“A barbarian! I love a he-man.” She tore her attention from the big man enough to notice me. “You brought two of them, dear? That shows ambition.”
Diotima said through gritted teeth. “We’re talking, Mother. ”
“Ah, well. You must come for a cool drink. It’s so hot and dusty in the street, don’t you think?” She took Pythax by his unresisting arm and led us into her receiving room. She sat him down and offered him wine. I watched with amusement as his eyes tracked her form when she swayed to the wine cooler.
“I can tell you’re the strong, silent type. Do you speak?” she teased him.
All too frequently, I wanted to answer, but instead I smiled inwardly as Pythax struggled to work out what one should say to a beautiful woman. Diotima leaned over to me and muttered unhappily, “This is cruel.”
Pythax said gruffly, “Yes, I do, lady, when there’s something to be said. But not to a lady who mocks me.” He put down his wine and stood. “I’ll be going now.”
Euterpe was astonished. So was I.
“What was that? What do you mean?”
“We never met before but you’re pawing me all over. I know you can’t mean that with a rough old man like me. I ain’t that pretty, so I reckon you’re mocking me on purpose. Well, Euterpe, you might be a highborn lady, and I might be a peasant ruffian, but I don’t take that from anyone.”
Euterpe was flustered. She took a step back and put her hands to her mouth as if she were genuinely upset.
“I…I’m sorry, Pythax. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just my way of dealing with men. I don’t know any other.” She put a hand lightly on his arm. “Please stay a moment.”
Diotima said quickly, “Yes, please stay, Pythax.”
He looked at Diotima with narrowed eyes, then at me. I nodded encouragement. Then he sat and picked up his wine once more. He muttered, “Sorry, I’m not used to…” and drifted into silence.
Euterpe sat on a couch apart from Pythax. Not only did she not lean back, she didn’t even cross her legs. She looked particularly uncomfortable.
I thought it was a good time to change the subject. “Euterpe, since we’re here, I have some questions about Tanagra. Did Ephialtes know anyone there?”
“We have had this conversation before. I didn’t involve myself in politics.”
“Did anyone from Tanagra come to visit?”
“He never received any visitors here.”
“Did he ever speak of enemies?”
“Constantly. How many would you like?”
“Any from Tanagra?”
“No. All conservatives.”
“And you didn’t see Ephialtes the morning he died? You didn’t come out of your rooms before he left?”
“Not during that argument! I wasn’t going down there and getting involved. I’d had enough of it the night before.”
“What argument?” I hadn’t heard this before. I looked at Diotima, taken aback, who in turn was staring at Euterpe in fury.
“Mother, must you bring that up again?”
“I didn’t, dear, your boyfriend did.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. You couldn’t wait to say it, could you, Father wanting me to marry?”
“Well, he did, dear Diotima. Really, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. It’s not as if you seem to have any objections to men.” She glanced at me slyly and winked.
“Marrying for what I can get out of it is no different than selling my body.”
Euterpe turned to Pythax and me. “Diotima has invented a philosophy of love. Apparently this means she must never have sex unless she does it from her own heart. So she refuses to take advantage of any man and instead must be taken advantage of. Both Ephialtes and I wanted her to marry. Ephialtes even began the negotiations and could have had the whole thing arranged months ago. But the ungrateful wretch refused to cooperate, and since she wasn’t his legal offspring he couldn’t force the issue like any sensible father would. Really, she was most stupid. She could have been a citizen by now.”
“And be a whore like you? I’d rather die!” Diotima shouted in fury.
“I am not a whore, and you will kindly remember the difference between a hetaera and the common pornoi,” Euterpe said between gritted teeth.
“Ah yes. Hetaerae get paid more.”
From the way Diotima had made the accusation I could tell this was a sore spot for her mother.
“I am what I am, and you will remember it is what I did to look after you, you ungrateful, pompous, righteous little ass of a child. You know nothing of what it takes to survive. Nothing! You’ve never been hungry. You’ve been pampered from the moment you were born. I gave you the best of everything. And, yes, to do it I had to lie on my back and spread my legs, but I did it for you.”
Diotima said sweetly, “I think you have that the wrong way around, Mother dear. You spread your legs, so you had me to look after. The spreading comes before the child.”
“Is that what you think? Then let me tell you something, wretched ingrate. The moment you were born your father picked you up. He was taking you away. Yes, that’s right, Ephialtes was taking you to Ceramicus. He said he had no place for a girl-child, a son might have been different, but an illegitimate girl was good for nothing but the urns. I begged him not to, begged. I offered him anything in the world, everything I had, if only he would leave me my child. And so he did, and the price I paid for you was to be bound to him for the rest of my life.”
Diotima swallowed and said nothing. There are two ways to dispose of an unwanted child, either leave them on the hillside to die of exposure, or drop them in a funeral urn in the cemetery and walk away.
“He let you live for love of me. Dropped you on the bedclothes and walked away. And when he took an interest, arranged that marriage, I thought, no one will ever be able to do to my little girl what he did to me. The wife of a citizen can keep her children, some of them anyway. She doesn’t have to watch them all be taken away to die. She has a place, some security. And then, when you refused to marry, I saw the look on his face and I remembered the day you were born and I think he was thinking he should have taken you away after all.”
Diotima was crying. “Oh, Mother!” Diotima threw herself into Euterpe’s arms and the two of them sobbed.
Pythax and I let ourselves out. We were both feeling somewhat glum and embarrassed by the women’s emotions.
“Pythax, did any of that make sense to you? I mean, the way they got so carried away?”
“No, lad.” He hesitated. “This Euterpe, she was Ephialtes’?”
“Yes.”
“But she’s a hetaera.”
“She was, years ago. I don’t know if it counts if she was only seeing Ephialtes for years.”
Pythax grunted. “You think she only saw Ephialtes, do you? I guess she’s got trouble now, her man’s gone. Or is she happy he’s dead?”
“I don’t think so.”
“She ain’t exactly dressed like a grieving widow.”
“Euterpe isn’t the sort to display emotion, or rather not that particular one. There are other emotions she does really well. She might go back to her trade.”
Pythax grunted.
We parted. I went to the Polemarch, whom I found at his office in the Epilyceum.
He bade me sit and sat himself beside me in a manner wholly alien for an important public citizen dealing with a young man of unimportant family. He looked at me with blue eyes, but nothing softened the square face or the hard lines around his mouth. He smiled, but there was something intellectual about his smile, it was the smile of a man who wanted to be seen smiling, as sincere as the priest who apologizes to his sacrifice.
“Now, Nicolaos, son of Sophroniscus, I have been hearing good things about you.”
I doubted that mightily, but didn’t know how to say so without causing offense, so I kept silent. The Polemarch’s face was not naturally expressive. I had no idea what he was expecting from me. After a pause, he resumed.
