Furies (54 page)

Aculeo felt his heart pound in his chest as he drew his knife, the blade tucked back against the flat of his wrist, and moved closer to the man, only ten cubits away now. How shall I do it? he wondered, his knees like water. Move in from behind, take him by the throat, end it fast before his slave can act, then run.

This is madness, he thought. I’m no killer, am I?

Yes, yes I can be, I must be if the alternative’s too much to bear.

And if I succeed, what then? This street leads the wrong way, down to the harbour. I’ll need to double back then, head towards the Agora, try to lose any pursuers there. His heart was in his throat now, his breathing shallow, harsh, his hands trembling as sweat trickled down his back. Only a few steps away now.

He could smell the man’s oiled hair scented with dense, expensive perfume. He could see the soft roll of pale skin on the back of his neck, the collar of his fine tunic dark with sweat. Aculeo lifted the knife, his other hand ready to grab the hair on the back of the man’s head, to pull it back, expose the throat, then cut. He took a deep, shaky breath and started to move in.

The sound of a child’s laughter. A boy no more than three years old emerged from one of the shops with his nursemaid. Aculeo hesitated as he locked eyes with the child who smiled at him, a beautiful, innocent smile …

Things seemed to move too slowly after that. Aculeo stayed his hand, turned awkwardly away, slipping on the paving stones, dropping his knife. Someone let out a warning cry and Ralla looked up, eyes lit with fear. The banker snatched the boy from the nursemaid’s arms and fell back against the wall of a shop, shielding himself with the now wailing child.

Aculeo tried to escape but someone grabbed his tunic, holding him back. He felt a sudden electric jolt in his side, his mouth filling with blood as the pain radiated through him like a brushfire. He saw the slave sweep the knife towards him for a second strike and managed to block it just in time, then punched him in the throat. The slave dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Ralla scuttled to safety into an oblivious group of tourists just emerged from the shops, still clutching the bawling child in his arms.

Aculeo staggered away, hand to his side, his tunic slick with blood, trying to breathe, a wet sucking sound emanating from his chest. He made it out into the main street, fell into the anonymous evening crowds around the Agora. He stumbled off into the night, everything spinning around, knowing he’d just lost the only chance he’d get.

Epiphaneus grimaced as he limped towards the rail of the Pharos balustrade, looking down upon the city. Dusk was falling, visitors had thinned to a few scattered tourists. The sophist pulled his himation tight around his round, sloping shoulders. “A cold, lonely place to meet, Zeanthes.”

“Apologies, my dear friend,” Zeanthes said. “You told me you wanted to meet somewhere private away from the Museion. I should have been more respectful of your age.”

“I’m but three years older than you,” Epiphaneus snapped. “It’s not frailty on my part – it’s this wretched place. There’s nothing to cut the sea wind.”

Zeanthes looked down at the waves that crashed across the island’s white sands, the winds off the sea blowing stray hairs across his face. “I do enjoy spending time up here. It gives one a unique perspective of the city and the world, as the gods must look upon such things.”

Epiphaneus snorted. “You’re just a man, though, standing with another man at the end of the day upon a tower still other men have built.”

“Yet here we can bear witness to what great things the gods have inspired us to dream, create, achieve.”

“The gods are for children and fools.”

Zeanthes put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You haven’t been yourself of late, Epiphaneus. What ails you?”

The sophist said nothing for a while, just gripped the rail, looking down at the grey-white tower wall to the rugged shore far below. “I came here some years ago to conduct an experiment. I took two projectiles of similar dimensions but of different weights, and dropped them from this very balustrade at precisely the same time. I had a slave stand below, measuring the time and distance they fell from the starting point. And what do you think happened?”

“Tell me.”

“They reached the earth at exactly the same time, exactly the same distance from the starting point. This force that draws us to the earth is fundamentally the same for all things. All bodies might thus be connected. The sun is drawn to the earth as the earth is to the sun. We in turn are drawn to the earth, hence we do not fall from its face, and we are similarly drawn to one another, collecting in cities where we bridge our relationships with our fellow man.”

“So the world, the cosmos, even our perception of reality itself are purely mathematical?” Zeanthes asked.

“As Pythagoras taught us, yes.”

“Still, you must also accept that none of the things that are known by us could have come into being without the handiwork of the divine artisans.”

“I accept nothing of the sort. Our lack of understanding of our own existence is hardly proof of existence of higher powers.”

“Nor is our inability to see these higher powers any proof of their non-existence.”

“Rubbish. We’ve nothing else to measure but our own reality.”

“But what most men interpret as reality, our day-to-day lives, are just poor reflections, imperfect emanations from our eternal souls.”

“If reality is nothing, then what is death?” Epiphaneus demanded, scowling at the other sophist from beneath his bushy white eyebrows.

“Merely a transmigration, a phase,” Zeanthes replied. “Human souls are divine and immortal but they are doomed to follow a grievous circle of successive lives. Between our lives, a void exists, which separates and distinguishes our natures as do the spaces between numbers.”

“More rubbish,” Epiphaneus said irritably. “You speak of Anaximander’s theory of metempsychosis. A minor work, unworthy of our consideration.”

“Yet consider the consequences. If our true reality is within the void, not in our day-to-day experience of reality, then whatever we do on this earth to bring us closer to the Godhead must therefore be virtuous.”

“So that lends credence to our actions against others? Even immoral actions?”

“You speak of morals, as though they are akin to rules of nature guiding heavenly bodies,” Zeanthes said with a strained smile.

“Morals at least provide a set of rules for man, for civilization such that we might live in some degree of mutual content.”

“So you espouse not divination but determinism, such that man’s only way forward is driven by the result of previous causes?”

“Determinism is a just approach,” Epiphaneus said.

“But there is a higher reality. If we act of free will, by definition we act with virtue, for it is that part of ourselves that is divine.”

“I repeat my original question: even if the actions we take are wicked?”

“Come, Epiphaneus. The wickedness of one man does no harm to another. Man’s soul is eternal. Aristotle himself said whatever steps we must take along the path to reach the end do not matter, only the end itself.”

“Yes? Well as far as I’m concerned the end is a decidedly loathsome place and hardly worth the bother,” the other sophist said bitterly.

“But the end is the nature of the thing.”

“Do you mock me now?”

“I meant no offense,” Zeanthes said.

Epiphaneus considered him for a moment, then turned away. The platform was empty now save for the two men, their silhouettes aglow in the light of Pharos, the silence between them bridged by the rhythmic crash of the waves below.

Zeanthes laid his hand on the other man’s shoulder, squeezed it gently. “Epiphaneus, something clearly troubles you. You asked me to meet with you for a reason. How can I help you, my friend?”

Epiphaneus sighed. “The Chief Librarian has decided not to extend my patronage.”

The other sophist looked at him in surprise. “But why?”

“Why else? To make room for younger, lesser minds. After twenty-three years in this place, I’ve now been relegated as redundant.”

“But that’s appalling! Whatever will you do?”

“I’ve struggled with that same question for some time. Then I realized the answer was obvious. I will simply speak with him about you.”

“About me?” Zeanthes asked, caught off guard.

“Yes. I will speak to him about how well noble Zeanthes espouses in such dulcet tones the words of Pythagoras, Anaximander, even Aristotle as his own, while he seems so blissfully unaware of his own. I’m sure he will find it quite illuminating.”

“I don’t understand.”

Epiphaneus reached into his satchel and took out a soft vellum case. He opened it, and from it slid a scroll. “Do you recognize this?”

Zeanthes took the scroll from the other man and scanned it. He smiled and shook his head. “So this is what you wanted to speak to me about in such secrecy.”

“Would you have preferred I’d raised the question on the square porch in front of an audience of our peers?”

“Where did you find this?”

“It matters not. It’s your work and in your own handwriting, is it not? A rare and unusual document for that and other reasons. Not the least being that you make within it a quite eloquent argument that man must trust reality, and that all else is subservient. You come across as a true and well-considered Stoic, in fact.”

“A youthful exercise in thought,” Zeanthes said with a shrug, though his gaze never left the other sophist.

“Youthful? It was written but five years ago. It should be noted, however, that no copy of it exists in the Library. Which brings me to another interesting observation. The Library holds original copies of virtually every book known to man, as has been its purpose from the beginning. Yet original copies of your works are not to be found, much to the surprise of the Librarians themselves, for they claim they used to have a complete collection. All of them are now gone, it seems. This scroll, however, was taken from a Persian merchant ship just this week.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Epiphaneus, but my views have changed since that was written,” Zeanthes said dismissively.

“Such things happen of course. A ship may change course with the winds. A rider may change a tired horse. But tell me please, how does a well-spoken Stoic develop into a muddle-headed Skeptic like yourself? And even if I could grudgingly accept such a thing, what am I to make of the fact that when I compare your work to other documents I recently obtained from the desk in your room, it is apparent that your handwriting has changed as markedly as your philosophy.”

“So we have at last arrived at the root of the matter then,” Zeanthes said, watching the seagulls kite through the dimming sky.

“I suppose we have,” Epiphaneus said, smiling in triumph. “You admit you are not Zeanthes of Araethyrea?”

“What does it matter now?”

“What does it matter?” the sophist asked, dumbfounded. “It matters a great deal!”

“Why?”

“Because I have lived my life, done my work, advanced the field of human knowledge and understanding, yet I am ridiculed, despised, called redundant. You, meanwhile, have somehow latched onto your acclaimed career like a parasite, plastering over it with muddled lies. You should be despised and scourged as a fraud but instead you are respected and honoured.”

“I’m sorry, Epiphaneus,” Zeanthes sighed.