Gene Wolfe - Soldier of the mist

Our march to Sestos was long and cold. The Rope Makers wrapped themselves in their scarlet cloaks, and Drakaina hired two sailors to make a litter covered with sailcloth for her. I sheltered Io and myself under my cloak as well as I could, and I think that because there were two of us, we were warmer than all the rest.

"How big you're getting," I told her. "When I think of you it's always as someone much smaller, but your head comes to my ribs."

"Children my age grow fast," she told me. "Then too, traveling with you I've had sunshine and plenty of exercise, which most girls don't get. Good food too, while we were with Hypereides and Kalleos. Kalleos gave you this cloak, master, so you could wear your sword on the streets at night and not be stopped by the archers. I know you don't remember, but it was the night Eurykles bet he could raise a ghost."

"Who's Eurykles?" I asked her.

"A man we used to know. A magician. He's gone now, and I don't think he'll ever come back. Kalleos will miss him, I suppose. Do you still have your book?"

"Yes, I put it in my pack. I've got your clothes and your doll too."

"My doll's broken." She shrugged. "I like keeping it, though. Are you sure all that isn't too heavy for you? I could carry my own things. I'm your slave, after all."

"No. I could carry this pack a long way, and I suppose I'll have to. I doubt that it's any heavier than the loads the Rope Makers are carrying, with their helmets and spears, their armor and their big hoplons."

"But they have their own slaves to carry their tents and rations and the other things," Io pointed out. "When we were on Redface Island, they made their slaves carry everything except their swords. I don't understand why they don't do that here. Do you think they're afraid the slaves would slip in the mud if they had to carry so much?"

"They would only beat them," I told her. "This is the Empire, and they know we might be charged by the Great King's cavalry."

Io turned her dripping face to stare at mine. "How do you know that, master? Are you starting to remember?"

"No. I know those things, but I don't know how I learned them."

"Then you have to write all this down when we get to Sestos. Everything you remember from today, because I may not always be with you. And master, I heard the captain trying to buy you. Write that you're not a slave, even if-"

"I know," I told her. "But I wanted us to stay on the ship, if we could. A merchant ship visits many ports, and there are men in them from many others."

"So maybe you could find your home. I understand."

"Besides, I like the work, though not the idea of deserting my patron."

Io lifted a finger to her lips.

We still have not seen the walls. Darkness came long before we reached this place and pitched our tents. Pasicrates, Io, and I will sleep in this one, with Pasicrates's slaves. Drakaina shares a tent with two Rope Makers, I think so that neither can molest her.

We had beans, onions, and twice-baked bread tonight, and it seemed very little after so long a march through the rain, though there is still some wine. The Rope Makers joked about going to Sestos for more food, and some of them, I think, stole food from the soldiers of Thought. I find it easy to see why there is so much ill feeling between these two cities, even though they are allies, friends, as it is said in their tongue. Allies must be friends in deed and not only in word, if they are to have more than a sham alliance.

No moon and no stars tonight, only a thin drizzle that is almost a mist. I sit in the doorway of our tent, where the smoking fire gives just enough light for me to write. They say firewood is scarce already, but with a hundred Rope Makers and more than two hundred armed slaves at his command, Pasicrates will have all he needs, so I throw on more whenever the flames sink too low.

When I was a child, we saved the prunings from our vines to burn-I remember that. I remember my mother's singing as she crouched by the fire to stir a little black pot, and how she watched me as she sang to see whether I enjoyed her song. When my father was there, he would cut a pipe from reeds, and then the reeds sang her song with her. Our god-I have just remembered this-was Lar. My father said Mother's song made Lar happy. I remember thinking I understood more than he, and being proud and secretive (as little boys are) because I knew Lar was the song, and not something apart from it. I remember lying under the wolfskin and seeing Lar flash from wall to wall, singing and teasing me. I tried to catch him and woke rubbing my eyes, with Mother singing beside the fire.

Siege towers and battering rams are everywhere on the landward side of the city, each with a few hundreds to protect it from a sally. That is so the barbarians will not know whence the attack will come, as Xanthippos, the strategist from Thought, explained. Pasicrates of course asked where it would come, but Xanthippos only shook his head and looked wise, saying he had several sites under consideration. It seemed to me he had not decided because no place is yet weak enough to permit an assault.

But perhaps I am driving my dog before the cattle. I should say first that Pasicrates, Drakaina, and I went to Xanthippos this morning; and that he is a man of about my own height, gray at the temples, with an affable yet reserved air Drakaina said is characteristic of the old aristocracy of Thought.

He welcomed us cordially to a tent bare of any sign of wealth or luxury, with a worn-out sail for a ground cloth and simple stools that appeared to have been made on the spot. "We are delighted," he said, "that the Rope Makers have chosen to join us. How encouraging to see our ancient friendship renewed in the face of our common enemy. Am I to take it that the other ships were blown from their course by yesterday's storm? Let us hope they arrive safely today."

"Why?" Pasicrates asked bluntly. "Are you in need of troops?"

"No, not at all. What I have real need of is a hole through those walls." Xanthippos chuckled, his keen gray eyes including all of us in his merriment. "There are only about five hundred barbarians inside, all told. Some thousand Hellenes, but I expect them to change their allegiance once the assault begins."

Pasicrates nodded. "We Hellenes are notorious for it-save for the men of my own city. And our assault will be…?"

"As soon as the walls are breached. That will be in another month, I should say. May I ask whether it is King Leotychides or Prince Pausanias who commands?"

"Neither," Pasicrates told him. "Nor will there be more ships. There was only one, and we have come."

It was not possible to tell whether Xanthippos was really surprised or merely feigning to be. He seemed to me the sort of man who has mastered his feelings for so long that he no longer knows them, and may be furious or overcome by love without being conscious of either.

"I am the regent's man." Pasicrates took an iron signet from his finger and gave it to Xanthippos. "I come for him."

"Then allow me to congratulate him, through you, on his great victory. It will give me the deepest pleasure to do so in person upon some future day. No doubt you yourself took a leading part in that glorious battle. Alas that I was with the fleet! Would you care to cast aside, if only momentarily, that sometimes awkward briefness in speech for which your fellow citizens are so well known and describe for me-for my enlightenment as a strategist, I may say, as well as my delight-just what it was you did?"

"My duty," Pasicrates told him. He then questioned him about the progress of the siege but learned very little.

"So you see"-Xanthippos spread his hands-"the great thing is to retain the flexibility that enables one to seize, and indeed to recognize, opportunity."