The regent remarked, 'Here we know that good and evil come from the same gods, having observed that the same man is good one time and evil another.'
'Highness, a magus would say, Then I will call the good Ahuramazda and the bad Angra Manyu, evil mind. And if the good is truly good, won't it put the lie from it?'
The regent nodded. 'Yet what you say doesn't explain Orith-the other gods. What of earth, fire, wind, and so forth?'
Tisamenus nodded, leaning toward me to listen.
I said, 'Now I can speak for myself as well as for the magi. It doesn't seem to me that there can't be good without evil or evil without good. For a blind man, isn't it always night? With no day? It seemed to me that if Ahuramazda-'
A shieldman of the bodyguard entered as I spoke; when I fell silent, he addressed the regent. 'The captain has arrived, Highness.'
'Then he must wait. Go on, Latro.'
'If Ahuramazda exists, Highness, all things serve him. The oak is his; so is the mouse that gnaws its root. Without oaks there could be no mice, without mice no cats, and without cats no oaks. But shouldn't he have servants greater than oaks and men? Surely he must, because the gap between Ahuramazda and men and oaks is very wide, and we see that every king has some minister whose authority's only slightly less than his own, and that such men have ministers of their own, similarly empowered. Besides, the existence of the sun, the moon, the earth, and of fire and water are indisputable facts.'
'But the existence of Ahuramazda is not an indisputable fact. Finish your wine.'
I did so. 'Highness, let us think of a great city like Susa. Within the city stands a palace as great again. A beggar boy squats outside the palace wall, and I'm that poor boy.'
'Is Ahuramazda the king in that palace?'
I shook my head. 'No, Highness. Not so far as I, Latro the beggar boy, have seen. The servants are the lords of the palace. Once a cook gave me meat, and a scullion, bread. I've even seen the steward, Highness, with my own eyes. The steward's a very great lord indeed, Highness.'
The regent rose. Tisamenus stood at once, and so did I.
'So he is, to a beggar boy,' the regent said, 'though not to himself, perhaps. We'll speak of this again when you've returned from Sestos. Do you want to see your ship?'
I nodded. 'Even if it's the one we came in, I'd like to see it, Highness. I've forgotten it, but Io says we came by ship.'
'It's one of those that brought us here,' he told me as we stepped from the scented air of the tent into night air that was sweeter still. 'But not the one in which you and Io sailed with me. I'm taking that back to Olympia. One of the others is going to carry you and Pasicrates to Sestos.'
The shieldman and another man were waiting outside. The regent said, 'You're Captain Nepos?'
The captain stepped forward, bowing low. 'The same.' His hair gleamed like foam in the moonlight.
'You understand your commission and accept it?'
'I'm to carry a hundred Rope Makers and two hundred and seventy slaves to Sestos. And a woman, who must have a cabin to herself.'
'And a slave girl,' the regent told him. 'With the slave you see before you.'
'We can occupy the same cabin,' I said. 'Or we can sleep on deck, if there's no cabin for us.'
The captain shook his head. 'Just about everybody will have to sleep on deck, and it'll be crowded at that.'
The regent asked, 'But your ship will hold them all, with their rations?'
'Yes, Highness, only not in much comfort.'
'They don't require comfort. You know you won't be able to make port at Sestos? It's under siege, and the other ports of the Chersonese are still the Great King's.'
The captain nodded. 'I'll land them on this side, from boats. That'll be the safest way.'
'Good. Come with us, then. I've promised Latro the sight of your ship, and you'll have to point it out to him.' The regent looked about for Tisamenus, but he was gone. The shieldman offered to search for him, but the regent shook his head. 'You've got to allow these fellows some freedom, if you want to hang on to them.' As we began our walk, he added to me, 'He wanted to spare his legs, I suppose. We had to make him a citizen to get his help at Clay, but he's no Rope Maker, just the same.'
Though the moon was low and as crooked as my sword, it was a clear night with many stars. We climbed a cliff above the town that gave us a fine view of the little harbor. 'There's Nausicaa,' her captain said proudly. 'Nearest the mouth of the bay.' His ship was only a darker shape upon the dark water; yet I wished I were on board already, for I feel there is nothing for me here.
The regent said, 'You'll be anxious to get back, I imagine, Captain.'
'Anxious to serve you, Highness, but-'
'Go.' The regent waved a hand.
I thought we would return to the camp, but the regent remained where he was, and after a time I realized he was not looking at the ship, but at the sea, and at Sestos and the world beyond.
When he turned away at last, he said softly, 'What if the beggar boy-Let's not call him Latro; his name is Pausanias. What if Pausanias the beggar boy could become known to the king? You must help me, and I'll help you. I'll give you your freedom and much more.'
I said I did not think I could do anything, but I would be happy to do all I could.
'You can do a great deal, I think. You know the servants, Latro. Perhaps you can persuade them to allow me to enter the palace.'
He turned to go. The shieldman, who had followed us when we climbed the steep path up the cliff, came after us as silently as ever.
While we returned to the camp, I thought about what the regent had said and all the things I have written here. And I despaired of promoting so great and terrible an enterprise, though I could not say so when I parted from the regent. How is a man, even a prince and a regent, to enter a palace no man has seen? To befriend a monarch whose ministers are gods?
There is one more thing to tell, though I hesitate to write of it. A moment ago, as I was about to enter this tent Io and I share with Drakaina and Pasicrates, I heard the strange, sly voice of Tisamenus at my ear: 'Kill the man with the wooden foot!' When I looked around for him, there was no one in sight.
I have no notion what this may mean, or who the man with the wooden foot may be. Perhaps it was some trick of the wind. Perhaps I am to be mad as well as clouded of memory, and this voice was a phantom of that all-obscuring mist.
CHAPTER XXXV-Ships Can Sail Dry Land
Our ship is crossing the isthmus today. I have already read much in this scroll and found in it many things that puzzle me; perhaps I should write of our crossing before it becomes one puzzle more.
I woke with Io asleep beneath my arm and Drakaina awake on the other side. She says we coupled in the night, but I do not believe her. Though she is so lovely, her eyes are as hard as stones, and I would never have intercourse with a woman while a child slept with us. Nor do I believe a man could, without waking the child. Besides, though I cannot now recall the night before, I believe I could remember it when she first spoke, and that I did not credit what she said, though she said also that I had drunk too much wine.
True or not, I rose and dressed; so did she. Io woke too, grumbling because she had no chance to wash her little peplos while we were at sea and had none now, though we rode at anchor.
Our ship is larger than most of the others I saw in the harbor this morning. Io says we waited all yesterday for our turn at the slipway, but it is hard without a bribe for the slipmaster. This morning the young man who sleeps in our cabin roused his hundred (they sleep on the deck with their slaves and the sailors, and it was their feet that woke me) and had them rowed to the city. Io said we watched the ships yesterday, and the oxen draw them along the slip much more slowly than a man walks-that is true, as I see now-and thus we could go into the
