Death Ex Machina by Gary Corby Page A

could object she picked it up.
    “Here, you’re a woman—”
    “Yes, I’d noticed.” Diotima spoke through the mask. There were eye holes to see through and a mouth through which to speak. She looked very strange to me with the rigid mask covering her face.
    “Acting’s not for women,” the stage manager said. “That’d be immoral.”
    “Sir? Then who plays the women characters?” Socrates asked.
    “The men do. That’s moral. If a woman was on stage, all the men would be ogling her, right?”
    “Of course,” I said.
    “Well, that isn’t right, is it? Would you want your daughter on stage, and a horde of men eyeing her? Thinking about her because they want to … well, do you-know-what with her.”
    When he put it like that … “No, you’re right,” I said. “I definitely wouldn’t want my daughter on stage, if I had one.”
    “Well then, there you are. Every woman is someone’s daughter. The only proper thing to do is not allow the ladies on stage.”
    “It’s ridiculous,” Diotima said, in an irritated tone. “If women can be priestesses then they can be actresses, can’t they? Priestesses perform in public and everything’s fine.”
    “It’s like this, young miss—”
    “I am Diotima, the wife of Nicolaos.”
    “If you got up on stage, a lady who looks the way you do—” He looked her up and down, then said, “If you were up there, we’d have to beat back the audience with shovels.” He shook his head. “It just wouldn’t work out. No one would pay attention to the play.”
    THE CAST SPENT the next two days in intense work. And so did I. I didn’t take my eyes off the actors, the stage or the backstage area for a moment while the crew were there. Of course I couldn’t see all those things at once. I had to constantly run from the back to the front and then back again. I felt like a parent with twenty children. My constant movement irritated the actors and everyone who supported them, yet no one complained. They knew as well as I did that whoever was set to sabotage the play was still out there, waiting for an opportunity.
    But I couldn’t be there all night as well. I went to see Pythax, to beg the loan of two of the Scythian Guard. There are three hundred of these guards, all of them barbarian slaves, their job to patrol the streets and keep the peace. My father-in-law Pythax was their overseer.
    Pythax was good to me, as he always is. He arranged for two of his men, Euboulides and Pheidestratos, to be detached to my service. I ordered them to protect the theater at night. I specifically wanted two guards so that they would keep each other awake. A man on his own can easily doze. They took the moonlight shift and I relieved them each dawn.
    Throughout the rehearsals, Romanos was a workhorse. He was first at the theater every morning. He was last toleave. There was no task too small that he wouldn’t lend a hand. There was no task so large that he was daunted. When anyone expressed doubt that the play could be ready on time, it was Romanos who encouraged them, or cajoled them, or did whatever was necessary to keep everyone at work. He had become friends with Akamas, which I suspected he had done with the assistance of some wineskins. The other stagehands took their cue from Akamas. They volunteered to work longer each day. Sisyphus was being carried by the sheer force of will of its second actor.
    The new third actor, Kebris, proved to be a find. He was an old trouper, and looked it when his mask was off. He had thinning hair and deep lines in a face that seemed perpetually sad. But he picked up the lines with such speed that even Sophocles was pleased. “I’ve never known an actor to fall into a part so easily,” he said.
    The truth was that Romanos had worked extra time outside the rehearsals to get Kebris ready, which Diotima and I knew perfectly well because we’d met Romanos that rainy night, leaving the theater after working with Kebris. Diotima and I discussed