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.
I had the advantage of the light, which illuminated the crowd before me. The people farthest away faded into the encroaching darkness, but at the back of the group I could clearly see the towering figure of Bastarna. Much closer, at the foot of the altar, stood the king and queen, with Philopoemen to one side of them and Prince Ptolemy to the other. Their faces expressed surprise and alarm.
I moved my lips but did not speak. The voice came from elsewhere.
“Who summons Alecto? Who calls upon Megaera? Who invokes Tisiphone?”
From the corner of my eye I saw the Grand Magus squinting up at me. He suddenly started back, as if touched by something hot. Across from him, Gnossipus clutched at Damianus-the one person in the grove who could not hear the uncanny voice. The deaf man alone was immune to the wave of uneasiness that passed though the group. As one sees a gust of wind set tall grass to shivering, so I perceived this growing distress in those before me.
“It is the King of Kings who calls upon you,” said Kysanias, with a tremor in his voice. He sounded genuinely fearful. He held up the ritual knife and ax. “He offers this sacrifice.”
Again the uncanny voice spoke, seeming to come from my lips. “The thing you seek cannot be given! The blessing you beg for can only be a curse! No man should summon what no man can control!”
One of the torches, already burning low, suddenly went out. Then another torch went out, and another. The grove grew darker and darker.
Someone in the group cried out, as if he had been stabbed or bitten. Another man screamed. These cries came from Rutilius and Zeuxidemus, doing what they could to spread panic in the others.
“What’s that?” cried the Grand Magus. “There, in the trees!”
One of the towering cypress trees had begun to shake, hard enough to break twigs and small branches. Then the tree next to it shivered, and then the next, as if some unseen, unearthly force was at work in the Grove of the Furies, moving from tree to tree. The shivering, crackling trees produced an eerie sound, as if ghastly beings hissed and groaned.
Another torch went out. There were more cries of panic.
“Why is it so dark?” shouted Mithridates, his voice breaking. He clenched his fists and looked over his shoulder. More than ever, Monime’s pale face and coppery hair seemed to levitate, disembodied. Her eyebrows were raised above staring eyes and her mouth was open in a perfect circle. Next to her, Prince Ptolemy looked strangely thrilled by the mounting confusion.
I concentrated on my task, for the uncanny voice had more to say-cryptic prophecies of unending punishment, hissing threats of unearthly torment. The uproar of the group rose to such a pitch that Antipater’s voice was almost drowned out. The trees around us continued to shudder and sway.
“I see them, in the trees!” cried the Grand Magus. He no longer squinted but gazed up in awe. What did he think he saw with those wide-open, nearsighted eyes of his?
“I see them, too!” yelled someone in the crowd. It sounded like Rutilius.
“It’s the Furies! They’re here!” This was Zeuxidemus, who then produced a blood-curdling scream.
At that moment, by pure chance, something actually did flitter above our heads. I think it was a bat. Mithridates must have glimpsed it, for he suddenly ducked and pulled Monime close to him, clutching her tightly. In that instant I saw what very few-perhaps no one-had ever seen: a look of utter panic on the face of Mithridates.