The Walled Orchard (38 page)

Demosthenes had noticed a large walled orchard beside the farmhouse, and he reckoned that the walls would provide good cover against the enemy arrows. I don’t know how he planned to get out of it, but perhaps he wasn’t thinking that far ahead. He led us off and the Syracusans made no effort to stop us; they simply marched parallel to us, watching us as a dog watches a mouse. They waited until we were all safely inside. Then they attacked.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been caught out in a really severe shower of rain, when the water comes hurtling down so hard that it hurts your face when it lands on it, and you take shelter under a tree or a rock, which covers half of you but leaves the other half to get completely soaked. Well, that’s what it was like behind this wall, with the Syracusan arrows and slingbolts coming down on us for hour after hour. Not that it was a downpour, after the first few volleys; more a sort of drizzle, since they had given up wasting their arrows on the walls and trees and were only shooting at such targets as presented themselves. Unfortunately Demosthenes had made a slight miscalculation, as to both the size of the orchard and the height of the walls. As a result of this slip (a mistake anyone could have made) we were crammed together so tightly that we could barely move, and the walls were just that little bit too low to offer full protection. Therefore the Syracusans had plenty of targets throughout the day, although they frequently wasted time and arrows shooting men who were already dead. We put our shields up, of course; but quickly they became so riddled with holes as to be useless; and besides, we were too tired and miserable to bear the weight of them.

I had managed to stay close to Callicrates and his friends, and we were huddled together in the same place, right under the wall itself. Being small, I was able to get rather more of my body behind cover than most people; but Callicrates was rather exposed, since he had made room for me. Once I saw an arrow bounce off his helmet and I was terribly frightened for him, but he swore loudly and I knew he was all right.

As the day wore on we all started to suffer agony from cramp, since it was scarcely possible to move; and even if our movements had not been so hindered by the conditions I don’t suppose anyone would have dared to shift from where they were. After we had been there about three hours, I nudged Callicrates with my elbow.

‘Callicrates,’ I said, ‘I want to ask you something.’

‘Well?’

‘You remember when you first found me, after the plague?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you thinking, then?’

He twisted his head and stared at me. ‘What a peculiar question,’ he said. ‘I don’t really know, to. be honest with you. If you remember, I was just back from my tour of duty with the army in Messenia. Philodemus sent me out to find out what had happened to your family, and I found all of them dead except you. I suppose I was feeling pretty shocked; the City was a really horrible sight, in the plague.’

‘As bad as this?’

I heard him laugh faintly. ‘I don’t know. This is rather nastier for me, but it’s all men dead and dying here; back then, what really got to me was the women and children. I think you’re brought up to accept that men might die before their time, but women and children are supposed to be protected from that sort of thing. I think the plague was worse, because it was so arbitrary and meaningless. This may be a defeat for us, but it’s a victory for them. Someone’s getting some good out of this. But the plague…’

‘I think this is worse,’ I said. ‘Maybe because I’m old enough to understand now, and I was only a child then.’

Callicrates sighed. ‘I never thought I’d have any trouble deciding what was the worst thing I’d ever seen in my life. It’s a terrible thing having a choice.’

I laughed faintly. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I mean, it all just seemed to happen. One moment we’d just arrived, and we were going to eat up Sicily and then press on to Carthage and the Tin Islands. Then we lost a battle, and the worst that could possibly happen was that we’d have to go home without taking Syracuse this year. And then there was the sea-battle, and everyone was depressed because we would have to walk to Gatana, but there was never any doubt that we’d all get there safely. And now look at us. What happened?’

Callicrates thought for a while, then he said, ‘We’re lucky men, you and I. We’ve been present at the moment when the world changed.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Think,’ he said gently. ‘Out there is an army made up of small men, three-acres-or-less men, or men without any land at all. And in here is an army of ten-acres-or-more men, big men. And the little men out there have beaten the big men; well, that may have happened before, though it’s not supposed to. But if you think, the Spartans have been beaten by their helots once or twice; that’s not the unique thing here. What’s new, what’s going to change the world, is that once they’ve beaten us they don’t let us go.’ He paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes; it was getting terribly hot. Then he went on, ‘They’re going to destroy this army, whatever it takes. I’ve been thinking about it, since we got cooped up in here, and I can’t think of a single instance where it’s happened before.’

I couldn’t quite follow his line of argument, but I didn’t say anything. It was just nice to hear him talking, in that explaining voice that made him sound so intelligent and authoritative. It was like the old days, when I was a boy and he would explain politics to me.

‘That’s the real point about all this,’ he went on. ‘Those men don’t want to win a battle and set up a trophy and be big heroes. They want to kill us, and they want to do it as efficiently as possible. They know they’ll never be heroes; they haven’t got enough money to be heroes, they can’t afford the armour. But they’ve got hate. I never knew one nation hate another like that. There won’t ever be a peace between Athens and Syracuse, like there’s peace between Athens and Sparta every so often, and they join forces to thump the Persians, and the Athenian envoys come back from Sparta and say they’re not bad fellows actually, they get drunk just like us and they sing quite well, for foreigners. No, we made a mistake coming here. After this, fighting wars just won’t be safe any more. And when that happens, God only knows what’ll become of Athens.’

‘But didn’t we hate the Melians when we killed all of them?’ I said. ‘And what about the Mityleneans? We voted to wipe them out, only we thought better of it the next day.’

Callicrates didn’t answer. I nudged him, and he didn’t move. I looked at him, and there was an arrow right through his windpipe. I nudged him again, and his head fell forward on to his chest. It’s extraordinary how floppy a dead body becomes. I remember thinking how funny it was; just like a rag doll, which you shake up and down and the arms and legs just flop about. And it was so very strange that I hadn’t even heard the arrow hit him. I wondered how that could be, and I wanted to ask him, since he was in an explaining mood. Callicrates always knew the answer to everything.

Since I no longer had anyone to talk to, I nestled down behind my shield and tried not to think for a while. I could hear that damned hoopoe again — obviously that bird wasn’t afraid of anything. Perhaps it was asking us to go away and leave it in peace, in that peremptory way animals have. We used to have a cat who would yowl at you when you walked into a room, as if you had no right to be there. It used to aggravate me beyond measure, that cat. And if I could hear the hoopoe, how come I hadn’t heard the arrow that killed Callicrates? That was just typical, I thought, I always miss the big event, the moment when they light the sacred flame, or the longest javelin-cast ever at the Lady’s Games. I’ve got up at crack of dawn and trudged all the way into the City to see it, and stood about in queues for hours to get a seat, and then when the moment comes I’m looking the other way or unsealing my wine-jar or something, and the first I know about it is the big shout.

I can’t remember how long I was there for after that. My mind seemed particularly clear and sharp, but there was nothing to think about. Then the man on the other side of me turned and looked at me, and I recognised his face.

‘Hello, Eupolis,’ he said, and I felt as if my whole skin was on fire. ‘I told you I would meet you here.’

‘So you did,’ I replied. ‘I had forgotten.’

‘You’ve had other things on your mind,’ said the God Dionysus, and he smiled. ‘Well, this is supposed to be our last meeting. I expect you’re glad to see me.’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘So this is the walled orchard, is it? I’ve wondered about it a lot, over the years.’

‘Is it how you pictured it?’ asked the God. Once again his voice seemed to come from all round me. It echoed inside the bronze shell of my helmet, and I could hardly hear myself think.

‘No,’ I confessed. ‘But you didn’t explain, did you?

You just said the walled orchard, and left it like that. And I’ve been in plenty of other walled orchards since then, in Attica and places. I’ve even got one on my estate at Phylae.’

‘This is the walled orchard,’ said the God, ‘where the old Chorus dances off and the new one comes on. It’s a pretty Comedy I’ve given you to produce, though your Chorus,’ and he made a sweeping gesture with his arm, ‘look as if they don’t want to dance any more. I think it’s time they left the stage. They’ve done their best, I suppose, but they didn’t understand the words they were saying. What can you do with a Chorus like that?’

I felt a tiny spurt of anger, despite the presence of the God. ‘They danced as well as they could,’ I replied. ‘Perhaps it’s really the poet’s fault, for giving them such difficult lines. If the Chorus can’t understand them, what will the audience make of them?’

Dionysus laughed, and I thought my head would split. His laughter rolled out over the tops of the trees like thunder, and echoed in the mountains above us. ‘Now then,’ he said. ‘What you must do is this. I don’t want my best poet getting killed here in Sicily, so I want you to hop over this wall and run for your life. Catana is over there,’ and he pointed. ‘Find Pericleidas the fish-merchant; he lives in a big house next to my shrine by the little gate, he’ll look after you. I think we may meet again after all, Eupolis son of Euchorus of Pallene. Look for me in a house by the Propylaea, the day after anchovies sell for three drachmas a quart in the Market Square. And remember, look after my favourite poet. I don’t want him getting hurt, understood?’

And then he turned back into the man who had been there before, who was also dead; I could see an arrow sticking through his ear. He must have been killed while I was talking to the God.

I took a pinch of dust between my fingers and dropped it over Callicrates’ head by way of burial; I didn’t have a coin to press into his hand for the ferryman, since I had gambled away all my money with the odious Jason. Then I picked up my shield and made sure my sandals were tied tightly, since I didn’t want to trip up, and climbed over the low wall.

My legs were so stiff after being cramped up all day that first I could scarcely hobble. But when the first arrow hit me, bouncing off the side of my helmet and giving me the fright of my life, I found I could suddenly run quite freely. Actually, I wasn’t in the least afraid of being killed, but I reckoned it would be disrespectful to the God to put his clemency to the test by standing there like a straw target while the Syracusans bounced arrows and slingbolts off me.

There was a wide gap in the Syracusan line not too far away from the wall (they had been coming closer and closer all day) and I ran straight for it. Several things hit me as Iran but none of them slowed me down, and I kept well in behind my shield. As I sprinted through the gap I heard a horse coming up behind me, and I remember wondering how Dionysus was going to get me out of this. When the sound was so close that I guessed the horseman was almost on top of me, I turned, dropped down on one knee (just as they tell you to) and put my shield up to cover me. It was a manoeuvre I could never get right on the parade-ground, but just for once I had no trouble at all with it.

The horseman was there all right. He pulled his horse’s head round to come up beside me on my right, where my shield wouldn’t cover me, but the stupid animal stumbled over something and he lost his balance for a moment. I could see his left armpit and ribs were unprotected, for he was pulling hard on his reins to control the horse, and I stood up and prodded at him hard with my spear. The spearhead went in as far as the socket, just as if there was already a hole there for it to go into, and as he slid off the horse’s back I let go of the shaft. As easy as that.

There was no point walking when I could ride, especially since there were other horsemen approaching; so I grabbed the horse’s reins and tried to get up on his back. But it was a big horse and I am not tall, and he kept moving about; in the end I had to jettison my shield. This is supposed to be a great dishonour to a man, but just then I couldn’t care less. I had finally made up my mind to abandon the horse and keep on running when I managed to get the upper half of my body over his back and scramble into position.

I should have been in a great hurry just then, what with the enemy cavalry closing in round me and everything; but I took a moment to look at the face of the man I had killed. There was a look of such complete and utter disgust on his face that I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘there has to be some mistake here.’ I knew how the poor sod felt; it was truly rotten luck on his part. But how was he to know he was up against the God of Comic drama? I spat on his face for luck — I was feeling a bit full of myself, understandably enough — and pulled the horse round.

I gave him a ferocious kick and he broke into a trot, which wasn’t nearly good enough, so I kicked him again and called him by several epithets that Comic poets usually reserve for rival dramatists. These seemed to do the trick, and he burst into a nice easy gallop. He was a good horse, now I come to think of it, though at the time I had no very great opinion of him.

There were at least two Syracusan horsemen after me, but I wasn’t greatly bothered. ‘Come on, Eupolis,’ I remember saying to myself, ‘you aren’t taking this thing seriously enough.’ But my soul refused to listen; after all, what was there to be afraid of? I was totally detached, no longer human.