The Walled Orchard (24 page)

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘we got a message from Phaedra this morning. She says to tell you she isn’t coming back till you apologise. I don’t know what she’s done this time, but if I can help in any way…

I frowned, feeling as if I were drunk. ‘Coming back?’ I said. ‘I didn’t even know she had gone.’

‘She’s at her father’s house,’ he said, ‘she’s been there all day. Do you mean to say you hadn’t even noticed?’

I started to laugh, and Callicrates, who had been very patient with me, finally lost his temper. He told me to stop acting like a child, and slammed the door behind him. I called after him, but he didn’t come back; it was hard to make him angry, but, like everything else he did, he did it well. I sat down by the fire, which had gone out long since, and listened hard to my soul; but nothing came.

The next morning I had two visitors. One was a messenger from Phrynichus, inviting me, as is usual, to his Victory party. I can’t remember what I threw at him, but whatever it was I missed. The second was Phaedra’s father, dragging Phaedra along behind him like an unwilling dog.

‘She’s your problem now,’ he said, pushing her at me like a man returning rotten fish to a fishmonger. ‘I’ve got guests staying, I don’t need her banging about the house. A man should be able to keep his own wife under control.’

He had scratch-marks on his left cheek, just like a set I had seen in my mirror one time. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘it won’t happen again.’

‘It better hadn’t, that’s all,’ he said. ‘And let me make this clear, young man; I’m not having her giving birth in my house, and that’s final. You can clear up your own mess yourself.’

He stormed off, shutting the door quickly behind him, as if he was afraid Phaedra would slip out after him. She stood there looking at me for a long time.

‘Did you hear that?’ she said.

‘I’m not deaf,’ I replied. ‘Is it true?’

‘Yes, it’s true,’ she snapped. ‘I only wish it wasn’t.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you expect me to do about it, since I’m obviously not the father.’

‘Of course you’re the father,’ she shouted. ‘And look at me, will you?’

I turned my back on her. ‘I’m not the father and I’m not going to accept it. You can do what you like.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave it out on the hillside for the wolves. Is that what you want?’

‘I couldn’t care less,’ I said, and I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. ‘How long have you known?’ I asked.

‘Oh, about a week or so,’ she said wearily. ‘I was going to tell you when you won your stupid prize with your stupid, stupid play. I thought you’d be in a good mood. But trust you to make a mess of that.’

‘So that’s what it’s all been about, you devious bitch,’ I said, suddenly feeling angry. ‘All this—’

‘All this what?’

‘That,’ I said, and I kicked the. cloak she had made me across the room. ‘You really wasted your time making that.’

‘Did I?’ She was standing quite still and looking at me, and I couldn’t meet her eyes.

‘Yes,’ I said firmly. ‘Look, it’s obvious it’s never going to work, so I think it would be best if we just kept out of each other’s way from now on, just as we did when we started. Don’t worry, I’ll accept the child. Just don’t expect me to have anything to do with it, that’s all.’

‘That’s what you want, is it?’

‘I think that would be best for both of us,’ I said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘That suits me fine.’

I stood up and took off the tunic she had made, and put on the one that was covered in brick-dust. It seemed to hurt me wherever it touched my skin.

‘I’ll send you money,’ I said, ‘as soon as I get to Pallene. If you don’t mind, I’ll set off. now. I’ve got everything I need there.’

I walked out without looking back, and rode straight to Pallene without stopping. They were surprised to see me, and as usual asked if my wife was with me. I told them no, not this time, and was there any hot food, because I was starving after my ride. The next day I sent a reliable man and his wife to the city, to give Phaedra the money I had promised her and to stay in the house if she was afraid of being there on her own; also, if she wanted anything, to send a messenger to me, or Callicrates if it was important. She sent the man and his wife back, saying she would get in some of her father’s people, if that was all right. I did not reply.

Shortly afterwards, as I have already told you, Cleon was killed at Amphipolis and the Spartans sent an embassy offering peace. There were last-minute hitches and tantrums from both sides, but in the end Nicias son of Niceratus took charge of the negotiations and brought back peace for fifty years, by land and sea, not long after Aristophanes won the first prize at the City Dionysia for his play
Peace.
The war was over at last.

CHAPTER TWELVE

 When the Peace was concluded, I was twenty-one years old, a member of the Cavalry class — however hard I tried I could never squeeze more than four hundred and sixty measures of produce, wet and dry, out of my estates, and for reasons best known to himself, Solon set the limit for the upper class at five hundred measures — and shortly to be a father. I could reasonably expect to live for another thirty years, or even longer; my family regularly survives into the sixties, and I had a grand-uncle who made it to eighty-four, to the extreme disgust of his children. It was not as uncommon then as you would suppose for a man to live apart from his wife, if he could afford it, and, apart from gossip, I heard nothing from or about Phaedra. I sent her money regularly, but spent most of my time in Pallene.

There was so much to do there that I had little time to think of anything else. You may have noticed from what I have written that I have always been interested in the life and times of the dictator Pisistratus — I can say such things now, of course, even in public — and whenever I met someone who had a story about him, I would make sure I heard it. From all these stories I was able to confirm my belief that in his time, the Athenians cultivated far more of Attica than they do now, thanks to subsidies and support from the Dictator. I felt that I was in a position to undertake a Pisistratean programme of my own, using the resources of my more productive land to support the recovery of the desert areas. So I bought and hired labour, and set about taking in land on the mountainsides, wherever there was enough topsoil to dirty my fingertip.

It was, looking back, an absurd idea; but I was young and looking for something to do, now that I had turned my back on Comedy. We hacked terraces where even goats hesitated to go, scraping the soil into baskets and lowering it with ropes down to the new working. We built dams like the walls of Babylon just to persuade little trickles of water to drip the right way, but the only moisture that regularly got through to the ground was our sweat. I can’t bear to think how much money and food I wasted trying to chip a few acres out of the side of Parnes and Hymettus, but once I had committed myself to it, I was determined not to turn back. In the end it was all done, the vines and olives were planted, and we were able to sit back and watch them wither away and die. Out of twelve acres of terraces that we festooned round the mountainsides, only four are still working today.

While I was about my fool’s errand, Phaedra had her baby, and after all that trouble it was only a girl. Phaedra named it Cleopatra — ‘Daddy’s pride and joy’; her sense of humour was just as bad as ever — and gave it to one of her father’s women to nurse. I didn’t go and see it, of course, for I was still maintaining privately that it wasn’t mine. But Callicrates went, taking with him a little box of gold and lapis jewellery, which he bought with his own money. His own wife was barren, and he had refused to divorce her. When he next came to see me, he made a point of telling me how like me little Cleopatra looked, but I didn’t want to know, so I said that he was probably right — bald, with an idiot grin and a nasty rash. He never mentioned her after that.

It was only after Gleon’s death that I discovered that he had been using his influence to keep me off the army lists. I was completely astonished, since I could think of no reason why he should want to help me. I had wondered why I had only been called on once, of course, but I had put it down to luck. But Cleonymus the Vulture, who told me about it when I met him by chance one day in Pallene, said, No, on the contrary, Cleon had liked me, he said, and besides, I was the only poet in Athens he had any chance of getting on his side.

‘That was when you still were a poet, of course,’ he said, warming his huge hands in front of my fire, ‘before that nasty experience of yours.’

I laughed; that was quite easy now. ‘Then he made a mistake, didn’t he?’ I said cheerfully. ‘Nobody’s right all the time.’

‘I don’t know so much,’ Cleonymus said. ‘Now, personally, I think all Comic poets are the scum of the earth, and the sooner you’re all sent down the silver mines the better. But Cleon was different. He liked Comedy — said it was worth thousands of votes to him to be made fun of, because it stopped people seeing him as a threat. More fool them, of course.’

‘But he prosecuted Aristophanes,’ I replied.

‘I’d have thought you’d have approved.’

‘Murder, yes,’ I said, pouring him more wine, ‘prosecution, no. It was a terrible thing to do. Impious.’

‘Well,’ gurgled Cleonymus through the wine, ‘everyone makes mistakes. It wasn’t the jokes about him that Cleon minded, anyway. That son of Philip is mixed up with some very unsavoury people. You know, long hair and fleece-lined riding-boots and elocution lessons and little trips to Sparta when no one’s looking.’

‘Your Great Conspiracy again? I thought that was strictly for the Assembly.’

‘Oh it is, it is,’ said Cleonymus sadly. ‘Hut we’re getting away from the point. Cleon thought you were a good poet, Eupolis, and it was his trade to know such things. Now you may have made an unsightly mess all over the Theatre, and I may be old and a nasty piece of work, all told. But I care about the democracy, young man, just like Cleon did; if it wasn’t for scumbags like him and me, you’d be taking your orders from a King, not sticking your hand up in Assembly.’ He put his cup down and leaned forward, until I felt he was going to roll on me and crush me, like a sow.

‘You owe us,’ he said, ‘just as much as if we had mortgage-stones all over those new fields of yours. I don’t want you to forget it.’

‘Get out of my house,’ I said timidly. Cleonymus smiled.

‘I’ve been thrown out of better places than this,’ he replied cheerfully, and lolled back in his chair. ‘I’m not threatening you,’ he went on. ‘If I was, you’d know it, believe me. What I’m actually doing is encouraging you. Start writing again, that’s all I want, and perhaps your friends might see that you get another Chorus.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’m through with all that.’

‘Oh well, what a pity. Never mind.’ Cleonymus stood up. ‘Don’t bother letting me know when you change your mind. By the way,’ he added, ‘you were right about one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Cleon making a mistake about you. He thought you’d have brains enough to see that he gave you your
General,
that night when you called to see the Archon. I thought that, too. Pity.’

He rolled out, got on his horse, and rode away towards the City, leaving me feeling as if he’d just blown his nose on my head.

After that, it came as no real surprise when, about a month later, I was summoned to the Prytaneum. As I rode I speculated as to what it was likely to be; some sort of punishment for my ingratitude, I supposed. By the time I got to the gates, I had decided that it was probably my turn to pay for the fitting-out of a warship, or (more probably) a Chorus. As I passed the Theatre, I prayed to Dionysus not to let them make me pay for the latest Aristophanes.

I sat on the steps for an hour or so waiting for the Council to call me, and while I was sitting there a man passed by whom I knew from somewhere. I smiled at him, trying to remember his name.

‘Hello, Eupolis,’ he said brightly, ‘how are your new terraces doing?’

‘Could be worse,’ I replied. The face was definitely familiar — long and thin, with a big nose, and the beard shaved close to the chin. In his middle to late thirties, to judge by the grey hairs. ‘Not worth the effort, of course, but then, what is?’

He laughed. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Are they sending you somewhere, then?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ I replied. ‘That, or a trireme, or hemlock, of course.’

He grinned. ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ he said, ‘we only execute generals now. Good luck, whatever it is.’ He waved and ran gracefully down the steps. As soon as I heard him mention generals, I realised that I had been speaking to the glorious Demosthenes, Cleon’s parmer at Pylos. I was amazed that he should even recognise me, let alone know about my terraces, for we had never talked to each other before as far as I could remember, and even I wouldn’t have forgotten meeting Demosthenes.

Then they called me in, and the palms of my hands started to sweat. For some reason I had got it into my head that I would be called in front of the full Council, and have to stand there while they fired questions at me from all over the chamber; so I was greatly relieved and not at all disappointed when I was shown into a little annexe about the size of a poor man’s storeroom. A man I knew, a neighbour of mine from Phrearrhos, was sitting there, and I assumed that he was waiting too.

‘Hello, Mnesarchides,’ I said. ‘Have you been summoned as well?’

‘Don’t talk soft,’ he replied, ‘I’m on the Council. Don’t you ever listen to what people tell you?’

Now that he came to mention it, I remembered hearing that his name had come up for the year. I smiled broadly and offered my commiserations. He thanked me.

‘Well, young Eupolis,’ he said, in that voice which even quite sensible people use when they get lumbered with a public office they don’t want, ‘I’m delighted to have to inform you that you have been selected to accompany our forthcoming mission to Thessaly.’

‘What mission to Thessaly? I thought that was all over now.’

‘Events have transpired,’ said Mnesarchides, ‘that necessitate high-level discussions between ourselves and the present regime.’

‘I see.’ I could feel his disapproval, but I somehow couldn’t force myself to take Mnesarchides in his new role as Councillor seriously; the last time I had spoken to him we had discussed how best to rot manure, and very boring he was too. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘You will accompany Theorus and Strato to Larissa, and report back your findings to the Assembly and to me personally.’

‘Personally?’

‘That’s right.’ He nodded decisively, and continued, ‘You will receive a drachma a day as compensation, to be paid on your return, and of course should some unfortunate event occur, you will be entitled to a public burial, and your children will receive their first set of armour free of charge from public funds.’

‘That’s nice,’ I said. ‘So when do we leave?’

‘First,’ said Mnesarchides, frowning, ‘I must brief you on the purpose of your mission.’

‘That would help,’ I agreed.

‘You will interview the princes Alexander and Jason,’ said Mnesarchides, ‘about their attitude to sending cavalry assistance should any unforeseen situation arise within the next year. You are authorised to offer five obols per man per day, plus a premium of two talents.’

‘Five obols?’ I said. ‘That’s a bit much, isn’t it, for a rabble of Thessalian horse-thieves?’

‘That is the maximum the Council has authorised,’ said Mnesarchides defensively. ‘Naturally, we hope that you will be able to come to a more advantageous arrangement.’

‘Are you expecting any unforeseen situations, then?’

‘We have to provide for every contingency,’ said Mnesarchides. ‘You leave in three days from Piraeus on the
Salaminia.
You will sail as far as the mouth of the River Tempe, where the princes will meet you with horses and escort you to Larissa.’

‘How many cavalry do we want?’ I asked.

‘Don’t specify a number,’ he said. ‘As yet, our exact requirements are uncertain.’

‘Unforeseen?’

‘Precisely.’

‘But more than a hundred, say?’

‘In excess of a hundred, certainly. We can safely authorise in excess of five hundred.’

There was a long silence. ‘How are your lentils coming on, Mnesarchides?’ I asked.

‘Champion,’ he replied. ‘Good luck.’

I had met Theorus at Aristophanes’ party, if you remember, and several times since, and since he had a great reputation for knowing what was going on, I asked him why I had been chosen for the mission.

‘Easy,’ he said. We were standing on the deck of the
Salaminia,
looking back at Athens disappearing behind us. ‘Ask me something difficult.’ He yawned, for he was used to sea travel.

‘Go on, then,’ I said. ‘Then I can go and lie down.’

‘Well,’ said Theorus, ‘you’re a poet, aren’t you? And all these Thessalians and Thracians and Macedonians and wogs like that, they’re obsessed with the Theatre. Not that they do anything themselves, of course, because none of them can read or write; but they know all the latest plays by heart, because they send for Athenians to come and recite them, and they’re always spouting speeches at you, in those horrible voices, which is very funny because they don’t understand a word they’re saying. When I was at the court of old man Sitalces, we made up a great chunk of the biggest rubbish you ever heard and swore blind it was from an unfinished masterpiece by Aeschylus. They’re probably still reciting it to this day, poor fools. It’s all part of them pretending to be Greeks, I suppose,’ Theorus said sadly, ‘but it’ll never work. I mean, most of them look like Greeks, and if you try really hard you can make them talk quite like Greeks, but basically they’re animals, like all foreigners.’

‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘you mean I’m on this mission because I had a play produced?’