Madman

by Tracy Groot

  So she did not think of betrayal, not consciously, lest she betray her own skin. What looked for the misstep, then, was a part of her so vague she didn’t even know it existed.

  Semele blinked. She frowned a little, then smiled. “Why—I don’t remember what I was going to say, Divine Keeper. It flew right out of my head. Forgive me—I’ve been intoxicated since his arrival.” She broke her pose to resume the dance, but, disoriented, paused. Her face grew dreamy. “I wonder what will happen when he is unleashed from his earthly confines. The blood releases the power, and from the abyss of eternal night springs forth new birth, the renewed cycle . . .”

  Semele was taken in a murmuring trance, and Arinna waited, listening to her dazed babble until she suddenly felt confused. She seemed to be waiting for something from Semele, she didn’t know what. She turned to the mirror and smoothed down her dress, and looked again to see how the gold tassels lay. She frowned. She felt sad, or disappointed, and didn’t know why. She wished she had an amphora of Jarek’s good wine.

  The Galilee was long behind them now. Bek kept the horses at a brisk pace, and the constant hard jostling, with the shine and the heat of the sun, soon gave Tallis a headache. He tried to remember what little of Scythopolis he had seen on his way from Jerusalem a few weeks ago. He remembered construction. Rome was busy turning Scythopolis into a decent Greek metropolis. The plaza in the middle of the city had bases set for columns. The columns would line the long street, both sides. He’d like to see that someday—the bases themselves promised quite impressive architecture. But at the far end of the city, the plaza ended in wide steps to a mount, and upon the mount was an ancient temple of Zeus, connected by a walkway to the temple of Dionysus. He’d looked once, and could not look again.

  Tallis had been traveling with a group of merchants returning from a trade trip in Jerusalem, bound for Bethsaida, a city a few miles north of Kursi. They were anxious to get home and did not wish to stay any longer in Scythopolis than it took to water the horses and buy fresh food. He did not have to ignore the temple long; even the ignoring was a strange chore. Felt like eyes upon his back.

  After several miles, Bek pulled up where the road crossed the Jordan River. The men climbed out of the cart, and Bek drew the horses aside to water them. The Jordan wobbled all over the place like a schoolboy’s scribble. Tallis could tell when they were near it by the winding green foliage at its banks. Springtime was on the land, but already in the Land of the Sun the grasses of the plains were browned.

  He remembered a text from one of the treatises on Dionysus: Ancients preferred to look to the Land of the Sun for the Nysa in which Dionysus grew up, and from which he made his entry into the realms of men.

  Tallis gazed about at the austere landscape. It was an ancient land with layered histories. Long before Antiochus Epiphanes . . . Antiochus Epimanes . . . Antiochus, Madman . . . long before he sacrificed pigs to his beloved Dionysus, and forced others to do the same, Dionysus was here. He was right here in Scythopolis, the fabled Nysa, right here, all about this very land.

  As Tallis climbed back into the cart, he wondered about the man named Maccabee, who had defied Antiochus Madman. He wished he knew more about him.

  No one would question an all-male contingent to the temple of Dionysus, not today. A pilgrimage of any gender on the holy day of Bacchus would seem perfectly normal. Men chose Dionysus to be their god too—they simply did not fuss about it as much as the women did. Tallis’s eyes fell on the water skin in the cart. They could take the water skin and say it was a special libation. A libation for the god of wine on his holy day was perfectly natural, only good sense. A nice ceremonial placation for nonreligious men—just in case.

  Philip and Hector rode side by side behind the cart, in low conversation with one another. Philip looked like someone in authority, with his fine clothing, the short sword at his belt, that fancy clasp for his cape. Tall, handsome, perfectly erect in the saddle. Good looks and confidence could convey much.

  He considered Hector. Shorter than Philip, more solid, with hardened features, and a way about him that said he’d put his sword to use with grim cheer at the first provocation.

  Both men served local government. Neither was military, but either could easily pass for it. Throw on rust-colored Roman capes, add a swagger, and it wouldn’t be so hard to feign a legal inspection of the temple, if a guise of piety failed them entrance.

  “Jarek said you were going to help Kardus,” Tavi said. The young man still sat opposite Tallis, in the corner of the cart behind his father. He had a naturally thin face, now drawn with worry and sadness. “How are you going to help him?”

  Tallis felt for the dirty sack wedged between himself and the cart side. He shook it out and swathed it over the top of his head, tucking it into the back of his tunic to protect his neck from the blistering sun. He didn’t care what he looked like; the sun was roasting him alive. Then he considered the question and sighed. He glanced at Antenor in the back of the cart, who had bunched up sacks and rested his neck on them on the cart edge. His arms were crossed, eyes closed, and his face was open to the sun, as though he enjoyed the scorching. Tallis knew he could hear every word.

  “I want to help him,” he finally said to Tavi. He didn’t like it that Antenor could hear. It wasn’t any of the man’s business if Tallis stayed or left. “I don’t know if I can. When I am around him—it is hard to explain.”

  “He needs to go home to Athens, Master Tavi,” Antenor announced, eyes still closed. “His own master needs him. He’s been away long enough.”

  “It is not your business, Antenor,” Tallis snapped. “Besides, Aristarchus is there.”

  “I didn’t believe Polonus about Kardus and his invasion of Evil.” Antenor opened an eye and squinted at Tallis. “I was wrong. Remember? Polonus is the most intelligent, compassionate human being I have ever known. If he has failed, then—no offense, Tallis—you don’t have a chance. And Polonus loved him.”

  “Mankind has no greater helper than love,” Tallis murmured bleakly.

  Why couldn’t it be true? Why couldn’t Samir’s Two Truths be true? Didn’t Polonus choose Good? Wasn’t it good to help Kardus? Then why did his good choice ruin him?

  “That’s a much-battered philosophy I no longer believe,” Antenor said bitterly. “And I regret the time I wasted subscribing to it. Socrates was wrong—Polonus loved Kardus, Jarek loved him, and look where their love got them.”

  “Evil is upon the land,” Bek said over his shoulder. “Great evil. Only great good can defy it.”

  “There is no great good,” Antenor said, and settled his neck on the cart edge once more.

  “That is a singularly depressing thought, Antenor,” Tallis muttered.

  Antenor opened one eye, kept the other squinted against the sun. “I would presume that if great good was anywhere at all, it would see, and hear, and intervene. Great good is blind, and deaf, and cares not about the suffering of mankind, by its lack of intervention. And if it cares not, then it is neither good nor is it great. Therefore—there is no great good.” He closed his eye and settled in again, as if comfortably, for the ride.

  Arinna poked the figs about on the plate. She took one and started to carefully peel it because that’s the fussy way she liked her figs, then realized she didn’t want it and tossed it back onto the plate. She licked the stickiness from her fingers and glanced at Semele.

  Semele was across the room curled on a many-cushioned couch, now quiet, released from her murmuring trance. She had a wan way about her that irritated Arinna. Her face was soft and serene, distant and rather—wispy. Like the wheat-colored curls of hair that escaped her fine blue hair ribbon. She’d never cleaned up a pile of guest-room vomit in her life.

  “Where are you from?” Arinna asked.

  Semele took her gaze from wherever it had been, focused, and found Arinna. “Pella.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “To become a nurse of Dionysus.”

&n
bsp; Arinna snorted.

  Semele blinked and focused again.

  Arinna poked at the figs on the tray. “That’s what they all say. That’s what I said.” She picked up a fig and scrutinized it. “What’s the reason you left Pella?”

  “That . . . was the reason I left.” The serene look faltered. “Mostly. I suppose the reason doesn’t really matter. What I have now is all that matters.”

  Arinna frowned sourly and dropped the fig. She pushed the plate away and pulled a large cushion into her lap. She wrapped her arms around it and looked about the room. There were a few hangings on the wall and an ornamental bronze grate in the fireplace pit. It was the luxury of a palace compared to the inn. She sniffed the cushion—it smelled like sweet spicy incense, not a greasy kitchen brazier. She didn’t smell sweaty men and their ale, either. All day long today she’d smelled pastries baking, made just for the Day of Dionysus.

  She wouldn’t mind the smell of Demas once again. She missed Demas. He’d told her he was heading to Caesarea to perform for Pontius Pilate in the Great Stadium. She wondered what Caesarea was like. Demas said it was a miniature version of Rome. She sighed. What she wouldn’t give to see a place like that. Demas said he would take her there someday.

  “I miss my mother,” Semele said.

  Semele was staring again, this time without that distant look. Arinna regarded her thoughtfully, and Semele began to speak.

  “I’ve been watching children all my life. I was the oldest of thirteen. I’ve never known my mother not pregnant. And do you know what? She never lost a single child. Never miscarried, never lost one in birth, never lost one to sickness. When I left, she was due by the next new moon.” Semele looked down at the cushion she was holding and smoothed its satiny cover. “We have two sets of twins. Father and Mother joked about how the gods saw fit to bless them. Mother would say any more blessings would kill her, and Father would say try feeding these blessings.”

  Arinna let Semele talk, and listened carefully.

  “It was time for me to be married, but Mother wanted me home to take care of the children. She always said I was the better mother to them, and in part, it was true. I loved being their mother and their sister.”

  Arinna held her breath; the look on Semele’s face was changing.

  “When I saw that child in the room, sitting on the golden throne . . .” Semele blinked rapidly. “I could not help but think, what if it was one of the babies. That’s what we always call them, Mother and I, the babies. Even Jessup, who is only two years younger than I.” She stopped speaking. Then she said, in a very small voice, “He was frightened, Divine Keeper.”

  She lifted her eyes to Arinna. The two regarded one another for a long time.

  Come and see, Tallis, you worm.

  They won’t revile us here. Not where he dwells.

  Yesssss . . . Even the mighty ones are afraid. They are no match. Not here.

  “Scythopolis,” Bek called over his shoulder.

  Tallis opened his eyes. He’d sunk into the cart to hide from the sun under another dirty sack he’d found. Somehow the cart had jostled him into a stupor, and for the past hour he’d drifted in and out of not-quite-sleep. A strange state of consciousness, where he felt caught between this world and another. He’d felt a growing nausea, a strange—alarm. He suddenly pushed the sack aside and sat up. And saw something impossible.

  Ahead on the road, to the west, he saw a great column rising from the city, as if of solid smoke, rising, not ending, swallowed into the sky. He dug his eyes with the heels of his hands, shook off the last of his ill rest. He looked again. His eyes followed the great form all the way to the heavens, where it disappeared because Tallis could not see farther up.

  “What is it?” Tavi asked him anxiously.

  “What is that?”

  Tavi looked ahead at the city and back at Tallis, perplexed. “What?”

  “That . . . thing.” His mouth fell open as he gaped skyward.

  “What do you see?” Antenor said slowly, straightening, searching the horizon ahead. “Because whatever you see, I feel. Like Portia walked into the room.”

  Tallis rose from the cart, steadying himself with a hand on Bek’s shoulder. “Stop the cart,” he said suddenly.

  Bek pulled the horses up. Hector and Philip rode up from behind.

  Hector looked from the city to Tallis. “What is it?”

  Tallis put out his hand toward the city and felt a resistance in the air, a warning not to continue. The feeling came from without and from within, an instinct of great peril.

  Briefly he thought himself a fool for not bringing Samir along, limp as they had left him. But not even Samir, his amulet, could withstand this . . . and he knew with dread certainty that he could never enter the city.

  No you can’t, no you can’t.

  Not without Samir!

  But—Zagreus!

  You are no match for us. Not here. Not where he dwells.

  What you say is true. But I choose to help. Try and hide that choice from me. Blind, I will reach for it.

  “Go, go!” he urged Bek. “Hurry!”

  Bek whipped the horses, and the cart lurched forward. Tallis fell backward, tumbling into Antenor. He scrambled upright, and on his knees he held fast with both hands to the side. The cart bucked and bounced at the speed of the horses.

  They were still a mile from the city, but he could easily see that the smoldering column rose from the acropolis at the end of the plaza. The city wall and a rise of trees on a hill prevented him from seeing the base of the column. He didn’t have to see to know it rose from the temple of Dionysus.

  “What do you see?” Antenor asked again, straining to see himself.

  “I see a great column,” Tallis breathed. “It reaches to the heavens, and I cannot see its end. It goes down deep. It is—gray. And moving. Up and down, it is moving.”

  The cart did not get very far before Tallis began to slump, gripping the cart side as the forces pressed him down. What a fool he had been. He should have known. The infirmity in his soul, his taint of madness, madness calling to madness . . .

  . . . and yet . . .

  . . . that which transcended the madness, that place, the sacred place They wanted, and Tallis fumbled for it on his stomach—it knew of the Evil, and it bade him to reach for the Good. A little farther. Just a little farther.

  Are you crazy?

  You can’t go there. That place will kill you.

  Go back, Tallis, go back!

  Madness, to ignore madness. But the place sent up signals of assurance, and instead of feeling vanquished with dread, though great dread was in the going, he felt an assurance that all would be well, he had nearly finished his part. It was soon time for another.

  Another?

  Who was the other?

  XVI

  QUITE SUDDENLY, the whole thing was ridiculous.

  She didn’t want to languish in this godforsaken temple the rest of her life. A figure like hers? Condemned to rites and rituals, when Demas himself told her that famous sculptors would pay money just to gaze on her? How could Arinna deprive the world of—what did he call it—statuary? Well, it seemed selfish at any rate, holing up here when she had a lot more to offer someplace else.

  When she came to the temple, what seemed like a lifetime ago, she was just like Semele over there, running from one bad thing only to jump into another. The vocation wasn’t what she thought it was, a few months into it. Portia had rescued her with her proposal of a special assignment. It gave her a chance to breathe again, if only in a place like the inn.

  It was time to breathe again for good. The only thing that could possibly trouble her was Portia’s promise of stewing in the Styx for an eternity of anguish if she didn’t comply with temple edicts. She could even go mad like Kardus. If she doubted the Styx, what happened to Kardus was as real as it got.

  But Caesarea was a long way away from the cursed inn and those cursed tombs, and this stifling temple. She brightened
—and Rome was even farther. On the other side of the earth, she was sure. A long way from women who seriously considered taking a knife to the little boy in the chamber down the corridor.

  “Go home to your mother and the babies, Semele. Better yet, get yourself a man. I’m going to Caesarea.” Arinna set aside the cushion. She folded her arms and smiled deeply, with a delicious glitter she’d not felt since the last time she saw Demas.

  Semele, with a pathetic wistfulness on her face, a not-quite-hope because she wouldn’t allow it yet, gazed first at Arinna, then at the closed door of their apartment. “Divine Keeper, what are you saying . . . ?”

  “I’m saying, let’s get out of here. The sooner the better. And let’s take Zagreus with us, eerie little brat that he is.”

  When Semele blanched and looked like she would faint from the blasphemous references to Dionysus, Lord of the Souls, Arinna quickly amended.

  “I mean, ah, let us take Zagreus Most Blessed, and let us . . . ah . . . gather his sacredness into our unworthy arms, and—”

  “You mean so he won’t die?”

  “Ah—yes. Your Divine Keeper has spoken.” Though what they would do with the child was another matter. She would certainly not take him to Caesarea. Maybe Semele could take him home with her. She seemed to like him, and what was one more child when you had thirteen? Semele could tell her parents he was another little blessing.

  Semele blinked, considered—and said quickly, “Okay.” She set aside her own cushion.

  “What’s your real name?” Arinna asked. Every woman changed her name when she became the possession of Dionysus. It symbolized that they had left behind all earthly ties. She supposed she had never really cast off her attachment to the world. Though Portia had renamed her Thyone, one of the names for the mother of Dionysus, Arinna had never liked the sound of it. It was too stout, too matronly. From the first, the people at the inn knew her as Arinna.