by Tracy Groot
“It is.”
“Antenor with garish makeup.” He sat up. “This is not a pleasant way to wake up.”
Antenor settled on the end of his bunk. “Are you on first watch?”
Hector snorted. “All watches, today.”
Antenor folded his arms. “How would you like to lose your job?”
“And how would I do that?”
“By not showing up.”
Bek had waited at the bottom of the slope, gazing at a vessel at the Lower Hippos harbor. They were off-loading a shipment from Tiberias across the lake. He glanced up at the western gates of Upper Hippos, from whence his gaze did not stray long, and looked again. At last, Tallis and Tavi came down the path, leading three other men. He gathered in the reins and clicked at the horses.
To quicken their journey, Philip and Hector had insisted on riding their own horses, stabled at Lower Hippos. They rode on either side of the cart as they all listened to Tallis.
Tallis stood to be heard well, hanging on to the back of the driver’s seat. “We are bound for the temple of Dionysus in Scythopolis. There will be services and ceremonies. Today initiates become priestesses, and the curious seek answers. The lore of Dionysus will be taught by his faithful to any interested. It will be crowded and busy. Saving those things, I do not know what to expect. I’ve only seen the temple from a distance, I’ve not been inside. Have any of you?”
No one had.
“The temple is on the northeast mount,” Philip said. “We’ll see the back of it as the road nears the city. We will not have to go around to the main city gates—we can take the northeast gate. It won’t be as crowded.”
“I don’t know where they will be hiding Zagreus,” Tallis said, “but he is considered holy to them. They killed to get him; they’ll kill to keep him. Going to the temple is risking your lives.” He looked at everyone in turn: Antenor at the back of the cart, Tavi behind his father. Philip on one side of the cart, Hector on the other. “You must know that.”
“Why would they kill a little boy?” Bek said over his shoulder. “How could anyone do such a thing?”
“A male child is reared by the nurses of Dionysus, and when he is five or six, he is offered in sacrifice on the holy day. At the moment of the slaying, Dionysus is supposed to appear. The child is regarded as his human host. A mere possession of Dionysus, nothing to him, just an earthly container. The Maenads believe killing the child releases the god. If they do not release him, they believe they will suffer consequences for it.”
“I hate this world and all it contains,” Antenor muttered. “I hate religion, and I hate the gods, and I hate the ones who revere them.”
“How do we know he is still alive?” Hector asked.
“I have been a scholar of Dionysus,” Tallis said. “The day most sacred to him is the nones of the month; any human sacrifice is offered on the nones at midnight, upon a mountain or hilltop.”
“But there are hills all over,” Philip said, frustration in his voice.
“Which is why we must find him before dark. He’s sure to be in the temple.”
“What is the plan?” Hector asked.
Tallis glanced at him. He could not remember this man from that summer at Athens. If he did, he remembered a slighter version, wearing a toga, not garrison garb; toting a tablet, not a sheathed sword.
He was now a watchman, employed by Hippos to police the city. He wore a leather vest and a hard leather helmet. Add hobnail boots and a cape and a few more inches of height, and you’d have a Roman soldier. This man seemed twice the size of the scholar in Athens.
“Medicine,” Tallis said suddenly. “You studied medicine.”
Hector did not reply.
“Didn’t you?”
“He was brilliant,” Antenor said, eyeing Hector. “Sought after. He chose our little academy over a position they offered him at Asclepius—another diplomatic feat wrought by Callimachus, curse him forever.”
“What’s the plan?” Hector repeated, his tone unchanged.
“I have no plan,” Tallis admitted, “except for rescue.”
“And justice,” Antenor put in. “Remember justice?”
“What justice?” Philip asked.
Antenor looked at Tallis, and Tallis did not reply.
Philip looked warily at both of them. He guided his horse around a hole in the road. When he neared the cart again, he said, “You told me this was about the child, Antenor, not vengeance. I will have no part in lawless retribution.”
“What about you, Hector?” Antenor asked. “Given the chance, what would you do with Portia?”
For answer, Hector took his gaze from the road ahead. It slowly swept past Tallis on the way to Antenor, and Tallis felt its chill in the passing. Hector kept the dead stare upon Antenor, then looked back at the road.
“The authorities are handling this,” Philip announced, warning in his tone. “They will investigate, and justice will be brought to its conclusion.”
“As it was for Theseus?” Antenor twisted in the cart to look at Philip. “Ask Hector if he thinks there was justice for Theseus. Or even an investigation. Ask the widow of Theseus, ask his three children if there was justice for a father literally ripped apart and—”
“We’re not talking about what happened three years ago, Antenor,” Philip cut in. “Marcus says Shamash-Eriba and his band raided the inn.”
“Shamash-Eriba would do no such thing,” Bek said over his shoulder.
“Why would you go to Scythopolis if you didn’t believe it was Portia?” Tallis asked Philip. “You think Eriba’s camp is in Scythopolis?”
Philip did not answer.
Antenor said clearly, “Philip—if I get the chance, I’ll kill Portia without hesitation or guilt. I have been around this cultus of Dionysus long enough to know there will be no justice for the innkeeper. And why? Because no one will interfere with the gods. The authorities will execute a cursory examination, find out it leads to Dionysus, then call it a mystery and consign the matter to the dust in the archives. Just like Theseus.
“She wasn’t stopped then, and look what has happened for it. Another man murdered, and if we fail today, a child will die. Call it justice or call it prevention, Philip. Kill her now, and you’ll save someone else later. Maybe someone you love.”
“How do you hold a god responsible for the death of a mortal?” Tavi wondered with a frown.
“At last, some logic!” Antenor exclaimed, raising his hands and dropping them. “Refresh me, what is your name?”
“Bahat`avi. I am called Tavi.”
“Tavi, you don’t hold the gods responsible—you hold the villain mortals with the dripping hands responsible, despite their filthy protestation, ‘The gods required it!’ Abominable cowards. Hades is too good for them.”
“Do you have proof that Portia killed Jarek?” Philip demanded. “Any witnesses?”
Eyes went to Tallis, and Tallis could not answer. Anger flashed within him, recollection of the same helplessness he felt when he had returned to his village to seek justice for his brother.
“That’s what I thought. Neither could they prove that Portia killed Theseus.” Philip’s tone was far from satisfied in its rightness. “Don’t think they didn’t try, and try hard—and try for a very long time. But there were no witnesses and there was no proof. I believe as you do: I believe Portia had a hand in Theseus’s death, and yes, in the death of the innkeeper, given all I know of this cultus, and of the circumstances of the inn. But we cannot condemn a man or a woman without witnesses, or proof, or the word of a king. If we do, we are lawbreakers. I ride with you to help a little boy, because I have a boy of my own—but I’ll have no part in the shedding of more blood. By the gods, if you raise a hand to another in my sight, I will strike it down. Only the boy matters.”
“Let me tell you of a boy and of blood,” Tallis said, his own voice hollow in his ears. “They tore apart my little brother before my eyes.”
Silence, save the sound
of the horses and the cart.
And the thing, that thing, monstrous beneath the surface, now crept into his heart. He couldn’t save his own Zagreus, the gentle boy with the thumb in his mouth, smiling to break the suction, telling him his thumb tasted like honeycake . . . how could he be sure of saving this other Zagreus? He didn’t want to doubt, for fear the doubt would lend power to the evil at work, but doubt was the monster, and Tallis knew fear such as a nightmare had never invoked. If a mother could kill her child, if his mother could do it, anything could happen to the fair-haired Zagreus of the inn. The very calamity he had witnessed assured him it could happen again.
He spoke thickly, hushed, to keep control. “I was twelve years old. I witnessed it. I was proof. Not only their hands, but their mouths dripped blood. But nobody listened to me because I pointed in the wrong direction. They were Maenads: devout women, pious and chaste in their behavior. They were women my village had known all their lives. Good mothers. Good wives. Fervent in their devotion to their god, and their fervency was respected and admired. No one could believe such a thing of them. And if this child, this other Zagreus . . . if he dies too, all is lost. Everything is lost.”
Silence, save the creaking of the cart.
“For years I would spit in the wind, trying to get the Senate to outlaw the Bacchanalia. The only law on the books is two hundred years old, and it never went far enough. It sought only to ‘limit’ their activities, and it never spelled out the limitations—a broader invitation to disregard the selfsame ‘law’ you will not find. All my effort did only one thing: It only dusted off that old law. And when I think on this child torn from his home . . .” His breath caught. “And when I think on the good man who died to protect him . . .” When he could, he finished, “I say you won’t find justice in the law books.”
They rode in silence for a time, until a quiet remark came from Tavi. “Master Tallis? I am sorry about your brother.”
The cart jostled on toward Scythopolis.
In the tombs of Kursi are two men with their backs to the sea.
One is newly come to madness. He is acquainted with rape and knows invasion. He is aware that a chasm now lies between himself and his former hope. He is aware, now, that the hope had been sufficient. He chose despair because he was weary of the fight, not because he could not fight. He knows he has been cheated, that there is no going back to his weak fight. He knows, now, with shattering surprise, that even his weakest swing had been enough. This, then, his madness.
The other is old at madness. He has been lashed and driven to the furthermost part of his soul, and he cowers near a plastered-over place. His intellect is his possession no longer—it belongs to the Others. For him there is neither despair nor regret. Despair and regret are rungs, and the luxury to climb, whether up or down, is no longer his. He knows one single directive for preservation: Keep his back to the sea.
For both of them, the way is closed.
XV
SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED IN THE BARN. Zagreus could not remember what it was.
Master Jarek—no, it was Grandfather Jarek now—Grandfather brought him cinnamon sticks. He said Mistress Kes would come to tell him a story. It was the last thing he could remember.
After that, something bad happened.
Bad enough that he was in a place far away, without Mistress Kes, and without Grandfather, and without Samir. He wanted Samir first, because this place frightened him worse than when Kardus came. It went down deep into the cold stone floor like roots from an enormous tree, went down very deep, and it was very, very bad.
He wanted Grandfather next, because Grandfather was sometimes gruff and the gruff was good. After Samir, he felt most safe around Grandfather. And he wanted Mistress Kes so he could smell her apron when she hugged him. So he could look up and see her looking down on him, and feel her hair tickle his face. He’d smell fresh air in her hair, like she’d hung it on the clothesline.
The room was small and high and cold. They put a fine rug in the middle of the room and a little golden chair upon the rug. That’s where they wanted him to sit, on the little golden chair with the cushions. The golden chair had pictures carved on it. A man with a pointed beard and grapes for his hair. Dancing ladies with long sticks.
He sat on the chair when they came. He didn’t like it when they came. He shook when they did, for the ladies had guests with them they could not see, black furry guests. While the ladies crooned over him and offered him wine and grapes and figs and lots of things, he watched the black guests and they watched him. And when the ladies left and took their guests with them, he crept from the golden chair into the corner and sat as small as he could.
Mistress Kes needed him. He knew she needed him—his own deep-down roots told him so. Mistress Kes would worry about him. Grandfather Jarek would be angry, him being gone so long. He had to go home. He wanted to go home.
Arinna declined to see the Divine Child after his arrival. She was busy in preparation for the sacred dance at midnight.
She did not know the choruses like everyone else did. She didn’t even know the order of events. Five years ago, she had been an initiate only for a few months before Portia whisked her away with a baby, a pack filled with baby things, and a story for her arrival at the Inn-by-the-Lake.
The least Portia could have done was inform her of festivity procedures. Portia clearly had not expected Arinna to return with her, the day Kes had snatched Zagreus and fled for the barn. Portia stayed in a simmering brood all the way back to Scythopolis. And no one there had expected Arinna. One would think, with the Day of Dionysus at hand, that they would expect his Keeper to arrive.
Today Portia had sent a first-level initiate to teach her the choruses and dance steps. First level! The only thing to make up for that particular humiliation was Arinna’s own station.
The girls seemed to accept the fact that Arinna had fulfilled her part of the long plan, and that a consequence of the plan was ignorance. Things had changed in the five years she’d been gone, and they were eager to teach the Keeper of the Divine Child. Even the temple disciplines had changed. And what little she did remember had been altered over the past five years by ever-evolving epiphanies.
Strange, that the nurses of Dionysus were surprised at her appearance with Portia.
“Turn, and lift, and turn and—Divine Keeper, when I say ‘lift,’ I mean you must raise your leg and give a short kick. See? A short kick, like so. Just enough to ripple your dress.”
“Semele, what did Portia—Queen Ariadne—tell of me?”
Semele stopped in midstride. She lowered her arced arms and brought her hands together in prim repose. “I’m not sure I understand your question, Divine Keeper.”
Arinna adjusted the gold belt at her waist and twisted to see how the long tasseled ends lay in the back. She smiled and gave a swish to watch the long ends flow with the rest of her skirt. Such lovely fine linen. She hadn’t worn something so fine in five years. All of the girls had dresses like this; they were specially designed for the parade late this afternoon on the plaza. And for the private ceremony at midnight.
“One of the priestesses moved out of her cell to make room for me,” Arinna said, watching another swirl of her skirts. “She seemed surprised and not entirely happy. Why didn’t any of you expect me? Didn’t the queen say I was coming too? With Zagreus?”
Semele hesitated. “I—well—not really.”
“I wasn’t mentioned at all?”
“Well . . . no. Not if you mean for participation in the revels.” Then Semele brightened. “But you were always—well, sometimes—mentioned in the prayers for the protection of the Most Blessed.”
“Doesn’t it seem a little strange to you that the Keeper of the Divine Child would have no place in the revels? That not a single part was left to me, and that this dress was only made for me yesterday?”
Semele didn’t know how to answer. Finally she offered hopefully, “I know where they took the Divine Child. Would you like t
o see him?”
“No.”
No, she didn’t want to see him, because she should have been the first to know he had arrived. Portia should have sent for her the moment he came. She wasn’t included in the venerations Semele spoke of, when he first set foot in the temple. No, the Divine Keeper was completely forgotten. She’d found out about his arrival only when Semele came to her cell, babbling herself into a swoon over it. He’d been here for two hours before she knew, and that from a first-level initiate.
Things here, Arinna discovered, were not much different from the inn.
She caught sight of herself in the bronze mirror set into the wall. She lifted her chin, pleased. Well, some things had changed. She smoothed down the front of her dress and admired the fit. Only the finest dressmakers in Scythopolis were hired to make the garments of the entourage of Dionysus.
“Are they really going to—”
Arinna glanced at Semele in the bronze reflection. She stood too far away, and her expression was blurred. Arinna turned to her. “Are they going to what?”
Semele was still in that stiff position, her arms delicately curved, her hands fitted together like pieces of a mosaic. Her face was a curiosity. Her eyes were bright and slightly widened. “Nothing, Divine Keeper.”
“Tell me,” Arinna said, her own eyes bright. She held her breath, not realizing it. For all it would take was one falter, one misstep.
She did not know she looked for the misstep.
What Arinna hoped for, without knowing, was one dissenting voice in the array. One voice to call it something less than sacred. Maybe even call it madness. For Zagreus, whom she had known for five years, was in one of the rooms in the corridor past the grand, echoing vestibule. Zagreus, son of the madman, whom she’d fed and dressed and tolerated for five years, whom Kes and Jarek and Samir loved.
All of the women who attended Dionysus in his temple, and Arinna had counted fifty-seven, all of the women called it sacred. And if she, the Keeper, named it anything less, then Dionysus would fall upon her as he had fallen upon Kardus. She had only the remembrance of the Many-Voiced One to know it. And she had the vicious assurance of Portia, who told her if she failed Zagreus, then Dionysus would tear her apart and stew her soul in the Styx for all eternity. And Arinna believed her, because of Kardus, because of the Voice that once came out of him.
