1.37

The Son of Rome

“Arrogant, belligerent child,” Socrates muttered as he stalked out of the rugged chamber with its shard of tongues. “I’ll box his ears until they fall off. Split foundations. Split foundations!”

For a long moment, I continued to stare at the shifting text chiseled into the man-size tablet, incomprehensible to me with both eyes open. I still felt that primordial shifting behind my eyes, in my skull, even in my tongue. But the bulk of it had slowed down when I stopped reading, and instinct told me that the process was not yet finished.

“My master is a good man,” I said quietly, nearly to myself. Beside me, Selene gripped the arm I had over her shoulder.

“I believe you, Solus.”

“He did the best that he could with the materials he was given, and the time that he had.” I had said it before to Griffon, and then to Socrates. “That I am what I am is not a condemnation of him. My failings are my own.”

“But you credit him with your successes, don’t you?” Selene gently prodded me. I glanced sidelong at her. At some point, she had lifted her golden veil from her face, revealing fine features, burning scarlet eyes and hair like spun gold.

“It isn’t the same,” I said.

“Why isn’t it?” Socrates called, his irritated voice drifting in from the adjacent chamber. “What differs?”

I gripped my spear and forced myself to stand, my thoughts far too tangled to keep on reading with any real focus. Selene quickly stood up with me, bearing the brunt of my weight with nothing but an encouraging huff. I sighed softly and let her do it, the two of us turning and limping out of the untarnished room.

“In the legions, accountability is king,” I said flatly, watching as Socrates rifled through one of the late Kyrios’ sleeping chambers. “It isn’t within a mentor’s power to live my life for me. Aristotle provided me with the tools that I needed to succeed, and so I credit a part of all my successes to him.”

“And why not your failures?” Socrates asked, overturning several large, woven reed baskets onto a feather bed covered in silk sheets of indigo and white. Clothing spilled out, tunics and sashes, dress robes for cult business, as well as formal attire for mortal affairs.

“Why should I?” I bit back. “Say that a farmer gives me a scythe and tells me to harvest a crop by sundown, and I return to him with only half the work done because I decided to do it with my hands instead. Is it his fault or mine?”

“Yours, surely enough,” Socrates agreed. “But what about a huntsman?”

“What about a huntsman?”

“A scythe’s function is self-evident when you’re standing in a wheat field at harvest- that’s clear enough. But what about the workings of a bow and arrow? If a hunter presents you with a bow and a quiver and tells you to bag him a fine buck by sundown, is it his fault or yours when you return empty-handed?”

“Mine.”

“Is that so? The man that knows how to track deer, how to stalk them without being spotted, and how – as well as where – to shoot them. That man presents you with a bow and some arrows and a stern demand, and you believe that it’s your fault for not living up to his expectation? And if you do, somehow, by the grace of the gods manage to bring something down through your own ingenuity, he deserves a portion of the credit for the kill?”

Socrates held up a tunic of white cloth with crimson arch designs sewn along its edges. He looked between it and me, squinting. I glared back at him.

“The comparison isn’t fair.”

Socrates threw the tunic at my face. Selene caught it just before it could hit me, and the sound of it striking her palm left me confident that it would have knocked me clean off my feet if it had hit.

“In all three scenarios, each of the masters provided their student with the tools needed to succeed,” he said, but waved a hand to brush the argument away from him. “But fine, we’ll discard the huntsman. What of the fisherman?”

I unwound my arm from Selene’s shoulder, ignoring her protest, and leaned heavily onto the celestial bronze spear I had stolen from the temple of the father. I considered the scenario.

“What’s provided?” I asked, finally. Without a set of the parameters, I knew he could wind me into a knot until the end of time.

“A net and a spear,” he said, holding a broad leather belt in his hand, considering me before grunting and tossing it back into a basket.

I exhaled, annoyed. “Fishing isn’t that hard. Acquiring the tools is more difficult than learning how to use them.”

“I know men that would disagree, but let’s say you’re right. If I gave you a net right now and told you to take that pretty spear of yours and catch me dinner, how many fish could I expect from you by sundown?”

I thought hard about it. Fishing had been a curiosity when I was a boy, a non-issue when I was a soldier in the legions. There was always someone else to do that work. Always more important things to be done. But my time at the Rosy Dawn had humbled me in many ways, and re-introduced me to many tasks I hadn’t practiced since my father had taught them to me. Fishing was one such task.

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So, I considered the time of day, the distance from here to Olympia‘s port city, and nodded sharply.

“Thirty.”

“Good.” Socrates reached into a fold in his tunic, and inexplicably, pulled from it an entire fishing net. He tossed it at my chest with only slightly less force than he had thrown the tunic. “Come back with one hundred by sundown.”

I staggered back a step as the net hit my chest, but managed to keep my feet. I pretended not to notice the way that Selene hovered behind me, her hands just barely not touching my back. I stared hard at the master of my master’s master, temper boiling.

“I can’t catch one hundred by sundown,” I said quietly.

“I can,” Socrates said, turning away from the Kyrios’ clothes and moving on to the pots and jars scattered about, perched on high tables and shelves. Each of them was painstakingly painted with images of epics, comedies, tragedies, and more benign depictions of everyday life and nature. He reached into one and pulled out several rolls of bandage cloth, flinging them negligently over his shoulder. Selene leaned past me and caught them all in one hand.

“I can’t,” I repeated.

“What does that matter? It’s possible, because I can do it, and all I would need are the tools I’m giving you. A net, a spear, and a long afternoon. Why can’t you bring me one hundred fish, boy?”

“I never said I couldn’t bring you one hundred fish,” I corrected him, eyes narrow. “I said I couldn’t catch them.”

“Ho? Will you buy them, then? Steal them, perhaps?”

I shrugged. “You gave me a spear and a net,” I said wryly. Selene chuckled softly behind me.