Madman

by Tracy Groot

  “You didn’t laugh.”

  “You didn’t hear me. I got some guests in from Sobol. They need their horses curried.”

  Tallis gazed at the fine setup on his writing table. He dropped the stylus into the vase. “Yes . . . master.”

  Having never curried a horse in his life, because Callimachus did not own horses and the only horse he’d petted was his father’s military-issue nag, Tallis looked at the crusty sweat on the reeking mouse-colored hide, looked at the brush in his hand, and wondered what he was supposed to do with it. Maybe brushing horsehair was not far from brushing the dirt out of a good toga. He tried out different positions with the brush before he started.

  Jarek came and gently took the brush from him. Before Tallis could protest, Jarek said, “Look—Arinna is gone and gods know when she’s going to return, and—” he glanced about for Zagreus—“if she doesn’t, we’re glad. But Kes is the one who needs help running things inside, and it seems to me you’re better at that. No offense.”

  “None taken. Believe me.”

  “You did good with the guests the other day. You’ve got a pleasant way about you. Folks like that. It’s the most important part of running an inn, making them feel good to be here.”

  Tallis watched a moment as Jarek worked the brush over the animal in firm, fluid strokes. He liked the sound the brush made on the animal’s hide, and it seemed as though the horse enjoyed the brushing. Jarek felt him watching and paused. He looked over the horse’s back at Tallis, and his look was weary, as if to say, What now, Athenian?

  Tallis didn’t remember looking in Jarek’s eyes for long, except when he was flat on his back in a miserable state. The innkeeper’s eyelids were saggy, and his dark eyes were large and had oldness in them. His face was heavy. His head was mostly bald, but for the black feathery fringe on the sides, like a low Olympic wreath.

  “You’re going to help Polonus, aren’t you?” Jarek said, and added, “Kes says.”

  Being an innkeeper had to be a tricky occupation. On days you did not feel gracious, you had to be gracious. On days you did not care, you had to act as though you did. Maybe Kes thought her father was weak. But maybe the innkeeper part had bled over into the father and husband part, and maybe it was Kes’s mother he’d tried hard to please and accommodate. It wasn’t right, maybe, but looking in his eyes Tallis could understand the man a little. Maybe he’d tried to act like a husband when he didn’t feel like it. Like a father when it was hard. Did it make him weak? Tallis saw strength. Maybe not the kind Kes wanted, but strength was there. Innkeepers had to be a tough lot.

  “I’ll try to help Polonus as best as I can. But you know I have a certain . . . weakness of mind. Or soul. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how far I can go.”

  “I only know you want to help my boy. Nobody else does.” He bent to his brush strokes again.

  Tallis started for the kitchen and stopped. He couldn’t get the image of those shackles out of his heart. Couldn’t imagine what that must be like, shackling your own son. Couldn’t imagine being that loved. Not quite turning around, he said, “I am honored to be in your employ.”

  He didn’t hear anything for a moment, then heard steady brush strokes again.

  Tallis kicked off dirt from the barn and washed his hands in the bucket outside. He wiped them on his tunic as he came in, and he stood in the doorway and looked long around the kitchen.

  Drying herbs hung upside down over the kitchen window that looked out on the chicken yard. Across the room Kes had her back to him, arranging charcoal in the brazier with tongs. In the middle of the room was the good solid worktable, with a shelf beneath filled with kitchen things, and the right side of the kitchen had cupboards and shelves. The left side had more cupboards, and a shelf lined with crockery. Past the shelf was a curtained alcove filled with stores. It was no ordinary kitchen—it was the kitchen of a busy inn, and Tallis liked the smell of this place. It was becoming familiar to him.

  Zagreus leaned on the worktable over little cups filled with different seeds. He was sprinkling sesame seeds over the flatbread that would go into the oven in the kitchen yard. He looked up at Tallis. That child would favor Kes more than he ever favored his own mother, and Tallis felt it was a gift from the gods. No wonder he’d taken the boy for Kes’s son.

  “Mistress Kes says you work for Master Jarek now,” Zagreus said in his bright little-boy voice.

  Tallis wasn’t used to being around children. The tone was so small he first thought it an affectation, until he remembered he was a child.

  “That I do. You have anything to say about it?”

  “I’m glad!”

  Tallis laughed in surprise and went to fetch an apron. He kept his attention fastened on Zagreus as he tied on the apron and said, “Well—do you think Mistress Kes is glad?”

  “Oh, I know it.”

  They looked at Kes, who refused to turn around from the brazier. Tallis crept over and leaned to see, and said in a loud whisper to Zagreus, “Red cheeks. She’s glad.”

  “It’s the charcoal,” she said flatly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Too late,” Tallis said. “Well, Kes, I’m officially assigned kitchen and guest duty. Jarek says he can’t take any more of my incompetence in the barn. He kicked me out, threw the horse brush at me—he even swore at me.”

  Zagreus’s eyes widened.

  “You mean you didn’t hear it?”

  Zagreus shook his head, still wide-eyed.

  Tallis put his hands on his hips and nodded grimly.

  “What did he say?” Zagreus asked.

  Tallis glanced at Kes and whispered conspiratorially, “I’ll tell you later. Women shouldn’t hear such things.”

  “Master Tallis?” He pointed to Tallis’s mouth. “I like that little space.”

  Tallis stuck out his upper teeth. “This one? You know quality when you see it. I’ve won every spitting contest in Greece. People came from miles around to see me—even Emperor Tiberias came. He patted my head.” Tallis nodded solemnly at Zagreus’s stare. “I can even put out kitchen fires.”

  Kes laughed. “Don’t believe such tales, little boy.”

  “Can you show me sometime?” the child said eagerly.

  Tallis said, “Are you planning to start a fire?”

  “No . . . I just want to see how far you can spit.”

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe we can have a contest.”

  “Wouldn’t be fair.” Tallis shrugged.

  “I don’t mind.”

  Zagreus suddenly smiled at Tallis, his little mind obviously wandering to something else. Tallis wasn’t used to children, but he enjoyed being around them. Occasionally a guest at the estate would bring along a child. While the guest spoke with Callimachus, Tallis and the cook would entertain the child in the kitchen. Sometimes Aristarchus joined in. They had as much fun as the child. Tallis discovered the dour Aristarchus could make children laugh more than anyone else.

  “I hope my mother never comes back.”

  “Zagreus,” Kes gasped. She set the tongs on the sideboard and went to the boy. “Don’t say that.”

  He looked up at her, bewildered. “Why not?”

  “There’s an honest child,” Tallis muttered.

  “Because she’s your mother.”

  “I don’t like her. I like you.” He went back to his bread. He took a pinch of poppy seeds and sprinkled them on the flatbread. He wiped off his hands, then took a pinch of salt. “I like things now.”

  Seemed Kes didn’t know what to do with him. She smoothed down his hair, then briefly hugged him to her apron. Softly she said, “A little more salt, lad.”

  He added more and tidied his flatbread, then eased it onto a baking stone. Carefully he lifted it from the table and carefully went out the kitchen door.

  They stood in silence, Kes gazing at the seed cups.

  “Is this a good time for a kiss?”

  Still gazing at the seed cups, Kes grinned. “Y
ou say the craziest things.” She slid a look at Tallis, and, oh, he liked those dancing eyes. “You’ll have to work for it.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “It’s a long list. Common room has to be swept.”

  “What else?” He moved a little closer to her.

  “Porch has to be swept.”

  “What else?” He moved closer.

  Her cheeks flushed and she laughed. “Give me a minute, you’re flustering me. It’s a very long list.”

  “Where’s the broom so I can get started?” He inched closer.

  “It’s in the—Tallis, go away—it’s in the . . . why, it’s in the . . . why, I can’t remember where it is. . . .”

  He kissed her gently, but was so terrified of someone walking in on them it wasn’t a long kiss. Long enough, though, that when Kes did tell him where the broom was he was so flustered it took him five minutes to find it. When he did find it (in plain sight, propped behind the corner counter), he swept the common room with such vigor it kicked up a dust that settled on the tabletops and had Kes chiding him to dust the tables. He set about wiping them.

  Kes presently commented in a loud whisper from the kitchen, “You’re in debt, you know, kissing me before you earned it. Shameful thing to be in debt.”

  “I’ll work it off.”

  X

  THE REST OF THE DAY that he had kissed Kes was the happiest day Tallis had known. Happiness is not squandered when it comes to people long bereft of it. They know what to do—hold it gently like a small bird, amazed the bird came to alight, and be pleased to let it stay as long as it will.

  He didn’t know when he went to bed that evening, shoving the scrolls off his cot, lying down with his hands behind his head to look at the ceiling, that it would be some time before the small bird came to rest in his hands again.

  It had been a fine night, serving the guests in the common room, working in the kitchen. When he came into his room, he looked at his newly purchased writing things and the scrolls on the cot, and he felt the bird flutter in his hands. It was easy to forget his newly found purpose when Kes taught him the difference between charcoals—the cheap kind heated the pots, the good kind roasted the meat—or when Jarek put a pleased look on him after he shepherded laughing guests to the door.

  Once the guests were gone, he noticed a settling on the house, a not-quite-sadness. Kes and Jarek had long lived and worked in silence, with only the guests to lift them from their taciturn ways with each other. If things were beginning to change at the inn—and they were—it would come slowly.

  It had been a good day, the best of his life, and he thought over those good things, held them carefully in his hands, before he went to sleep. Today he had kissed a fine woman; today he made a friend in Jarek. Today he stood at the kitchen threshold and looked around, and felt like he came into purpose more at that moment than this, in looking at the scrolls and remembering the mission for the restoration of Kardus. He thought on Samir, how he protected this family. He thought on Zagreus, how the child would be raised safe and loved, and he felt joy for the child. He thought about the fishermen from the sea, was glad for the way they encouraged Jarek, and looked forward to serving them tomorrow.

  Then the small bird flew away.

  It was close to midnight, and Arinna bit back a yawn. She wasn’t used to being up this late, but all the others were intent on the words of Queen Ariadne. The priestesses of the temple of Dionysus felt excitement in every duty performed these days, even in the midnight rites. Scrubbing pots, working the gardens, rehearsing the choruses, it didn’t matter—they exchanged eager glances, they shared happy smiles. The Festival of Dionysus, their mighty god of intoxicated delight, was only three days away. All of Scythopolis prepared for it.

  Sprigs of ivy and pine and fig leaves, things dear to Dionysus, began to appear in the homes. Old Dionysian vases were taken out for display; great masks of Dionysus were given pride of place on tables and in entrances. Taverns ordered huge quantities of wine, but the faithful knew Dionysus himself could provide rivers of it—Queen Ariadne told of a time when wondrous streams of wine flowed for seven days at a temple in Greece! So mighty was his incarnation at the festival that year, so shattering his appearance, that grapevines bloomed and ripened on one and the same day!

  The only people who did not festoon their homes with Dionysian emblems were the religious Jews—but Queen Ariadne said they got theirs, many years ago, when Antiochus Epiphanes had enough of their sanctimonious ways. With dripping relish (Queen Ariadne knew how to tell a story) she regaled the initiates with the fate of those who dared defy the glorious incarnation of Dionysus Most Blessed. In righteous anger, King Antiochus stormed their temple in Jerusalem, threw down the affronts to his gods, and set up veneration for them. He introduced the worship of Dionysus and gave the Jews a choice: Worship Dionysus or be killed. He even made the Jews sacrifice pigs to Dionysus, right in their own holy temple!

  Queen Ariadne could never help laughing at this, so rich the paradox. If an initiate of the Bacchantes didn’t quite get the joke, her neighbor let her in: the Jews were forbidden by their God to even touch pigs—the pig was a symbol of uncleanness to their God. Then the initiate could laugh along with the rest. How droll was Antiochus Epiphanes!

  True, times had changed, and the Jews were no longer forced to be part of the citywide celebrations. One of their people had risen in revolt after the pig incident and kept Antiochus busy with mild civil war. The feeling from that lasted two hundred years, and nobody felt it worthwhile to compel the Jews anymore. Did the smug Jews think to affront their neighbors by refusing to bedeck their homes with the emblems? Who cared? Surely they were made to feel ostracized when the processions frolicked past their homes, and they heard the gaiety and joy and the laughter and the choruses, and saw the dances of the beautiful Maenads. Let them stew in their piousness while the rest of the world celebrated the wild coming of the madcap god from whose presence springs forth—life! And feeling! And a torrent of epiphanies!

  Arinna twisted a curl around her finger as she listened to Ariadne speak to the initiates. That she was an initiate herself, and not yet one of the venerable nurses, did not bother her in the least—for five years she had held a status not even one of the nurses had. For five years Arinna was spoken of in awed whispers. When she arrived with Ariadne, and when Ariadne introduced her to the women assembled for rehearsal of the choruses, so amazing was their awe of her, so unexpected their intake of breath that Arinna herself gasped. She saw, in that astonishing moment, wonder and veneration—for herself. And for the five years she’d spent slopping pigs and waiting tables and keeping on eye on Zagreus, she finally felt recompense, more than in the coin Ariadne gave her. She had lowered her eyes demurely at that first rush of admiration, and felt an intoxication no coin ever purchased, no wine ever stirred.

  She never mentioned the coin to any of the priestesses she now met. Arinna was the Keeper of the Divine Child, Guardian of Zagreus Most Blessed, and incidentals like payment for her service seemed too of-this-earth. Money meant nothing to the devotee of Dionysus; all goods were held in common once a priestess entered the vocation. The goods, that is, that the others knew about.

  She would not mention the coin, nor the arguments she’d had with Ariadne, nor the times Ariadne had to wheedle, threaten, bully, and menace her to stay at the inn. She missed Demas and others like him. She could never tell them her true divine purpose, and that was frustrating indeed. For five years she was stuck at the inn with no one to talk to, not about real things.

  Arinna glanced at the women around her, whose rapt attention was on Ariadne. Of course, Ariadne herself would get the real glory. Arinna was only the Keeper of the Divine Child; Ariadne was his mother.

  All the women knew of her sacred and secret, grand and glorious sacrifice. It made Ariadne better than Arinna, who had to change his diapers and wipe his nose, endure his prattle and his nightmares, and act like she loved him. But for Kes, she would h
ave never lived through it. Kes’s care for Zagreus made things tolerable.

  Arinna was through with the creepy Samir, and with Jarek who never liked her, and most of all with Mistress Kes, whom she’d hated from the start. Maybe Kes had thought she could elevate her swampy little life by associating with a woman who had seen more of the world than the backwater “mistress” could ever hope to see. Arinna let her know right away that wasn’t going to happen. If now she thought that maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to bestow on Kes the occasional gracious favor of her attention, as befitted her true and noble station of Divine Keeper, it didn’t matter—that part of her life was happily over.

  Ariadne had said to make them love Zagreus, and before he was a month old he had won them over. She said their love would protect her child, and it did. No child she knew had more protection than that one did, even, in a freakish sort of way, from Samir. She shuddered when she thought of him, but it was a delicious shudder because that part of her life was over.

  Ariadne was adamant about where she wanted her child raised. She wanted him raised in the house of his grandmother, because his grandmother was a Maenad. Maybe she went crazy in the end and took her own life—probably because she was doomed to the life of an innkeeper’s wife—but bloodlines were all that mattered to Ariadne. She chose Kardus to be the father of her child because, with his own mother a Bacchante, it surely boded well for his offspring. Well, and the child was a boy, wasn’t he? Of course he was, it was fated to be. Dionysus could not come back as a girl.

  Arinna shuddered again, and this time it was not enjoyable. Kardus had come to the inn a few times during her stay. Before the madness took him completely, she rather enjoyed the visits. He was good-looking and interesting and rather charming at first. She could hardly believe he was related to Jarek and Kes. He had a glittery way about him, like Demas, yet not like Demas at all.

  Demas was gorgeous and seemed to spread his gorgeousness around the minute he walked in the door. Kardus wasn’t like that. He was intense, a man of glowing secrets. He was certainly much smarter than Demas. He’d visit with his father and watch his own son play on a blanket in the common room. He never knew it was his son, of course—he thought it was simply the bastard child of the servant whom he never acknowledged.