He may have been motivated by vengeance at the beginning, but this boy enjoyed his work. He would not have stopped at four.
“Exactly how did you get that message across to these women?” Iliona laid down the fan, and now there was a contemptuous edge to her voice. “They were unconscious when you crept out of the cellar. Unconscious when you slipped the noose round their necks, and unconscious when you hauled on the rope. That doesn’t sound very powerful to me. In fact, it seems more like the hand of a coward.”
“No, no, I—”
“The trial will probably be halted for laughter once the jury hears how this big, strong Champion of Vengeance spent three days hiding behind a sack and peeing in an olive jar.”
“It’s no different from a hunter lying in wait,” he protested. “Ouch!”
“Ooh, did that hurt?” Iliona jabbed the inside of his nostril a second time with the sharpened quill of her pen. “That doesn’t bode well, does it?” she asked the head of the Krypteia. “Remind me again what the punishment is for killing a citizen?”
“First the guilty party is paraded naked through the streets,” Lysander rumbled. “It draws a large crowd, so of course if someone should throw something nasty at him, or take a shot with their fists, there’s little my men can do to protect him.”
“That’s not fair,” Tibios whined. “I’m entitled to civility at my execution!”
“And you shall have it,” Lysander assured him. “With great civility, you will be thrown into the Ravine of Redemption, where you can — with even more civility — contemplate your crimes as you lie bleeding.”
“That’s for traitors! You can’t do that to me! I’m no traitor—”
“There will be no food, no drink, no comfort down there. Just you, your broken bones, and the wolves that circle closer each day.”
“Not forgetting the moon, so white and so bright overhead,” Iliona said. “Which will wane, and then wax again, before you eventually join the Land of the Shades.”
“Don’t think you can aid your own death either,” Lysander rumbled. “Your hands will be tied behind your back when you’re thrown. With the greatest civility, of course.”
Above the rugged peaks and fertile valleys, Night cast her web of dreams to the music of crickets and the nightingale’s haunting song. Tomorrow, the countryside would ring with the drums and trumpets of the annual Corn Festival, as the first ears of wheat were offered to the goddess Demeter. How sad that the women who had worked so tirelessly to bring their crops to maturity were not here to lay their gifts on the altar.
“I suppose you were hoping it was the general behind the killings?”
The guards had long since dragged Tibios off to the dungeons, but Lysander showed no inclination to accompany them. Instead, he’d taken the chair vacated by the killer, folded his hands behind his neck, and closed his eyes. It was too much for Iliona to hope he’d nodded off. As she’d said before, the Krypteia don’t sleep. Even in a cocoon of their own velvet wings.
“I can’t tell you the satisfaction that clapping him in irons would have given me after the things he wrote to the Council.” A rumble sounded in the back of his throat. It was, she realized, the first time she’d heard Lysander laugh. “Unfortunately, as much as the general wants my job, I wasn’t convinced he’d go to those lengths.”
“But you checked anyway.”
One eye opened. “I checked.”
Iliona poured herself a goblet of dark, fruity wine. Somehow, she thought she would need it. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to what looked like a squishy cushion wrapped in blue cotton under her desk.
“Oh, didn’t I say?” The eye closed. “It’s a present.”
She drank her wine, all of it, before unwrapping the bundle. “A hunting net?”
“I find it quite remarkable, don’t you, how so many women who were previously considered barren have been blessed with a much-wanted child over the last four or five years?”
Sickness rolled in the pit of her stomach.
“Spartan justice is famed throughout the world,” he continued levelly. “Not only done, it is also seen to be done, to quote the poet Terpander. But then—” Lysander stood up. Stretched. Rubbed the stiffness out of the back of his neck. “Terpander was an inexhaustible composer of drinking songs, who died choking on a fig during a musical performance.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s not a hunting net. It’s a bird snare. If you look closely, you’ll see the mesh is finer than the fishing net in which you currently catch your flying babies, yet strong.” He didn’t even pause. “It will dramatically reduce the time you spend on maintenance.”
“You’re — not arresting me?”
“Whilst a boy with a twisted leg might not make a good warrior, Iliona, I’m sure he can weave a fine cloak or engrave a good seal.” He leaned over the desk and poured himself a goblet of wine from the bowl. “The same way that not every man can be a cold-blooded killing machine. Some need to break free.”
Iliona’s legs were so weak with relief that she had to sit down. “Helping deserters is treachery in the eyes of the law.”
“The law can’t afford to have men on the front line who cannot be relied on.” He grinned. “And on a more personal level, the law prefers devoting its precious time and resources to rooting out real traitors, rather than track down weaklings who will only let their country down in battle.” He refilled his goblet. “Of course, that’s only my opinion, and I would prefer you didn’t bandy it around.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, and for heaven’s sake, was she actually laughing?
Iliona opened the door and lifted her face to the constellations. The Lion, the Crab, and the Heavenly Twins. Far above the mulberries and vines, the paddocks and the barley fields, Night watched the High Priestess in the doorway. Guided by the stars and aided by the Fates, who measured, spun, and cut the thread of life, Night had long since dried the tears of the bereaved and wrapped them in the softness of her arms. Having called on her children, Pain, Misery, Nemesis, and Derision, to plague Tibios the acolyte, she was now ready to pass the baton of responsibility to her good friend, the Dawn.
And when the sun rose over the jagged peaks of Mount Parnon, some still capped with snow, Iliona smelled the scent of daisies, roses, and, of course, white lilies. This time, their perfume was sweet.
Copyright © 2012 by Marilyn Todd
Beauty
by Rubem Fonseca
EQMM has published several short stories by Rubem Fonseca over the years. As we have noted on past occasions, the author is one of Brazil’s best-known literary figures, a writer whose work is considered groundbreaking for its gritty and realistic depiction of life in the cities of his native country. What we have not mentioned before is that the author was once a policeman in Rio de Janeiro, where he rose to the rank of police commissioner.
Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Then Elza told me: “When I see myself in the mirror I feel like dying. I look at photographs of when I was twenty, you remember me when I was twenty, don’t you? And I think, how did this happen? I forget that, like someone said, time is the worst poison of all. I should have died when I was twenty, it doesn’t matter how, run over, murdered, a brick falling on my head. If I’d known I was going to end up like this, look at me, just look at me, go ahead and look at me, if I’d known I was going to end up like this, I would’ve killed myself. But would it do any good? Do you believe in the soul?”