Gary Corby - Death Ex Machina

I climbed up.

Things crawled all over me. I jerked back but they clung on. I waved my arms and they fell off. But there was one on my head.

“Ugh!”

“Nico! What is it?” Diotima called up. She sounded worried.

“Mice. The thatch is full of mice. They’re crawling on me!”

Peals of laughter from below. So much for sympathy from a worried wife.

Then I felt something crawling up my leg.

“There’s one under my chiton!”

More laughter. Now even our slave was laughing.

“Arrgh! Oh, dear Gods …” On the ladder, I bent over in excruciating pain. It hurt so much I thought I might faint.

“Nico! What’s wrong?” Diotima called from below.

“It bit me.”

“Where?” Now she sounded worried.

“I’m not going to say. But it hurts like Hades.”

“Oh Nico, be careful.” That part of me was essential to Diotima’s life plans. “We’ll have to get a cat,” she called up.

“Two cats. One would die from overeating.”

It was clear now what had caused the holes, and if we didn’t do something about it, and soon, I’d have to replace the entire roof. Worse, mice can easily jump from one roof to another. Which meant I’d have to warn our neighbors. I could imagine how pleased they were going to be at the news. I just hoped they wouldn’t decide to sue me.

The rain was heavy now. My body poked halfway through the roof. From the waist up I was above the house. Achilles passed up the canvas, which I spread as wide as I could to cover the worst of the holes. From where I stood I could see a second mouse nest. Terrific.

I lashed down the canvas and tied it tight. There’d still be drips, but damage to the floor was averted.

The moment I was down, Diotima knelt and stuck her head under my chiton to inspect the damage to my nether regions.

“That looks nasty,” she said from underneath my clothing.

“If you say anything,” I warned Achilles, who watched this with an amused smile, “I will … I will …” I couldn’t think of anything bad enough.

Diotima emerged from my chiton.

“It needs a wash and definitely some ointment.”

Some nice oily ointment sounded good.

“Your mother will know what to do.”

“My mother!”

“She is a midwife after all, Nico.”

“That means she knows how to treat your parts, dear wife, not mine. All it needs is a gentle rub, and, er-”

A massive thunderclap.

Achilles hurried to place more pots where leaks dripped.

Zeus, or Apollo, or Dionysos, or whichever god had caused this rain, it was like he had an Olympus-sized bucket and had turned it upside down over Athens.

I said as much to Diotima. She considered the downpour for a moment and said, “The amount of water that’s coming down, I think it must be Poseidon.”

“We could stay here for the night?” I suggested.

Diotima hesitated. “I’d rather not …”

This old house had some terrible memories for Diotima. That was the other reason we didn’t live here.

“Then we run for home.”

We ran.

It was immediately obvious that this was a bad idea. Diotima tripped over her chiton and landed face first in the mud. She was still wearing the bright Dionysiac festival chiton that she planned to wear throughout the festival. The material covered her arms to the wrists and her legs to the ankles, and that was her downfall. She picked herself up at once and I wiped her down. The rain helped by washing off a lot of the street muck.

Diotima lifted the skirt of her chiton. Together we splashed our way to the agora.

We were so saturated now that it didn’t matter, but the rain was unpleasant enough that we wanted to get out of it.

As we hurried, we passed by people who also looked for shelter. Most of them did the same thing we did. We ran up the steps of the nearest stoa, the covered, colonnaded porticoes that surrounded the agora of Athens. This stoa was already crowded with people sheltering from the rain. We didn’t let that stop us, we pushed our way in.

“This is the curse of Dionysos,” an anonymous man amongst us said.

It had become surprisingly cold. The chilly wind didn’t help. Other men, new arrivals, all soaked, tried to make their way under cover, but there was no more room and the men on the outer edge pushed away the latecomers. Diotima and I had wriggled our way to the middle where the mass of bodies created some warmth and our clothing began to steam. I put my arm around Diotima to make it clear she was my wife, so that no man thought to grope her. An Athenian would never take liberties with another man’s wife-not if he wanted to live-but if there were any slave girls in this press of people then they were probably getting more attention than they wanted. Come to that though, no slave girl would risk the wrath of her mistress by tarrying under cover. She would run for home.

We stood like that for a long time. I thought about our farm. There was nothing I could do about the olive trees-either the fruit would drop too early in the wet or it wouldn’t-but I hoped the slave we left to mind the farm would at least make sure the chickens were safely in the henhouse.

Another man raced across the agora, coming from the south, head down and hands raised in an ineffectual shield against the downpour.

He saw the crush under the stoa and that there was no more room but he shouted. “Make way!”

He didn’t stop to see if anyone made way. He ran in.

Men moved back because they had no choice.

The new arrival raised his head. It was Romanos.

He shook his hair, which was unnaturally long. Droplets sprayed the men beside him. That caused more complaints, though these were perfunctory since we were all damp anyway.

Romanos caught my eye. I waved to him, and motioned for him to join us. The actor pushed his way through with polite, muttered apologies.

“What are you doing out in this weather?” I asked him.

“I was at the theater,” he said. “I was rehearsing the new third actor in his lines.”

“Isn’t that Sophocles’s job?” Diotima asked.

Romanos shrugged. “Our director and playwright is a busy man, and it was I who recommended Kebris. I feel responsible. Besides, I know the lines better than anyone, even better than Sophocles, perhaps, since I’ve practiced their delivery.”

“How’s Kebris working out?”

“Very well indeed. I am confident.”

I could only admire his dedication. I said as much to him.

“I do what I can,” he said modestly. “And I got drenched for my effort. There’s no shelter at the theater. Kebris ran the other way to his home. I ran this way to mine.”

“You came to Athens to be an actor, didn’t you? You’re not from here.”

“I come from Phrygia. It’s a very rustic place. You wouldn’t know what it’s like. You two grew up in Athens, the most sophisticated city in the world.”

“Diotima and I have been to Ionia,” I told him. Ionia is the province next to Phrygia and, though the city of Ephesus on the coast was the height of civilization, when you got into the back country it was endless farms and tiny villages.

“Then perhaps you do know what it’s like,” he said. “There’s no work there for an actor. Most people barely know that plays exist. Or if they do, they think it’s a child’s game, not fit for adults.”

“How did you discover acting, may I ask?” said Diotima.

“A mime came to our village one day. He danced out a story while his wife played the flute. The people in my village laughed and threw him a few coins, but I followed the whole story and was entranced. From that day on, all I wanted was to tell stories too.”

“Acting seems a difficult profession,” I said. “What do you do when you don’t have work?”