Madman

by Tracy Groot

  “Ah. No intellectual slouch are you,” Polonus said dryly. “Of course, a child on milk would know that.”

  “What is your point?” Tallis asked.

  Samir seemed to relax. He was pleased when Polonus was rude.

  “The word Maenad is rooted in madness. If you want an answer, go back to the beginning.” Polonus looked for his cup and took a drink. When he tasted it, he took another sip and eyed Jarek over the rim. He smiled then, a crinkly eyed look. He licked his lips and lowered the cup, fondly regarding the contents. “You always served a good stout cup, Jarek. Where was I?”

  “Madness,” Tallis prompted.

  “Yes. If you want an answer, go back to the beginning. It’s what I always told Kardus—if you lose something, go to the place you last saw it. Start from there and minutely expand your perimeter.”

  “You learned that from Cal. Back to the beginning . . .” Tallis looked eagerly at Kes. “That’s what I told you. We have to go back to the Decaphiloi.”

  “Do not waste your time.” Surprisingly, it came from Samir.

  “What do you mean? That’s where Kardus went wrong.”

  Samir said gently, eyeing Polonus, “He went back to that beginning. It’s not where it started.”

  “No. No, you’re wrong. All I have to do is say her name, and you know where it started. She’s a priestess of Dionysus!”

  “It didn’t start with Portia,” Polonus murmured, and the sass was going out of him.

  “It started with his mother,” Jarek said thinly. “His mother was a Maenad.”

  Silence.

  “Mother was—what?” Kes demanded of Jarek. “A Maenad? Why have you never told me this?”

  Tallis sat back, faintly dizzy. It couldn’t be. If the madman’s mother was a Maenad . . .

  “I’m sorry, Kes,” Jarek said sadly.

  “How could you not tell me? What else haven’t you told me?”

  “What good would it have done?”

  “You never tell me anything!”

  “And who can talk to you about anything? You’re just like your mother!”

  Tallis sat silent and still.

  If Kardus’s mother was a Maenad, then the blood of madness, from mother to son. Why did he think himself exempt? Tallis himself would one day wear shackles. No—no, he’d kill himself first.

  Head in his hands, fingers working into his scalp, he stared at the tabletop. Why didn’t he see it? He was weak around Kardus because of his blood. It was madness calling to madness, and it was only a matter of time. He could never have children, not with Kes, not with anyone. Never could he pass this blood to another. He looked at his wrist. Madness, coursing through these veins.

  “Raise your head, you Greek dog!”

  He touched his blue wrist vein. Why was Samir always kicking Tallis with words?

  “Stop being weak,” Samir snapped. “Alexander had a Maenad for a mother. Alexander!”

  Alexander.

  Alexander, who ate the food of his soldiers. Alexander, who compared battle wounds with the least of his men. Alexander, with his passion for new people and new cultures; Alexander, with his great heart that led men to places they never dreamed. Macedonia was too small for him the moment he was born.

  He knew he bled no ichor, and he knew his blood was not mad. He acted not like the son of a Maenad, no—

  He acted like the son of Philip.

  And it seemed to Tallis, in that moment, that he had gone back to the beginning.

  What did he know of his own father? Why hadn’t he thought of his father all these years—why did he bury his father with his brother? How much good was buried with the bad? And why was Callimachus in Athens when Tallis needed him in Palestine?

  He hadn’t seen his father since he was twelve. He learned of his death about ten years ago. Cal was worried about how he would react, but Tallis received the news with true indifference. He had buried his father with his brother, long before he died.

  Father was good. Beneath all the harshness, beneath his contempt and his misunderstanding of Mother, Tallis knew his father was good. Because whenever Father was around, it felt right. It felt safe. He clenched his hands to fists. By the gods and goddesses, he had blood from his father too. And he felt the first pang of sorrow then, that he had ever felt for him, not only for his death, but because he never knew him.

  He looked for Kes, but she was not at the table. He heard Kes and Zagreus in the kitchen. He heard her ask Zagreus what he thought of her date bread.

  “More dates?” Kes said, astonished. “You’re going to run me out of business.”

  The men at the table were silent. He took his cup. What had happened after Tallis left Thebes? What did Father come home to? An empty house, or was Mother there? Did his father ever think of him? Did he miss him? Did he wonder what happened to him—did he try to find him? He saw his father in his mind, riding that military nag from village to village.

  Another pang, this time of remorse.

  “Polonus, your work fascinates me,” he made himself say. “I’ve been thinking on something you said: ‘Logic says if there is a way into madness—’”

  “Rhetoric!” Polonus bellowed. The inflammation receded as suddenly as it came. Polonus settled down to his mug, gripping it with both hands. “What if the way is shattered beyond repair? There isn’t logic anymore.”

  “Polonus, listen,” Tallis said. “I’ve called for a meeting of the Decaphiloi. Right here at noon, two days from now. It’s a forum for Truth, and I’d like you to come.”

  “What good will it do? They haven’t lived with a madman for three years. For them there is no great evil, not this kind. I know—I thought like them.” Polonus wasn’t happy. He began to shift in his seat. “It isn’t right. It doesn’t feel right.” His fingers went to his lips.

  “What does the meeting have to do with Kardus?” Jarek asked.

  “It isn’t right.”

  Tallis stared at Jarek, dumbfounded. “What does it have to do with Kardus? Everything! We’re tracking backward, and our backward trail to the beginning goes through the Decaphiloi!” He lifted his hands and let them fall. “Gods, isn’t anyone listening to me? I am stunningly alone on this!”

  “Doesn’t feel right.”

  “What isn’t right, Polonus?” Samir asked.

  Something in his voice made Tallis glance at him. Samir had a strange look of alarm.

  Distant awareness came, barely perceived. Tallis stilled, his gaze drifting. A faint buzzing. A far-off humming, felt rather than heard . . . felt and heard at the same time. Tallis slowly rose and stared out the front door, about the same time Samir got a dread look and Polonus’s face lost color.

  Jarek stared at them all. “What? What is it?”

  The atmosphere contracted, thickened.

  A plate shattered in the kitchen.

  “Tell Kes I went to Scythopolis to kill Portia,” Polonus said bleakly. “But they wouldn’t let me near the city. Big column . . .”

  Tallis stared at the ceiling. Bright sunshine out there, but it felt like a storm was ready to burst on the inn.

  And Samir did a strange thing. He planted one hand on Polonus’s shoulder and twisted the cloth into a grip. Then he lunged for Tallis and snatched him by the throat of his tunic. He yanked him eye to eye over the table, twisting the cloth into a grip, and just as Samir shouted into his face, “You hold!”

  The room darkened, his hearing dimmed . . .

  Pandemonium crashed over the inn.

  Silence engulfed him, and he went down, tumbling at the razor bottom of an ocean surge. Drowning, frantic, he clawed the thick dreadful soundlessness back to the surface—and underwater silence erupted to roaring. Blindly he tore at the grip on his neck. He reared violently from the hold, then lunged against the stiff arm for the face of the slave, the face he could not see in the torrent.

  The singsong began.

  Hello, Tallisss . . .

  “Hold! They take only the ground yo
u surrender! Surrender nothing!”

  You think it’s madness, but the opposite is true.

  Step into the stillness and see. Spacious stillness.

  “Look at me! They are trespassers! Do not let them have what is not theirs!”

  Voices in and out, whirling around him, one moment at his ear, the next across the room.

  What does he know?

  Has he suffered like you?

  Does he know your pain?

  “Whatever you hear is a lie!”

  Shut up, worm, you are no match for us now. We are more. You have nothing to lose, Tallis. Think on Alexander! Yessss . . . you think he did all those things on his own? This is it, Tallis—the horizon you’ve ached to reach. The bend around which Alexander saw . . .

  Come and see!

  “Give them nothing!”

  We pity the poor slave.

  He doesn’t know your pain. He only invites you to more.

  “Hold!”

  Dreadful pain! It’s not worth it.

  “Hold!”

  It’s never worth it, in the end.

  You’re too tired to fight it anymore.

  You were born this way. Can’t change who you are.

  Let us in.

  “You can choose, Tallis! You can choose! You can!”

  The crooning faltered.

  Liar! Filthy swine liar! We hate him!

  You have no choice, Talllisss. You are what you are.

  Let us in. We will make you strong.

  “You can choose. Oh, Athenian . . . you can choose.”

  Did little brother have a choice?

  The voices went into consultation.

  That was risky.

  No—clever!

  Truth is dangerous.

  Ah, dangeroussss . . . but powerful. See him now, see him now. Yesss . . .

  Ho, human slug—brother-son of Maenad had no choice!

  What makes you think you do? UNFAIR for you to have a choice . . . and not poor brother-son!

  Unfair, unfair! the voices chorused in glee. Let us in—there is no choice.

  Poor brother had no choice!

  “No,” Tallis slurred aloud, words coming thickly. “But my mother did.”

  Watery ripples stilled. The face of the slave grew clearer.

  Soothing voices became shrill.

  Fool! Bring out truth when victory is assured!

  I thought it was!

  You will answer for that!

  Voices scurried off. Dimness lifted. And Samir and Tallis stood in a frozen grapple.

  The slave had scratches on his face where Tallis had dug for release. Several scratches beaded with blood. Sweat shone on his brown forehead. He dropped his arm from Tallis as if he could hold on no longer and looked down the other arm to Polonus.

  Tallis dropped to the bench.

  Kes rushed in from the kitchen. “Kardus is here!”

  “We know,” Tallis said hoarsely.

  The slave’s dark eyes were wide. He was staring not at Polonus but at his own hand. He withdrew his hand, fingers stiff, twisted in the shape of his grip. He brought the hand to his stomach, and cradled it with his other.

  “According to Parmenides, the world as we know it is merely illusion.” Polonus’s voice was chillingly toneless. “It doesn’t exist.” His face was gray, his lips darker gray. “It means we’re all in hell.”

  “Polonus!” Kes cried. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “POLONUS!” Though it came from outside, it shook the room, a many-timbred voice.

  “I have to go,” Polonus murmured. He rose from the table.

  Tallis gazed at Samir. “Don’t let him go.”

  But Samir was staring at his twisted hand. “It’s over.”

  “He can choose,” Tallis whispered.

  “He has chosen!” Samir shook his head in sorrow, tears falling on the cradled hand. “The way has closed. I cannot help him anymore.”

  Polonus moved slowly to the door. He paused in the doorway without turning. “Tallis. They want me to tell you your little brother was delicious.”

  Polonus drifted away, and the swell of the storm receded. Silence engulfed the room.

  “Samir? What’s wrong with Tallis?”

  “Tallis! What’s wrong?”

  His nose ran, and tears flowed, and his mind staggered because nobody knew, nobody knew, not a single person knew. Not Callimachus, not Aristarchus. He hadn’t told Kes. They knew how his brother had died, torn apart in the Bacchic frenzy. They didn’t know what happened after.

  Samir’s voice cut clear. “You think he will play clean? Look at me. You think he will play clean? He plays for keeps.” If the slave’s face was newly aged, if he held a crippled hand, his eyes blazed with a terrible light. “And so does the Most High.”

  The madman in the tombs listens to Their laughter. They have gotten away with something dreadful. The madman doesn’t know what.

  Portia used to laugh like that, without making a sound.

  And the medium he went to, seeking information. For he knew he had more in his blood than that of a mere innkeeper. He knew his blood came from Alexander the Great, and he spent money, and paid other prices, to confirm the truth he already knew, that his blood was unique. He knew he was a descendant of Alexander. He knew he was the son of a son.

  Sonofasonofasonofasonofasonofason . . .

  The wise woman told him much. Offered him more than he asked, revealed to him secrets lodged beneath mountains, knowledge past the black of the universe. She poured into him the rich wine syrup of truth, and after it settled into the last crevice, after the headiness receded, there came a disdain for mankind.

  He needed no one, then. He was attracted only to the newfound, vast desolation. It was a place of great relief, and he learned how to get there without her help. It was an arid place, a comely place, and silent. So silent. So empty. A place where he could be still, locked away from the noisome interference of humans. He went there more and more, aching with an agony to stay forever, loath to return to loud and painful discourse, the banality of mankind. Humans had become small in his sight, diminishing to insignificance, save what they could do for him.

  But They tricked him. And once he couldn’t leave, it wasn’t a quiet place at all. No longer arid and desolate. What was once attractive and soothing now crawled with jagged filth. The spacious place within became a dark hole clogged with endless torment.

  They’re laughing. They’ve gotten away with something, the tricksters, and he doesn’t know what.

  He remembers the sound of confusion that came from the medium, like a buzz about her. It had puzzled him, and he was wary. The small place within had recoiled at the sound and sent up a warning to flee. But the lure to knowledge was greater than the warning, and the small cry went unheeded. Then, after They came, They made him plaster over the place to shut it up and make it interfere no longer.

  He doesn’t know what the place is. Maybe his name is in it. But he can’t get to it any longer. It’s closed off. They think it funny. They always think it funny.

  He stays near the plastered-over place, at the dark end of his being, from familiarity alone, dwelling beside it like a bewildered dog next to its dead master.

  XI

  AND SO DOES THE MOST HIGH.

  Most who?

  Tallis sat at his place by the sea but not on the chair. He wanted to be closer to the water, so he climbed down the short drop and went to the shore.

  It was twilight, and the darkness concealed and comforted. He listened to the water gently lap the shells and the rocks. Closer to the shore meant close enough to smell the fly-ridden piles of yellowish, rotting seaweed, but the wind was on his back and took the stink across the waters.

  He watched winking fires begin to appear on the other side of the Galilee. It was a quiet, clear night, and getting chilly. Kes said it had been a mild winter, and the heaviest rains had stopped a few weeks before he arrived. Enjoy the cool evenings while you can, she’d sa
id. The heat would come all too soon. Come? he’d said. He thought it was already here.

  It was a comfort to see familiar star formations in a foreign land. It was not a comfort to have Callimachus so far away, not when he had a hundred things to sort through.

  Most High. Though the two words meant one above the rest, Samir spoke the words with a curious sense of singularity—a sense of dismissiveness. As if his god naturally blotted out the other gods. Of course, “My god is better than your god” had been around since time began, but there was that implication of singularity. Maybe his tribe believed as the Jews, in one single god, not Zeus and not Cronus the father of Zeus, but simply Creator. This was not new to Greek minds, any more than the commonly held belief in the pantheon. It was not new, but it was not believed. He had an idea what Cal would say if he seriously suggested the possibility of only one god: “It’s up to the gods if there is only one.” He could almost hear Cal chuckle.

  He thought of the diagram in Polonus’s scroll. Good. Evil. People in between. No circles for gods or goddesses. Of course, this brought it back to the tired old questions ringing the colonnades: of Evil, who made it? And who made Good? Who was responsible for it all? Why didn’t Polonus make circles for the gods? After three years with a madman, did it come only to Good, Evil, and Human? Where did Most High figure into this?

  Callimachus never troubled himself overmuch with the gods, and neither had Aristarchus. If anything, Aristarchus would take after Samir, for practicality’s sake. One god uncomplicated things, though, of course, one god was much less interesting. Whom could you blame when things went wrong? Only one god? Whom could you supplicate for help? Only one? Life was too uncertain to place all your bets on one god. What if he—or she—was busy? Tallis felt it took more faith to believe in one than in all of them.

  Good. Bad. Humans in between. The question was, did all three have equal footing, or did one rule above the others? Most important of all, was Samir’s Most High Good, and was he stronger than Bad?

  How could Polonus have known about Zagreus?

  His nose tingled again, and his skin rose with prickles. He thought it over carefully: He’d told no one about Zagreus’s death. That he died, yes, but he gave no detail. He’d tried to tell Kes, but she had run off for the barn. And he was glad. He hadn’t wanted her to hear it.