The Double Tongue Page 12

  Ionides thought this a calculated gesture. But I did it in sheer shame.

  He went on, and before I had returned to listening apparently he had managed to turn the awkward corner from religious awe to the respect due to wealth. Yes, he was saying, it was a fact that the oracle was reduced to – not to put too fine a point on it – to begging! He had not thought of boring this distinguished company with sordid financial and well, simply financial affairs! Of course if anyone wished –

  Yes, they did wish. The Archon called for his stylus and tablets and wrote down a sum. The rest promised. Women proposed gifts of jewellery. It was clear that Athens for all she wore no weapons still had her resources.

  ‘Tourism mainly,’ said Ionides on the way back across the Field of Mars. ‘Also the university. Athens isn’t much else but a university these days. That’s a lot of course.’

  ‘It looks like a stonemason’s yard. All these gesticulating heroes and clean, bare altars!’

  ‘Which reminds me. Dear First Lady, could you not contrive sometimes at these beanfeasts – did you hear the Archon? – could you not contrive to be a little more … mantic? Of course I know you are, but these people have to be reminded constantly that Delphi is a living oracle and vital to the well-being of the country and the world.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I appreciate that you’re tired. But remember the roof!’

  By the time we had been ten days in Athens I was beginning to understand the reality of things Athenian. Her professors were exquisite even in their eccentricity. I had never felt myself surrounded by such a mild and amused warmth of respect and understanding. Their students were courteous. A great many of these were Romans sent to Athens to perfect their education. Some of them were more Greek than the Greeks, just as some of the Greeks, I am ashamed to say, played at being Roman. We moved in the highest ranks of society and never came near getting our million drachmas. We received genuine respect, some perhaps genuine belief, a great many protestations of affection, and very little money.

  Ionides grew increasingly bitter. He was forever consulting a small roll on which he had set down the various sums already donated. One day he wished to reckon what sum they came to when put together. He was a long time about it and confessed at last that he kept getting different totals. He asked a professor of mathematics to help him, having found out that I was unable to.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said the professor, ‘you should ask a shopkeeper. He’d do it in a flash on his abacus.’

  But Ionides insisted, not wishing to make the smallness of our donations too obvious. So the professor did what he called adding them up. He had a simple method of counting in fives, tens and scores, and after perhaps an hour by the waterclock he achieved a result.

  ‘We call it counting on our fingers and toes,’ he said.

  When Ionides saw the total he was silent for a while. The professor seemed about to make a further comment but changed his mind, and after thanking him we left. Ionides was moody.

  ‘This won’t go far,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what we can do. Dionysus is our last chance.’

  It was not only our last chance but our last engagement in Athens. We were to go in procession to his altar and sacrifice there.

  The procession was a small one but the crowds were big. It was really the first time I had realized that the townspeople were of a different sort. There were not many slaves. Athens prefers freed men. I suppose it is an advance in civilization. Though over this question of slavery I have a confused mind. I remember Perseus in the bookroom, happy in his work and regarding ‘freedom’ with grave mistrust. After all, if slavery is the limitation of freedom certainly there are real slaves in mines for example. But there are men who have to plough, dragging the plough themselves since they have no oxen. What I am looking for is a phrase, if I can remember it, which Ionides gave me. Yes, I remember. It is a question of degree. There is employment of one man by another. This varies right through from abject slavery to – in the case of Perseus – a chosen and enjoyed wedding between the man and his work. You could in any case say that we are all slaves of the gods or the idea of the gods, or subject, if it comes to that, to the law. Limitation is a fact of life. Yes, I am muddled. Once Ionides said ‘When you are sitting on the tripod you are the freest being in the world.’ Did I say that when he said it I burst into tears and did not know why? I do now. I was the slave of god or the idea of god. You see how learned I have become with all my reading in the bookroom! Yes, it is Plato’s, this idea.

  The procession to the temple of Dionysus was at once a triumph and a disaster. As soon as our procession appeared a man shouted ‘There she is!’ A woman screamed and fell down. Then the crowd fell into a foaming frenzy – this sophisticated Athenian crowd, at the sight of a veiled woman, went mad. The tall police with their clubs closed round us and beat them off, but I believe we were in much peril of being crushed to death. I had never before appreciated disciplined men. They were wholly brutal in a matter-of-fact way. If a skull needed to be cracked it was cracked. If moving forward meant stepping on fallen bodies then these heavy men with their clubs and shields, their blank and vizored helmets, trod on them: and, borne where they wanted us to go, we must perforce step on crushed and bloodied bodies, too. We never reached the temple but returned whence we came. The bodies lay for a while where they had fallen because the dull sky let down snow. The priest of Dionysus, I later heard, had viewed the bodies and declared that the sacrifice had been made. But by then we were on our way home.

  I have to say that, even taking the inclement weather into account, our departure was less splendid than our arrival. The departing guests were not so much sped as ignored. It was a small body of police that escorted us to the city limits (and still it snowed). We were met by a delegation from Eleusis at that point, or we should have been hard put to it to find the way. Ionides later revealed that the ignorant among the Athenian population, and in particular the women, believed that I, the Pythia, had caused the destruction of life in the street, though the better educated saw that it was the work of Pan, whom indeed we had ignored totally, so no wonder. The Eleusinians gave us shelter and fed us, though with an ill grace and some fear. Megara sent an escort for us and made a point of how Athens had neglected us. We could have been attacked on the road, they said. The cold weather was making the brigands very daring.

  In the upshot we discovered that the Megarans were not proposing to bring us home by way of their city, but were conducting us as a goatherd might his flock to the countryside boundaries of Corinth, which had already agreed to receive us on the way home as they had received us on the way out. We entered Corinth in a snowstorm and it was an easy matter for our Corinthian friend to accommodate us because we had dwindled to a party of four. The escort sent by Megara was told at the boundary that the Corinthians would receive us but not a single Megaran. In fact, Megara and Corinth were at cross-purposes again: but then, what cities which have a common boundary aren’t?

  Our wealthy Corinthian friend treated us very kindly. He would not care to have us use the ferry while the pilot was unable to see the farther shore. We were able to bathe in hot water, be massaged and then entertained to a banquet where the music was as exquisite as the food. On returning from the bath I found such a gown laid out on my bed as surely no Pythia ever wore but only, I told myself amusedly, some goddess in a Corinthian heaven. I could not wear it. That would have been unseemly. I was forced therefore to put on a drab robe which was suitable for the oracle. I wished very much that it could have been inspired by the god to give our friend some good luck or promise of long life and high fortune. But he already had the high fortune and I did not think long life was a credible promise to one who lived and ate and drank as he did. It was a pity for though in secret, as he thought, he was a devotee of strange demons and had symbols and even statues of the Olympians round his halls, he was a genuinely religious man and believed in the oracles. He had visited all the most famous ones in the worl
d in the days, as he said, when he could not lay one drachma against another, but with fortune came fat, and with fat, indolence. He was deeply disappointed not to see me wearing his gift. I replied with thanks and said how pleased I should be to see it on a more appropriate person. One course of the meal later he clapped his hands and – behold! – the prettiest girl I have ever seen in my life walked in with a goddess gait, wearing my proffered present, that robe of cloth of gold! ‘If,’ he said, ‘I cannot persuade you, Lady, to wear what is fit for a queen, at least you will not object to receiving a crown.’ So then another slave came in, bearing a crown on a cushion. It was one of those delicate gold objects of thin branches with nodding leaves and flowers. I suppose it used no more than an ounce or two of the metal yet contrived by its delicacy to exhibit the very nature and genius of gold without ostentation. I thought that on the appropriate person, an Olympias perhaps, or even Helen, the very beauty of it would reduce the onlookers to tears. I had a sudden thought and it burst out of me, as it was bound to do, in hexameters – how before smoking Ilium Menelaus stood calling for his false wife Helen with his sword in his hand, and how she came from the smoke wearing this crown and the sword fell from his hand. It had become a poem in the extravagant modern manner. The Corinthian was all admiration, asking who had written it. Rashly, and buoyed by the verse, I admitted I had done it myself. I saw Ionides go pale and the Corinthian fall into a silence. I thought to mend matters by explaining that to know how to make hexameters was the only way to prevent the Pythia from being killed by some particularly strong communication. But could the young girl please put on the crown too? So he told her to and of course the sight was beyond admiration. I thought then that the making of this crown was the difference between Hellenes and barbarians, in that the Hellene crafts had crowned a woman with the very spirit of gold rather than the substance of it. But then the Corinthian exclaimed, saying he thought he heard his other guest in the atrium, and who should it be but the secretary of Lucius Galba, saying that his master had been delayed and would arrive later. After he had returned, the Corinthian sent the girl away with her dress and crown and asked after the success of our journey. Ionides had to admit that the return had been disappointing. The Corinthian pressed him for details, and when Ionides rather shamefacedly admitted how much we were short of the required sum he cried out, ‘This must not be!’

  There and then he sent for his tablets and scribbled on them. He handed them after that to Ionides whose face went even paler, then flushed red.

  ‘This is godlike!’

  Just then and quite clearly I heard four words spoken outside the room. I am sure they were part of the service and spoken by some man who had good and sufficient reason to say them, not knowing how they would echo in the banqueting hall.

  ‘It was the ferryman.’

  Of course Corinth is the start of the ferry on this particular road to Delphi – indeed there are many roads that start at Corinth, even the sea route for drachmas on their way to Rome. But these words rang in my head and I was as fearful as any countrywoman who sees a raven on the wrong hand. But Ionides handed me the tablets and I saw that the Corinthian had engaged himself to make up the huge sum necessary to repair our roof. Ionides could not express his admiration and gratitude and spoke of his inability in words of such elegance that the Corinthian, his belly shaking with laughter, recommended him to say it in hexameters. There was much meaning running round the banqueting hall like water underground, and he did need a diviner. He was fondling the pretty girl in a way that made me sure she was boughten – indeed, what slaves would such a man have had born in his house – a man of no family? It made me jealous in a curious way, feeling that such beauty ought not to be treated so lightly, though the girl could not object. He let her go, telling her to run along and get out of her finery.

  ‘It is Macedonian work‚’ he said, ‘and very old. It is said to have belonged to the royal family even before the time of the God Alexander the Great.’

  I thought to myself: the girl is gold, too, human gold, drawn out thin and fine spun. If he would give me that girl I would look after her as no mother could! But Lucius Galba, the Propraetor of southern Greece, was announced and we all stood up. He came in rather like a piece of storm. Had been delayed by the snow. The fool who guided the ship – it was the ferryman of all people – had said he could not steer a straight course with thick snow round his ears and eyes, though any landsman could have told him there was a steady north-east wind and all he had to do was keep it on the left cheek. He recollected himself and bade us lie down again. We did so as the pallium over the centre of the hall boomed and all the lights fluttered. In fact his stay was brief. He was very respectful to me, not to say servile. The Romans are very superstitious and don’t mind showing it. But it was not religious awe. I don’t think these western barbarians are capable of that. As soon as he had been served food and drink he dealt with us in a series of abrupt sentences.

  ‘You, Lady, can you be oracular anywhere?’

  ‘No, Propraetor.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Ionides slid into this farcical conversation smoothly.

  ‘What oracle can, Propraetor? Would you ask your Sybil of Cumae to leave her cave? Or one of Dodona’s oaks to pick up its roots and run to do your bidding? Of course, a Propraetor might command such a thing and I suppose an oak, given the right incentive, might do it – and then there are –’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I was about to make the introductions,’ said the Corinthian. ‘This is Ionides, the son of Ionides, High Priest of Apollo. That is the Pythia of Delphi.’

  ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen a woman reclining like a man rather than sitting.’

  ‘The First Lady,’ said Ionides, with ice in his voice, ‘is a law unto herself and obeys no one but the god.’

  ‘Not on my patch she doesn’t,’ said Lucius Galba. ‘If she won’t prophesy for me, that’s her affair. But she’ll obey me like the rest of you Greeks. And you – I remember now. You’re the pigeon fancier.’

  Ionides did not pale but I saw the wine in the kylix he held start to shiver.

  ‘I’m honoured by your interest, Propraetor.’

  ‘It will continue.’

  ‘Music,’ said the Corinthian. ‘Let’s have some music. Music, don’t you think?’

  It was a boy’s voice, lovely and pure as the gold of the girl’s crown. It was enough to make me weep. I mastered my tears though, not wishing to be womanish before this blunt barbarian. He for his part fell silent and listened. The song drifted down to a gentle end. When it had plainly finished Lucius Galba nodded.

  ‘You’re good entertainers. I’ve never denied that.’

  ‘What have you actually denied?’ said Ionides demurely. ‘Tell us that, Propraetor.’

  ‘The right of any man to foment rebellion against a lawful government.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ionides, ‘precisely. But what is in fact a lawful government? History seems to me to be a series of lawful governments stacked one on top of the other. You can’t obey them all, and circumstances force you to obey the latest one. In this case – well, isn’t it obvious?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said the Propraetor grimly, ‘indeed I hope so.’

  ‘Music again‚’ said the Corinthian. ‘Let us have some more music. And ask Melissa to be so good as to come back, will you?’

  The boy’s voice rose and presently the girl came back, wearing her – my – gold dress and the crown. The Corinthian gave a barely perceptible jerk of his head which sent her to kneel, smiling with I suppose contrived modesty, before the Propraetor. It seemed to me that his eyes bulged. He lifted the kylix to his face and drained it, then held it out behind him.

  ‘Unmixed,’ murmured the Corinthian, ‘unmixed don’t you think?’

  ‘Me too,’ said Ionides. ‘Let the snow fall. Let it blow. Let it smother.’

  Before the song was done, the Propraetor had hauled the girl on to the couch by him. H
e shared the unmixed wine with her, and the Corinthian beamed and nodded and my head began to turn. She really did have eyes for no one but Lucius Galba. We might not have been present at all. The Corinthian called for more music and dance, and the dancers flung themselves in with somersaults and high jumps and the shawms sounded brazenly, throatily, and I was jealous, a plain old thing whose dignity and sanctity were disregarded among the noise and dancing and drinking and fondling. The boy who had sung was now whispering in Ion’s ear. Defiantly I held out my empty kylix behind me. It was taken. Presently it came back, full and darker in colour, unmixed. The man who handed it to me knelt and smiled with wide, white teeth. He was black. It came to me who I was and what I was. I stood up and shouted.

  ‘A libation!’

  I spilt the whole kylixful on the floor before my couch. It was a gesture which would have riveted an audience in the theatre but my humiliating confession must be that in the Corinthian’s hall it made no impression at all. The dancers went on dancing, the shawms continued to bray, the Propraetor continued to fondle and the boy told Ionides a story which had them both sniggering like dirty children. It was the Corinthian who rescued me. He stood up and came across and led me into the atrium and handed me over to his house dame who showed me where to sleep.

  The next morning was chilly but clear. All the hills of Aetolia across the water were white. Our small party assembled. The Propraetor did not go with us to the ferry, leaving that duty to the Corinthian. He said goodbye to us in the atrium. It was by no means a friendly parting. To me he simply said, ‘Goodbye, Lady. A safe journey.’ But to Ionides his farewell was blunt.