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The Young Griffon

First, we mingled.

There was a certain etiquette that even a dead man could be expected to follow. In a theater, it was common sense that the stage belonged to those performing. A spectator could heckle if the act warranted it, but you never joined the actors on the stage unless you were first invited. In a symposium, although the lounges might be arranged around the room with equal prominence, a partygoer did not approach the organizer of the event while he was otherwise preoccupied.

The details were different but the sentiment remained the same. Engagement was acceptable. Interruption was not.

This was neither a symposia nor a theater, but something in between. Therefore it could be argued that both etiquettes applied. Of course, it could also be argued that neither did. However, the fact that the Augur sat alone on his ivy tomb down on center stage, unapproached and unspoken to, made me suspect the former over the latter.

Never let it be said that the young Griffon of the risen sun was entirely without manners. Sol and I stepped carefully through the horseshoe tiers of benches while chthonic men and women chattered and laughed and intermittently sang. All the while, the low strumming of the lyre served as an undercurrent to every conversation and song.

It was easy to leave him to his music when the sound of it was so pleasant.

“Newcomers, eh?” spoke a man out of time as Sol and I leaned against a thick wooden beam. A handful of the revelers surrounding him looked curiously our way as well. His companions, or at least his afterlife acquaintances.

“First time,” I confirmed, the sound distorted by the sheer midnight veil that covered my face.

“I thought as much. It’s been some time since we’ve seen rags like those.” He glanced up thoughtfully, at the same time nudging a woman sitting next to him close enough for their thighs to touch. “How long has it been since we’ve seen a raven, darling? Three hundred years? Four hundred?”

“At least two thousand,” the woman said, looking back at him like he was simple.

“Impossible.”

“You’re both wrong,” another man a few spots down piped up, leaning forward to look down the row at us. “It’s been four thousand bare minimum.” The first man to speak and the woman beside him both rolled their eyes.

“Right,” the first man drawled. “And I’m the king of Egypt.”

“In your dreams, perhaps!” came a voice from up above, a man on one of the torchlit balconies looking down on us with his crossed arms on the rail and an ivory cup dangling negligently from two fingers.

My eyes lingered on his features. Black curls of hair and pale skin, almond-shaped eyes a dull brown-black, and a strong jaw untouched by any beard. His nose gave him away most clearly of all. He was a Macedonian. Yet, his eyes were lined and shadowed the same twilight blue shade as his painted lips, and in place of any armor or cloak he wore only a belted skirt of pleated linen – and, of all things, a juvenile elephant’s scalp as a mantle.

Macedonian features. Egyptian fashion.

“No one’s speaking to you, Philadelphus,” a different woman shot back at him, throwing a handful of figs up at his face. The Macedonian in Egyptian clothes caught one of the projectile fruits in his teeth and bit down on it with pleasure, letting the juice fall freely back down onto the woman’s head.

“What brings the young blood to this humble theater?” the man named Philadelphus asked us curiously, while he chewed on his fig and the woman below him spat curses and threw more fruit at his balcony. “Business or pleasure?”

“Business,” Sol said, at the same time that I answered with ‘Pleasure’. Philadelphus raised a sculpted eyebrow.

“It seems your purposes conflict.”

“One raven speaks only the truth,” I said lightly, “the other raven lies.”

“I despise you,” Sol said with remarkable conviction.

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I waved. “See?”

“Pleasure disguised as business,” Philadelphus said understandingly. He rolled his wrist, lazily saluting us with his ivory cup. “That’s my favorite sort of work.”

“We know,” one of the hecklers seated around us groused. He ignored them as easily as he breathed.

“Tell me, young blood – how goes the campaign? Is the wheel still turning, or has the king of kings come home?”

“Alexander is dead,” Sol answered. Philadelphus threw back his head and laughed. It reverberated through the rafters above, a rich and rolling sound.