Soldier of the mist

"You're worried about the little girl and me." I looked across the fire at the sleeping child.

"And Hilaeira, and the black man too. If I'm freed, I'll buy freedom for all of you if I can. But it might help if you could sing for the Rope Makers as you sang today to the playing of the god. They love choral music, and they don't much value soloists; still no one could resist that, and no one would keep such a singer a slave. Can you do it?"

Hoping to please him, I tried; but I could not recall the words I had sung, nor any tune.

"It will be all right," Pindaros said. "I'll get us all freed some way. You don't remember, I know; I could see it in your eyes. It was a miracle, and you've forgotten it."

"I'm sorry," I told him, and I was.

"You haven't offended me." He sighed. "And I'm sorrier for you, Latro, than for any other man I know."

I asked whether he recalled the words.

"No," he said. "Not really. But I remember how they sounded, that great rushing swing like waves beating upon a cliff that ended in larks and thunder. That's the way poetry ought to sound."

I nodded because he seemed to expect it.

"As my own never has. But after hearing your song, I think I may be getting a bit closer. Listen to this:

"Arrows have I for the hearts of the wise, Straight-drawn by Nature to bear off the prize, But lift I my bow to the crowd on the plain, The fools hear but wind, and some fool must explain."

"Do you like it?"

"Very much," I said.

"Well, I don't. But I like it better than anything I've done before tonight. In our shining city, there are-there were, I ought to say-half a dozen of us who tried our hands at verse now and then. That was the way we put it, 'tried our hands,' as though there were no difference between composing poetry and weaving mats beside the fire. We met monthly to sing our latest lines to one another, and pretended not to notice that none of them was ever heard again. If mine had seemed the best to me when our di

Pindaros shrugged. "Your good looks are real, and so is your strength, as you proved just today. But as for us-now I see that we were only noisy boys, when we should have been men or been silent. After hearing the god this afternoon, it may be that I will be a man someday. I hope so. Latro, I wouldn't boast to you like this-and that's what it is, boasting-if I didn't know you'll forget everything I've said."

"I'll write it down," I told him.

"To be sure!" Pindaros laughed softly. "The gods have their revenge, as always.

"We call for night to hide our acts, But Night, a god, gives God the facts."

"I like that, too," I said.

"Composed for you this moment and thrown hot from the forge. Still, there may be something in it. We've need of night."

"Pindaros, is there really a god of night?"

"There are at least a dozen."

"With a body like a snake's and a head like a woman's, a woman with black hair that has never seen a comb?"

He stared at me for a moment in silence, and at last stirred the fire as he had before. "You've seen that, haven't you? No, that's no goddess-it's a monster of some kind. Heracles was supposed to have rid this part of the world of them; but Heracles has been on the Mountain for four hundred years, and I suppose they're creeping back. Do you see it now?"

I shook my head.

"Good. I was hoping to get some sleep before these slaves stirred their lazy legs. If you see your monster again, don't touch it. Promise?"

"I promise." I almost said that if I were to touch him, that might be enough; but I did not.

He rose and stretched. "Then I'll try to sleep. A sleep without dreams, I hope. Empty of horrors. I ought to copy you and write myself a note forbidding me to talk to you in the dark. Alas, I lack your diligence. Good night again, Latro."

"Good night, Pindaros."

When he was gone, a small arm circled my waist. "I know you," I told its owner. "You're Io. I've been reading about you in this scroll."

"You're my master," the child said. "They had no right to do what they did to me. Only you."

"What did they do?" I asked, but she did not answer. Putting my arm about her shoulders, I looked at her face in the firelight and saw how many tears had furrowed those dusty cheeks. "If the serpent woman comes again, I'll tell her she can't have you."

She shook her head. "It's not that. I ran away, and now I've been punished for it."

"Did you run away from me, little Io? I wouldn't punish you if you did."

She shook her head. "From the Bright God. And I lied when I said he'd given me to you."

"Perhaps he did," I told her. Holding her close, I watched the silent figures in the shadows for some sign, but there was none. "The gods are not at all like us, little Io."

PART II

CHAPTER VII-Beside the Beached Ships

This little tent seems small indeed. When I woke a short time ago, I discovered this scroll. Being barred from leaving by the sentry at the door and not wishing to disturb the black man who shares this tent with me (he was busily carving a doll), I resolved to read it from the begi

I had hardly started when a man in a fine corselet of bronze came in, and I supposed him to be the healer of whom I had just read. He disabused me of that notion at once, saying, "My name's Hypereides, fellow. Hypereides the Trierarch, and I'm your master now. How can you pretend not to know me?"

I said, "I'm afraid I forget very quickly."

He scowled ferociously and pointed a finger at me. "Now I've got you! If you forget, how can you remember that?"

I explained that I had just read it and pointed to the place where it says, "The Healer says I forget very quickly, and that it is because of a wound I suffered in a battle."

"Wonderful," Hypereides said. "Wonderful! You've an answer for everything."

"No," I said. "I only wish I did. If you're not the healer, can you tell me where I am now?"

There was a stool in one corner of the tent. (I am using it now to write this.) He pulled it over and sat down, motioning for me to sit on the ground before him. "Armor's heavy stuff," he said, "something I never considered as a youngster, when I used to watch the soldiers ride past in the Panathenaea. You learn soon enough to sit when you can and as high as you can, so it's not too hard to stand up." He took off his helmet with its gorgeous crest of blue horsehair and scratched his bald head. "I'm too old for this sort of thing, let me tell you. I fought at Fe

"Yes," I said. "Very much."

"You really would? You're not just saying that to please a man older than yourself?"

"No, I'd like it. Perhaps it would recall to me the battle in which I was wounded."

"You don't remember my telling you yesterday? No, I see you don't. I didn't mean to cause you such pain." He cleared his throat. "I'll make it up to you, my boy. I'm a wealthy man back home, though you mightn't think it to see me parading about in this stuff. I'm in leather, you see. Everybody in leather knows Hypereides." He paused and his smile faded. "Three ships the Assembly laid on me."

"Three ships?"

"Build them, outfit them, pay the rowers. It cost… well, you wouldn't believe what it cost. Want to take a look at them, my boy?"

"Yes. I'm sure I've seen ships before, somewhere, and they were very interesting."