Comedic Personae
Joxer, the Mighty Jett, King of Assassins, Joxer's identical twin Xena, Warrior Princess Gabrielle, Bard of Poteidaia Padmon, scholar and educator Meg, barmaid and Xena lookalike Leah, virgin priestess of Hestia, Xena lookalike Arbus, revered judge Gryphian, attorney for the prosecution Jace, sibling of Joxer and Jett Jolanthus, father of Joxer and Jett, warlord Dirce, attorney for the defense Iolaus, companion of Hercules Anamelos, high priest of the Hestian order Argo, Xena's horse Townspeople, Students, Jury Members, Hestians, Meg's Girls, Soldiers, Wardens, Bailiffs
Disclaimer: Padmon was given a new course in education, courtesy of Meg, during the course of the story. Rating: PG-13 for innuendo and discretionary situations. References: "King of Assassins," "The Execution," "Warrior...Priestess...Tramp," "A Comedy of Eros," "Warrior...Princess...Tramp" Inspirations: One of my favorite films, "Dave," and David Hyde Pierce's remarkable work as Dr. Niles Crane in "Frasier." No copyright infringement is intended in the writing of this fanfic. Xena, Joxer, Gabrielle, Meg, Leah, Argo et al are the property of Renaissance Pictures. If you want to use this fanfic on your page, due credit must be issued. Yada, yada, yada...just enjoy!
"Second Stringer"
Part 3
by Filippa Morgan Flasheart
flasheart@hotmail.com
Copyright 1999
Gabrielle hurried down the street, knowing she was already late. The stars had come out in the early evening sky. Obstacles were everywhere, and she had already tripped over rocks, chickens, and Zeus knew what else. She had half a mind to swing her staff at the next person so much as...
"Excuse me, I'm sorry," came a strangely familiar voice as a tall body almost ran her over.
Looking up, the young bard almost dropped her weapon in shock. Joxer had a knack for bumping into things, sure, but she had left him dead drunk at the inn several hours ago. And if this were Jett, why on earth would he be wearing such a ridiculous outfit? The man before her wore long white robes, leather sandals, and had a most confused look on his familiar long, goofy face.
"Joxer, what has gotten into you? Are you on your way to Costume Night at Meg's or something?" Gabrielle tested whoever this was.
"I beg your pardon, but..."
Gabrielle narrowed her green eyes. Why would Joxer be so polite all of a sudden, and especially during a hangover? Unless it were...
She pointed the end of the staff at the stranger, and he jumped back a step, obviously scared. "Jett, if that's you, I'm warning you, I will fight you this time." The man tried to grasp at a few words, terrified as he was. The only thing that came out was a soft whine frighteningly similar to Joxer's. If this were in fact Jett, he had gotten some practice in disguises down in Maramis.
"Forgive me, miss, but there's been a murder, and I need someone to help," he finally said, shaking from fear. "I don't suppose you know to whom I could speak?"
This wasn't Joxer, or Jett. And unless the enigmatic Jace really was this cultured, this man was someone else entirely. Gabrielle knew neither of the twins would use "whom" in normal conversation.
She lowered the staff and eyed him carefully. A murder...just as Xena had suspected.
But how would he know about it, and why was he telling her, of all people? "Let me get this straight." She thought hard. "You're not Joxer, or Jett."
Padmon stiffened, maintaining his dignity. "I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, young lady, but I am Padmon, scholar of the Hestian order, and I need to report a murder. It was terrible!" he whimpered, suddenly breaking into tears. Gabrielle moved away before the man who called himself Padmon could bury his head on her cropped green top.
The bard was taken by surprise. First Princess Diana, Leah, and Meg, then Jett, and now this? What were the odds, and where, by Artemis, were the women who inevitably resembled herself? "Padmon," she said softly, using his name for the first time. He sniffled loudly and withdrew a cloth from his toga. "You say there's been a murder at the Hestian academy?"
He blew his nose loudly. "That's right. My headmaster. I don't know who did it, and please, it wasn't me! I can't even kill flies, for Apollo's sake!"
Definitely not Jett. "I'm a friend of Xena's. Have you heard of Xena? The Warrior Princess? She and I were looking for clues to stop a murder, and it's probably the same thing."
Padmon stopped crying. "My students adore her. Although I would have thought she'd travel with someone perhaps more utilitarian? Like this Iolaus fellow who accompanies Hercules?"
Gabrielle took the insult in stride, holding her quick temper in check. After all, this man who looked like Joxer was the only witness to the crime.
"Come with me, and please stop crying. Xena is going to want to talk to you. And there's something else I need to ask you. Were you born in Corinth?"
"No. Parnassus."
"And do you know anyone by the name of Joxer, Jett, or Jace?"
"Surely no grown man I know could be called Joxer," Padmon sniffed haughtily.
Gabrielle shook her head slowly and picked up her staff. It was going to be a long night.
"Xena, I have someone you really, really need to meet."
The warrior barely looked up. Although it was far past midnight, she was still awake and sharpening her dagger intently. "Don't tell me it's another person who looks like me," she muttered somewhat sarcastically.
"Padmon? Come on in here. She's all right." The bard had to go into the hallway and drag the frightened scholar inside. Xena's blue eyes widened with alarm, for Joxer was dozing like a log next door, and this man was far too frightened to be the assassin Jett.
She smiled, a feral grin. "Don't tell me you're Jace."
The tall, lanky Padmon swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down just like Joxer's. "Proud Warrioress, I am Padmon, scholar of the Hestian order. Your companion here informed me that I should tell you what I witnessed tonight." The two women shared a quick glance. "And could you please tell me, for the love of Pallas Athena, who this 'Joxer the Mighty' person is?"
Xena rose from her stool and patted the stranger on one shoulder. He pulled away as if burned.
"I don't know what your students told you about me, but I'm on your side." Xena did her best to calm Padmon, which wasn't easy. His pale face was bathed in sweat and his knobby knees shook violently. "Gabrielle said you were a witness to a crime. Is that true?"
He started sobbing again, plaintively and loudly. "It...was...horrible!" he blubbered, flinging his face onto Xena's armored shoulder. "My master, the headmaster of our academy, stabbed through the chest. And oh, please, it wasn't me! I'm a pacifist! I don't even own a weapon!"
"It's all right. Just tell us what you know. We have a few clues of our own," prompted Gabrielle. On cue, Xena removed the piece of scroll from her breastplate.
"Padmon, do you recognize this handwriting? Maybe it was someone else inside your order," suggested the warrior.
He temporarily stopped his crying and paused to study the parchment. Woefully he shook his head. "It's unfamiliar to me, although only a Corinthian has that sort of dreadful penmanship. Quite barbaric. I recognize it well."
Xena and Gabrielle shared a nod, knowing Joxer and Jett hailed from the coastal city.
One more tile in a huge, enigmatic mosaic.
"Padmon," Xena said, trying not to laugh, "I have someone I want you to meet. And don't wake him; he's had a hard day's night."
The two friends, along with the Hestian scholar, tiptoed through the inn's hallway. When Xena pushed the next door wide open, Padmon slapped an astounded hand to his mouth.
"By the gods..." he murmured, in awe as he beheld his lookalike. Joxer, stripped of his clumsy armor, lay sprawled on the homespun bed, his mouth agape and his brown hair in unruly spikes. A soft whistling was audible as his narrow chest rose and fell.
"Padmon, meet Joxer the Mighty," Gabrielle said. "That's why I kept bothering you about him on the way here. He's our friend, and, well, I thought you were him as I ran into you."
"I must say, he is rather familiar," the scholar mused, cocking his head in wonderment.
"And he's your friend? I think you should take him to the armorer's, and soon," he suggested.
Xena hardly heard him. Her sharp mind was thinking fast.
"You can't go back to the order. If you do, they'll be sure to catch you. You're sure there was no one else in the building?"
"I'm all but sure. Anamelos and I are the only ones who ever stay to study that late at night."
"But there are lots of ways to sneak in, right?" asked Gabrielle.
Padmon stiffened. "I suppose there are, if you were some sort of cat burglar or acrobat."
All assassins carry that sort of equipment, especially Jett, thought Xena. And he's still on the loose. Plus, he's from Corinth.
"Gabrielle, keep Padmon here, and whatever you do, don't let Joxer wake up." The warrior turned, her eyes narrowed.
The bard stifled a laugh. "Are you kidding? If I know him, he'll be out until at least sunrise, and even then, he'll have too much of a headache to go anywhere."
"I beg your pardon, my warrioress, but am I not free to go where I please?"
Xena shot him a sarcastic look. "If you want to keep your head, no. Stay low and Gabrielle will tell you what to do. Hey, you might even enjoy reading some of her scrolls."
Gabrielle winced at the thought of this man, however educated, reading her precious chronicles of their adventures. He did, after all, look like Joxer. Grudgingly she nodded.
"And might I ask where you're going?"
"Jett's a creature of the night. If I'm going to find him, it's now." She adjusted the chakram at her waist. "Stay here and be careful. They're going to be looking for you, Padmon."
They closed the door to Joxer's room, letting him snore on peacefully. Xena slipped into the shadows, determined to apprehend Jett. The bard and the scholar looked at each other nervously.
"Are you hungry?" asked Gabrielle. "Xena and I always keep some dried meat and bread in Argo's saddlebags."
Padmon screwed up his face in disgust. "I don't suppose you have any pomegranates, or even some of that lovely amber wine with spice?"
"Let me show you my scrolls."
The Thessalian night was a steamy, humid cauldron over which dark clouds and a bright summer moon hung lazily. Although it was a few hours yet until dawn, the scattering of taverns around town were still filled with noisy, drunken patrons. Xena passed each one, frowning in disdain. No assassin worth his salt stuck his head into one of those places...unless he actually wanted to be recognized. And Jett had always been the daring type. Shrugging, the warrior decided to try her luck at the last place on the corner, a shadowy establishment with a weathered sign that announced as The Hawk's Landing. Looked more like a nesting place for vultires and crows, thought the warrior as she pulled up her cowl, effectively hiding her sword and chakram. If Jett was recognized in a place like this, she might be picked out herself.
Inside the tavern, the raucous crowd booed as a young man, probably Joxer's age, tried to pick at a lyre with little success. Scantily clad girls brought the men their drinks on wooden platters, and in the corners, pockets of thieves, card sharks and lowlifes spoke in hushed tone.
Just what she was looking for.
"Excuse me," Xena asked, tapping the nearest man who looked halfway decent on the shoulder. He faced her, and at least he wasn't badly drunk. "You seen a man that looks like this?" She offered him her crude drawing of Jett's profile. The patron's liquid grey eyes blinked once, and he shook his head.
"Sorry, miss, can't say I have. Why you lookin' for a fellow like that?"
"Let me put this another way. Have there been any stories in here about an assassin? A great assassin, one who recently escaped from prison?"
The villager gulped nervously. "You didn't hear it from me, but yeah, there have been some rumors about a guy just like that. You know him?"
Xena smirked. "Call him an old acquaintance. I'm trying to bring him to justice. Do you have any idea where he might be now?"
He shrugged. "No idea. Assassins are most active at night, though, I know that much.
Be careful, miss. You seem awfully nice. You taken?"
"So to speak. You've been a great help." With that, the warrior turned and left as quietly as she had come in.
Outside, the summer stars twinkled brightly, and Xena quickly calculated the time of day based on the position of the large water dipper, the one Gabrielle thought resembled a bear, of all things. It was upside down and closer to the horizon, meaning she only had another couple hours until daylight. And if she hadn't found him by dawn, all Tartarus was going to break loose.
A crazy plan had occupied Xena's mind as she stalked the streets in search of her quarry...and for it to work under any circumstances, she had to capture Jett. Dawn would arrive in another hour or two, and she was running out of time.
Pulling her cloak tighter around her body, Xena trotted lightly through the deserted streets, trying to look for a suitably dark place for a man such as Jett. How long had it been since he escaped from prison? The warrior realized she didn't know. With all the other evils in the world, and the assassin behind bars, she had all but forgotten him.
A small movement, not much more than the shadows themselves, caused her to stop in her tracks and glance about defensively. Had it been? With a loud shing! of metal, Xena grasped her sword and prepared to fight. She knew better than to dismiss such tiny motions as insignificant.
"Come on out, whoever you are," she growled, squinting into the darkness. Nothing.
The source of the noise had been a small, hidden niche between buildings, the kind of niche anyone but Xena would have overlooked.
"I said..."
Before she could finish her sentence, a wiry body flung itself from the hiding place in a blur of black leather. Using her finely honed reflexes, Xena let the mystery attacker fall right over her with his momentum. He landed painfully on his knees, but the pain didn't seem to faze him.
Reaching into his belt, he drew a curved dagger and tried to engage the warrior in combat.
Without effort, Xena kicked the weapon from his hand, and he yelped in pain. She couldn't see his face...it was covered with, dared she say it, an odd leather mask.
Still, the black figure didn't give up. He unleashed a series of wicked short chops, to which the Warrior Princess responded with equally quick defensive motions. Finally, breaking the blow-for-blow series, Xena shot her fingertips outward, effectively engaging her famous nerve pinch.
"I've just cut off the flow of blood to your brain. Give up, or you'll be dead in thirty seconds.
The man, gasping like a gaffed fish, frantically put up his gloved hands in surrender.
With another quick prod of Xena's fingers, he sprawled on the cobblestones, trying to catch his breath.
Xena sheathed her sword, knowing she wouldn't need it. "If you are who I think you are, you shouldn't really be walking these streets at night," she said with a touch of dryness.
Under the mask, the man's thin lips curled into a sneer of ridicule, clearly unafraid of his enemy.
"Been a long time, Xena," he rasped, still trying to recover from the lethal touch.
"Yes, Jett, I suppose it has," she countered. "Now, are you going to cooperate with me? Because if you aren't, I have more where that came from." She brandished her fingers. "I'm not going to take you back; not yet, anyway. I need to ask you a few things. First of all, how did you escape from Maramis? And why are you going for the masked look all of a sudden?"
The assassin rose from his sprawl, trying to maintain at least some dignity. A woman, even Xena, beating him in combat was not flattering to his image. With one hand he whipped off the mask, revealing a deep laceration down the left side. It had left a jagged scar and appeared to be about three months old.
"You see what I get for my troubles? That's only the half of it. The first time I tried to escape, they broke half my ribs." He spat in distaste, remembering the abusive wardens.
Xena narrowed her eyes. "You didn't answer my question."
He laughed the laugh of the jackal...cold and unforgiving. "You think I'm telling you how I got out? It's people like you who fill that prison, Xena."
"Fine. But what I really want to know is why you're out here in the middle of the night.
Don't tell me you've had a change of heart and decided to become a philosopher?" Xena fixated her old enemy with a look that clearly suggested she didn't believe a word he said.
"Unfortunately not. Once an assassin, always an assassin. And I am the best at what I do. But contrary to what you might think, I'm not here for a hit. I'm actually in a slump, if you believe that." Jett put a finger to his forehead for emphasis.
"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. You know anything about the Hestian order, Jett?"
Both warrior and assassin looked as if they were inches from going at it again, but neither made a move. Jett finally spoke.
"I'll tell you what I know under one condition. You let me go. You never saw me here. I never killed Cleopatra, Xena, and you know it."
Xena frowned, considering his offer. If he was going to play into all of this...
She gave Jett her hand, sealing the bargain. "Done. Now what's this all about?" She produced the scrap of parchment from her breastplate, handing it to him. He scanned it and handed it back.
"It's not mine. When I do that sort of thing, it's a lot more cryptic. Can't leave any sort of trail. If you're talking specific here, this wasn't done by a professional at all. I've known lots of them in my lifetime, and it's not an assassin's style."
The warrior thought it over. If Jett really were the murderer, he was good at the game he played. But knowing him, and from all the stories Joxer had told, Jett enjoyed his kills. He was doing an unusually convincing job of play-acting.
"Were you with a woman last night? A woman who looked like me?"
"That's really none of your business."
"We made a deal, Jett."
Jett's lips pursed, much like his brother's. "I guess you talked to her, huh? Sure I was with her, but not for long. Girls like her have lots of business to take care of, but I guess you knew that."
"So here's the 64,000 dinar question. If you're not here for a kill, what brings you to Thessaly?"
"Maybe you won't believe me, but..." The assassin hesitated as if embarrassed. "I came here so I could save Joxer's life."