The Garden
The zoological garden was modest he knew, compared to those of Memphis and Babylon, but it was a thing of wonder to him. The plant-life was tended by paid laborers and the animals cared for by old Skylax and his students and slaves. The single stade-long rectangular enclosure housed many clipped-wing birds in cages, reptiles and amphibians kept in small walled enclosures, and small caged mammals, including a few chattering monkeys and hooting baboons. There were no dangerous mammals of any size except for Skylax’s pet wolf, which had been raised by hand from a cub and might as well be a dog.
There is a point to be made of this. Weave domestication into the lecture.
As he wended his way through the flowering plants and budding bushes toward the open discussion ground where Skylax awaited him, he became worried.
If it is beast of any size we will have to seek permission from the host community to construct a pen. My, the fish pond is well stocked—such colorful carp.
His musings were cut short by what sounded like a leopard’s cough.
There are plenty of those to be had from just across the Aegean. It must be a sick canine.
Just then the unmistakable whining of a leopard sounded from the grove beyond the lazily snoozing vulture tethered to the cypress tree before him.
Can it be a leopard?
Perhaps it is a black one.
As he rounded the cypress he saw Skylax standing back with his snarling wolf on a leash, regarding, as did his master, the trio before them with some disdain. Two filthy hide-covered brutes had just opened a covered wicker cage and held a snow-white leopard—a juvenile by its appearance—between them with pole tethers. Between the beast and its handlers and the irritated Skylax and his wolf and servants, stood a man maimed by war, no doubt a small unit leader of Thrakian skirmishers or the like. He did not recognize the man according to his race and just stood dumfounded, more at the man than the wondrous cat.
My what a savage barbarian do we have here?
One of Alexander’s creatures no doubt. One eye and half of his teeth are gone so that the tongue lolls out to the side. He is missing fingers and two toes as well. He might be my age or much less; unthinkably ancient in visage yet as supple as a boy in form.
He came to stand before the man with his hands clasped before him and spoke in the military koine favored by the Makedonian veterans. “Greetings warrior, I am Aristotle, and I apologize for your wait. I was off on business.”
The man responded with a respectful nod of his scarred head, which had been furrowed across the top by a javelin cast. He then spoke in kind with a brutal accent not unlike Illyrian, “Greetings thinker. Our king spared us the Gedrosian march. Offered discharge if we climb the roof of India and gather you one of these. A skin of one did drape the shoulders of his brother-king Porus. I am Augulus, Agrianian as my brothers. We were sixty. We are twelve. Forty-eight died to bring you this white cat. Release us will you thinker?”
Forty-eight souls reabsorbed into the cosmos to bring you a rare beast?
This feels wrong, yet I am so glad to have this beast.
“Augulus, your sacrifice was great, more than I may repay. I will write to Alexander of your honor and excellence, you and your warriors.”
He felt his face grow taut. “I am honored by your sacrifice. My scribe here will see you have a purse of silver coin to ease your journey. I would offer more but my wealth is not housed in this community, for the hosts are spiteful toward me and our work here.”
Your cheeks are dripping old woman.
What must these warriors think?
“Thank you, thank you all men, and those without the walls as well and your fallen fellows most of all. I honor you, little honor that I may have among your kind.”
I am so fortunate not to have known War first hand.
The sons of mongers await your illumination of The Good. Please spare them this example of striving—Forty-eight lives for a cat gifted to an old busybody and the freedom of the twelve survivors. I wonder do they regard it as a price well-paid?
If they are bitter, count yourself fortunate not to have drunk Chance’s bitter juice with them.
He watched the three dirty men hand off the beast to the servants and turn away as matter-of-factly as men rising from a meal.
