Madman

by Tracy Groot

  Flies everywhere, buzzing about the doorway, crawling on the door.

  Come and see!

  Grief struck him, and he cried, “I don’t want to see!”

  Kardus spoke with a many-timbred voice. You will see.

  Kardus dragged him even with the kicked-apart line of Polonus’s stones. They were chalky in the grainy light. Tallis reached for one, but Kardus picked him up and dropped him on his feet in front of the fly-swarmed door. The laughter was louder.

  Kardus threw the door open, and chaos burst.

  Tallis clamped his ears. Whirling screams rushed into the room, a coursing pandemonium of voices, a bucking tide of filth. He could feel the air move as They passed. Glee, such laughing glee. He could almost see the tumult in the air, shimmers here and there, brown streaks, black hair and wings. Horrible enough, what was happening in the air in front of his eyes. He tried as long as he could not to look at the man on the floor. Tried, but at last his eyes fell upon Polonus.

  He lay spread-eagle upon the mat that lined the floor, dismembered, reassembled with space between the ragged limbs, arms wide as if to embrace the sky. His mouth was open. His eyes were gone, black caverns of gore left behind. Blood, oceans of blood everywhere. The room was dragged over with it.

  Laughter, shrieks and screams of delight, everywhere.

  He was in the chicken yard, driving his head into the ground.

  A trampling of feet—Samir threw himself into Tallis.

  Tallis lay panting, bewildered, trying to understand why he was in the chicken yard again. His knees were bloodied and filthy. He put his hand to his hair. It was ground down with chicken yard filth, and the top of his head felt raw. Then he stopped breathing. He got to his feet and looked for the northeastern hills. Samir came beside him, peering too.

  “Zagreus?” Tallis panted.

  “Safe,” Samir said.

  “I must see Polonus today. I can’t go without you.”

  “I will come.”

  “What about . . .”

  “His grandfather will look after him.”

  After a moment Tallis nodded, the movement jerky. Morning light began to crest, illuminating the ridge. The sun was rising on the Day of Dionysus.

  XIII

  “I’M GLAD YOU ASKED ME to make date bread. Kardus likes date bread—he used to. Polonus once told us if we didn’t feed him, he’d resort to foul things.”

  She was too chatty. While Tallis sat at the kitchen worktable trying to rub away a headache, Kes packed the basket.

  Was Polonus as bad as Kardus now? How long would it be before he was just like Kardus?

  “How long will Jarek be gone to Kursi?”

  Jarek came in through the kitchen door at that moment. “I’m not going. Not until you and Samir get back.”

  Tallis kept his relief to himself.

  Kes paused at the basket. “Samir is going with you?”

  “I have some scrolls to return, and I don’t want to damage them. He’ll carry the basket for me.” It was an easy way to explain the two of them going. “I want to tell Polonus that Antenor came. He might like to hear that.” He exchanged a look with Jarek.

  However he tried to hide it, his relief, knowing that Jarek would stay to look after Zagreus, must have been evident: Jarek produced an iron key from his tunic fold. He smiled grimly and said, “Don’t worry, Zagreus will be fine.”

  “Father!” Kes said, astonished. “You didn’t lock him up. . . .”

  Jarek shrugged. “Just until they get back. Baraan is coming to discuss a shipment from Tiberias, and I don’t want to wonder where that rascal is flitting about. How long will you be gone, Tallis?”

  Tallis slid off the stool to reach for the basket, and cheerfully gave the back of Kes’s head covering a firm tug. “About an hour. She couldn’t last an hour without me.”

  While Kes glared and readjusted the head covering, Jarek said, “What’s an hour, Kes? He’s in the barn. He’s comfortable. I gave him things to occupy his time. I gave him some cinnamon sticks.”

  Kes turned her glare on her father as she tucked up her hair into the covering. “You shackled him in the barn and bribed him with sweets.”

  “He is not shackled,” Jarek protested. “He is protected. For his own good. Master Athenian says it’s not a good day for him to wander about.”

  Samir appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Master Baraan is here.”

  On his way to the common room, Jarek said in a low tone to Tallis, “Not more than an hour, please—Baraan can talk the hind leg off a donkey.” He ambled into the common room, where despite his complaint they heard him volubly greet his guest. Tallis wondered who the donkey should be more afraid of.

  Kes threw her arms up. “He shackled his grandson in the barn.”

  “It’s not going to kill him. What’s an hour?”

  Kes sighed. She frowned and fingered the edge of her head covering. “Well . . . maybe I can tell him stories for an hour.” She eyed Tallis. “Don’t be gone long. I have a lot to do.”

  Suddenly there was nothing else to distract him from the reason he was going to see Polonus. He wondered if somehow Kes knew about his dream, wondered if she’d heard a ruckus in the chicken yard this morning. He handed the basket to Samir. Kes followed them out the doorway, and Tallis gathered the scrolls he’d propped against the wall.

  It wasn’t even close to noon and the day was already hot, felt more like midsummer than spring. Kes walked with them along the short turn-off down to the road. “I thought you were going to read those scrolls,” she said.

  Didn’t she understand that he was leaving and that returning the scrolls was part of it?

  “One is a Euripides play. I’ve already read it.”

  Read it? He had it memorized. It was The Bacchae, the tragic tale of King Pentheus and his murder at the hand of his Bacchic mother. How was it that Polonus had a scroll of The Bacchae? Was it simply a literary work in the library of a learned man?

  “The other scroll is written in Aramaic, I think. Or Hebrew. I can’t read either. Besides, I wouldn’t have time to read them before I leave.”

  They stopped at the road. Samir turned toward Kursi with a glance behind him at Tallis. Tallis told him he would catch up.

  Kes fussed with the edge of her head covering, glancing now and again at the barn.

  “I’m glad Zagreus is your nephew,” Tallis finally said.

  He watched her fidget with the cloth. What was he thinking, flirting with her like that, tugging on her head covering. And his brilliant comment. She couldn’t last an hour without me.

  Tallis, why do you say such things? Wharf rat. Then suddenly, because he was learning of her, he realized what all the cloth fidgeting was about. She was trying to say something to him. He looked in panic toward Samir, who was not walking toward Kursi, but waiting for him.

  It was painful to watch her try and wrest words from a lifetime of silence. Her words came so haltingly, he felt a sting of compassion.

  “I—don’t want you to go,” she managed, not looking at him.

  Tallis, don’t say a word. I swear you’ll regret it.

  Her next plainspeak was not any easier. She stayed intent on the head-covering hem. “I like it with you here.”

  Could he live so close to Polonus and Kardus without helping them? Could he live here with his soulish infirmity? He was strong in Athens, weak here. And Tyche favored him at that moment, because he noticed movement at the corner of his eye. An old woman was coming up the road from the south. “Who is that?”

  Kes peered under her hand, then gave a little gasp. “It’s Shoshanna, coming for the eggs. She won’t understand Zagreus being locked up.”

  “Don’t let her see him.”

  “Are you coming, Athenian?” Samir called back to them.

  “She’ll expect to see him; she always brings him something,” she fretted. “I hope she’s in a talkative mood. Maybe she’ll forget Zagreus.”

  “Athenian?”


  “I’m coming!” Tallis snapped.

  Kes looked to Samir. “Why is he so impatient? He hasn’t been himself lately.” Her tone softened. “I suppose none of us have.”

  “Kes—”

  “You better go.” She trotted off to meet Shoshanna.

  An hour did not give them much time. It would take half that just to get there. Well, all he needed to do was drop off the basket and scrolls, give his regards to a lip-fiddling old man and maybe a foaming-mouthed freak, and make sure the lip-fiddling man still had eyes.

  He’d leave for Athens day after tomorrow. Day after, because Tallis knew the lore of the Bacchantes. Today was the Day of Dionysus, but tomorrow was the nones of the month. His brother died on the nones.

  “I’ve been thinking about Polonus. Do you think he’s as bad as Kardus yet?”

  “Not yet.” Presently Samir asked, “What did you dream?”

  “You knew I had a dream?”

  “You were screwing your head into the ground.”

  “There is that.”

  He needed Samir like a cripple needed a walking staff, and he resented that fact. Maybe he was still annoyed over Samir’s exalted Two Truths. If Samir had remained mysterious, if he’d kept his philosophy to himself, Tallis would have liked him better.

  With the bright sunshine and the heat of the day, the glitter of the Galilee and the exertion it took to keep up with Samir’s long steady stride, the horror of the dream began to diminish. Maybe being away from the inn helped.

  “How is your head?”

  Tallis grimaced. He must have looked ridiculous. “Sore.”

  “What did you dream?”

  “The usual. Bad things.”

  Samir was silent for a time. “Do you always have nightmares?”

  “I had them a lot when I was a child. All the time after my brother died. Then . . . I don’t know when it was, my late teens, they simply went away. Since I’ve been here, they’ve started up again.”

  The slave was silent once more, and Tallis fell to thinking about home.

  He missed Callimachus. He’d never imagined he would be gone this long. Aristarchus had accompanied him as far as Alexandria to visit the academy there, then sailed back to Athens. He wondered how they both fared. Wondered how the house was running without him.

  How had he come to depend on Samir as he depended on Callimachus? What was it about the two of them, so very different, and yet . . .

  He thought about what had happened in the inn with Polonus, when Kardus came. Nobody had said anything about that. Samir had handled it, somehow; he had taken care of them. A bizarre, freakish encounter, and a Parthian slave had kept them safe. He had a twisted hand to prove it.

  “How’s your hand?” Tallis presently asked.

  “Not very useful,” Samir admitted. “It will mend. The last shaman we had was in a state for days. But he came out of it.”

  “That—encounter—was like a nightmare, except in the day. I haven’t heard from Kes or Jarek about it, which makes me wonder if what happened was commonplace, and that makes me wonder if you’re some sort of a living amulet.”

  No answer.

  “What happened at the inn when Kardus came, Samir?”

  “What do you think happened?” Samir said testily. “Evil happened. Bad happened. Zagreus could have told you that. Don’t make things so difficult.”

  “But—it happened during the day. With the sun.” And it was much worse than when he first met Kardus.

  “I wonder how you can be so thick at times.”

  “You’re cheerful today.”

  They walked in silence for a time. Then Samir spoke quietly. “I too had a dream.”

  Neck hairs prickled. “If you say it was about Polonus . . .”

  “No. Kardus.” After a moment, the slave said, “I never dream.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Yes. Bad.”

  Tallis wet his lips. “Was there . . . blood? And laughing?”

  For an answer, Samir slid a look at Tallis. Tallis saw startled fear in his eyes.

  They gained the top of the ridge and followed it west toward the Galilee. The herd of pigs they smelled had trampled the grasses on the top of the slope. He looked northeast, from where the wind brought the smell. In the distance he saw the brown backs of pigs grubbing in the new spring grasses, and a couple of shepherds looking under their hands at them. Yes, two men heading for the tombs would give them something to talk about.

  His sandal suddenly slipped in pig dung, and he went down to a knee. The fall made him crumple one of the scrolls. Cursing, he examined it in dismay, then realized he was pushing the end of the other scroll into the filth. He cursed again, louder, and struggled to his feet to search out a clean patch of grass to wipe off the scroll.

  “Gods, what a stench,” he muttered. He found no clean grass patch and looked unhappily at his tunic. There was already a knee-sized patch of pig filth on it. He groaned and sat on a rock—splotched purple and white with bird droppings—to clean off the rest of the scroll with his own clothing. “Kes is going to have a fit. At least I wasn’t wearing my toga.”

  He took the edge of his tunic and carefully rubbed at the smears on the scroll. He frowned dubiously at the result of his work, and sniffed it. He gagged and recoiled. “Polonus is not going to be happy with me.”

  He spat on the smear, then carefully worked at it some more. When he heard nothing from Samir, he glanced in the slave’s direction.

  Samir had the basket hooked through the arm with the injured hand, the hand pressed against his stomach. His lost gaze was somewhere across the Galilee. The sun picked up the oils in his complexion; a satin sheen glistened on his forehead. The forehead drew Tallis’s eye, because he’d not seen it bunched like that.

  What was worse, the memory of a butchered Polonus or the stricken look of a living amulet? If Samir, a man who could stop a tidal wave, could look like this . . .

  He took a few more swipes at the scroll, then rose and carefully arranged the scrolls under his arm. He came and stood near Samir. The wind had a mountain chill in it when it blew strong. Seabirds called and circled and bobbed in flecks upon the water. An indigo range of snow-crested mountains capped the north of the Galilee, many miles distant.

  “I’m writing a letter to Cal and Aristarchus. I told them about you. I told them the thing you said. ‘When they push, you push back.’ In Latin, it is Quandocumque impellunt, repelle. I made it a little different, I hope you don’t mind. Quandocumque doesn’t mean ‘when,’ it means ‘whenever.’ Whenever they push, you push back. And I see you do that all the time. You don’t take it. You push back. For you people strong in head and heart, you people like Callimachus and Aristarchus, the choices seem plain.” Tallis shook his head. “Not for people like me.”

  He looked at Samir’s brown crippled hand and found himself blinking back unexpected tears. “People like me need people like you to help us see past hell. You don’t have to make the choice for us—just help us see that there is one.”

  When they came upon the clearing and he saw the shed, dread came in a trickle, buffered by the cry of the seabirds and the heat of the sun. When they passed the shed, the dread picked up force, not a trickle but a stream. They stood at the edge of Polonus’s “neighborhood,” regarding his tomb home. Samir put down his basket, and Tallis set down the scrolls.

  Tallis looked all around for Kardus, but Kardus was nowhere to be seen. He looked for flies on the door. There were no flies. The buzzing from his dream was not there, and neither was the laughing.

  Leaving Samir, he moved forward. He felt like someone else, walking slowly toward that door. He felt pity for the dread-filled man who put his hand on the door and slowly pushed it open.

  There was no blood, that backdrop of his dream, and the Polonus who sat at his desk, waiting for him, had both eyes and was very much alive.

  Tallis sagged against the door.

  The place was bright with lamplight. Two small lamp
s burned on the desk. Another burning lamp was on the stone bench lining the wall, another on the mat in front of the bed.

  “Where is Samir?” Polonus asked. “I know he is here.”

  He seemed in perfect repose, hands folded on his desk. He looked at Tallis from beneath hooded eyes. There was no repose in the eyes. His lips were as dark gray as they were the other day. He looked as if he were cast as a specter in a play, heavily painted, ready to whirl out on the stage.

  “Looks like you’re getting as much sleep as I am,” Tallis said uneasily. “By the way, forgive me if I can’t move—had a bad dream, thought you were dead. Is Kardus okay?”

  “Of course not.” The hooded gaze was unwavering. “Is he alive? Yes.”

  At least he wasn’t fiddling with his lips, but that unearthly repose was almost as disconcerting.

  “Do you know what day it is, Polonus?”

  The repose faltered. His gaze shifted. “Day of Dionysus.”

  “Maybe that’s why I had the dream.” Tallis glanced over his shoulder. “Samir? Everything is all right.”

  But Polonus was slowly shaking his head.

  Tallis studied him. “What isn’t right?”

  “I’m sorry, Tallis,” he whispered.

  “What are you sorry about?” Tallis said, alarm rising.

  Tormented eyes went to his. “I had a dream too.”

  Samir was at Tallis’s side. He glanced anxiously at Polonus and looked around the rest of the room. His face had not lost any of its fear.

  “What are you sorry about?” Tallis repeated.

  Polonus’s dark staring eyes widened. Tears welled and one spilled.

  Tallis went rigid. “What did you dream?”

  His face contorted with anguish. “I’m sorry,” he cried, and fell on the desk to weep upon his arms.

  Samir gasped, such a shrill intake of breath it stopped Tallis’s own. Eyes wild, Samir clutched Tallis’s arm and breathed, “I left him.”

  All of him went still. “The old woman on the road,” Tallis whispered.