Soldier of Arete

by Gene Wolfe

  "Tomorrow, when the lists are opened, if he's got his fee."

  The prince smiled. "Tisamenus has it. He'll go with you—there may be some difficulties. You can tell the hellanodikai that Tisamenus speaks for me and for our city. He'll explain to them that Latro qualifies in every way."

  "I see." Diokles nodded to himself.

  When we were alone, watching Pasicrates jogging around the track, Diokles asked in what way I did not qualify, and I told him I did not know.

  "I'll swear you do," he told me. "You don't have to worry about that, see? I'll be behind you all the way. But I've got to know what we're up against. You're not from Redface Island, are you? You don't sound like it."

  I said, "I think you're right."

  "But you don't know? Huh! Can you wrestle?"

  "A little, perhaps."

  "That's good. A lot of wrestlers enter the pankration, but they never win. You talk to them and they'll tell you that once they get their grip on their man, it's all over. Fine. Maybe it takes them to the semifinals, see? Then they don't get their grip." He paused as if awaiting my reaction. "You know what it is, don't you? The pankration?"

  I said, "I think I can guess from its name." [All-power—GW]

  "But you've never seen a match?"

  "I don't know."

  Diokles spat. "This is a great job, this is. All right, it's boxing, wrestling, and kicking. Can you box?"

  "I think so."

  "We'll find out. How about kicking?"

  I said, "I suppose that anybody can kick."

  Diokles spat, as before. "Take off those sandals. Don't put them back on till the games is over." He extended a hand at shoulder height. "Kick it, and kick hard. The harder you kick, the better I'll like it."

  I kicked as hard as I could, but the end of my foot barely touched his palm.

  "Try again!"

  The result was scarcely better than before.

  "With the other foot!"

  This time I could not even touch his palm.

  "Now hold out your hand for me."

  I did as he said; the tips of my fingers were level with his eyes. His feet pumped like a boxer's fists: right-left-right, each kick higher than his head. At the third, I jerked my hand away.

  "There's half a dozen kicks, and you're going to learn them all, with both feet. That's the first thing. I'll show you how you work out on the korykos."

  Quite suddenly, he struck at my face. I blocked the blow with a forearm and backed away. He slapped at me with his other hand, and I blocked that as well. Swiftly his right fist jabbed at my waist; I knocked it aside.

  "Now let's see you tag me."

  When I had pinched his nose and smacked his face, he said, "You can box. The prince says he's seen you drive, and you're good. It's the only thing I'd trust him on, but I'd trust him on that—these blue bloods generally know horses even when they don't know anything else. The pankration's the problem."

  Pasicrates was passing us just then. Diokles called, "One more lap— as fast as you can go—and then I'll give you a rubdown!"

  Seeing Pasicrates sprinting around the track, I would have thought him fresh. He seemed to fly.

  "He could win," Diokles mused. "We're going to write him up for stadion, diaulos, and dolichos. By the twins, I believe he's got a chance in all of them. Friend of yours?"

  I said that I supposed he was.

  "He says the girl's yours, but you and him are partners in the boy."

  It seemed safest to nod, so I did.

  "You leave them both alone till after, understand? I told him and now I'm telling you. Don't touch them, or anybody!"

  Io sits watching me, but I will write no more.

  Today, when I was very tired, Io led me to a grove in secret. The woman had wine, and had brought a cloth for us to lie on. I drank, and explained that I had no interest in her and no money. She laughed and rubbed my manhood between her fingers; but after a time we returned here.

  Diokles sat down beside me after the second meal. He said, "Latro, I can't quite figure you out," and I told him he had no reason to.

  "I've got to earn my fee." He spat. "The old judge, he thinks that if you don't win, they're not going to pay."

  I nodded, knowing what he had said was true.

  "Well, he's wrong about that. We're all hooked up with the oracle here, see? We've got to be. We have to make an offering every year after the games, and believe me it's a lot. But when somebody don't pay up, the priests go after him. So I'll get my money, and quick, too. Are you listening to me?"

  I said that I was.

  "But in your case—what's wrong with you, anyhow? Tell me."

  I said that I did not know, then that it did not matter.

  "Huh! Not to you, maybe, but it does to me. You want to win, don't you?"

  "I suppose so."

  "All right, then let me tell you something. In any event you can name, the ability a man's born with counts for a lot. That's a gift from the gods. Nobody can change it. Condition counts for a lot, too—it's very important. Then there's all the training he gets, and the tips from somebody like me who's done it here, done it at Olympia, done it at Nemea and Isthmia a dozen times. Things like that can make a big difference. But the most important thing is what's in a man's heart— whether he wants to win so much that he'll do whatever winning takes. You know the story they tell about Heracles and the cart?"

  I did not, nor did I care to; yet I will set it down here because I must write something. (I am afraid that if I cease to write, I may throw myself upon my sword. There is a spirit in me that longs for it, and my hand strays to the hilt whenever I lay the stylus down.)

  "This farmer," Diokles said, "had been trying to drive his cart along a narrow road, and it had slipped off into the ditch. 'Father Zeus,' he prayed, 'send me help, please! I'll never get this thing out by myself

  "Just then, who should come along the road but Heracles of Hill, the strongest man in the entire world. 'Praise to Zeus,' said the farmer, 'who's sent you in answer to my prayer. Noble Heracles, won't you hoist this old wreck of a cart out of this ditch for me? You might help my oxen up, too.'

  "But Heracles just laughed. 'Father Zeus hasn't heard a word you've said,' he told him, 'and I passed this way by pure chance. Now take your whip in your right hand and the ox goad in your left. Lay your shoulder to that wheel, and shout and curse your oxen with all your might. That's the only way that Father Zeus ever hears a man.'

  "And it's a fact," Diokles affirmed. "I've seen men win, and boys, too, that didn't have a chance. Winded and out of it, and nine or ten strides behind, then beating somebody they had no business ever to beat. Some god sees them, see? 'Well,' he says, 'ain't he the plucky little 'un. I think I'll just puff him along a ways.' "

  When I said nothing, Diokles finished, "There isn't any god going to do that for you. Not the way you are."

  I spoke to him then of my feelings, as I have not spoken to anyone, not even little Io. I do not recall all the many, weary words I used, but what I said was this: that it seems to me that there is nothing to be found upon earth but treachery and hatred and the lust for blood and more blood. Man is a wolf to men, a vile predator that preys upon its own kind. I know that is true of me, however much I detest it. I know, as well, that it is true of everyone else, without exception; and that most of them do not even detest it as I do.

  I ceased to write and, fearing my sword, shut it away in my chest; then I sought a lonely road, down which I walked for many stades. At length it seemed to me that another kept me company. At first I could not see him. After some while, there came a shadowy figure there, and at last a man who seemed as solid as I. I asked whether he was a ghost, and he freely acknowledged that it was so.

  "You don't have to be afraid of me on that account," the ghost told me. "Most people are dead—you live ones are just sort of taking a holiday, and it'll soon be over. We'll laugh about all this then. Say, remember helping me with that rock?"

  I did not, but
I said nothing.

  "They let me come because you did that. Our queen said it would be all right—they're a queer lot, sometimes. Did I ever tell you why she and our king were so down on me? It's a pretty good story."

  The ghost waited for an answer, so I shook my head; he must have seen it in the moonlight.

  He chuckled. "Well, back before I died, I decided I wasn't likely to care much for the Lands of the Dead; so I got my wife, Merope, to promise that no matter what anybody said she wouldn't bury my carcass, or burn it, either. Merope's a good girl—not too bright, or she'd never have married me; but once she pledges her word on a thing, that's the end of it. She'll do it if it kills her."

  I said, "I see."

  "You don't see her." He pointed toward a cluster of stars. "She's the one you can't see—the family's never forgiven her. Well, anyway, I died—being a mortal, you know—and Merope laid my body out and left it there, just like she'd promised. Pretty soon it was stinking up the whole palace, but Merope wouldn't let anybody touch it.

  "As soon as it got ripe enough that people were kicking up quite a fuss, I went to our king. 'Let me return to the Lands of the Living,' I said, 'and revenge myself upon this faithless wife of mine who won't even give me a decent burial.' You see, I knew how seriously he takes these things.

  "Well, to make a long story short, they let me out. I ran off and hid, and had a wonderful time until they finally fetched me back. I'm not going to do that this time, though—they might find me another rock."

  His voice grew serious. "What I came to tell you, friend, was that we've been looking into killing Pasicrates."

  "If you wish," I said.

  The ghost laid a hand on my shoulder, and though it seemed that of a living man, it was as cold as ice. "Most of us agree it's an awfully attractive idea, but our seers tell us that it doesn't look as if it would be of any help to you until you're dead yourself."

  "Which will be soon," I said.

  "You're right, and that's precisely why you shouldn't rush things, my friend. Anyway, since killing him won't help, we're going to have to force him to let go. That Elata's a nice girl, by the way. She reminds me a lot of Merope, and she's on your side for old times' sake, as well as your having promised the Huntress that you'd fix the race. She got that mantis of hers to look into it for us, and he agrees with Amyklos. Amyklos is on your side because of his nephew, of course."

  When I returned here, I found that someone had draped an old cloak across two stools as if to curtain the place where I would sleep. I thought nothing of it; but when I lay down, I found that a woman lay beside me.

  "You've been mourning," she explained. "I've come to kiss your tears away."

  How sinuous her body was, fragrant and smooth with perfumed oil! Perhaps it was that the ghost had brought me hope, perhaps only that she was somehow different; but though I had been able to do nothing with the woman with the wine, with her I was a man again.

  Afterward, we walked hand in hand by moonlight. "I know you," she told me. "No wonder I had that dream! I'm in love with you."

  Her name is Anysia.

  "Diokles the gymnastes sent me," she said, and pressed some coins into my hand. "Here's what he gave. Return it to him—or keep it yourself if you like."

  I slept well after she had gone, but not for long, I think. Now I am awake again; the sun is not yet above the mountaintops.

  FORTY

  For the Sake of Days Past

  ELATA IS KIND TO ME, partly because I have promised the Huntress that a race will end as she wishes—or so the ghost said. After I read what I had written, I asked who Elata was. Io explained that we met her, and Hegesistratus her husband, in the north; Io called him a mantis, as the ghost had. Elata, it seems, was the woman with the wine of whom I wrote.

  "They're here with a five-tests man from Zakunthios, and to consult the oracle. Zakunthios isn't big enough to have someone in every event, the way Rope does."

  She wanted to know whether I recalled meeting with Elata in the grove. I admitted I did not, but said that I had read of it here, at which she blushed. "Elata thought she might be able to cheer you up," she told me, "so I said that if it would make you better it was all right with me. And you really are better, but I think it's the special food. Kichesippos had a big fight with Diokles about that, and Amyklos looked like he was getting ready to fight both of them. He says more barley and no meat at all."

  I told her that I would eat whatever my physicians wished, if only it would help me remember.

  "It isn't that now," Io said. "It's just to help you feel better, and I think it's working, a little. You're writing more in your book, and that's a good sign."

  Io said, too, that this Hegesistratus is eager to see me but will not come to our pavilion. He is afraid of the Rope Makers. There is a truce everywhere in Hellas in honor of the games, but he does not trust them even so.

  The Huntress is a goddess, Io says. She knows nothing of a promise I made her, but she says I may have taken an oath at her temple in Rope. The black man would not let Io and Polos go to the temple with me.

  He and his wife will accompany Pasicrates, Tisamenus, and me this morning, when we go into Dolphins with Diokles to have our names entered in the rolls. Now we are waiting for Diokles.

  While waiting I have read about many past days. "Pharetra, 'bow-case,' is as like it as any word I know, though she laughed at me." My heart leaped when I read that. What has become of her? Perhaps she died of her wound.

  Tisamenus came to speak with the black man and me. I know that Io does not like him, but he seems friendly and polite, and everyone defers to him because he is said to be an illustrious mantis. "Last night I conferred with Trioditis concerning you," he told me. "She will do all that lies in her power to aid you, provided you do all that lies in yours to aid Rope. 'The queen must win,' she said, 'and thus the queen must lose.' Does that convey any meaning to you?"

  I shook my head, and so did the black man.

  "I feel certain it is Queen Gorgo, her priestess, who must win," Tisamenus told us. "When you drive for our prince regent, sir, you will represent her as well. The rest we must strive to understand.

  "By favor of divine Trioditis you are improved," Tisamenus continued. "Your thoughts, I hope, haven't turned to the taking of your own life?"

  I did not reply, at which the black man stared at me.

  Tisamenus said gently, "When the soul has been overwhelmed by grief, sir, as yours has been, a man does nothing that he is not compelled to do, for then he believes that nothing can help him. At such times, he is no danger to himself or anyone else. But as the claws fall away, hope—the final horror, if I may say it, from that deadly box the gods packed for men—hope returns. It is then that his family and friends must watch a man, because he's apt to think that by putting an end to his life he'll put an end to his sorrows."

  I confessed then that such thoughts had sometimes stirred in me.

  "Never trust them, sir." Kindly, he laid his hand upon my knee. "Trust me instead. I've trafficked with many ghosts, and they are less happy even than we, and envy us. I've heard that while you crossed the barbarian lands you journeyed for a time in the company of Hegesistratus the Tellidian?"

  I nodded, recalling what Io had said about him.

  Tisamenus shook his head. "He is a great mantis, sir, and is now counted by some the head of our clan, though he dare not show his face in Elis. But he is consumed with malice, sir. I am his kinsman, and I find those words as bitter as gall in my mouth. Yet they are true. He is the sworn foe of Rope, and has said that he will destroy it, if it does not destroy him."

  Here the black man made several quick gestures. I did not understand most of them, but one certainly represented a dagger plunged into his own chest.

  "It's true," Tisamenus told us, "that Rope imprisoned him, and that he escaped as you describe." He heaved a sigh. "With what infinite patience the gods labor to teach us! We speak at times of a man who will stop at nothing; I have not inf
requently spoken thus myself. And yet it never strikes us, when we must deal with such a man, that he will, in fact, stop at nothing."

  Tisamenus pierced me with his eyes. "But he had slandered our city, sir—your own and mine. You forget, hmm? You haven't forgotten, I hope, that you've been proclaimed a resident of the most glorious city in Hellas?"

  The truth is that I remember nothing of that, but out of politeness I said, "Certainly not."

  "And I"—Tisamenus touched his chest—"I have been granted a like privilege. We're her adopted sons, sir, both of us. You will have heard before this, no doubt, that the noble Pasicrates desires to marry in order that he may adopt the little barbarian called Polos. Tell me, sir, who owes the greater loyalty to his father? Is it the son of his body, or one he has adopted?"

  I said that I supposed the adopted son owed more, for his father had been his rescuer as well.

  "Nicely reasoned, sir! Consider my position, then, if you will. I was in Elis, where I still maintain the house that once I shared with my wife, for the Italoan Festival. There, too, was my cousin, leveling the grossest insults and the vilest slanders against the very city that had a short time before honored me by making me her son. What was I to do? Sit silent and appear by my silence to consent? I essayed a response to his defamations, and was shouted down by men I had known—had numbered among my friends, in fact—since boyhood. In desperation, I dispatched a letter to our patron and another to my good friend Cyklos, both carried by the swiftest of my slaves. In them I recounted what I had seen and heard, and urged that they warn my cousin that he was making enemies of many who would greatly have preferred to be his friends. Would you not have done the same?"

  I agreed that I would, though I would probably have gone to Rope myself to hurry things along.

  "Just so, sir. As it happened, the prince regent had not yet returned to the city, but Cyklos dispatched several trusted officers to reason with my cousin. They came as a delegation, you understand, and not a military force. I believe there were five or six all told. Elis welcomed them, and when they found that nothing they could say would sway my cousin, they invited him to visit Rope, where he might speak with Cyklos in person, pointing out that he had never troubled to see for himself the modest place to which he had imputed so much evil. He demurred; they insisted, and at last, having received permission from the magistrates, placed him under restraint and carried him to Rope by main force. Do you know how criminals are commonly confined, sir, in Rope?"