by AM Kirkby
***
There was no trouble for the rest of that week; not from Melkart, not from Daryush (though he still sulked, like a beaten dog), not from Gaius, who seemed to have found four or five stalwarts to get the roofing finished, and happily worked every daylight hour. Not from the new settlers or the old; not from Anicius, now free of the roofing work and drafting a plan, or project, or suggestion, for the new government – his terminology changed depending on who he was talking to; not from the weather, either, which had turned warm and dry, as if summer had taken advantage of a momentary inattention to tiptoe back into the procession of the seasons. No trouble; no trouble at all. It couldn't last.
The days grew shorter, but they were still golden; grass glittered with scattered dewdrops in the early sun, evenings flamed with imperial sunsets. Egerius found the time to write a short poem; though when he looked at it the next day, it seemed lacking, the words less splendid than the skies outside or the feeling of melancholy in the misty morning air. He read it over again, wondered why it had lost its savour overnight, like wine left out.
Simonides, Karite and Kallirhoe came over one evening; the founders, now, were much reduced – he rarely saw Melkart or Gaius, other than in passing, and even Karite and Kallirhoe had distanced themselves; only Simonides was a regular visitor these days, and Egerius wondered whether he really came to see Anicius, with whom he could discuss his ideas on the ethics of government. (Could a city make its citizens good? he'd asked.) Even when he consoled himself with Daryush, he found the boy cold, his obedience sullen. How had he come to this; his friends dispersed, his days so solitary? Even this dinner, so carefully planned, seemed hollow, the conversation faltering, like a reunion of former colleagues who had drifted apart, who no longer knew each other intimately.
"A city is only the sum of its citizens." That was Kallirhoe. She knew she was stirring; she wanted to provoke, Egerius thought, and that was something she never used to do before, strident though her views were.
"Well, we can choose our citizens," Anicius countered.
"Really?" Egerius was doubtful. "How do we stop them coming? You've seen the shanties – Build-it-ere was only the first. They come from all over. Just as they used to come to Rome."
"We own the land. We don't have to give it them."
"And when they have children?"
"Ah," said Simonides, "you're right; those we don't get to choose. Just as no father chooses his children."
"It's a wise father who knows his children," Karite said, with a sly look. Simonides glanced at her, and seemed as if about to speak, but then shrugged, leaving it unsaid.
"So we can choose our citizens now, but never again?" That was Anicius, still trying to push his idea of an elective citizenry.
"There's always ostracism," Kallirhoe said.
"It doesn't work." Simonides was adamant. "Look, it's been tried. And what happens? You push people out, they go into exile, they plot to come back; you end up with a see-saw, one lot in, another lot out. Continual reversals of policy. Nothing ever done, because before it's done, the government changes and it has to be undone."
"But that's when you use ostracism as a political tool," Egerius said. He'd learned enough about Greek cities to know that , at least. "We'd use it more constructively. We'd only exile criminals. Rapists, murderers."
"And where would they go?" Simonides asked.
"That's not our problem."
The wine went round again; watered, for the Greeks; straight, for Anicius. Egerius usually took his wine watered; but now, he waved Daryush away. No water tonight.
"And the nuisances?" Simonides pressed on. "The stoners, the drunks, the rabble-rousers, the unproductive?"
"Work-shy," Anicius muttered.
"The philosophers whose conclusions you don't agree with?"
"Don't worry, Simonides. I'm not likely to push you out."
"Maybe, Egerius. Maybe."
"No, we're safe," Karite said.
"But are we?" Kallirhoe asked. "We may be safe from ostracism; but are we safe from the other citizens?"
No one answered. A month, two months ago, no one would have needed to; now, everyone was afraid to.
"Daryush, could we have some more wine?" Egerius asked; that third cup had gone rather quickly. As the boy came round again, his hand trembled; wine dribbled on to the floor.
"For Tinia's sake, what are you thinking of?"
The boy flinched away, as if Egerius had struck him; wine slopped out of the jug, before he managed to still his fear, and moved across to serve Simonides and the women.
"Maybe," Karite said slowly, "it is not the banishment of the bad that will make our city virtuous, but the encouragement of the good."
"You mean a system of rewards?"
"Yes. But we could also send to chosen people; ask them to come. Alkibiades of Mitilene..."
Simonides made a sour face.
"I know you don't like his philosophy; but he's a good man. And some of the Syracusans, too. If you know Romans, or Etruscans..."
"We've been hand-picking Romans," Egerius said, glancing at Anicius.
"Well, we could do with more. Craftspeople, thinkers, writers, judges."
"And who will do the work?" Anicius said, sullen. "Helots? Like in Sparta?"
As always, there were questions, no answers; or questions and too many answers, all contradictory. When they'd started to ask questions, Egerius thought, it stimulated them, they had felt free, daring even, exploring a new land that lay open to them; and now, instead, they felt constrained by the impossibility of an answer. He shifted the conversation away from philosophy – talked about poetry, sacrificed the verse he'd written to public scrutiny, even, though he hated to do it. (He wasn't sure what was worse, Simonides' kind but uncritical commendation, or Kallirhoe's knife taken to it; probably the former.) Yet throughout the rest of the evening, though they didn't return to the subject of politics, he felt its presence looming there; felt he'd been a coward, he'd shirked something, should be ashamed.
Evening fell, flaring first orange, then a dim purple like a bruise. Egerius had the lamps lit before the colour left the sky; the room seemed to close in, the air still and smothering with the heat of many lamps. Simonides left early, too sober to enjoy himself; Anicius excused himself not long after, and Egerius saw Karite looking restless. Kallirhoe, holding forth on the rights of the free subject, seemed not to notice; women didn't always, it seemed, have quite the attentiveness to each other's desires that she'd claimed.
"I'll see you back," he said, in a gap in her speechifying; and though she bridled, a quick glance at Karite stopped the anger he thought he'd seen in her eyes.
"We don't need it," Karite said.
"It'd be best," said Kallirhoe.
They made their way across the moonlit agora; the arcade of the stoa seemed full of moving shadows, and clouds shifting in the sky cast strange twisting darknesses on to the ground. Egerius thought he heard a distant rumble of thunder, but he might have been mistaken; there was no lightning flicker.
"Bitches!"
It was Melkart again, pissed and stumbling, shouting at them. He must have been waiting in the stoa; waiting, or perhaps just sleeping off a drunk, and woken by their voices. He stumbled towards them, unsteady, but with the speed of the vastly intoxicated, not caring whether he tripped or fell, almost running as his momentum carried him forward.
Kallirhoe cursed. They moved faster. Then Karite fell, suddenly, tumbling over an ankle that had twisted sideways and folding up on herself limply. One of the stones of the pavement had tipped up, its edge catching her foot; another was missing, the space gaping like a deep hole, though Egerius knew it could only be an inch deep.
"You shit!" Kallirhoe yelled, turning round to face Melkart; but he was still running towards them, shouting, less and less coherently. Then she bent; was she tying her shoelace? Egerius couldn't work out what she was doing; he braced himself for the inevitable confrontation with Melkart.
Then Melkart was falling backwards, and Kallirhoe's raised arm was following through her shot. Egerius realised she must have picked up a stone and thrown it at Melkart, but by the time he realised what she'd done he'd already turned and was running towards the falling body. He got there just in time to see Melkart hit the ground, his eyes staring up blankly at the starless sky, his forehead bloody.
"Is he...?"
Not breathing. Not moving.
"A lucky shot," Karite said, and Egerius thought no; unlucky, not just for Melkart, unlucky for them all. He'd thought they could found a city of freedom, unlike Rome, the city founded on fratricide, the city of violence; and now New Collatia had claimed its first victim, its first sacrifice that sanctified its walls with blood. An unlucky night.
"What do we do?" Kallirhoe was as direct as ever. No thought for fault or culpability, just the need for action.
"Did anyone see us leave?" he asked her. That was the first consideration; everything else came after.
"I don't know."
"Anyone in the stoa?"
"We can find out."
"You go; I'll stay here with Karite."
She hesitated a second; then like a fox, she was gone into the dark, whisking silently towards the arcade. A few moments later she was back.
"No-one."
"You're sure?"
She nodded. Few words and quick were best, while they were in the open.
"We leave him then."
"We leave him?" Karite asked. Her voice seemed to tremble; that might be pain, or fear, or the chill that was beginning to creep up from the stones.
"We leave him."
"But what will people say?"
"That he got too drunk, too often. Too noisy."
"They'll blame it on one of his students."
"The city's not safe at night. He was out too late."
"Most of them were frightened of him, anyway."
They were whispering urgently, trying to convince each other it was right to do this, to leave him lying there.
"And now?"
"Back home," Egerius said. "We never left; we've been there all the time. It got too late; you stayed."
Kallirhoe nodded. Karite looked up, looked down.
"That's decided, then," he said. "That's our story." As they made their way back to his house, he seemed to feel eyes on his back; the agora had never seemed so wide, so exposed.
They said very little when they got back to the house; he found the women a spare room where they could bed down, found a spare coverlet in one of the chests in his own room, left them. Stripping, he felt the air chill on his clammy skin; his bed was lumpy, the rug he pulled over himself scratchy, making him itch. It was surprising how a man could go from noisy, rough life to the blankness of death in a moment, in less time than it took to catch the sound of your own heartbeat. He couldn't even remember if he'd heard the sound of the rock hitting Melkart's temple, or did he only think he should have heard it? Death was unseen, unheard, waiting in the darkness, everywhere present.
He couldn't sleep. His body seemed tense; his legs numb and cramped, as if he'd run a long race. A dull ache twisted in his shoulders.
He might have dozed off; he had the same sense of momentary disorientation as on waking. When he moved his fingers he realised he had cramp; he must have been lying on his hand. Then he realised what he was hearing; a woman's moans, muffled, low. One way of consoling yourself against the presence of death, he thought.
He turned over, throwing himself down on the couch as if it was an enemy – some nights it was; he pulled the cover up over his ears. It was horrible hearing them making love, like a violation; he cringed from such intimate knowledge of them, and at the same time he couldn't help but feel aroused, suddenly, violently.
He should have told Daryush to stay, after dinner, as he often did; or he could have clapped for lights, and a servant, and sent for him; but his need was too urgent, and at the same time he felt ashamed to show his desire in front of the women. If they knew he had heard, it would be twice as bad as just having heard them; the knowledge knifed his guts already. Shrugging his tebenna over his nakedness, not pausing to put on sandals, he fled to Daryush.
The boy was asleep; he woke as Egerius sat down next to him, pulling the tebenna off his shoulders. He let out a small cry, and Egerius never could decide whether that was in the moment of waking, still half asleep, or whether it was a conscious protest. He felt for a moment the sharpness of Daryush's stubble against his face; the boy hadn't shaved, then, as he usually did; he couldn't have expected Egerius to come to his bed. Then Egerius was on him, kissing, stroking, squeezing, holding, and at the last turning Daryush's face to the bed and sinking into him, trying to lose himself in the inevitable, atavistic urge towards release.
Afterwards he lay there, allowing himself to feel comfort in the warmth of the Persian's body, ignoring (or trying to ignore) the knowledge he was deluding himself with the dream of affection; that he'd used Daryush just as he might use a pillow, or his own hand. Yet still he wanted to reach out to the boy, as to a lover.
"Don't you ever think of death?"
"All the time. And what comes after death."
"What?"
"The fire, the fire."