CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
DIONYSUS LEADS ME TO A somewhat secluded ledge and we sit just as people spill on to the stage beneath us. I see the horns and goat legs of satyrs and recognize a few maenads despite the masks, but there are more I don’t know – perhaps inhabitants of the town?
Together, they begin chanting. And a story takes shape.
‘What is this?’ I ask – watching not only the scene below but the way everyone, even the Olympians, turns to the stage, captivated.
‘It’s a new sort of rite. I suppose not everyone’s type of fun is a party – so I’ve decided to provide an alternative. I call it drama. Because despite what you apparently believe, dear wife, I certainly have a flair for the dramatics. I hope you find this thoroughly convincing.’
I turn to the stage and, indeed, I watch dramatics unfold.
Dionysus drapes his arm about me and I nestle into his side, thankful for the warmth of him.
Winter gains ground with every nightfall, Nyx swooping earlier and earlier with each passing day.
But curled up beside him I don’t feel its chill, and I lose myself in the people gathering below – the lines they shout, the dances, the song.
It is like poetry or like music, but also unlike either of those because it envelops them, creating something new.
The drama is a bizarre miracle.
A thoroughly absurd miracle. At one point a horse rides a soldier into battle. At another a chorus of wasps recount part of the tale.
It shouldn’t work. It is absolute nonsense. And yet it is undeniably compelling – so much so that at points I forget about how much we need this to work, and the gods surrounding us, and there is only the story before us.
A crane is wheeled on to the stage, Silen dangling from it to issue a prophecy, as though flying into the scene. The structure sways precariously.
‘Your effects were far better,’ Dionysus whispers – and on that I can agree.
‘It’s certainly making them look more realistic when this is what the god can actually do.’
‘That’s what I call the crane: god from the machine.’
‘You are the most ludicrous person I have ever met,’ I say, fondly, leaning back against Dionysus, his arms crossing over my chest to hold me as I watch.
The final rousing song and dance spill across the stage.
Silen is still hanging from the crane and points at Opora as they dance from it.
She leaps from her seat and rushes to join them, shaking her head but beaming with a you’re ridiculous and I like you so much expression I’ve become far too familiar with.
Her running up shatters some invisible divide between the audience and the performers and our patrons get to their feet to dance too.
I catch a few of them – recognizing the symbols that mark them out.
Laurel-leaved Apollo has another goddess in his arms already, and twirls her right past where Ares is being similarly enticed into dance by an astonishingly beautiful woman whose voluptuous curves and pouting lips remind me of Charis but who otherwise echoes Dionysus through and through: red-gold curls, a smattering of freckles and even that soft, mischievous laugh floating above the music.
The play never really comes to a close, even as the players leave the stage.
Instead, the party bleeds from fiction to reality.
I am about to join, when one of the attendees – a woman, with dozens of tight braids and thin wooden bracelets wound about her wrists – flicks a hand at the stage, and a fire blazes to life, burning from nothing.
I think of the hearth in Dionysus’s tent – the way it doesn’t need fuel and creates no smoke, only giving warmth and safety.
A gift from Hestia, goddess of the hearth, and there she is.
Gods, there they all are. A woman with alabaster skin and a plumed helmet, like war might spark at any moment.
A man with salt-weathered hair and a trident resting on the ground beside him.
And seated right before the stage with a crown swallowing every light is a man who reminds me of my father, with his aged muscle and vaguely threatening aura pushing a circle around him that people do not dare encroach upon.
Zeus, it must be. Dionysus’s father. The king of the gods.
The Olympians are on this hillside. Actual gods mere feet away.
And another god, here, his arms around me. Suddenly that fact feels insurmountable.
‘You need to go,’ I say, pulling myself from his lap. ‘You’ve proved your strength and talent to them, now you need to befriend them. Get them to fight for you.’
‘Come with me.’
I look at him, lounging in the moonlight.
His eyes are bright, dancing with the reflections of the flickering torches around us, but shining with something else too – the same fire as his own, an innate radiance.
He is beautiful but there is a part of him that feels untouchable, even as I take his hand in my own, that feels limitless even as I lean my head against his chest and hear each thundering beat beneath my ear.
‘I can’t,’ I say – because it’s obvious, isn’t it? That this, whatever glorious thing this is, won’t last forever. But he will.
Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to spend the rest of my life with him – but he won’t get the rest of his life with me. He’ll be with them.
‘I think this is something you might need to do without me.’
I climb to my feet and he lurches to his too, grabbing my hand before I can step away.
‘And if I have no interest in doing anything without you?’
‘Dionysus,’ I say softly. ‘Please. You –’
‘A wonderful night!’ We both start at the sudden appearance – Athena, in her tall plumed helmet, though the rest of her armour is a scant collection of plates across her chiton: a shoulder, a thick band at her waist, her sandals cording guards across her shins.
I move to pull my hand away from Dionysus but he holds it tight. I try again and he yanks back, managing to pull me closer. Ridiculous god.
He nods. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed the night.’
‘Well, I’m not sure I enjoyed it as such.
’ A scowl forms between her brows. ‘But the potential was there, certainly. In fact, I think I’ll bring the whole enterprise back to Athens with me.
Maybe a competition? I’m not sure on the comedy angle, though.
I’m thinking something more profound – perhaps even tragic. I’ll work it out.’
Dionysus swallows. ‘Ah, yes, that sounds –’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she says, waving a hand.
‘I have quite enough to be getting on with. I’ll keep it in your name.
But my city has been less … well, itself lately.
Athens is supposed to be a hub of culture and intellect; instead it’s being run by a boy king more concerned with his reputation than his populace.
Abandoning his people as war calls at the walls?
Ridiculous. Theatre could be exactly what the city needs.
It might be a hard push to get female performers but I might convince them to let women attend the festival.
I like this, the set-up you have. More of that, I think.
The city Dionysia – there, that has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? ’
Dionysus lifts his cup of wine. ‘You should bring this to them too. Lower those inhibitions and you’d be surprised how intelligent they become.’
Athena glowers and I have to resist the urge to jab him in the stomach – she is bringing his rites to Athens and he’s still incapable of taking it seriously.
‘I call it a symposium,’ he adds, smiling in the face of her irritation and, evidently, that’s convincing because she nods, still a little doubtful.
‘I’ll consider it.’
Without another word, she turns into an owl and flies away. No snapped fingers or clouds of smoke, no theatrics at all other than the feathered plume of her helmet shifting to soft down.
‘Are you feeling quite alright?’ Dionysus asks. ‘She spoke at length of Theseus and you didn’t have a single question.’
‘Oh, I have plenty. But Athena herself spreading your worship to Athens, even while it’s ruled by Theseus? And offering some freedom for its women too? That’s not something to interrupt. Some things are more important than Theseus.’
Dionysus smirks. ‘Well, I never thought I’d hear you say that.’
‘Besides, I’m going to find out more about all that and you’re going to charm the other gods.’
‘Ah.’ His smile falls. ‘That’s more expected. But … can we not do both, Ariadne? I want the gods to know us just as much as they know me. I am the god Dionysus, and I married the mortal Ariadne. Those are the facts of us. Of me. I don’t care to hide them.’
‘You’re not hiding them,’ I say, swallowing past something sticking in my throat. ‘You’re just being strategic. Get them on your side this time around, get power and protection for us both and we can introduce them to us at the next occasion.’
Dionysus’s gaze doesn’t soften. ‘Fine. But know that I want you there – this is at your insistence.’
He doesn’t turn, doesn’t walk away. He stands, resolute, waiting for me to leave if that is what I mean to do. Perhaps he suspects I do not want to – of course I do not want to!
But I care too much about him not to, so I spin on my heel and leave him there.
I find Hermes instead, and he throws his arm around my shoulders. The wine on his breath is palpable even before he speaks.
‘It was a brilliant show!’ he shouts, as though I might not hear him otherwise. ‘I liked the crane. I may have to try one myself if I cannot get those damn sandals to work. And excellent work yourself – now switch shoes with me.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now!’ he says – and is not to be deterred, apparently, so I draw him behind a tree and hold his winged sandals up. ‘You want these, they’re going to cost you. I want information.’
His eyes flicker. ‘A mission. Glorious. Tell me more.’
‘Athena said something about Theseus abandoning Athens. So is he stuck on Crete? Or has he escaped elsewhere? I need to know what happened.’
Hermes snatches his sandals, ties them hurriedly and straightens up. ‘Challenge accepted.’