Furies (16 page)

“Hey, I’ve been waiting for you.” The recluse was sitting there in the doorway of the empty shop again, staring at the porne.

Philomena’s head was spinning. A belly full of beer and little else, she’d had scant sleep in days, but the night was still young. “Ay, it’s been a busy night.”

“Busy, yes, a busy night,” the recluse said with a shy smile. He moved over to make room for her to sit with him in the doorstep and passed over his jar of palm wine. He’s sweet enough, she thought, poor fellow. She took a long drink from the jar, shuddering at the harsh brackishness of the stuff. The night was filled with a dour yellow glow.

“My Eurydice,” he said softly.

She laughed. “Call me anything you like I suppose. What shall I call you?”

“Orpheus.”

“Alright, Orpheus, you’ve been waiting for me again, have you? How long this time?”

He hesitated, blinking rapidly, and scratched his beard. “I can’t recall. A long time I think.”

“You’ve been alright then? Got enough to eat, have you?”

“Eat?” he said, licking his lips. “Yesterday…..yesterday, I think I ate, but…. I can’t recall.”

“Here,” Philomena said, and gave him some hard bread and figs she’d been keeping for later in her pouch. He looked at them, mystified for a moment, then gobbled them down. Poor thing, she thought, he’s like a stray dog, just sticks and hide, not even a cloak, and she could see his jutting ribs beneath his dirty chiton. “What happened to your old cloak?”

He looked down at himself, mystified. “I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you chilled?”

“I’m kept warm by the love of Sarapis,” he said simply, as though the answer was obvious. His beard and hair were filthy as well, still, he’d probably not been bad looking once. Save for the knotted pink scar that twisted like rope across his face from ear to cheek, curving in cruelly across his lips to his chin.

“Well listen,” she said, “I should …”

“Do you know of the grace of Sarapis?” he asked suddenly, then closed his eyes, muttering, “may others learn to worship you as I so humbly do and offer you your rightful tributes throughout eternity.”

“What? Oh, sure, I suppose.”

“He rules over all that is good and light,” the recluse said fervently.

“That’s nice.”

He wouldn’t stop staring at her – it was unsettling. She took another draw from the jar before passing it back to him. “Well, I suppose I should go.”

“Go? Where shall we go?”

“I don’t know where you’re going, but I have to meet some people. I’ve business to do,” she said, standing up, staggering a bit from the beer and sheer exhaustion.

“Wait. Wait. Would you like something pretty?” he said, his eyes lit with a strange light.

“Silver and bronze are as pretty as they get these days.”

The recluse wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, watching her, drawing closer. She could feel the heat from his body, and that awful smell, he probably hadn’t been to the baths in years. Which baths would even admit him? She watched him fumble in his dirty tunic, then he held his closed fist out to her. A thin braid of yellow twine was tied around his filthy wrist, she noticed, like a makeshift bracelet. “Guess what I have here.”

“I don’t know, darling. Really, I have to…”

“Here, see, I brought it for you,” he said, sliding closer to her, close enough to touch her, his breathing hard and ragged. He licked his lips, still staring at her with his eerie, unblinking eyes. She looked at his clenched fist, wondering what it held, until finally curiosity got the better of her. She held out her hand. He was frighteningly fast the way he seized her wrist.

“Ow, stop it,” she gasped, trying to pull away, but he twisted her wrist, forcing it around, then opened his fist and dropped something into her open, trembling hand before finally releasing her.

She looked into her open palm cautiously, raising her eyebrows in surprise. “Is it real?”

He stroked her hair awkwardly, breathing hard, pulled her close, tried to kiss her on the lips, his breath foul, his teeth rotting and brown as old apples. “Eurydice,” he whispered.

She pushed him away in revulsion. “Oh no, please.” She looked in her hand, then up at him and she sighed. “Not here at least.”

The skies were a tattered grey from the morning rains, but the sun was at last beginning to peek through near the horizon, the husk of clouds peeling back to reveal great blue swaths beneath. The air smelled of copper from the rain. Decius liked to watch the pink worms wriggling on the paving stones as they tried to escape the morning light. His teacher’s house was just up ahead, he could see the peaked roof above the tops of the date palms. School was always so boring, so many lines to memorize, music to learn, and the teacher smelled of garlic. How much better would it be to run about and play instead? Why do grownups insist on making life so dreary?

“You’ve memorized your Phocylides?” the slave Scato wheezed, limping along the road after him.

“Umhm,” Decius said, profoundly disinterested in the whole matter. He looked at the little woven reed boat he’d made, turning it to and fro in his hands. A master shipbuilder couldn’t have done better, he thought.

“Put that silly thing down and pay attention,” Scato said.

“Do you think it will float this time?”

“How should I know? You have your music today as well. Your teacher said you weren’t paying attention last class, that he had to flog you before you’d listen.”

Decius shrugged. “He likes to flog boys. He’s odd that way.”

“So you were paying attention?”

“What?” Decius asked, barely restraining a smirk.

“Don’t test me, boy.” The child could be such a challenge sometimes. Still, Scato regularly thanked the gods for granting him the brains to be permitted to serve as the child’s pedagogue and not one of the normal household slaves. He was getting on fifty after all – he doubted his old body could have taken the sheer physical drudgery of that sort of work anymore. “Ah, let’s slow it down a bit, my hip is stiff.”

“But I want to try out my boat.”

“On the way home we shall.”

“You always say that, we never have time.”

“Decius…”

“I’ll tell father you stopped off to drink wine with your friends again and made me late for school.”

“Tell him what you like, little Master, but if you don’t slow down I’ll take the rod to you myself and tell your father how rude you’ve been.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” the boy said, and ran ahead towards the banks of the canal. Scato yelled after him, of course, but there was no chance of the old slave catching him. The canal wound through the city before feeding back down to the tributaries that led from the Nile. Whitewashed, single-story buildings rose on either side of the banks, their red-tile roofs crisp against the morning sky. Decius ran through the little gardens that lined the banks, the plants still wet from the rain, then kicked off his sandals and slid barefoot down the muddy banks to the water. He could hear Scato cursing behind him, though his thin voice was growing fainter.

Decius set his little boat in the water and let it go, watching it move steadily along in the gentle current, light as a feather, twisting and turning in the eddies before finally getting tangled in the reeds. The boy stepped into the murky water, up to his calves, almost slipped in the stinking black muck, and pushed the boat free. The reeds were high, almost up to his chin, the soft hum of insects skimming along the surface, ducks paddling lazily about. The sun appeared for a moment from behind the clouds, turning the water surface a soft hazy gold. Decius looked up – the boat was caught in a current, almost tipping over before righting itself, then it turned straight and floated well down the way, like a tiny trireme.

“Decius, what in the name of the gracious Isis are you DOING?” Scato cried from the banks. “You got mud on your good chiton! You come back up here right now!”

“But I have to get my boat,” Decius said as he waded along the shore.

“Oh leave it be, you’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“Just a second.” The ducks, startled, quacked in protest and beat their wings noisily along the water surface before rising up and over the bank. The little reed boat was just ahead, caught amongst some yellow palm fronds. Decius waded out towards it, the water up to his knees now.

“There are crocodiles in there, child! Just leave the cursed thing alone!”

“I almost have it,” said the boy. He grabbed a palm frond floating nearby and lowered it towards the boat. The boat bobbed about beneath the sodden and dripping leaves but remained caught in the reeds. Decius waded in further, the water up to his waist almost.

“If I have to come down there …”

The boy carefully moved the reeds aside, prodding the boat, which finally disentangled itself from the debris and floated free. Something moved in the silent darkness of the water towards him from the debris.

“Oh!” Decius moved back with a start, his feet slipping in the black mud as he moved, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Decius, get out of there now! Decius!”

The boy tried to get away but the mud sucked at his feet, holding him back. He lost his balance and slipped, falling backwards into the debris. The slave cried out in horror. The thing rose to the surface just beside the boy, a pale orb bobbing towards him. The thing had gaping eyes, straggling dark hair across its pale face, puffy grey lips and a ragged slash across its pale throat.

Decius screamed.

Sekhet looked down at the woman’s corpse, her expression grim. Aculeo stood back, closing his aching eyes against the bright morning sunlight, his stomach sour. Rumour in the Agora about a dead woman being pulled from the canal had proven all too true. So far, Aculeo and Sekhet were the only ones on the scene save for a handful of curious onlookers and some dirty-faced children hovering behind them, watching her work.