The Arrows of Hercules

"You meant to steal Elazar's—"

"Just borrow it, lad, borrow it. Now listen to what I'm saying ..."

The nearly full moon was high in the eastern sky, and the only sound in the moonlit courtyard was the chirp of a cricket, when Zopyros eased open the door to the boy's room and stole in. Inside there was only a glimmer of light from the courtyard and the soft breathing of two persons. One breath was slow and heavy, with a touch of snore; the other was quick and light.

In the dimness, Zopyros could see nothing but two dark blotches against the paler tones of the stuccoed walls and the cement floor. One blotch, Zopyros knew, was the Negro nurse, sleeping on a pallet. The other was Ahiram on his bed. Zopyros, starting towards the blotch he thought was Ahiram's bed, stumbled against an unseen lamp stand. The stand teetered with a horrible noise. The lamp started to slide off. By a wild clutch in the darkness, Zopyros caught it by the spout. Carefully replacing it, he paused, sweating despite the chill of the North African night, waiting for his wildly beating heart to slow down, and cursing his own clumsiness.

A grumbling sound came from one of the blotches. One of the sleepers stirred and turned over. Zopyros' heart almost jumped out of his mouth. The sleeper was evidently the nurse; it was towards her that Zopyros had been stealing when he bumped into the lamp stand. Even though Segovax had managed to slip her a cup of the drugged wine, Zopyros hated to think what would have happened if he had tried by mistake to pick her up and carry her out.

He moved to the other dark patch, which turned out to be Ahiram asleep with his thumb in his mouth. Taking a deep breath, Zopyros gathered up the boy, blanket and all, without awakening him. Zopyros walked out, avoiding the lamp stand, and softly shut the door.

Silence reigned in the courtyard, save for small noises where Segovax fondled the head of Elazar's watchdog.

"He's after eating all that sausage I brought him," whispered the Celt. "If he sets up a barking when we go out, we're in it for fair. Come on."

They opened the front door. The dog stood slowly waving its tail and watching them with its head cocked in puzzlement. Segovax closed the door behind them, picked up their baggage, and set out with swift strides for the stable.

Ahiram stirred again and muttered: "What—whither go we, Master Zopyros?"

"We go to see your mother," whispered Zopyros. "But you must be a good boy and keep quiet."

Ahiram fell asleep again in Zopyros' arms while Segovax hitched Elazar's pair of blacks to the chariot, muttering: "A murrain on this Punic harness! All the straps go different from the way they should. It would not do at all to have the beasts gallop off without us."

At last the chariot was ready, although the horses pawed uneasily, rolling their eyes and twitching their ears. Zopyros got in with the boy, the baggage, and a coil of rope.

"Now, my beauties," said Segovax, "don't be upsetting us on the road. That's all I'm asking!"

He shook the reins. The team moved out at a walk. Zopyros fought down an urge to tell Segovax to gallop.

When they had put a few plethra behind them, Segovax clucked and brought the team up to a trot. "They're a fine pair, the darlings," he said in a hoarse whisper. "If only I could smuggle them aboard our little ship—but that wouldn't do at all, at all."

"We needn't whisper now," said Zopyros. "Where are we going?"

"Evnos says there's a stretch of wall along Lake Ariana that is not much patrolled, because nobody could climb up there from the rocks unless he had wings like that fellow you were telling me about. And, if he had them, he wouldn't be needing to climb anyway, now would he? 'Tis at the end of this stretch, where the wall leaves the lake and turns south across the big neck of land, that he'll be waiting for us."

"Do you know the way?"

"I do not. But I can steer by the stars and, the gods helping, we'll get there."

This proved easier said than done. The roads of the Megara wound around the hills. Segovax was trying to head a little south of west. Every road that started off in that direction seemed either to curve back eastward or came to a dead end at a villa. Segovax cursed in Gaulish, turned, backtracked, and tried again. Zopyros craned his neck to look back at the eastern horizon. Although they had started around midnight, at this rate he feared that the rising sun would find them groping for their direction.

Ahiram woke up and began asking questions: "Where is my mother? ... Well, when shall we see her? ... Why know you not? ... Are you going to bring Father along? ... Why not? ... Why mustn't I talk? ..."