Death Ex Machina (5 page)

Diotima and I had promised to keep an eye out for any recurrence of a saboteur. That was the excuse we used to settle down in the front row and enjoy the play.

SCENE 6

FALL FROM FAVOR

T
HE PLAY BEGAN in earnest. The chorus finished singing the opening song. They bowed in homage before the statue of the God. Even in a rehearsal this religious observance was required, lest the God be offended.

An elbow jabbed me. It was Pythax, who sat on my right. Diotima was on my left.

“What’s happening?” Pythax whispered.

“We’re sitting in an amphitheater watching a rehearsal,” I said.

“Yeah. That’s what I mean. What’s it about?” He sounded embarrassed.

I suddenly realized that Pythax, who was from Scythia to the far north of Hellas, didn’t know the great stories as we knew them.

“The play’s about the legend of Sisyphus,” I told him.

Pythax grunted. “The guy with the boulder. If that’s all that happens it’s going to be a bit boring, isn’t it?”

“The boulder is the end of the story, Pythax. It starts with Sisyphus as king of Corinth. He’s a bad king. He kills visitors to his city just for laughs. He tries to kill his brother. He seduces his own niece.”

Pythax thought about that for a moment. “The man’s an asshole,” he concluded.

My father-in-law had clear views on the proper behavior for a man.

“Zeus feels the same way you do,” I said. “Zeus sends
Thanatos, the god of death, to capture Sisyphus in chains and carry him off to Hades.”

Pythax nodded approval. “Sisyphus has it coming to him.”

“Right. Only Sisyphus asks Thanatos how the chains work, and Thanatos demonstrates the chains on himself.”

Pythax looked at me as if I were insane. “You’re joking, aren’t you?” he said, then added loudly, “If one of my guardsmen screwed up an arrest that badly, I’d tear the skin off him.”

Sophocles stood before the stage shouting directions as the actors acted and the chorus sang. He had stopped them several times to make them do parts again. Now he turned and shot Pythax and me a black look.

“If you can’t be quiet, there are other places to chatter,” he said. “We’re under-rehearsed as it is, as you can plainly see. We’ll be here all night at this rate.” There was sweat on his brow, and it wasn’t from the day’s heat.

“I’m sorry, Sophocles,” I said. “We’ll be quiet.”

Sophocles turned back to his actors. One of them tripped right at that moment. He sprawled hands first across the stage.

“Dear Gods, Phellis,” Sophocles shouted. “Can’t you stay upright?”

“It’s not my fault, Sophocles,” Phellis said. “There’s a slippery patch.”

That halted everything while both Sophocles and the stage manager came to inspect.

Sophocles rubbed his foot over a patch of the stage. He frowned. “So there is. How did that happen?”

Kiron yelled, “Akamas!”

Akamas emerged from behind the skene. “Yeah?”

Kiron put his hands on his hips and said angrily, “I ordered you to roughen the stage floor.”

“I
did
,” Akamas insisted.

“Then how come it’s smooth and slippery?!” Kiron yelled.

“It’s not
my
fault,” Akamas bellowed.

I wondered if they might come to blows.

Another man walked to stand between the stage manager and his crewman. It was Romanos, the third actor, acting as a peacemaker. “There’ve been hundreds of men standing about here all morning, Sophocles,” Romanos said. “Maybe one of them was planning to go to the gymnasium next, maybe he’s got a leaky oil flask.”

Sophocles shrugged. “We’ll never know,” he said.

The stage manager snorted his disgust and signaled to two slaves who stood to the side. “Bring sand,” he ordered.

It must have been a common occurrence, because the slaves instantly shoveled beach sand from a small nearby heap into a bucket. They scattered it across the stage like a farmer feeding chickens.

Sophocles returned to his position at front of stage.

“Is the actor all right?” I asked.

“It was a lucky escape,” Sophocles said. He frowned. “We only have three days before the Dionysia begins. The only actor who has his lines down is Romanos, and he’s our third. In the state we’re in now, it’s going to be a disaster.”

“Is there anything you can do, Sophocles?” Diotima asked.

“Extra rehearsals,” Sophocles said. He sweated freely. “Also every morning and evening for the next three days I’ll be sacrificing to Dionysos. A little divine intervention wouldn’t hurt at this stage.” He clapped his hands. “Onwards!” he announced to the actors.

Two men appeared, one from each side of the stage. The first wore a tragic mask and kingly robes threaded in gold. The second wore the mask of a supplicant and a bright formal chiton. The first I guessed must be Lakon, playing Sisyphus. The second must be Phellis. Beneath the masks and robes it was impossible to recognize them, though I had seen both actors only moments before. They must have changed clothes and masks in an instant. Each character announced who he was
in his first lines—I had guessed correctly—and the play went on. Both actors stumbled over words from time to time and Sophocles had to prompt them.

“I wasn’t joking about the chains, Pythax,” I said quietly, as the actors declaimed their lines. “Wait and see what happens in the play. Sisyphus tricks the god of death into chaining himself. Thanatos escapes, eventually, and when he does he carries Sisyphus off to Hades. That’s the first time he dies.”

“The
first
?”

“Sisyphus talks the Queen of the Underworld into letting him come back to Earth. He says he has to arrange his own funeral.”

“And she believed that, did she?”

“Apparently so. Then Sisyphus refuses to return to Hades. Eventually Zeus, the king of the Gods, gets tired of all the mistakes. That’s when Sisyphus dies for the second time. Zeus personally carts Sisyphus off to Hades and arranges the boulder scheme.”

The play went as I’d outlined to Pythax. Sisyphus the crafty king of Corinth managed to offend everyone. When Zeus had had enough, he sent Thanatos to collect the miscreant king.

The god of death was about to descend from Mount Olympus.

In the background, the long arm of the machine rose. It was painted to match the background. The rope that hung below had been painted sky blue; it was almost invisible in the daylight.

The God appeared above the skene, suspended from the machine. I gasped.

I’d expected Thanatos to be a shining, fearsome god, but Sophocles had done something else, something quite innovative. Sophocles had given the god of death the appearance of a corpse. The actor seemed to hang from a noose. His neck was slumped over at an odd angle. His body was flaccid.

I’d seen men hanged, and this was so like the real thing that I could have sworn a corpse had risen. Diotima grabbed my arm.

The dangling corpse crossed over the skene into the air above the stage.

The neck, which I could have sworn was snapped, suddenly jerked up. The eyes within the mask opened. They stared at us. First at Diotima and Pythax and me, for that was how he faced. Then the direction of his gaze lowered until he saw the playwright. He opened his mouth to speak.

“Sophocles, this harness hurts like Hades,” the god of death complained. “There’s something wrong with it.”

“You only wear it for a few moments, Phellis,” Sophocles said in patient, soothing tones. He was obviously used to dealing with actors. “You’re a professional. You can do it.”

For a moment there they’d had me completely fooled. The actors might be behind on their lines, but if this was to be the standard of the play, it might very well win the contest.

“It doesn’t feel right, Sophocles,” Phellis said. “I honestly think something’s wrong with the harness.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” the stage manager shouted. “I made that harness myself.”

“I’m sorry, Kiron, but there is,” Phellis shouted back. “The harness is pressing under my armpits, and it’s not in the right position at my back. Look!”

Phellis twisted to show those of us on the ground what he meant.

At that moment, we all heard a loud snap.

The god of death hung in mid-air. Then he fell.

SCENE 7

BREAK A LEG

P
HELLIS SCREAMED.

The bone had broken through the skin of his right leg. It poked out at an unsightly angle. He lay crumpled upon the stage where he had hit feet first. Phellis wanted to roll, but he couldn’t because of the leg. He was reduced to rocking back and forth in agony.

“Hold him down!” the stage manager shouted. He’d heard the thud of the falling body and emerged from behind to see what had gone wrong.

Pythax, Diotima, and I rushed to the middle of the stage. Lakon stood there in shock.

Pythax used his immense strength to hold down Phellis.

I said, “Diotima, that poppy juice you fed to the goat, is there any left over?”

Diotima nodded. She ran to the backstage area to collect the bag she brought with her.

Sophocles stood over us. He had gone dead white.

The stage manager said, “I don’t understand it. The harness was perfect.” He sounded stricken.

Diotima returned with her pouch. From it she produced a flask that was half full. Phellis had reduced himself to sobbing. Diotima poured all the poppy juice she had into Phellis while the stage manager and I inspected the rope that dangled from the machine.

Kiron said, “There should be a metal ring. It goes through the loop of leather strap on the actor’s harness.”

Indeed there was no ring. Nor was it still attached to the harness. I said, “Where is it?”

One of the slaves pointed at the ground, a few paces from the stage. “Here it is!”

There lay a metal ring, of the sort you might see in a boat, through which lines could be run.

I picked it up. The metal on one side had broken away. The leather strap must have fallen through the gap. No wonder Phellis had fallen.

I held it up to show the stage manager.

“Let me see that.” He snatched it from my hand, turned it this way and that. “This has been filed,” he said.

“You’re only saying that to avoid responsibility for your incompetence,” said the third actor. He had joined us as we searched.

“That’s not true, Romanos,” said the stage manager angrily. “I checked everything personally.”

Romanos snorted. “A likely story.” He pointed at the machine. “Any one of us could have been up there when that thing snapped.” Then he pointed at the shattered leg of Phellis. “That could have been me!”

I took back the ring. I held it this way and that, and stared at it closely. There were striations that, had I seen them on marble in my father’s workshop, I would have said was the work of a hard metal file.

I said, “This is evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” the stage manager demanded.

“I don’t know yet.”

Diotima had finished feeding poppy juice to Phellis. He lay quieter, but his terrible wound was still there.

Diotima asked, “Where’s the nearest doctor?”

“I know of one,” said Kiron. “There’s a healer who lives in Collytus.”

That was the deme directly south of us.

“They say he’s very good,” Kiron added.

He would need to be.

“Take us there,” I said.

Kiron gave instructions to a slave, who nodded. That slave and another lifted Phellis, who rose from his stupor to scream again when his shattered leg was grabbed by thigh and calf. But there was nothing else the slave could have done. The leg couldn’t be left to dangle while they carried him.

The slaves struggled to carry the actor to the nearby doctor, who people said was good. Phellis passed out on the way.

SCENE 8

THE HEALING MACHINE

“W
ILL HE LIVE?” I asked.

“How in Hades should I know?” the doctor said testily.

We had been admitted to the doctor at once. He kept a large house in a busy street. The house slave opened the door to my insistent knocking. The first thing we saw within were twelve children playing together in the open courtyard. Six boys and six girls of different sizes. They took no notice of strangers carrying a wounded man.

“The master’s children,” the slave explained without being asked. I wondered if the doctor sold fertility potions.

The slave showed us into the front room. When the doctor arrived—his name was Melpon—he shook his head over the broken leg and told us to follow him. The slaves carried Phellis into another room where, in the middle, squatted a large, ominous-looking wooden table. We laid Phellis there.

Melpon peered closely at the break. He even used his hands to gently pull away the torn skin. Merely watching him turned my stomach.

Melpon looked up at us. “Why isn’t he screaming?” he said. “This man should be almost dead of the pain.”

“We fed him some extract of poppy,” Diotima told the doctor. “The same as I use on sacrifices.”

Melpon shrugged. “Well, you’re an untrained woman, but I suppose you know what you’re saying. What matters is that we have to save this leg.” Then he added harshly, “If we can.”

The doctor seemed a stressed sort of person. I supposed it was from having to deal with sick people all the time.

“The leg is attached to a man,” I pointed out.

He softened at my words. “It lies with the Gods,” he said. “Sometimes you do everything you can, but the flesh-eating sickness gets them anyway. I hate it when that happens. I’ve learned the hard way not to hope too much. How did this happen?”

“He fell from the god machine. The one at the theater. This man is an actor.”

“He used to be an actor. Now he’s a cripple.”

“You mean he won’t be able to walk again?” Diotima asked.

“He’ll be lucky if he keeps the leg,” the doctor said. “If he does, he’ll walk with a limp for the rest of his life. That’s the best I can offer.”

I was sure the harness had been sabotaged. Whoever had done it hadn’t only damaged the play, he’d ruined Phellis’s life.

The doctor bent over the unconscious Phellis. Diotima leaned over too.