Madman

by Tracy Groot

  When he had first learned the name of the child at the inn, a haze came. Blankness had settled with the name. Now he could see Zagreus clearly, the boy of the inn, and in his mind, he saw another. A smaller child with darker hair and more solemn eyes. He could see the soft bit of wool he carried with him and held to his cheek; he could see the thumb in his mouth. Tallis hadn’t been able to see him for a long time.

  He used to tease him about the thumb. He’d ask him what it tasted like, and Zagreus would smile, breaking the suction, and with the thumb in his mouth he’d say grapes, or mint, or blackberries. Sometimes Tallis would act astonished and grab for the thumb to taste and see, and Zagreus would laugh. Once Zagreus asked Mother if he could have honeycake for dinner because that’s what his thumb tasted like. Mother laughed, and said so we shall. And they had nothing but honeycake for dinner.

  He remembered he had loved his little brother. He remembered how much he loved him, because the blankness was gone and he could see him again, a dark-haired little boy with the thumb in his mouth, standing behind the fair-haired boy of the inn. And he felt pain, and the aloneness of grief, and he felt human again.

  “Which is better,” Aristarchus had once asked, “blindness or refusing to see?”

  “Hear me, Good, if you are there, and any heroes for Good,” Tallis suddenly said to the waves on the lake. Then he waited for a while, because he didn’t know how to say it. “I suppose I’d like to know if Good is there at all, because we all know Bad. We’re smoked through with it, if a woman can kill her child.”

  Most High plays for keeps. That had a good heartening sound to it, coming from Samir. He couldn’t prop it with logic before Callimachus, because Callimachus would not understand it. He hardly did himself. But it had a good sound.

  He turned a mocking tone on the waves: “Most High plays for keeps. Sounds nice, Cal, don’t you think? I’ll serve myself the hemlock now. . . .”

  They made Socrates drink hemlock because he led the youth of Athens astray with his truth nonsense. Not soon after, they revered him. They had to kill him to revere him, and Callimachus and Tallis had a private joke when the world went upside down and called truth falseness, and black white: They answered absurdities with “I’ll serve myself the hemlock now. . . .”

  “Do you wish to be alone?”

  Tallis looked over his shoulder. The soft call behind him had come from Samir.

  The slave stood on the drop, an eerie stalk of white capped in white in the indigo twilight.

  “No. Not anymore.” He turned to the waters. He heard the slave drop down, heard the gristle of the shore under his sandals.

  Samir settled in an easy squat not far from Tallis and gazed out on the lake. “Winds are dying down. I’m ready to put in my garden.”

  “You haven’t planted yet?” Tallis asked.

  “We wait until the strong rains stop. I should have planted weeks ago.”

  “How long have you been at the inn?”

  “Perhaps twenty years.”

  Tallis studied him. The sight of his hand, still twisted in the shape of his grip on Polonus, sent a silent shock through Tallis. Yet his contented gaze on the lake and the sky belied any concern for his hand. “Who are your people, Samir?”

  “I am come from a Parthian tribe. The Charaxi.”

  “I don’t know whom you remind me of more, my master, Callimachus, or my aggravator, Aristarchus.” He glanced toward the inn. “Who is with Zagreus?”

  “We moved his pallet to Mistress Kes’s room.”

  Tallis nodded. Two days until the festival. He didn’t have to look at a calendar, not since he’d arrived in Palestine. He wore the calendar inside him. He felt the date approaching.

  “Tell me about your people,” Samir said.

  “Cal and Aristarchus?” A warmness came. “Yes, I suppose they are my people. My tribe.” His first memory after Thebes was not Callimachus but Aristarchus.

  “I was twelve, and I woke up after a bad dream. How I got from Thebes to Athens is still a mystery to me. I awoke on a porch, a fancy colonnaded place, to a man who was shaking me and telling me to shove off.” He smiled. “That was Aristarchus. He thought I was a vagrant. Callimachus came, and he is my second memory. He did a strange thing: he took my chin and looked into my eyes—” He broke off to look at Samir curiously. “As you have done—and looking into those eyes, I began to cry. I don’t know why I did it. It was the first real conversation I ever had.

  “Cal took me in, and he helped me to . . . repair. Aristarchus helped too. I heard them once, when they thought I’d gone to sleep. ‘The restoration of Tallis,’ Aristarchus said. I didn’t hear anything else, just that. The restoration of Tallis.” He chose a place on the horizon to be Athens. “This is my tribe, Samir. Aristarchus and Callimachus.”

  “I knew you were fortunate.”

  “Yes.” Then Tallis lifted an eyebrow. “Well—we could argue that.” Eyes still on Athens, he said, “I never told Polonus what happened after they killed my brother. I never told anyone, not even Cal. How did he know? What happened in that room today?”

  Samir grunted an affirmative. “I also knew you were wise.”

  Tallis squinted at him. “Why are you a slave? Because you are not.”

  “I am a slave because I am a slave.” There was a shrug in his voice. “In this, I do not have a choice.”

  “Would you have chosen something else? Are you a slave because it is your fate to be a slave?”

  Samir smiled. His teeth shone in the dark. “We could argue that.”

  “Samir . . . why is the way closed for Polonus?” He couldn’t help a glance at the crippled hand. “What did you mean by that, that he has chosen—why did it sound awful? How did he know about Zagreus?” He added, “My Zagreus—my little brother. He died when he was four.”

  Samir sighed and regarded the far shoreline for a time before he answered. “I will tell you what a person must learn for himself, if the learning will have strength.” He lifted his head, and his eyes traveled the sky. “Time, we do not have. My fathers and my mothers will understand.” His troubled expression said he wasn’t so sure about that. “Master Athenian, my tribe teaches this, that there are two truths. The first truth: You can choose. The second truth: You cannot choose for another.”

  Tallis realized he’d been leaning for the words. He remained motionless for a moment, then made his withdrawal as discreet as he could. He scratched the back of his neck. “So that means . . .”

  The slave sighed deeply. “It means you are not weak.”

  “Talk plainly, please,” Tallis said, unable to keep the sourness out of his tone. “Tell me how Polonus knew my brother died, explain what happens to me when Kardus is near—I don’t see Kes and Jarek on the ground like a couple of jellyfish. Just don’t give me philosophy. I’ve had it all my life. You want philosophy, you want rhetoric? I could debate you senseless. And I’m only a servant.”

  “Polonus tried to talk plainly to the Decaphiloi, and those wise people would not understand. They refuse to see great evil, just as they refuse to see great good.”

  “Which of them tried to hurt me?” Tallis said, more to himself. “Who forged the reports?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Samir snapped. Then he muttered sullenly under his breath, probably complaining to his solitary Most High.

  “Gods, you sound more like Aristarchus every time I listen.”

  They sat in stiff silence, the gentle rhythmic lap of the water the only sound. Just when Tallis was ready to get up and leave the uncomfortable wedge that had dropped down between them, Samir spoke.

  “The greatest trick of the Lord of the Souls is to convince a man he is weak. Weak against drink, against rage. Weak against any form of evil, middling or not. Too weak to change things.” Samir rummaged in the sand. He held out his palm, upturned, with a pebble on it. The palm was a floating light patch in the twilight, the pebble, a dark dot upon it.

  “If a man knows that good lies plain a
s this, that all he must do is choose to take it, the Lord of the Souls is defeated. But he is a master of deception. Good appears impossible.” He closed the pebble in his fist. The light patch disappeared.

  “Kardus chose to be weak, and do not despise another for weakness, or you ally yourself with Shaitan. To believe we can make a good choice is hard work.” The patch appeared again as he displayed the pebble. “Even a free man fights every day to know good choice is there. And without choice, there is no such thing as love. Only shackles. All of this, Athenian, belongs to the first truth. The second truth is that we cannot choose for another. And that is all that belongs to the second truth.”

  “Then how do we help people? How do we help Kardus?”

  Samir let the pebble slide out of his hand. His voice was gentle. “I am trying to help you.”

  “This is about Kardus, not me.”

  “You cannot help Kardus until you help yourself. We do our best for others by always choosing the good for ourselves. It starts there. Flows out in ripples, like a stone dropped in a pond. Our choice for good will always aid another. Always! We may not see it, it may not be ours to see. Not in this life.”

  Tallis didn’t know what to think, how to feel. He couldn’t answer.

  “What should have been costly for you to obtain, by pain and struggle, I have given freely, and I did you no favor.” The slave rose and dusted the shore from himself.

  Tallis heard his footsteps retreat, the shore rustling under his feet.

  This is why the world was in such a mess? Nobody choosing for themselves, but always trying to choose for another? He looked for Athens on the horizon.

  “Cal, we have two new truths. File these under ‘Charaxi.’ Truth number one: You can choose. Truth number two: You cannot choose for another. Pass it on to Aristarchus—he may be impressed. He may think more kindly of me.”

  Well and good, Samir, well and good.

  “What if there’s hell between you and the pebble on the palm?” Tallis shouted over his shoulder. “How do you make hell go away? You have another truth for that?”

  No answer, save softly retreating footsteps.

  “Is there another truth for that, Samir?”

  What if despair fills you for the choices others have made? Aching came for the little boy with the thumb in his mouth. What if their choices cripple and blind you, what if their choice was not a pebble dropped in a pond but a planet smashed in the sea, and the waves have laid you out on the shore and they keep coming and coming and you cannot stand up for their crashing?

  What then, Samir?

  “Curse you for your truths, Samir! You idiots who reduce life to two truths!”

  If it weren’t for the message in the forum, he would leave right now. Samir had said it with such dreadful finality: Polonus has chosen. Well, so had Kardus, and now Polonus was out of the picture, so what was Tallis still doing here?

  “Polonus has chosen,” Tallis muttered darkly. “So what are you going to do, Samir? Keep taking your good pebble, and that’s going to help them both?”

  Louder, over his shoulder, he said, “You know what? I hate philosophy. I hate maxims and two truths, and I’m going back where things make sense. This time I swear, I swear by every god known or unknown, I swear by them all or I swear by the one—I’ll stay out of the colonnades.”

  He settled into a brood on the lake. “I’ll stay in the kitchen this time, Cal. The only thing that makes sense is a well-made sauce. I won’t venture to the portico again, not ever, not unless it’s to serve myself some hemlock—and wouldn’t the colonnades be the perfect place for that? Alexander hated rhetoric. Hated debate. Said it was insidious to play both sides equally well. And I am talking out loud to myself on the shore of the Galilee.”

  Tallis kept to himself as much as he could the next day. He had woken from yet another nightmare to sit on the edge of his cot, rubbing away the clammy sweat on his neck. He saw the scrolls from Polonus on the floor. He noticed the serene writing desk with all the pristine writing supplies. He didn’t have the strength, because of the cursed nightmare, to sweep it all to the ground and crush it to rubble.

  Heavy on him for the duration of the day was the meeting of the Decaphiloi at noon the next. It was too late to go to Hippos and post another message, saying he didn’t care anymore and please don’t come, unless it’s to bring money for his passage home. He’d made a fool of himself with that message, with the inn folk, and with everyone else. An utter and complete fool.

  Everyone else seemed in as morose a mood as he. Kes was quiet, and snippy when she did speak, wearing an unflattering scowl. Samir kept to the barn. Jarek had Zagreus help him work on the roof of the inn, making repairs after the winter rains. Jarek didn’t say a word to Tallis all day, acted like he didn’t even see him. Tallis had to tidy the guest rooms and clean the common room, then finish repairing the grindstone. He worked on it all afternoon and finally stalked into the barn and threw the awl at Samir’s feet and told him to do it himself. He ended up in the kitchen chopping onions.

  Yes, he’d made a fool of himself and took great satisfaction in knowing he’d put this place behind him as soon as he earned enough money for passage to Athens. If a couple of dinars didn’t get him to Athens, it would at least put him on the next ship out of Caesarea and get him to a port closer to home. The itch to go was on him, however, and if he could pack enough provisions, he’d walk to Athens.

  That would be a small adventure, backtracking Alexander’s route, and the thought cheered him a little. He could visit Tyre on the coast and see the place that had defied Alexander (and earned his respect) on his southern march to Egypt. He could visit the battleground at Issus, where the Persian Darius first met the young Macedonian in battle and had a taste of his tactical genius. The Persian army outnumbered the Macedonian army ten to one: Alexander made it look the opposite.

  Alexander had been in the latest nightmare. He had those huge slanted orange eyes. He was laughing at Tallis because Tallis was full of fear. And when he awoke in another nightmare sweat, he swore he could hear—actually hear—laughing. Thought he’d heard a door close again, a door in the air in his room.

  “Too coarse,” Kes said, inspecting the pieces of his chopped onion. “They’re going in my lamb balls, not a salad.”

  He scraped the onion pieces together and attacked viciously with the knife.

  “You don’t look like you’re getting much sleep,” she added quietly. “You’re still mending, you know.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to say something crude, like I’d sleep much better with you in my bed. Then the thoughts went from bad to worse, as images flickered in his mind. Bad images, memories from a sleazy public bathhouse in Athens. Tallis had gone on a dare from his friends. The bathhouse was only a cover for its real doings. He’d seen things there to shock him to his core. Aristarchus said there were things a whore would never dream of doing, and things a wife would do on a bet.

  What was wrong with him? Battering thoughts came like a hail of stones. If she knew the perversions roiling in his brain at that moment, she’d send him packing herself. He reached for another onion to chop—and an insane thought came to rush at Kes with the knife.

  He could understand a few thoughts of Kes to warm his cheeks, but the sleazy bathhouse kind? And running at people with knives? He couldn’t help an incredulous chuckle.

  “I’m going mad,” he muttered, and froze. This was not the thing to say in the hearing of the sister of Kardus. Thank goodness she had plunked a small iron skillet on the brazier at that moment.

  She glanced at him. “What did you say?”

  “I—regret calling the meeting tomorrow.”

  She took a small sack of seed and poured some into the skillet. In a few moments he knew the seed was cumin, as the aroma filled the kitchen. They used a lot of cumin in Palestine, even more than they did in Greece. Kes stirred the seed carefully with a wooden spoon.

  “Why do you regret it?” she present
ly asked.

  “Because everybody seems to. That makes me uneasy.” He wondered how many would show up. “Do you think you can make some of that date bread for tomorrow?”

  “Of course. Chop some dates when you’re done.”

  “I’m going back to Athens.”

  Kes shook the pan over the grate. She smelled the toasting seeds, stirred them over the brazier a few more moments, then emptied the seeds into a stone mortar.

  The longer she did not answer, the worse he felt.

  “I can’t help your brother.” Not without Polonus, and Polonus is going the way of Kardus.

  She stirred the seeds, cooling them. “Then don’t stay for him.” She took the pestle and began to grind the seeds. The aroma was spicier than ever.

  Why did I kiss her?

  Tallis, you fool. You made it all the harder to leave. You’ve gone and made someone care for you, a stunning feat, and now you’re going to leave her. Just who is the wharf rat?

  What about me? I care for her too.

  You know where caring gets you.

  “In a whole lot of trouble,” he muttered.

  “What?” Kes asked.

  “Where are the dates?”

  XII

  ANTENOR HAD HIRED a man to drive him to the Inn-by-the-Lake. He left Hippos early to arrive before the other Decaphiloi, if any dared to show—he snorted softly. Knowing them, they all had the same idea, and Tallis’s meeting would begin an hour early.

  And which of the Decaphiloi remnant would show?

  Not Polonus. He’d visited Antenor at the theater the other day. Acted like Kardus did before he took a nosedive into insanity. That plucking of his lips and the paranoid glances. His initial gladness at seeing his old friend quickly diminished.

  Half the time Polonus said nothing, seemed to forget why he’d even come. The rest of the time he mumbled randomly, apparently trying to remember whatever he and Antenor had in common. It hurt Antenor to see him this way; it angered him, and he felt relief when he finally left. Score another ruination for Callimachus.