But there were many more urgent tasks before us in that first year. I constructed a spinning wheel, in accordance with Kephalos’ design, and Selana set to work to make thread from the fleece of our sheep. Soon my skills were called upon again, this time to made a loom for turning the thread into cloth, and thus it was not very long before each of us had a new tunic, with enough cloth left over to use in bartering with our neighbors for fruit, honey and wax, none of which we could yet produce for ourselves.
Those days, each with its labor and its rewards, were a time of nearly unblemished happiness, when the past came but seldom to darken my mind.
But if the all-knowing gods touched us with their blessings, many more suffered under the blind, pitiless hands of men. One morning, when I had been at work about two hours, Selana came running to fetch me from the fields.
“Dread Lord, a woman has come with two boys,” she announced, almost breathless. “A Sicel woman!”
“What of it? What do they want?”
“They will not go away, Lord.”
Her eyes beseeched me to understand what she could not say with words—I had never seen her thus.
I asked no more questions, since clearly they would be useless, but put aside my hoe and followed her back to the house, wondering what Selana, whose knees were stronger than most men’s, found so dismaying about these intruders.
When I beheld them for myself it was plain that what had moved her was not fear but pity. Even Kephalos, who stood in the doorway, as if to guard its privacy, seemed to feel himself reproached by such misery.
The woman had not yet known thirty years, but she seemed old, worn out with suffering, weariness and degradation. She was also very dirty. Her skin and hair were streaked with sweat-stained dust, and the tunic she wore, which did not even reach to the middle of her thighs, was matted and stiff with mud, as if she had been rolled in it.
Doubtless this was precisely what had happened, for her arms and legs were bruised and across the left side of her face was a long, purplish-black swelling so heavy that it had nearly closed her eye. There was a spattering of blood just at the hairline, and I think her cheekbone must actually have been broken—someone had struck her with savage, merciless force, probably using the butt of a spear. A little more and certainly he would have killed her. In my mind’s eye I saw a soldier. . .
The boys who accompanied her were obviously her sons. They were strongly built and close to each other in age, and the elder was a handsome lad standing on the brink of manhood—Ganymedes certainly found him an interesting object of contemplation. They had also been beaten but not with the same furious thoroughness. There is a certain sort of man who reserves for women the worst that is in him.
She spoke a few words through swollen lips—it was in Sicel, but I would not have grasped it anyway—something low and indistinct, even apologetic, as if she felt obliged to beg my pardon for having the effrontery to be alive. When she saw that I did not understand she seemed to lose heart altogether and fell silent.
“My mother begs that you will take us as slaves,” said the elder of the two boys, speaking in clear but heavily accented Greek, his voice trembling with what seemed a subdued, helpless rage. “We are farming folk and know how to work. We ask only enough to preserve us from death.”
This was a bitter moment for him—I could see as much in his eyes, which burned with shame, and fear. Yet he did not look away, for there was still pride in him. This, one sensed, was their last hope before they abandoned themselves to the lifeless earth. The gods alone knew how far they had wandered, or for how long.
I had only to glance at Selana to know what she felt. I saw the face I had seen that first day on the dock at Naukratis.
“We will speak of such things later,” I said to the boy. “For now, my woman will feed you. And my friend, the Lord Kephalos, who is a physician, will see to your wounds.”
Everyone seemed relieved. Now no one would be forced to choose in the face of such wretchedness, where all were at a disadvantage. Selana went into the house to build up the fire and drop a few extra handfuls of meat into the noontime stew. When she came outside again, carrying bread, a wineskin and a basin of heated water, Kephalos was already at work to open the bruise on the woman’s face.
“That is a nasty business,” he whispered to me. “Left untended for another few days, it might easily have gone putrid and drained off into her brain—first paralysis, then madness, then death. Whoever did such a thing to her is little better than a brute.”
The woman was still too sick with pain to take more than a few sips of wine, but the two boys gorged on the bread like famished dogs.
“What happened to bring you to such a condition?” I asked the elder, after he had a little appeased his hunger. “How did you come to be set upon?”
For a moment he looked at me with something almost like astonishment, as if he could not believe in such ignorance.
“We had a farm,” he said, after a moment, “a small one, but our ancestors had worked the land there for as long as men could remember. My father could not pay the king’s taxes, so he slaughtered the goats and salted their flesh that we should not starve through the winter. The king looked upon this as theft and soldiers took my father away to hurl him from the walls. When he was dead, we claimed his body that we might wash it clean and bury it in the earth. But the soldiers said he must be left on the stones, his flesh feeding the dogs. My mother was much overcome with grief, and she cursed them to their faces, telling them they would die with blood in their mouths, and they beat her. The king said that for our insolence the farm was forfeit, that if we again set foot on our own land he would bury us alive in it. That is what he said. We have been on the road for six days now and without food, since all whom we know are afraid to raise their hand to help us. Thus we thought to sell ourselves among the Greeks that we might live.”
It was a stark little narrative, yet all that had been left out of it—and that, no doubt, was much—was visible in the worn, sullen faces of these two boys and their mother. I could see the bitterness of their hatred, which included Ducerius, their neighbors, and even myself. And I did not resent this, though I was innocent of all that had befallen them, for it was natural that they should hate the whole world. When one has been sufficiently wronged, nothing can set it right again.
“What is your name?” I asked of the elder son.
“Tullus, son of Servius.”
“And your brother?”
“Icilius.”
“And your mother?”
“Tanaquil.”
“Then you may sleep in the barn for now, Tullus, son of Servius. It is a poor place, but it will keep the rain off. We will find better for you if you choose to stay. But first you must rest and eat and find your strength again, for you are of no use to anyone the way you are. When that is done, you and your brother will help in the fields, and my woman, whose name is Selana, will find work in the house to occupy your mother. I, by the way, am Tiglath, son of Sennacherib.”
Tullus translated my words for his mother, the woman Tanaquil, and when she understood she wept and threw herself to the ground to kiss my feet. This was an embarrassment not only to me but to her sons, who were shamed that their mother should abase herself thus before a stranger. I raised her from her knees and gave her into Selana’s care.
“I see that the Lord Kephalos, whom you call a physician, has had his ear notched,” said Tullus as he and his brother walked with me to the barn. “Is he your slave?”
“He was once, long ago, but we have been through much together since then. Now he is only my friend.”
“And will you notch our ears too?”
“No—and I did not notch his, for he was captured by soldiers in a place called Tyre and it was much later that he came into my possession, when I was myself yet a boy, not any older than you are now.”
I looked at him and smiled, but he did not return my smile. His mind turned only on the injustice of all that h
ad befallen him, of which now I was a part.
“I will not mark you as my property,” I said. “You and I both know what we have a right to expect from one another, and that is enough. If this farm prospers, then we will all prosper together, and if it fails I will be no less a beggar than yourself. Be at peace with me, Tullus, son of Servius, for I too know what it is to be an exile, to be driven from one’s home by the wrath of a king. It is a bitter thing to lose one’s birthright.”
Our eyes met for an instant, and I could see that he did not understand. How could he have understood? Yet it formed the basis for an eventual bond of sympathy.
Still, things were not immediately easy between us, for the pride of youth does not grow supple all at once. Mother and brother presented no such difficulties—Tanaquil, who felt only gratitude and was, I suspect, by nature a submissive creature, developed an admiration of Selana that was almost worshipful, as if she herself and not the “Domna,” the mistress, as she called her, were the younger of the two. Selana, who gave herself no proprietary airs and perhaps had missed the companionship of another of her sex, treated the Sicel woman as an equal. And little Icilius was still only a child, without fear or self-consciousness, and surrendered quickly to a smile and a kind word, even if the word was Greek and he could not understand it.
And in the days that followed, Tullus as well gradually yielded up his hostility and learned once more to take a certain pleasure in life. He understood farming and knew how to work, so I listened to his suggestions and left him to do things in his own way, allowing him to be a man among other men. When he saw that he was treated with respect, he at last forgave us.
“I think they will do well enough,” I remarked one day to Kephalos, after they had been with us a time. “All are good workers and the elder is a born farmer.”
But Kephalos only shook his head, a look of worry clouding his eyes. I knew what was troubling him, and I could not help but laugh.
“You are jealous of Ganymedes’ interest in Tullus,” I said. “But you need not concern yourself, for if I read the thing rightly Ganymedes is foredoomed to disappointment—Tullus has no such inclination.”
“Still, Lord, I see evil coming from this business. Perhaps you would have been wiser to keep your generous instincts under better control.”
I laughed again, not knowing that my friend spoke with the voice of prophecy.
I could not, however, believe that I had misplaced my confidence in these two boys. With their help our second harvest was more than twice as great as our first, and in this Tullus seemed to take as much pride as if the land had been his own and his fathers’ before him for a thousand years.
He had been right to have expected evil at our hands and to have dreaded his lot, for the Greeks, I discovered, treated their slaves wretchedly. But the Greeks, though they were bad masters, were at least preferable to Ducerius, who trampled over all his people, free and slave, as if they were the very dust. I had not realized how utterly he was hated until I heard Tullus’ words against him, each one sharp as the blade of a copper knife. Other stories as well made their way to us—the whole countryside, it seemed, festered like a putrid boil.
And increasingly it was not only the Sicels who complained, but the Greeks as well. Brigands came down from their mountain strongholds and ranged through the flatlands, plundering farms as freely as dogs steal scraps in the bazaar, and the king did nothing to prevent them.
One afternoon, eight days before the Festival of Mounichion, when the trees have found their leaves again, my neighbor Epeios came by leading his fine horse, which was burdened with sacks of food.
“You remember Teucer?” he asked, “the one who spoke so eloquently at your house-building in praise of kingship? He was raided night before last. I am on my way there now.”
“I will go with you,” I answered. “We can take the wagon—how bad was it?”
“I know nothing more than that Teucer lives.”
When the wagon was ready and Epeios had tethered his horse to it and sat beside me on the bench, Selana came out of the house with a large bundle in her arms.
“I will come too,” she said, climbing into the back. “His woman may need assistance.”
This was so obvious that Epeios and I exchanged a glance, as if to inquire of each other why neither of us had thought of it.
Teucer’s farm was some four hours from mine, and it was almost nightfall before we arrived. The wagons of several less distant neighbors stood about in the yard and there were perhaps thirty men and women about, most of whom I knew by then. I did not see Teucer among them.
The farmhouse showed clear evidence of having been put to the torch—one wall was badly scorched and half the roof would have to be replaced. Otherwise there was little to show how much else had been lost in the raid.
Teucer had no reputation as a man of energy, and his farm was a small affair, with no more than five or six plethra of land under cultivation and only a few domesticated animals, enough to provide a living for himself and his wife but no more. His house and barns were shabby in appearance, as if the master had neither time nor inclination to keep them up. I could not help but wonder what brigands found in such poverty to tempt them.
It would appear they had not even been tempted by Teucer’s woman Ctimene, for she was laid out on a table in the farmhouse kitchen with a ragged wound just above her left breast. Thus, as it turned out, the only assistance Selana could give her was to join with the other women in preparing her for burial.
Teucer crouched on a stool beside the table, tears streaming down his leathery face as he watched them clean the blood from her corpse and wrap it for the fire.
“This will finish him,” Epeios murmured to me as we stepped outside again. “Some men are lost without their wives. It has nothing to do with love—even if each hates the other, they cannot function without a push from behind. Teucer is that kind. He will not know what to do with himself now. He will go to pieces. And I believe he was fond of her.”
Inquiry revealed that all the brigands had stolen—perhaps all there had been to steal—was one broken-winded old horse, good for nothing except pulling a plow. It seemed an inexplicable piece of mischief. Finally a number of us collected in Teucer’s barn to discuss the matter.
“Why did they kill Ctimene?” someone asked. “This farm is not close to the mountains, and no one else in the neighborhood was raided—why go to so much trouble, and spill blood, for nothing but a worthless old horse?”
“Perhaps their dogs were hungry.”
Everyone laughed at this, but it was not an answer so much as a comment on the senselessness of this crime.
“Perhaps they believed they would find more.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Everyone knows that Teucer is poor. Even I knew it, and I have been only a few months on this island. Except to ruin him, I cannot understand what their object could have been.”
There was an uncomfortable silence, as if I had unwittingly spoken the truth they had all been struggling hard not to mention.
“Still, something must be done.”
Diocles the Spartan stood up from where he had been sitting on an empty harness box. He was a squat man with black hair and a black beard, and his face was as red as if he had been drinking wine all morning—he always looked thus, although he was a man of the most abstemious habits. His hands moved impatiently as he spoke.
“If they will raid Teucer, they will raid any of us—no one is safe now, that is obvious. By the Mouse God’s navel, we cannot wait patiently to be looted and murdered at the convenience of these bandits.”
He sat down again and looked around at us defiantly, challenging anyone to disagree. This, of course, was impossible.
“Yet these men are many—they have horses and arms, and when they have done their wickedness they vanish back into the mountains like shadows. We are but farmers. What can we do?”
“Even a farmer knows enough to cut the head off a snake,” I
said. “I keep an iron sword beside my sleeping mat, and I am sure it is not the only weapon in Greek hands. There are lions in the mountains as well as men, or so one hears. Let us hunt one as we would the other.”
“Lions do not fight back,” Epeios said.
Had I wished to prove him wrong I had only to remove my tunic and show him the scars I carried on my chest and shoulder, but I did not.
In any case, it did not seem to be a popular suggestion.
“This is a matter for the king to settle,” said Halitherses the Ithacan, after a long silence. He was nearly seventy and had lived on this island longer than any other Greek. Many thought of him as a wise man. “It is the duty of kings to protect their subjects, and we all acknowledge the sovereignty of Ducerius and pay his taxes.”
“He has no love for the Greeks,” someone answered. There was a general murmur of agreement.
“Yet he is still king here, and dealing with bandits is a king’s province.”
“Yes, he deals with them—for a portion of their spoils.”
There was much laughter at this and it made Halitherses grow wrathful, as old men will.
“What else would you do?” he shouted. “Follow Tiglath into the mountains and end there with your throats cut? No—I thought not!”
“He is right. Let us appeal to the king before we do anything mad.” Epeios glanced at me as he spoke, raising his eyebrows as if to suggest, I am still your friend, though I speak against you when you propose folly.
“Yes, let us appeal to Ducerius,” I answered. “Certainly he would consider it an act of defiance if we did not. Kings grow uneasy when their subjects take up arms on their own.”
Halitherses was very pleased.
“Then we are in agreement?” he asked, looking from face to face.
We were. I even consented to make one of the delegation. We would ride to the king’s citadel the day after next.
But first there was the funeral of Ctimene to be attended to.
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