Tyrant

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  When night fell and the valley filled with campfires and with the monotonous chanting of the poor shepherds, Dionysius thought of Arete’s description of the fires of Acragas and of the invisible singer who had struck up his wedding hymn amidst the radiant temples on the hill. He felt ever keener grief for his woman, violated and murdered, bitter regret for his lost love.

  10

  PHILISTUS CAME TO fetch him at the end of the month and accompanied him, disguised, to Acragas, leaving him in Tellias’s care in the interim before his return. As he was about to leave, he left him a tablet. A gift,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Dionysius.

  ‘The list,’ replied Philistus. ‘Complete. Every single one. It wasn’t simple or easy, but there they are, all of them. Including the instigators.’ He bid Dionysius farewell and left.

  Tellias approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. A list of the living or the dead?’ he asked.

  ‘Dead men,’ replied Dionysius, reading the list. ‘Dead men who are still walking. But not for long.’

  ‘Take care!’ replied Tellias. ‘Revenge can be a balm for an embittered soul, but it can also set off a chain of bloodshed without end.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ replied Dionysius. ‘I can kill many of them; they only have me to kill. I have the advantage, no matter how you look at it.’

  He returned to Syracuse at night, at the end of the following month. He met with Philistus at Biton’s house. Dionysius embraced both of them, one after the other, without a word. It was always his way of reacting to powerful emotion.

  ‘Finally!’ exclaimed Biton. ‘I thought you’d never come back. How are you?’

  ‘Better,’ replied Dionysius, ‘now that I’m home.’

  ‘There’s a person here who can’t wait to see you,’ said Philistus. He opened the door to a room facing the atrium and Leptines appeared. The two brothers stood without saying a word at first, then clasped each other close.

  ‘You’ve been through hell and high water,’ said Philistus, ‘but it seems you have nothing to say to each other!’

  Leptines pulled away from his brother and looked him over from head to toe. ‘By the gods!’ he said, ‘I feared much worse! You look wonderful.’

  ‘So do you,’ replied Dionysius.

  ‘I know how badly things have gone for you,’ started up Leptines again. ‘I’m sorry. I wish I could have . . .’

  ‘Your presence wouldn’t have changed things much, I’m afraid . . . I’m happy to see you.’

  ‘As am I, by Heracles! Together again like when we were boys. Remember when we used to lie in wait to pelt the lads from Ortygia with stones?’

  ‘I surely do,’ replied Dionysius with a smile.

  ‘Well, things are going to change now that I’m back . . . in fine style! I’m spoiling for a fight. Who shall we start with?’

  Dionysius pulled him aside and whispered something in his ear.

  ‘I know,’ nodded Leptines. ‘I’ll wait.’

  Dionysius left them and remained hidden for some time thereafter, alternating between the houses of Iolaus, Doricus and Biton so as not to put Leptines or Philistus in danger. He did not cut his hair or his beard and went out only at night, wrapped in a cloak which covered his sword and dagger. He studied the moves of his enemies, spying on their habits and routes. When he felt sure, he called on Leptines: ‘I’m ready, but I need help. Are you up to it?’

  ‘Are you joking? I can’t wait, man.’

  ‘Fine. You’ll help me to catch them, but the rest I’ll do myself, understood?’

  ‘Of course I understand. Let’s get moving, then.’

  They went out that night and the nights after that, silent, unexpected, invisible, inexorable. And they captured them, one by one. It was easy, because none of them expected it and they had taken no precautions.

  One was called Hipparcus.

  The second Eudossus.

  The third Augias.

  They managed to take them alive and Dionysius dragged them, alone, as they had decided, to the cellar of the house with the trellis. He laid them out in the place where Arete was buried, bound their hands and feet and cut off their genitals. He left them to bleed to death slowly. Their cries rose distorted and suffocated from that place, like the howling of beasts or the groaning of ghosts in the deep of the night, but instead of attracting someone who could help them, they scared the locals to death and gave rise to terrifying rumours which spread through the entire city.

  Another two of them were murdered on the street as they walked home from a party. They were called Clitus and Protogenes. Their swollen, fish-eaten corpses were found in an inlet of the Great Harbour. Their genitals were missing as well, but the cut was too clean to blame the fish.

  At that point the others began to realize that someone was making his way down a list with his sword’s edge: only one man would be so single-minded. They met to devise a plan of defence.

  There were six of them left: Philippus, Anattorius, Schedius, Calistemus, Gorgias and Callicrates. All prided themselves at being good with their fists. Four were single and two married. They decided to live together for a while and to bring in abundant supplies of weapons and food. They resolved that one of them in turn would always guard the others while they slept, so there would be no possibility of catching them by surprise.

  They stayed awake far into the night, fearful of the unconsciousness of sleep, too similar to death. They tried to keep up their spirits by eating and drinking; sometimes they would invite some girls to keep them company so they could fuck themselves into a state of exhaustion and forget about the threat of death hanging over their heads. But sooner or later their talk always turned to that subject, sometimes with a scoffing, cocky tone, sometimes in a whisper, muttering oaths under their breath.

  ‘We won’t be slaughtered like lambs!’ boasted Anattorius. ‘There are six of us and that bastard is all alone: what’s there to be afraid of?’

  ‘Alone?’ retorted Schedius. ‘Who says he’s alone? How did one man alone manage to kill five of us, all quick with their swords and their knives? All big, burly men, used to fighting on the front line and holding a shield steady for hours.’

  ‘It’s stupid to waste time talking about it,’ insisted Gorgias. ‘All we have to do is hold out and watch each other’s backs. He’ll come out of hiding sooner or later and we’ll get the bastard and make him pay for what he’s done. Or else he’ll realize that he hasn’t got a chance against us and just give up. If he’s smart, he’ll lay low. This city is a more dangerous place for him than it is for us. I say that if we manage to keep out of his way for a month, he’ll call it quits. It’s just not worth it to him to risk his own neck.’

  ‘You know,’ added Callicrates, ‘we may just be worrying ourselves over nothing. Maybe he doesn’t know we were there; maybe he thinks he’s already got his due . . .’

  But they soon grew tired of the sound of their voices and silence got the better of them, one by one. Their memories of the rape mixed with the images of their friends’ bodies, rot-green and swollen as toads in the still waters of the Great Harbour.

  Once they even considered the opportunity of offering to pay the killer off, but no one was convinced.

  ‘I don’t think there’s enough money in the whole city to calm that maniac down,’ Schedius cut the others short. He was the one who knew Dionysius best. ‘The only coins he’ll accept are our balls, served up on a platter like boiled eggs. Anyone ready to make the sacrifice?’

  They all burst into coarse, ominous laughter and no one brought up the subject again.

  They continued as they had decided: every night, one of them in turn stood guard on the roof, crouching in the dark while the others slept, until the next man came to relieve him. Some time passed without anything happening and they began to think that their nightmare was really over and that the danger had been put to rest.

  Instead, on a night with a full moon, Gorgias – who was standing sentry o
n the roof – was pierced by an arrow loosed with incredible precision from a neighbouring house. He died then and there. Just before the second guard shift, flames rose from every corner of the house and flared up high, driven by a land wind. The other five men were burnt alive, while the blaze menaced the nearby houses. It was only put out thanks to the hundreds of people who rushed to the scene and passed buckets of water and of sand that whole night and the next day.

  The only two left on the list were the instigators, who no longer had any doubts about the nature of those deaths. It had become public knowledge that the night before the fire, three amphoras of pitch had disappeared from a warehouse at the port, near the dry dock, and that the unmistakeable stench of sulphur had been smelled just before the flames had blazed up. They had no illusions about the end that awaited them if they did not take immediate action. They were two important members of the democratic party called Euribiades and Pancrates, and they appealed to Daphnaeus – who had political control of the Assembly and was their party leader – for protection.

  ‘If you want me to help you,’ replied Daphnaeus, ‘you have to tell me what you’re afraid of and why. But I need to know every minute detail, or I won’t lift a finger. I’ve heard strange stories about these deaths, stories that I would like not to believe, because if they turn out to be true, I’d have to intervene myself to punish the offenders. Have you got the gist of that?’

  They had, and they realized that they could count only on themselves to save their skins. They decided together to leave the city and move to Catane, hoping that sooner or later the storm would abate and they would be able to negotiate a return or a ransom.

  In an attempt to pass unobserved, they decided to waste no time in long preparations and they left at dawn the next day, accompanied only by a couple of slaves and a cart for their baggage. They set off walking down the road for Catane, throwing their lot in with a group of merchants. They were transporting livestock, a flock of sheep and about twenty slaves that they hoped to sell at the market along with the animals. They were happy to let the newcomers join them; the more numerous the group was, the less chance that they would be attacked by robbers or brigands.

  All went well for three days, and the two fugitives began to relax and to cheer up. They even fraternized with the merchants: people from the west of the island, judging from their accent, a happy and friendly lot who didn’t mind sharing their supplies and greatly enjoyed the excellent wine that their two wealthy travel companions were quick to offer when they set up camp after dark.

  On the fourth day, the convoy stopped at a little city where a fair was being held, and they sold off part of their livestock. The next day, a few day workers directed to the plains of Catane to help with the harvesting asked to join them; they were admitted to the company for the remainder of the trip.

  But that same evening, the reapers stripped away their cloaks, threw aside their sickles and pulled out their swords. They surrounded the group, ordering the merchants to clear out and the two Syracusans to drop their arms and put their hands behind their backs so they could be bound.

  Euribiades and Pancrates imagined a robbery and tried to negotiate. ‘We’re willing to pay,’ promised Euribiades. ‘We’ve got money with us, and we can get more from Syracuse or Catane in short order.’

  ‘We don’t want your money,’ said one of the reapers, a young man no older than twenty with hair as thick and curly as a sheep’s but black as the wing of a crow.

  That phrase frightened them to death. They knew just how dangerous a man uninterested in money could be.

  ‘What do you want then?’ demanded Pancrates with a quavering voice and a soul full of dark imaginings.

  ‘Us?’ replied the boy, smiling. ‘We don’t want anything with you. So long.’ And he walked off, followed by his travel companions and the animals; they even took the men’s slaves with them for good measure. The jingling of the sheep’s bells faded off into the evening as they walked away, until the two Syracusans were all alone in the middle of the silent countryside.

  ‘What idiots we’ve been!’ swore Pancrates. ‘I could have told you this would happen. Everything was going much too smoothly.’

  ‘So now what do we do?’ asked Euribiades.

  ‘Let’s try to get free,’ suggested Pancrates, ‘before someone else shows up. Come on now, move! Put your back to mine and try to loosen my knots, then I’ll untie you.’

  But Euribiades did not move. ‘Forget it,’ he said with a resigned tone. ‘There’s someone coming.’

  There was a figure on horseback silhouetted on the top of the hill. The mysterious man touched his heels to his horse’s flanks and began to descend towards them.

  ‘It’s all over,’ said Pancrates. ‘We’ll come to the same end as the others, or worse.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ replied Euribiades. ‘If he wanted to kill us he would have done so already. He’s obviously been observing us from the start. I say he wants to negotiate.’

  The man dismounted from his horse and turned towards them; they stared back in dismay. A black cape fell from his shoulders to his feet, and a hood covered his head. His face was hidden by a comical theatrical mask, but nobody felt like laughing. He stared back at them, unmoving, without saying a word, and his invisible gaze terrified them even more than looking him in the eye. He slowly pulled a sharp knife from his cloak and said: ‘I could make you die the most atrocious of deaths, make you curse the bitches who brought you into this world. You know that.’

  They realized now why the man was wearing the theatrical mask: not only to cover his face, but to distort his voice as well.

  ‘We know that,’ replied Euribiades for both of them. ‘But you’re certainly blaming us for something we haven’t done.’

  ‘I know exactly what you’re guilty of, down to the last detail. As I’m talking to you, others are receiving their just punishment. Not because they participated in that abominable exploit, but only because they boasted of doing so. But they’re stupid wretches who count for nothing. You have a political standing that can be exchanged with something I’m interested in.’

  Euribiades realized it was best to drop the matter of blame so as not to further irritate the masked man; best to go straight on to negotiations. ‘I don’t know what you’re referring to, but we’re ready to listen to your proposal,’ he replied. ‘Speak.’

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ said the stranger. ‘These are my conditions: in one month’s time, a person who was believed dead will return to the city and go before the Assembly, under the sponsorship of an adoptive father, to reclaim his rights as a citizen. You surely know of whom I speak.’

  ‘We think so,’ admitted Pancrates.

  ‘Just so that there are no doubts about it, I’ll tell you that his name is Dionysius, presumed dead after the massacre of Hermocrates and his men in the agora. You two have a determining vote in the Council. Can I assure him that your vote will be favourable?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, of course,’ they promised in unison.

  ‘I was sure we’d come to an agreement. But allow me to remind you that, should you go back on this pact of ours, your punishment would be much, much worse than what was dealt out to your henchmen.’

  He approached with his knife and the two men trembled, fearing that he was about to give them a taste of their threatened punishment. Instead, the stranger cut the rope binding their wrists and ankles. Then he turned his back to them, mounted his horse and rode off at a gallop, quickly vanishing behind the hill.

  One month later, the Assembly convened by Daphnaeus was discussing the Carthaginian preparations for war when Heloris stood and asked for the floor.

  ‘You have permission to speak,’ replied the president of the Assembly.

  ‘My fellow citizens and authorities of Syracuse,’ he began, ‘some time ago, as I was travelling inland to buy some horses, I found an unconscious man at the side of the road. He was severely wounded and gave no signs of life. I nursed him back
to health until he was fully cured and had regained all his strength. That man was Dionysius, the son-in-law of Hermocrates . . .’ A buzz of disbelief and much cursing could be heard among those present. Heloris continued undaunted: ‘We all know of his fame as a valiant combatant, one of the most courageous of the city.’ More muttering spread through the crowd. But this time, much acclamation rose up as well. The members of the Company were well distributed throughout the hemicycle.

  ‘I know why some of you protest,’ continued Heloris. ‘Dionysius set himself against his own city by participating in the ill-fated onslaught of Hermocrates, but I would ask you to try to understand him. Blood ties – the love he had for his bride and the admiration he had for that man who had served the city with great devotion for years – convinced him to take part in that foolhardy act. The punishment he received was harsh: his house was devastated, the bride whom he loved violated and killed. Don’t you believe that he has paid a high enough price for his errors, errors which his young age and inexperience alone would suffice to excuse? He escaped death – not certainly by chance but because of the will of the gods – and he has admitted his blame to me. I trust him and I have adopted him as a son. I am here to ask you, citizens and authorities of Syracuse, to restore his right to vote in this Assembly and to allow him to reclaim his place among the ranks of warriors drawn up in battle. The threat of another war looms on the horizon and the city will need all of her sons, especially those most valiant.’

  With these words Heloris concluded his speech, and a fist-fight broke out immediately between the supporters and the adversaries of the born-again Dionysius. All of the members of the Company had reported to the Assembly that day, and their massive presence intimidated the trouble-making factions at first, then shut them up completely. The only voices to be heard were now shouting out: ‘It’s only right! Dionysius is a hero!’