Soldier of the mist

CHAPTER XL-Among Forgotten Friends

The heart remembers, even when no trace of face or voice remains. The black man came ru

When we had shouted together and pounded each other on the back and hugged with all our strength like two wrestlers, Pasicrates tried to question him; but he only smiled and shook his head.

Io explained, "He understands-most of it, anyway. But he can't talk, or he won't."

Drakaina said something then in a harsh and rapid way that seemed to me no better than the creaking and grinding of mill stones; and to Io's amazement and my own, the black man answered her at once in the same language. "Your friend speaks the tongue of Aram," Drakaina told Io. "Not as well as the People from Parsa, but nearly as well as I do myself."

Pasicrates said, "Then ask him how he came to learn it."

She spoke to him again, and when he had replied she said, "He says, 'For three years I was with the army. We marched from Nysa to Riverland, from Riverland over the desert to the Crimson Country, then through many other countries.' He also says, 'My king is not subject to the Great King; but the Great King gave him gold and many fine things, and swore there would be peace between our lands forever if he would send a thousand men. I walked before a hundred and twenty, all young men from my own district, and I learned to talk in this way that I might know the wishes of the Lords of Parsa.' " Drakaina added, "I'm shortening this a little."

Io demanded, "Ask how he met Latro."

" 'I saw a god had touched him. Such people are holy; someone must care for them.' "

Io started to ask where Hypereides was, but Pasicrates silenced her. "Does he want to go back to his own country?"

Before Drakaina spoke, the black man nodded and began to speak. She said, "Yes, very much. He says, 'My father and mother are there, both my wives, and my son, who is very small.' "

Pasicrates nodded. "Are there any of the other men from his country in the city?"

"He says he doesn't know, but he doesn't think so. He thinks they may have gone south with the army. He says, 'If they were here, they would show themselves to me on the walls.' And I suppose he's right-he was in plain view working on that tower; hundreds of people in the city must have seen him."

"Tell him I require him to carry a message into the city for me."

Io protested. "He belongs to Hypereides!" I think she did not want to lose sight of the black man again so soon after we had found him.

"Who will surely consent for the good of our cause. No doubt he will be compensated by his city."

"He says Latro and this child must come with him." I smiled and Io giggled, darting a glance at Pasicrates. He ignored her. "And why is that?"

Now the black man spoke at length, touching his chest and pointing with his chin to Io and me, and toward Sestos, and once pretending to draw a bow.

Drakaina told Pasicrates, "He says he won't do what you ask as a slave, that a slave remains a slave only as long as he's watched. If he goes back to the People from Parsa, he will be a soldier again, and as a soldier he won't do what you ask unless you free Latro, and Io too. He says you can force him to go to the city, but that once there he won't deliver your message-only tell lies."

Even Pasicrates smiled at that.

"For myself," Drakaina added, "I remind you that I am the person sent by your regent to the barbarians-not this black man. Not even you."

"Yet another messenger may be useful, particularly one who speaks their tongue. His price is too high, but I imagine it can be lowered."

I said I was willing to go into Sestos if he wished me to.

Pasicrates shook his head. "If you were lost permanently, how could I explain to the regent? No, you must stay with me until the city capitulates and we return home."

Catching my eye, the black man motioned toward the tower, then spoke to Drakaina.

She said, "He desires to show you what he has been building."

I said, "And I want to see it. Come along, Io." Though I did not say so, I suspected the black man wished to put himself under the protection of the man called Hypereides. I do not remember him, but Io seemed to like him, and it appeared likely the black man was right in thinking he would fare better with him than with the Rope Maker.

"You know everything about siegecraft," Pasicrates said as we came near the tower. "Explain this to me."

I told him that since he could see it himself, there was very little to explain. It was a tower on wheels, built of wood. The back was left open to reduce its weight, but the front and sides were covered with planks to keep out arrows, and with leather to prevent the planks from being set ablaze. Before the tower was pushed against the wall, the leather would be soaked with water by men using rag swabs on long poles. In addition, leather buckets of water would be hung in the tower, to be used by the men inside.

He said, "Our enemies will put their finest troops opposite this tower."

I answered, "Yes, but good fighters will be put in the tower too."

The black man had gone around it as we spoke. Now he reappeared, bringing with him a bald man in a leather cuirass. The bald man seemed astonished to see us, then smiled broadly. "Latro and little Io, by the Standing Stone! I didn't think I'd be setting eyes on you again till we got back to Thought. How did you get here? Is that fellow Pindaros with you?"

He patted Io's head, and she embraced him and seemed for a moment too moved to speak.

"I don't suppose you remember Pindaros the poet, do you, Latro? Or his wench Hilaeira either."

The Rope Maker stepped forward. "I am Pasicrates, son of Polydectes. I am here as the representative of Prince Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, Victor of Clay and Regent of Rope."

"Hypereides," Hypereides said. "Son of Ion-" Io whispered afterward that he meant he was of the Ionian people and proud of it, and that Pasicrates is a Dorian. "-commander of the Europa, the Eidyia, and the Clytia. Only my ships aren't in the water right now." He jerked his head toward the west. "They're beached, and most of my men are here working on these things."

Pasicrates said, "I'm told you sold this slave to a hetaera in your city."

"That's right, to Kalleos." Hypereides paused, looking from Pasicrates to Drakaina, as though wondering whether either were out to make trouble for him. "Not legally, of course, because women in my city can't hold property. Everything's in the name of a man she calls her nephew. She pays him so much a year for that."

"We are more reasonable in Rope-we don't love lies. Latro and the child are our regent's now, given him by your hetaera."

Io yelped, "He was supposed to pay!"

"Then he will, you may be sure. But in Rope, children who speak out of turn are whipped for it. Remember that." Pasicrates had never taken his eyes from Hypereides. "As the strategist of the Rope Makers here, I'm interested in your tower, Commander. How could you make it so the top was level with the top of the wall, when you couldn't measure the wall?"

Hypereides cleared his throat. "With all due respect, Strategist, neither one of those is exactly true. We want the top higher than the wall, so we can put bowmen there to shoot down on the enemy. And we could measure the wall. We did. Come around to the front here." He led the way and pointed upward. "See that door? It swings down, and it'll be level with the merlons. There's a stair in the back, as you probably saw, so all our men will have to do is run up the steps and step off onto the wall."