Romanos thought about it. “Now that you mention it, Athens does seem safer than most cities.”
“You have Pythax to thank for that,” I said.
“Oh, I see.”
Romanos questioned Diotima closely as to how Pythax had come by his citizenship. What the process had been and whether anyone had objected. It was an odd place for such a conversation, the three of us all facing each other, squeezed together, other men pressed against us in every direction. But the sound of the rain was loud in our ears; from where it bounced off the tile slate roof above our heads, I could barely hear the words of the men talking right next to us. Our conversation was essentially private.
Pythax had been made a citizen by acclamation of the ecclesia, the Assembly of the People of Athens. When Diotima explained this to Romanos, he looked despondent and said that no assembly of citizens would ever vote for him to join their number.
“Is that really so, Romanos?” I said. “You’ve been a great help to Sophocles. You’ve become instrumental in saving the Dionysia. If men see that you do great service to Athens, might they not think you also worthy of citizenship?”
He brightened. “Yes, I suppose that is possible. I wonder who might sponsor me for citizenship?” He went into a reverie, no doubt contemplating his future, and said little else.
The moon was high in the sky by the time the rain slackened and a few gaps in the clouds appeared. Men scattered from under cover like ants from a nest. It was very late when Diotima and I made it home, so late that my parents and even the slaves had gone to bed, leaving only one slave awake to open the door for us. This he did, grumpily pointing out how late it was, then he too shuffled off to his bed out the back.
Our clothes were a disaster. We dropped them on the floor by the door. It was too dark to do anything else. This left us naked, standing at the front of the house, with Socrates snoring not twenty paces away.
We tiptoed up to the women’s quarters, where Diotima had a private bedroom. When Diotima had joined the family I’d built her a separate room so that she and my mother would have some privacy from each other.
We closed the door behind us.
“There’s no point waking your mother for some ointment,” Diotima said. “The rain will have cleaned the bite anyway … but perhaps some light massage.”
“Good idea.”
Diotima felt below.
“Nico, it’s swollen from the bite.”
“Diotima, that swelling is for a different reason.”
She felt again.
“Oh, so it is.”
She dragged me down onto the bed.
SCENE 11
Diotima and I had barely slept, but for all that we felt refreshed. We ate a hearty breakfast, of yesterday’s bread dipped in wine, lentils and eggs from our farm. The eggs were a luxury few could afford. The whole family was present: my father and mother and Socrates, who was still puzzling over the machine.
Socrates had reached the age where he ate everything he could grab, and then some. As he filled his bowl with third helpings he demanded that we tell him what had happened at the theater. Diotima brought him up to date.
Our father, Sophroniscus, listened to Diotima without comment. He had eaten sparingly of his bread and wine. I was happy to see he popped half an egg into his mouth, and then the other half.
My father had never become reconciled to my chosen profession-he had wanted me to follow in his footsteps-and yet it was my work that had brought the farm into the family, small though it was. It pleased me that he enjoyed its produce.
Thought of this raised another point to mind.
“Father, we have a problem,” I said. “There are mice in Diotima’s house.”
“Find a cat,” he said absently. I could tell he wasn’t paying attention. In his mind he was probably planning his day’s work.
“They’re in the roof.”
That made him look up. He knew what mice in the thatching meant.
I detailed the extent of the damage.
“We will have to sell the house,” my father said.
I glanced at Diotima. She looked studiously down at her bowl.
“I’d rather not, sir,” I said, somewhat hesitantly. Father had not been keen for me to marry Diotima in the first place. Having won that major battle and installed her in my life, I hesitated to antagonize my father over a lesser disagreement.
Sophroniscus put down his bowl. “Son, I know you like the place, but a house that doesn’t pay, that we don’t need, that’s costing us money … it’s a drain on the household finances. I’m sure you understand. That old house needs a lot of maintenance, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but-”
“I know you’ve tried to make it pay,” he said. “The renting scheme was a good idea-”
“Yes, but-”
“But it hasn’t worked out, has it?”
“No, but-”
“Sometimes the best thing to do is accept a defeat and move on. You’ve done well with this career of yours, I admit it. I’m proud of you.”
Father was being reasonable. I hated that.
For so long as he lived, my father was responsible for our family, and I was a child in the eyes of the law. If he’d simply ordered me to sell the house, I could not have refused. But Father wasn’t going to order me. Instead he was going to make me see reason.
My mother, Phaenarete, had listened to all this in silence. Phaenarete never questioned her husband in front of us. She had other ways of expressing her viewpoint, typically by failing to offer an opinion whenever Father said something of which she disapproved. Phaenarete’s silence could be more devastating than other wives who threw plates. I hoped that she would keep a studious silence, or perhaps even say a few words in my support.
Now she crushed my hopes by saying, “Your father is right, Nico.”
That ended it. We would have to sell the house.
SCENE 12
We all three of us traipsed to the Theater of Dionysos. Socrates wanted to see the god machine.
We found the stage manager there, though it was still early in the morning. Other than him, the theater was deserted. I noticed at once that on the back wall, someone had added a line below the No Whistling sign. The addition was in a different hand. Now it said:
NO WHISTLING!
and watch your feet-don’t trip or fall
I felt it was good advice, but hardly needed saying.
Or did it? Romanos had tripped over the dangerously placed broom. That could have broken his leg. Lakon had almost fallen from the sabotaged balcony. That could have ended with a broken limb, or a broken neck. Phellis had fallen heavily and now his leg was crippled.
“You back again?” the stage manager said when he saw us. He held an actor’s mask in his hands.
“There’s a criminal assault to avenge,” I said.
He grunted. “I visited Phellis last night.”
“How was he?”
“Tied up in that machine in the doctor’s house, but he wasn’t screaming. Doctor said the leg was as good as you could expect. He also said Phellis can never act again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. All right, I can’t say I like having you amateurs behind the skene, but I guess I got no choice.”
“You’re here early,” I said.
“It occurred to me nothing got put away properly last night,” he said. “After all the rain I thought I better check the damage. Look at this.” He swore as he held up the mask that had been in his hands. “Someone left it lying on the ground. It’s ruined now.”
It did indeed look the worse for wear: muddy, and the material was splotched.
The stage manager tossed the mask onto the bench beside him.
“Can I have a look?” Diotima said, and before the stage manager could object she picked it up.