I said, “Patro? You were right, what happened at Agne’s farm was a terrible tragedy.”
Patro smacked his lips. “That it was.”
“What happened, exactly? May I ask?” I could afford to put it nicely. If Patro didn’t tell me, someone else would.
Patro was silent for a long time before he answered. “It was that Dionysia that did for them. They went there for a holiday. They wanted to show their son some city culture, do you see? Young Lakon got chosen for a chorus and when they returned to Rhamnus they were full of it. Proud parents, you know?”
We nodded.
“Young Lakon never forgot. He talked all the time about how when he was older he’d return to Athens and be an actor. His dad let him talk. That was his big mistake.” Patro paused, remembering. “Ten years later Lakon wasn’t a boy any longer. He was a young man who declared he was off to Athens to be an actor. His dad said no. Who’d look after the farm if Lakon didn’t? Acting was all very well for boys, but it was no job for a proper man.” Patro spread his hands, as if in apology. “Well, the father had the right of it, didn’t he? But he shouldn’t have let Lakon grow with such an obsession, you know?”
“I know.”
I’d had my own problems with a father who didn’t like my choice of profession. But I’d been lucky, my father was a reasonable man.
“Did Lakon run away?” Diotima asked.
I already knew the answer to that. I shook my head. “It wouldn’t do him any good. The father could go to Athens and drag his son home. The courts would support the father. No, Diotima, while his father lived, Lakon was a legal child …” My voice trailed off as I realized the implications of what I’d said. “Oh no.”
Patro nodded. “That’s what happened. I reckon in a fit of madness Lakon decided to become his own master. He took an axe to his dad, in their own house. A single blow to the chest. I saw it. The axe went deep. Only the Gods know how much hatred there must have been in that boy. He must have come to his senses then, realized the enormity of what he’d done. I heard tell from the slaves who saw it. He walked outside, and the next thing they hear is a gurgling scream. When they went out, Lakon had sliced his own throat.”
“Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad,” Diotima whispered.
“You got the right of it, young lady.”
Agne had seen this happen. No wonder her wits were gone.
Patro wiped away a tear. I carefully didn’t notice that he was crying. Patro said, “That Dionysia destroyed their lives.”
I said, “Patro, I know this is going to sound strange, but is there any chance that the man you buried wasn’t Lakon?”
Patro did me the honor of not telling me I was crazy. Instead, he shook his head. “I knew Lakon, boy and man. It was me who put the torch to the funeral pyre. I saw them lying side by side. Him and his dad. It was Lakon I torched. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
SCENE 30
“If Lakon is dead, then who is the man back in Athens?” Diotima said.
It was a good question. But I had no answer for my wife.
We spent the entire trip home talking about it. In the end we could come to only one conclusion.
From Salaminia we went straight to the home of Lakon. I banged on the door, hard. When the slave opened it, I pushed my way in. Lakon was sitting in his courtyard. I stopped in front of him. Diotima stood behind me with arms crossed and looking angry.
Lakon stared up in surprise. I said, “I’m going to tell you a story. You don’t have to confirm or deny it. Frankly, I don’t care what you say.”
Lakon put down the scroll he was reading. “I’m listening, and I’m not admitting to anything.”
I stood over him as I spoke.
“Many years ago, there was a talented young metic actor who belonged to a touring company. We don’t know his name, nor where he came from. But we do know his company stopped at a small city called Rhamnus. It’s just the sort of place where a small, struggling touring company would play.”
Lakon said nothing.
“This young actor, while he was at Rhamnus, heard the tragic story of a local lad. The lad’s name was Lakon. When he was a boy, Lakon had gone to the Great Dionysia and played in the chorus. When he grew to be a man Lakon killed his father and slit his own throat, all because the father wouldn’t let the son be an actor.”
I paused. But Lakon made no reaction. His face was studiously blank.
I said, “The people of Rhamnus still talk about the tragedy to this day. Certainly they must have been talking about it when our young actor, the protagonist of our story, played there so many years ago.”
Lakon said nothing.
I said, “Our protagonist probably drank at one of the local taverns after his performance. Actors like to drink, don’t they?”
Lakon nodded.
“What more natural thing than to tell every visiting actor about the boy who once played in the chorus, and then slaughtered his own father?”
Lakon said nothing.
“So our talented young actor had an idea. He would go to Athens and say his name was Lakon. Nobody in Athens would question his identity,” I said. “Everyone knew that Lakon of Rhamnus had served in the chorus as a young lad. What could be more natural than that he return in adulthood to take up acting? It was no different to what Sophocles himself had done. The fake Lakon was entirely safe, he had made himself a citizen of Athens with a fine career … until Romanos discovered him.”
“He would be found out,” Lakon said quietly.
“Would he?” I asked. “Rhamnus is about as far away as you can get and still be a deme in Attica. What were the odds that someone from that distant town would come to Athens? If he did, would he even notice that there was an actor in Athens named Lakon? Nobody notices the actor beneath the mask! And if by bad luck a townsman did learn of this Lakon, they would probably assume it was someone else of the same name. He certainly wouldn’t connect a famous Athenian actor with a young man who he knew for sure died two decades ago.”
Lakon said nothing.
“How did Romanos find out? Probably the same way you did. Romanos had served in touring companies. The stage manager told us so. However he heard, Romanos connected you with the story.”
I paused.
“You can imagine his surprise when he found, as I did, that the man he thought he knew had died twenty years ago; that the man he did know was a thief.”
Lakon said, “I stole nothing from that unfortunate young man.”
“You stole his name!”
“And you stole his citizenship,” Diotima added.
“It’s all very well for you to talk,” Lakon snorted. He pointed at Diotima. “You married into citizenship. A man can’t do that.”
“What I did is legal,” Diotima said. “What you did isn’t.”
“Is it not?” Lakon raised an eyebrow. “Show me the law that says I can’t name myself anything I like.”
He had me stumped on that. As far as I knew there was no law about changing your name.
“You’re a fraud,” Diotima said. I was relieved that she had a ready answer. “You let everyone believe you were something that you’re not. You accepted the benefits of citizenship.” She let that sink in, then added, “The fact is, Lakon, or whoever you are, if this goes to court, even if they don’t find you guilty you’ll be finished as a citizen of Athens. You’ll be run out of town, exiled forever.”
Lakon blanched.
“Please don’t,” he whispered. “I’ll do anything. Anything.”
“Including kill Romanos?” I asked.
“I don’t deny I’m relieved to see him dead. You have no idea what a burden he was for me. But I didn’t kill him.”
“Can you prove that?”
“No.”
His first honest answer. He’d said it defiantly.
“All right then, Lakon-I suppose we’ll have to keep calling you that-tell us everything you know. And I mean everything.”