by Corby, Gary
“So it’s true, you did lose a bear?”
“Yeah. I’ve been doing the rounds, you know? I go from town to town. The bear does tricks while I collect coins.” He shrugged. “It’s a living. If you can call it that. I don’t make much, and most of what I do goes to feeding the bear. Maybe I’m better off without the big bastard.”
I guessed that Egesis cut a few purses while he was at it, but I wasn’t about to suggest that; I needed this man’s help.
“How do you catch a bear?”
“With a goat. You tie the goat to a stake and wait downwind, with men and a lot of nets. When the bear comes for the goat, well, then it gets exciting.”
“What’s the bear’s name?” Diotima spoke in a low, gruff voice, but she couldn’t maintain it and it rose to a high pitch.
Egesis turned to look at her. “Who’s he?”
“A friend of mine. Ignore him. His voice is still breaking, and to tell you the truth, he’s something of a village idiot. Never does what he’s told.”
Diotima stabbed me to death with her eyes.
Egesis spat in the dirt. “I’ve known a few men like that myself.”
“The name of the bear?”
“I just call him Bear.”
“Original.”
“Look, it’s a bear. It doesn’t care what I call him.”
“Did Bear get away at Brauron?”
“Yeah. Straight after the show.” Egesis scratched vigorously beneath his tunic. He slept rough, beside a bear; he was probably covered in lice.
“I still don’t know how the animal did it,” he said, and scratched hard. “I chained him every night. He never got out before, but when I woke, he was gone. The collar just lay there empty. It wasn’t broken. It was like he’d undone it.” Egesis shrugged. “Maybe he learned one trick too many, but what I reckon is, someone took him. I reckon only a human could’ve undone that lock.”
I said, “Why do I hear all these reports of bear sightings, yet no one knows it was you who lost him?”
Egesis sighed. “It’s like this. I reckon he was stolen, but I can’t prove it. So if my bear did damage on someone else’s property, I’d be liable; they’d make me pay, right?”
“That’s fair enough.”
“All right. So if anything goes wrong on any farm anywhere near here—every goat that goes missing, every chicken that gets taken by a fox, every fence that gets damaged—they’re gonna blame me, aren’t they? Whether my bear did it or not, they’re gonna look for every excuse to blame me, ’cause they’ll squeeze me for every drachma. And I’ll have to pay, ’cause if I took it to court, the jury would find against me anyway, ’cause I’m a Macedonian and they’re Athenians. You see?”
“I see.”
“So I figured the only safe thing was to lie low, you know?”
“Didn’t you try to recover the bear?” Diotima asked.
Egesis spat again. “Of course I did. I staked out a goat in a couple of places and waited. Nothing. The accursed beast must not be hungry, or it really is eating the local livestock. I dunno. I figure it’ll be easier to go back home and catch a new bear in the mountains, where they still got some. That’s where I’m headed: back to Macedonia. But first I gotta make some money, or I’ll starve on the way.” He paused. “With any luck my dad’s died by now. That’s why I left, you know. The bastard wanted me to work on—” He shuddered. “On a farm.”
“Sickening for you.”
“You’re telling me. Get up in the morning? No bloody way. How can I gamble all night and get up at dawn?”
“You could give up the gambling?” Diotima suggested.
Egesis looked at her in incomprehension. “Give up blood sports? What sort of a man are you?”
“How do you train a bear?” I asked, intrigued.
“With patience, and a big stick. You whack it when it doesn’t do what you want.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“It works for me. Of course, that’s how I got the scar, so maybe it doesn’t work all the time. Now shut up. The fight’s about to start.”
Egesis turned away from us. I didn’t particularly care if animals fought, but like Diotima, I didn’t need to see it either; I’d seen enough human blood to lose my taste for the sight of it. Instead I looked around at the crowd and—
“Uh oh,” I said quietly to Diotima.
“What is it?” she whispered back.
“The two men who kidnapped me and took me to that meeting … they’re over on the other side of the room, and they’re circling. I think they’re searching for me. They must have followed me here.”
“What do they want, Nico?”
“Well, since I didn’t give up the job, and I didn’t deliver any names to the crazy man, I imagine they want to kill me.”
There was only one door out of the room, and two routes to reach it. I looked along the other one. Two other men were heading our way, and though I didn’t recognize them, I doubted they were here for the gambling.
We couldn’t go right. We couldn’t go left. There was only one other route.
The cocks were fighting furiously. Men shouted as the battle swayed one way then the other. They wailed or cheered, according to their bets, as one cock got in a good blow, and again when the same one struck again. The other cock staggered back but kept on clawing. He was game, but it seemed he couldn’t last long.
I jumped onto an overturned crate, pointed at the bet taker, who crouched at the front, and shouted, “He’s cheating! Him! I saw it! He threw poisoned grain into the ring!”
I had no idea what I was saying, but it didn’t matter. With men’s money on the line, tension was already running high. Everyone who’d bet on the injured cock was ready to believe me.
The bet taker stared at me in stupefaction for the briefest moment, then he stood to shout, “That’s a lie!”
His denial instantly made everyone think he was guilty. Men waved their fists and demanded their money back. Other men waved their fists and demanded their winnings.
With so many fists waving, two of them connected.
That caused a scuffle.
The scuffle spread like spilled wine.
In the blink of an eye, every man in the room was fighting every other man.
I hauled Diotima up onto the crate beside me, so she wasn’t accidentally caught by a flying fist, and stood ready to defend her. Across the sea of bobbing heads and swearing men, I could see our four pursuers. The two I knew had their backs to the wall; they edged toward us, pushing away any brawler who stumbled their way. The other two had been caught up in the fight; they stood back to back in the middle of a melee and threw punches. They’d certainly forgotten about us. That was our path, then.
“Come on.” With my left hand I grabbed Diotima firmly by the wrist and dragged her along, keeping my right free to hit anyone who came at us. I pushed hard, keeping my left shoulder against the wall, until we came to a knot of men who’d forced another group against the wall and were beating them soundly. No way through.
“Keep your head down!” I shouted to Diotima, and pulled her toward the center.
We ducked under fists and made good progress. “I can see the door. Hold on, Diotima; we’ll soon be there.”
“Nico, wait!” Diotima broke free of my grasp. She ran into the ring, scooped up the fighting cocks, one under each arm, and turned back to me.
Except she couldn’t return. A man jumped in front of her. The bet taker, who’d promised to take the balls of anyone who interfered with the fight. He came at Diotima with an evil grin and a sharp knife upraised.
He was going to be so disappointed when he lifted her chiton.
I couldn’t save my girl; there were too many men between us.
Diotima stared at her attacker, retreating the few steps she had available until she was up against the wall on the opposite side.
She did the only thing she could. She threw the fighting cocks at him.
Two very angry cocks we
aring metal spurs flew into the face of the bet taker, claws out.
The bet taker screamed. He shielded his face with his hands and backed off.
The cocks fell off him and at once strutted about in search of other victims to destroy, crowing their victory. The bet taker was still walking backward. I could see the blood seeping between his fingers. He tripped on a prostrate body and went over backward.
“Run! It’s the Scythian Guard!”
Every head turned to the entrance. There, trying to push their way in, were two of the Scythian Guard of Athens, whose job was to enforce the peace. With batons if necessary.
The Scythians carried unstrung bows with which to beat unruly citizens, and they were known for their willingness to apply some stick. Right now, this gambling den looked like a good place for them to be doing business, and where there were two Scythians caught in a fight, you could bet there would soon be more.
Men scattered. Cockfighting wasn’t illegal. Nor was gambling. But brawling was a serious misdemeanor. Anyone caught in this riot faced a court summons, followed quickly by a huge fine, one big enough to bankrupt a man; and that was after the Scythians had finished beating him senseless.
With everyone else worried about the brawl and the guardsmen, I saw Egesis break into the center ring, club a man out of the way, and shovel handfuls of coins into the material of his tunic. He tied a knot to stop the coins from falling out, then jingled his way toward the exit. Now he had enough money to get home to Macedonia. But his escape too was stopped by the mass of panicking men.
I grabbed Diotima by the arm. “Come on!”
She scooped up a rooster. I grabbed the other one.
“There’s no way through!”
She was right. The jam of men struggling to get out now had to fight the Scythian Guardsmen struggling to get in.
I pulled her in the other direction, where lay workmen’s tools. Among them was a mallet.
“Nico!” Diotima shouted at me in alarm over the din. “You’re not going to hit people with that, are you?”
“No.”
I swung hard. Right into the wall. Nothing happened, but I could feel the mud brick yield, ever so slightly. Everyone around us ignored me; they were all intent on getting out the door, so I swung again. And again. Every time on the same spot. I didn’t tire. Years of assisting my father with the heavy stonework of his sculpting paid off now. It needed only a handful of blows to make a sizable dent.
Diotima, I noticed, watched me with some appreciation. My chiton was all but torn away. She could see the muscles of my upper arms and chest work. Diotima had always liked a strong male chest. The thought made me swing harder.
The first mud brick fell out. Immediately I attacked the one above it. It came out more easily. Then two to each side, a single blow for each. Soon I had a hole large enough to crawl through.
“Go!”
Diotima handed me her chicken and dived through. The cocks instantly attacked each other in my arms, and I got a face full of feathers. I threw both squabbling fowls out the hole, not caring if they ran off. I was about to follow them when a hand grabbed me by the shoulder and turned me round. I was too startled to resist.
“Not so fast.” It was my two pursuers. I cursed myself for an idiot. When I’d led Diotima to the wall opposite the door, I’d taken us back to them.
I hit one of them with the mallet.
It wasn’t much of a swing—there’d been no time to pull back—but the blow sent him tumbling into his friend. They both went down.
I jumped through the hole in the wall, to where Diotima waited for me, and together we ran into the dark night.
It would have been nice if the night hadn’t been so dark. I ran straight into Pythax, standing in the middle of the road. My prospective father-in-law was more than twice my age, but he was built like a rock, and he wore the full armor of the Scythian Guard. I bounced off him and fell on my behind.
That was when I recalled that Pythax, whose permission I needed to marry Diotima, was chief of the Scythian Guard of Athens, the people we were trying to avoid.
“What are you doing here?” he growled. Then he saw the rooster under my arm. “Have you taken to stealing chickens?”
“It’s a cock.”
Then Pythax noticed my companion, also with a struggling fowl. He pointed at his own daughter and said, “Who’s he?”
Diotima pushed back the hood of her traveling cloak. “Hello, Father!” she said. “Fancy meeting you here!”
PYTHAX STRODE BACK and forth while I stood at attention like a small boy before his schoolmaster. Diotima he had sent home, with a guard on either side to make sure she went, and with firm instructions to stay there until he calmed down, or possibly for the rest of her life, whichever came first. He had not even attempted to believe our explanation: that we happened to be walking down the street when we came across the fighting cocks, which had somehow escaped from the brawl in which we had had no involvement.
“What in Hades were you thinking!” Pythax stormed at me. “You took my daughter into a gambling den?”
“I swear I didn’t, sir! Diotima got herself in there.”
“You didn’t stop her.”
“I told her to leave, sir, but she refused.”
“And you reckon you’re fit to marry her, do you? Shit, boy. What sort of a man can’t control his own wife?”
“Er …” I began, thinking of Pythax’s inability to control his own wife’s spending.
“If you answer that, I’ll kill you,” he said. He stopped his march, stared me in the face, and said, “What were you doing in there? You ain’t the sort to go slumming with the lowlives.”
“I was looking for a witness, Pythax. A man named Egesis.” I explained about the bear sightings, and how they were due to a real bear.
“A bear wandering about Attica,” he muttered. “And a murderous one at that. Gods, is there anything else that can go wrong?”
“Well …”
“Don’t answer that. And don’t make it happen, either, or my daughter’ll be a widow before she’s a wife.”
“Yes sir.”
“I suppose I’ll have to send men to hunt down this bear. I can’t have some bloody animal eating the citizens.”
“No sir.”
“You say there are men following you?”
“Yes sir. They’re hired thugs. Their leader will have a large lump on his head, about the width of a mallet.”
“I think we might have him. He was still unconscious when we picked over the bodies. Are you telling me you left an enemy alive? On purpose?”
“Yes sir.”
“You’re an idiot, Nico.”
“Yes sir.”
“Next time you got an enemy in your power, just kill the bastard. All right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Dear Gods, boy, didn’t I teach you anything?”
“No sir. Er … that is, yes sir.”
“Do you want this thug?”
“It would be nice …”
“He’s not a citizen; he’s a metic,” Pythax growled. “Just get him out of my sight, and out of Athens for that matter—I got no room for troublemakers in my city—and make sure he never comes back.”
“Yes, Pythax. I can arrange that.”
WHEN HE CAME to, he was bound with rope, wrapped around him so many times he looked like a fish. The winding finished at his ankles, whence the rope went up and over two tree branches. He hung upside down.
“Where am I?” was the first groggy thing he said.
I said, “Welcome to my farm. We thought this would be the best place to take you. Fewer people to hear you scream.”
In the background, two roosters clucked and scratched about in search of seed. Diotima’s first considered action on being released from her father’s house had been to remove the spurs from the animals and tend to their wounds. We had to keep them separated—they had a tendency to want to kill each other—but they seemed happy enough. The
slave Pericles had assigned had begun building a pen for each. We’d have to get a few chickens too. With two cocks and a few chickens we’d soon be chicken breeders. I’d always loved fresh eggs.
I said to our captive, hanging upside down, “We’re all professionals here, right?”
“Right!” he said. “And as a professional courtesy, if you could get me down from here … the blood’s rushing to my head, and I got a bad headache—”
“Tell me, how does one professional extract information from another?”
“Well, normally he beats the crap out of him, but in this case—”
“You see that woman over there?” I pointed to a figure fifty paces away. “That’s my wife—fiancée rather—”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. Diotima’s quite a good shot with a bow. But I’m afraid she’s a bit out of practice.”
I grabbed hold of my victim, took two steps back, pulling him with me, then let go. He swung back and forth. The rope creaked slightly, and the olive branch bent under his weight, but he went with a more or less regular rhythm.
I said, “I’d like to know who you work for.”
“You know I can’t tell you that. It would be unprofessional.”
I waved to Diotima.
She raised her bow, took careful aim, and fired.
The arrow whistled past and embedded itself with a solid thud, point-deep into the trunk of the olive tree. It had missed him by a whisker.
He twisted in a vain attempt to escape. “Hey!”
“I told you she was out of practice. Who do you work for?”
“You know a professional wouldn’t tell—”
I waved to Diotima again.
This time the arrow grazed his head and went into the ground at the tree roots. The shot had drawn a scratch across his ear that quickly turned bright red and began to drip.
“Aaargh!”
“Sorry about that. I guess it’s hard for a woman to get the pull right, them not being as strong as we men. It’s a good thing you’re a professional who doesn’t talk. She’ll have plenty more time to get her arm in.”
I raised my arm to wave.
“I could retire from the professional ranks,” he said quickly. In the background one of the roosters crowed, and, not to be out-done, the other replied.
