I swallowed, nodded, and climbed the stairs to sit in the front row by Phaedrus, on the other side of the arena from Kebes’s friends. I looked over at the judges. Neleus smiled at me reassuringly. Erinna was frowning again. I looked down at the little knives where they were laid out so neatly. Everyone in the crowd seemed to recognize them. This must be something they did often enough to have the tools for it. And, most disturbing of all, they came crowding into the colosseum and brought their children to watch.
Kebes had seated himself on a camp stool and was tapping his fingers impatiently. Father stood still and looked at Aristomache.
Aristomache came forward and said something quietly to both men. They both shook their heads. She sighed, and held both hands forward to the crowd, palms out. “You are here to witness a formal musical challenge of one original composition, for any instrument,” she began. Everyone immediately fell silent, except one baby whose crying sounded loud in the sudden stillness. The acoustics were wonderful. “Between Pytheas of the Just City and Matthias of Lucia. The victor is to do what he wants to the vanquished. Will you two show mercy, as this is just a personal quarrel, and give up this enmity and compete for a prize?”
“Never,” Kebes said.
“There is a place for vengeance in my religion,” Father said.
Aristomache looked pained, and so did some of the other judges from Lucia.
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” Kebes said, clearly quoting something. “Christianity has room for vengeance too, especially upon heathens and heretics.” At the word “heretics” there was a stirring and muttering in the crowd.
“Can’t you forgive?” Aristomache pleaded.
“And what have I done to you anyway, beyond existing?” Father asked, mildly, his words pitched perfectly to be heard everywhere in the colosseum. Even the crying baby fell silent.
“This isn’t a trial,” Kebes snarled at Father. “We’re not here to rehearse grievances. And while Lucia is a Christian city, this is permissible by our laws. It’s a free contest, freely entered into.”
Aristomache sighed and raised her hands again. “The judges are chosen and will swear.” Weirdly, she now put her palms together. “I swear by Yayzu and his Heavenly Father that I will judge fairly and by the laws, and not be swayed by prejudice, friendship, or the feeling of the crowd.”
It was the strangest oath I ever heard, halfway between the oaths judges take in a capital case and an artistic competition. It became clear as the others swore that the matter of which gods would hold the oath had been left to personal preference. The odd mix of phrases didn’t sound any more normal when Ficino swore by all the gods, or Erinna by Apollo and the Muses. Klymene swore by Zeus, Apollo, and Demeter, which was the conventional trio at home for holding significant oaths. Neleus swore by all gods on high Olympos, which cleverly left out Father, since he was right here. Nikias swore before high holiness, which could have meant anything. Alexandra swore by Yayzu and Marissa, Sabina by Marissa alone, Erektheus by blessed Yayzu and Saint Lucy. Father, who had stood impassive through all the rest, even when he was named, winced a little at that.
Then Kebes came up, putting his palms together. “I swear by God, and Marissa, and Saint Matthew, and by my own true name, that I shall abide by the decision of these judges. Whether it be for me or against me I shall submit myself to whatever follows.” His voice boomed out confidently. I couldn’t understand what he thought he was doing. He was swearing in truth, without reservations. He believed he would win and get to skin Father alive, but how could he?
Father followed him forward and swore the same oath, calmly and clearly, calling on Zeus, Leto, and the Muses. It seemed an odd choice of gods, but not inappropriate. He couldn’t exactly swear by himself.
“We shall draw lots for who will begin,” Aristomache said.
“No, you go first, Pytheas,” Kebes said.
“No, you.” Father made a gesture of elaborate courtesy and the crowd laughed.
“We will draw lots,” Aristomache said again, firmly. She shook a bag. “Black or white?”
“White,” Father said.
Aristomache sat down again and held out the bag out to Nikias, who pulled out a stone without looking and held it up to the crowd. It was white.
Without waiting for anything more, still standing where he was, in a graceful pose with his cloak draped neatly to leave his arm bare, Father began to play.
I’ve said that Father invented music, and it’s true. I wasn’t really worried. All the same, we’d spent a long time the evening before discussing what he ought to play. For an audience that contained a large number of Yayzu worshippers, it shouldn’t be a religious theme. Similarly, it shouldn’t be something overtly Platonic. Phaedrus had suggested he play his song about the Last Debate, and it would have been a good choice, except that it was a subject that excited strong feelings for and against. We discussed elegies and love songs and praise songs. Father had written them all. “What we want is something everyone except Kebes will like,” I had said. We’d pretty much agreed that he’d play a song he had written years ago about the sun going down and a bird flying on toward the dawn. It’s a song about death and hope, of course, but it’s also about a bird and a sunset, and the tune is marvelous.
Of course, Father being Father, he didn’t play that at all. He had written it, yes, but lots of the people there had heard it already. Erinna quite often sang it herself. What he sang was completely new. I’d never heard it before, and I’m fairly sure he composed it especially for the occasion, maybe even on the spot. It had a pretty, complex melody, with chords that would be much too hard for most people, and then the words made a harmony, twining around it. It was in the Phrygian mode, of course. From the first note everyone was caught in the silence. The song was about me. Or rather, it was about arete, about personal human excellence, and how it was what we all wanted to attain, and how, being human, we so often fell short but went on from there, and kept on trying, and achieved amazing things. The images were all about building cities and lives, using Plato’s parallel that sees cities and souls as analogous. I had tears in my eyes by the end of the first verse, and that was before the incredibly uplifting chorus.
It was such a wonderful song, and such a wonderful performance of it, that I almost forgot to look at Kebes. He stayed sitting there, smiling slightly, not at all worried. It made no sense. However good he was with his pipes, he couldn’t possibly top this. Did he think Father would hesitate to kill him? Or did he have a deeper plan?
When Father finished the crowd surged to their feet, clapping with all their hearts. Father bowed to them and stepped back, his face calm and composed, opening his hand to Kebes. And Kebes didn’t even wait for them to settle down, he grinned, blew a note, and then another, and then a whole ripple of clear fast notes, puffing out his cheeks.
Of course he couldn’t sing while he was playing. The syrinx is a breath instrument, so Kebes’s tune had no words. But he was good. He had me tapping my foot almost at once. As for the crowd, already on their feet, half of them were dancing. It wasn’t Phrygian or Dorian, it was some other mode altogether, a music I’d never heard, one Plato banned from the Republic, a music made of night and laughter and swaying rhythms. How could Athene have invented such an instrument? It was erotic, haunting, dangerous. Father’s song had been a call for Platonic excellence. This reached out to the parts of people Plato most wanted to suppress. And yet, these impulses were undeniably part of life too. I looked at Erinna, and looked away again. I don’t know how long Kebes played. It wasn’t the kind of music that has measures. It built to a climax, hung there, and toppled back with a sigh. The crowd sighed too, and then clapped and stamped and cheered. Phaedrus and I were the only ones sitting, apart from the judges. Father’s face was completely expressionless, as if carved from marble.