Soldier of the mist l-1

by Gene Wolfe

  "I love my wife, and she loves me! But all I do is stir this sea! I love my girl, and she loves me! But all I do is stir this sea!"

  The rowers took up the chant, and soon men with mooring lines were leaping to the quay, where a thousand slatternly women greeted our ships by calling out names that might have been anybody's, holding up their babies, and waving rags of every color, and many that were of no color at all. Hypereides, whose armor I had polished with similar rags, could hardly get a foot on the gangplank for the press of them, and at length the soldiers had to drive them back with the butts of their spears to permit him to leave.

  Astonishingly (or so I thought) a few of these women were actually the wives of various rowers. When the first hugs and kisses were done with, the kybernetes made them sit on the thalamite benches (which run completely across the ship under the storming deck) and threatened to put them on the ballast if the ship became unstable, as he assured them it would if they let their children run loose.

  A bowman came aft to join us as we watched. "I am Oior," he said. "You do not remember?"

  When I shook my head, Io pulled at my chiton, whispering, "Watch out, Latro. You know what Lyson said."

  "Oior does Latro no harm. Spu was the Son of Scoloti who wished harm to Latro, and Spu is gone."

  Pindaros drawled, "I heard about that. Hypereides thinks he jumped ship at Teuthrone. What do you think, Oior?"

  The bowman laughed. "Oior is a Son of Scoloti. Oior does not think. Ask any man of your people. But tell me, does it not make you sad to see so many men who now greet their families again, when you do not?"

  "I don't have much of one, for which I thank the gods," Pindaros told him. "If I did, somebody else would have claimed my estate. Let's just hope that our noble enemies here leave me in possession-otherwise, I'll need a few rich relations to take care of me, and I haven't got them."

  "Sad for you. Oior has wife." He held out his hand at waist level with the thumb folded and all four fingers extended. "So many sons. Many, many daughters, too many for any man. You want girl? Play with this one, take care of her when older. You choose. Oior sell very cheap."

  Hilaeira gasped, "Would he? Really do that? Sell his own children?"

  "Of course," Pindaros said. "All barbarians will, except for the kings. And very wise of them too, I'd say. Children are easily got and lots of trouble afterward. I'm with you, Oior."

  "Easily got by men," Hilaeira snapped. "Not by us. Not that I know for myself, but I've helped others. Why, my aunt-"

  "Is somebody we don't want to hear about now," Pindaros told her.

  "You talk to captain very much. Oior wants to know what you think this ship will do."

  "Go to Tieup and get refitted. She's in pretty good shape now, so that shouldn't take more than a couple days. After that, perhaps join the fleet, which I should imagine is hanging about the Circling Isles hoping for a chance at the Great King's navy. Or the strategists may cook up another special task for Hypereides. One never knows."

  "And you? Not just you only, this girl, this woman, this man, black man."

  "We'll be left in the city, all of us. Those of us from the shining city will be sold as slaves, I think we can depend on that. If they've left me my estate, I'll buy our way out, and if they haven't, they haven't. Latro and the black man may be sold too-if they are, I'll buy them and free them, so that Latro can obey the oracle of the Shining God. If they're held as prisoners of war, well, I'll see what I can do."

  Hilaeira said, "I don't want to be a freed slave. I'm a freeborn citizen."

  "Of a conquered city," Pindaros reminded her dryly.

  "Bowmen go ashore in Tieup?"

  "Certainly. I imagine you'll be paid there, at least if you ask for it. Then you can go home, if you like."

  "Oior will maybe leave this ship, go on some other."

  I asked him whether fighting for anyone who would hire him were the only way he had to earn his living.

  "You also," he said. "So this man speaks."

  "I know," I said. "I wanted to learn about you because I thought it might tell me something of myself. You have a wife and children; do you have a house too, and a farm?"

  He shook his head. "The Sons of Scoloti do not have those things. We live in wagons, follow grass. Oior has many, many horses, many cattle also. Here in south you have pigs and sheep. We never see them if not we come. They are slow to walk. They could not live in my land."

  Pindaros asked, "Is the sun in your eyes, Oior?"

  "Yes, yes. Light from the water." He seemed to stare at the deck. "Eyes are the bowman. I go now."

  When he had left, Pindaros remarked, "That was rather strange, don't you think?"

  I said, "For a bowman to have weak eyes? I suppose so."

  Io murmured, "They were only weak when they looked at you, master."

  Hypereides returned as the last of the sailors' families were being settled, just as he had promised. With him were a dozen attractive women, finely dressed in gowns of yellow, pink, and scarlet, with much silver jewelry and some gold. Several held flutes or little drums, but their many bags and boxes were carried for them by porters whom their leader paid.

  This was a plump woman somewhat younger than Hypereides, with red hair and cold blue eyes. She came aft with him as we pushed off from the quay, now riding so deep that the greased boots of the thalamites' oars were almost in the water. "Well, well," she said, looking at me. "Here's a likely boy! Where'd you get this one?"

  "Picked them all up at Tower Hill after we left Dolphins, as I told you. He's the perfect confidant-forgets everything overnight."

  "Really?" I would not have believed those hard eyes could be sad, but for a moment they were.

  "I swear it. I'll introduce you to him, but tomorrow he won't know your name unless he notes it down. Will you, Latro?"

  Wishing to please her and discountenance him, I said, "How could I forget it? No one could forget such a woman, whom once seen must remain in the eye of the mind forever."

  She dimpled and took my right hand between hers, which were small and moist. "I'm Kalleos, Latro. Do you know you're quite the figure of a man?"

  "No," I said. "But thank you."

  "You are. You might pose for one of the sculptors, and perhaps you will. In fact, you'd be just about perfect, if only you had money. You don't, do you?"

  "I have this." I showed her my coin.

  She laughed. "One spit! Where'd you get it?"

  "I don't know."

  "Is this a joke, Hypereides? Will he actually forget who I am?"

  "Unless he writes it in that book he carries, and remembers to read what he's written."

  "Wonderful!" Smiling at me still, she said, "What you have there isn't really money, Latro, only change. A daric or a mina, that's money. Hypereides, will you let me have him?"

  He shook his head as though in despair. "This war's ruined the leather trade. In the old days, certainly. But now… " He shrugged.

  "What do you think it's done for us, cooped up on Peace with a bunch of refugees? Latro, you look strong enough. Can you box or wrestle?"

  "I don't know."

  Pindaros said, "I've seen him with a sword-no spear and no hoplon. If I were a strategist, I'd trade ten shieldmen for him."

  Kalleos looked at him. "Don't I know you, pig?"

  He nodded. "Some friends treated me to a dinner at your house just before the barbarians came."

  "That's right!" Kalleos snapped her fingers. "You're the poet. You got Rhoda to help you with a love lyric. It ended up being a little, uh-"

  "Paphian," Pindaros supplied.

  "Exactly! Pinfeather… What's your name?"

  "Pindaros, madame."

  "Pindaros, I'm sorry I called you a pig. It's the war, you know-everybody does it. Hypereides will let you come with him tonight, if he knows what's good for him. I don't know if my house's still standing, but we'll make it up to you whether it is or not. No charge. If you need money, I could even lend you a few drach
mas till you get home again."

  I do not think Pindaros is often without words, but he had none then. At last Hilaeira said, "Thank you. That's very, very kind of you, madame."

  "Wait!" Pindaros leaped into the air, waving his hands. "I've got it-the city's saved!" He whirled about, arms wide, to address Hilaeira and Io. "Our freedom! My estate! We get to keep them!"

  "It's true, Hypereides," Kalleos told him. "It's the Rope Makers. Our people wanted to burn Hill and take Cowland, but the Rope Makers wouldn't stand for it. They want to make sure we'll always have an enemy in the north."

  CHAPTER XIII-Oh, Violet Crowned City!

  Pindaros exclaimed, "Oh, bright bulwark of our nation, ruined!" A thin blue smoke overhung what had been the city of Deathless Thought; and though it was set well back from the sea (Tieup, at the edge of the water, had fared much better) the clear air and bright summer sunshine mercilessly revealed how little remained.

  "Oh, violet crowned!" Pindaros turned away.

  Hilaeira asked, "How can you sing its praises? This is what these people would have done to us."

  "Because we chose to surrender," Pindaros told her. "And lost even when we fought for the Great King. They chose to resist, and won even with us against them. We were wrong, and they were right. Their city was destroyed; ours deserved it."

  "You can't mean that."

  "I do. I love our shining city as much as any man can love his home, and I'm delighted it's endured. But I studied here with Agathocles and Apollodoros, and I won't pretend this was the justice of the gods."

  The black man pointed to himself and me to indicate we had assisted in the destruction. I nodded to show I understood, hoping no one else had seen him.

  Hypereides came aft rubbing his hands. The wind had veered north as soon as we left the bay, so he felt certain he enjoyed divine favor. "What a ship! Loaded to the gunnels and still outreaching the others. That's the Long Coast whizzing past, my boy, the land that bore her and us. If I'd known she'd be this good, I'd have had three triremes instead of one and the triacontors. Well, too bad for their skippers, I say. This'll teach 'em their old boss's still the boss."

  Io piped, "Clytia has her oars out, sir. Now Eidyia's putting hers out too."

  "They think they can beat us like that, little sweetheart, but don't you bet on it. We can match 'em trick for trick." In a few moments more, our own crew was hard at work. "I love my boy, and so does he! But all I do is stir this sea!" They stirred it well enough; we reached the boathouses a ship's length ahead of Eidyia and three before Clytia.

  I went forward to join Kalleos while the sailors were unshipping the masts. She was keeping watch over her women, who were alternately snubbing Acetes's soldiers and joking with them. "Wasn't that a lovely sail?" she asked. "I'll tell you, I hate to see it put away."

  "Not half so beautiful as the original, madame." Her blue eyes shone.

  "Latro, you and me are going to get along."

  "Am I to go with you, then, madame?"

  "That's right. Hypereides hasn't signed a bill of sale yet, but we've hooked fingers on the deal, and he'll draw one up tonight. You see, Latro, in my business I need a man who can keep order. It's better if he doesn't have to fight, but he has to be able to. I used to have a freedman. Gello, his name was. But he had to go in the army, and I hear they got him in the winter skirmishing. Be polite, do your work, don't bother my girls unless they want to be bothered, and you'll never feel the whip. Get me mad, and… well, they always need a few good men in the silver mines."

  "I'll write what you say here," I told her. "Then I won't forget." Yet even as I spoke, I was thinking that I am no one's slave, no matter how these people talk.

  As soon as the masts were down, we had glided into the boathouse. Now sailors and sailors' families were crowding ashore. I started to go with them, but Kalleos stopped me. "Wait till they're gone. If you think I'm going to walk to the city with them, you don't know me as well as you're going to. I'll hire a sedan chair if I can. Otherwise I plan to take my time, and I don't want their brats climbing all over me."

  I said, "If you'll tell me how much you want to promise the bearers, I'll hire a chair for you now and have them bring it to the ship."

  She cocked her head at me. "You know, you may turn out to be a nicer buy than I thought. But I've a better idea yet. Turn left out of the boathouse and go down the narrowest street you see. Three doors on the left, and there's a man who used to rent them. He may still have his chairs, even if most of his bearers are in the navy. Tell him Kalleos sent you, and you'll pay a spit for a chair without bearers, to be returned by you in the morning. If he won't agree, throw down the spit and take a chair. Here's a spit, and a drachma too, in case he wants a deposit. Bring the chair here, and we'll hire one of these sailors to carry the other end."

  "I think I can get someone who won't have to be paid, madame, if you'll feed him."

  "Better and better! Go to it."

  I waved to the black man, and together we had no difficulty in persuading the chair owner to let us have a light one with long poles and a painted canopy.

  "I lost a little flesh on the island," Kalleos told us as she took her seat. "I can tell by the way my gowns fit. Lucky for you I did."

  While I had been gone, she had hired a dozen sailors to carry the bags and clothes boxes; so there was quite a procession, the gaudily gowned women following us, and the sailors following them with the baggage. The women were in a cheerful mood, happy to return to the city even if the city was destroyed. When we reached the stones that marked its borders, Kalleos had them strike up a tune on their drums and flutes while a tall, handsome woman called Phye strummed a lyre and sang.

  "She has a lovely voice, hasn't she?" Kalleos said.

  She had, and I agreed. The black man was carrying the front of the chair, and I the back.

  "Two drachmas a night I could get for her, if only she'd learn philosophy," Kalleos grumbled. "But she won't. You can't get it through that thick skull of hers. Last year I got one of the finest sophists in the city to lecture her. After three days, I asked her to tell me what she knew, and all she'd say was, 'But what's the use of it?' " Kalleos shook her head.

  "What is the use, madame?"

  "Why, to get two drachmas a night, you big ninny! A man won't pay that kind of money unless he thinks he's sleeping above himself, no matter how good-looking the girl is, or how accommodating, either. He doesn't want her to talk about Solon or whether the world's all fire or all water; but he wants to think she could if he felt like it.

  "Solon!" Kalleos chuckled. "When I was younger, I used to know an old woman who'd known him. You know what he wanted? A girl who could drink with him cup for cup. That's what she said. They finally found one, a big blond Geta who cost them a fortune. She drank with him all night, slept with him, and thanked him-still in the bed-by signs when he paid her and tipped her and went home. Then the owner and the fancy man-that's you, Latro-told her to get out of bed, and she fell on her face and broke her nose."

  I had been looking at the smoke over the city. I asked how it could still be burning, when it had been destroyed, as I understood it, last autumn.

  "Oh, those aren't the fires the barbarians lit," Kalleos told me. "That's just dust raised by the builders, and people burning wreckage to be rid of it. A few went over as soon as the Great King's army left, then more when the weather turned good this year; and now all the rest after the victory at Clay. The best people are coming home from Argolis too, and all that means that the customers will be here, not on the island. So here we are, and the playing and singing is to let them know we're back."

  She pointed. "They'll be building a new temple for the goddess up there on the sacred rock-that's what I hear-when the war's over and they can raise the money."

  "It will be a beautiful site," I said.

  "Always has been. There's a spring of salt water up there that was put there by the Earth Shaker himself in the Golden Age, when he tried to claim the city. A
nd up till last year, the oldest olive tree in the whole world, the first olive tree, planted by the goddess in person. The barbarians cut it down and burned it; but the roots have put up a new shoot, that's what I hear."

  I told her I would like to see it, and that I was surprised the citizens had not fought to the death to defend such things.

  "A lot did. The temple treasurers, because there was so much they couldn't get it all away, and a lot of poor people who were left behind by the last ships. Before the Great King's army got here, the Assembly sent to the Navel to ask what to do. The god always gives good answers, but he usually puts them so you wish he hadn't. This time he said we'd be safe behind walls of wood. I guess you understand that."

  She looked back to see whether I did, and I shook my head.

  "Well, neither did we. Most people thought it meant the ships, but there was an old palisade around the hilltop, and some people thought it meant that. They strengthened it quite a bit, but the barbarians burned it with fire arrows and killed them all."

  After that she did not seem to wish to talk, and I contented myself with listening to the women's music and looking about at the destruction of Thought, which had not-or so it seemed to me-been very large to begin with.

  Soon Kalleos directed the black man to turn down a side street. There we halted at a house with two walls still standing, and she stepped out. Her head was proud as she walked through the broken doorway, and she turned it neither to the right nor the left; but I saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  The women stopped their playing and singing, and scattered to search for possessions they had left behind, though I think none of them has yet found much. The sailors laid down their burdens and demanded their pay, an obol apiece. The black man and I explained (he by signs and I with words) that we had nothing and went inside too, to look for Kalleos.

  We found her in the courtyard kicking at rubbish. "Here you are at last," she said. "Get busy! We'll have guests tonight, and I want all this cleared out, every stick of it."

  I said, "You haven't paid the sailors, madame."