Daphne & Sebastian: Part Six (Daphne's revived theater dreams)

a novella of war, politics, theater, sports, and religion

Plate with the Battle of David and Goliath — Byzantine, 629-630 (met open access)

Daphne Contemplates a Return to Theater

Daphne’s pleasure at having manipulated the mob in Ravenna faded the longer it took for Sebastian to return. Each day she prayed for a messenger who would bring news of Sebastian’s approach, but days went by without a response and as far as she knew the Isaurians were close by, destroying monasteries and icons wherever they went.

Lucas, the prefect of the Palace Guard, was in constant conversation with Emilio, the new prefect of the City Guard, over what to do should the Isaurians return first, and both agreed that they could not allow the Isaurians to enter the city. Merchants regularly came and went from the city; the Isaurians had left spies behind. There was no universe in which the Isaurians did not find out about the dead bishops before their return. But how to resist a siege from the Isaurians, and ultimately from the imperial force that would no doubt eventually arrive, was a mystery to each man. They both felt a mixture of hatred and admiration for Daphne, whose spies they suspected of having created the mess and whose intellect they begrudgingly conceded.

The city itself was aflame with rumors that there would soon be a siege by some combination of imperial forces if only to impose a new and iconoclastic bishop. And Daphne knew from her history reading that exactly this type of conflict had often characterized past outbreaks of violence in cities around the Empire: the citizenry had long shown itself willing to riot and kill over the appointment of bishops who did not agree with their version of Christianity.

In the midst of all this Daphne found herself missing Sebastian far more than she’d ever have expected. She might even have said she loved him. Thinking about him at war made her want him more. She liked to imagine him out there, her warrior and student, sacking Rome with his men like it was nothing. And if he had taken the pope prisoner, she already knew what to do: he could claim he was trying to protect the pope and then they could both shepherd the secession of Ravenna from the Empire. Ravenna could join the Papal States, that large but currently weak territory of Italy which owed its allegiance to the pope as its direct ruler. Or Ravenna could simply belong to them.

In the meantime Daphne had become something like an unofficial regent over Ravenna. But with both the prefect of the Palace Guard and the prefect of the City Guard constantly meeting with her, and with so many iconophiles of the city in adoration of her after she had testified to the transformative power of Christ’s blood and to the spiritual value of icons, she was perhaps safer now than she’d ever been. This safety, however, would evaporate into nothing if the Isaurians returned first. And the more she thought about this possibility, the more terrified she became.

Her mind wandered back to her theater days. She needed a taste of those days again. She needed an artistic project into which to throw herself: both because she was so passionate about her art but also because otherwise her mind was overwhelmed with stress from the terror of imagining what the Isaurians would do to her.

“I miss the theater,” Daphne said one night to Lucille, now officially her chambermaid and a woman who slept beside her each night.

They were naked in her bed as they spoke.

“I’ve told you we can’t perform anymore at the theater,” Lucille said, her face concerned. “Daphne, we’ve riled the people up into a fanatical state. If they get wind of you slipping back into your old sins they’re going to turn against you.”

“I know,” Daphne said, a little annoyed. “I know, I know, but maybe not,” she said. “Maybe we could perform some kind of Christian play.”

Lucille laughed. “A Christian play?” she asked. “I can’t even imagine such a thing.”

Daphne giggled thinking about the concept. What, she wondered, would Christians write a play about that could compete with the creativity of the ancient pagans?

“A Christian play,” Daphne said. “I know, it sounds so ridiculous. I mean, what would a Christian play consist of? They’re just going to show some man covered in blood with nails through his hands!”

Lucille laughed. Daphne giggled and kissed her on the forehead.

Lucille looked around as if they weren’t alone in the room. “You do really need to be careful saying things like that,” she said.

“I’ve always wanted to write my own play,” Daphne said. “Maybe I could write one to make the pious people pleased, but I could also sneak in some more tempting aspects. Maybe I could write a play that makes the theater seem pious but also lures people into sin.” She giggled.

“The theater is not pious and never will be,” Lucille said dismissively. Their relationship had become much more casual ever since the moment they faced the mob and then had sex on Sebastian’s desk. “A pious experience in an amphitheater!” Lucille said. “Can you imagine how boring that would be? Christians will never write plays. Anything a Christian creates is obviously inferior to the artwork of pagans.”

“Probably,” said Daphne, knowing that the early Christian emperors had clamped down on all forms of pagan activities, from the Academy at Athens to theatrical performances. The Christians, her father had often told her, had dumbed down the whole Empire and turned the populace idiotic. She’d even once read an old text by a church father, Tertullian, who wrote in the first century about how happy he’d be to see actresses and dancers burning in Hell for all of eternity. “I’ve heard there are Christian plays in Constantinople,” Daphne added.

“No,” said Lucille. “There can’t be.”

“Yes,” said Daphne. “They take Greek myths and Christianize them basically.”

“That’s so boring,” said Lucille.

“I know it,” said Daphne, laughing. “But the Greek plays are a part of the Byzantine heritage, no? I mean, the Empire is basically Greek is it not?”

“Basically,” said Lucille. “But that doesn’t mean that anyone is going to tolerate you performing on the stage again. Take the stage in the amphitheater after that whole speech you gave about Christ’s blood purifying you, and your whole conversion story is thrown in the trash. The people will be calling you a harlot again.”

Daphne sighed. “I want to at least go watch a play,” Daphne said, although in the back of her mind she was consumed by the same fears that led her to Sebastian: the more powerful Christianity became in the world, and it was very powerful already, the more dangerous would the world become for actresses. “I mean, I know, I can’t be in a play again, but I want a taste of it.” She sighed dreamily. “I want to remember what it’s like to be a half-naked goddess walking out onto that stage.”

“You know there are no plays now,” Lucille replied. “There hasn’t been a performance since the riot. It’s never been a scarier time to be an actress.” She paused. “And,” Lucille continued, “you denounced the theater life to the whole city.”

Daphne cringed at herself. She had been speaking off the cuff. She should have been better prepared. She promised herself that the next time she gave a speech, she would plan what to say ahead of time.

“Daphne,” Lucille said, “after you spoke, that crowd could have gone straight to the amphitheater that very night and killed everyone there, had they staged a play.”

“But they didn’t,” Daphne said, her voice on fire with an anger directed at herself.

“No,” Lucille said. “But you still could have gotten our friends killed.”

“They don’t believe that, do they?” Daphne asked. “That I wanted to get them killed?”

“I’ve talked to a few of them,” Lucille said. “They’re not happy with you.”

Daphne groaned. She hated that Lucille and her old theater friends might be angry with her. And she hated that she hadn’t been able to think of something better to say, but what else could she have done? The crowd called her a slut and a whore, and a Christian mob like that would only have forgiven her if she admitted to these so-called sins and turned her life into a story of redemption through Christ. “But,” Daphne said, “you said you liked how powerful I was up there.”

Daphne ran her fingers through Lucille’s long hair.

“I did,” said Lucille. “But I didn’t like that you used your power to stir the crowd up against theater. Theater is what brought us together.”

Daphne took Lucille’s hand and stroked her palm. “Lucy,” she said. “I’m sorry. I had no choice.”

“And besides,” Lucille went on, stroking Daphne back, “the Isaurians will be back first. You maybe had no choice, but the Isaurians are going to be back first and it’s not going to matter. We got those bishops killed. They died under your watch; that’s how Trokandas will see it. No actors are going to even want to associate with us once they see Trokandas’s army on the horizon.” Lucille’s voice became more scared the longer she spoke. She spun away from Daphne in the bed. “Trokandas is going to be back first,” Lucille added.

“You don’t know that,” Daphne said. She had been focusing on theater as a distraction from this possibility. Her room was full of old Greek plays that she read in bed every night and throughout the day. These plays and Lucille were all that made her fear go away. But it wasn’t enough. She reached out and ran a finger down Lucille’s spine. “You have no way of knowing,” Daphne said, “who is going to return first.”

“We’ll see,” Lucille went on. “We could both be dead in a week.”

“They can’t take the city,” said Daphne nervously. “Ravenna’s walls are too strong.”

“We’ll see,” said Lucille. “There’s hardly any soldiers here.”

Daphne turned her back to Lucille. Then Lucille turned back around and held her. Daphne tried to fall asleep in her friend’s arms.

As she drifted she reflected on how sad she was to have given up her life as an actress. Yes, subsequent events had only demonstrated to her the wisdom of her decision: to have seen the archbishop’s body so brutally mutilated by the mob evoked in her the same fears that had led her to Sebastian. The whole world, it seemed to Daphne, was being destroyed, and it was a miracle that her theater company had ever been tolerated at all in this climate. Now she could share the archbishop’s fate.

Daphne turned around and faced Lucille. To her relief Lucille was still awake. They looked each other in the eyes and stroked one another’s hair.

“You know who protected the theater?” Lucille asked her, as if reading her mind. “The archbishop. We had an archbishop who only wanted happiness and peace for the people. Now we killed him.”

“I know,” said Daphne, overwhelmed. And in that moment her fears of the Isaurians came rushing back. “I hope the Isaurians don’t return first,” she said.

“I hope so too,” said Lucille, and soon Lucille fell asleep.

Daphne stayed awake for a long time. Her whole world was a new one now. She had felt the rush of power, even relished that power, but now she felt so powerless, a victim of events happening around her rather than an agent of history, and there was something missing which power could not replace. Her mind raced with the things she’d never be able to do again now that she’d admitted herself into this new role: take the stage as a goddess, write and direct her own plays, sit in the amphitheater watching the great works of the pagans. In reality, as an actress, she’d always been in mortal danger, but now she felt as though she truly faced death should she even dip her toes back into that happy forsaken life. And then there were the Isaurians.

She hoped Sebastian would return soon. As she fell asleep, she drifted in and out of gruesome nightmares, images of the archbishop’s body flooding her mind, and she knew that there was only one way to stifle these fears before Sebastian’s return: immerse herself in theater.

Choosing a Palace Play

Daphne woke up the next day with Lucille sleeping naked beside her.

As she looked at Lucille’s body she thought about how much she loved erotic art.

I want to be Aphrodite, she thought to herself, not the Virgin Mary, though the latter was what she felt she was becoming.

Gently she woke Lucille up.

“Lucy,” she said, and Lucille’s smooth naked body moved beneath her hands, “I know what we can do!”

Lucille was barely awake. “What?” Lucille stammered.

“We can put on a performance for Sebastian and some of his men when they return to the palace,” Daphne said. “Who knows how long it will be. Look around. We have so many plays we can choose from and we can be actresses like in the old days!”

“Daphne,” Lucille groaned. “We talked all about this last night.”

“Not all about it,” Daphne said. “We never discussed a palace play!”

“You might feel like a regent now,” Lucille said, “but once Sebastian returns, he’s going to be the man in charge and he’s not going to be happy.”

“He fell in love with me at the amphitheater,” Daphne said confidently. “He saw me take the stage as Aphrodite and he wanted me immediately. Sebastian won’t be angry.”

“The Isaurians,” Lucille said. “How many times do I have to remind you?”

Daphne groaned, knowing her friend was right, but she hated this new reality.

“You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met,” Lucille said, taking Daphne’s hand, stroking her fingers, running another hand along Daphne’s naked side and trying to soothe her.

Daphne felt her own body moving beneath fingertips and compliments. She loved how it felt when Lucille’s nails glided lightly along her sides and breasts.

“But right now,” Lucille continued gently, “you’re being completely irrational. You’ll get us both killed. Daphne, you’ll never be able to keep a play in the palace secret. There are pious servants and guards everywhere who would be absolutely disgusted. The mob would return. Lucas and Emilio won’t listen to you anymore. You could lose control of the city. If the mob returns and the guards know you’ve been performing erotic plays in the palace they’ll turn you right over to the people.”

Daphne jumped from the bed and rushed over to a set of anthologies containing Greek plays. “No,” she said. “There must be a way. And it doesn’t have to be erotic.” But she wished it could be.

“Daphne,” Lucille said, sitting up in the bed and watching as Lucille frantically turned through pages in her anthologies, “are you… are you sure you aren’t just trying to distract yourself? From fear? The Isaurians? And not only the Isaurians, but whatever other imperial force will surely arrive to punish us for what has happened here? Are you sure this isn’t just an escape from reality for your mind?”

“No!” Daphne said loudly, turning and facing Lucille. She held a small book up in her hands, a collection of Greek plays. “No, Lucy,” she said. “It’s not just an escape.”

“Daphne,” Lucille said, “if you do this….”

Daphne rushed to her, sat beside her, and grabbed her hands. “If I do this then you’re going to love me more than you’ve ever imagined,” Daphne said. “We’re going to put on the most spectacular performance right here in the palace. We’ll convert all these guards to paganism.” She giggled.

“This is delusional, Daphne,” Lucille said.

Daphne glared at her, knowing deep down that her friend was right.

But the reality of their situation was too disturbing now for Daphne to want to just think about it all day.

“You saw what the crowd did to the archbishop,” said Lucille. “They’ll do the same to you.”

Daphne was terrified yet again by the thought. The fantasies with which she woke up quickly shrank down into nothing. “Lucy,” she said. “I miss the theater.”

“I know,” Lucille said.

“I want all our old friends to come to the palace and perform with us,” Daphne said.

“I know,” Lucille said, stroking Daphne’s cheek. “I know.”

Later that day Daphne was making plans for a show. She spent hours flipping through her anthologies, thinking carefully about which play would be right for the moment. Thinking carefully about which play would both satisfy her own desire to create by changing details to suit her own tastes while simultaneously avoiding sparking a bloody riot among the population of Ravenna.

Sometimes she felt as if she were tragically precipitating her own demise, but she had an explanation ready for the Christians: she would claim to be performing Christian plays. She wouldn’t make the performances erotic in any way; all the actors and actresses would be fully clothed. Meanwhile she figured that the palace servants and guards, any one of whom might leak her theatrical performances to the public, were too uneducated to know the difference between a Christian and pagan play.

It was Lucille who came through with the idea for an actual Christian play.

“What about David versus Goliath?” Lucille asked Daphne that night in bed.

Lucille had given up on trying to persuade Daphne to abandon the project all together and was now simply trying to make sure Daphne could accomplish the feat without ending up mutilated or dead.

Daphne, who had been holding back on a choice due to lingering fears, looked at her friend. “The Jewish story,” she said, suddenly excited. Her mind buzzed. “It’s perfect! We could even perform it in the amphitheater! The play could rally the people against our enemies!”

“Yes,” Lucille said. “Ravenna as David, the Empire as Goliath.”

“I love it,” Daphne said immediately, and she pushed the Greek plays to the side.

“We only need a Bible,” said Lucille.

“We don’t need a Bible,” Daphne said. She sounded happy now. “We’ll make up our own version. I can write a short play based on the story. You can help!”

The two friends were up all night working on the play by candlelight. Daphne felt the rush of creativity that she had been missing so deeply since she left the theater. She took many liberties with the story, discretely integrating pagan myths here and there, abandoning any pretense of being true to the original scripture itself. David actually came from Ravenna in her story, and she boldly named Goliath Trokandas, the leader of the Isaurian forces. She often imagined David as Sebastian, bravely killing the man who would have killed her for her supposed sins.

“Now Trokandas will kill you for sure if he ever gets back into the city,” Lucille said.

“He was going to kill me anyway,” Daphne said. “Only Sebastian can protect me from him. Besides, this can make us even safer. Do you know what this play is? It’s a way now to excite the people against our attackers. They will love it.”

Lucille nodded with some annoyance. After all, she had been the one to point this out when she came up with the idea.

At her next meeting with the prefects Lucas and Emilio, Daphne suggested this performance of David versus Goliath in the amphitheater.

“A theater performance,” said Lucas, “after everything you said about being an actress?”

“Of course,” Daphne said. “But this isn’t a sinful play. This has nothing to do with my old life. Do you know what this is? This is propaganda. Do you know what that means? It means we’re showing the people that Ravenna is David against the imperial Goliath. We will get the people ready to declare their independence from the Empire once and for all, or to support Sebastian against the emperor.”

It was strange speaking so frankly with these two. But each of them knew that there was no future for them inside the Empire unless they overthrew the emperor. What had happened in Ravenna under their watch meant that the emperor, a crazed iconoclast, would have them all killed, and this knowledge cemented their minds together so tightly that they were able to openly discuss treason in their meetings.

Each of them now hoped Sebastian would take the throne. Each of them was relying on Sebastian’s return for their own personal safety.

And once the men saw the usefulness of this propaganda play, they agreed.

“This is much better,” Lucille told Daphne in bed on the third night since their original conversation about the idea. “Lucas and Emilio would never have gone along with your first plan,” Lucille added. “They would have fed you to the people.”

Trokandas Arrives at Ravenna

Under Daphne’s orders, signs went up around the city declaring that David versus Goliath, directed by Daphne, would be performed in the amphitheater the next week. She hadn’t even contacted anyone from her old theater company yet, but she was sure they’d agree. Lucas and Emilio hadn’t wanted Daphne to put her name on these advertisements, but she was too intoxicated with the idea of this as a moment for her to showcase her own talents to the people. So Lucas and Emilio had a long paragraph placed at the end explaining that the play was intended to celebrate the “Christian heritage” of Ravenna by demonstrating an inspiring story from the Bible, and the notice was read in multiple squares simultaneously to the people of the city.

Then, that night, the Isaurian army appeared in the fields outside the walls. The Isaurians stopped far short of reaching the gates.

The walls were soon full of the few soldiers Lucas and Emilio had at their disposal. There were dozens of soldiers in Ravenna, but there wasn’t an army. Sebastian had taken many men with him on his mission; so had Trokandas. Daphne stood up on those walls with Lucas and Emilio, looking out at the Isaurian army as dusk settled above them. This army was massive, much larger than the original Isaurian force, and Daphne figured they must have used gold from the icons to raise mercenaries.

“Now this really is David versus Goliath,” commented Lucas uncomfortably. “The same happens to us as happened to those bishops if Sebastian is not here soon.”

They heard the bells ringing: a call to many of the men of the city to come up out of the reserves and take their places along the walls. Defenses were being raised. Daphne hoped her actors were hiding; she would need them for her play.

“We need that play now more than ever,” Daphne said, terrified.

Emilio scoffed. “Only a woman could think that a play would solve this situation.”

Daphne glared at him. “A play can rally the people,” she said.

The horizon was dotted with enormous towers. Lucas and Emilio each knew what these were: city destroyers, capable of launching Greek fire into the city and tall enough for men to walk out from them and right onto the walls if they were to get close enough. Emilio’s mind raced with techniques for defending against these.

“The city could fall by tomorrow with our lack of manpower and the siege equipment possessed by the enemy,” Emilio said. “We have too much to do preparing defenses to have a silly play.”

“But the play is propaganda,” Daphne said, annoyed and also hoping now for one final performance before her death. “The people must be given something to hope for.”

“Then go perform your fucking play,” Emilio said angrily. “I’m busy with the actual work of defending this place.”

Emilio looked back on the moment when he’d stepped aside to allow protestors to kill the bishops. That decision had led to his promotion. Emilio had replaced the last prefect, who had died right beside him on that chaotic day. Briefly Emilio cursed himself for having betrayed the Empire. And yet what other choice could he have made? He felt as though he had no choice in anything. At the moment when the crowd had been pressing into the cathedral, doom was certain for anyone who opposed them, and all the guards who had tried to protect the bishops were dead, killed by the majority of guardsmen who’d flipped sides.

And now here were the Isaurians with their siege equipment and mercenary forces. After a long and mundane career as a Ravenna city guardsman, Emilio suddenly had no choice but to defend himself against imperial forces. He tried to tell himself that he was going to die a martyr’s death; he’d be protecting the people’s right to worship with their icons, and even he himself often worshiped with the aid of icons. But this sense of a martyr’s death was not enough to stifle his frustration at feeling as though he were thrown into the world without a will of his own: everything happening seemed dictated by circumstances rather than his own agency.

Trokandas on the Edge of Ravenna

“We shouldn’t have shown ourselves so early if we’re not attacking until dawn,” one of Trokandas’s officers had said.

But Trokandas wanted these people to see his massive army throughout the night. He wanted them to live out their final hours in terror.

Trokandas had heard all about the events in Ravenna and these only confirmed to him what he’d said to the emperor: Ravenna is an unredeemable city of sin, and at some point he would need to kill many, many people there in order to purge the city of icons.

“They are all idolaters there,” he had told the emperor, although he had never been to Italy, had known almost nothing about Ravenna, and had only hoped for an excuse to sack the place. “The only way to maintain an iconoclastic bishop in Ravenna,” he had told the emperor, “is by slaughtering the people and showing them what will happen to anyone who cherishes icons anywhere on the face of the earth.”

The iconoclastic Byzantine emperor had been very excited by these violent intentions and he had sent Trokandas to Italy with the authority to act upon them. And in one area Trokandas was sincere: his hatred for the idolaters. Had it not been for those who spread idolatry across the Christian world by convincing the people to worship gold instead of God, his own home city in Anatolia would not have fallen to the Muslims. All the Muslim conquests, Trokandas was certain, emerged as a punishment for the idleness of the idolatrous monks in the monasteries and also for the rulers of the Empire who had allowed the Christian world under their care to embrace idolatry wholesale.

He gazed up and down across his lines. The men had set up camp and now they were gathered around fires, laughing and chatting confidently.

The pope himself was still Trokandas’s captive. For a moment he thought to send the pope with a detachment of his men to the harbor, a few miles away from Ravenna, for immediate transport on a ship toward Constantinople.

But Trokandas did not want the pope to arrive in Constantinople without him. Trokandas wanted to be sure that the moment the emperor laid eyes on the pope he would also be laying eyes upon Trokandas.

“I’m the one who arrested the pope,” Trokandas said to one of his officers. “And I’m the one who will receive the credit for this in the literal eyes of the emperor.”

His officers liked this idea. When Trokandas prospered, they prospered, and so no one was in a rush to send the pope back ahead of Trokandas.

Now, once Trokandas and his men returned to Constantinople from this expedition, they’d be able to report numerous successes to the emperor simultaneously: the arrest of the pope; the destruction of dozens of monasteries; the sacking of Ravenna as punishment for the murder of multiple bishops; and, Trokandas thought, the defeat of Sebastian, whom Trokandas was sure would eventually arrive here with the intention of defending his wife Daphne.

“He won’t be a problem,” Trokandas said.

Trokandas had used gold from the icons to raise enough mercenaries in Italy for his army to now be around three times the size of Sebastian’s.

Trokandas liked Sebastian on a personal level. The man was a great commander and the two got along well. But this Trokandas knew: Sebastian was an iconophile, and there was no world where Sebastian would stay loyal to the emperor now.

Theatrical Preparations

Daphne summoned numerous friends from her theater days to the palace that night. They all arrived, although many were visibly angry with her over her speech in the square during which she had effectively denounced them all as sinners.

“I know how angry you all must be with me,” Daphne said.

They were all congregated with her in a large room off to the side from her bedchamber. The room was already in disarray, as Daphne and Lucille had been using the space throughout the day to act out theoretical scenes from their production of David versus Goliath. Now there were twenty people stuffed into the room, many of them with eyes full of suspicion for their old friend. Some sat on chairs, some on sofas, others on the floor, and many more were standing.

Knowing at this point she had nothing to lose, Daphne told them the truth. “But you must believe me when I tell you that it was all an act,” Daphne said. “I needed to save Lucille; I needed to save myself. And now with the Isaurians and their mercenaries outside the city, we need to save Ravenna by giving the people a story in which they can believe. That is why Lucille and I have chosen David versus Goliath from the Christian scriptures. We are David, small and tiny, while the Isaurians gather outside the walls as Goliath. Right now it’s not the people of Ravenna we have to fear. Right now it’s the imperial forces who will take revenge — ”

“For the killing of bishops!” a man shouted. Daphne was startled. This was Demetrius, one of her favorite actors from the theater company. He was sitting on one of the sofas. “We have nothing to do with these conflicts between Christians,” Demetrius said.

Daphne was startled that one of her own actors was speaking to her this way.

“You decided you cared more about gaining political power than you did about our art,” Demetrius said. Several others nodded along. “You involved yourself in these stupid disputes. We want nothing to do with you.” Demetrius stood up angrily. “You summoned us to the palace to impress us with all your wealth and power, but we want nothing to do with you.”

Now over half the people in the room were exclaiming their approval of Demetrius’s speech. Lucille, standing next to Daphne, looked at her sadly.

“We wish only to go home and be with our families,” Demetruis said.

At that moment Emilio burst into the room.

“Excuse me!” Daphne said, still playing regent. “You were not — ”

“Silence you stupid woman,” Emilio said. Then he turned and looked at the actors. “All men of fighting ability are hereby conscripted.” A group of guards rushed into the room after him. They began grabbing Daphne’s male actors, each of whom attempted futilely to resist.

“You can’t do this!” Daphne shouted.

“So this is why you brought us here!” shouted Demetrius, his hands held behind him by two guards.

“No!” Daphne shouted. “No! It is not! You can’t do this!” She looked helplessly at Emilio. “We need this play! The city needs this play!”

“If we don’t conscript,” Emilio said while Demetrius and the other men were dragged away behind him, “this city falls before your play sees daylight.”

“The actors should be exempt!” Daphne said.

“I have a family to protect,” said one of her other actors, and he batted away the guards who approached him. “I fight voluntarily. I don’t have time for plays.” The actor walked out of the room compliantly with the guards.

“No!” Daphne shouted. “We have a play to put on! We can save the city!”

“Just be quiet, Daphne,” Emilio spat at her. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“You did this!” Demetrius kept shouting from outside the room, his voice growing more and more distant. “You did this you stupid bitch!”

All the men were gone now, taken away just like that. The guards left as well. Then the remaining actors, all women, got up without a word and left Daphne with Lucille.

Daphne collapsed onto the ground and cried. Lucille knelt next to her, rubbing her back. “It’s okay, Daphne,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”