Gary Corby: Death Ex Machina

“What’s his name? Do you vouch for him?” Sophocles asked.

“He’s called Kebris. He’s not protagonist material, sir,” Romanos said. “Kebris spent his life as a touring player, going from town to town.” He spoke almost apologetically. “I worked with him once. He’s very quick to learn lines. Well, you have to be, on tour. You all know that. He’s not the world’s best actor, sir, but he’s reliable.”

Sophocles smiled ruefully. “My first actor chooses my second, and my second chooses my third. I’m fairly sure that’s not the way things are usually done. Well, reliable is what we need around here. All right, as long as your friend can stand and deliver lines, he’s in.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “Maybe we can survive this disaster after all.”

Men scattered in all directions. The crew moved to repair the machine and also, at Kiron’s stern command, to check everything in the theater all over again, to make sure all was in order. Akamas muttered darkly that he’d lost track of how many times they’d done that in the last few days, and yet still men were being hurt.

Sophocles and Romanos departed to interview the actor Romanos had recommended.

Diotima and I walked over to Kiron after he finished barking out orders. He stood there with hands on hips, glaring at the working buzzing about him.

I said, “Kiron? We need to know, did anything unusual happen when Phellis was attached to the machine?”

“Akamas does that job,” Kiron said. He waved to the stagehand. Akamas sauntered over, wiping his grimy hands on his tunic. I was struck by what a large and strong-looking man he was. The cloth of his exomis bulged slightly over a belt made of rope. Akamas was a man who didn’t miss meals. I repeated my question.

Akamas said, “I reach down the back of the actor’s neck for the leather strip. I pull it up and clip on the rope. That’s it. And before you suggest it, I didn’t make any mistake with Phellis.”

“So everything was the same as normal?”

“Yeah, just like any actor, except when Phellis goes on as Thanatos I got to put the noose around his neck.”

I’d forgotten about the noose. “That’s a good point. Wouldn’t Thanatos choke to death on the noose?”

“Funnily enough, we thought of that,” said Kiron. “The noose is loose. It looks like solid rope-it is solid rope-but the rope that makes up the noose doesn’t go anywhere. See here …”

Kiron held up the noose for Diotima and me to inspect. The noose ended only a few hand lengths from its loop. Thin threads had been sewn and looped around the thicker rope. The threads had clearly been torn apart.

Kiron said, “The noose is attached to the rope of the machine with only this thin piece of sewing thread. We bind it carefully to make it look like one piece from afar.”

“I see,” said Diotima. “When Phellis fell, the sewing thread broke. That was all that held the noose in place. It fell with him. That’s why he didn’t strangle.”

Kiron dismissed Akamas back to his work, then beckoned Diotima and me to follow him. “There’s something you ought to see,” he said.

We followed him to the wall that backed the stage. Kiron gestured at the scene on the skene. “What do you think of it?”

The skene had been painted to portray the city of Corinth. In the middle was an agora. Tiny figures were going about their business. Buildings surrounded the market. The buildings became smaller the further they were from the agora, so that it was like looking down on the city from a high place. Off to the side was the Acrocorinth, a high hill fort like our Acropolis. Everything was painted in bright, vibrant colors.

“Ah, it looks very nice,” I said. I wasn’t sure what Kiron expected of me.

“Look here.” He pointed at one of the figures in the agora. “See this one?”

I peered closely. So did Diotima. The tiny figure wasn’t upright. It seemed to be flying across a brown line, or about to sprawl on the ground.

Diotima said, puzzled, “Is that a picture of someone tripping?”

“I think it is,” Kiron said. “And see this?” He traced the thin brown line that I’d noticed. “There’s a tiny dab of light yellow paint at the end of this line. I think it’s supposed to be a broom.”

A man tripping over a broom, like happened to Romanos.

“It has to be a coincidence,” I said.

“That’s what I thought. Then, after the incident of poisoned water, I looked again. I noticed this …”

Kiron’s finger traced the outline of one of the stalls in the agora. It showed a typical wine vendor. Men stood about drinking from cups.

Amongst the crowd, one man was doubled over. He appeared to be vomiting.

“He wouldn’t be the first man to throw up after drinking too much,” I said.

“But painting it for decoration?” Diotima said in disbelief.

She clearly hadn’t been to the same parties I had. Among my acquaintances were several with party-ware decorated with the figures of men who had drunk too much of the bounty of Dionysos. I recalled one particularly detailed decoration on a wine cup, of a slave girl holding up a bowl while a man vomited into it.

I made a mental note never to introduce my wife to that particular friend.

I said, “The point Kiron’s making is that the figures in the skene painting seem to presage the accidents at the theater.”

“Or maybe they were drawn in afterward?” Diotima suggested. She looked to Kiron. “Do you know? Were the figures there before the accidents?”

Kiron shrugged. “I didn’t notice them until afterward. But then, I wouldn’t, would I? As your husband says, they’re not so remarkable on their own.”

Diotima looked closely at the figure of the man throwing up. She shook her head “I can’t tell if he was painted in later. Maybe an expert could tell.”

“There’s something else,” Kiron said. He looked worried. “After you left with Phellis, while everyone around here was arguing, I had a close look at the skene. And …”

He pointed at a spot below the Acrocorinth. “Right here, see this building? It was always there, but I never noticed before how much it resembles a theater.”

Diotima and I leaned forward. It did indeed look like a theater, and in the middle, on what would be the stage-

Diotima gasped.

I turned to Kiron.

“I’ll swear it wasn’t there before,” he said. “I’ll swear it.”

In the middle of the theater upon the skene wall was the god machine. And falling from it was the tiny figure of a man.

“What do you think?” Kiron asked.

“I think we need to speak to the artist,” I said. “Who painted your scenery?”

“Stephanos of Vitale. Everyone uses him.”

“Vitale? Where’s that?”

“Some place among the islands of the Cyclades, I think. He’s a metic. ”

Athens is full of metics. Their numbers increase every year as people from poorer cities flood in to enjoy our wealth and success.

Kiron told us where to find this Stephanos. The artist lived in Outer Ceramicus. It was one of those places where rich and poor mingled together. We arrived at his home-a small artisan’s house, neat and tidy-only to be told by the house slave that Stephanos wasn’t in. He was painting a mural for a client at a house close to where my family lived … in the exact opposite direction, back past the theater.

As we walked all the way back I realized, too late, that I should have sent a runner ahead to inquire if Stephanos was in. But then, knowing the way my luck ran, if I had sent the runner, he would have returned to say Stephanos was at home and I would have wasted my time waiting.