Steven Saylor - Wrath of the Furies

“Alecto, we dare to speak your name!” said Kysanias.

“Your name means ‘never-ending, unceasing,’” said the Grand Magus.

“Megaera, we dare to speak your name!”

“Your name means ‘bitter, grudging.’”

“Tisiphone, we dare to speak your name!”

“Your name means ‘vengeful, violent.’”

While the priest and the wise man recited their litany, Freny writhed on the altar. Mithridates stared at her intently, gritting his teeth. Next to him, Monime gazed at Freny’s helpless suffering with a smile of smug satisfaction.

“We call on you, we name the unnameable, we say aloud your names!” said Kysanias. “You were born from the blood that gushed from the wound that unmanned Uranus-Uranus who was made seedless by the child of his seed, Kronos-Kronos who set in motion the passage of time-time which puts an end to all things save the gods-”

Standing at the altar next to Damianus and Gnossipus, across from Kysanias and the Grand Magus, I grew more and more light-headed. The Grove of the Furies began to seem unreal. Surely no such place existed, and the moments I was experiencing were outside of time, a weird and frightful illusion. I felt oddly detached, yet at the same time on the verge of panic. I tried to breathe deeply, but couldn’t seem to catch a breath. It was as if my body had forgotten how to breathe.

The air around me was as thick as water. Objects seen at a distance seemed horribly close, as if just beyond my nose-the iron collar worn by Quintus Oppius, the ruby eyes of the cobra in Prince Ptolemy’s crown, the gold knob atop the royal staff held by Monime’s father. At the same time, the people surrounding the altar seemed very distant, no taller than a finger seen at arm’s length.

I would never be able to do what had been asked of me. It would not be possible. I would not be able to move, much less-

“You dwell among the dead in Tartarus,” Kysanias was saying, “but we call you forth from your home to receive this sacrifice. Hear the prayer of this mighty king-this king whose coming was foretold by dreams, visions and oracles-portents and prophecies that seek fulfillment-fulfillment that may only come with the wrath of the Furies -”

That was my cue.

* * *

When I was a boy, and Antipater was my occasional tutor, he and my father decided that it would be a good thing for me to speak in public, reciting some bit of poetry I had learned before an audience of other boys and their fathers.

The prospect terrified me.

I had never done such a thing before. Nor had I any desire to do so. Was it not enough that I should learn the words of Ennius, or Homer, or Hesiod, or Sappho? Why must I speak them aloud, by memory, in front of other people?

Because, my father said, oratory was the birthright of every Roman. The Republic had been born from the spoken word, for action was always preceded by will, and will was shaped by the spoken word. The better a man could speak, and the larger his audience, the greater his chance to shape the world around him, rather than helplessly be shaped by the world.

But why recite the words of some dead man? Because, Antipater said, it was from the poets, especially the Greek poets, that we learned that speech could be not only persuasive, but also sublime, achieving a beauty and perfection approaching the divine.

For a month, every day Antipater drilled me, and every day I dreaded the coming of that occasion.

I was not the only boy to speak that day. Others came before me. While I awaited my turn, I became light-headed and hardly able to breathe. Objects near at hand seemed far away, and distant objects attained a horrible nearness. I knew that I would never be able to do what was required of me. I would stand babbling and stuttering before my audience, unable to speak, and I would melt, like a wax table in the hot sun, while my father and Antipater and the others looked on, aghast.

But that was not what happened.

When called upon, I rose from my seat. Like some automaton, propelled by a mechanism outside my own volition, I walked to the dais and mounted it. I turned to face the audience. I opened my mouth, and the words of Anacreon came out …

“It irks me that Eurypyle, so glamorous,

For boorish Artemon has cravings amorous…”

The listeners looked at me intently. They did not look aghast, but quite the opposite. Antipater smiled. So did my father. When I came to the lines,

“But now the son of Artemon appears

In a chariot, with gold rings in his ears,”

some in the audience laughed out loud, and their laughter was like wine to me. I felt a novel sensation of power, as if I held them all in the palm of my hand.

By the time I came to the final line, I did not want my turn to end. I would gladly have recited another poem for them, and another. But I stepped aside and let the next boy mount the dais.

That day I had a very small taste of the thrill that actors must feel on the stage, and politicians on the podium. My father was right, and so was Antipater. To speak in public must surely be the most powerful thing a man can do, and also the most sublime.…

* * *

We never know, later in life, what childhood lessons we will call upon. That night, in the Grove of the Furies, I called upon that long-ago experience.

The memory gave me comfort and strength. I would be able to do what had been asked of me. I would do it for Freny. I would do it for all the Romans who had taken sanctuary at the Temple of Artemis. Why, I was not even being called upon to speak, only to stand before an audience and-

“ The wrath of the Furies! ” Kysanias repeated, daring to look straight at me across the altar, despite our prearranged agreement that we would not look each other in the eye.

All night, Antipater and I had rehearsed. He devised the words, then drilled me over and over until I knew them by heart. Now the time had come.

Moving stiffly, I stepped back, then strode to the head of the altar. Here, as Kysanias had told me there would be, I saw a small wooden platform attached to the altar. Stepping onto it, I stood tall enough for everyone in the grove to see me, or at least to see my shadowy form. The torches in the stands to either side and slightly behind me had gradually burned lower and lower. As if they were alive and hungry, black shadows were swallowing the light.

Freny was directly below me, her feet pointing away from me. She stared up at me. We saw each other’s faces upside down.

“Mute witness!” Kysanias cried. “Why have you left your place?”

I kept my head lowered. “Best to start with your mouth unseen,” Kysanias had advised the night before, “in case at the beginning you and Antipater are not in perfect unison.”

But our beginning was perfect. I felt Antipater’s touch on my back. While all eyes were on me, on the opposite side of the altar he had successfully scurried unseen behind Kysanias and the Grand Magus, to take up a spot just behind me. Even as I mouthed the first word, I heard it spoken. Though I had heard it the night before, the voice that spoke was so strange it set my hair on end-a voice neither man nor woman, perhaps not even human. It was the rasping, guttural, grating voice of a Fury-as imagined by Antipater, not only the word’s best poet, but also the best reciter of poems.

“Who carelessly calls upon us?” demanded the uncanny voice that seemed to issue from my mouth. “Who dares disturb us?”

“What is this?” whined the Grand Magus, squinting up at me. “Does the mute witness speak?”

I raised my face a bit. Everyone in the grove was looking at me, but from the way they squinched their eyes and stared I knew that not one of them could clearly see my face, because the light from the torches was in their eyes. It was the same effect the fortune-teller in Alexandria had used on me, by sitting below a window that cast light in my eyes.