The Mask of Apollo

by Mary Renault

  So I became full of my own affairs, which surprises no one in an actor. I told him about a play I had just read, how I would direct it unless I changed my mind, what Syracusan actors I might take on, consulting him about each. I told him I had meant to call on Dion on behalf of us artists, asking him for his patronage, but now could not make up my mind to it after what I’d heard; I must sleep on it and think again. He soon had enough of this, and got ready to go. To see him off smoothly, I commended his reviving that fine old play, The Offering Bearers. He paused at the door with a meaning smile. “It was a comfort, I think, to those who mourned for Herakleides. And it reminded them that the mourners for Agamemnon did more than weep.”

  I scarcely closed my eyes all night. Knowing Dion always rose at dawn, I got up in the dark so as to lose no time. He had gone back, as I knew already, to his old house in Ortygia.

  The gatehouses were still manned. The guards were civil, though, and only asked my business; one did not need a pass. No one had followed me there. I must have persuaded Kallippos he need not trouble.

  Dion’s house looked the same as ever, well kept, simple and clean. This time no lively boy came peeping. I looked at the roof; on the side where the slope fell away, it was a long way down.

  At the door the porter told me I had just missed the master. He had gone up to the palace, to start the business of the day.

  In the porch, between the red lions of Samian marble, a sturdy Argive with polished armor saluted and took my name. He led me in, though I had no need of it. I knew the way so well my feet could have taken me by themselves.

  The clothes racks were gone from the searching room. It was just an antechamber, with a few people waiting already, early though it was. I remembered the faces one had seen hereabouts in the old days: frightened, or insolent, or cunning; faces that watched each other, eager faces of flatterers. They were gone; but the new ones were not those of happy men. Worry, resentment, impatience, long-suffering duty, all these I saw. I did not see hope or dedication. I did not see a smile, or love.

  However, I had not long to look; almost at once a clerk came out to say the Commander would see me. I went in, hearing angry mutters from those who had come first. The gilt bronze grille stood open. I entered the room I had not seen for a dozen years.

  All the gaudy trimmings had gone. It was almost bare; there was only one bit of furniture that I remembered. Dionysios couldn’t take that off to Lokri; it would have sunk the ship. It stood in its place, on its bronze winged sphinxes, solid as a tomb, just where it had been when its first owner sat at it to write Hectors Ransom. Behind it, in a good plain chair of polished wood, was the master of Ortygia.

  I would hardly have known him. His hair was almost white. He had never carried spare flesh, but his body had had the athlete’s hard smoothness. He was lean now; the loose skin on his arms dragged about his battle-scars. He might have been sixty; but he had shaved his beard, perhaps to try and look younger, as aging leaders must if they can. Between his strong cheekbones and the fine arched brow above, the skin of the eyelids looked brown and creased, with blue shadows under; the inner ends of his eyebrows were drawn together in a fixed frown he no longer seemed to feel. His dark eyes looked at me with a kind of hunger—for what? For old years, for some simple comfort of man to man, for a message of good tidings? I don’t know; he put the need aside, whatever it was, with an air of habit. He had been weak in sending for me first, and was angry with himself, but too just to turn it on me.

  He stood up. I was from Athens, where citizens are not kept standing before seated men. It was the courtesy of a king to one who had been his host in exile. We were going, I suppose, through the formalities of greeting. I remember only his face. A king, I had said; he will be king at last; the gods ordained it. Well, now I looked on it; the name was nothing, here was the thing. Always, when I had pictured it, I had seen him as on that day in Delphi long ago, when he came into the skeneroom like the statue of a victor. I had seen his face like the antique masks of Apollo, which stamp on youth the wisdom and strength of manhood. Now I stood before a king—an old king weary of the burden, stained by the sins that power forces men’s hands to when they dare not lay it down, bearing their shame with his other cares in a stubborn fortitude, the familiar of loneliness, forgotten by hope.

  The godlike mask was off; as with the lover of my boyhood, it was I who had put it on him for my own need. Who does not dream of clear water when the springs are brack? But I had only dreamed; he had tried to bring the dream to pass. Now he had all which if he had sunk his soul to evil could have made him glad. Old Dionysios had had it and died content. He suffered because he had loved the good, and still longed after it. And I thought, I too am marked with my trade. Next time I play Theseus in the Underworld, I shall remember him.

  “Sir,” I said, “I’ve a letter here from Speusippos; may I beg you to read it soon? Since I came here myself, I’ve learned that the warning in it is true. The man it names has approached me. He is planning an armed revolt, which is almost ready. He intends your death.”

  He heard me steadily, without change of color, nodded, and held out his hand for it. I think he would have asked me to sit while he read it, then remembered there was no other chair and went on standing himself. It was a fairly long letter, but he skimmed it quickly, looking for something; when he had found that, he laid it aside.

  “It seems,” he said, “that Speusippos told you what he had heard. It was only Kallippos you were warned of? No one else?”

  “Only him. I knew him in Athens. He took less care with me than I expect he did at the Academy. He is a dangerous man.”

  “Subtle, let us say, and capable.” He smiled at me, the smile of a king to a simple fellow who means well. “Set your mind at rest, Nikeratos. If Kallippos is dangerous, it is only to my enemies. I shall give you a letter for Speusippos, if you will be good enough to carry it, which will reassure him.”

  I was alarmed, rather than surprised by this. Men expect of others what they know of themselves, I thought. So I described to him all last night’s talk, leaving nothing out, even what might insult or wound him. The thing had gone beyond delicacy.

  “Yes, yes.” He sounded indulgent. I could hardly believe my ears. “As I told you, he is a subtle man. For some time he has made it his business to test people in the city whose loyalty he feels doubt of. Of course he asked my leave; someone he tested might, as you and others have done, loyally report to me. I am sorry he so mistook you, Nikeratos. But now you understand and I hope are satisfied. Thank you nonetheless for your good will.”

  I said something. I believe I even apologized. My whole body seemed one grief. All was gone—the bronze-hard honor, the pride of Achilles, pure as fire. There was just an old king, fallen to the sad needs of sick power, who had learned to use a man like Kallippos as a spy.

  I said whatever I said, and waited for leave to go. Yet he kept me back, asking things about Athens, with that hunger in his face again. I had never known him to talk for the sake of talking. He was alone, and would always be; perhaps even the memory of other days was something.

  “You may assure Speusippos,” he said, “that his fears are groundless. Even my own wife and mother were deceived, and I could not reassure them. Kallippos did so, however, by taking the holy oath of Demeter in the sacred grove. You must understand, Nikeratos, that Syracuse is not Athens.”

  I thought of the road to Leontini and answered, “No.”

  “These people are my charge. Fickle, foolish, cowardly, abject as they are, my forebears helped to make them so. I must save them in spite of themselves, and give them time to grow before the Carthaginians make them slaves forever. You do not know, Nikeratos, you who show kings and rulers at a simple crux of fate, the base means men require of those who would rescue them from their baseness. Do you know they have wanted me to pull down the monument of the elder Dionysios, the father of my wife, the man who for all his faults loved me more than his own son, for he trusted his life
to me alone? Can they think I would buy their love so sordidly?”

  “We must respect the dead,” I answered. “They are helpless, as one day we shall be.”

  “Helpless?” he said, staring at me out of his sunken eyes. “You think so? You hold with Pythagoras that they sleep in Limbo, till they are brought before the Judges to choose their own expiation? You don’t believe in dead men’s vengeance, the stuff of all your tragedies?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” I said. “All actors are superstitious. But I think I would rather leave it to the gods. They know more of the truth.”

  “You are right,” he said. “That is the answer of philosophy … I had a strange dream yesterday, if one can say one dreams when one is waking. I was reading in my study, when my eye was caught by some movement. I looked up; at the end of the room was an old woman with a broom, sweeping the floor. No servant would do so in my presence; as I looked in surprise, she turned towards me. She had a face, Nikeratos, like the masks of the Furies in The Eumenides, more dreadful than I can describe. The mask was alive, with eyes like green-burning embers; and the snakes moved in her hair.”

  I saw sweat on his brow. With almost any man I knew, I would have gone up and laid my arm across his shoulders; but of course I knew I could not. “Sir,” I said, “you have been spending yourself night and day for the city, without getting much thanks for it to ease your heart. You dozed, I expect, as you read, and dreamed of some fright in childhood. When those masks come on, I’ve heard of women miscarrying in the theater. In my opinion, no young child should see the play at all.”

  He smiled, chiefly from pride, but I saw in it too a certain kindness. He was about to dismiss me. Suddenly—I suppose it was his words of ill omen—I was possessed by the thought that I should never see him more. Like a fool I exclaimed, “Sir—remember how happy you were at Athens. Everyone there honors your name. Why don’t you come back to the Academy? Think what joy it would give to Plato.”

  He drew himself up, if that was possible for a man who still held himself straight as a spear. His brows lifted; for a moment in the old worn face I saw the imperious youth I had glimpsed at Delphi. “To Plato? To come running like a coward, with nothing achieved save to have changed tyranny for chaos—back to Plato, who three times risked his life here for my cause and me? I had rather have died unborn, than return from battle a man who threw away his shield.”

  “You speak like Dion, and I see it must be so. Forgive me, sir; but since Kallippos thinks you are in danger, don’t people see you too easily? I had not much trouble in getting in—not like the old days.”

  “The old days?” he said. “I hope not, or why am I here? Better death before this day’s sunset, than such a life.”

  He said a few words more, promising me the letter for Speusippos if I would come back tomorrow, then wished me goodbye. I went away thinking, Well, then, after all I am sure of seeing him again.

  I went about the town, saw one or two friends, and was told that a certain young actor, who I had been told had promise, had been seeking me. It seemed a pity not to see him, so in the evening I went to the theater wineshop.

  Through lack of custom, they were still serving all kinds of people; it was not the pleasant place it used to be. The long table at the bottom end was full of soldiers, young Greeks with their heads together, talking quietly. They looked strong young louts; when such men are quiet, one always suspects mischief. Just as I had been served my wine, a man got up from among them and went out. I recognized Kallippos. If the wretched fellows had been foolish, then, they would soon be sorry.

  They went on talking in a huddle; they were in street dress, without their arms, so I supposed could not be up to much harm just now; yet they were neighbors I did not like, and I decided I would wait no longer. I had almost stood up, when a man of about fifty, who had been sitting alone in a corner, crossed to my table. “Nikeratos,” he said, “I have been making up my mind whether to greet you, or if you would remember me after so long.”

  He had a kind, gentle, failed-looking face, which must once have been handsome. I could not recall if we had met, but liking the look of him, I murmured something. He went on, “No, of course you could not; you were just a boy, walking on in your father’s plays. But I would have known you anywhere … Once, long ago, we met to read The Myrmidons.”

  “Ariston!” I said, and grasped his hands. It was like meeting a stranger; I had forgotten our love like a dream; but all through these years I had cherished gratitude. It was his kindness I had remembered.

  He told me he had been touring each time I came before. I don’t think it was true; I think he had been out of work, and was afraid of seeming to trade upon the past. Never having heard his name in Syracuse, I had thought he must be dead; but it was just that he was not a very good actor. His robe was darned; he looked hungry, but had bought his own drink before he spoke to me. I suppose that now, when no one had work in the city, it had come easier.

  I resolved at once that I would take care of him, get him to Athens, and find him something; but that must come later, for he was a man with self-respect. So we talked of the past, and so on, while at the long table the young soldiers muttered together, or laughed sharply like boys up to something bad which frightens them, but not enough to make them cry off.

  Once I heard something, some phrase I can’t bring back, which caught at my mind, so that for a moment I tried to listen. I think it was, “He’ll have gone to his house,” which might have meant anyone in the city. I don’t know why I noticed it. Yet I did, and my attention wandered from Ariston, just long enough for him to feel it, and for me to know he did. This I could not bear. I was too well dressed to afford it. I would not have hurt him for the world. It is true, too, that I would not think of myself as such a man. To each his own shape of pride.

  So I turned my mind to him, and talked, and listened, and got him to take a good meal with me; and before we had finished, the young Greeks left all together.

  We parted, arranging to meet again (I knew better than to ask where he was living), and I walked towards my inn in the dying sunset. In the south night falls quickly; red turns to purple as you look. Whether it was this brooding light, or words heard and not heeded stirring in my head, or whether some new note reached me through the city’s noise, I cannot tell, but of a sudden my heart jumped, and I understood. I had heard the truth from Kallippos. It was to Dion he had lied.

  I began to run through the streets towards Ortygia. People stared at me; I ran as a child does from some bugbear he knows that only he can see. As the fading day sank to a murk in the west like blood, I knew I was running from the knowledge in my soul that it was too late.

  Already shouts came from Ortygia, passed along from gatehouse to gatehouse. On the palace roof stood a man with two torches, signaling his news against the darkening sky.

  I did not run on, in the hope that my fears were folly, that the tumult had some other cause. I knew; and now fear was over, I did not even grieve. It was all that was left him, to die like a king in tragedy, treading upon purple to the axe behind the door. He was freed from his prison in Ortygia, in the only way he could be freed, before it closed on him forever. I had no need to be told he had died with courage, fighting like a soldier against them all. I hoped, for as long as it was possible to hope in vain, that he had not fought alone.

  I had no wish to stay on in Syracuse and speak his epitaph. There was no one here to write it; that was for the old man in Athens, who had written it, I suppose, already in his heart. As for me, Kallippos would not take time to look for me, a vain actor with a head for nothing but his roles. I would sail with Ariston, who had been kind when kindness or cruelty had power to shape my soul, and see he did not die hungry, or alone. That, I thought, is as much as most men can hope to bring away from the march of history, when all is said.

  24

  A DOZEN YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THEN. I HAVE never been back to Syracuse. They say grass grows in the streets there, and it h
as fewer people now than a country town in Attica. Tyranny has followed tyranny (that of Kallippos was so hateful that it only lasted a year) and for a time even Dionysios himself came back to rule over the desolation. At last Corinth, the mother city, taking pity on her wretched child, sent them a general, a good man it seems. He has driven Dionysios out again; whether he can get rid of the Carthaginians, only God knows. Meantime, he has had faith enough in men to disarm Ortygia; the walls of that lair are rubble now.

  Dionysios got off just with his life. He is no one any more; he keeps a boys’ school in Corinth, and goes shopping in the market for his own dinner. Last time I played there, he came behind to commend me. The gods did him a backhand favor, for he can’t afford to drink himself into the grave, and is merely getting fat. He still thinks himself a good judge of the drama, and held forth for some time, till some more important citizen interrupted him.

  Except in Corinth, which has an interest of its own, no one thinks much about Syracuse. It is a place where things happened once. Too much is going on now in Greece, with Philip of Macedon pushing south and meddling everywhere. No one has time for a backward island, full of squabbling bandits, with all its glories in the past. I suppose now and then there are a few hundred folk in that great theater. All the good actors left years ago.

  Greece has plenty of work for us. It is said that technique has never been so advanced, though it’s long since I read a good new play. The great successes are all revivals, which we try to shed some new light on, or at least to present with a splendor worthy of the mighty dead.

  Thettalos and I still share the house by the river, and tour as partners every few years. We have our own ways and our disagreements, but neither of us can conceive of being without the other. It is lucky I am the elder. There is a life in him which will demand its own span to work in, when I am gone, whether he likes or not.