The Mask of Apollo

by Mary Renault

  “Silence,” he said again; then, “Go, and take those men with you.” He pointed to the prisoners, who had been craning in anguish to hear the outcome. “I am a Syracusan. I do not hold fellow countrymen to ransom. And I have no other use for them. Take them away.”

  It was not till envoys and freed men were wading back through the river, and I saw him at leisure, that I ventured up with my bag of letters. He thanked me, courteously but shortly, and gave it to one of his officers to look after. I said, “Here is one more, sir, which I thought you would want by itself.” And I gave him Plato’s.

  He took it, thanking me. As I saw, he was on the point of putting it with the others; then he noticed me looking, and perhaps it brought things back. At all events, he opened it and read it. It was short, as I had known from its thickness. There was no change in his face.

  “Thank you, Nikeratos,” he said. “I am obliged to you. There is no answer.”

  20

  I NEARLY RODE STRAIGHT BACK TO MESSENE, to take ship for home. Leontini would be crowded three to a bed; and I sickened at the thought of Syracuse. However, I had come a long way. Everyone in Athens would ask for news, and I should look a fool to have run off. Besides, I had written to Menekrates that I was coming; he could be trusted at least to have minded his own business, and I would not need to break bread with one of Dion’s enemies.

  At his door, however, the porter told me he was on tour in Italy; my letter had missed him and lay unread on his table; his wife and sons were at her father’s. Wishing once more I had not come, and now travel-weary, I walked round the New Town to find an inn. The porter had expected him home shortly; I would stay awhile in the hope of seeing him. It was windy weather, and I had had enough of the sea.

  The city was fuller than ever of party warfare, the leaders chosen in Dion’s place each having his faction; they had united briefly in an interest common to them all. I was told that Dion, while they were stoning him out of the city, had pointed towards Ortygia, whose ramparts were crowded with watching men. But no one heeded him.

  Having found a quiet clean inn, I went to bed early. But I had had enough to keep me wakeful and, when almost off, was disturbed by someone in the next room weeping. I listened for some time to see if anyone came to comfort her, but she seemed quite alone. It was no affair of mine, whether she was some woman of the house or a hetaira; she must be one or the other, to be by herself here. If she had been noisy, I might have thought less about it; but the way she smothered the sound disturbed me, and I could not rest. People were still about; I found a servant and asked who had the room. A young man, he replied, from Athens.

  I went back upstairs. I could have sworn it was a woman—a man’s weeping is harsher as a rule—but it explained the wish to hide it. I hesitated no longer, but took my lamp and scratched at the door. The sobbing went on, unheedingly. I tried the latch, and finding it give went quietly in.

  All I could see upon the bed was dark hair and a cradling arm. Disturbed by the light, however, my neighbor started up with a gasp, clutching the sheet. Disheveled, with drenched eyes and features blotched by many tears, the face made me stare, it was so like one I knew. “Forgive me,” I said, “but I am an Athenian, Nikeratos the tragic actor. They say you come from my city. You are in trouble. Can I help?”

  “Niko! Oh, Niko!”

  I walked over to the bed. I could scarcely believe my eyes; but they were right.

  “Axiothea! In the name of all the gods, what are you doing here?”

  She looked as glad to see me as a friendless child its mother; and, more like that than anything else, I sat down and took her in my arms. I had guessed the truth already, before she poured it out. All her men friends were with Dion; she had thought how the world was being changed while she sat at home like a housewife, had quarreled with Lasthenia, who had thought it madness, and slipped away. The voyage had been wretched for her; though often taken for a youth she had never tried to sustain the role, or thought what it would be like on shipboard. Nobody shaves at sea; they had taken her for a eunuch, which she had had to confirm and bear the sailors’ jokes. Then, when at last after a bad crossing she got to Syracuse, it had been just in time to see Dion driven out like a dog.

  Shaken already by the voyage, she found everything scared her: the soldiers, the beggars, the young drunks coming from the wineshops, the agents who canvassed her for their factions, the pimps offering her girls or boys. Every moment she expected to be caught out and stoned by the crowd. She had meant to join her Academy friends who were with Dion, hoping they would admire her boldness; in this wilderness beyond the olive groves they seemed just men among men, who would despise her folly and find her a burden they were ashamed of. Now in any case they had left for Leontini. She was quite alone.

  I told her what I had seen, and that Dion was safe. “I saw him at Assembly,” she said. “He has changed, Niko. But who can wonder, among such people?”

  “He was born among them. I suppose, in Syracuse, it is hardly his fault he did not know them. If he had, he might have done no better, just given up beforehand. As it is, he and the people are like figures in a tragedy, who come together meaning well, but are born to work each other’s ruin. Neither is without good; but they are fated never to find it in one another. Dion has more virtue; but he has suffered less. Only a god could judge justly here.”

  “Is there justice,” she said, “anywhere under the sun?”

  “Come, dry your eyes,” I said. “You’ve read too much, my dear, before looking about you. You can take the word of a man who has been poor: goodness is there, and with the world what it is, that’s proof enough to my mind that the gods exist; I don’t see how else you can account for it. But goodness is like money—a city only has so much; you have to start small and build up the capital. It’s no use to overspend the assets, then when the bank goes broke to get bitter and believe in nothing.”

  “Now you are here, dear Niko,” she said, smiling, “I can believe.”

  “That’s better. You never called me that before. Smile again! Here we both are in Syracuse, with time on our hands, and who knows when you’ll travel so far again? You can’t hide in a hole till you sail home. So wash your face in cold water, get some rest; I want my boy friend to do me credit; and tomorrow we’ll see the town. Knock on my wall if anyone tries that door; why didn’t you lock it?”

  “The bolt is warped; I was afraid to complain, in case the landlord looked too hard.”

  “Well, now you can leave such things to me. Sleep well.”

  Next morning I got her out of doors, and we spent some days seeing Syracuse. She had always been a slender girl, without much bosom; the journey had left her far too thin for her sex, but quite interesting for a youth, as some of our acquaintance showed us. If she blushed, I explained that she had been reared by a pro-Spartan father in the strictest decorum. She never spoke before her elders. When we were alone again, neither could help laughing. To keep up the joke, I bought her the latest fashion in keepsakes, a brooch with a flying Eros, and we went everywhere hand in hand, to warn off rivals. Apollodoros was the name she went under.

  I showed her the theater and its machines (the caretaker was most obliging) and my gold leopard in the shrine. Then we went down to the waterfront, whence we viewed Ortygia and its catapults, a use for mathematics which surprised her, as it would have done Pythagoras, I daresay. Dion’s siege wall was still unfinished; they had not touched it since he left. One end was still rough piles, brush and timber. The garrison inside had raised the flanking walls of the first gatehouse to overlook it. I showed her, under the water-stairs of Ortygia, where the spring of Arethusa comes up fresh into the sea. “They’ll never lack water,” I said, “but it seems certain they’re short of food. It can’t last much longer.”

  “And Herakleides will take the credit. Is that his fleet coming in?”

  We watched awhile. “What are they about,” I said, “sailing so close in to Ortygia? They must be in catapult range.” J
ust then they struck sail and started rowing. I said, “Those are the enemy’s.”

  A patrol ship in the harbor was making for shore like a scalded cat. People started shouting and running and crowding to the waterfront. I put my arm round Axiothea in case we were pushed apart. “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “They’ve no time for us. Herakleides has blundered again. That’s a supply fleet for the garrison.”

  Cheers sounded across the water as the ships moored by the water-stairs. Unloading started at once. The garrison would eat well for some time to come.

  As this thought got home to the crowd, there was a furious rush towards the galley slips. After much noise and milling, prows thrust out into the harbor, and oars were seen.

  “What use is that?” I said. “Except to save Herakleides’ face.”

  The ships rowed full-speed across the harbor. The freighters kept on off-loading cargo, but the escort triremes came smartly about. It was a brisk engagement, in which the catapults could not be fired for fear of hitting their own side. The end of it was that the Syracusans sank two or three of the warships, and captured four which (without their men, who dived off in time) were towed home in triumph. The freighters, all safe, went on unloading.

  It could be seen that not only supplies were going ashore, but soldiers. Before long the guard of the outer gatehouse yelled across to the Syracusans on their wall that the great Campanian captain, Nypsios of Neapolis, had brought his troops; they had better rejoice while they still could. These men were silenced rather sharply by an officer; but in any case, the Syracusans were taking their advice.

  I never saw such another public orgy. They were dancing in all the streets, to the piping of flute-girls from the brothels, while they still had legs to dance; the wine flowed like streams in spring. Herakleides was carried about the city like the image of a god; the very oarsmen were feted from house to house until they dropped dead drunk where they were. One would have thought Dionysios and his whole navy had been sunk, and Ortygia stormed. By my guess, they were ashamed in their souls of the way they had treated Dion, and scared, too, to be without him. Now they could love themselves again, and it went to their heads.

  I soon took Axiothea back to the inn, after two roaring-drunk men had tried to grab her from me. As we took to our heels, they bawled out, asking who I was to keep all the pretty boys to myself—an oligarch? One of Dion’s set?

  If it had looked ugly in the streets, it looked worse from the inn roof at nightfall. They now had bonfires to light the revel. The sentries up on the siege wall could be seen with a wineskin big enough for a satyr play; between swigs, they bawled abuse at the enemy on their rampart; who stood listening, quiet as judges in a theater.

  Downstairs, the din nearly burst one’s ears, the women louder than the men. No one had mended Axiothea’s door, so I made her come in with me. She was worn out by now; we seemed like old companions, and when I got her settled on my bed, saying (which was true) that I would not sleep in any case, she made nothing of it. She lay decorously, wrapped in her robe; as by degrees the people drank themselves quiet, she grew drowsy and closed her eyes.

  I was getting tired myself, and wondered whether she would notice if I lay down beside her, when suddenly the night was split by a most frightful yelling. I nearly swallowed my heart. I don’t think I doubted for a moment what it was. Flinging open the window shutters, I leaned out. The night sky was clear, showing me the top of the siege wall swarming with men. Bodies were falling, ladders waved about as the storming party lowered them over. From the sound, they must have all been over the wall before the sentries woke.

  It is the nightmare of every touring actor that he may be caught in some town during a sack. All through my career, by using my head, I had managed to avoid it. Now, without even the excuse of a good role or big contest, here I was. If I had had my wits about me, I should have taken the road before sunset with Axiothea. Never, in my worst dreams, had I seen myself with a woman on my hands at such a time.

  She had been slow to stir, having heard so much noise all day; but now she was sitting up and asking, “What is it?” I said, “A sortie from Ortygia. I’m afraid they have forced the siege wall, and you know what that means. My dear, you and I will have to look out for ourselves. Go and get your traveling shoes. Is that your money bag? Tie it round your middle; don’t bring anything else. We’ll try the roofs. One can get trapped in a place like this.”

  She was quickly back. The noise was getting closer at a speed that frightened me, but should hardly have surprised me after what I’d seen all evening. Suddenly a great sheet of flame roared up from the crosswall; the Syracusans had fired the timber end. As usual they were too late; the enemy were through and the blaze just lit them on their way.

  The roof stairs were outside. We ran down through the inn, where the half-sobered were stumbling about over drunken bodies. The floors were slimy with vomit, and in the clean night air outside the stink clung to our shoes. But it was soon overpowered by the smell of burning. Caught from floating sparks, or started by the raiders, fires were breaking out on house roofs, and showed us the Ortygians pouring through the streets. Already women were shrieking. Axiothea’s fingers, icy cold, closed round my wrist.

  “We must keep ahead of the crowds,” I said, “or we’ll be trampled on. The roofs stretch a good way. Gird up your robe, you can’t run like that.” Seeing her fumble, I did it for her. We clambered along the rooftops, hearing behind us the panic roar of the Syracusans and the Campanian battle yells. Their officers were no longer troubling to keep them in hand. It was plain the town was theirs. Axiothea was behaving very well, keeping up without fuss. I remembered the girls’ race at Olympia. When we paused for breath, she said, “Where are we going?”

  I had not known myself, but now answered at once, “To the theater.” There was a climb to the next roof. When we had hauled each other up, and seen the red glow getting brighter in the sky, I said, “It’s as good as anything—full of places to hide in. I can think better there what to do next.”

  Our line of roofs running out, we had to take to the streets and were caught up in a flying crowd making for the city gates, but we were still ahead of the thickest press. Wherever one could glimpse the outer walls above the houses, they were being overrun by the Ortygians. As we turned off into a side street, I heard a frenzied din from the gate; we had been right not to think of trying it. Here was the theater, just ahead, its tall gilt thyrsos catching the firelight. “Come,” I said, “we’ll entrust ourselves to Dionysos. I gave him a splendid present, apart from all the work I’ve done for him. Now he can do something for me.

  There was a temple of Apollo near the theater, crowded to the doors with people taking sanctuary. Inside, the god’s golden hair glittered by lamplight; I lifted my hand and invoked his blessing. But the temple was full of treasure and of women; I feared it might strain the Campanians’ piety. Men don’t dread the gods of the conquered like their own. It was Dionysos or nothing.

  The theater was quite empty. Like a sounding-bowl, its hollow curve magnified the roar and screeching of the sack. Backstage, it seemed pitch-dark at first, but soon we found the windows gave light enough. In the caretakers’ room I poked about and found some food; there was even a wine jar. We took them into the protagonist’s dressing room. Neither of us was hungry, but we were glad of the wine. We must have been the only people in all Syracuse who needed any. I said, “Stay here, don’t wander about; I am going up on the god-walk, to see what is going on.”

  I saw nothing, however, the high tiers of the theater cutting off the view; there was just the din, and the glare. I lay down (an actor can’t be on the god-walk without feeling twenty thousand eyes on him) to think awhile. I had forgotten, as we came, the splendors of the theater, given by the elder Dionysios for the glory of his plays. There were bronzes and gilded swags wherever you looked; it might not be the first place they thought of looting, but once inside, they would go through it end to end before they put a torch to it. D
ionysos, I thought, won’t you help your servant? And I remembered the last time I had been up here; it was in The Bacchae, appearing as the god to close the play.

  I suppose one thought leads to another; but it was just as if he lit up my mind with a flash of lightning. I clambered down and groped my way over to Axiothea, my eyes unused to the dark again. Her hand reached out from the couch; I got up beside her. “I have been thinking,” I said, “what to do if they come here.” I felt her stiffen like wood, but she did not let out a sound. She was trying hard, poor girl, to follow Plato’s precept, Be what you wish to seem.

  “Remember,” I said, “that these men are Campanians, up-country peasants from Italy. I don’t suppose any of them has been in a real theater; they’ve only just arrived. It is for us to put them in a proper fear of the god. Come with me, and I’ll show you how.”

  I led her out, among the levers and tackle and big wheels. I have never yet been in a play with special effects without finding out how they work. In Syracuse especially, the machines are so famous it would have been unprofessional not to study them. I knew them all.

  “This big one,” I said, “is for the thunder. It is heavy, but you must pull it somehow, and keep pulling till you get the thunder-drum to turn; then pull twice more. Then wait till you hear me shout, and do the same again. After that count up to ten and pull this one here. This is for the earthquake.”

  We went over this several times; then I looked about for the pulley of the sounding board. It must be somewhere up in the dark. I tried this or that, in dread of releasing something that would get us noticed. At last it came down, and I got it fixed. “We mustn’t stir from here till morning,” I said “so as to be ready. How cold you are. Wait while I look for something warm.” There was an old door-curtain among the skene-flats. I pulled it round both our shoulders, and rubbed her hands in case they should be too numb to work. When some shriek more dreadful than the rest, and getting nearer, rose above the din, she crept closer and I took her in my arms. Her thin shoulders were touching, felt like this in the dark.