The Walled Orchard (43 page)

Of course the idiot hadn’t the faintest trace of a plan of action, but he wasn’t going to admit this to his worshippers. Instead, he ordered them to take off their armour and bury it, which they did most scrupulously. After all, Aristophanes explained as they were scraping over the hole, the enemy were looking for three armed men; they were not looking for five unarmed men and a mule. This appeared to strike our companions as a piece of tactical brilliance worthy of the celebrated Palamedes.

Well, a little later the sun set, and Aristophanes led out his little army. By then he had thought of a plan, and it could have been marginally worse. Aristophanes knew that in Athens a drunken rout is given a wide berth by all sensible people. What better way out of our difficulties than for us to pretend that we were a bunch of drunken revellers, staggering home from a heavy day’s drinking at some far-flung shrine? All we needed was a few props — a couple of wine-jars, a wreath or two, maybe a pinewood torch to shove under the noses of any passers-by — and these we could pick up and improvise on our way. The true brilliance of the scheme — according to Aristophanes — lay in the fact that although it is hard to speak a foreign dialect convincingly, it is not too difficult to sing it, particularly if you sing it as if you were drunk.

So there we were; five desperate fugitives singing the only Dorian song we all knew (the Hymn to Apollo by the Corinthian poet Eumelus) as we lurched through the Sicilian landscape trying to remember what it feels like to be drunk. Now I am a fair man, and will not deny credit where it is due, even if it is due to an idiot; so I must tell you that we quite obviously convinced the various travellers we met on the way. They took one look at us and bolted, some of them shouting opprobrious names at us as they ran. Perhaps I should not have been as surprised as I was at the time by the success of this ruse; it is a general rule of human nature that people will implicitly believe that you are drunk if you sing and stagger about. They want you to be drunk; it makes it possible for them to despise you on sight.

What Aristophanes hadn’t bargained for (and I suppose there’s no reason why he should have) was the edict recently passed by the people of Leontini, as a result of various disturbances in their city, making public drunkenness a criminal offence punishable by a substantial fine. Accordingly, when we reached the outskirts of the village, we were met by the cavalry patrol and the magistrate, who arrested us. The following dialogue took place between Aristophanes, who was riding the mule at the head of our little procession, and the magistrate.

Magistrate:          
I arrest you.

Aristophanes:        What for? We
haven’t done anything.

Magistrate:          
For being drunk in a public place.

Aristophanes:       
That’s not a crime, is it, lads? I said, that’s not a crime.

Magistrate:          
Where are you from?

Aristophanes:       
Leontini. Best little city in the world. Born an’ bred in—

Magistrate:           You
don’t sound like a Leontine to me.

Aristophanes:       
Oh.

Magistrate:          
You sound like Athenians to me.

That was enough for Aristophanes. He panicked, swiped desperately at the magistrate with his torch, and kicked the mule savagely. Considering his previous experience with the mule, he should have known better; that miserable animal immediately stopped dead in its tracks and let out a succession of roaring noises that must have woken up half of Sicily. This magistrate — a brave but foolish man — grabbed at its bridle and got the torch in his face for his pains. The cavalrymen drew their swords, and the three Athenians drew theirs and wrapped their cloaks round their arms.

Now I had deliberately chosen to stay at the back of the procession, in case sudden flight should be necessary, and I took to my heels at once. A cavalryman started to follow me, but one of the three Athenians lashed out at him and hit him just above the knee. He howled with pain and rode away, and I don’t know what became of him after that. I had turned round, and I saw the cavalryman chopping those three Athenians down, as a forester clears brushwood. I was all set to make a dash for the nearest cover when I remembered that it was my God-given duty to protect Dionysus’ favourite poet. Very, very reluctantly I drew my sword and ran back.

Aristophanes, for once in his life, had done something sensible. He had fallen off the mule. He was thus out of the way of the cavalry when they were busy with the Eleusinians, and by the time I had returned to the battle he had climbed under the mule and was hiding. Now the cavalrymen had not seen me come back, and the magistrate (who was, I suppose, about sixty years old and had just been hit with a burning torch) had stepped out of harm’s way and had his back to me. I grabbed him by his hair and put the sword-blade across his throat, and announced in the loudest voice I could muster that I had a hostage and was a reasonably bloodthirsty person. It was not a heroic act, I’m afraid, but then, I am not a hero.

The cavalry captain was clearly embarrassed by this. He was, I think, a local man, possibly something or other in village politics; anyway, he appeared unwilling to risk the life of the magistrate, and called his men off Aristophanes. The son of Philip scrambled out from under the mule and dashed over to where I was sheltering behind a very frightened magistrate.

‘All right,’ said the captain nervously, ‘let him go.’

‘Why?’ I enquired.

‘Because if you don’t, I’ll cut your head off, that’s why,’ explained the captain.

I pulled the magistrate’s hair sharply, which made him squeak like a mouse. ‘Be fair,’ I said. ‘You’re going to cut my head off if I let him go. I’ve always wanted to kill someone in regional government, now’s my chance.’

‘Let him go and your lives will be spared,’ said the captain. The effect of this offer was spoiled slightly by the fact that his troopers — there were ten of them — were ostentatiously waggling their swords at us, and I shook my head.

‘Well, what do you want, then?’ said the captain, exasperated. ‘I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

‘Try,’ I replied.

‘If you think you’re going to get away with this—’ said the captain. I gave the magistrate a tiny shove. He obligingly screamed.

‘Go away,’ I shouted. ‘Quickly. Now. Save yourself the trouble of divisive local elections.’

There was a cavalryman who must have been related to the magistrate, or a friend of his, or something like that. Anyway, he pulled up his horse and rode away towards the village. The captain was furious, but he knew he was beaten. ‘Let him go and we’ll pull back,’ he said.

‘Piss off and I’ll let him go,’ I replied. ‘Deal?’

‘You won’t get away with this,’ said the captain.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Did you ever read
The Telephus?’

The captain stared at me. ‘What?’ he said.

‘Telephus.
Very bad play by Euripides. Perhaps it’s before your time, I don’t know.’

The captain looked at me, and the magistrate, and my Thracian sabre (which, as I think I mentioned before, is a very businesslike-looking implement), thought carefully, and said, ‘Yes, I’ve read
The Telephus.
So what?’

‘You will remember,’ I said, ‘that the hero in
The Telephus
tries this stunt and gets clear away. If some verbose idiot out of Euripides can do it, why can’t I?’

I have no idea why, but this exchange seemed to help the captain make up his mind. He got off his horse, signalled to his men to do the same, and started walking backwards towards the village. I started walking backwards in the opposite direction. When I reckoned we had gone far enough, I gave the magistrate a hearty shove and sprinted off as fast as I could go.

It was quite some time before I dared stop running and look round. There was no sign of any cavalrymen; also, no sign of Aristophanes. I threw the sword on the ground and swore. Despite my ludicrous and entirely uncharacteristic bravado, I had failed to save Aristophanes. I sat down on a rock and put my sword away; I no longer cared about the enemy, or anything very much. The recollection of the episode with the magistrate and the absurd threats I had made and the inane things I had said had taken all the spirit out of me and I wanted to go to sleep. I had just made up my mind to go back to the village and give myself up when a very frightened-looking Athenian Comic dramatist came pounding down the road towards me.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ I shouted. ‘God, I was worried about you.’

He didn’t stop running; he just carried straight on past me, and I remember thinking, Oh God, the cavalry, and chased after him. Eventually he slowed down and stopped. I came up beside him.

‘You lunatic,’ he said. ‘You nearly got me killed with all that—’

I was tired, I was scared, and I was past caring; but I was not made of stone. I kicked the son of Philip very hard. He gave me a startled look and whined, ‘What did you do that for?’

The expression on his face was so comical that I couldn’t help laughing. My laughter did not seem to impress Aristophanes very much; he urged me to pull myself together and reminded me that we were quite some way from Catana. That made me laugh even more; I don’t imagine Aristophanes has ever had a more receptive audience. In the end he raised his eyes to heaven with a gesture of despairing incomprehension and asked what he had done to deserve all this. I forced myself to stop laughing, grabbed him by the arm and marched him off down the road. We were lost, without food or transport, going in the wrong direction, and the whole of Sicily would soon be out after our blood, but we were still alive. Not bad going, I reflected, for a pair of comedians in a world that undervalues Comedy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

W
e spent the night in a drainage ditch and woke up at sunrise. I suppose I had been hoping that our problems would evaporate overnight, but they were still there when I opened my eyes; and I felt extremely frightened. My trusty comrade was still asleep, curled up in a ball like a little puppy or something equally helpless, and I woke him with my foot.

“Where the hell are we?’ he moaned.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I don’t think this is the road we came up yesterday.’

‘How would you know?’ he grumbled.

‘Because we didn’t see this ditch yesterday,’ I replied.

‘What does that prove?’ replied the son of Philip.

‘Besides,’ I went on, ‘this is a drainage ditch, right?’

‘Could be,’ said Aristophanes cautiously.

‘Of course it is, you idiot. Now it stands to reason that it drains into something, or leads out of something. Agreed?’

Aristophanes looked at me. ‘You’ve been seeing too much of Socrates,’ he said.

‘Agreed?’

‘If it makes you feel good, yes.’

‘Now what could that something be except the river Terias?’ I said. ‘And the Terias goes to the coast, just above Trotilus. Agreed?’

‘You, of course, know where Trotilus is,’ said Aristophanes.

‘Correct. It’s about a day’s walk from Catana. I don’t know which side the Trotileans are on, but maybe they don’t either.’

‘What has this to do with the fact that we have no food left?’

Now that was a good question, which I answered as best I could thus. ‘Listen, you,’ I snapped, ‘I’ve had just about enough out of you to last me the rest of my life. You and nobody else got us into this mess, and I’m going to get us out of it, if I can. But if you interfere just once again, then so help me I’ll cut your tongue out.’

‘You’ve really got a way with words, son of Euchorus,’ said Aristophanes. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘We follow this ditch to its logical conclusion.’

‘Up it or down it?’

I looked up at the sun. ‘This way,’ I said, pointing north. ‘Then we follow the river down to the sea. Then we go north along the coast to Catana. Then we go home. Simple.’

After maybe half an hour we reached the river Terias, and this cheered us both up considerably, since something had gone right at last; also we hadn’t seen any Sicilians. In fact, the absence of people was quite remarkable, and I couldn’t think of a reason for it. But quite suddenly it was explained.

We hadn’t gone far along the river-bank when we saw a party of people coming in the opposite direction. They had seen us, and so there was no point in trying to hide. As we got closer we saw that it was a man and his whole family, dressed in their best clothes and carrying baskets decked out with wreaths.

‘They’re going to a Festival,’ said Aristophanes brilliantly.

The family, which consisted of the man and his wife, two old women and three small children, waved to us cheerfully as we came closer to them. Aristophanes looked at me and said, ‘What do we do now?’

‘As little as possible,’ I replied. ‘Keep your mouth shut.’

They were within shouting distance now, so I shouted.

‘Keep back, for pity’s sake,’ I shouted. ‘Plague. We’ve got the plague.’

‘What plague?’ replied the man.

That threw me for a moment, but I couldn’t be bothered to think of anything clever. ‘Get away from us,’ I yelled, as loud as I could. ‘Go away or you’re all dead!’

The Sicilians stared at me but didn’t move. ‘Where are you from?’ they asked. I made a quick guess and said, ‘Leontini.’

‘There’s a plague in Leontini?’ shouted the man. ‘Since when?’

‘It’s the Athenian plague,’ I said. ‘Athenians brought it there a day or so back, they were escaping from the war or something. The whole city is like a slaughterhouse. Don’t go near it, whatever you do.’

‘But the Festival,’ said the man. ‘We’re going to the Festival.’

I shook my head violently. ‘Keep away,’ I said. ‘Go home, don’t let anyone near you. It’s the Athenian plague.’

The man shook his head in perplexity. ‘Where are you going?’ he said.

‘To the sea,’ I replied.

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

‘Sorry?’

‘I said, why not?’

‘Oh.’ The man looked at his family. One of the old women had started jabbering at him and all the children were crying. ‘Well, thank you,’ he shouted. ‘Do you need food?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Very much.’

‘There’s bread in this basket,’ he said, pointing to the basket he was carrying. ‘I’ll leave it here for you.’

‘Thank you,’ I shouted — I was nearly hoarse by now. ‘Please go away, before you catch it. It’s very contagious.’

The man put down the basket and ran, followed by his family. When they were safely out of sight we fell upon the basket. There were five freshly baked wheat Festival loaves in it, and two honey-cakes. Good honey-cakes too, as I remember.

‘I wonder whose Festival it is?’ asked Aristophanes with his mouth full.

‘Search me,’ I replied, ‘I expect it’s Demeter or Athene. It wouldn’t be Dionsysus at this time of year.’

‘Well, whoever it is, it’s a stroke of luck,’ he said. ‘I was starving.’

‘You amaze me, were you really?’ I licked the last of the honey off my fingers. ‘Right, let’s press on, shall we?’

Not long afterwards, we came to a farmhouse. It was completely deserted except for a sleeping dog. Everyone was away at the Festival. After making sure there was nobody about, we kicked open a door and went in.

There is a story about old Alcmaeon, the founder of the illustrious Alcmaeonid clan of Athens. The story runs that he founded the family fortunes by doing a favour for the celebrated Croesus, King of Lydia, the richest man who ever lived. His reward was that he could go into the King’s treasury and take as much gold away with him as he could carry. Well, when Alcmaeon went into the treasury his eyes nearly burst in his head; there was gold everywhere — gold cups and plates, gold armour, gold rings, gold tripods, gold statues, gold everything. But as soon as he had calmed down a bit, Alcmaeon realised that the most efficient way of carrying gold was in the form of gold-dust, of which there were many full jars. So he tied up the legs and sleeves of his gown to make a sort of sack out of it, and emptied a whole jar of gold-dust down his chest; then he poured gold-dust into his hair, which was thick and curly and well-oiled; then he found two big gold jars, as heavy as he could carry, and filled those with gold-dust. Finally he took a handful of gold-dust and popped it into his mouth. Thus laden, he staggered out of the treasury to his quarters and collapsed. He nearly died from swallowing gold-dust, but his servants managed to make him throw up in time.

That was how we felt when we broke into that farmhouse. There were jars of every kind of food, wine, and oil. There were fresh clothes, and newly made boots, and leather hats. Everything a man could reasonably want was there for the taking.

‘It’s like paradise,’ Aristophanes said.

Then it occurred to me that it wasn’t like paradise at all; it was like my house in Pallene, except much smaller and less affluent. Ordinary people lived here, farmers, people who worried about having enough to eat in a bad year. There we were, two rich men of the Cavalry class, who had lived our whole lives surrounded by the sort of wealth these people could never aspire to; and this ordinary house was more desirable to us now than anything we could think of.

Our first instinct was to loot the place; but we calmed down after a while and took fresh clothes and five days’ food. We felt like gentlemen, for all that, in clean woollen tunics and cloaks and boots and big leather hats, with walking-sticks and a sword for Aristophanes, and linen satchels for our food. We also found a razor and a mirror and trimmed our hair and beards — you have no idea what pleasure that gave me. Needless to say, Aristophanes went one stage further and ferreted out the family’s purse. There were twenty staters in it, and he refused to put any of them back.

‘What we need now,’ said Aristophanes, ‘is a horse.’

‘You’re never satisfied, are you?’

‘No,’ he said truthfully. ‘I’m an Athenian, aren’t I?’

He had a point there. Nicias and Demosthenes had failed, but here were two Athenians carrying off the wealth of Sicily. Somehow I felt a little better about plundering the house after that. A little better, but not much.

As we left, I closed the door behind me as best I could, and looked round. I saw two things: one good, and one bad. The good thing was an outhouse with its door slightly ajar, and inside it was a cart; a small two-wheeler ox-cart, just like the ones we use at home. Its storage capacity consisted of one of the big grain-jars they use on the corn-ships. A man can hide in one of those, I thought to myself, no problem at all. The family had obviously gone to the festival in the donkey-trap.

‘Aristophanes,’ I said, ‘I’ve had an idea. Do you think this household keeps its ox in a pen?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Do you think you could find it for me?’

‘All right.’

While he was away, I pulled out the cart and tested my theory. I was right. It was a bit of a squeeze, but perfectly possible. Then Aristophanes came back, leading a large white ox by a halter. We got it into the shafts after a while, and I put the harness on it.

‘What’s the idea?’ said Aristophanes.

‘Get in there,’ I said, pointing to the jar.

‘No fear,’ replied Aristophanes.

I pointed to the bad thing I had seen, which was getting closer; a cloud of dust on the road, about a mile away. ‘Do you know what that is?’ I asked.

‘Oh God,’ said Aristophanes, ‘it’s those damned cavalry.’

‘I should think so,’ I replied. ‘Now be a good fellow and get in the jar.’

He got in the jar, and I closed the lid. Then I went into the house and grabbed two large pots of green olives, and dashed back out to the cart.

‘Aristophanes,’ I called out.

‘Yes?’

‘Mind your head.’ I lifted the lid of the big jar and poured in the olives. ‘Sorry,’ I said. Then I dumped the olive-pots, closed the farmhouse door behind me, and climbed up on to the cart.

The cavalry overtook me shortly after I had joined the main road. It was the patrol we had encountered the previous night; there was no mistaking them. I knew what a gamble I was taking. I had staked both our lives, and the future of Athenian Comedy, on a wash and a shave, a big leather hat, my ability to do regional accents, and eight medimni of green olives.

‘You,’ shouted my old friend the cavalry captain. ‘Pull over.’

‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘What’s the trouble?’

‘Is that your place back there?’ asked the captain, pointing with his sword at the farm behind us.

‘No,’ I replied, ‘it’s my cousin’s place, but he’s over to the Festival in Leontini.’ I was sweating so much that I could hardly see. I had risked a Syracusan accent instead of a Corinthian one. It was my big day for taking risks.

‘Why aren’t you at the Festival, then?’

‘Not my Festival,’ I replied. ‘We had our Demeter last month in Syracuse.’

This was a desperate effort on my part. I had seen a small terracotta Demeter inside the house, newly wreathed; and I remembered someone in the camp outside Syracuse telling me how he had watched their Demeter Festival. God knows why I took the risk; but it worked. The captain nodded, and didn’t look too closely at my face. ‘Visiting?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ I replied. ‘First chance to get out and about since the war. Taking a few olives up the coast for my cousin. They’re starting to sweat already, and he didn’t want them to stand until after the Festival. What are you boys after?’

‘There’s a couple of dangerous Athenians loose,’ said the captain.

‘Athenians,’ I replied. ‘Well, that’s a bit of news. Wouldn’t have thought there were too many of them left.’ And I sniggered.

‘Have you seen two men, ragged-looking, on foot?’

‘Tall one and a shorter one? Bald-headed, both of them?’

‘That’s it.

‘Couple of men answering to that were round our place this morning,’ I said. ‘Wanted food, offered to buy a mule. They had money, but we didn’t like the look of them. Talked funny. They went back the way they came, so far as I could make out.’

‘When was this?’

‘Maybe an hour after sun-up, maybe later. And they were Athenians, you reckon?’

‘We think so, yes.’

‘And dangerous?’

‘They threatened the magistrate and injured one of my men.’

‘That’s bad,’ I said. ‘That’s very bad. Hope they stay clear of me, that’s all. Could you spare a couple of your boys to ride me up to the coast?’

The captain shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got a sword, you should be all right.’

I felt as if someone had just pulled my heart out through my ear. I didn’t look down, but it was obvious that the captain could see that confounded Thracian sabre on its baldric round my neck. Had he recognised it? I doubted very much if such swords were common in that part of Sicily. My soul cursed me for a feckless idiot, but I managed to keep my face straight.

‘That’s strictly for ornament,’ I said. ‘I’m not what you’d reckon to call a fighting man myself. I leave that to you boys.’