The Orpheus Descent

by Tom Harper

  The cart stops. The guards pull me out. I’m in a high place surrounded by massive walls. To my right, I can see the sun setting blood-red over the sea, but there’s no time to admire it. More guards are waiting for me; these ones have gilded armour and hard faces. The men who brought me from the prison salute and hurry away as quick as they can.

  There are doors and there are rooms. The last one isn’t the biggest, but it’s clearly the most important. There are no windows, nowhere for secrets to leak out. Seven guards stand to attention around the room. None of them carries any obvious weapon, but their arms look big enough to do the job.

  In the centre, on a golden chair, with armrests carved like crouching lions and a radiant sun above his head, sits the tyrant. He’s bigger than me, with golden-red hair and a face freckled like a barbarian. He’s as notorious as they come – and yet, looking at him, he can’t be any older than me. One hand is balled into a fist.

  His name is Dionysius. At this point in time, he’s the most controversial man in the Greek world. A military genius, a bulwark of civilisation, a usurper, a murderer, a tyrant – his name is debated in every agora from the Pillars of Hercules to the Black Sea. It’s almost disappointing to find out he’s simply a man.

  He sat still, studying me. I stared into his blue eyes and tried to find the humanity in their depths. I didn’t touch bottom.

  He seemed to expect something from me, though I had no idea what. I waited.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked at last.

  ‘I suppose you must be some kind of criminal.’

  ‘What?’

  He didn’t expect that. I gestured to the soldiers spread around the chamber. ‘You must be dangerous, if it takes so many men to guard you. I only need two.’

  A short, barking laugh. ‘Very good – and quite right. I am dangerous. They told me you’re quick.’

  He waited for me. After eight days in that cave, I was in no rush to say anything.

  ‘If I was in your position, I’d be on my knees begging for mercy,’ he suggested.

  ‘If I was in yours, I’d already have freed me.’

  The words seemed to come from somewhere outside me, like an unfortunate echo that had just happened to bounce out of my mouth. How else could I be mad enough to speak to the tyrant of Syracuse like that?

  ‘I hear you knew Socrates.’

  How did he know that? From the moment his men captured me on the mountain, I hadn’t told them anything. Nobody asked.

  ‘In fact, didn’t you write an account of his trial? I’m sure I’ve read it.’

  My courage fled. Suddenly, I wasn’t an anonymous prisoner with nothing to lose. I was known.

  ‘I wrote it,’ I admitted.

  ‘Then you know what happens to philosophers who speak out of turn when they’re on trial for their lives.’

  ‘Am I on trial? I thought we must have skipped that when I ended up in prison.’

  ‘You can go back there if you like.’ He jumped down from his chair and advanced until we were face to face. My guards, anticipating a hit, tightened their grip on my arms.

  Dionysius opened his fist and thrust it out – but he didn’t touch me. A thin gold cylinder on a gold chain lay cupped in the hollow of his fat hand. Was that why he brought me here?

  ‘What is this?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘A friend gave it to me.’

  ‘Where did he find it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Agathon.’

  I assumed the name would mean nothing to him. If I’d had any inkling he knew Agathon, I’d have lied. But Dionysius’ face lit up in recognition.

  ‘You’re a friend of Agathon? What a shame he didn’t know you were coming. You’ve just missed him.’

  Horror. ‘Agathon was here?’

  ‘I’m a famous patron of the arts. Every philosopher, poet, artist and playwright comes through here eventually.’

  I didn’t believe him. Agathon hated tyranny; he was more likely to pop up in a Kerameikos whorehouse than here – unless it was with a knife to slit Dionysius’ throat. Or, if he had no choice in the matter.

  I’d tried to follow Agathon to Rhegion. Perhaps I’d followed his footsteps all too well. ‘Did you kidnap him like you kidnapped me?’

  Behind the throne, the guards smirked.

  ‘He came of his own free will.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The same reason everyone else does. For my money.’

  Agathon didn’t care about money. In all the time I knew him, I never saw him touch an obol. We often had to buy him bread to make sure he didn’t starve, or new boots when winter came. But the gleam in Dionysius’ face said he was telling the truth – to a point.

  ‘He wanted the money to buy a book.’ A guess, but I was right. That was why Agathon went to Rhegion – to find Dionysius and beg his patronage. Or maybe Timaeus lied, and Agathon came straight here. How badly must he have wanted that book?

  ‘Did you give him the money?’

  Dionysius studied his fingers. I remembered the temple at Locris, Timaeus’ babbling in the heat.

  – Who bought the book?

  – A Lydian trickster, a sorcerer, with golden hair and perfumed locks, and the flush of wine on his face.

  He’d told the truth, I realised bitterly, and I’d been too stupid to notice. He’d been quoting Euripides. The Lydian trickster was the disguised god – Dionysus.

  ‘You found out why Agathon wanted the money and bought the book for yourself.’ One more reason to hate the smiling tyrant in front of me. ‘Where did Agathon go?’

  Dionysius’ face was innocence itself. ‘He disappeared.’

  He put the gold chain over his head and hung the locket around his neck. It seemed to signal an end to something – but he wasn’t in any rush to send me back to the cave. He lifted two fingers, and the guards stepped away. I could hardly carry my own weight, let alone the manacles. I fell hard on my knees.

  ‘You don’t think much of me.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Are you one of those democrats who thinks everyone should decide everything?’

  The conversation had become unreal. I looked for evidence that it wasn’t a dream, and couldn’t find any. But I understood the rules. Worse to retreat in front of a tyrant than to stand your ground.

  ‘Democracy’s a charmingly chaotic form of government. It treats all men equally, whether they deserve it or not.’

  He was clever enough to catch the sarcasm. He liked it.

  ‘Don’t you value liberty?’ The last word came out coated with a fur of distaste.

  ‘Liberty’s all very well. But the more people have of it, the more they want. In the end, they resent anything that remotely circumscribes their freedom: laws, customs, even social conventions. It’s anarchy.’

  ‘But you don’t approve of rule by one man either?’

  ‘In a democracy, everyone’s appetites run amok. In a tyranny, it’s just one man’s. Neither makes for a well-ordered state.’

  He liked that less. For a man who claimed absolute power, he was sensitive to criticism.

  ‘Homer says, “We can’t all be kings: one man must be supreme.”’

  ‘Homer says a lot about chariot-driving too – lean to the left, drive on your right-hand horse with shouts and the whip and so forth. Does reading Homer train you to be a charioteer?’

  His lip curled. ‘So you don’t want the people and you don’t want a tyrant. Who do you want? Some sort of committee of nobles and worthies?’

  ‘That just breeds factions.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand tall. My head spun with the effort; the chains threatened to break me. I gathered up my strength and tried to remember a sentence from the pamphlet I’d been working on before I left Athens.

  ‘Until philosophers are kings, or kings and princes are p
hilosophers, we’ll never cure our states – or indeed the human race – of its evils.’

  Dionysius burst out laughing.

  Of course, I didn’t think I’d change his mind at once. Even so, I was disappointed. Dionysius was no fool. I’d hoped he might at least engage with the argument.

  ‘We’re both the same,’ he told me. ‘Great men think great men should be in charge, philosophers think philosophers should run things, and anyone with no other qualifications believes in democracy.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a tyrant. I want the world to be a just place.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’m just?’

  ‘Justice isn’t a trait. It’s a discipline. It needs constant exercise.’

  I thought he’d laugh me off again. Instead, he changed the subject.

  ‘Do you know what Euripedes says?’

  ‘“Dionysus is in the building – get down on your knees!”’

  ‘Very quick. And you know what Dionysus does to the man who doesn’t recognise his power?’

  I nodded. In the play, King Pentheus scorns Dionysus. The god lures him to a mountaintop where he’s torn to pieces by women and eaten. His own mother brings his head back to the palace like a football.

  ‘I was thinking of a different tag,’ said Dionysius. ‘“Tyrants are wise when they associate with the wise.”’

  It must have been a favourite phrase – it almost gleamed with polish. I thought of repeating what I’d said about taking advice from poets, but decided against.

  ‘You’re a wise man, so tell me this. Would keeping you here be a wise thing for me to do?’

  A satisfied smile. He was cleverer than I thought, and he knew it – like the god in the play, who gives King Pentheus all the rope he needs to hang himself.

  ‘Socrates was wiser than I am,’ I said carefully. ‘And he said he was only wise because he knew how little he knew.’

  Dionysius frowned. ‘Does that mean you’re not wise?’

  He was toying with me.

  ‘If you were wise, you’d judge for yourself.’

  ‘You want philosophers to be kings.’

  ‘Or kings to be philosophers.’

  ‘Do you think you can make me a philosopher?’ The question yawned open, a wide and dangerous trap.

  ‘Socrates said he never taught anyone anything. He merely helped them find the knowledge waiting to be brought out from inside them.’

  ‘I don’t care what Socrates said. I want to know what you say.’ Dionysius crossed the room and took a scroll out of an alcove. He skimmed through it. There’s a knack to reading quickly, getting the motion of the wrist so that the scroll flows from one spindle to the other without creasing or tearing. Dionysius did it with an educated turn, not the clumsy fumbling of an illiterate. They say he was a scribe before he turned his hand to politics.

  ‘“Anyone who really cares about justice, and wants to stay alive for any length of time, needs to keep out of public life,”’ he read aloud.

  The scroll was my little pamphlet on Socrates’ trial. I wrote it to defend his memory. Now it was a weapon in the hands of a tyrant.

  ‘Are you still minded to sit out public life?’

  ‘My thinking’s developed since then,’ I admitted.

  ‘How convenient.’

  I’d bent so far that the sap was squeezing out of me. Dionysius knew it. If I broke, he’d throw me onto the fire without another thought.

  ‘Philosophy is about life,’ I improvised. ‘Politics, commerce, war – they’re all part of it. It would be strange to divorce one from the other.’

  I think I got it more or less right from what Archytas said.

  Dionysius scratched his chin. I waited to see if he believed me or not.

  ‘So if I gave you the chance to make your model ruler, would you take it? Or is it all just so much theory?’

  ‘You want me to teach you?’ It would be like being locked in a cage with a lion. Some of that sentiment must have told in my tired voice. Dionysius snapped around.

  ‘There’s always the quarries if you prefer.’

  ‘I’d be happy to teach you whatever I can.’

  ‘Not me.’ I know what I know, his face said. The rest can go to hell. He didn’t bring philosophers and poets here to learn from them, but to own them.

  ‘I was thinking of my son. Perhaps you can make something of him.’

  I nodded. What else could I do?

  ‘They say Socrates often debated whether virtue and wisdom could be taught. Now’s your chance to find out. It’s fair to say your life depends on it.’

  He clapped me on the shoulder and bared his teeth, delighted with himself. He could quote Homer and Euripides, or debate laws and constitutions with a subtle intelligence. But at that moment, I realised, I was in the hands of a psychopath.

  And what had he done with Agathon?

  Twenty

  Jonah – London

  The last ten seconds of his old life ticked away on the sofa – ten blank seconds while his mind warmed up out of sleep, before he remembered. He felt a brief, almost euphoric moment of weightlessness as every atom of his body twisted itself to the gravity of this new world he’d dropped into.

  Then it hit. She’s not coming back.

  He looked around. His phone lay on the floor by the sofa. His wallet sat on the table, the credit cards spilling out. Had he been robbed? He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the door. Still locked and chained.

  Was there someone else in the flat?

  ‘Hello?’ he called. No one answered. He looked into the other rooms; he even pulled open the bedroom cupboards just in case. No one there.

  On the carpet, the phone beeped reproachfully. Jonah pawed the screen.

  Three new voicemails, one new e-mail, it told him.

  He listened to the messages first. Yesterday, he’d have had his heart in his mouth hoping for Lily. Today, the hope was gone.

  Julian: Hope you got back all right. Look after yourself.

  Charis: So sorry about Lily, darling. Would you like to come and stay with me and Bill in the country for the weekend?

  Richard: Glad to hear Lily’s safe. I’ll tell the police.

  Julian must have told them after he’d gone. Anger flared inside him; he felt embarrassed that Julian had been spreading rumours about him.

  It’s not a rumour if it’s a fact, said the cruel voice in his head.

  For thoroughness, he looked at the e-mail as well. Flight Reservation Confirmation, the subject said.

  If he hadn’t still been a little drunk, he’d have deleted it straight away as a scam. Instead, he tapped on it.

  He read it through three times. First, because his tired eyes struggled to read the tiny screen; then because he must have read it wrong; then because it made no sense.

  It said he had a flight to Athens booked that afternoon. He kept reading, waiting for the hook. A request for him to confirm his bank details, or wire ten thousand dollars to a travel agent in Nigeria. There was none of that.

  Your card ending xxxx-0427 has been charged the full non-refundable amount.

  He picked up one of the cards from the table and read the last four silver numbers.

  0427.

  Did I do this?

  Panic. He dropped the phone and jumped up. The moment he stood, a hundred-ton weight in his brain knocked him back. He looked at the scattered beer cans and the vodka bottle, as if their pattern might hold some meaning. He needed to remember, but the heaviness in his skull crushed all thought. And he was dying of thirst.

  The fridge was empty. He ran the tap as cold as it would go and poured a glass of water, drained it, poured another.

  Dreams and memories dribbled back. The phone ringing. Running down a dark tunnel, pursued by a force that would devour him if he once looked back. Someone asking, Can you come to Athens? Swimming in blue water, stretching for Lily’s hand but she was always out of reach.

  I know who took your wife.

  That must hav
e been the dream. Lily hadn’t really been taken. She’d run off and left him, the way marriages ended every day. Eventually she’d get in touch, they’d call lawyers, meet other people and move on.

  But the Lily of his dreams, the Lily he’d married, would never leave him. He scraped the credit card over his stubble like a razor. He’d believed the dream enough to book a flight. Why stop now, just because he’d woken up?

  He thought of a line that Adam once gave him, from an ancient philosopher called Heraclitus. Awake, we see our dreams; but whenever we go to sleep, we see death. He’d used it in a song.

  For the second time in his life, he had nothing in the world but a broken heart and a ticket to Athens. He went to the bedroom and threw some clothes in a bag.

  There were moments, writing songs, when it all came together. When all the false starts and wrong notes suddenly resolved into something vital and true. One moment he was stumbling through chaos; the next, it all made sense. He could glimpse the whole – not every detail, but the essence of the thing. Just a glimpse, and long hard hours ahead to capture it. But enough to know where he was going.

  The phone call had been one of those moments. A single word that tied it all together. Athens.

  Lily flew to Athens the week before she disappeared.

  Adam was based in Athens and came back with her.

  The Eikasia Foundation’s headquarters was in Athens.

  If you rationalised it, there was nothing there. Lily went to meet the people who were funding the dig; Adam came back to deal with firing Sandi. No great mystery. Except that right afterwards, Lily vanished.

  If they wanted Lily off their case, they’d give her a plane ticket and a payoff and an NDA.

  He was looking in the wrong place. A meteorite had hit his world, and he was trying to understand it by staring at the rubble at his feet. He needed to look up. Whatever happened in Sibari, it had come from Athens.

  In the heat of the night, in the grip of alcohol and emotion, it had been so real he could almost touch it. In the cool of the morning, exposed to daylight, he could see how shabby the argument was. But by then it was too late. The joy of the modern age was that however drunk, however dumb, however deluded you might be, with a credit card and a few taps on a screen, you could have whatever you wanted straight away. Even if it was crazy.