Madman

by Tracy Groot

  “What old woman?”

  “The one who came to see Kes—did she look like Shoshanna to you?”

  But Samir was shaking his head. “What old woman?”

  “Don’t say that, Samir, you saw her just as we were leaving. You saw the old woman; she was on the road. I saw her, and Kes did, and Kes went to—”

  “There was no old woman!” Samir cried. “There was no one!”

  They stared at one another a moment more. Then Tallis pushed past Samir and stumbled up the broken-stone path, as an eerie shriek from Polonus followed.

  “The Day of Dionysus!” the old scholar wailed. “The Day is come!”

  Tallis was in a dead run before he left the clearing.

  He leapt over rocks; he slid in pig dung and righted himself at a scramble. He raced along the top of the ridge and descended the slope to the road in a tumbling run. He fell, skidding on his hands when he hit the bottom. He staggered up and ran.

  He heard only his own hard breathing—he didn’t realize Samir was on his heels. When he stopped for breath, bracing on his knees, the slave ran past him. Gasping for air, he lurched after him.

  The alarm of the nightmare rang strong upon him when the inn came into sight. Cold grainy light came to his heart. He stopped where the road turned into the inn, breathing hard. All was silent. He did not see Samir, who had run on ahead; he saw no one. All so silent, and everything wrong. He started for the barn.

  He didn’t know why he did not see her when he first came upon the inn. She was lying on her side in the chicken yard. Her head lay on her arm in a graceful form of repose; she looked to be asleep upon the grass, not in the dirt. She wasn’t wearing her head covering, the faded blue head covering with the hem she’d fingered as she tried so hard to talk to him. The wind gently lifted a few wisps of her hair, and they lilted in the wind. Her lovely form was so still. So graceful.

  He moved slowly toward Kes, aware of sound, finally, of a wail so saturated and true it split open his heart. It came from Samir in the barn, a long undulating cry.

  Tallis sank beside Kes. He captured a wisp of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. He took her shoulder and gently pulled her toward him, easing her to her back. He brushed the hair from her eyes. The eyelids fluttered, and his breath caught—

  He looked her over quickly, felt along her limbs. He didn’t see any wounds. He brushed the rest of the hair from her face. Her cheek was red, creased where it had rested on her arm. She didn’t open her eyes, but moaned slightly, as if deep in sleep. Kes . . . oh, Kes, thank the gods. Kes . . .

  He gathered her in, his face in her hair. He held her limp form fiercely, unwilling to answer the wail from the barn.

  The wail did not stop. It began again after it ended, rasping now. Gently Tallis laid Kes down.

  Samir had torn his tunic down the middle. He’d torn off his head cap and heaped his hair with straw. The wail did not end when he saw Tallis; he only took another handful of barn dust and threw it over his head. Tears streaked the gray dust upon his face.

  Jarek was dead. He was not dismembered, his eyes were not put out. Tallis did not see the blood of his dreams. Jarek lay on his back, mouth open, eyes empty. His face was scratched and beaten, and there was some blood, yes, but not much, not the blood of his dreams. Tallis felt for the wall and braced himself on it.

  Zagreus was gone. He could see a place of fresh splintering in the wood where the shackles had been hacked from the wall. They had no key to unlock him, because Jarek died to keep it from them. There was no blood where Zagreus had been. Only broken cinnamon sticks.

  Zagreus was still alive—Tallis was sure because he knew the lore of the Bacchantes. Unless they were fully engulfed in the frenzies, unless a hapless mocker stood in their way, they did not sacrifice humans to Dionysus on the day of the festival. They saved that for the nones, the day after. While the world put away their festoons and masks, the Bacchantes prepared for midnight.

  Tallis’s dull gaze fell upon Zagreus’s grandfather. He did not see the blood of his nightmare, but he felt it, like the cold grainy light.

  The blood was in the air, dragged over with it.

  XIV

  THE COMMON ROOM WAS FILLED with the people of Kursi within a few hours. The old salt and his fishermen were among them. Those who could not fit into the inn milled about outside. Children played, happy to be with other children, unsure of what event had called them away from daily chores. Some did not play, but watched the adults, wondering at whatever mystery had happened in the barn.

  The authorities from Kursi had been notified of Shamash-Eriba’s raid on the inn and had sent a rider on to Hippos. Hippos had jurisdiction over Kursi, so any incident had to go through Hippos, especially incidents like this, of a marauding political nature. Leave it to fanatics like Shamash-Eriba to wait for a festival day for a raid.

  The Kursians speculated on this brutal attack. Did Eriba believe Jarek was in league with the Romans? Jarek was a loyal Kursian—he’d not willingly deal with the Romans other than to pay his taxes and take their coin for ale. He often joked that Romans were his favorite customers because they were paying back his taxes.

  Why would political fanatics target their own loyal Jarek? Why would they steal a child?

  Shoshanna had come, a plump old woman swathed in dusty dark purple, first seeing to Kes in her room, then taking over in the kitchen. Other women were there, working silently. They sliced up whatever they found in the kitchen and set it on the table in the common room. They folded their arms and watched their men outside. Everyone waited for the authorities to arrive from Hippos. They kept a constant vigil on the southern road to give themselves something to do. Some figured it might be a while: it was the Festival of Dionysus, and Hippos was busy.

  Samir had not left the barn. He was quiet now, thank the gods, the eerie wail spent. A few Roman soldiers kept watch on the hills, as if Eriba and his men would leap from cover and descend upon the inn at any moment. A few trackers had been dispatched and had not yet returned.

  Tallis was in a far corner of the common room, seated on the floor with his back against the wall. A cup came into his sight. He looked up—it was the old salt from the sea.

  Tallis took the cup as the older man eased down next to him and folded his hands over his stomach. His sun-darkened face was creased and grizzled. He had the same look as everyone else, that heavy shock.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Tallis said quietly. “How long have you known Jarek?”

  “All my life.” He glanced about to see if anyone could hear him, then said quietly, “They’re not going to find anything, those trackers. Shamash-Eriba wasn’t here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Eriba is a patriot, but he is no murderer. Too much is laid at the feet of the Parthians. You don’t have to be a murderer to want independence.”

  “What is your name?” Tallis asked, though he already knew. He had served him wine just the other night, but it was too busy to be officially introduced. He’d only said, I’ve seen you on the water. And the man had eyed him and replied, I’ve seen you too. No one stays at the inn more than a day.

  “I am Bek`eshan. I am called Bek.”

  “Bek, I need to get to Scythopolis. I have to pick up some people along the way. I’ll need a cart large enough to carry four or five men. I need to leave as soon as possible.”

  “Is this about Zagreus?”

  “It is.”

  “He has been—taken, then?”

  “He has. And we have to find him before the sun goes down, or it will be too late.”

  “So . . . if we are going to Scythopolis,” Bek said carefully, not looking at Tallis, “then this is not the work of Kardus.”

  Surprised, Tallis said, “No.”

  A wave of emotion came. For a long moment, Bek covered his eyes with his hand. Then he sniffed and rubbed his nose. His lips trembled, but he kept control. He gestured at the people in the inn.

  “These good
people don’t want to believe it was Kardus. They don’t want to believe he could do this to his own father—they don’t want to believe he took the boy. So they talk about Shamash-Eriba. They need to believe it was him, and we must not take that from them.” He looked at Tallis with weary sorrow. “I will come with you to Scythopolis, and I will bring my son. We will bring Zagreus home to Kes.”

  When Shoshanna found out where they were going, she made them wait in the common yard with the cart and horses, and hurried to the kitchen. She came back with a bulging water skin and a covered basket and handed them to Tallis in the back of the cart. “There are cinnamon sticks in there. He is fond of cinnamon sticks.” She gripped Tallis’s arm, then patted it. “Bring him back, lad.” She went to say more but pressed her lips and patted his arm once more, and turned back to the inn.

  Samir had said nothing, merely leaned his head on the barn door and watched them go, his brown face dreadfully vacant. The cart pulled away, and Tallis had looked at him as long as he could, hoping for something, anything. The piercing look that imparted strength. A bid for good fortune, a blessing, a wave. Nothing.

  Bek`eshan’s son was named Bahat`avi. He was called Tavi. He sat behind his father in the cart and said nothing to Tallis. His features were darker than those of his father, his curly hair and his beard, his look. He stared hard at the other side of the cart and didn’t even look up when his father introduced them.

  Tallis gazed on the eastern ridge of hills as the cart bumped on the road. Scythopolis was some twenty miles south and west from Hippos. It would take several hours of brisk travel to get there. In Hippos, he hoped, it would not take long to rouse as many—any—of the Decaphiloi as he could find.

  Bek stopped the cart at the bottom of the traversing lane to Upper Hippos. “I don’t want to take the horses up, not with Beth Shean ahead of us.”

  Tallis had learned many of the locals referred to the city as Beth Shean, not by the Greek name of Scythopolis. He jumped down from the cart. “I won’t be long.”

  He started up the slope. To his surprise, Tavi was right behind him.

  The two men were silent on the way up and through the western gates. Tallis glanced at the ivy draped from the archway as they went under it. He caught the scent of roasting food and heard snatches of instruments and choruses from within the city. The Day of Dionysus was in full swing.

  They wove around happy festivalgoers in the streets. Fathers carried small children on their shoulders, mothers kept the rest of the clan together. Vendors sold sprigs of ivy and pine, clusters of grapes and figs, tiny souvenir thrysi sticks twined with ivy, the sacred wand of Dionysus and the Maenads. Jugglers and acrobats could be seen in glimpses through the people who ringed them. Choruses paraded the streets, singing the praises of Dionysus.

  They were halfway through the crowded forum when Tavi spoke. “Who are we fetching?”

  “A man named Antenor. He runs the theater.”

  “What about Polonus?”

  Tallis looked at him sideways. “You know Polonus?”

  Tavi dodged a group of laughing young men who had suddenly pushed into them. He hurried back into step with Tallis. “I know him. Kardus and I grew up together.”

  “Polonus can be of no help to us now.”

  After a moment Tavi said darkly, “Then he goes the way of Kardus.”

  “Yes.” Tallis hesitated. “Did you know Zagreus is Kardus’s son?”

  “It is true, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everyone suspected it. Except Kes and Jarek.”

  “They know now. They found out yesterday. They found out from the man we are going to see.” From the side of his eye, he noticed Tavi’s glance.

  “Jarek knew before he died? He knew Zagreus was his grandson?”

  Tallis nodded.

  After a moment, the young man said softly, “That is good.”

  “It’s what I heard Jarek call him this morning. ‘My grandson.’”

  The theater spilled over with revelers. Wine stalls had been set up outside the building. Hawkers sold their trinkets, and vendors plied them with figs, the favored food of Dionysus. Tallis shouldered his way through the crowd to the stone arch, Tavi close behind, where on either side of the arch two young men dressed like Dionysus sold tickets to the performances.

  “I need to speak with Anten—with Patroclus,” Tallis said to one of them.

  “He’s busy.” The tall young man was counting coins in his box. His cheeks were reddened apples, his lips were reddened slashes. Kohl darkened his brows, and glittery purple-pink painted his eyelids. A fake beard of corkscrew curls dangled from his chin and jiggled with his counting. String tied the beard around the back of his head. A wreath of ivy with clusters of grapes fastened to it adorned his head.

  Someone from the crowd called out his name and hooted at him, and he glanced up with a grin, mouthing the count of the coins.

  “I must see him. I have grievous tidings.”

  The young man glanced at Tallis and at Tavi behind him. He finished his count and looked at the other costumed man on the other side of the arch. “Gracchus—I’ll be right back.” He closed the lid and picked up the box. “Follow me.”

  He led them through the arch and picked his way down the stadium stairs, clogged with people waiting for the next performance. He led them down to the stage itself, up onto the platform, and over to the side curtain. Here the young man held his hand up for them to wait, then ducked behind the curtain. After a moment he reappeared, with Antenor behind him. The young man left.

  Antenor wore heavy stage makeup and a wreath of ivy on his head. “What is it? What tidings do you bring?”

  “Jarek is dead. Murdered.”

  “Jarek.” Then recognition came. Stunned, he said, “The innkeeper?”

  Tallis nodded. Antenor held aside the curtain and beckoned them in, but Tallis said, “She took Zagreus.”

  For the first time, pain swelled to his throat. He ground his teeth to keep the grief down, but it swelled mercilessly, and as he gazed on Antenor, tears rose. Too long he had leashed grief—seemed the release of the old had made him weak against new. Angrily he dashed at the tears, kept his look down in embarrassment.

  Jarek was gone. He’d held long vigil at that inn, waiting for the day his son would return whole. Waiting for a miracle, seeking desperately for it in a shifty shaman from the East, in an old philosopher now broken. Providing shackles and baskets, tirelessly keeping up a fake smile, watching over an orphan he finally learned was his own grandson.

  Fury rose, and the swell quieted the grief. The thought of vengeance steadied Tallis. He raised his eyes to Antenor.

  “I’m going to Scythopolis to fetch Zagreus, and if I get the chance, I will kill her. There will be no justice for Jarek, same as there was no justice for Theseus. Or for my own little brother.” He felt the questioning stare on him from Tavi. “Come with me, Antenor. This is what you’ve wanted.”

  He became aware of the crowd noise, of backstage chants from the rehearsing chorus. The play today would be from Euripides, The Bacchae. Tallis looked at Antenor’s makeup and the ivy wreath, the silver brocaded vest. “What part do you play?”

  Antenor’s made-up face was still, his look distant. “Cadmus,” he said absently.

  Cadmus, father of Pentheus the unbeliever, killed by his own mother in a Bacchic rout.

  Antenor pulled off his ivy crown, let it slip from his fingers. He shrugged off the vest, let it drop to the ground. Tallis turned and went the way he came, Tavi and Antenor following.

  The pie-faced magistrate wasn’t in the public records building. A different, younger man was at his desk. He looked up when the three came in. “Servos has gone to the theater.”

  “We are looking for Philip,” Antenor said.

  The man looked them over as he rose, in particular at Antenor’s face, which had not been washed clean of the makeup. “Last I saw he was in the back. He may have gone with Servos, but I’ll see if
he’s still there.”

  He came back a few moments later with a tall man who had to duck to clear the doorway.

  Julia’s husband was younger than Tallis had expected. He was a markedly handsome man, Roman-soldier tall, with a smooth, strong face and clear gray eyes. He nodded at Antenor, lingering briefly on the makeup, and glanced at Tallis.

  Antenor drew him aside and spoke quickly to him, softly enough to prevent the young man at the desk from hearing—and it was evident he strained to listen. Tallis slipped casually between them to make sure the clerk didn’t hear.

  Philip’s face grew dark, color rising high in his cheeks. When Antenor finished speaking, Philip drew himself tall. He regarded Antenor first, then Tallis and Tavi. Tallis got the feeling he really didn’t see them. He unbuckled the pouch about his waist and laid it on the young man’s desk.

  “Tell Servos I had to go to Scythopolis. Tell him it’s a follow-up to the Shamash-Eriba incident in Kursi.”

  “What Shamash-Eriba incident?” the clerk replied indignantly.

  “He sent Marcus an hour ago to check out a raid on an inn near Kursi.”

  “They never tell me anything.”

  “I believe we passed him on the road,” Tallis said.

  “Send a messenger to Julia; tell her I will not be home for dinner. Tell her—” Philip paused. “Tell her I’ll be late.”

  He disappeared through the doorway and returned with a light cape about his shoulders, fastened at his neck by a brooch with some emblem Tallis did not recognize. The cape did not conceal the short sword fastened about his waist.

  Hector groaned at the shaking. He cracked his eyes open, noticing first that his window shade had the glow of daylight behind it. They knew better than to rouse him before dusk. Then he remembered: Today was the Festival of Dionysus. Likely some revelers had already drunk the health of Dionysus too enthusiastically, and reinforcements were needed.

  “All right, I’m awake,” he growled at the man shaking his shoulder, then looked again. He squinted. “Unless my eyes trick me, it is Antenor.”