Tyrant (20 page)

Dionysius saw a long line of men and women of all ages walking along the Anapus valley to the spring, preceded by those who must have been the high priests. They were venerable old men with white beards wearing full-length tunics of raw wool, who advanced leaning on carved staffs from which bronze bells hung, jingling with their every step. Behind them were the images of the Three Mothers: rough-hewn wooden statues whose shapes were difficult to make out, but which seemed to be seated women nursing two infants each at their enormous breasts. Each statue was borne by six men on their shoulders, and swayed back and forth with the uneven terrain. A group of players with reed pipes, drums and rattles filled the narrow valley with their jarring music. When the procession reached the spring, the statues were deposited on the ground in the shade of the plane tree. The priests drew water from the spring using wooden bowls and sprinkled it on the images of the Three Mothers, chanting a rhythmic, unvaried tune made up of long, low notes. Once the rite was over, one of the priests, who seemed to be presiding, made a gesture and a long line of very young girls came forward. Each girl approached the three statues and knelt before each one of them in turn, laying her forehead on the goddess’s lap, perhaps to receive a fertility blessing.

The music became more intense and the tone of the singing higher and more acute when, all at once, the sound of a horn echoed hard and long in the valley and a number of youths who had remained hidden until then came forth. Each boy took a girl by the hand and led her to a spot in the middle of the thickets of oleanders, myrtle and broom. The music of drums, pipes and cymbals increased sharply in intensity until it became an uproar amplified and multiplied beyond measure by the surrounding walls.

Dionysius imagined that that barbaric clamour was meant to accompany the mating rites of those young men who had withdrawn with their chosen virgins, and certainly this was close to the truth. That primitive people, who lived contentedly on the meagre offerings of their mountains, thus celebrated that which all the peoples of the world celebrate in different yet similar ways, the most intense and mysterious, most frenetic and consuming moment of human existence: the love that joins a man and a woman and perpetuates life.

When night fell and the valley filled with campfires and with the monotonous chanting of the poor shepherds, Dionysius thought of Arete’s description of the fires of Acragas and of the invisible singer who had struck up his wedding hymn amidst the radiant temples on the hill. He felt ever keener grief for his woman, violated and murdered, bitter regret for his lost love.

P
HILISTUS CAME TO
fetch him at the end of the month and accompanied him, disguised, to Acragas, leaving him in Tellias’s care in the interim before his return. As he was about to leave, he left him a tablet. A gift,’ he said.

‘What is it?’ asked Dionysius.

‘The list,’ replied Philistus. ‘Complete. Every single one. It wasn’t simple or easy, but there they are, all of them. Including the instigators.’ He bid Dionysius farewell and left.

Tellias approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. A list of the living or the dead?’ he asked.

‘Dead men,’ replied Dionysius, reading the list. ‘Dead men who are still walking. But not for long.’

‘Take care!’ replied Tellias. ‘Revenge can be a balm for an embittered soul, but it can also set off a chain of bloodshed without end.’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Dionysius. ‘I can kill many of them; they only have me to kill. I have the advantage, no matter how you look at it.’

He returned to Syracuse at night, at the end of the following month. He met with Philistus at Biton’s house. Dionysius embraced both of them, one after the other, without a word. It was always his way of reacting to powerful emotion.

‘Finally!’ exclaimed Biton. ‘I thought you’d never come back. How are you?’

‘Better,’ replied Dionysius, ‘now that I’m home.’

‘There’s a person here who can’t wait to see you,’ said Philistus. He opened the door to a room facing the atrium and Leptines appeared. The two brothers stood without saying a word at first, then clasped each other close.

‘You’ve been through hell and high water,’ said Philistus, ‘but it seems you have nothing to say to each other!’

Leptines pulled away from his brother and looked him over from head to toe. ‘By the gods!’ he said, ‘I feared much worse! You look wonderful.’

‘So do you,’ replied Dionysius.

‘I know how badly things have gone for you,’ started up Leptines again. ‘I’m sorry. I wish I could have . . .’

‘Your presence wouldn’t have changed things much, I’m afraid . . . I’m happy to see you.’

‘As am I, by Heracles! Together again like when we were boys. Remember when we used to lie in wait to pelt the lads from Ortygia with stones?’

‘I surely do,’ replied Dionysius with a smile.

‘Well, things are going to change now that I’m back . . . in fine style! I’m spoiling for a fight. Who shall we start with?’

Dionysius pulled him aside and whispered something in his ear.

‘I know,’ nodded Leptines. ‘I’ll wait.’

Dionysius left them and remained hidden for some time thereafter, alternating between the houses of Iolaus, Doricus and Biton so as not to put Leptines or Philistus in danger. He did not cut his hair or his beard and went out only at night, wrapped in a cloak which covered his sword and dagger. He studied the moves of his enemies, spying on their habits and routes. When he felt sure, he called on Leptines: ‘I’m ready, but I need help. Are you up to it?’

‘Are you joking? I can’t wait, man.’

‘Fine. You’ll help me to catch them, but the rest I’ll do myself, understood?’

‘Of course I understand. Let’s get moving, then.’

They went out that night and the nights after that, silent, unexpected, invisible, inexorable. And they captured them, one by one. It was easy, because none of them expected it and they had taken no precautions.

One was called Hipparcus.

The second Eudossus.

The third Augias.

They managed to take them alive and Dionysius dragged them, alone, as they had decided, to the cellar of the house with the trellis. He laid them out in the place where Arete was buried, bound their hands and feet and cut off their genitals. He left them to bleed to death slowly. Their cries rose distorted and suffocated from that place, like the howling of beasts or the groaning of ghosts in the deep of the night, but instead of attracting someone who could help them, they scared the locals to death and gave rise to terrifying rumours which spread through the entire city.

Another two of them were murdered on the street as they walked home from a party. They were called Clitus and Protogenes. Their swollen, fish-eaten corpses were found in an inlet of the Great Harbour. Their genitals were missing as well, but the cut was too clean to blame the fish.

At that point the others began to realize that someone was making his way down a list with his sword’s edge: only one man would be so single-minded. They met to devise a plan of defence.

There were six of them left: Philippus, Anattorius, Schedius, Calistemus, Gorgias and Callicrates. All prided themselves at being good with their fists. Four were single and two married. They decided to live together for a while and to bring in abundant supplies of weapons and food. They resolved that one of them in turn would always guard the others while they slept, so there would be no possibility of catching them by surprise.

They stayed awake far into the night, fearful of the unconsciousness of sleep, too similar to death. They tried to keep up their spirits by eating and drinking; sometimes they would invite some girls to keep them company so they could fuck themselves into a state of exhaustion and forget about the threat of death hanging over their heads. But sooner or later their talk always turned to that subject, sometimes with a scoffing, cocky tone, sometimes in a whisper, muttering oaths under their breath.

‘We won’t be slaughtered like lambs!’ boasted Anattorius. ‘There are six of us and that bastard is all alone: what’s there to be afraid of?’

‘Alone?’ retorted Schedius. ‘Who says he’s alone? How did one man alone manage to kill five of us, all quick with their swords and their knives? All big, burly men, used to fighting on the front line and holding a shield steady for hours.’

‘It’s stupid to waste time talking about it,’ insisted Gorgias. ‘All we have to do is hold out and watch each other’s backs. He’ll come out of hiding sooner or later and we’ll get the bastard and make him pay for what he’s done. Or else he’ll realize that he hasn’t got a chance against us and just give up. If he’s smart, he’ll lay low. This city is a more dangerous place for him than it is for us. I say that if we manage to keep out of his way for a month, he’ll call it quits. It’s just not worth it to him to risk his own neck.’

‘You know,’ added Callicrates, ‘we may just be worrying ourselves over nothing. Maybe he doesn’t know we were there; maybe he thinks he’s already got his due . . .’

But they soon grew tired of the sound of their voices and silence got the better of them, one by one. Their memories of the rape mixed with the images of their friends’ bodies, rot-green and swollen as toads in the still waters of the Great Harbour.

Once they even considered the opportunity of offering to pay the killer off, but no one was convinced.

‘I don’t think there’s enough money in the whole city to calm that maniac down,’ Schedius cut the others short. He was the one who knew Dionysius best. ‘The only coins he’ll accept are our balls, served up on a platter like boiled eggs. Anyone ready to make the sacrifice?’

They all burst into coarse, ominous laughter and no one brought up the subject again.

They continued as they had decided: every night, one of them in turn stood guard on the roof, crouching in the dark while the others slept, until the next man came to relieve him. Some time passed without anything happening and they began to think that their nightmare was really over and that the danger had been put to rest.

Instead, on a night with a full moon, Gorgias – who was standing sentry on the roof – was pierced by an arrow loosed with incredible precision from a neighbouring house. He died then and there. Just before the second guard shift, flames rose from every corner of the house and flared up high, driven by a land wind. The other five men were burnt alive, while the blaze menaced the nearby houses. It was only put out thanks to the hundreds of people who rushed to the scene and passed buckets of water and of sand that whole night and the next day.

The only two left on the list were the instigators, who no longer had any doubts about the nature of those deaths. It had become public knowledge that the night before the fire, three amphoras of pitch had disappeared from a warehouse at the port, near the dry dock, and that the unmistakeable stench of sulphur had been smelled just before the flames had blazed up. They had no illusions about the end that awaited them if they did not take immediate action. They were two important members of the democratic party called Euribiades and Pancrates, and they appealed to Daphnaeus – who had political control of the Assembly and was their party leader – for protection.

‘If you want me to help you,’ replied Daphnaeus, ‘you have to tell me what you’re afraid of and why. But I need to know every minute detail, or I won’t lift a finger. I’ve heard strange stories about these deaths, stories that I would like not to believe, because if they turn out to be true, I’d have to intervene myself to punish the offenders. Have you got the gist of that?’

They had, and they realized that they could count only on themselves to save their skins. They decided together to leave the city and move to Catane, hoping that sooner or later the storm would abate and they would be able to negotiate a return or a ransom.

In an attempt to pass unobserved, they decided to waste no time in long preparations and they left at dawn the next day, accompanied only by a couple of slaves and a cart for their baggage. They set off walking down the road for Catane, throwing their lot in with a group of merchants. They were transporting livestock, a flock of sheep and about twenty slaves that they hoped to sell at the market along with the animals. They were happy to let the newcomers join them; the more numerous the group was, the less chance that they would be attacked by robbers or brigands.

All went well for three days, and the two fugitives began to relax and to cheer up. They even fraternized with the merchants: people from the west of the island, judging from their accent, a happy and friendly lot who didn’t mind sharing their supplies and greatly enjoyed the excellent wine that their two wealthy travel companions were quick to offer when they set up camp after dark.

On the fourth day, the convoy stopped at a little city where a fair was being held, and they sold off part of their livestock. The next day, a few day workers directed to the plains of Catane to help with the harvesting asked to join them; they were admitted to the company for the remainder of the trip.

But that same evening, the reapers stripped away their cloaks, threw aside their sickles and pulled out their swords. They surrounded the group, ordering the merchants to clear out and the two Syracusans to drop their arms and put their hands behind their backs so they could be bound.

Euribiades and Pancrates imagined a robbery and tried to negotiate. ‘We’re willing to pay,’ promised Euribiades. ‘We’ve got money with us, and we can get more from Syracuse or Catane in short order.’