Soldier of the Mist

Soldier of the Mist Page 22

Some people despise wealth, however. I do myself."

"You don't talk like it," Basias told him.

"Do you have any money?"

"I thought this was your treat."

"Oh, it is. I just want to know whether you've got any."

"Couple of obols," Basias admitted.

"Then throw them away. They're no good where we're going, or so people tell me. Toss them into the dirt there. I'm sure that fellow who just left will be happy to pick them up."

Basias darted the Milesian a surly look but said nothing.

"You see, you don't despise money. Nor do I. Wealth is stuffy and stupid and arrogant, and the only good thing about it is that it has money. Money's lovely stuff - just look at this." He held up the owl. "See how it shines? On one side the owl: the male principle. On the other, the Lady of Thought: the female principle." He spun the coin on the table. "Money always gives you something to think about."

Basias asked, "Do you know what Pausanias did after the Battle of Clay?"

The Milesian looked bored, but Io piped, "Tell us!"

"We killed Mardonius and got his baggage. So Pausanias told his cooks to cook a meal just like they would have for him and his staff. He called in all our officers and showed it to them. I wasn't there, but Eutaktos was, and he told me. Pausanias said, 'See the wealth of these people who have come to share our poverty.' "

"It's perfectly true." The Milesian nodded, still spinning his coin. "By our standards, the wealth of the Empire is incalculable. His name wasn't really Mardonius, by the way. It was Marduniya. It means 'the warrior.' "

Basias said, "I couldn't say that without wrenching my mouth."

"You'll have to learn to wrench your mouth, if you hope to get rich while you're liberating the Asian cities with Pausanias."

"Who said I did?"

"Why, no one. I said 'if.' "

"You say too much, Eurykles."

"I know. I know." The Milesian rose. "But now, if you'll excuse me, kind friends, I have to - where does one do it here, anyway? In back, I suppose."

No one spoke for a moment, then Basias said, "I'd like to go with him."

I asked why he did not.

"Because I'm supposed to stay with you. But I'd like to see what he has under all those clothes. Did you ever?"

"See him naked?" I asked. "Not that I remember."

Io said, "Neither have I, and I don't want to. I'm too little for that."

Basias grinned at her. "Anyway, you know it. Half don't. But if you change your mind, I'll show you a way."

I said, "And I will kill you for it."

"You mean you'll try, barbarian."

Io said, "Latro isn't a barbarian. He talks just as good as you do. Better."

"Talk, yes, but can he wrestle?"

"You saw him throw your lochagos."

Basias was grinning again now. "I did, and it set me wondering. Want a bout, barbarian?" He drained his wine.

"Same rules they use in Olympia - no hitting, no kicking, no holds below the waist."

I stood and took off my chiton. Basias laid his sword belt on the table and took off his cuirass, then pulled his own chiton over his head. The innkeeper appeared from nowhere with half a dozen loungers in his train. "Just a friendly bout," Basias told him.

He was shorter than by a hand, but a trifle heavier. When he extended his arm for me, it was like gripping the limb of an oak. In a moment he had me by the waist; and in a moment more, I was flat on my back in the dirt.

"Easy meat," Basias said. "Didn't anybody ever teach you?"

I said, "I don't know."

"Well, that's one fall. Three and you lose. Want to try again?"

I bathed my hands in dust to dry the sweat. This time he lifted me over his head. "Now if I wanted to hurt you, barbarian, I'd throw you into the table. But that would spill the wine."

The inn yard swung dizzily until it was where the sky should be, then slapped me as a man swats a fly.

"Two falls for me. Got anything left?"

My eyes were wet with the tears of shame, and I wiped them on the back of my arm. One of the loungers told the innkeeper, "I'll take my obol now. Why not save the time and trouble?"

Io was saying, "I'll bet you another obol," to the lounger by the time I had my knees under me.

"Bet with a child? Let me see your money. All right, but you'd be a fool if he were Heracles."

The oak limb I had imagined a moment earlier appeared before my eyes. "I can't help you up," the big man who held it rumbled. "It's against the rules. But it's not against them to take your time getting up, and you'd better do it."

I got a foot beneath me but kept one knee on the ground as I wiped my forehead.

"He's beating you by lifting you, like I beat Antaeus. You have to keep hold of him all the time. He can't lift himself."

When Basias offered me his arm again, I closed with him, gripping him under the arms as he gripped me by the waist.

"He'll try to bend you back," the man with the club said. "Twist and squeeze. Every muscle in your arm's a piece of raw hide. They're drying in the sun, pulling up. Hear his ribs creak? Dig into his neck with that sharp chin of yours."

We fell together. When I had climbed off him, Basias said, "You're learning. That's one for you.

You've got to give me your arm this time."

I turned him upside down and found that his lower ribs were softer than the upper ones. His arms were no longer as hard as they had been. With one hand on his waist and one at his shoulder, I was able to get him above my head. "You didn't throw me at the table," I told him. "So I won't do it to you either."

The big man with the club pointed to the lounger who had bet with Io.

I said, "All right," and knocked the lounger off his feet with Basias.

The Milesian applauded, rapping the tabletop with his cup.

"Good!" the big man whispered. "Now let him win."

Chapter 24 Why Did You Lose?

Io asked her question with her eyes as I sat writing. I said, "I don't know." And then, thinking of the man with the club and why he might have spoken as he had, "Do you think we'd be better off if I'd won?

Besides, it wouldn't have been fair. Suppose Basias had thrown me into the table. That would have ended the match."

He came out of the inn with grease on the place where he had hurt his arm. "Any wine left?"

Io tilted the jar and peered inside. "Almost half-full."

"I can use it. Your master's a man of his hands, girl. With some training he might do for the Games."

"You'd better water that," she told him. "It drives you mad."

"I'll spit in it. Same thing." He looked at me. "You really don't know who you are?"

I shook my head. The Milesian stirred in his sleep, groaning like a woman in love.

"You're a barbarian by the look of you. No Hellene ever had a beak like that. No helot either. That sword of yours looks foreign too. You have any armor?"

Io said, "He used to have front and back plates, round things that hung over his shoulders and tied at the waist. I think Kalleos has them now."

Basias drained his cup and filled it again. "I saw a lot of those on dead men at Clay, but they don't help me much."

I said, "Tell us about the battle. You were there, and I'd like to know."

"What happened to you? I can't tell you that without knowing where you were." He dipped a finger in his wine. "Here's our army. That's a ridgeline, see? Over here's the enemy." He poured a puddle on the table. "The plain was black with them. One of our officers - Amompharetos is his name - had been giving Pausanias trouble. He should have been asked to the council, see? Only he wasn't. Either the message never got to him, which is what Pausanias says, or Pausanias never sent it. That's what Amompharetos said. They finally got it patched up, so Pausanias put Amompharetos and his taksis back here in reserve to show he trusted him."

Io said, "It looks to me like he didn't."

"You're no man; you'll never understand war. But the reserve's the most important part of the army.

It's got to go to the hottest place when the army's losing. There were more hills here on the right, with all the men from that dirty place we just left hiding behind them. We're out where the enemy can see us; then Pausanias gives the order to pull back."

Io interrupted. "Is Pausanias one of your kings? And do you really have two?"

"Sure we've got two," Basias told her. "It's the only system that works."

"I'd think they'd fight."

"That's it. Suppose there was just one. A lot of people have tried that. If he's strong, he takes every man's wife, and the sons too. He does whatever he likes. But look at us. If one of ours tried that, we'd side with the other. So they don't. But Pausanias isn't a king, he's regent for Pleistarchos."

Basias held up his cup to me. I poured a little wine from mine into his and let him do the same. "Over here's the Molois," he continued, "almost dry. Here's Hysiae and here's Argiopium, just a village around the temple of the Grain Goddess."

The grass underfoot is yellowing, the sky so light a blue it hurts the eyes. Brown hills rise at the end of the yellow plain. Dark horsemen cross and recross; beyond them the red cloaks of the enemy seep away like blood from a corpse. Mardonius is on his white stallion in the midst of the Immortals. The trumpets are blowing, and the heralds shout to advance. I try to keep our hundred together, but Medes with bows and big wicker shields press through our formation, then spearmen and bowmen with bodies painted white and red. We run across the plain, the swifter outpacing the slower, the lightly armed always farther ahead of the heavily armed, until I can see no one I know, only dust and running strangers, and ahead the shining bronze wall of the hoplons, the bristling hedge of the spears.

Little Io was pressing my forehead with a wet cloth. An enemy bent over me, his horsehair crest nodding, his red cloak falling beside his shoulders. I reached for Falcata, but Falcata was gone.

"It's all right," Io said. "All right, master."

The enemy straightened up. "How long's he been like this?" It was Eutaktos, and I knew him.

"Not long," Io said. "Basias sent one of the inn servants for you."

I tried to say I was well, but it came from my lips in this tongue, not in theirs.

"He talks a lot," Io told Eutaktos, "only you can't understand it. Most of the time he doesn't seem to see me."

I said, "I'm better now," speaking as they.

Eutaktos said, "Good, good," and knelt beside me. "What happened? Basias hit you?"

I did not understand what he meant. "We broke," I told him. "Even when they made a new shieldwall we were only a mob behind it. The Medes took the spears in their hands and broke them, died. The arrows were no good, and I can't find Falcata."

Io said, "That's his sword."

I told them Marcus was dead, and I could not find Umeri, that we should not have gone to Riverland.

Eutaktos said, "There's magic in this. Where's that magician?"

Io gestured. "Asleep outside."

"He was, maybe. Not now. I would have seen him." Eutaktos stamped away and I sat up.

"Are you better, master?"

Io's little face looked so concerned I had to laugh. "Yes," I said. "And I know you. But I can't think who you are."

"I'm Io, your slave girl. The Shining God gave me to you."

We were in a cramped, dark room that smelled of smoke. I said, "I don't remember. What is this place?"

"Just an inn."

A tall, ugly woman with short black hair came in, saying, "Hello, Latro. Do you remember me?"

I said, "Latro?"

"Yes, you're Latro, and I'm your friend Eurykles. Kalleos's friend too. Do you recall Kalleos?"

I shook my head.

"I'm supposed to heal you," the woman said, "and I want to. But I don't know what happened - I was taking a nap. It might help if I did."

Io said, "Do you remember how he wrestled with Basias?"

"Yes. Basias threw him twice, then he threw Basias twice, then Basias threw Latro again to end the bout. We all had a drink on it, and Basias went in here to try to find something to put on that bad place on his arm. Latro wanted to write in his book - "

I looked at Io and tried to stand. She said hastily, "I have it right here, master. Your stylus too."

" - and I got sleepy and lay down. What happened after that?"

"Basias came back and they drank some more, and Basias asked Latro if he had any armor." Io looked at me. "Basias has your sword, master. He's keeping it for you."

The ugly woman said, "Go on."

"And I said he didn't. Then Latro said to tell him about the battle. I guess he meant the one where everybody in our Sacred Band got killed. Anyway Basias knew, and he told us about their kings and where the armies were." Io paused for breath.

"Then Latro shouted. He kept on shouting and knocked over the wine, and Basias got hold of him from in back and tried to throw him down, but Latro got loose. Then Basias and a lot of men from the inn caught him and threw him down and he stopped shouting. He talked a lot, but you couldn't understand him, and they carried him in here. Basias said it was because he didn't put enough water in his wine, but he did. He put a lot more in than Basias did."

The ugly woman nodded and sat beside me on the low bed. "What was the matter, Latro? Why were you shouting?"

"We all were," I told her. "Running toward the enemy and shouting. They were retreating - we had so many more than they - and it seemed as though a good push would end the war. Then they turned like an elk with a thousand points."

"I see." A few hairs sprouted from the woman's chin; she pulled at them with her fingers. "Eutaktos thinks it's witchery, but I'm beginning to doubt it; the malice of someone on the Mountain seems more likely. We might try a sacrifice to the War God. Or ... Latro, these Rope Makers have a healer called Aesculapius. Do you know of him?"