Soldier of Arete

by Gene Wolfe

  Gaea looked at me, and though her face was the face of a woman, her eyes were the eyes of a lioness. "She is eager to hear your speculations."

  "As you wish. It is soon seen that such explanations fail to resolve the question. If I slap water with my hand, it does not remain in the air but quickly falls to earth. Thus though the sea exists, it too must be supported in some way. Besides, a man who swims in the sea finds that the earth lies below it. It is true that he comes at last to such a depth that he cannot reach earth; but if another comes, a better diver, this other diver reports earth still. Plainly, then, the sea is held like water in a bowl, deepest at the center, but hardly endless at the center. And in fact a bowl that was endless at any point could never be filled."

  "Continue," she said again.

  "If I continue, Gaea, will you tell me the significance of your riddle?"

  "No, you shall tell me. But continue."

  "One who observes the sun at evening sees that it moves no more slowly at the horizon than it did when crossing the sky at noon. Similarly, it rises in full career. Where, then, does it halt? Plainly it does not halt, but circles and recircles the earth without cease, as do the moon and the stars, of which the same things might be said. If the sea proposed by some existed, the sun, the moon, and the stars would plunge into it and their lights would be extinguished; but that doesn't occur. All these things show that the proposed sea, upon which the earth is said to float, doesn't exist. As for the sea on which we sail, it's supported by the earth, and not the contrary.

  "I said that water falls to earth. What doesn't? Birds, clearly; otherwise they would be killed. If you startle a bird from a bush, it may perch upon another—but it may not. And anyone may see for himself that eagles and vultures need not alight except to eat and drink, for they remain upon the wing without effort. What supports the earth? What supports these birds? The earth flies; Gaea is winged."

  "Well reasoned," she said. She remained silent after that until we reached the stair that led to the entrance arch of the palace; then she asked, "Why do you think I said I devoured all who could not answer my question?"

  I ventured to say that the earth devoured all men at last.

  "Not those who understand my question, Latro. Isn't your traveler upon the journey of life? Say yes, or I'll devour you at the end of your days."

  "Yes," I said as we mounted the stair.

  "Explain."

  "In the morning of life," I said, "a young man goes forth as though mounted, because he is carried upon the shoulders of his parents. By midday their support has vanished, and he must walk for himself. In the evening of life, he can hold up his head only because he is supported by the memory of what once he was."

  As I spoke the final word, Gaea's vast wings roared behind me and I felt a wind as violent as a storm at sea; by the time I turned, she was already very far above me. Higher she rose, and higher still as I watched openmouthed, until she was little more than a dark speck against the overarching azure dome, and I felt certain she would soon disappear into the cloudless sky. But at last she settled upon a cornice of the topmost battlement, where she remained motionless and appeared to have become again a mere figure carved from the reddish stone, as she had been when I had first seen her.

  Alone and wondering I entered that great palace. Its rooms were spacious indeed, but filled with little more than light and air. While I wandered from one to another, seeing here, perhaps, a single red-glazed urn displaying the capering black figures of satyrs, and there an iridescent enameled beetle rolling a great golden sun toward some corner of an empty chamber, I sought the meaning of Gaea's riddle. Why had she asked it of Swollenfoot? And why of me? Why had she offered to show me this palace of memory, yet deserted me as I was about to enter?

  When I had walked through many empty rooms, I came upon a statue of a young woman dancing naked among daggers, her marble limbs so delicately poised that I hesitated to touch her for fear she might fall. At length I did, and she fell, shattering upon the many-figured floor.

  I looked up from the ruin of this statue and found that I was staring into the wrinkled face of Simonides. His hand was on my shoulder. He asked if I was well.

  I apologized for having nodded, and added, "That was a very strange dream!" The truth was that the desert palace seemed far more real to me than the windy night or the rocky hilltop where we sat about our fire. Hegesistratus and Simonides urged me to recount my dream, which I did.

  That is everything I have to write about it, except that this morning a slender young woman Io had not named for me took me aside and told me she had dreamed of me the night before. I was flattered (as no doubt she intended I should be) and asked to hear her dream.

  "I was dancing in an empty hall," she said, "watched by no one but you. At the end of my dance, when I stood on one hand surrounded by my daggers, you pushed me, and I fell on one and died." I gave her my word I would never do such a thing. Her name is Anysia.

  Today, as we walked, I told Io about my dream—although not about the dancer. Io was excited, most of all (I think) because I still remembered so clearly all that I had seen and said. She asked what Hegesistratus had said about it, but the fact is that he had said next to nothing.

  I have not yet told this to Io, and perhaps I will not; but while writing of my dream, I have thought of yet another answer to Gaea's riddle, and perhaps this one is more nearly true (for me, at least) than any of the rest. It is that a young man such as I am undertakes the journey of life as if on horseback, ever hurrying forward. As he grows older he comes to realize that it is but a pilgrimage to the grave and walks more slowly, looking about him. When he is old, he may take up his stylus and begin to write of what he has seen; if so, unlike other men, he is not devoured by the earth in which his body lies when life's journey is done, for though dead he still speaks to the living, just as it seemed the shade of Simonides still spoke to me outside that vast building in the desert.

  When he talked with me this morning before Cimon's house, he asked first about the statues. I described that of Gaea to him, but when he asked what it signified, I could not say. He said that by that image, which at any moment might take wing, I was to know that my thoughts would be lost if I failed to give each into the guardianship of some image within or without my memory palace.

  We have stopped here for the second meal, and here we will pass the night. I have taken the opportunity to read all that I wrote during the past three days. Of Cimon's banquet, and our offering to Mnemosyne after it, I recall nothing; yet the memory of the palace remains before my mind's eye, more vivid even than that of the house in which I was born. I see the man-faced lion with Latro cut in its foreleg, and the now-empty pedestal where once Gaea crouched, the mighty doorway, the strange, bare rooms, and all the rest. It would be remarkable indeed if a man could remember only his dreams, but the truth is that I can remember no other dream than that.

  THIRTY

  Tower Hill

  ADEIMANTUS'S CITY IS THE FINEST in all Hellas, according to Io. Simonides confirmed it as we sat over wine with Adeimantus and his sons. Themistocles laughed and told Adeimantus that when Simonides was staying at his house in Thought, he liked nothing better than to rail against the citizens of Tower Hill, seeing only greed in the fine marble, silver, and gold everybody else admires. "And yet," finished Themistocles, "this man who can't bear to see others living in a beautiful city has had his own ugly old face painted by Polygnotos."

  Simonides laughed as loudly as anyone. "I've done no more than follow the course of wisdom I profess to teach. All of you will concede, I think, that when other things stand equal, the best-looking man will get the most support from his fellows and the most votes in the Assembly."

  Everyone nodded.

  "Well, then," Simonides continued, "it must follow that the finest city will get the most support from the rest as well—if other things stand equal. And since Tower Hill's a rival of my friend Themistocles's city, and I can't malign its wide streets and
imposing buildings, I criticize the morals of its citizens. That I can do with perfect justice even though I know so little about them—the morals of citizens everywhere being atrocious. As for this face of mine, I can't do a thing about it. But in time to come, I'll be judged not by my face but by my picture, which is perfectly beautiful. Fifty years from now everybody will say I was the leading figure of the age."

  Adeimantus commanded the ships of Tower Hill at the Battle of Peace. It was he who opposed the ships from Riverland, which everyone says were the best the Great King had. The walls of his house are adorned with captured shields and weapons, and the figureheads of ships he destroyed. The wrecks washed ashore at a place called Crommyon; he had his men saw off the figureheads there. He presented one to every captain who served under him, he said, and kept the rest for himself.

  Because these weapons and figureheads looked familiar to me, I asked Io whether we have ever been to Riverland; she says we have not. Adeimantus said he had never visited that country either, but that people are mistaken to envy the Great King his possession of it, though it is the oldest and most revered in the world. "The men who fought so hard for a foreign king will fight against him harder still," he told us. "The whole nation rose against the Medes after Fennel Field, you remember. And it will rise again."

  If the hearts of the men of Riverland are as dark and proud as their crooked weapons and painted shields lead me to believe, I feel sure Adeimantus speaks no more than the truth. The black man confirms this, if I understand his gestures, saying that men like himself—his own nation, in fact—held sway over Riverland for a long while, but eventually its populace drove them back to their own country. He says also that he has been there, but he and I did not know each other then; it is a fine place.

  There will be a play tonight. All of us, even Io, are to have seats.

  A man with one hand has come to speak with Themistocles.

  Io came to warn me of this man—thus I wrote quickly that he had come, then stopped to hear her. His name is Pasicrates. He fought me in the Troad, Io says, and it was I who cut off his hand. I tried to explain to her that war is war. A soldier rarely hates the men he fights, and when the fighting is over, he is happy to sit down and hear how things were on the other side.

  Just then the man himself joined us, followed by Simonides and little Polos. I doubt that there is any need to describe him, since I will surely know him by his missing hand, which it seems I cut off somewhat above the wrist. But he is strikingly handsome in the fashion of Hellenes, with darting, intelligent eyes. He is smaller than I by half a head, perhaps; but if he is as quick and strong as he appears, he must have been a very dangerous opponent.

  "Good evening, Latro," he said. I had stood when they came into the room, and he embraced me as I might have the black man. "You don't remember me, I know, but we're old friends as well as old foes."

  I said I hoped that he, as well as I, could forget any past enmity.

  He laughed and held up the stump of his left forearm. "You made it hard for me to forget, but you're going to be one of us, and my life in battle may depend upon your comradeship. So I'd better forgive you, and I do."

  I wanted then to hear how we had fought, but I did not ask for fear it would reawaken past resentments.

  "You're coming to Rope? You mean to accept Pausanias's offer?"

  I know we are on our way to Rope, thus I said, "I'll decide after we get there."

  "He wants you for the games, did they tell you about that?" Pasicrates left for a moment and returned carrying stools for Simonides and himself; when the old man was settled, Pasicrates sat down beside him.

  Io had shaken her head when he mentioned games, so I said, "I know nothing of games. Does this mean I'm going to have to fight someone?"

  "Exactly. Boxing, wrestling, and the pankration—they're the things I told him you'd be good at. You might do for some local meet in the footraces, but you couldn't possibly win at Dolphins, no matter what Pausanias thinks."

  "Dolphins?" Io asked. "Is that where we're going?"

  Pasicrates nodded. "If your master will agree to do as the regent wants."

  "The big games for the Destroyer," Io told me. "They have them every four years. They're always two years after the ones at Olympia, and girls can watch as long as they're not married. Isn't that right, Simonides?"

  The old sophist smiled and nodded. "It would be a great honor for you, Latro. One that you might never forget."

  "I've never been to Dolphins," Io said. She added firmly, "But I'd really like to go."

  "Then we will," I promised her.

  Pasicrates and Simonides left us soon after that to prepare themselves to go to the theater. Pasicrates had brought neither clothing nor sandals, and Simonides was going to lend him some, though he warned him that they would not be up to the standards of Tower Hill.

  "He seems to be a fine man," I told Io when they had gone, "but I think he hates me."

  "He does," Io said. "We'll have to be really careful around him. You, too, Polos. He's the kind who hits boys."

  Polos asked, "Did you cut off his hand with your sword?"

  I shook my head. "How did it happen, Io?"

  "I wasn't there," she told us. "But Pasicrates tried to beat you—I mean with a whip, because you were supposed to be the regent's slave. You wounded one of his real slaves with a javelin, and then you must have fought him, because you split his shield with Falcata, and it went right down through his arm. He yelled something terrible—that was the first I knew anything about it. There were a hundred Rope Makers besides the slaves, and all of them came, but you got away. I didn't see you again after that till I was walking close to the wall with Drakaina— you ran up to us, and all of us got taken into the city, which was what we wanted anyhow."

  The Median boy had entered silently as she spoke, and I told him there was no reason he and Polos should not use the stools Pasicrates had brought.

  Polos rolled his eyes and shied; Io told him, "It's really there, whatever it is. If Latro touches it, then we'll see it, too."

  "I see him a little already," Polos said, "but I don't want to see him any more than I do right now."

  I asked Io what they were talking about, but the Median boy spoke—impolitely, I would say—while she did, so that I did not hear her. "There are so many people living in this house. Have you met the others?"

  I said I had been introduced to our host and his sons, and seen some of his servants.

  "Soldiers from Kemet, and they're very angry." The Median boy turned on his heel and left.

  Polos relaxed and took a stool. "He's like Latro—only he can't remember he's dead. I think that his thoughts must always stumble there."

  I asked where Kemet lay, but neither knew. I must remember to ask Simonides. I have cut it across the chest of the hawk-headed man.

  Polos asked, "Do you have to be very strong to fight with a sword?"

  I told him it was certainly better to be strong, but better still to be quick.

  "If the strongest man's the quickest, too, does he always win?"

  Io said, "Or woman, Polos. Remember the Amazons? I've got a sword, too, and I've killed my man."

  "No," I said. "Not always."

  "Who does? And how could Io kill a man? She's said that before."

  I considered the matter, knowing what I needed to say but unsure of how to make my point. The fluting notes of a syrinx floated through the window, and I looked out; three small boys were coming down the street, one tootling the pipes while all three danced. Some dignified-looking men had stopped to laugh and cheer them.

  "Look," I told Polos and Io. "Do you see those boys?"

  Io said, "They're playing Pan-and-satyrs. We used to do it back in Hill."

  "I want you to study them. Pretend that they're men, not boys, and that they're fighting with swords instead of dancing. Can you do that?"

  Both nodded.

  "See how they move. A sword fight is a kind of dance, even if the fight
's on horseback. Look at them carefully—which is going to win?"

  Io said, "The one with the pipes," and Polos nodded.

  "Why?" I asked them.

  Polos said, "Because he dances the best."

  "That's right. Why does he dance better than the others?"

  They only stared at me, so I sent them off to find three sticks, each a trifle shorter than my arm.

  When they returned, I showed them how to hold their sticks like swords instead of axes, with the thumb at the top of the grip. "An ax is a good weapon, but a sword is a better weapon. If you hold your sword like an ax, you'll chop with it like an ax. A sword slashes and thrusts— you must be a butcher boning a carcass, not a woodchopper cutting down a tree. Don't either of you understand yet why the boy with the pipes danced best?"

  "I do!" Polos said. "Because he had the pipes."

  Io nodded. "He knew in advance what he was going to play, but the others couldn't know till they heard the notes."

  I told them, "That's the one who always wins a sword fight. Now each of us ought to have something for the left hand. It's always very unwise to fight without something in your left hand. A shield's best; but if you don't have one, use something else, a knife or even another sword."

  Io got her cloak and wound it about her left arm. "You did this sometimes in Thrace, master. A couple of times it got cut, and I had to sew it up for you, but the blade never went through to your arm."

  "If you were to lay your arm on the windowsill, any sword would cut through the cloth and bite bone," I told her. "Very few will do that in a battle, however, though possibly Falcata might. It's one good reason for getting the best sword you can and always keeping it sharp. You should let a little more cloth hang down to flutter before your opponent's eyes."

  Polos said, "I don't have a cloak. Should I buy one here?"

  "Yes, buy one tomorrow—though not for that reason. But you must fight now, not later. What are you going to do?"

  He picked up his stool and said, "I'll pretend this is my shield."