Bessas set the pace by alternately cantering and walking. Betimes he stopped to let the horses graze, while he and Myron sat on stones and munched salt meat and hard biscuits. By the second day Myron could hardly walk, let alone mount and dismount. Therefore his giant companion had to give him a leg-up.
"A mule at a gentle walk is more my speed," groaned Myron.
"You need a few more calluses on your arse," said the Bactrian. "You'll have them by the time we get to Kush."
"Or else I shall be dead, as dead as Odysseus' dog."
"Ha! Shall I then bury you, burn you, or throw you away as do the Magi?"
"Do as you like. As Herakleitos says, a corpse is worth no more than so much excrement."
"Good for him!" Bessas sang:
Myron observed that, while his companion had been morose and irritable in Persepolis, under the strict routine of the Immortals, he became buoyantly and boisterously cheerful once they were out on the royal road, owning no master and bound for the rim of the world. The Bactrian cracked coarse jokes, at which he laughed thunderously. He lectured on his favorite subject: the care of horses.
"For look you, O Myron," he said, "I have seen you tie your horse to a low bush when the branch of a tree was to hand. In tethering a horse, the halter or reins should be tied, when possible, to a place above the animal's head. For it is the wont of the horse, when aught annoys his face, to strive to rid himself of it by tossing his head. If the halter be tied low, this jerk is likely to tear it loose or break it; whereas, if it be tied high, it is merely tossed out of the way, and the beast remains tethered.
"Now, in rubbing down a horse, one should start at the head and mane, taking care not to use any instrument of wood or iron on the animal's head; for here the skin, being stretched tightly over the skull, is easily injured ..."
They drew up at a fortified post of dun mud brick.
Here was a postal station, with remounts for the post riders. Here also was a tiny inn and the divisional guardhouse of the road guards. At Bessas' bellow, a groom took their bridles. Bessas leaped down, his heavy boots striking the ground with an earth-shaking thump. Myron slid off his mount, almost collapsed, and straightened up with effort.
In the inn, Bessas was soon deep in a jug of yellow beer with the officer in command of the road guards. The latter said:
"Bessas son of Phraates, of Zariaspa? Spit in my face if my cousin Arsames did not serve with you in Gandara, in the fifteenth year of King Xerxes ..."
They went into a long dialogue of pedigree and anecdote. Bessas boasted how he had once played stick-and-ball against the raja of Takshasila and scored five goals in the first chakkar. At last he said:
"Damn me for a mannerless barbarian, but I have not presented my companion, Myron of Miletos. Myron, meet my old friend, Troop Leader Ochus. Myron is a schoolmaster and, as the Hellenes put it, a lover of wisdom. Wishing to know all, he already knows a hundred times as much as I do, which is a right good start. Such a marvelous memory has he that oft he forgets his own name."
Myron and Ochus each said: "Your slave!" Bessas continued:
"How is the road from here to the Hujan plain?"
"The rains of winter tore many holes," said Ochus, "but the road commissioner will soon have them filled, if he can catch enough of these lazy Ouxian peasants and drive them to the work."
"They might work with more enthusiasm if paid," said Myron.
"Pay these baseborn clods? You must be mad, Greek," said the officer. "Once the holes are filled, you will have nought to fear, unless a lion steal your horses whilst you slumber, or unless Puzur choose the day of your passage for one of his raids."
"Who?" said Bessas.
"Puzur, chief of the nearest hill clan. He has taken up his old game."
Myron said: "Was there not some great to-do over Puzur about three years ago? Was he not arrested and later—"
"Aye," said Ochus, wiping the beer foam from his mustache. "Caught he was, for having robbed the Great King's mail and murdered the post rider. I looked to see him dropped into the ashes or sat upon the stake. A month later, however, he was back in his hills, having promised the king most solemnly to reform. Somebody said the Daduchids had pled for him. His reform endured for almost a year. Then, I suppose, his clansmen told him that they were starving and, unless he let them resume raiding, they would cut his throat and find a new chief."
"When will you catch him?" asked Bessas.
Ochus snorted. "Me, with sixteen road guards, catch the chief of a clan that musters above a hundred fighting men? And a man who knows every fold of the land like a mountain goat? Give your slave something easy, like snaring Keresaspa's golden sea serpent with a gossamer! I have wearied the commander in chief and the postmaster general with pleas for more men ..."
A reckless light danced in Bessas' dark, deep-set eyes. "By the snows of Mount Hara, fain would I wager with you that I could catch this Puzur, singlehanded!"
"Ha! That I should like to see! How much will you bet, and what time limit will you accept?"
"O Bessas!" Myron spoke in Greek, in his sharpest schoolmaster tone. "Have you gone insane, to forget your mission and all that depends upon it? Wagers, indeed!"
"Yes, teacher," grumbled Bessas. "I am sorry, Captain Ochus, but orders from the king prevent. When I return next year, if Puzur be still at large, we shall come back to this matter."
During the night, Myron awakened shivering, as the scanty fire had gone out. He became aware of a tumult among the animals in the corral behind the guardhouse: the neighing of horses, the braying of asses and mules, and the roaring of camels. When the noise died down, he heard the cause: the coughing snarl of a hunting leopard.
Unable to sleep, Myron walked briskly up and down the road in front of the guardhouse to warm his frozen limbs, bearing a spear in case the leopard were close at hand. And as he walked, he thought upon what he had heard.
An hour later, as the stars were dying and the sky was paling, Bessas was washing by the well, blowing like a porpoise as he buried his face in his cupped hands. Myron spoke:
"I have been reflecting on what I should do in Zopyrus' place."
"A Greek scribbler, taking the place of one of the greatest lords of the Persian realm?" Bessas, wringing water out of his beard, laughed with good-natured contempt. Then the Bactrian's countenance changed as he saw Myron's mouth tighten. "Forgive your slave, old man. I had forgotten my debt to you."
Myron fought down his resentment, as any Hellene living among the haughty Persians learnt perforce to do. "If I wished to destroy a man, and I knew he were going to pass over a road, and I had friends among the bandittical tribes thereabouts, I should ride ahead and arrange an ambush. Zopyrus has ridden ahead, and this Puzur is in his debt. Does it not seem logical—"
Bessas gave Myron a clap on the back that almost sent him sprawling. "Vaush! Though betimes your Greek logic drives me mad, I admit that it has its uses. Ochus! My lieutenant thinks there will be an ambush ..."
An hour later, Myron and Bessas rode out with a cold windy dawn at their backs. With them went two troopers of the road guard. Bessas ordered one of the guards to ride ahead to scout. When the man understood what was toward, however, he resisted leaving his companions. No matter how the Bactrian roared at him to get on, he persisted in reining in to let the others catch up. Meanwhile, where the slopes of the rugged brown hills allowed, Bessas ordered the second guard to ride up the heights from time to time to look about.