Authors: Gene Wolfe
Prince Pausanius himself placed the crown of blossoms on my head, just as I had been promised he would. He seemed even more cordial than he had been in the morning, embracing me and twice instructing Hippoxleas to see that nothing evil befell me during the feast to come; each time Hippoxleas assured him that nothing would. It seemed strange to me that a man such as I, larger and (I believe) stronger than is common, should be cosseted like an infant. I could not but observe how brilliant the eyes of Queen Gorgo appeared; but such was my fatuity, and such the excitement of the moment, that it was not until the wreath was upon my head that I realized they were bright with tears.
When the feast began, Io, the black man, Polos, and Aglaus joined us. There was meat and wine in plenty, fruits and honey, honeyed breads and cakes—everything that anyone could wish for. We ate and drank our fill, and the black man collected figs and grapes, and a skin of good wine to take back to Bittusilma. By that time the scarlet moon rode low in the west. Half or more of the feasters had gone to their homes already, or so it seemed to me. I had forgotten the black man's warning, and so perhaps had he, though the bundle that held our swords lay at his feet. Not far off a hundred hounds or more coursed deer; their baying haunted the night whenever the noises of our feasting slackened.
There came a scream of anguish and despair—I hope I never hear such a sound again—and with it a running man, his chaplet of blossoms half-fallen from his head. He had one of the knives the priestesses had used, and though I could not be sure in the darkness, it appeared to me that he was drenched with blood. At once Hippoxleas rose as though to stop him, received the curved blade in his belly, and snatched away my crown of flowers. All this took place so quickly that I was still staring openmouthed when Hippoxleas lay dead at my feet.
A dozen daggers struck down the man who had killed him; the crowd surged about us, and I lost sight of the black man and the rest.
For what seemed to me whole days, I searched everywhere for them. I never found them, and when I felt that a new day should already have filled the sky, exhausted and more than half drunk, I decided to return to this house. I stumbled a score of times, but fell just once, when I tripped upon the legs of the expiring slave.
He, too, had worn a crown of blossoms; it lay in the dust not an arm's length from where he had fallen. Though his mouth ran with his blood, he struggled to make his speech clear to me, to forgive me, warn me, or tell me I know not what—or perhaps merely to beg my help; all the gods know how gladly I gave it. It was then that I recognized him, for in trying to stanch his blood, I had drawn him out of the shadows and into the moonlight. He was the slave who had driven Queen Gorgo's gray horses, and though I did him no harm, he will not let me sleep.
Since returning, I have learned that the one-armed man and some other Rope Makers had forced the black man, the children, and Aglaus to leave the feast, threatening the black man with the laws of Rope when he would not.
I am in a place besieged.
PART FOUR
THIRTY-EIGHT
The Pythia
THE PRIESTESS OF THE GOD of Dolphins is very young. She appears kind.
I have written it, and do not know what more to write. But Kichesippos and my slave girl stand and stare.
They cannot read these letters, yet they know what letters are. If I make mere marks here, they will remonstrate with me, but what is there to say, and why should it be said? My slave girl slept with me. When we woke, the prince asked whether I had covered her. She said I had, but I know she lied. She fears he will bring me a boy.
Again. Io says I used always to do this, Kichesippos that it will make me well to speak of my disease, whether to him, or to the shining god of healing whose place this is, or merely to this roll of papyrus. When we hear ourselves, says Kichesippos, the gods hear us. That cannot be.
I asked Io what to write. She said I must write all that I remember. What I remember is only this: my mother's kiss before I slept. In my sleep I died and was swept into the Lands of the Dead, the dark kingdoms beneath the mountains. Long I wandered through the caverns where the nights to come are stored. There was much stone there, water, and mud; but nothing more. I heard the neighing of the horse of He Who Gathers, and the roaring of lions. At length I walked once more in the lands of the living, here in the pavilion of the prince; yet I know they come for me.
Io taught me her name; I thought her my sister, but she is my lover. The rest—the prince, Cyklos the judge, Kichesippos, the black man with the scarred cheek, his wife, the angry one-armed Pasicrates, our romping Polos, Amyklos, and Aglaus. There are more whom Io did not name, most of them slaves of the prince; and in the clear sunshine very many, for thousands gather here.
Pausanias and I went to the holy cave again. I write
again
because it seems from what Apollonios told us that we have been there before, though I do not remember it. The priests wear no sandals, and they are not to wash their feet. When I stared at them, the prince explained these things to me; he says, too, that they must sleep upon the ground, but everyone save himself does that here. We sacrificed, mumbled the many prayers, washed, did everything Apollonios instructed us to do. Then we entered the cave.
Its walls are damp and very high. Far above our heads, the narrow wedge of sky was nearly black. From it I knew we were in a place other than the lands of men; for when we had stood upon the mountainside, the sky had been bright with the glorious azure that is the most beautiful color of all. Here, then, the sacred fire of pine and henbane burned. Here, wrapped in preternatural gloom, the child-pythia sat her tripod behind a curtain of gauze. Apollonios had guided us no farther than the entrance; Anochos, the proxenos of Rope, waited behind him.
The prince spoke: "I have been promised victory, and yet my charioteer is ill, gripped by a dread that neither he nor I understands. What am I to do?"
No one made a sound or moved a finger after that—nor did, nor could, I. The thudding of my heart no longer echoed in my ears, and no breath stirred in my nostrils. Some distant voice drew out a single, melancholy note that neither rose nor fell.
In the depths of the earth the python stirred. I heard it, the rustles of its scales, the hiss of its exhalations soughing so faintly that I believed it far away until its head was thrust from the crevice beneath the lofty tripod. Scarcely to be seen, it wreathed the pythia in phantom coils.
She screamed. We started, for at her scream our breath and life returned to us. Her arms flew out, her head back so that I thought her neck must break; the voice of the prince issued from her throat. As a lancer unhorsed might wrench his eyes from the blade poised to take his life, I glanced toward the man himself; he was not speaking, but stared as astonished as I.
"Thou art royal, royal be."
Afterward Apollonios reminded us that no one but a priest could understand the ravings of the pythia, and recited for us the following verses:
Not gems nor spears can forge a crown,
What gods raise up, men drag not down.
Though queens in rags, they queens remain,
Gracious in aid, their favor gain.
When we had left that sacred place, the prince said, "You understood the words the pythia spoke, Latro. Tell me."
I was frightened and asked, "How did you know?"
"Because you know the servants of him who stands behind all gods, as I told you last year. And because I saw your look when Apollonios prepared to tell us what she had said. Now, what did she really say?"
I repeated the pythia's words to him.
"Interpret it for me."
I shook my head, and he slapped me hard enough to stagger me. "Be a man! Once you would have tried to kill me for that."
He berated me much more. I do not recall all that he said, and I would not set it down if I did, no matter what Kichesippos and Io may say. Perhaps he would have struck me again, had not Polos ridden up.
Upon seeing the prince, he slipped from his mount's back at once. "Your Highness..."
The prince whirled to confront him.
"Your Highness, when we were up north, Latro used to ride all the time. He liked to. I thought maybe—"
As a squall blows off at sea, leaving the rainwashed sun, the anger drained from Pausanias's scarred face; he grinned and ruffled Polos's brown hair. "I suppose it can't hurt, and this certainly isn't helping. Latro, do you want to straddle this bag of bones?"
I shook my head.
"Then you probably ought to. What a nag! Where'd you find him, Polos?"
"He belongs to my uncle, Your Highness. He's a very good horse, really he is."
"To the venerable Amyklos? Then I shouldn't be so hard on him."
The prince grasped the horse's jaw and skinned back its lips. "But he's an old horse, Polos—thirty at least. Nearly too old to work. Mount him, Latro!"
Polos dropped to his hands and knees so that I might step on his back, which made me itch to kick him. As soon as I was up he said, "I'll run alongside, Your Highness. I'll keep him out of trouble."
"Good!"
I let the old horse have his head, thinking that he would walk if he chose to move at all; to my astonishment, he darted away like a blooded racer, along the road, then into the trees and headlong down the wild mountainside, so that Polos was left as far behind as the prince. I heaved on the reins; at once the old horse slowed to a walk, and I let them fall to his neck. He whickered, and it seemed to me, almost, that he had spoken.
"You're welcome," I said. After that I sat looking at the pines and laurels through which we passed. It seemed to me that I could see their roots as well, the greedy fingers with which they tear at dead men's bones.
Soon we were joined by a riderless bay colt who appeared to enjoy the company of Amyklos's horse; and before long, our path—which I left entirely to the horses—began to climb; thus I rode up the mountain, always at a slow walk, for what seemed to me a very long time.
At last we reached a small temple of native limestone, in which stood the marble image of a maiden with a bow, and a real woman hardly less lovely. Leaving the shade of the temple, she extended her hands to me. "Dismount, Latro. You and I must talk awhile. Aglaus, will you look to the comfort of our guests, please?"
The gap-toothed servant, whom I had not noticed before, now stepped from behind a column to take the reins of my mount. As soon as I slid from his saddle, he let Aglaus lead him away; the colt trotted after them.
"There's a spring nearby," the pythia of this temple said. "Aglaus will fetch water for you if you wish it—but water, alas, is all we have. You did not bring your book?"
I shook my head.
"A pity. These are high matters we will discuss. I cannot speak of them yet, because all who must be present have not yet arrived. But you must promise, Latro, that you will write down everything. In fact I ought to do it myself—I drink too much, my husband says. But then I drink to forget."
I promised then that I would write as she advised (which I am doing now), for her touch had lifted my spirits a little; and I apologized for having brought no wine.
"We were lovers once," she told me, "lip to lip and lip to cup. Perhaps we will be so again. But not at present; not as you are today."
I nodded my agreement, for I have no desire to lie with any woman.
Soon Aglaus returned, bringing Polos and Polos's uncle, the long-faced old Amyklos. They had drunk at the spring and still wiped their mouths, flinging sparkling drops into the sunshine. I was conscious of my own thirst, but only as I might have been conscious of someone else's—it seemed pointless to satisfy it. The woman made them welcome, and they joined us in the shade of the temple.
"I hope you don't mind our taking you here," Polos said. "We're only trying to help you."
I told him that when he had invited me to step on his back, he had gone too far, that I would be old soon enough.
"What about sitting on my back to ride?" he asked.
I said I would not ask to do that for some while yet.
"But you already have, to steal the horses, and then to kill the boar."
I gave him an angry look, and he said, "I know you don't remember, but it's true! Tell him, Elata—you were there the first time."
The pythia said, "I can show it to you, Latro, if you want. You stole the horses of the sun, with the help of Polos, a lion, and a woman called Pharetra."
Embarrassed, the boy looked away. His old uncle laid a hand upon his shoulder. "You believe great warriors shouldn't weep. Can't you understand that the greatest must?"
When his nephew did not answer, he said, "You think highly of strength, Polos, and there's nothing wrong with that, because you're not strong yourself yet. But Latro can't think highly of it; he's strong, and so he's learned how little strength can do. You see, a boy can look up to a hero—in fact it's only natural at your age. But if that hero were to look up to himself in the same way, he'd be a monster, and not a hero at all."
When I had wiped my eyes, Polos told me, "I'm not ashamed of you, Latro. Really I'm not. You only remembered Pharetra because Aglaus is here."
That surprised me enough to awaken me for a moment from my despair. I feel sure my jaw dropped, and Aglaus himself looked as astonished as I.
Polos asked his uncle, "Is it all right if I tell him?"
"No, I'll tell him. You forget, Latro. We've talked about that before, so I know you know it. Gaea did it, as even young Io understands, and Aglaus is sacred to her."
My gap-toothed servant shook his head. "I don't mean any offense, sir, but nobody never told me that."
"You've been her lover since you were a boy, Aglaus, or so I'd guess. She returns your love, and perhaps loves you all the more because you don't know it."
A memory came to me, as though a singing bird had perched upon my head. "You've seen the god All," I told Aglaus. "You told me once."
"I've seen a few things," Aglaus admitted, looking hard at Polos and Amyklos. "Usually I've got sense enough not to speak about it to them that won't believe me. I told you 'cause you'd seen him yourself."