'Well,' he said, 'that's the way it goes with me and games-playing.' Then, I suppose, he noticed for the first time that he was bleeding. Odd that he hadn't noticed it before; maybe he'd seen it but assumed it wasn't his blood. It was the stab-wound that he'd had when we first picked him up off the road, opened up again.
All this time I hadn't stopped to think what effect all this was having on Dusa.
When I thought of it and turned round to see how she was getting on, I expected to find her shoving her way through the crowd with a strip torn off the end of somebody's cloak for a bandage. Wrong. She was standing quite still, pale as milk, with a look of horror on her face and tears running down her cheeks like a leak in a rainwater tank. Ah well; they look a bit like us, sound like we do when we're young, eat the same food and smell roughly the same in hot weather, but women are no more like us than the gods are.
It was at this point that Pentheus fell over; and, since he was nominally ours, Cleander and I nudged through the crowd and picked him up. It was rather spooky, pushing past all those still, silent people. Maybe they'd never seen anybody get killed before, or they were still debating with their hearts whether to cheer or send out for a rope. In any case, it seemed wise to us to get our wretched encumbrance out of their way before they reached a decision on the matter.
'Put him in the cart,' someone said; it was Prince Demodocus, who was looking shocked and washed out, as if he'd just lost family. Maybe he had, in a way; this Sclerus had been living in his house for five years, and there was a case for making out that he and his brother were thereby bound to take revenge for the death, even though it was accidental and in the course of a game. It looked to me as if Demodocus was trying very hard not to let that thought occur to him, since we were also his guests, and there comes a point when the rules get so hopelessly complicated that you'd have to be Nestor or Tiresias or someone like that to make head or tail of them (although this doesn't stop the Furies from haunting your dreams if you fail in your duty, something I regard as bitterly unfair).
The cart, which belonged to the farmer, though I don't suppose anybody asked him if we could borrow it, was duly wheeled out of the barn and a couple of sleepy-looking mules were backed into the collars - still nobody was moving in the crowd, though they were watching us like crows in a tall tree watching a slowly dying goat. Cleander jumped up on the box with Demodocus beside him. Sarpedon and I lugged Pentheus up over the tailgate, and we hopped on the back, at which point I noticed that Dusa wasn't with us. Fortunately, Sarpedon had noticed that too. There are times when a recklessly brave uncle has his uses, because I don't suppose I'd have been too happy to go back into that crowd for anything.
Anyway, Sarpedon strode off and reappeared a moment later towing Dusa along behind him like a tuna-net; he bundled her up on to the cart and stayed down himself, to provide a rearguard. Thus arrayed, we raffled out of the yard and through the town. Nobody followed us, thank the gods.
'Now what?' Cleander asked. Demodocus shrugged.
'I'll send some men down for the body later,' he replied. 'It's up to us to burn him, I suppose, since he didn't have anyone else in these parts. Properly speaking, we ought to send someone to Crete, let his family know.'
It was in my heart to ask him why, if he was so concerned about the man's family, he hadn't sent a message home during the five years Sclerus had been living with him; or, come to that, why he hadn't sent Sclerus himself to reclaim his birthright. But even I'm not stupid enough to ask questions like that out loud.
'Your friend,' Demodocus went on, 'how badly is he hurt? That looks like a stab-wound to me, not something you'd get in a wrestling match. Did he fall against something in the yard there?'
Of course, none of us had mentioned the circumstances of our meeting with Pentheus, or explained his state of health - well, it's not the sort of topic of conversation that arises spontaneously, and wise guests don't volunteer information, just as good hosts don't demand it. Cleander and I looked at each other.
'Difficult to say,' Cleander replied. 'I didn't see anything sharp or pointed lying about, but everything happened so fast back there-'
'Quite,' Demodocus said; and you could almost hear him debating with his heart as he drove the mules - if there was a material possibility that Sclerus had somehow palmed a knife, or hidden one somewhere in the yard, and stabbed Pentheus with it while nobody was looking, then Sclerus would be the author of his own misfortunes and Demodocus wouldn't be obliged to do anything. Obliquely raising the point and having heard nothing to contradict it, he could tell himself he'd made appropriate enquiries, and found the matter to be beyond proof. Well, it's exactly how I'd have argued it, if I'd woken up in the middle of the night and found the Sisters standing over me waving burning torches.
The prince unloaded us at the palace, gave his brother an admirably brief account of what had happened, which didn't seem to bother him in the least, and went out again to collect the body. For some reason, presumably to do with honour, both Cleander and Sarpedon offered to go with him, and he accepted. As soon as they'd gone, Dusa scuffled off into the inner room, leaving me alone with Pentheus.
'Well now,' I said. 'If I'd known bad luck followed you around like a blind puppy, I'd have made sure we left you where we found you.'
'Thank you so much,' Pentheus replied. 'If you're not going to help me, would you at least get me some water and something to bind this up with?'
'Of course,' I said. 'In fact, I know the very thing.'
Happily, nobody ever bothered to sweep or dust up among the rafters, and there were some quite magnificent spiders' webs up there if you cared to look. Pentheus took some convincing, which only went to show his ignorance; there's nothing like cobweb for stopping the flow of blood. I sacrificed the hem of an old cloak I found in a trunk in a corner, and ripped it up for a bandage. You see, I can be as nice as anything if I try.
'You don't like me,' Pentheus said, as I tied off the bandage.
'I can see how much it distresses you,' I replied. 'But I see it as a way of maintaining balance, which is the principle on which the cosmos operates, according to some. You see, my sister likes you far more than you deserve, so I dislike you rather more than your dealings with us merit.'
He scowled at me. 'That's not fair,' he said. 'I haven't done anything to encourage her. Short of spitting in her face, what else could I have done?'
'The spitting idea is good,' I answered, 'and we'll keep it in reserve in case we need it later. Right now, though, I think you may have solved the problem already, which is why I've put nice healthy cobwebs in your wound instead of wolfsbane.' I smiled pleasantly. 'I think she may have gone off you a bit, after seeing you kill that man. What on earth possessed you, anyway?'
He frowned. 'It was an accident,' he replied, 'in a fair fight.'
'Sure,' I said. 'Only you're talking to a wrestler here, not that I ever went in for the heavy stuff. You'd made two winning plays - the twisted ankle and the finger-break. You could have left it at that, but you didn't; you made the Eagle-and-Fox, and you killed him. Why?'
Pentheus was quiet for a moment. 'He didn't seem to want to give up,' he replied. 'You know as well as I do, it's a fight to a submission, not any specific injury.'
I lifted my head. 'Like hell,' I said. 'You could've given a little twist to either of those holds and had him weeping with pain, and you knew it at the time, too. Dusa knows it, what's more; she's seen me wrestle often enough. More to the point, she's seen me do things like you did, though I never went so far as to kill anybody, or even leave them permanently damaged. Oh yes, I know what it feels like, that urge to add a little more pain. You know you've done enough, but you've got the man helpless under your hand, and Anger snuggles into your heart and says, Go on, hurt him a little more, you're allowed to. Maybe it's because he's thrown you well and made you look a fool, or he hurt you with one of his plays, or maybe you just don't like him very much, the way he walks or wears his tunic. Dusa's seen me give that
extra little tweak or twist, in the tiny moment after the man's opened his mouth to say he's through, but I'd turn the words into a scream, just because I could.' I sat back and rested my head against the wall. 'Maybe that's why I quit wrestling - because I didn't like what I was doing to people, or I didn't like the way my sister looked at me once or twice. Anyway, the point is, you can't fool her or me.'
He looked away. 'I can see that,' he said.
'Good. So what was it? You don't have to answer, but I'm curious. Do you get pleasure out of hurting people? You wouldn't be the only one.'
He looked mustard at me. 'Gods, no,' he said. 'I've had enough people try to hurt me in my life, of course I don't enjoy it.' He leaned forward to put his head in his hands, but the movement hurt him and he leaned slowly back. 'The truth is,' he said, 'I was showing off. I wanted to make the Eagle-and-Fox play - I was looking for it all through the bout, but he didn't give me an opening. So I created one.'
I nodded. 'It wasn't the obvious play from where you'd got to,' I said. 'So I believe you. But why was it so important? You wanted to humiliate him? To look good in front of the crowd?'
He lifted his head again. 'No,' he said. 'I just wanted to be the best, that's all.'
'To be the best,' I repeated.
'That's right.' He smiled wanly. 'You know that bit in the Trojan story, where the King of Lycia tells his cousin about what it means to be a prince; where he says that in return for all the privileges, the palace and the gardens and' orchards and land, and the respect of the people - do you know the bit I'm talking about?'
I nodded. 'And the prince explains that in return for all that, the prince is obliged to fight always in the front rank, always to be the best. Is that what you really believe?'
'Yes.'
I frowned. 'But you're not a prince,' I said. 'You're a stray, a landless man, an outsider. You don't have that obligation.'
He looked at me. 'But I should have,' he said. 'I should be a prince, a man of the better sort. Dammit, I can do what a prince does; I can fight and play games, I lower my head to no one. If I wasn't meant to be a prince or a king, how come the god gave me a better man's skills? How come I'm minded like a prince, if I'm meant to be a beggar?'
I sighed. 'And that's why you insisted on making the grand play,' I said. 'Because you wanted to be the best. And now you've killed someone, and we're on a razor's edge in this city - we never asked to get involved with you, so why should we have to put up with the consequences of your actions?' He tried to speak, but I overrode him. 'I'll tell you one thing,' I said, raising my voice a little, 'whether or not you were meant to be a nobleman when the Fates twisted your thread, you've got the heart and mind of a games-player. And that, coming from me, isn't a compliment.'
He started to get angry; but Anger couldn't seem to get a foothold in his heart. 'I think you're right,' he said. 'I measure everything against myself, is it too high for me to jump or too far for me to run, can I take that man in a heavy bout or would he take me? That's a games-player's heart for you, I guess, always competing.' He grinned. 'Always striving to be the best, no matter what. It's probably just as well there's so few of us, and we get so few chances to be what we are.'
'When somebody dies,' I said. 'But of course my brother and I are going to change all that.'
He closed his eyes and stretched his legs out. 'I'll miss the Argive games now,' he said. 'I'm sorry, that probably makes me sound like what you think I am. But I didn't mean to kill anybody, and I'd have liked to play in the games.'
I stood up; I was starting to get cramp in my knees. 'Games are ambivalent,' I said, 'like all things are. It's like the Good Strife and the Bad Strife, in the poem; Bad Strife makes you greedy and jealous, Good Strife makes you strive to better yourself. But they're both the same thing, it's just a matter of whether you come at it from the light or the shadows. Listen to me,' I added, 'a moment ago I was telling you to stay clear of my sister, now I'm spouting poetry at you. I'm beginning to wonder which one of us got banged on the head today.'
He laughed. 'You're a games-player too,' he said. 'You understand.'
'Good Strife and Bad Strife,' I answered.
'Fair enough,' he said. 'But which of us is which?'
CHAPTER TEN
'I'm not doubting your word or anything like that,' the Phoenician said carefully, 'but are you sure you're telling us exactly what you and he said to each other all those years ago? Or are you making it up - the actual words, I mean, not the gist of it all.'
Cratus frowned. 'You mean, am I lying?'
The Phoenician wished he'd never started this. 'I wouldn't say lying-'
'That's just as well.'
'It's just-' the Phoenician blundered on, feeling like a man walking further and further into a quicksand. 'Well, if it was me, I'm sure I couldn't tell you the exact words I used talking to someone thirty years ago, or precisely what someone else said to me. So if I was telling a story like you're doing, I'd use the sort of words he and I would've been likely to use, and I'd do my best to get across the meaning of what we were saying, the best I could remember it.'
Cratus' frown grew slightly deeper. 'In other words,' he said, 'you'd lie.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'You'd make up stuff and pretend it was what was actually said. Yes?'
'That's one way of putting it, I suppose.' 'Yes or no?'
'All right, then,' the Phoenician admitted. 'Yes.'
Gratus' frown dissipated a little, like a swarm of wasps scattered by a slight breeze on a still day. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I'll try to bear that in mind if ever I have dealings with you or your countrymen. Are you trying to tell me that you can't remember conversations?'
'Yes.'
'Oh.' Cratus looked surprised, but shrugged it off. 'In which case I'm sorry for you. It must make life difficult, having a bad memory.'
The Phoenician told himself not to let any of this irritate him -it's a primitive culture, they're like children compared to us. 'I think my memory is perfectly normal,' he replied. 'Obviously you've got an exceptionally good memory. And you, Cleander, as well. Maybe it's something you Sons of the Achaeans all share.'
'My heart tells me,' Palamedes interrupted, 'that it might be something to do with your scratches-on-wax you keep going on about.'
The Phoenician stifled a sigh. That was another topic he really wished he hadn't raised. 'How so?' he asked, as politely as he could.
'Stands to reason,' someone else put in. 'It's like muscles. If you do a lot of arm work, like a smith or a shipwright, you build up strong arms. If you have an accident and you're laid up six months and can't work at all, your arms wither and get puny. Same with the memory. If you don't use it, because you store all kinds of stuff that needs to be remembered actually outside your head - like on bits of wood, or whatever it is you do - then maybe your memory withers, because you aren't using it.'
'Possibly,' the Phoenician replied. 'Though I'd turn your analogy round: you people live in cities, you have to remember a lot of things, far more than you would if you were just wanderers or nomads. But where we developed the scratches on wood to help us remember things, you have to store it all in your heads; so your memories have grown stronger, like the shipwright's arms.'
Palamedes laughed. 'I'll say one thing for you people,' he said, 'you're rather more tactful than we are, as a rule. You phrased that so you could uphold the honour of your people without actually insulting us. Very good. Does that mean you're going to take Gratus' word for it that he can remember those conversations, from all those years ago?'
'Yes,' the Phoenician replied. 'I am.'
Palamedes shook his head. 'Rather you than me,' he replied.
'These days I'm hard put to it to remember what month we're in. Still, it's all right, because it doesn't really matter. What difference does it make whether they're exactly the right words or just something similar? It's whether it's a good story that counts in the end. If it's a boring story nobody'll remember it, no matter
how accurately it's told.'
If Cratus is going to sulk (Cleander said, after a while), I suppose I'd better carry on with the story. While we're on the subject, I can remember nearly every word of conversations I had - what, fifty years ago. Nearly remember, mind; only problem is, I can't always be sure which are the bits I'm remembering and which are the bits I've forgotten and mended, so to speak, with words of my own. Am I repeating what I heard fifty years ago or what I put in to patch up the bit I found I'd forgotten forty years ago? Search me.
Anyway, there we were. The business with Pentheus and that rogue - Sclerus, yes, I'd forgotten that was his name till Gratus reminded me just now - that business had more or less sorted itself out, more by luck and forbearance than judgement on our part. We got away with it, is about all you could say about that.
Cratus wasn't the only one who was worried about Dusa getting infatuated with Pentheus; but that looked like it had sorted itself out too. When she finally came out from the inner room, she didn't say a word to him or even look at him, just grabbed a basket from one of the men and started handing bread round - looked away when it was his turn. We didn't say anything, of course. Best left alone, the whole thing.
To my heart's astonishment and great joy, the atmosphere in Demodocus' house was actually improved as far as we were concerned by a visit from Alastor and Tachys. They'd lost our scent around the time we ran into Pentheus; they'd been chasing round trying to find us, and turned up looking tired, ragged and disreputable in the middle of the night. We were all still up - one of Demodocus' people was telling a good story, and we'd lost track of the time - when we heard what sounded like a frenzied banging on the doors, as if a crowd of people were trying to break them down. Demodocus jumped up and sent a boy for his sword and shield; we all grabbed weapons or things we could hit with before the doors were opened. Of course, we knew who it was, but we kept our faces shut. Turned out that Tachys - of course, Tachys - had fallen over a stone in the road and damaged his ankle; he'd hobbled a day and a half, and then Alastor and one of the men had had to carry him. As a result, Alastor was in a bad mood and forgetful of his manners; he pushed in, rather than waiting to be asked, and started ordering Demodocus' people about, sending them for wine and a bowl of water and chairs and what-have-you, as if he was in his own house. The fool. To begin with he didn't notice we were there until Dusa, showing the first signs of life we'd had out of her since the wrestling-match, jumped up with the wine-jug and greeted them both as old, dear friends. These men, she explained sweetly, were our fellow-countrymen from Elis, friends of ours from way back. Rather self-consciously, Demodocus warmed up his welcome a little, giving the distinct impression that if we hadn't vouched for them, he'd have had them put in the barn for the night. I think Tachys was wise to what she was up to, but he was too far gone in self-pity to care; Alastor, on the other hand, missed the point completely (spending any length of time with Tachys in a complaining mood can do that to a man, we knew that from experience); he scarcely waited until he'd stopped eating and drinking before he launched into his Terrible Warning to our host, about how we were trying to snare respectable people into joining this idiotic scheme of ours.
Olympiad Tom Holt Page 23