Trampling in the Land of Woe

by William Galaini

  “The lady Adina has opened an account here, sir,” he said. “She said you two are to be outfitted in quality, but subtle, menswear in line with modern conservative fashion.”

  “Yes.” Yitz nodded. “And we’ll need shoes, too. Nice shoes.”

  “Nice?” A boisterous voice boomed in robust French from behind a curtained doorway. An elegant walking cane heaved the curtain to one side, and out stepped the most flamboyantly dressed man Hephaestion had ever seen. His skin was onyx, each feature perfectly chiseled as if with conscious intention. The white of his curled wig offered a startling contrast, making his dark eyes appear even larger. The same polished silver as the bell above the door adorned his shoe buckles, and, when the tip of his cane rested near his feet, a similar metallic shine assured that it matched as well.

  “Gentlemen, I shall tell you that ‘nice’ has no place here. We only deal with the exquisite!” He approached with arms open. “I have decided that lavender has become the new delight of New Dis’ fashion sensitivities! Hence my lovely lavender overcoat. It is a difficult color to dye properly. Sometimes, the dye is too coarse, but I’ll tell you a secret!” He leaned in, dominating Yitz’s personal space. “The Chinese can dye anything—any color you can fathom! They just keep inventing colors for me to pick from!” With a sharp swivel of his head, the man suddenly noticed Hephaestion.

  “Monsieur Yitzhak, you have brought a poor man in from the cold, it seems. How valorous. This poor fellow—I must see him. But not here. Inside the parlor! Please, come come! And call me Adam. We are all friends here!”

  Through the curtain they went, and the heavy velvet flopped closed behind them. Much larger than the antechamber, the main tailor’s shop possessed hardwood floors stained a deep red that complimented the thousands of vibrant suits and dresses. They followed Adam up a spiraling ramp to a small loft overlooking the shop.

  Something gnawed at Hephaestion like an angry whisper in his ear. A sense of unease chewed on his spine.

  “From here, let your eyes wander!” Adam swelled with pride, gesturing to the first floor. “You can change up here in privacy while maintaining a perfect view of all the stock. If there’s a coat you’d like a better look at, just tell me, and one of my boys will bring it to us. Now, before we dive into your suit selection, Yitzhak, I simply must get a better look at this comely devil you brought into my store. I cannot wait to see my work on him. He’ll be the talk of the entire ward. Don’t be shy, good sir. Please disrobe if you would.”

  Hephaestion slipped off his cover, standing naked. Adam shook his head disapprovingly and then called down below. “Garçon, please bring us up some paté with bread. Our guest needs to fill out a bit more!” He smiled at Hephaestion. “Please do not be insulted, good sir. I feel obligated to make you at home and fulfilled. May I take some measurements?”

  Hephaestion nodded with disinterest, suppressing his sense of unease

  Adam darted about Hephaestion, lifting an arm by the wrist or measuring the thickness of a thigh while occasionally tapping his chin, a “hmm” emerging from behind his pursed lips. “You are a tall man with a broad chest and a long torso. What a delight it will be to build for you. Also, you are simply not permitted to leave in that rag. Not only would it be awful having that worn by a patron leaving Ancien, but again I feel obligated to rescue you from such a tragically functional garment! Do you like velvet? Pinstripes are what I’m thinking for Monsieur Yitzhak, here. But you are too tall for a pattern like that, so I’m considering texture for you, monsieur. And speaking of, good sir!” Adam squawked. “What is your name? Have you a status?”

  “Hephaestion. General.”

  Adam paused, eyes alight. “A stately figure and a titled one. General! General Hephaestion. Forgive my informality, but we are all friends here. Let’s look at your feet.” Diving down, Adam began taking measurements of Hephaestion’s ankles and arch. As he did so, the gnawing came back, and Hephaestion’s gaze wandered to the ceiling. Lit by electric chandeliers, the ceiling had been constructed of the same deep red wood as the floors. An all-too-familiar crimson, Hephaestion had trouble identifying why he recognized the shade.

  A servant arrived with the paté held high in one hand with a small folding table carried in the other.

  “Please eat. Please! And allow me to remove this unsightly thing you came in wearing. It is beneath you and unworthy of your magnificent stature!”

  A small stool materialized beside him, its cushion of white silk, but Hephaestion felt awkward sitting on the soft material naked. Unsure how to voice his concerns, he settled himself on it.

  The paté was delicious, but his mind’s unrest blunted his appetite.

  Yitz, however, was completely at home. “While he’s eating, should we measure me?”

  “No need, kind sir.” Adam grinned. “Your lovely lady provided all measurements as well as expectations regarding what you wish to purchase: one suit and a pair of shoes for today.”

  Yitz’s face fell.

  “And next week she has booked our attention yet again to select an additional two suits with another pair of shoes.”

  Yitz’s cheeks brightened with pleasure.

  Setting his spoon down and looking up, Hephaestion pondered the ceiling. The floor. The ceiling. The wood. Something about the wood…”What kind of tree is this? Hickory? In Purgatory, we had some woods that were red, but not like that. Did you dye—”

  “Our lovely varnished red floors and ceiling? The wood helps with moisture for the stock. It isn’t easy to come by, and almost no one ever uses it for construction, given how slick it gets. The real expense is dragging the lumber up from—”

  Hephaestion shot to his feet, plate and stool knocked aside. “Suicides?” he snarled, ire heating his ears. “You built your shop from suicides?”

  “General!” Adam pleaded. “I assure you it is just wood, like any—”

  “It is people. Suicides fall right past Minos and plow into the forest. Each tree is a suicide. Each tree is a person. And you cut them down and build your store—” His words boomed off the planks, the same volume that called over the battlefield and directed cavalry charges.

  “Now, now, let’s not get carried away with things, General. The branches and trunks grow back just like any other tree. Please, sir, we are clearly getting off on the wrong—”

  Storming past Adam, Hephaestion stamped down the ramp in a rage, the servants below giving him a wide birth. Tearing the curtain loose, he ripped into the antechamber.

  “Adina,” he shouted. “Adina!”

  The salon door flew open, Adina charging out with Minu at her side. The front door burst open, cracking on its hinges, as wild-eyed Boudica stood ready, holding a blade in each hand.

  “What? What is it?” Adina asked, scanning the room for danger.

  “This shop is built from suicide wood—people! This place is a-a flagrant and trite thing built from the bodies of suicides!”

  Understanding crossed her face, and she immediately eased her posture. “Hephaestion…several buildings in New Dis are.”

  “Your home? The bed frame I’ve been sleeping on?”

  “No, no, nothing Yitz and I would ever own.”

  The curtain pulled aside to reveal a terrified Adam.

  “There has been a misunderstanding. How may we sort—”

  Clearing his throat and attempting composure, Hephaestion turned to Adam sternly. “You understand that the trees you cut down for your shop were once people, condemned to live as trees as punishment for suicide, yes?”

  “Well, certainly. The forest below is dangerous, and the loggers can charge inordinate sums for their lumber. It is a luxurious commodity, indeed.”

  Yitz appeared at Adam’s elbow, face red with embarrassment. Everyone eyed each other, waiting for the prolonged silence to break.

  Hephaestion sighed, defeated. “Then
there is no misunderstanding. I’d rather just go naked.” He stepped around Boudica and exited the shop.

  The warrior’s amused response echoed behind him.

  “He’s growing on me.”

  Chapter 11

  Once clear of his audience, Hephaestion buckled. With his hands on his knees and head hung low, he thought of Thebes.

  Thebes had burned for days.

  When the polis threw out Alexander’s puppet government, Thebes became a beacon of rebellion in Greece. If the nations to the east believed that Alexander couldn’t keep his own homeland in order, they would rebel in turn.

  Great and mighty Thebes had to be the place where all thoughts of rebellion ended. Future generations had to witness that Alexander would not tolerate secession.

  So Thebes was put to the torch: women and children sold into slavery and men put to the axe or the noose by the thousands. Fathers decapitated in front of their sons and boys forced to dig mass graves for their elders. Never had Alexander brought such ruin upon the conquered.

  The uncharacteristic wrath unnerved Hephaestion. He begged Alexander to show mercy, framing his pleas as politically motivated. “If you do not spare the people, Greece will call you tyrant!” But Alexander’s rage was more than political—savage and personal; he would show Thebes his justice.

  To avoid watching the slaughter of the surviving garrison, Hephaestion sought sanctuary in one of the many Theban temples in the center of the city. The area had already been cleared by shock troops, and the temple had been declared secure. He made his personal escort of thirty Companions wait outside so he could pray for the women and children of fallen Thebes in peace.

  Each sconce burned brightly, flickering over the columns and elegant blue statues. Moonlight pooled through the archways as the wails of the condemned carried on the night breeze. Sliding off his helmet, Hephaestion pushed his gloved hands through his hair in an effort to keep himself awake. Rubbing his eyes, he saw only murky reflections, but when he opened them and looked about at the temple’s interior steps, he wished them closed again. But his eyelids would not obey.

  A mound of lily-white robes and pale bodies elegantly spilled before him. Hundreds of women, their small children curled into their limp arms piled at his feet. Hephaestion’s gaze lingered on the various vessels, now empty of their hemlock poison, strewn about the marble floor.

  They had killed themselves to avoid being raped, murdered, or sold into slavery. They had committed suicide because they knew Hephaestion was coming, to carry out his king’s wrath.

  That moment, that setting had seeped into Hephaestion’s bones since that day. It was one of his most vivid memories. When Ulfric had explained what happened to suicides in the afterlife, Hephaestion had wept.

  Hephaestion vomited, suddenly ashamed for every ounce of comfort he’d been provided by Yitz and Adina. Gripping his weak knees, he closed his eyes tight and tried to balance himself as the cobbled street spun. He may not need to breathe, but his lungs demanded air. His throat drowned on his desperate saliva as crippling fear clawed up his spine and into his chest, his heart fluttering in hopeless spasms.

  What was he doing here? He had lost a majority of his gear, his allies and friends were beyond reach, and he was standing naked in the street of a hostile city, after throwing a tantrum that alienated the only kind people he had encountered. Kind people that had protected him when he needed it. Kind people that kept him safe.

  Alexander. He thought of Alexander. They were entwined in a bearskin, a fire blazing in their tent. The snow drifted down, blanketing the world outside, and the two men relished in being alone by their crackling hearth.

  They’d camped in the east, somewhere near the friendly settlement of Samal, and, after they’d made love, Alexander started crying.

  “I had that dream again last night. The liquidation. I dreamt of all their faces,” Alexander whispered, as though terrified of being heard. “Thirty thousand people. Thirty. I’ve broken armies while commanding fewer Greeks. Thirty thousand sold. Mothers and children separated after their fathers had been killed.”

  Hephaestion knew sobbing would come soon. Regardless of the battle horrors Alexander had endured, nothing haunted him more significantly than the dreams of those in Thebes.

  Stroking Alexander’s hair, Hephaestion shushed him. “You are a king—”

  “I’m a monster.”

  “You are a king. And sometimes that is what a king must do. They were at least sold to other Greeks. You spared them the sword,” he consoled.

  Alexander nodded and drifted to sleep, and soon after Hephaestion slipped out of bed and tried to warm his frigid soul by the fire.

  Hephaestion never told him of the hundreds of bodies found in those temples that he secretly burned in the streets. Alexander never knew of the Greeks so afraid of their king that they murdered themselves and the children in their arms instead of facing him.

  Hephaestion washed up in Purgatory for his sins. Alex faced Minos and was sent to the pit. It was unjust. Alexander had no idea that mass suicide had been perpetuated, and yet he burned below whereas Hephaestion, who covered it all up, did not.

  Were any planks in the tailor shop one of them? Did Adam have a bed frame made from a desperate mother? Did that decadent man shuffle his bare feet in the morning across heartbroken priestesses? Was the stool leg that propped up Hephaestion’s weight one of the children that took the cup, knowing the hemlock for what it was?

  “Straighten up, Hephaestion,” Boudica spoke gently from somewhere behind him.

  Hephaestion gradually stood upright. Several well-groomed passersby gaped at him, parasols no longer playfully spinning.

  “Good. Now get out of the street,” Boudica commanded, and, like a good soldier, Hephaestion obeyed. Standing in front of her, he looked back to the door of Ancien Tailoring.

  “I haven’t helped my cause any,” he muttered.

  “Probably not,” Boudica said with a grin. “When I get caught up in how much I hate this place, I think of my girls when they were little. They get along far too well now, but, when they were little, they would have the cutest arguments. I would eavesdrop for hours.”

  Hephaestion nodded, appreciating Boudica’s distraction.

  Adina, Yitz, and Minu exited the tailor’s. Yitz approached Hephaestion first.

  “I’m sorry, Hephaestion.” He sighed. “I put you in a difficult position without thinking. We can get you something to wear from any vendor. But there are decency laws, and we can’t have you running around naked.”

  “You sure?” Boudica mused from the periphery.

  “My home is not far from here. Everyone come to my house, and I’ll sew something for our lord here.” Minu’s eyes smiled, making her command sound like a benevolent invitation. She returned to her spot next to Hephaestion, gently held his elbow, and he felt his strength return. “Besides, you ancient Greeks preferred being naked in the summer months, no?”

  “We’re comfortable with it,” he replied as everyone resumed their travel formation. “But that was seasonal.”

  “It is always summer here in Hell. And don’t worry about back there. At the shop. Didn’t I warn you? They are unrepentantly French.”

  Chapter 12

  Minu’s home was located off a narrow alleyway through a crimson, wrought iron gate. The hinges released a tiny yet piercing squeal, and once inside, Hephaestion felt as though he had entered a completely different world. The foyer floor entranced with tiny, intricately placed metal tiles displaying geometric shapes that spun and folded into themselves. Dizziness threatened as his eyes followed the labyrinthine patterns of vibrant blue and dull gold.

  No chairs offered respite. In fact, the space had no significant furniture except for huge scarlet and burgundy pillows piled into the corners and against the walls of the room. Each body-sized cushion displayed a work
of art; threaded scenes embroidered on the front panels depicted ancient peoples and their various methods of worship.

  “Be comfortable. Welcome to my home. Enjoy the pillows—I made them all myself,” Minu said, arms low but open in a sweeping gesture. Without hesitating, Yitz selected a pillow with a man punching a demon on the silk. He sunk down with a sigh. Boudica did the same, careful not to let her sword’s scabbard snag on the stitching.

  “This is lovely, Minu. Thank you for having us,” Adina said as she walked among the pillows as though in an art gallery, admiring their roped tassels and silky textures.

  “Come here, Lord Hephaestion.” Minu beckoned while standing on a simple wooden stool. “Let me measure.”

  Whereas Adam the tailor doted and made a production of the task, Minu simply measured Hephaestion’s shoulders, arms, and chest with her outstretched hands, finger to thumb. “Give me some time,” she said, hopping down. “I’ll be back soon.”

  At the end of the reception room stood imposing double doors. She vanished behind them, the tail of her niqab gliding through as the doors swung shut behind her.

  Hephaestion sighed, feeling exposed. The thought of burying himself in several of the pillows appealed to him, but he quickly chastised himself for desiring comfort. A cot was all he needed in Purgatory, how dare he receive more in New Dis?

  He wanted to apologize to everyone for his embarrassing outburst. None of this was planned. All of this was so much simpler in his head—a trek of survival through the rings of Hell that might take decades or even hundreds of years, but he would find Alexander and rescue him.

  Yet here he was, naked and unarmed at the mercy of others.

  The depth of his unpreparedness finally struck him. His shoulders slumped under the sudden weight, and, to keep himself upright, he sat on Minu’s tiny stool.

  Hephaestion took stock of what he still had and what continued to go well. His segmented shield was back at Adina and Yitz’s home, functional and ready. Yitz had said his greaves were still viable, but in need of repair. Also, the Jesuits hadn’t discovered him yet.