Madman

by Tracy Groot

  He’d wanted to take the Maenads down so they couldn’t hurt anybody anymore. Aristarchus had approved of it, and Aristarchus was sensible. He scratched his neck. On this, Callimachus and Aristarchus disagreed. The Maenads were capable of great evil, and in some cases were proved in it—while most eluded justice for lack of evidence or fears of reprisal, others had been executed for their crimes. Aristarchus called it a good end to a bad beginning. But Callimachus said it would not end. He said to challenge the Maenads was to spit in the wind, challenge, instead, what moved them—only then would real change occur.

  How does a mortal challenge a god?

  The man who does not fight the gods should not live. Fine, stout words—but Polonus was losing his god-fight.

  How far does a person go before he calls it? When would Polonus know it was time to walk away? Would he walk away in time? Maybe Polonus had to go sooner than Kes thought. Or maybe it was time Polonus had some help.

  “A rabid dog can do a world of hurt,” Kes said softly.

  “Yes, it can.” He pinched his lip. Would Polonus welcome the help?

  “You have to take it down before it kills. I understand the way they think.”

  Tallis dropped his hand to look at her. “Kardus is no dog.”

  She circled her finger on the rim of the cup. “I know. I know.”

  “It’s a fight and you’re strong. After all this time you’re still strong.”

  Her finger stilled. “I wonder how that is. Maybe it’s because I’m his sister, and I know who he really is. I know that no matter what he acts like, it isn’t him. He would hate what he has become.” She was silent. “I hope he doesn’t know.”

  How could he help Polonus when he couldn’t even be around Kardus? He crippled Tallis. “I want to tell you I will be strong for you. But I’m not like you.”

  “You have a strength you do not know of,” she said with sudden earnest. “I know this. I feel it, and so does Samir. They wouldn’t hate you so much. They wouldn’t try for you so hard. This hasn’t happened before. No one like you has been here before.”

  They? How did she know it was like that?

  “You’ve seen how I am. You’ve seen my—weakness.”

  “Yes—that’s where it is. Tied up with that very thing. Polonus said the same great capacity for evil is the same great capacity for good.”

  “He got that from Callimachus.” He debated, and before the debate was over, he suddenly said, “I want to help Polonus. Maybe I’m meant to. I don’t think I’m going back to Athens.”

  A whisper of a smile came, which she quickly suppressed. She looked to the waters. “What do we do now?”

  Excitement began to stir. He went to rise because he liked to pace as he thought, but he was too stiff and sore. “I have no idea. I want to meet with Polonus. I want to know where it all started in the Decaphiloi—where did it go wrong? Cal has always said you won’t find the answer at the end; it’s in the beginning.”

  “Tallis . . . it started long before the Decaphiloi.”

  “Callimachus needs to know about this. I’ll send a letter. Maybe he could come. He could come help us! Think of it. Maybe even Aristarchus.” The thought of the two of them in the common room gave him a grin of joy. “Oh, Kes, you would like Cal. Samir would like him too. He is so wise. He said go back to where pain began. If you want truth, go back to the beginning.” He clenched his fists. “If only we could meet with every member of the Decaphiloi.”

  “It didn’t start with the Decaphiloi. Aren’t you listening? It started with my mother, and with her mother. How far back do you want to go? Shoshanna knows about my mother’s family. The Decaphiloi was only a jumping-off place for Kardus. It only went from bad to worse.” She paused. “The evil was there, waiting for him, as it’s there for all of us. The difference is, he made a place for it, long before he ever met Portia. She only completed what was started in him. Maybe it’s Shoshanna we need to talk to. Maybe even my father.”

  “Were Portia and Kardus close?”

  “He didn’t speak of it, not to me, but from what Polonus has hinted at, they were lovers. Maybe the part of him that wasn’t yet bad was looking for a place to be bad, and found it in Portia.” She shuddered. “She is worse than Kardus. Kardus has lost his mind, but she hasn’t. You don’t think she would actually hurt Zagreus, do you? She loves him.”

  He rubbed his forehead. He felt at once agitated and ornery. “The question is when. And where. If they knew the truth of the human sacrifices, all good men would rise up and put an end to the Maenads. Do you know what happened to a king in Scythopolis? In your Beth Shean, where Dionysus dwells? I read in Herodotus that the Scythian king Scytes became a devotee of Dionysus . . . and he was driven out and killed by his own people because they saw him dancing in a frenzy with the Bacchic rout. They knew what this unholy alliance meant—that the very office of the king now made way for the murder of their own children. And they rose up, like Lycurgus, in the Iliad. He drove Dionysus and his nurses into the sea with the oxgoad. And do you know? They went. They went, because one man stood against them. One man would not put up with them.”

  “A strong man,” Kes murmured.

  “It would have to be,” Tallis said darkly. “And Polonus is not strong enough. Not anymore.”

  “The Iliad is story, some say.”

  “And Herodotus is history. Besides—there is truth in story.”

  “Truth or wishful thinking?”

  “Both.”

  Tallis wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t. He wanted to talk about his own beloved Zagreus, but he couldn’t say what he had seen, couldn’t say what his own mother had done. But the talk wouldn’t stay in his head.

  “I saw the mountaintop ritual, Kes. I was there. A child was torn apart right in front of my eyes. But everyone thought I was the crazy one. You see, I went to our village and screamed what I saw, but nobody believed me because it was too horrifying. Nobody believed me when I said my brother was dead—they didn’t believe I had a brother. Mother had kept his existence a secret. No . . . they didn’t believe me, because Apamea would never do such a thing. They thought I was the mad one. And truly, my mind left me for a time.

  “Not even my father knew he had another son. He was in the army, on campaign. When he came home on leave, she hid Zagreus from him. Sent him to her friends until he left again. She had told me never to speak of Zagreus to him, because Father would hurt him. She told me he would believe he was from another man, and I believed her because she was my mother. It wasn’t until later that I understood what she had done.”

  Kes took his hand and brought it to her lap.

  “Now I know that Father, harsh as he was, would have saved Zagreus’s life if he had known. He was good under the harshness. He brought me things from the places he’d been. He stayed on campaign because he didn’t understand Mother. You know what the worst is? She planned it, Kes. I don’t know how a mother could do that.”

  Kes gripped his hand.

  Her face, flushed with loveliness and joy. Dancing the elegant steps. “She killed my little brother, and I couldn’t save him. I didn’t know what they were going to do. How could I? How could I think they would do something like that? How could it enter my mind? They were just dancing, and it was lovely. And then I tried to tell the world, and the world did not believe me, and it did not care.”

  She brought his hand to her face and held it against her damp cheek. She kissed his hand over and over, and he felt her tears run down his arm.

  “That’s how the Maenads got away with it—no one knew Zagreus existed. And they will continue to murder, and dance the beautiful dances of the Bacchantes, and hide behind the acceptable mask of Dionysus, good old Dionysus. And I only spit in the wind.”

  “Do you hate your mother?” she whispered against his hand.

  “I don’t know.” He considered it. “I haven’t thought about it. That part of me is dead.”

  She kissed his hand one more time, lowered
it to her lap, and released it. She wiped her face with the end of her haircloth, and when she was done and rested her hands in her lap once more, Tallis took her hand to his own lap. He needed her touch.

  “What about your father?”

  “He died years ago, on campaign.”

  “Is your mother alive?”

  Run, Tallis!

  “I—don’t know. I don’t think so.” He heard a slight hiss of breath from Kes, looked at her, looked at his lap—he’d gripped her hand so tightly her fingertips were purple. He instantly released her hand, then grabbed it back to gently rub away the hurt he’d inflicted. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked at her. “Kes, where is Polonus? We must find him.”

  She watched him gently knead her fingers. A little color crept to her cheeks, and she slipped her hand from his. “He’ll be back. He always comes back.”

  “What about the basket for Kardus?”

  “Samir will bring it.” Her eyes, still shining with tears, now glittered. “They hate Samir.”

  He didn’t like it that he knew exactly what she was talking about. He took the cup and drained it. “What about Samir? Why am I safe when I’m around him? What’s his story?”

  Kes shrugged. “Father bought him at the slave market in Antioch years ago.”

  “Where is he from? Who are his people?”

  “He is Parthian. The Parthians are like nomads, only much fiercer. They have Persian blood—”

  “I know about Parthians—politically, that is. What does he believe? Who are his gods?”

  But Kes only shrugged. Tallis soon forgot about Samir as he paid attention to the new excitement within. Would he really stay and help Polonus? Aristarchus would take care of Cal.

  “How are your ribs?”

  “Sore. Kes—what do you think about calling the Decaphiloi for a meeting?”

  “You tried that, didn’t you? Only Julia showed up, and one of the Decaphiloi wants you back in Athens.”

  “It would have to be something big to draw them out. Something—dire.” He turned eagerly to Kes. “Let’s do it. We’ll summon the remnants of the Decaphiloi for a meeting in four days. It’s perfect, because the Festival of Dionysus is in five days. Memories will be strong. They’ll all be thinking about Portia.”

  “Tallis . . . what do you hope will happen at this meeting?”

  “I want to stir up an adder’s nest.”

  “What if Portia comes?”

  “All the better. Well—if Samir’s around.” Samir, the living amulet. The mooring line lashed to solid land.

  “How will we get them to come?”

  Tallis frowned. “I’ll post a message in the forum. Tomorrow morning. That will give them three days to find out. And, ho, they’ll find out. I’m sure they all have friends. Post a message for the world to read, and the world will read.”

  “But what will you say?”

  Whatever it was, it had to be good. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “But I’ll work on it. Starting now.”

  “You—Tallis,” Jarek called from the top of the path. “You work for me or not?”

  It took a moment for Tallis to remember his recently humble state. He grimaced. “I guess I’ll start later,” he murmured to Kes. He rose slowly and stood as upright as he could. He called to Jarek, “I work for you. You need some Latin translated to Greek?”

  Jarek squinted at him warily, and grumped something Tallis couldn’t hear as he turned around. Tallis hurried after him, calling out that he was only kidding.

  IX

  EARLY THE NEXT DAY Tallis went to Hippos. He first went to the finest bathhouse. Then he visited a stall in the marketplace. Then he went straight to the message boards in the forum.

  He put a piece of parchment in front of the scribe and told him to copy it in bold letters on the scraped leather. While the scribe carefully printed the new message—and it took a while because it was long—Tallis removed the old. He purchased six blank messages, so the empty pieces of leather surrounding the new message would set it off like a—red poppy in a field of white. Then he went to look up Lysias.

  He found the slave in the public slave quarters behind the military barracks at the western gate, throwing dice with some soldiers. Lysias wasn’t pleased to see him until he saw the coin. He listened to what Tallis had to say and tucked the silver coin in his belt—making sure the soldiers didn’t see reason for another round of dice.

  Tallis could not resist reading his message one more time. It was a good piece and had taken a long time to get right. If he stood in front of the boards to read it not once but three times, and if he stood off watching others read it, well, the piece deserved it. No one had ever purchased six blank messages to set off one. Tallis could see it from where he stood on the bottom step of the temple of Athena, in the very place where the Decaphiloi had met three years earlier.

  He sat on the step and rested his arms easy on his knees. The sun warmed his bones, and the view from the top of the diamond-shaped mountain of Hippos was a fine view indeed. He’d just spent his last coin bribing a slave to spread the word among the subculture of Hippos that any member of the Decaphiloi had best check to see the new message posted on the forum board. He was utterly broke and wearing a tunic, and he thought maybe tonight he might catch Kes alone in the kitchen and tell her exactly what he thought of her. He felt lighter than he had in weeks.

  A small crowd was gathering at the message board. He watched one young man, a lad from the theater, he guessed, read the message and run off. He watched another man read the message not once, but twice, and he too hurried off. Presently he returned with none other than the pie-faced magistrate who worked in the public rental offices.

  Kes? Do you know how I feel when you dignify that child with work? You dignify me. Do you know how I feel when I see that basket, filled with food for Polonus and Kardus? It fills my own emptiness. Do you know how I feel when I see your guilt and grief over a brother you’re sure is lost? Sorrow for you, because sometimes you love, and your love doesn’t change a thing, and there is nothing you can do about it, Kes.

  Do you know what I have learned from you and Jarek? I can’t say it exactly, but I feel it when I see the basket, and the shackles hanging in the barn. You said your father was weak. It’s not a weak thing to shackle your own son.

  Tallis rose and went to the message boards one more time, and, yes, he enjoyed the astonished murmurs from the people who read. He was astonished too. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to write. After vicious cursing that did not help, and inventive cursing that only distracted him, after whipping his sandal across the room, which took out the terra-cotta lamp, and after explaining to Kes what the ruckus was all about, he’d finally dropped, defeated, on the stool at the desk. He’d tried to come up with something big enough to draw the Decaphiloi out, and came to only this: the truth. And as he watched the crowd grow around the message board, he realized the truth was big enough.

  There is a man in the tombs of Kursi, and he is captive to madness. Three years the man Polonus has risked his sanity to help. And I wonder—where are the rest of the Decaphiloi, the League of Ten Friends? Well, one was murdered, and his name was Theseus. One murdered himself: his name was Bion. One called for help: her name is Julia. One tried, but gave up: his name is Antenor. Three I’ve not heard from: their names are Lucius, Hector, and Marcus. Portia, you all know. My own name is Tallis, and three days from this at noon, I will meet the Decaphiloi at the Inn-by-the-Lake, south of Kursi, on the road to Damascus. This is a forum for Truth, for which the Academy of Socrates once stood—as Callimachus once called you by name, so I name you and call for Truth. As for the man who lives in the tombs? He also has a name. It is neither Madman, nor Lunatic, nor Demoniac of the Gerasenes. He is Kardus.

  Kardus.

  Tallis adjusted his new ink pot on the writing desk. He liked two kinds of ink but settled for one: it was all he could get for trading the last of his expensive bath oil from Athens.


  He had the good sense to take his unguent to the best bathhouse in Hippos and the better sense to drive a hard bargain with an attendant who knew quality. He bought another stylus and a waxed wooden tablet. He didn’t purchase picking nibs, but instead got a sharpened nail from Samir, because he was now a poor man and would make do. He was rather proud of this concession, and felt the fine glow of sacrifice.

  He had no dowels to roll and unroll the papyrus, but he could make those—couldn’t he? Resourceful poor man that he was? Samir could help him find the right wood, and he’d whittle them himself. This thought pleased him, and the prospects of being poor did not seem so abominable right now. He had a filthy toga but a clean tunic. He had a mug filled with water, a plate with two slices of Kes’s spiced bread, and the scrolls he’d borrowed from Polonus.

  He idled with a stylus as he gazed at the waters of the Galilee. He had purpose again, and this time it was not to destroy but to heal. The purpose felt right, and when he looked at the scrolls laid out on his cot, he knew a gratitude so sharp it was almost painful. The chance to help another from a madness he had tasted . . . it made him feel spacious inside. The chance to help the brother of one for whom he was beginning to care, it felt good inside. And to do what Callimachus had set out to do when he founded his academies: to seek truth, to learn truth . . . it felt like a gift. Together he and Polonus would discover what had happened to Kardus. They would go back to the beginning for understanding. There they would find the truth, tangled perhaps in pain and lies, and they would carefully sort it out. Truth, then, would bring understanding and understanding, liberation. Logic says if there is a way into madness—

  A knock came.

  Tallis snapped, “Who is it?”

  “You work for me or not?”

  Tallis pinched the place between his eyes. “I work for you. You need some Latin translated to Greek?”

  “That was funny once.”