Page 115 of This Divine Revelry

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.’