by Gene Wolfe
Hegesistratus bowed and I assured her we would do our best, although I did not understand anything she had told us. One of her huge hounds was snuffling Hegesistratus's feet. She glanced at it and said, "Yes, take that scent well."
She told Hegesistratus, "Latro has all the qualities of a hero save one—he forgets instructions. You must see to those. My queen must win in order that the prince may be destroyed—and thus this queen must not win."
He bowed lower still.
"You bring victory, Latro, so you must drive for my prince. If you succeed you'll be rewarded. What is it you wish?"
"My home," I told her, for my heart was still bursting from the sight of it.
"What? Barley fields, pigpens, and cowsheds? They aren't mine to give. I have it—do you remember what it was you asked of Kore?"
I shook my head.
"It was to be reunited with your friends. She granted your wish, sending you to some of them at least. They were dead or dying, as was only to be expected since Kore is the Queen of the Shades. I shall return you to your friends also—but to living ones, for I have no interest in the dead."
Hegesistratus whispered, "Yet you are she who brings sudden death to women."
I was so happy I scarcely heard him. Releasing Elata, I fell to my knees. "Huntress, you are too good!"
She smiled bitterly. "So many have said. You are content, then, with your reward?"
"More than content!"
"I'm delighted to hear it. You shall be punished as well, for what you've done tonight to my maid, losing for a while at least what you're pleased to call your manhood." She advanced toward Hegesistratus; though she was hardly taller than he, she appeared to tower above him. "As for you, you shall not choose your reward. Your filthy longings are known to me, so there is no need of it—that soiled child shall be yours for the present, though Latro has been there before you."
Hegesistratus was already supporting Elata as I had a few moments before; he murmured his thanks.
"But you may have her only until you come this way again," the Huntress warned him. "Whenever you do, she shall be free to reoccupy her home."
At her final word, all were gone—the Huntress herself, her pack, and the maidens of her train; only the mantis, Elata, and I remained in the darkness beneath the largest pine. For a long moment I thought I heard the wild baying of the hounds, far and faint; but even that faded.
Hegesistratus was too lame to walk well over the stones and the slippery carpet of fallen pine needles, and Elata was still too drunk. In the end I carried her down to the beach while he held on to my arm. As we went, I begged him to explain what had taken place—to tell me who the Huntress was and just what power she wielded. He promised he would; but he would not do so then, leading Elata far away from the fires instead. Near the water, where the sand was moist and packed by the waves, he could walk well enough.
Thus I wrote as I did, beginning with the time I noticed Elata watching us. When I had finished writing of the stag, Hegesistratus returned and spoke with me as he had promised. While we talked, Elata returned as well, and washed herself in the stream.
I asked Hegesistratus who the Huntress was, and added that he seemed to know her.
"Only by reputation," he told me. "I had never seen her before. You have, obviously."
I could no longer remember the time, but I felt that was correct and told him so.
"She is a goddess," he told me. "Could you think her an ordinary woman when you spoke to her?"
"I thought her a woman," I said, "because that was how she appeared to me—but certainly not an ordinary one. Is her name Cynthia?"
"That is one of them," Hegesistratus told me. "She has a great many. Do you know of the Destroyer?"
I shook my head and said that from the sound of his name I did not wish to.
"You are sadly mistaken, forgetting how many things should be destroyed—wolves and lions, for example. Why, he even kills mice."
At that, some memory called through the mist that seems to fill the back of my head, and I said that though there might be no harm and even some good in the destruction of mice, I was far from sure I would wish to see all the wolves and lions dead.
"You would if you kept sheep or goats," Hegesistratus told me practically, "or even cattle. Do you have many cattle? The goddess implied you did."
I said that I owned a yoke of oxen at least, if the vision Elata had shown me was true. After that I had to tell him all about it—how she had returned me to a place she had said (and I had truly felt) was my home, and all that we had seen and done there. When I asked how she had accomplished it, he admitted he did not know and wondered aloud if such things were still in her power. I asked whether she was a witch.
"No," he said, "that is a very different thing, believe me. She is a dryad, a kind of nymph."
I said, "I thought that only meant a bride, a marriageable young woman."
Hegesistratus nodded. "Since you are a foreigner, that is easy to understand. Of all the unseen beings, the nymphs are nearest us; they are not even immortals, although they are very long-lived. Our country people both fear and love them, and as a compliment to a girl, her swain may pretend to believe her a nymph in disguise. From such frivolity, 'nymph' has become a commonplace compliment."
I said, "I see. It would seem that another way in which they are much like us is that they, too, must obey the Huntress, whom you say is a goddess."
"She is," Hegesistratus affirmed. "She is the sister—in fact more than a sister, the twin—of the Destroyer, of whom we just were speaking. He is one of the best of the Twelve, a true friend to men, the patron of divination, of healing, and of all the other arts. His sister..."
Seeing his expression I said, "Is not quite so friendly, I take it."
Just then Io came to sit with us, rubbing her eyes but full of curiosity. "Who's that woman?" she asked Hegesistratus. "I woke up, and she was lying next to me. She says she belongs to you."
Hegesistratus told her that was true.
"Then you'd better find her some clothes, or there may be trouble when the sailors wake up."
I sent Io to bring Elata's gown, which had been left under the pine.
Half to himself, Hegesistratus said, "I wish there were a place on the ship where she would be out of sight. I hate the thought of them ogling her." I pointed out that he need only put her forward of the first bench, at which he chuckled. "You are right, of course, when the men are rowing; but most of the time they are not."
I said, "Even when they're not, only those nearest her will be able to see her clearly, because the ship's so long and slender. But is what the sailors are going to want from her so different from what you want?"
"My filthy desires, you mean. That was what the goddess called them."
I nodded.
"She also indicated that you had the nymph before me."
I forbore telling him that I had her twice, and apologized, mentioning that the Huntress had not yet given him Elata when we had lain together.
He sighed. "Nor would I have her now if you had not. As for those filthy desires of mine, only a woman would call them that, and not very many of them. I lost my wife, you see, some years ago; and it is not easy for a lame man far from home to find a new one. Or for any man alive to find as good a one, for that matter."
I asked, "Doesn't the Huntress have lovers of her own?"
Hegesistratus shook his head. "She has had a few—or at least men or gods who wanted to be. But they all came to bad ends, and quickly. There is a story... I don't know whether it's true."
I urged him to tell it anyway, for though I am so tired, I know how important it may be to learn as much as possible about the Huntress.
"All right. She is the daughter of the Thunderer—I don't think I've mentioned that—and according to this legend, at the age of three she came to him and asked for as many names as her brother, a bow and silver arrows, to be queen of the nymphs, and a great many other things; and when he promised to
grant all her wishes, she asked that she might be full-grown at once, like her parthenogenetic sister the Lady of Thought, who was of age when she sprang from her father's head. That, too, was granted her, and it is sometimes said that because of it she has never grown up in truth."
I suggested that the same thing could be said of this Lady of Thought, and Hegesistratus agreed. "Neither one has ever had a real lover, as far as anybody knows. But the Lady of Thought, at least, does not insist upon virginity in others. It may be that she is not a whole woman, just as certain men are not whole men, because of the way she was born."
Io returned then to report that she had found Elata's gown and covered her with it. She said also that there was a large animal moving among the trees; it had frightened her so much she had snatched up the gown and run. Hegesistratus and I agreed it was probably a cow, but she seemed doubtful. He asked for her help in protecting Elata, to which she readily consented after receiving my permission. I suggested that the boy might help as well, but they both insist that there is no boy on our ship.
Now I see the first faint light of dawn.
SEVEN
Oeobazus Is Among the Apsinthians
HEGESISTRATUS SAID, "IT IS BOTH bad news for us, and good. But I confess that I would not change it if I could. The news might so easily be worse."
Our captain nodded, rubbing his bald head, as I believe he must often do when he wants to think.
Io, who had gone with Hegesistratus to watch Elata, asked them, "Who are the Apsinthians?"
But before I write the rest of the things that were said today in the cookshop, I should write here who these people are and so forth, though perhaps something about them is written elsewhere in this book already. (I have been looking, but have found only a little.)
This town is called Pactye; it is on Helle's Sea. When I was unrolling my old book—because I wished to find how I came to own a slave—I found a passage recounting an oracle of the Shining God in which he told me: But you must cross the narrow sea. A short time ago I asked Lyson (he is one of the sailors) whether Helle's Sea was narrow. He says it is very narrow. I asked then if there was a sea narrower still somewhere, but he does not think so. He said also that we have never crossed it, but only sailed up its western coast. He says that the eastern shore is governed by a satrap of the Great King's, and we would be captured or killed if we crossed.
Nevertheless, I think that this is the sea I must cross if I am to be healed as the Shining God seems to have promised me. Here is something else I wrote (I know the hand is mine) in that book: Look under the sun if you would see! Since I am not blind and have no wish to be a mantis like Hegesistratus, it must mean to see the past. That is the thing I cannot do; yesterday and all the days behind it seem wrapped in mist. I asked Io whether she, too, was blinded by mist when she tried to look back. She said that the mist was there only when she tried to remember the years when she was small; that seems strange to me, for they are the only ones I have not lost.
Hegesistratus the mantis is forty or a little younger; he limps and has a curly beard. His wife, Elata, is very lovely—wanton, too, I think. He never leaves her unless he must, and then my slave watches her for him. Since I have no need of her now, I have no reason to object.
It was Io who told me most of the things I know about these people. She is my slave, of eleven or twelve, I would guess. I should ask her how old she is; surely she must know. I think she must be somewhat tall for her age, and her little face is lovely; her long brown hair looks almost black.
There is a black man, too. He is my friend, I think, but I have not seen him since we tied up. He spoke with Hegesistratus in a foreign tongue and went to the market with the others. But when Hegesistratus returned, with Elata and Io, this man was not with them. He is tall and strong, his hair curls more even than Hegesistratus's beard, and his teeth are large and very white; he is about my own age, I would say.
Our trierarch is Hypereides. He is a hand's breadth below my height, bald (as I said), and exceedingly lively, talking and hurrying here and there. I polished his armor before we docked, and he wore it when we landed. It is very good armor, if I am any judge; and perhaps possesses a spirit, for when I polished it, it seemed a tall woman with a shining face stood behind me, though when I looked, she was not there.
I should mention also that I have a sword. Hypereides had me wear her when we went ashore. I did not know where she was, but Io showed me this chest (I am sitting on it) and my sword was in it. She is a fine one with a leather grip and a bronze guard, and hangs from a bronze belt such as men wear. FALCATA is written on her blade in the characters I use. It was while I was getting her that I found my old scroll in this chest.
Hypereides told us the Apsinthians' land lies north and west of the Chersonese. That is good, because it is farther from the Empire; but bad, too, since we cannot reach it in our ship without sailing back down Helle's Sea in the direction we have come and rounding the tip of the peninsula.
Little Io wanted to know what Oeobazus was doing among the barbarians. Hegesistratus shrugged and said, "He may not have gone there freely. If you force me to guess, my guess is that he was captured and carried there—the barbarians in this part of the world are forever fighting, raiding, and murdering each other, and robbing and enslaving anyone who ventures too near their territory without an army the size of the Great King's. But all I actually know is that I came across a barbarian who swears that another barbarian—a man he knows well and trusts—told him the Apsinthians have such a captive."
Our captain pushed away his greasy trencher. "But you can learn more, can't you? Can't you consult the gods?"
"I can consult the gods indeed," the mantis acknowledged. "How much the gods will tell me..." He completed his sentence with another shrug.
"Just the same, we shouldn't make any definite plans until you do. What'll you require?"
While they talked about that, Elata showed me the bracelet that Hegesistratus had bought her. It is Thracian work, or so she said. The gold is crudely yet cleverly shaped into bunches of grapes and grape leaves, from which peep two eyes with blue stones at their centers; and the whole is bound together by the twining grape tendrils. Io says it reminds her of the big tree half-smothered under wild vines at the place where Hegesistratus found Elata, though I could not remember the place even when I studied the bracelet.
Hypereides said, "Go with them, Latro. Do as Hegesistratus tells you."
I was surprised, not having paid a great deal of attention to their talk; but I stood up when Hegesistratus did. Smiling as she drained her wine, Elata asked, "Are we to come, too?"
Hegesistratus nodded. "There is a sacred grove near the city; we will use that." To Hypereides he added, "Are you sure you do not want to be present?"
"I wish I could—not that I'd be of much help, but because I'd like to know as much as possible as soon as I can. But if we're going to sail around Cape Mastursia, there's a lot I have to attend to first."
"Your absence may affect the result," the mantis warned him.
Hypereides rose. "All right, I'll join you later if I can. A sacred grove, you said? Who's it sacred to?"
"Itys," Hegesistratus told him.
As we left the cookshop for the wet streets of Pactye, Io asked, "What did you and Hypereides do, master?" I described our morning (we had visited officials and haggled with chandlers, mostly, and on several occasions I had run back to the ship with messages), and asked about hers. She told me she and Elata had gone shopping while Hegesistratus talked with various barbarians around the marketplace. "There are Crimson Men here," she said, "the first ones I've seen since we left the Great King's army. Hegesistratus says they're waiting for the ships from Thought to leave Helle's Sea so they can sail home." Her bright black eyes discovered an open door, and she pointed. "There's some right there. See them?"
I did, four swarthy men in embroidered caps and beautifully dyed crimson robes arguing with a cobbler. One of them noticed that I was lookin
g at him and waved. "Babut!"
I answered, "Uhuya!" and waved in return.
"What did you say to him?" Io asked.
"My brother," I told her. "It's just a friendly greeting you give someone you're on good terms with, particularly if you're in the same trade, or both foreigners in the same place."
She looked up at me intently. "Master, can you speak the language of the Crimson Men?"
Hegesistratus halted momentarily and glanced back at us.
I told Io that I did not know.
"Well, think about it. Pretend I'm a Crimson Man—one of their daughters."
"All right," I said.
"Over there, see that big animal? What is it?"
I told her, "Sisuw."
"Sisuw." Io was delighted. "And—and him back there. What do they call him, master?"
"The boy in the colored cloak? Bun or—let's see—nucir."
Io shook her head. "No, I meant the old man. I didn't even see the boy. Where is he?"
"He's seen that we see him," I explained. "But he's still watching us around the corner of that cart. He's probably just curious."
"I think that you really can talk the way the Crimson Men do, master. At least a little bit, and maybe pretty well. I know you can't remember, but one time you told me that Salamis means peace."
I confirmed that it does.
"So I ought to have known already from that," Io said, "and it's something I'm going to have to find out a lot more about." Despite what she said, she has not asked me any more questions concerning that language; nor did she even speak again, I think, while the four of us walked the ten stades or so to the sacred grove, contenting herself with silently chewing a lock of her hair and often looking behind her.
At the city gate Hegesistratus bought a little wine and a pair of pigeons in a wicker cage, remarking that they would make us a good meal after our sacrifice. I asked him how one read the entrails of such birds. He explained that it is really not much different from reading the corresponding organs of a heifer or a lamb, save that the shoulder bones are not consulted; but that he did not intend to divine in that fashion today. I then asked how he would question the gods, and he said that I would do it for him. After that I asked nothing more, because the girl who sold us the pigeons was still near enough to overhear us.