'Autolycus's Friends'
—OOO—
9. A Discontented Man.
"HEY, YOU!"
In the distance, across the wide street, the tall slim man peered around searching for the source of this gay bellow of recognition; then Autolycus, for it was indeed the King of Thieves, got his bearings and waved cheerily in reply: while several passers-by, out for an evening stroll, finished jumping nervously at the loud threatening female voice; obviously a lot of guilty conscience's chancing to be near at that moment. Xena had easily spotted the disreputable reproba—old friend moving amongst the crowd of his potential vict—other people in the street.
"Hi, so what're you doin' in the jolly old metropolis?" Autolycus grabbed a chair from the table next to them, just as a fat toga'ed man was preparing to park himself there, and settled comfortably beside the dark warrior. "How's life? How's your fiscal situation? How's your work schedule? How's Gabby? What's the chances of your lending a fella 300 drachmas? What'cha doing here, anyway?"
"Not bad. None of your business. Middling, we get along. She's standing right behind ya, ask her yourself. Not a hope in Hades. Why'd ya wanna know? Got plans, have ya?"
"Humph! Oh hi, Gabby." Auto swivelled round to favour the Amazon with a wide grin, twisting his moustache automatically the while; he liked to create an impression. "Is that a quart pot you've brought. Ho garcon, another tankard here, if you please. Yes, thanks, I will join you."
"Is that some sorta skin disease y'got on your upper lip? Stop scratchin' it." Gabrielle settled comfortably beside Xena and surveyed their friend's appearance. "One button missing on your jerkin; your shirt's seen better days; your left boot has a ripped toe; and is that a bruise by your right ear. Somebody's been chasin' you, haven't they. T'get their money back, no doubt!"
The middle-age—still youthful at heart adventurer honoured the girl with a pained expression, as he took a long deep pull at his tankard. Then, before replying, he glanced round carefully; studying the nearby tables for signs of injured party's whom he might have recently annoyed.
"The thing is, Gabby, I've sorta fallen into a short hiatus economically speaking." He somehow managed to look crestfallen yet absolutely blameless simultaneously. "You know."
"Hiatus? What's that? And no, we don't know." Xena curled a derogatory lip. "If this goes on much longer, Auto, we won't be searching for pursuers in the crowds; we'll be lookin' for a single un-offended citizen among the crowds of pursuers after ya!"
Gabrielle started gurgling uncontrollably as she leaned over her tankard, a stream of ale spattering on the wooden table-top from her lips. Gasping for air she raised a hand and indicated the others should carry on without her for a while.
"Hey, that ain't fair, Xena." Auto was incensed, frowning in disgust. "And you can stop chortling too, young lady. I'm a business-man in a crisis, that's what it is. Anyone could'a had the same bad luck. All I need is a small loan, just to tide me over."
"Not from us, dearie." Xena was adamant, as she passed the blonde choking Amazon a cloth to wipe her face. "Ain't there anyone left in this city who'd be foolish enough to believe your lie—business propositions?"
"I shouldn't a' thought by this time there was anyone left in Greece daft enough to stay in the same room as Auto, if they saw him coming first!" This pithy character assassination tripped merrily off the Amazon's lips as she regarded the gloomy man, now busy emptying his tankard. "What you need, Auto, is a business-management executive. Someone who'll keep you on the straight and narrow. Ever thought of giving it all up and marrying some nice Boeotian girl, an' raising chickens?"
The dark-haired gentleman-thief favoured this proposition with the contempt it deserved. Pushing his empty tankard away he leaned both forearms comfortably on the table and took up the burden of the last question.
"Funny you should ask." He shrugged his shoulders gloomily. "Over the last day or so I've been, er, re-assessing my potential investors."
"Tryin' to squeeze money outta innocent people, shop-owners an' the like, y'mean." Xena, along with Gabrielle, had his line well focussed; hardly surprisingly, after so many years of suffering—being his friend.
"Clients, Xena, clients." The proto-entrepreneur continued, unruffled. "Of which there are a great variety in this city. An' I could give you a running commentary on several from my recent personal experience. Take, for instance, Aristophanus the merchant. He's loaded. I mean, with a percentage of the Cyclades wine-harvest what can you expect. I heard tell he paved the floor of his hallway with silver drachmas? Can you believe that."
"No." Xena was robustly indifferent.
"No." Came an Amazonian echo. "Tell me, Auto, is this the seven hundred and first, or the seven hundred and second, tall tale you've foisted on us in the last two years? Just wanna check."
"Blondes, ain't they just impossible t'live with, Xena?" Autolycus ignored the glare this unguarded remark produced and carried on with his memoirs. "Anyway, Aristophanus. Awash with loot, swimming in sesterces, a sea of drachmas curling like waves round his ankles at every step he takes; but is he happy—does he fling his ill-gotten gains wholesale amongst the deserving classes with gay abandon—does he Hades! A more discontented man you have never met in your life."
"Was that before or after he made your acquaintance?" Xena was determined to keep the tone of critical disbelief going.
"He's about 35, dresses like a Prince, an' lives in a palatial villa." Autolycus overlooked Xena's snappish retort with stately grandeur. "I've had three face to face interviews; and I can categorically announce he is fallen out with the world, and will be revenged if it kills him. He thinks Fortune has denied him in something, the Gods know what, and is in a pet of resentment and will continue miserable in spite of his riches. Having had the bad luck to sit at the same dinner table with him I can say, without fear of contradiction—"
"Ain't it likely—"
"No it ain't, Xena." Autolycus sneered with extreme prejudice at his interrupter. "Without fear of contradiction, I tell ya,—the root of his disease is a self-humouring pride; accompanied by an accustomed tenderness not to be crossed in his fancy."
"Sounds just like you, Auto." Gabrielle had the good grace to immediately look shocked at her own words, and fell to examining the ale-jug in front of her with exaggerated interest.
"Ho hum, Amazons—why?" Leaving this abstruse question hanging in the air, and taking no notice of Xena's strange choking gestures, he carried ruthlessly on. "I fancy the primary occasions of his antagonism are probably one of three. A hard father; a peevish wench (Gods, I can feel for him there!); or thwarted ambition."
"My guess is the father." Gabrielle jumped in fearlessly, having an opinion on the subject. "Pushy, un-loving, an' strict. That's the answer."
"Setting up for a Sophist in metaphysics now, are we?" Autolycus was cutting. "Wish you well in your new career, I'm sure. Now about Aristophanus—I believe we were discussing him! I don't think he understood the nature of the world he was letting himself get involved with when he started out in the merchanting business as a callow youth. Then when he felt its blows they fell all the heavier because he wasn't expecting them."
"Deep, but does it have a meaning?" Xena mused, with a finger to her lips. Gabrielle giggled.
"After all these years, however, he has now foregone all but his pride." The K. Of T's continued with Lordly imperiousness. "But is yet vainglorious in the ostentation of his melancholy—"
"He's what?" Gabrielle laughed so hard her elbow slipped and her half-full tankard fell into her lap. "Aargh! Xena, help. Gimme that cloth quick. Ouurgh, I'm all wet."
Sliding his chair out of harm's way and giving the soaked casualty a broad smirk that said, as clearly as spoken words, someone had got their just comeuppance, Autolycus continued unabashed.
"When you meet him at his desk in his counting-house his composure is generally a studied carelessness; with his arms crossed, and a neglected hanging of his head and cloak." He paused to caress his moustache with a graceful flick of his fingers. "And he is as great an enemy to a hat-band, as Fortune."
"What? What?" Xena leaned over to contemplate their somewhat dusty long time friend with a jaundiced eye. "Speak Greek, won't ya."
"It's a—a—an old Cretan saying." Autolycus scrambled unconvincingly out of his own morass of words and hurriedly moved on. "I've tried talking to him; arguing with him; having board-room meetings with him; an' just plain snarling at him—all comes to the same answer in the end—NO!"
Xena and Gabrielle looked at each other across the table, and appeared to want to lean over and slap each other's open palm, but before they could carry out this plan Auto was off again.
"He quarrels at the time, and the Times; at upstarts (who are generally anyone who asks for money); and sighs and bewails the neglect he suffers from what he calls Men of Parts, amongst whom he'd like to count himself. That's the Nobility to you, Xena."
"I know well enough what ya mean, bozo." Xena gave one of her patented snarls; but as Autolycus was so accustomed to this it missed its mark entirely.
"I think he's come to look on his life like a perpetual satire." His second wind was now kicking in, with more colourful epithets yet to come. "He loves to gird and groan at the Age's Vanity, when quite clearly this very anger of his shows how much he actually esteems it himself. He affects to be much dis-pleased to see men and women merry; and wonders what they can find to laugh at."
"Gods, I often feel the same." Gabrielle pretended to hold her head in her hands. "Generally when I'm in your company, Autolycus. What? Go on, I'm listening. I am!"
"He never draws his own lips higher than a thin smile and though not yet forty, is deeply wrinkled." The Thief-General looked askance at his Amazon critic, but getting only a green-eyed innocent smirk in return, aimed the rest of his remarks at Xena. "At last, in the past few years, he's finally fallen into that most deadly melancholy—to be a bitter hater of men and women, and is the most apt companion for any mischief. Or at least that's what I was told—but never a Harpies sign of it have I had from him, for all my rhetoric."
"That's amazing, Auto." Gabrielle gasped unctuously, flicking a little smile meanwhile at Xena. "I thought it was well known by everybody you could sweet-talk a crocodile into letting you kiss it, and leave it wanting more!"
"Ee-yew, Gabrielle—that's nasty." Xena was clearly trying not to laugh out loud.
"Sticks an' stones, ladies. Do your worst, I'm impervious. Clothed in the armour of righteousness." Autolycus stuck his chin high in the air with a nonchalant bravado.
""Ha, that can't be right." Gabrielle shook her head and tapped his hand lightly. "You, righteous! Ain't that the complete oppos—"
"Anyway, where was I?" Autolycus proceeded to wrap up his lecture with a graceful gesture. "Oh, yes. Aristophanus has finally lost it, ladies. From what I could gather from the last disjointed meandering conversation I had with him yesterday, he now thinks of himself as the spark that will kindle a revolution ending in a Greek Commonwealth, and he is also the metaphorical bellows that will blow it into a fine flame. If, in the end, he turns to some other line of work it'll probably be either Priest, traitor, or mad-man. My money's on the latter."
"You ain't got any money, Auto." Xena took great pleasure in affirming this inescapable fact, much to the K. Of T's chagrin.
"No need to rub it in, warrior." Autolycus braced himself in his chair and took a determined pull at his tankard. "Where there's a will there's a way. And where there's an Autolycus, there are plenty of poor dupe—lots'a people only too willing to contribute to well-thought out business schemes. Like my latest, for instance. Shares in a mercury-mine. It's up in the hills, Macedonia way. Guaranteed to bring in 12% yearly, without fail. How much should I put you ladies down for?"
"Nothing!" Gabrielle almost screamed her condemnation of this offer, making the other nearby patrons of the Tavern's street-tables look across with interest.
"Not a damned uncia, you fool. Wha'dya take us for?" Xena laughed scornfully. "D'you know how rare that metal is, an' how difficult it is to refine? Whoever puts their savings into it will never see them again. I can tell ya what you can do with your mine-shares, though. First ya roll them in a tight bundle, then lubricate them with oil of sesame; then, an' this is the entertaining part, ya sh—"
And the warrior-woman coolly went on to explain just exactly what was required.
-O-
Note:— An uncia was worth 1/120th of a denarius, or 1/30th of a sesterius.
-O-
10. 'A Constable-Jailer'
"Is that a jailer over there, on the corner of the street? The guy in the brown leather jerkin. He looks like a jailer." Autolycus's frame was taut and nervous as he inspected the distant man; rather like a deer carefully watching a passing hyena.
Tempers had calmed; more ale had been poured; and everyone was friends again: or at least as nearly so as was ever prudent with Autolycus.
"Nah, he's a horse-dealer." Xena spoke with assurance, as she gave the man a swift glance. "Ya can tell by his walk. His leather leggings. His spurs; who else wears spurs to casually walk about the town. And by the fact that the scroll he's clutching in his left hand, that's partially unrolled, is the daily list of horse-auctions out Piraeus way. A horse-dealer."
"Oh, baby, you're good." Gabrielle's tone was imbued with a rich warm approval; as was the sultry glance she aimed at the warrior from half-lowered eyelids. She was, after all, on her third tankard of ale.
"Yeah, yeah—merely commonsense. Let's not get above ourselves, eh. Talking of horse-dealers I had dealings with a Constable-Jailer when I first came to Athens, roundabout the Ides of last month." Autolycus mused abstractedly as he searched his memory. "Ha, it was like this—"
"Oh Gods." Xena stared at the sky, then back at her tormenter. "Must ya—"
"I was just minding my own business, y'know. Not actually doing anything indiscreet, never mind illegal." Autolycus sneered contemptuously, and poured another tankard of the rapidly dis-appearing ale. "So anyway there I was, grabbed by a couple'a thugs and marched off to the local hoosegow without so much as a bye-your-leave."*
"Has that ever happened to you before, Autolycus?" Gabrielle's tone was so perfectly frank and innocent that even Xena had to do a double-take, before recognising that gentle twitch at the corner of the blonde Amazon's lip.
"So finally," The past-master of lock-picking professed not to hear Gabrielle's remark, and went smoothly on without interrupting his flow. "they all saw sense and agreed I wasn't the crook they were after. There was some discussion about throwing me in a cell anyway, just outta spite; but eventually they had to admit there was no possible charge that would stick."
"Deja-vu." Xena muttered quietly. "What? Nothing. Go on, I'm listening—I'm sorry t'say."
"It was late evening an' nothing much was doing in the jail, so instead we all sat down like old friends and had some wine and a game of cards." Autolycus smiled happily at the memory. "Ah, rookies! What would the world be without 'em. I mean, playing cards—with me! Yeah, you guessed it—every sestersius they had between them, every one. Ah, memories!"
After a substantial time had passed, and it was obvious the handsomely moustached rapscallion was lost in a world of glorious past achievements, it fell to Gabrielle to lean quietly over and pinch his bare forearm between her fingers.
"Yaooch! Whassat?"
"You were talking about a jailer?" Gabrielle raised one eyebrow as he rubbed the injured spot. "Come on, it's only a flesh wound. Get on with it; the stars'll be out before you finish."
"So, like I was saying, this jailer-guy turns out to be a real card." Autolycus laughed merrily, as the facts came back to him. "The sort who thinks he's a Viceroy in the street; no-one else would stand so much on his warrant as the Senate's officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next pair of stocks; where he has a commission for the heels only, and leaves the rest of the prisoner's body at liberty."
"That's how all stocks work, idiot." Xena grunted in disgust. "You, of all people, should know, Experience, an' all that."
"He likes to have a morning draught of ale at his pet Tavern; free of course." He gave the black-clad warrior a dirty look. "But acts like a scarecrow at other Taverns, scaring customers off and apprehending any chance drunkard who doesn't stand in the Emperor's name when the jailer marches in."
"Huh, sort'a a protection racket." Gabrielle nodded understandingly. "I betcha someone could make pots of money in that game. Bears thinking about."
"Beggars fear him worse than the Justice himself, or being whipped." Autolycus nodded sagely as he glanced at his tankard, before thinking better of a re-fill. "He generally hands them over to his subordinate magistrates, as being small-fry. He's a great stickler though in the tumults caused by drunks and their double-jugs of ale. Because of his position and place he ventures his head, which ends up being broke many times, to keep whole the peace—I'll give him that!"
"Ha, a warrior-jailer!" Xena laughed again. "I begin to like this character."
"He's never so much in his personal Majesty as when he takes his men on the Night-watch in the streets." Autolycus shook his head disapprovingly. "But he generally doesn't get very far. He usually spends his time sitting in his Chair of State—a shop-stall. Environed round with a guard of lances, he examines all passengers and wayfarers going along the street; ordinary innocent citizens and all. He's apparently a very careful man in his Office; but if he stays up after midnight, you'll likely take him napping."
There was a pause after he had finished this remarkable reminiscence. Xena was slumped in her chair, shaking her head slowly and looking at Autolycus as if trying to gauge just how much of what he had just told them was actually true. Gabrielle had no such scruples; she had obviously decided that if there was an Athenian prize for fairy-tales, Autolycus had just won it. She weakly lowered her head to rest on her arms on the table. All that could be seen were her blonde locks; but her shoulders continued to shake as she sniggered uncontrollably.
"Gabrielle, you need a lie down. You still haven't got over that, er, stomach upset a few days ago, y'know." Xena leaned over to pat Gabrielle's quivering shoulder gently. "Autolycus, Thieves ain't the only thing you're King of. Now take a hike."
"Gotcha. See y'all tomorrow!"
"Come on young lady." Xena grasped the Amazon under her arm and steered her towards the Inn entrance. "Ya need a break, after suffering Auto's memoirs."
"Yeah, Gods, that's so true." Gabrielle nodded, then turned to give her farewell to their well-meaning, but tedious, friend. "Bye, Auto, don't—. Oh, he's gone already. Fast worker, ain't he?"
"Yup, he's all of that." Xena nodded, trying to remember some theatrical performance she had once attended with Gabrielle. "His coming is like to a stately barge entering port with rich and fabulous cargoes from the Orient; But his going is like the thief in the night, silent and unseen by any."
"Ha, you remembered that play of Sophocles." Gabrielle nodded sleepily as they ascended the stairs to their quiet room. "I knew you'd like it. Wonnerful phrasing. Wunnerful poetry. Wunnerful—"
"Here we are, lady, you'll feel brighter in the morning." Xena supported the blonde Amazon over to the softly mattressed bed, where she lay wearily down. "A good night's sleep'll do ya the world of good. After all, tomorrow is another day!"
-O-
Notes:—
Hoosegow. A jail.
'His coming—unseen by any.' As these lines do not occur in any modern text of Sophocles' few extant plays, it must be considered a rare quote from one of his lost works!
—OOO—