"What's the matter? Has he done murder? We're not a traveling sanctuary for fugitives."
The Kordian, whose name was Inaudos, whispered to Vardanas. The latter said: "He fears his wife."
And so Inaudos was with us when we set out. He had just finished hitching up one of the mule teams when a bright-clad Kordian woman appeared at the camp. With a screech she rushed upon Inaudos, waving a cudgel.
The Kordian cast a terrified glance around. The nearest refuge was the back of Aias, who stood awaiting a prod from Siladites to set him in motion. For all his bulk, Inaudos climbed up the elephant's harness and blanket like a monkey and tumbled into the booth.
The woman danced with rage about the elephant but did not dare come close. Inaudos put his thumbs in his ears, twiddled his fingers, and stuck out his tongue in a Gorgonian grimace.
Then Thyestes blew the trumpet, and off we went. The woman trotted after us, screaming curses, until our fording of the Tigris left her behind.
As a result of heavy rains in the Kordian mountains, a sudden rise in the Tigris had washed out the bridge at Bezabde. It was a nasty fording, like that of the Haitoumans in Arachotia. Although the water at the ford was no more than thigh-deep, it was abominably cold and dismayingly swift. We dismounted and led our beasts, the men holding each other's hands to steady themselves.
We had nearly crossed when I heard a shriek. Elisas had slipped and was instantly swept into deeper water. Knowing him to be no more of a swimmer than Vardanas, I plunged in after him and soon caught up with his thrashing form.
However, when I started to haul him out, he caught me round the neck in a death grip. Every time I got my face out of water for a quick breath, he dragged me under again. I struck at him, trying to stun him, and tore at his hands to break his grip, but Pan gave the little man the strength of a bear.
It would have gone ill indeed with me had I not felt a grip on my belt and found myself pulled into shallow water. Inaudos the Kordian stood over us, talking a spate in his own tongue and, I suppose, chiding us for our folly. When Elisas recovered, he was so voluble in his thanks to Inaudos and to me that fain would I have stunned the fellow again to quiet him.
Now the road bore westward, betwixt the snowy Masios Mountains on our right and the sweeping plains of Mygdonia on our left. This fertile land had turned from brown to green with the winter's rains. Alas! The rains had also made the road into a river of mud in which we splashed, slithered, and stuck. Once, when the way went down a rather steep hill, Aias balked and would descend the slope only by sitting and sliding on his colossal backside.
Now it was the elephant's turn to earn his passage. When a cart stuck fast, at the Indians' commands he placed his head against the back of the stalled wain. At the cry of "Zouk!" he pushed until the vehicle came free.
We had thus impelled the carts through a slough one day and were riding along again covered with mud, when I found myself at the head of the column beside Nirouphar. For several days I had had but little speech with her. I had been busy with heaving our vehicles through Syrian quagmires, whilst she had been making much of her friend the elephant, who was slowly getting over his cold.
While no orator, I have seldom been at a loss for words to suit the occasion—not polished Athenian rhetoric, perhaps, but plain, blunt words. With the Persian damsel, howsomever, my tongue seemed to swell up and fill my mouth.
After I had uttered some foolishness about the weather, she cast a glance towards Pyrron. The philosopher was striving, with his smattering of Persian, to learn from Inaudos about the customs of the Kordians, such as their habit of burying food beneath the floors of their houses, and keeping cheeses in pots for years. Nirouphar said:
"Troop Leader Rheon, I am utterly vexed! Would you could help me!"
I braced myself. "If there is aught I can do, dear lady, do you but name it."
"For days the wise Pyrron has avoided me. He talks but to you and my brother and the other men. Pray, find out what I have done to offend him!"
"You have done nought. It is only that Pyrron cares but little for the beauty of women."
"Do you mean he has the Greek vice?"
"Nay. I meant that the passions of the body mean little to him. His mind is always in a philosophical cloud. To him, you and I are but moving shadows; the real world is that of the intellect."
"But who spoke of the passions of the body? No such thought entered into our converse. I was learning Greek culture and had even come to understand a syllogism when he abruptly broke off our discourse. Please ask him what I must do to be deemed worthy of his wisdom again."
I said with a grin: "Let's say the rest of us became jealous of him for taking all the time of the fairest lady amongst us, and warned him to give us our share."
"Oh, rubbish! You know my brother is off scouting most of the time, whilst Kanadas merely grunts when I try to talk to him. I would not company with Thyestes, for he is a lustful man and ignorant, who regards a woman as nought but a sheath for his yard. As for you, you have been immersed in the hipparchia's affairs, and you gave me to know at the outset that you did not wish me underfoot."
"I thought that wretched quarrel was long since over and done with?"
"It is; but still you are not the sort of man with whom a prudent person takes liberties."
"Everybody seems to regard me as an ogre. But I am really a shy, timid wight beneath the bluster."
She looked astonished, then burst into laughter. "If a lion come to me and say, 'I am really a lamb beneath the mane and claws,' I shall believe him. If you are indeed a hare at heart, you hid the fact most masterfully."
"So it would seem. And that is not all I have been hiding."
"What mean you?"
"Is it not plain, woman? Love for you drives me to distraction. I burn in Tartaros with the thought of you."
She recoiled in her seat and looked at me as one would look at a scorpion in one's porridge, or so at least it seemed to me in my excited state.
"I know I am no thing of beauty," I muttered, "but I do have a good heart."
"It is not that, dear Rheon," she said gently. "In sooth, I should call you rather handsome in a rugged manly way. It is that you are not an Arian. Therefore, you should not even speak of love."
"I meant no offense, but that is the way of things. I am after all of a good landowning family, of the knightly class. For that matter, neither is Pyrron an Arian."
"Oh—but—but he is a philosopher. Philosophers belong to no nation but to the world. He says so."
"That is not how your brother looks upon the matter. Philosophers are born of human parents and beget human children like other men."
"Pyrron has never made lewd advances to me!"
"Who said he had? But you and he have been close enough on this journey to give rise to all kinds of surmises."
"And why should I not get as much education as opportunity allows? You Hellenes are worse than the men of my own nation. You cannot believe that a woman might wish to better herself. When you see one trying to learn, you are sure it is but an excuse, and that she really suffers from an itch beneath her trousers and seeks a hard horn to scratch it with!"
"My dear, I never said—"
"Nay, but you thought. And why should I not speak with Pyrron? You and the Indian go for hours without saying a word, but I am not like that. And Pyrron at least has never called me a useless burden."
"Oh, do stop twitting me on that!" I exclaimed. "I know I am a base boor, an unmannerly lout from the backwoods of Thessalia. I am unfit to give you a leg up in mounting. What can I do to gain your forgiveness?"
"You have it, good Rheon. I will not mention the matter again. And look not so sad. There are many girls of your own nation who would be glad to belong to so fine a hero as yourself."