anything else?” she said lightly.
He let his gaze travel slowly down and up. Truly, a lovely form. Beautiful bright eyes. “I would. I truly would.” But Kes`Elurah doesn’t visit the guest rooms. He smiled tightly. “But not tonight. I have a headache.”
She looked him up and down as well. “Anything I can do? I’m pretty good with headaches.”
Yes—go away, and take your sickening perfume with you. Do Kes and Jarek know what kind of woman you are? They seem like such a naïve lot. Grim and naïve, a disconcerting combination.
“No, thanks. I appreciate the offer.”
She glanced past him into the room. “They say you’re a scholar or something.”
“Something.”
“Do you have any scrolls with you?” She gave a little shiver, apparently of delight. “I just love—scholar things.”
“Really.”
“Oh, yes.” She glanced into the room again. “Maybe you could read to me.”
He studied her, trying to guess her game. Tallis was not an ugly man. He had an idea he was good-looking enough, but he was not handsome. Not the Demas kind of handsome, the kind that had women baking him things. Did she think he was rich and could pay her well for her services? Was she a common thief? Did she hope to find where he stashed his coins?
“Arinna!”
Arinna jumped guiltily. Kes stood at the hallway door, a hard look on her face. The jumping had put out Arinna’s candle. Tallis smiled wryly as he lit it with his lamp.
“He’s not hungry,” Arinna airily informed her. She smoothed her hair and went to the doorway. She was just past Kes when her mistress, with her eyes on Tallis, spoke.
“See to the family in room three. One of their children vomited. Get some rags.”
Behind Kes, Arinna stopped and stared at the back of her mistress with revulsion. Kes couldn’t see the revulsion, and Arinna couldn’t see Kes smile.
“But—where’s Samir? He does things like that. He does vomit.”
“Samir is busy.” Kes continued to look at Tallis and smile. Tallis bit the inside of his cheek to keep his face straight.
Arinna’s tone became wheedling. “You know how I am with things like that. . . .”
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“Then do it quickly.”
The wheedling changed to contempt, and Arinna flounced away.
Tallis smiled broadly. Kes did too, and said softly, “Is she bothering you?”
Tallis shrugged. “I wish more women would bother me.”
“She didn’t . . . invite herself in, did she? We’ve been after her about that.”
Tallis leaned against the doorway. “Why do you keep her? She doesn’t fit with this place.”
“She’d take Zagreus if she left.”
“Ah. You like that little fellow.”
Kes nodded.
“I think you make the better mother.”
A sweet smile came at that, a small one. They looked at one another for a moment across the hallway. Then Tallis scratched the back of his neck and said he ought to get some sleep, and Kes said she had to see to the common room.
“Good night, Master Tallis,” Kes said as she closed the door.
“Good night, Kes,” Tallis said as he closed his.
He set the lamp on his lamp stand and forgot why he didn’t want to go to sleep.
It was late. The fires across the lake had gone out; the half-moon was on the other side of the sky. Tallis tossed and groaned on his cot.
Midnight orange. Black winged things in the dances, things the celebrants can’t see. A huge tar caterpillar, flowing sinuously, weaving through the steps . . .
In Arinna’s room, Arinna snored softly on her bed. On the other side of the room, Zagreus lay on his pallet, whimpering in his sleep.
Black dogs running down from the hills, snapping on his steps. He ran as fast as he could from the dripping fangs and glowing eyes. . . .
In the barn, the slave Samir lay on his pallet. Slowly he opened his eyes and sat up.
Tallis moved his head side to side, trying to wake up. Gods, let me wake up. Dream. Just a dream. Just a—
A crooning began. It was a painful sound, filled with an aching ecstasy, filled with promise—promise to what?
Don’t you want to know?
What—!? Who are you?
Come and see.
I don’t want to!
We know what you want. We know what you want to know.
The crooning intensified, calling to a place in Tallis. He writhed away from the crooning, knowing he could not give in, knowing from the very place they wanted to go.
Let us in, they pouted. Tallis, old boy, let us in.
What was this draw? So irresistible, so full of promise to . . . know something. There was fear, though, a warning signal—fear of them, and fear of the bargain they would have. He could not swap the place for what they offered.
For what who offered?
They wanted something. They would trade for the place they wanted to go. They’d give him something in return, something he wanted. The promise sucked at him, pulling him into a rushing, enticing torrent . . . and the deep place within whimpered in dread.
Come and see! It only gets better! Let us in and find out!
Tallis suddenly saw a flowing tar caterpillar, and he screamed.
Crooning faltered. Confusion came. Loud confusion. An instant burst of discordant nonsense all around him, a few voices standing out from many.
Fool! Lout! What are you doing here?
I thought I was summoned.
He knows you, fool!
The bang of a door, running footsteps, and one voice shouting clear: “Be gone!”
He heard a curse from a different voice—Jarek . . . ?
He heard Kes scream, “Tallis!”
“Kes . . . ,” he slurred.
You fool, you lout! You’ll regret this!
“Leave him!” the clear voice rang.
The voices snarled, lifted, and tumbled off in an angry huff.
Sensibility crept back. Awareness. He felt . . . cold.
“Tallis!” Kes cried, but the other voice said, “No! Do not go near him. Stay where you are.”
Jarek’s voice: “Look at him—it’s just like the shaman. He can’t stay here anymore. He has to leave.”
“Please, Samir!” Kes begged. “He needs me!”
The clear voice was no less authoritative, but was now weary. “I said, stay where you are.”
Tallis opened his eyes. Black starry sky. Cold night air. He stirred, palms running over the scrabbly ground beneath him. Where . . . ?
Great gods and goddesses. He was flat on his back in the chicken yard.
Kes was on the edge of the yard, Jarek beside her, clutching her. Beyond them, the child Zagreus watched fearfully. And Tallis, their cultured guest from Athens, lay limp on the ground, plastered with dread, naked in the cold night air.
“Get up,” said the clear voice, now farther away. Samir, at the barn door.
Kes started for Tallis, but Samir flung out his hand and put a terrible look on her, eyes flashing white in the darkness. Jarek glowered at the slave, but held Kes back.
And Tallis could not move. He lay helpless on the ground, his guts turned to water, his limbs without strength. He made feeble attempts to move, to lift his head. He still felt terror, as if he was dipped in it. He needed human touch after the—inhumanness. He needed humans.
“Get up, Athenian.” The Parthian accent came thick. “Get up, you Greek dog!”
“Don’t talk to my guest that way!”
“I said, get up!”
“Samir!” Kes gasped.
“I said get up, Athenian! When they push, you push back. They give you ears in Greece? I said, when they push, you push back. And let no one help you rise.”
Tallis hauled himself to a sitting position. Nausea washed over him, but he held it down. Trembling, baring his teeth with effort, he rose to stand swaying, clothed only on his backside with ground-in chicken yard bracken, some of it shaking loose as he stood.
The slave stood in the light of the barn door. Tallis glared at him and clenched his fingers to fists. The ebbing fear ignited a new emotion, crazy fury. He wanted to rush the slave and beat him bloody for no particularly good reason. The slave lifted his chin and gazed into Tallis, and he suddenly felt the warmth of human touch.
Fear and rage began to recede.
Jarek came beside Tallis. “Don’t call my guest a Greek dog. You looking for the strap?”
Unperturbed, Samir backed into the barn, pulling the door with him. “Weak good comes to no good, master. Have you learned nothing?” The door closed.
The line of light from the bottom of the barn door was enough for Tallis to see Jarek’s face. It was blank at first, the dark and heavy eyes staring. Then a distant knowing crept over the face. It settled into an awful certainty. Tallis saw the things that had plundered the man’s good nature, despair and regret.
“What happened in this place, Jarek?” he whispered, but Jarek did not seem to hear him.
He did not want to go back to his room; he did not want to go back to his cot. He wanted to stay by Samir, the only safe place around.
Tallis had been gazing at the line of light when it vanished. He raised his chin, and if he weren’t naked he would have tugged down the sides of his toga. He would go back to that room, he would lie down on that cot, and by the gods, he would go to sleep. If a Parthian slave could do it, so could he. Debris crumbled off him as he turned away, leaving Jarek in the chicken yard.
Tallis slept until late the next morning, and if he had any more dreams he didn’t remember them. No one said a single word about last night’s debacle. Kes pretended it never happened and was grumpier than ever. The slave was silent as usual, moving about the premises on his various tasks, and didn’t look at him once. Jarek wasn’t around. Zagreus was white and withdrawn, with dark smudges beneath his eyes.
“I had another bad dream,” Tallis heard him say plaintively to Kes. “Did he come again?”
Kes didn’t answer. Only Arinna looked fresh.
Tallis spent the day in his place by the sea, and it was late afternoon now, running into evening. His three favorite
boats were coming back. He realized he’d been waiting for them, and felt a certain relief when they appeared. He was worried about Jarek. He hoped the innkeeper had returned from wherever he had gone. He wanted the fishermen to go to the common room and do their lift-his-spirits thing with him.
What had happened in this place? Did the fishermen know?
The old salt, Bek, threw a line to a lad on the dock, who roped it around a piling. This man drew his interest the most. He had a ruggedness Tallis found appealing. He’d spent all his life on this lake, hauling in scanty or bountiful catches. Doing one clear thing his whole life. The only thing that mattered to Bek was how much was in that net. He’d never woken up naked in a chicken yard or—
“You said your mother was a Bacchante,” came a gentle voice. It was the voice he had listened for, for years.
Julia stood a distance apart, hands clasped in front of her, watching the three boats dock in the tiny harbor. The breeze fluttered her garments. Today she wore lavender.
“How much do you know about the cultus of Dionysus?” she asked.
He should have felt something at that. He felt only deadness, and he lifted a brow. Perhaps the work of Callimachus wasn’t in vain after all. He’d spent years avoiding a place that was perhaps, after all, dead.
“I studied it for years.” Studied it for vengeance.
“Did Callimachus never see a single letter of mine?” She turned to him. It appeared she’d gotten about as much sleep last night as Tallis had. Her lovely eyes were darkened beneath. “What about Antenor’s letters? He wrote too, asking for help, begging for it. I sent mine along with his. Most of all, Tallis, I want to know about those progress reports you say he received. And you’d better tell me quickly—the little mistress of the inn doesn’t like me.”
