Dealing with Jealousy: by Anias       Anias knew he could have taken the two guards who were told to "escort" him home, but wanted to save them the humiliation of being dropped by his superior fighting skills. After all, they were just obeying orders. The REAL problem was Elgon. Collapsing across his pallet when he got to his room, he hoped that his "guards' would go away and leave him alone. He put up such a good pretense of falling into a drunken sleep that when he opened his eyes sometime later, the two were gone. Anias crawled up to a seated position and groaned. His head hurt inside and out.. Could one of those two--or both of them-- have hit him while he was pretending to sleep? Just opening his eyes was excruciating. His stomach felt like a dark and stormy night on the Aegean. With eyes half opened, he felt around under his bed. Ah, there it was. A jug of GOOD wine. A swig of that would make him feel like a new man. Several swigs later, he was back to his normal self and trying to recall the conversation with Elgon before he was unceremoniously escorted from his workplace. Even accounting for Elgon's normal and justified jealousy of Anias's special talents, Elgon overreacted. The magistrate was up to something. Taking one last swig of wine, well, he would have taken more, but the jug was empty, (those goons must have helped themselves to his wine too!), Anias struggled to an upright position, smoothed down his wrinkled chiton, spit on his hands and then smoothed down his hair. He was going out to investigate. He knew just the place where he could sit and keep an eye on things. Besides there were several places he needed to stop along the way. He had to empty himself, and then stop and get more liquid to fill himself up. Anias made himself comfortable in his stakeout spot. He had some wine with him to keep himself alert, and there were several small tavernas close by. However, from here he could keep a close eye on headquarters. Of course there has been that distraction from that little cutie, but she was probably bad news--either a young innocent or a cunning streetwalker. It was remarkable to see how the people passing by recognized his talents and skills. They kept their distance from him--they knew to be afraid. Some even walked on the far side of the road rather than passing next to him. He pulled a big spicey sausage from his bag and began to gnaw on it. NO one was going to keep him from finding out just what Elgon was up to. Jerking himself awake, Anias realized it was getting dark. The streets were becoming more and more deserted. He needed to stay alert. He grabbed his jug and realized that he was out of wine. That just wouldn't do, so he lurched down the street to a small Taverna where he knew he could find some wine. He made his way over to the bar almost falling against it. "Hey Inn Keeper," he yelled out. "Fill up my jug." The man ignored him. "I SAID FILL up my jug, NOW. I need this for offisssical poly-esssh bussshnesh." The innkeeper hurried over to Anias and tried to hush him while Anias threatened to get the health department to come investigate the conditions in the bar. In short order Anias found himself outside the doorway of the taverna, full jug in hand for which he had paid only a few obol and had promised not to return again that night. Drinking the wine to give himself some energy and to keep himself awake, he walked around a little. Something, no someone, caught his eye. There was a person sitting in the clump of trees to the side of headquarters. This was suspicious. Someone other than him was staking out the place. As stealthily as he could, Anias made his way over to the trees, stopping at the edge to water a couple. He had had a lot of wine today. The figure was still there. He thought it might be a woman. Perhaps a confederate of that murderess: perhaps the doctor coming to wait for him! Anias stumbled towards the figure who was shrouded in darkness. She seemed frozen. "Schweetheart, what are.." Anias's remarks were cut short by his screams. Daggers, small incredibly painful daggers, were in his legs, then his arms.. and now his face. He dropped the jug of wine and ran screaming away from the devils the woman had inflicted on him. As he raced away he thought he heard a woman's laugh and a voice saying "thank you Clare and Daphne. Good work!" He ran and fell and crawled, then got up and ran again to get away from the fiends of hell that the woman let loose. He could feel the blood running down his face. He could be scarred for life. They had to be small maenads with the one of the ground their leader or maybe their leader was the one that was locked up. Wild women were loose in Athens--uncontrollable wild women! Whew, he was lucky. Anias wiped the blood from his face. It was well known that maenads could tear large live animals to pieces with their bare hands. He had a narrow escape. He deserved a drink after the danger he had been in. ************************************************************************************** This story is an effort between several writers of our Athens Novel at PanHistoria. The main characters and writers of this story are Clio Aristocratos, (written by- herself) and Elgon Agis (written by- myself) The story started out to create a background past for Clio, and just developed into a life of it