"And meanwhile," I said, "he'll need every soldier he has."

Kichesippos nodded. "I imagine so."

By the time the old physician left, it was nearly dark. I told the slaves to prepare food for us, and the woman in the purple cloak joined us while we ate. "Would you mind if I had some? I couldn't help but smell it. I'm your neighbor now-did you know?"

"No," Io said. "We didn't know where you were staying."

"With the handsome Pasicrates. But he's off somewhere at the moment, and his slaves won't obey me."

There was hardly enough food for Io, Basias, and me, so I went to Pasicrates's tent, where I found his slaves cooking a meal for themselves. One escaped, but when I had the other two by the throat I pounded the right head against the left and told them to bring food, and that I would push their faces into the coals the next time they disobeyed the woman.

When I returned to our own tent, she said, "What did I tell you? Barley, blood, and beans. And after sampling the barley and beans, I think I would prefer the blood. Well, beans are a proper food for the dead, anyway."

I asked her whether she planned to die.

"No, but we're going there. Hadn't you heard? To Rope, so the royal Pausanias can bed his wife, then to Acheron so he can consult the shades. It should be an interesting trip."

Io asked, "You mean we're going to visit the dead?"

The woman nodded, and though I felt vaguely that I had once considered her less than attractive, I could not help noticing that her face was lovely in the firelight. "I am, at least, and the regent is. You should have seen how delighted he was when someone told him who I was. He sent for me again at once, and I thought he was going to ask me to raise a few ghosts for him on the spot."

"Is it far?" Io inquired.

"To Acheron? Why, no, just the other side of the grave."

I told the woman not to tease her.

"Oh," she said, "you want to take the long road. No, not really, Io. Two or three days to Rope, and not much longer, I'd think, to Acheron, if we get a ship at the gulf, as I suppose we will. By the way, do you have a comb I might borrow? I seem to have lost mine."

Not with the best grace, Io produced a little bone comb. The woman ran it through her dark hair, which in truth could not have been more disordered if it had never been combed at all.

"I'm going to let it grow out," she said. "These Rope Makers all let theirs grow long, have you noticed? They comb it before a battle, or so I've heard. See? No poisoned pins."

Pasicrates's slaves brought a bowl of beans, some dried fish, a loaf of barley bread, and a wine bowl. I told Io to see whether Basias had eaten. She reported that he was thirsty, and I gave her a cup of mixed wine from the bowl, and half the loaf.

The woman said, "You'd better eat some of that yourself. You won't be getting anything better."

I said, "I intend to. But first, may I ask you a question? Your tongue isn't my own, and I sometimes feel I haven't learned as much of it as I'd like."

"Certainly."

"Then tell me why everyone calls you Eurykles, which is a man's name."

"Ah," she said. "That' s a personal question."

"Will you answer it?"

"If I may ask you one."

"Of course."

"Because they haven't divined my true nature. They think me a man. So did you, in a time you've forgotten."

I said, "I'll try not to reveal your secret."

She smiled. "Speak out if you wish. It's all one to Hippocleides, if you know that expression."

Just then Io came out of the tent, the wine cup still more than half full. "He won't eat any bread," she said. "I talked to his slaves and gave it to them. They said he wouldn't eat for them, either, but he sipped a little broth."

The woman called Eurykles shuddered.

"Since you don't mind people knowing, what shall we call you?" I asked her.

"Why not Drakaina, as you yourself suggested? Drakaina of Miletos. By the way, have you heard about the battle and what the Milesians did afterward?"

"Not about the Milesians. Weren't they sent inland to herd goats? That's what the regent said."

"Oh, no. Just some people from the prominent families. And not to herd goats, not really; they were sent to Susa as hostages. But when the people of my fair city heard about Mycale, they rose against the barbarian garrison and killed them all."

"As a barbarian myself, I'm not sure I approve."

"Nor am I," Drakaina said. "Still, it puts me in a rather dubious position, doesn't it? I like that." She rose and returned Io's comb.

"Aren't you going to ask your personal question?"

She shook her head. "I'll reserve it. Later, perhaps."

When she had gone back into Pasicrates's tent, Io looked at her little comb with dismay. "Now I'll have to wash it," she said.

CHAPTER XXIX-The Silent Country

This land the Rope Makers rule is a place of harsh mountains and wide, fertile valleys. Behind us are the rough hills of Bearland, where we camped last night and Basias woke me with his groaning. Io says we camped the night before outside Tower Hill, and she hid this scroll as she had when we were imprisoned there, for fear it would be taken from me. She says also that some of the soldiers were from that city, and that they left the army there.

This morning while we were still in Bearland, I wondered why this Silent Country should be called so. When we stopped in the village for the first meal, I went to one of the houses to ask the people.

There was no one there, they being (as I assumed) at work in their fields. Io says Basias is supposed to watch me, but he is too ill for that; and Pasicrates, who had watched me on the morning march, has run ahead.

Thus I went from house to house, stooping to enter the low doorways and coughing at the smoke from the hearths. Once I found a pot seething over the flames, and once a half-eaten barley cake; but there were no men, no women, and no children, and at last I began to think that they were somehow hidden from mortal eyes, or perhaps that they were the spirits of the dead, whom the Rope Makers had in some way forced to toil.

The fifth place to which I came was a smithy. Its forge still blazed, and tongs gripped a half-formed, glowing spit. When I saw it I knew the smith could not be more than a step or two away; I found him crouched beneath his own work table, hiding behind his leather apron, which he had draped across it. I pulled him out and made him stand. His grizzled head came only to my shoulder, but he was as muscular as all are who are of that trade.

He begged my pardon many times, saying over and over that he had meant no disrespect and had only been frightened to see a stranger. I told him I would not hurt him, and explained that I merely wished to ask him a few questions about this land.

At that he grew more frightened than ever, his face the color of ashes. He feigned to be deaf and, when I shouted at him, to speak some gobbling dialect and to be unable to understand me. I drew Falcata and laid her edge at his throat; but he caught my wrist and wrenched it until I cried out, and with his free hand snatched up his hammer. Then I saw the face of Death himself, his naked, grinning skull.

In an instant Death was gone; there was only the smith's face again, more ashen now than ever, its mouth open and its eyes rolling backward into his head. The sound his hammer made as it fell from his hand and struck the earthen floor seemed too loud, like the noise that wakes us from sleep.

I let him go, and he leaned backward until his body was held erect for a moment by the javelin in his back. The point crept from his chest under the press of his weight, two fingers' width of hammered iron that shone in the light of the forge, before he slipped to one side and tumbled down.