“A ship!” cried the Captain joyfully.
“Yes indeed,” Homer replied. “We need one, if we are to sail away. If you will excuse me, however…”
He turned in the saddle – he was a rather awkward rider – and waved his eagle feather. Straightaway, the three scribes rode up. We learned that they were, in fact, professional copyists, trained to write out new copies of books.
“These fellows,” Homer explained, “were purchased, at my suggestion, for the copying of the complete Vindication of Brasidas next month. But today they have another duty. They will be coaching you on your parts.”
“Parts?” demanded Paulla.
“I’m afraid there is no time to argue, madam,” said Homer. “You have been cast as Tullia; the Captain here as a druid, a sort of Celtic priest; and this young gentleman as my former master, Lucinus Spurinna. I will be playing myself. We had better hurry – it is only three miles to the villa, and we perform tonight!”
Each of us walked beside one copyist; they had copies of Homer’s play. Patiently, my copyist walked me through the role of Spurinna, reading Homer’s lines – it seemed that most of my dialogue was with him.
There were three acts. In the first, the Homer character advised me in detail on how to break into the conspirators’ house and spy on them. He had a lot to say about the glory of Rome, the vital importance of my mission, and the sad folly of the times.
The second act took place at a dinner party in the house of a superstitious Roman knight. Homer was the guest of honor; Tullia and Spurinna (played by Paulla and myself) were disguised as his slaves, with the Captain on hand as the druid. Here, with delicate philosophical reasoning, expressing the loftiest sentiments, the Homer character convinced the superstitious knight that life was short, that being a traitor was unworthy of a noble soul, and that he should accordingly hand over a vital piece of evidence to the proper authorities.
In the third act, Homer personally led the cavalry to storm the bridge while Paulla and I looked on. He wrestled the druid to the ground and shamed the traitor before an admiring audience of soldiers and mercenaries, who carried him on their shoulders back to Rome.
“Homer,” I asked, when I had finished learning my small part, “is this entirely accurate?”
“Accurate, sir?”
“Well, I notice you have all the good lines.”
“It is a historical account, sir. I cannot tamper with the truth.”
“But what does this play have to do with our ship?”
“Everything, sir.”
“What do you mean? No, forget it, we’ll trust you. But answer me one question, at least. Who is playing the Roman knight, the traitor?”
“Ah,” said Homer with a gleam in his eye, “that part is reserved for Brasidas.”
We rehearsed briefly as we walked the last two miles. The sun was already well past noon by the time we caught sight of the sea. It was spread before us like a vast blue shawl stitched with glittering diamonds, folded at the feet of the tall mountains on our left. Our hearts rose. Somewhere past that horizon lay the protection of the law.
The road ran down a gentle slope to the inhabited strip of land by the shore. Here stood the villa and its many outbuildings.
The villa itself was extensive, testifying to Brasidas’s great wealth; it must have been quite new, for it was built in the Italian style. At its heart grew an enormous enclosed garden, open to the air and ringed with pillars. On the far side were apartments with marble balconies, looking over the water. A long building, roofed with red tile, contained the owner’s offices, library, dining rooms, and kitchens. A little apart, before the storehouses and granaries began, stood a low, flat structure.
“The bathhouse,” Homer informed us.
What caught my eye was not the villa itself, however, but the dock. Part of it was built into the shoreline, but one end pushed out into the bay. Two small galleys were moored there. One had a sleek, black prow and sat with its bank of oars tucked in by its sides. The other was more cheerful, painted all in green, resting its oars in the water. I didn’t see why we shouldn’t make for the boats at once, but Homer instead led us into the villa by a side door. He gave his horse to the copyists and they rode off.
“The theater’s on the other side,” Homer told us as he ducked inside.
“He has his own theater?” growled the Captain. You could tell he was already working on his stage fright.
The interior corridors were dark after the strong afternoon sun, and the air was musty. Homer led us by a circuitous route, now up a short flight of stairs, now ducking through a busy kitchen. The cooks were aghast at our appearance – we had not washed at all – but a look from Homer silenced them. At last we reached a pair of rooms, empty of furniture but full of babbling people.
“The spare dining rooms,” Homer explained as we went in. “These are the stagehands, and this is the orchestra conductor. Are you ready, then? But where is your chorus, sir?”
“How should I know?” cried the little orchestra conductor, biting his nails. “They’ve been rehearsing for ten days, and now they leave me for a sniff of air! At a time like this!”
Homer calmed him down and sent someone to find the chorus.
“We’re just behind the theater,” he said. “Out that door is the stage. You know your cues? Not much more than half an hour left before we – Oh, hello, master!” he called in a suddenly cheerful voice, looking past us. Then he whispered, “Keep your heads down.”
A voice I dreaded spoke from behind us.
“How does my costume look, Estate Manager?” asked Brasidas. “Do Roman knights really carry these puny round shields?”
Paulla, the Captain, and I stooped a little lower.
“They do carry them, sir, and you look splendid,” Homer replied. “Are you sure you know your cues?”
“I know them,” barked Brasidas. “But I still think you have all the good lines, Estate Manager. Really,” he said darkly, “are you sure this play fully vindicates the cause of Sparta?”
Homer smiled indulgently. “It is a play about justice, sir, eternal justice. It proves that the righteous, like yourself, can only triumph in the end.”
“Oh. Well, you know best, I suppose. But I still have some problems with Act Four. Were there really Spartans involved in stopping that conspiracy?”
“Of course there were, sir, just as we pointed out in the Vindication of Brasidas several times. They played a vital role.”
This seemed to satisfy Brasidas for now, and he departed.
“Act Four?” I whispered to Homer. “I don’t have any lines ready for that! We haven’t rehearsed!”
“Don’t worry, Marcus Oppius,” Homer said soothingly. “There is no Act Four.”
With the landowner gone, we were quickly turned over to makeup. They exclaimed in horror at our condition and washed our faces. Then they painted black lines on them for eyebrows and thick red around our lips, and we put on the huge (and rather grotesque) acting masks. Paulla seized the chance to remove her wig, which solved the hairdresser’s problem of having a blond barbarian playing Tullia; her costume was a yellow robe. All the while the confusion in the room reached greater and greater heights: the stagehands were arguing fiercely, Homer was rebuking the chorus, and a flute-player walked straight through the scenery screen for Act Two. From the open door came the noise of an audience settling down. Paulla, the Captain, and I took refuge in a corner.
“Is this insane?” I asked. “Has he finally gone mad?”
“It looks like it,” Paulla agreed. “But then, you have to admit, he’s a fairly ingenious fellow.”
“Do you think the crowd will be big?” groaned the Captain.
At last, Homer called for silence. He straightened his shirt, moistened his eyebrows, and strode through the open stage door.
At once the noise from the audience ceased. Then they began clapping, louder and louder, and chanting Homer’s name. We heard him begin to speak.
�
��Thank you, thank you. No, please, thank you very much. As you know, I come to you direct from Rome.” Some polite clapping at this. “It has been my privilege,” he went on, “to work, these past months, with a remarkable man: Brasidas of Sparta, your host this evening and a great patron of the tragic stage. As I’m sure you know, the man is entirely innocent, and it is our pleasure to present a play this evening which amply establishes – nay, which conclusively proves – that the innocent must triumph in the end.” Some more applause at this, rather forced. “I give you, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, The Conspiracy at Rome: the exploits of that great Roman hero, that lifelong admirer of Sparta –”
“Give us your tambourine act!” called a voice from the crowd.
“Aulus Lucinus Spurinna. We begin with Act One!”
That play was a shambles. The chorus was drunk, the audience was insolent, and the music was more than a little off-key. If everyone hadn’t been terrified of Brasidas – who was, after all, appearing in a leading role – I’m sure we would have been egged. The Captain, faced with two hundred skeptical faces in the rising bank of seats, forgot everything and began roaring in his strange language: fortunately this was perfect for his part. Paulla was excellent as Tullia, though she indulged in some gentle parody of her friend. The crowd actually clapped when she appeared again for Act Three. Homer they tolerated, or rather endured. He got entirely caught up in the moment and began inventing even more lines for himself, including an impromptu panegyric of Brasidas. The landowner himself was a wooden actor, totally unable to convey any emotion except suppressed rage – which I’m sure is what he was feeling in the circumstances of the botched play. But the greatest shame was reserved for me: not because I couldn’t hold my own on stage, but because Homer had pared the Spurinna part down to next to nothing. This disappointed the audience. They had come, after all, to watch a hero.
“That’s not what Spurinna would say!” claimed one old lady in the back.
“You call that ancient Roman virtue?” cried a well-dressed man in the front row, after the Homer-dominated bridge scene. “Where’s the real Spurinna?”
After each episode, the musicians took over and we had a break offstage. Paulla and I spent the first one trying to reassure the Captain, but after Act Three Homer drew us aside.
“It’s going splendidly!” he said with satisfaction. “Don’t you feel just like you were back in Rome?”
We glared at him. The Captain declared that his acting mask was itching.
“That reminds me,” Homer said, “time to exit, stage right.”
Signaling for silence, he pointed to the door through which we had first entered. We dropped our masks and ducked out, one by one. Homer joined us soon afterwards.
“I just told the conductor to give them a double helping of the chorus,” he chuckled. “Never say I don’t understand revenge!”
“What about Brasidas and his guards?” I demanded.
“That’s the whole point, sir,” Homer informed me, as he led us back through the villa. “He’s onstage with all his men! I said we needed fifty soldiers for the grand finale -all the guards on the estate, except at the plantation. He’s even had to bring in more from the neighbor’s estate. That’s the neighbor’s green galley moored at the dock. Brasidas’ own galley is empty, and the coast is clear!”
I noticed we were taking quite a different route through the corridors and passageways. This time, we cut straight across the garden and then past an interior court with a fountain, under a low arch, and into the pottery workshop. There we found three cloaked figures waiting: Homer’s copyists. They were carrying some twenty-one scrolls, seven apiece.
“Have you got it?” Homer whispered.
“It’s the only copy,” one of them answered. “Twenty-one volumes.”
From the workshop we passed quietly outside, by the quarry. We smelled the sea strongly, though the breeze was blowing down from the highland. A narrow footpath led across the grass to the dock, and we avoided the main route from the villa gates.
Suddenly, as we approached the dock, a man’s voice broke the silence.
“Shouldn’t you fellows be onstage?”
A well-dressed slave was sitting in the shadow of a cypress tree near the shore end of the dock, scarcely to be seen. He rose slowly and stretched. Homer spun round and didn’t miss a beat.
“Ah, it’s the manager of our dear neighboring estate!” he cried. “My dear fellow, just the man I was looking for! There’s a crisis: we need more actors for the grand finale, and I’ve been sent to ask you to send your galley crew up to the theater. Right away, if you please.”
The man sniffed. “Grand finale, eh? Well, grand finale or no grand finale, I can’t send them all.”
“Half of them, then.”
The man hesitated. It seemed a bizarre request, doubtless. But Homer certainly looked convincing as a theater manager at his wit’s end, so at length he agreed. We walked behind him to the end of the dock, where the galleys were moored. He hastened up the gangplank of the green galley and from inside we heard orders given and obeyed. There was a sound of shuffling feet, and half the oars at the galley’s side went slack.
At that moment, we heard the howling of hounds. The echo of an uproar reached us from the direction of the theater.
“By Zeus!” cried Homer. “Everybody get onboard! This is it!”
Scrolls in hand, the copyists rushed up the gangplank of the black-prowed galley: it was indeed deserted. Paulla followed after them, and I followed Paulla. The Captain hesitated on the dock and then turned to help Homer with the heavy mooring cables.
“Get the sail ready!” he called up to me. “Take hold of the halyard!”
I had no idea what a halyard was, but there was a rope attached to the sail. I tried heaving, but it was no use. Paulla dragged the copyists to help and grabbed the end herself.
“Heave!” she shouted.
The yard rose halfway up the mast, the sail with it, and with another great effort it nearly reached the top. The galley’s sail was square-rigged, unlike the huge lateen sail of the old Star of Carthage; but already we felt the tug of the breeze and the ship strained against the last mooring ropes.
“Don’t forget the steering oar!” cried the Captain from the dock. I ran to it while the others raised the anchor.
Just as I reached the steering oar, there was a tremendous crash of noise and the dockside gates of the villa burst open. Men came streaming in our direction. From fifty yards away on the galley I seemed to see each face distinctly. They were all angry, but one face, with its eyebrows blacked thickly and its lips ruby-red, was exploding with murderous fury.
“Betrayed!” screamed Brasidas. “Betrayed by that Hesiod-loving Athenian scum!” He had a sword in his hand; the evening sun glinted on its razor edge and on the spear-tips of the guards behind him. They sprinted down the dock.
There was still one more mooring cable attached. Homer flung himself madly for it; but the Captain turned to face our foes.
“Don’t do it!” I shrieked, as he advanced against them.
Homer unlashed the final rope. A guard flung his spear at him but missed, barely. With the movement of the ship, the gangplank was at a crazy angle, but Homer flew up it like a rope-walker, reaching the top as it dropped into the water.
The Captain faced the charge like a lion. He was un armed, but even as Brasidas slashed with his sword, slicing the shoulder, the Carthaginian picked him up at the waist and spun him round like a piece of ship’s timber. He knocked two guards down and the rest faltered. Then he threw Brasidas into the sea.
The splash was enormous, for the Spartan was still in his stage armor. That detail preserved us. The sight of their master flailing in the water, clad in what seemed like heavy bronze, made for little hesitation. A dozen guards threw down their spears and leapt in after him. The Captain, clutching his shoulder, picked himself up and ran to the end of the dock.
The ship was already twenty feet a
way. He couldn’t make it. Instead, he dove in headfirst.
“A rope, toss him a rope!” I yelped.
But Paulla was ahead of me. Before I had spoken, she had tossed a rope for the Captain to grab on to. He was a strong swimmer, luckily, as he’d shown in the shipwreck. Even with his wound, he reached the end of it and hung on for dear life.
Then it was our turn to heave again. Or rather, everyone’s turn but mine, since I held fast to the steering oar. Slowly I managed to point the prow toward the open waves.
The Manuscript
arkness saved us. The wind from the highland grew stronger as the sun set. We were aware of frantic calls and shouts on the dock behind as they made ready to follow us; but with half the other galley’s crew unloaded and an enraged landowner to save from drowning, they were greatly delayed. Moreover, they had no light to see us by. The last half-circle of the orange sun dipped beneath the horizon as we reached the mouth of the bay, and the green galley behind was only beginning to set sail. Soon the villa was no more than a strip of dim light on the shore, slowly receding as we were carried, again, across the black Aegean Sea.
Once the sail was steady and the steering oar lashed firmly in place, we turned to the poor Captain. He refused to go below. With some cushions from Brasidas’ cabin, we propped him up on the poop deck beside the steering oar, and we cut away his grimy shirt.
It was a horrible cut, but it had not reached the bone. Thick wine-red blood bubbled up from inside. One of the copyists took a look and addressed Homer.
“If you please, sir,” said he, “I can help, I hope. My former master was a doctor, and often I have seen him treating such wounds. We must wash the cut immediately with wine and stitch it up.”
Paulla washed it – she didn’t flinch. She reassured the Captain that it was all right, in fact it was quite normal for the hero to recover from a sword cut, while we ransacked the ship’s stores for a needle. I found one in what I took to be the sailmaker’s chest.
“It’s rather large,” said the copyist doubtfully, when he saw it. “Bring a lamp: my master always burned the needle first, to restore the element of heat.”
The Ancient Ocean Blues Page 7