Soldier of the Mist

CHAPTER XV-The Woman Who Went Out

Phye's tale had not yet begun when a shout of laughter woke me. No doubt she had missed the circle purposely, or perhaps one of the men had pinched her as she threw, or jostled her arm. I give here as much of it as I recall:

Once there was a woman whose husband was very rich but would never give her any money. They had an estate outside the city and a fine house in it, with many slaves and so on, but her gowns were still the gowns she had brought from her father's house, and her husband would not buy her so much as a comb.

One day when she lay weeping on her bed, her maid discovered her there. Now her maid was a Babylonian and as clever as all the people of that city are, and so she said, "My lady, I can guess easily enough why you weep. It's because all the other ladies hereabout have lovers to entertain them, and buy them silver bracelets and curios from Riverland, and talking birds that tell them how beautiful they are even when their lovers aren't around to do it. While you, poor thing, have only that ugly old fool your husband, a skinflint who never gives you so much as a sparrow."

"No," said her mistress, "it's because he never gives me any money."

"That's what I said," said her maid. "For we women, men and money are the same thing, after all. Have I ever told you how we girls get our dowries in Babylon?"

"No," said the mistress again. "But please do, even if it isn't a very good story. Because hearing even a poor story would be better than lying on this barren bed crying away my life."

"Why, it's no story at all," said her maid, "but the plain truth. When a girl in my city approaches the age of marriage, she sells herself to whatever men she likes for as much as they'll pay. In that way the best looking soon accumulate a great deal of money and so get a handsome husband, and soon after, many comely children. By the same token, homely girls get none, and thus it is that we Babylonians are the best-looking people in the whole world." (Here Phye, whom I was watching by this time through the doorway, patted her hair to considerable laughter and applause.) "Though you, my lady, would be thought lovely anywhere, I must say."

"That's extremely interesting," said her mistress, "and I certainly never knew it. But it doesn't do me the least good; I'm married already, so I don't need another dowry."

"True," said her maid. "But suppose you were to go out at night and make whatever handsome men you meet the same sort of offer our Babylonian girls do? You'd have a handsome lover for the night, and very quickly a great deal of money."

"It's certainly a most attractive idea," her mistress admitted, "but it seems to me that it's out of the question. My husband sleeps with me every night. If he were to wake and find me gone… Now that you mention it, I suppose it might be possible to administer some sort of mild and harmless medication that would assure him of a good night's sleep. Do you happen to know of a dealer in such preparations?"

Her maid shook her head sadly. "Most of them are ineffective, my lady, and even the worst cost a great deal. But I know a trick worth a dozen of them, if you can tell me where to find the last resting place of an amorous woman."

"Really?" said her mistress. "Magic? How fascinating! You know, my cousin Phyllis's grave is only a short walk from here. Would that do, do you think?"

"I don't know," said the maid. "Was she fond of men?"

"Extremely," said her mistress. "And when she died, one of my uncle's he-goats wouldn't eat for a month."

"Then she'd be perfect," said the maid. "Here's all we have to do. At dinner tonight, you must slip something into your husband's food that will make him ill-"

"Night soil, you mean?" her mistress suggested.

The maid shook her head. "Too obvious… I have it! He's accustomed to rancid oil-it's the only sort he'll let us buy for the kitchen. Give me that old pin to take to the market, and I'll trade it for the freshest, purest oil I can find. That should make him sick, and he'll sleep overnight in the temple of the Healing God in the hope of a cure. When he's gone, you and I will dig some earth from the garden and take it to your cousin's grave. There you'll moisten it with a certain fluid I'll indicate to you-you have a plentiful supply-and we'll make a doll of clay, kneading a lock of your hair into it."

Her mistress clapped her hands with delight. "Why, this is much better than crying!"

"Then," her maid continued, "we'll lay the doll on her grave and engage in a recitation in which I shall prompt you. After that, whenever you want to leave at night, all you'll have to do is put the clay doll in your bed in your place. If your husband wakes, he'll see you beside him. And if he embraces the doll, he'll meet with such a reception as will endear you to him forever."

"Wonderful!" exclaimed her mistress, and that very night they carried out their plan with complete success.

The next night the lady waited until her husband was asleep, put the doll in their bed beside him, and enjoyed a succession of fascinating adventures in the city that left her a great deal wealthier than she had been before.

All went well for some time, she adventuring almost every night and her husband never complaining, though she noticed the clay doll was losing its proper shape. Early each morning when she returned, she would pat it until it looked as it had when she and the maid had formed it. But every night when she took it out again, she found that the clay had shifted downward in a most alarming fashion; and at last she told her maid the problem.

"Alas, my lady," said the maid. "I feared this might occur. In Babylon, we fire these figures in a potter's furnace-then there's no further trouble. But since you had no money and I didn't know of a potter here who'd be likely to cooperate without it, I neglected that step."

"What are you talking about?" said her mistress. "What's the matter with the doll?"

Her maid sighed. "It's a condition in which you would not, I think, wish to find yourself, my lady. If nature is allowed to take its course, there will soon be two clay dolls instead of one."

"How horrible!" said her mistress. "What can we do? Can't we bribe a potter to fire it now?"

"My lady," said her maid, "it would only crack later. I believe the best thing would be for us to bury the doll again in the place where we dug it up. You'll have to sleep with your husband-at least for a time-but that can't be helped. Do you by any chance remember the spot?"

"Why, yes," said her mistress. "It was under the apple tree."

"Then that would be the best place to put it," said the maid.

And so they did, and the woman began sleeping with her husband once more.

One day one of his rivals in business, a man as penurious as himself, found him moping about the market. "What's the matter?" he said. "Has someone cheated you?" For he would have been sorry indeed to hear that the husband had been cheated by anyone other than himself.

"No," said the husband. "It's my wife."

"Ah," said his rival. "There's a great deal of that going around these days, you know."

"Not long ago," said the husband, "she was as passionate as any man could wish. But now… "

"I can well imagine," said his rival. "Not that I've ever experienced the same thing myself."

"It's like embracing a woman of clay," said the poor husband. "And all I can think of is how I used to go to dinner parties and have a fine woman every night. I thought that when I married it would be better-because I used to have to give a party myself now and then, and it was so costly-but honestly I think the old days were better, and in fact I know it."

"Then all you have to do is return to them," said his rival. "Send her back to her father."

"And refund her dowry?" asked the husband. "You must be mad!"

"Then I can teach you a spell that will serve your turn," said his rival, who had no faith in such spells himself. "At least, my grandfather swore by it. You must find a blossoming tree in green and ardent health."

"Why, the apple tree in our garden has been blooming for days," said the husband. "I declare, you've never seen a tree doing better."

"Exactly the thing, then," said his rival. "You must lop off a limb and hide it under your bed. Whenever you want to go out and amuse yourself, take out the limb and put it in the bed in your place, saying,

"Stick I cut, so brave and bright, Stick be straight and strong tonight!"

"Believe me, as long as your wife doesn't light the lamp, she'll never know the difference." Then the rival went away, chuckling as he wondered whether his grandfather's spell would work.

But the husband ran home, and noting that the apple tree in his garden was still in flower, he immediately ordered his gardener to saw off its largest limb.

"It'll be the death of it," said the gardener, shaking his head.

"I don't care," said the husband. "It quite spoils the symmetry all natural objects should possess; so cut it off."

And thus it was done, and the husband carried the limb to the bedroom he shared with his wife and put it beneath the bed.

That night, the woman noticed that her husband's hair smelled of apple blossoms, which it certainly never had before. "Why, he's trying to make himself attractive for me," she said to herself. "And who knows what may come of that… I should encourage him."

She gave him a kiss on the cheek, one thing led to another, and she was embraced ardently all night, until at last she fell into an exhausted sleep.

At dawn her husband returned, put the limb under the bed once more, and lay down congratulating himself.

This went on for several nights, until at last, in the very heat of love, the woman said, "Although you're stout and strong all night, dear, I notice you're always exhausted in the morning. You'd better get some rest when we're finished."

To this, the limb replied, "I wilt not, stepmother." Which so surprised the woman that she lit the lamp.

You may imagine her delight then, for she saw in her bed not the withered old husband she had expected, but a blooming youth with fair red cheeks. She blew out the lamp at once, and for some time they came together each night as happily as any pair could.

It was not to continue. One night she rolled over meaning to embrace her lover and found, to her great disgust, that she was caressing her husband instead. Thereafter the same thing occurred more and more frequently, for her husband had discovered that he was no longer so young as once he had been, and he was sorely pained by the inroads his nighttime adventures were making in his fortune.

But when her husband had occupied the bed every night for nearly a month, the woman smelled apple blossoms again.

Then, kissing her lover, she exclaimed, "If only he were dead! I'd have his money, and we could live together for the rest of our lives. You wouldn't be niggardly to me, would you, darling?"

"Never, stepmother," said her lover. "Every spring I would furnish our house new, and each fall I would shower upon you the fruits of the earth."

That sounded promising, and by this time the woman had convinced herself that "stepmother" was only her lover's pet name for her, he being at least in appearance somewhat the younger. Thus she said, "Do it, then! Do it tonight!"

"I will, stepmother."

And the next morning the man and his wife were found dead by the gardener, hung with the same rope. A noose had been tied in each end and the rope thrown over the largest limb of the apple tree in the garden.

The gardener and the lady's maid were accused of murdering them and tried on the Areopagus; but their deaths were ruled a double suicide, and husband and wife were buried beneath the apple tree.

There was laughter and applause when Phye's tale was told, and Hypereides said, "I'll have to be careful not to tell that one to my crew around the fire some evening. Do you know, I think half of 'em would swallow the whole rigmarole as solid fact. Why, on this past voyage, there was talk of a werewolf aboard."

The kybernetes shook his head ruefully. "It's our mixing with the Orientals that's done it, Captain. We used to be a reasonable people, believing in the Gods of the Mountain and nothing else. Now there's more gods up and down the Long Coast than along the River in Riverland. A god for wine, and all sorts of nonsense."

"Are you saying," Pindaros snapped, "that you don't credit the God in the Tree? I can tell you, sir, you're badly mistaken."

Kalleos intervened. "Gentlemen! Aristocrats! It's a rule of this house that there are to be no religious arguments. Tolerant discussion, if you like. But no fighting."

"I assure you," Pindaros said stiffly, "that I speak from personal experience."

"So do I," Kalleos told him. "I've seen men who've been the best of friends for years at each other's throats. The gods are stronger than we are, so let them do their own fighting."

"Words of wisdom," said Eurykles. "Now if I may shift the conversation to what I hope will be a somewhat less touchy topic, it's my opinion that such tales of magic as Phye has just amused us with should not be discounted wholly, Hypereides. It's quite possible for we poor mortals to peep a bit into the future, for example-and I do not refer exclusively to quizzing some god or other at an oracle."

"Perhaps," Hypereides admitted. "I've heard some things along that line that make a man think."

"Lo!" exclaimed Eurykles, regarding Hypereides with admiration. "There's the mark of an open mind for you, friends. Your true man of reason never accepts or rejects without evidence, unless the thing is foolish on the face of it, like that business with the apple branch."

The kybernetes chuckled. "And the clay doll."

"No, no!" Eurykles raised a hand. "I won't say it can be done. But there's certainly something real behind it. Spirits can be summoned from a grave, and I urge you as reasonable men not to mock what you don't understand." He drained his cup. "My dear, I'd like quite a bit more of that."

"Trinkets!" said the kybernetes.

"What, sir?" asked Eurykles thickly. "Do you deny that such things can be? Why, I myself, in the practice of my profession-" He belched. "Excuse it. I have often called the dead to stand before me while I questioned them."

The kybernetes laughed. "Since I've no wish to be asked to leave by the lady of this house, I offer no comment."

"You don't believe me, but your captain here is a wiser man than you. Aren't you, sir?"

"Perhaps not wholly," Hypereides said.

"What?" Eurykles reached into the neck of his chiton and produced a leather purse. "Here I have ten birds. Yes, ten little owls nesting together. They're here to testify that I can do what I say."

"And it's easily said," said the kybernetes, "where we are now. But it can't be proved."

"There's a burial ground not far from here," Eurykles told him. "Surely this good wine-and I wouldn't in the least object to another drop, my dear-has given you the courage to come along with me."

"If you're proposing a bet," said the kybernetes, "I'd like to see what's in there."

Eurykles loosed the strings and shook out the jingling coins, arranging them in a row with one uncertain finger.

The kybernetes examined them and said, "I'm not a wealthy man, but I'll cover three, with the provision that I'm to judge whether a ghost has been produced."

Eurykles shook his head, nearly falling from his couch in the process. "Why, what protection would I have then? You might faint or run, but declare afterward… " He seemed to lose his thoughts, as drunken men often do. "Anything," he finished weakly.

Kalleos said, "I'll hold the money and judge. If you admit there was a ghost, you lose. Or if you run or faint, as Eurykles says. Otherwise, you win. Fair enough?"

"Absolutely," the kybernetes told her.

Eurykles mumbled, "That's only three. What of the other seven? Hardly worth my while."

The captain of Eidyia announced, "I'll cover one."

"And one for me," said the captain of Clytia.

"And the rest?" Eurykles looked at Pindaros. "You, sir? I'll make my fortune tonight, if I can."

"I haven't a copper," the poet told him. "As Kalleos will testify. Even if I did, I'd be betting with you rather than against you."

Hypereides said, "In that case, I'll cover the remaining five. Furthermore, I'll bet two with you, Pindaros-on trust. I go to Hill now and then, and the first time I do, I'll come by to collect."

"If you win," Pindaros told him. "Kalleos, if we're going to the burial ground, may I ask that we have Latro for a guard? The streets are dangerous by night, and we've all had a bit to drink."