Gary Corby - Death Ex Machina

“He was a working actor,” I replied. “He probably did whatever he got paid to do.”

After we’d pulled out the clothing we found wax tablets and some papyrus. Diotima snatched at these. We spread them out on the table and, when we ran out of room, across the floor as well. Diotima and I crouched down, side by side, to read.

We only needed to read a bit to know what we were looking at. Here were the documents that proved the real Lakon had died. In our hands was a copy of the young man’s funeral stele; a statement of the tragic events, as related by a local and written down by Romanos; and a statement from the head man of the deme of Rhamnus that Lakon was deceased.

We had everything we needed to prove that Romanos was blackmailing the Lakon we knew.

“If we’d found this room first, we wouldn’t have had to travel all the way to Rhamnus,” I moaned.

“What’s done is done,” Diotima said. “It’s easy to see why he kept this away from his family. He didn’t want them to know he was a blackmailer.” Then she added, “There’s more on the wax tablets.”

So there was. Facts and figures, notes about the cost of barley, lists of wine vendors who sold in the agora, and frequent references to beer.

Diotima turned the tablets this way and that, as if she could somehow find more evidence. “He cares about beer so much that he’s written down everything he knows about it. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes it does,” I said. “These are business notes. I’d say that Romanos was planning to sell beer.”

There was plenty of opportunity to ask about the beer, because this was the night of the ceremony Petros and Maia had invited us to attend. Petros had given us instructions to meet them at the Diochares Gate, which is in the eastern wall. I took this to mean the rites of Sabazios were to be conducted outside the city. Many Hellene rites were conducted in the forests too, so there was nothing remarkable in that.

Going east was a good choice. To the south one came quickly to Piraeus, the beach at Phaleron, and a lot of people. To the north were the landed estates, whose owners would not take kindly to strangers damaging their orchards-I could only imagine what Theokritos would say to anyone who trampled his grapevines. West of Athens was the major thoroughfare to the rest of Hellas, with many small towns and cities.

Thus any Athenian who wanted privacy for his devotions went to the forests and glades in the east. The followers of Sabazios were no different.

The Sabazians were already congregated when we arrived. We were greeted with warm, friendly words, even from those we didn’t know. I apologized, because I thought we must be late, but they said they were waiting for several more families, though I noted there were no children. There were perhaps a hundred and fifty or two hundred of them, which surprised me. That was many times the number who lived in Diotima’s house. What surprised me more was that some of the men and women who greeted us spoke with Athenian accents.

“Sabazios has more devotees in Athens than those of us from Phrygia,” Petros said, when I asked him about it. “Every year our numbers grow.”

A few hundred followers wasn’t much to speak of in Athens, which is the largest city in Hellas. There were other barbarian religions with much greater appeal, particularly the deities from Egypt. Even so, the crowd that had assembled was respectable.

A small group joined us, more greetings were exchanged, and we set off along one of the paths that lead into the forests. Everyone seemed to know where they were going.

We stopped at a glade, after a pleasant, cool walk. People sat down on the comfortable grass. Everything was prepared when we arrived. The vat of beer that we had last seen at Diotima’s house was in the middle of the clearing. I wondered how they had carried it here. Then I noticed the grass growing up about the edges. This vat had been here for some time. The Sabazians had two vats. They needed only transport the beer in standard amphorae.

And transport it they had. Because the vat was full to the brim. Torches had been set up all around the edge of the glade. Their light was more than enough to show the drink.

The light somehow shone particularly brightly upon the Hand of Sabazios. It practically glowed, no doubt because the bronze of which it was made had been polished to perfection. The hand was raised high for all to see; the column on which it stood had no other function.

“Other than the Hand, I see no altar,” Diotima said to Petros. “Isn’t there to be a sacrifice?”

“There will indeed be,” Petros said, smiling. “But not the sort you’re thinking of.”

Among the men who had walked with us were several who carried musical instruments: more drums than Hellenes would use, plus long flutes. They began to play. The music was strongly rhythmic.

People around us got to their feet and formed a line.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Now?” Petros said. “Now we dance.”

I stood. Diotima put out her hand and I pulled her to her feet. We joined the line of dancers.

It was like the komos dance that we Hellenes perform in moments of victory, only whereas we would have held on to the partner in front, the Sabazians danced freely, whirling and gyrating as they wished, as long as they followed the leader. I was embarrassed to join in at first. Then I realized no one was taking the least notice of me, and I copied the other dancers. The music was so strong that it was almost impossible not to move in time to the drums. Diotima got into the spirit of it at once. She whirled and twirled with the best of them.

The circle of the dance began by tracing the edge of the glade. On each cycle we moved closer to the center. On the next pass a woman stood by the line. She was passing out straws. Each dancer stopped just long enough to grab a straw before moving on. When my turn came I saw that the woman with the straws was Maia. She smiled at me. To Diotima she shouted a greeting above the loud music.

The dancing was thirsty work, but they had a cure for that. The line had compressed tight now, but elongated into an oval. At one end the vat became the turning post. As Diotima and I approached I saw every head before us dip down in turn and every straw go into the drink. The dancers sucked as much beer as they could before the dance took them away once more.

I held up the straw and shouted to Petros, who was two ahead of me in the line, “You know, this stuff could grow on you.”

Petros laughed.

I don’t know how long we danced to that incredible, mesmeric music. Maybe it was half the night. I do know that by the time I thought to notice, the vat was less than half full. How much beer had we each drunk? At that moment I was too happy to care. The compressed line meant we were rubbing against each other. Between Petros and me was a woman with red hair and ample breasts. She rubbed them against me and laughed and looked mischievously into my eyes every time she whirled.

I worried about Diotima seeing this, then I notice that she was doing the same thing, not only to me, but to the man in line behind her. Diotima was usually the most prim and decorous woman in Athens. What was my wife thinking?

I was about to put a stop to it when the music suddenly ceased. Everybody collapsed in a heap where they were. I should have been exhausted, but I was too excited by the drink and the dance. Because we’d been following the line, the panting devotees formed a circle about the vat and the Hand of Sabazios. We all lay back in the cool, reviving grass.

A different music started up, this one of castanets and tambourines. At first there was only the music, then a woman appeared from the darkness beyond the Hand of Sabazios. She danced into view. I thought at first the music came from her, because she held something in each hand. Then I thought they were sticks she held, because they were long and thin. Then one of them moved, and I realized the woman held live snakes.