‘You have Aegyptians, right?’ Satyrus took a sponge from a basin and tried to clean himself. He was still partly drunk, but he felt that if he stopped moving he would fall back into the pit.
Philokles shrugged. ‘Some sailors. But right now, every ship with a fighting ram is at sea, watching for One- Eye or his son.’
Satyrus brushed his hair roughly, forcing the horsehair brush through his own as if to punish his transgressions. He put on short Thracian boots and a cloak, put a straw hat on his head and picked up a hunting spear.
‘First,’ he said, ‘I need to apologize to Kallista.’
Philokles nodded. ‘That might be a virtuous act,’ he said. ‘We drill all day at the sea wall. Not that we accomplish much. The Aegyptians have had all the war spirit beaten from them. They go through the motions like slaves.’ Philokles came and suddenly embraced Satyrus. Then he stepped back with his hands on the younger man’s shoulders. ‘Fighting in the phalanx is messy,’ he said. ‘Everything depends on the first two ranks. Everything.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I’ll be there?’
‘Right next to me. Can you keep my spear side safe?’ Philokles stepped away.
‘You trained me, Spartan.’ Satyrus grinned. The expression used muscles in his face he hadn’t used in days.
‘See you don’t embarrass me, then,’ the Spartan said.
Satyrus walked into his sister’s rooms, announced by Dorcus. He embraced his sister and apologized all at once. ‘I didn’t listen to a word you said,’ he pronounced. She looked terrible – pale and worried – but she smiled for him.
‘I’m your sister, stupid. I don’t need apologies.’ She hugged him nonetheless.
Satyrus kissed her, and they leaned their foreheads against each other for a moment. ‘Thanks to the gods,’ Melitta said. ‘I really thought you were gone. The veritable black pit of despair.’
‘Part of me is still there,’ he said quietly. ‘But Philokles gave me something to do. Acting is so much easier than thinking.’ He hoped that didn’t sound too bitter.
‘Actions have consequences,’ she said. Her eyes flicked away.
‘I keep learning that,’ he said. She was hurting, too – he could see it, but he couldn’t imagine what it was about. ‘I’m off to Cimon’s to recruit an army.’
‘A drunk, lecherous army?’ she said, brightly. ‘Nice of Philokles to find something for you. I’ll just sit here and weave or something.’
‘You’re not a lot better off than I am,’ Satyrus said.
‘No, I’m not,’ Melitta said. ‘And now that you’re back from the land of the dead, I may just go there. Come and talk to me? Promise?’
‘I’d be happy to help,’ Satyrus said in a whisper, and then louder, ‘Where’s Kallista?’ He already smelled her perfume.
‘Right here,’ said the avatar of Aphrodite. Dressed in white and perfumed, she was almost too much to look at. She offered him an embrace, but he took one of her hands, pressed it to his forehead and bowed.
‘My apologies, Kallista. I was weak. And behaved badly.’
‘Hah!’ Kallista drew him into an embrace. ‘Men!’ She smiled and gave him a very unsisterly kiss. ‘One of these days, young man.’
He flushed. But she embraced him again, and then gently pushed him away. He found that he had an oyster shell in his hand.
‘I should go,’ he said hurriedly, fooling no one.
‘Go then,’ his sister said. Something going on there – she looked caged, almost desperate, and he owed her. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing!’ she said. ‘Get out of my rooms before you burst!’
Relieved, he went. Only when he was outside in the courtyard did he think of her look at Xeno and how close the two of them had become on board ship. But then his whole mind went to the oyster shell in his hand.
The message inside the shell said, Lord Ptolemy speaks highly of you and your sister, and I will soon be moved to invite her to visit. The man who brings her might receive a reward.
He went out of the courtyard singing a hymn to Aphrodite.
The fear of pregnancy stalked Melitta’s sleep and her every waking hour. The loss of her virginity troubled her very little – Sakje girls did as they pleased, and she laughed at the posturing of Greek women. But the consequence loomed, and she listened to the music of her body with the avidity of a newcomer to the world of the body, and it carried tales.
Every rumbling of her stomach frightened her. Every itch, every feeling in her genitals, every change in her skin. A chance comment in the market – your hair is richer today, my lady – sent her into depression.
Her lover – Xeno – was worse than useless, vacillating between fear and wonder at what he had done and a strong desire to do it again. And she had a hard time recapturing any of the feeling of the ship about him. In Alexandria, he seemed a strong boy with a tan, and she feared that his obvious looks would give them away, and that the consequences would rule their lives.
She wasn’t going to marry Xeno. She was going to be queen of the Assagatje.
While her brother was still drinking himself into courage after coming back – such a fuss for so little – Xeno went away again when the Hyacinth went to sea to watch for the enemy fleet, and she was left in peace, until her brother walked out with a foolish oyster shell in his fist and Kallista turned to her.
‘Are you pregnant?’ she asked in a mater-of-fact voice. She did wait until Dorcus was clear of the room.
In a matter of minutes, she told everything. She wept in Kallista’s arms until the hetaira made clucking noises.
‘Not the lover I’d have chosen for you, but Hades, at least he’s clean and your own age. By your own will?’
Melitta had to smile at that. ‘I did all the work,’ she said.
Kallista shook her head. ‘I can imagine. Boys – all the same. Was it fun?’
Melitta shrugged. ‘Yes – no. Yes. It was. Didn’t hurt at all. None of that. But so little for so much worry!’
Kallista made a face. ‘Don’t say too much of that, honey bee. Men hate that.’ She frowned. ‘I wish I could tell you that you were safe, but I don’t know. How many days?’
‘Seventeen,’ Melitta said promptly – the whole scroll of her fears rolled into that one number.
Kallista nodded. ‘We course at the same time, so that means nothing. You should see blood in a week – Aphrodite, you did this at the wrong time, girl. Did I teach you nothing? Early or late in the month and you can make mistakes.’
‘And if I don’t?’ Melitta asked. She had hoped – hoped against hope – that when she told Kallista, the hetaira would know and calm all her fears.
‘Then you have a baby. There’s no need to borrow trouble by discussing all that now. That’s for a month from now – maybe more. Girls miss their courses – I still do, sometimes. Late, early, nothing – it’s like philosophy, honey – it never has the answer you need.’
‘I’m afraid.’
Kallista smiled. ‘Nothing to fear. Are you some streetwalker, or a slave in a rough house? Go and tell Sappho and Nihmu. Today. Get it done. People here love you. You understand me, girl? They even love me, and it took me time to get that – but you are the lady of this house.’
‘Sappho will throw me out,’ Melitta cried.
‘Sappho was a hetaira!’ Kallista said. ‘And she’s been a better mother to me than my mother ever was. Get your head out of your arse – or wherever it is – and tell Sappho. Do you love him?’
‘No,’ Melitta said in a small voice.
Kallista laughed. ‘That’s a mercy.’
Satyrus went to Abraham’s house first because Cimon’s was something he couldn’t face alone. Or because he missed the man – Xeno had turned very strange these last few weeks, and seeing Abraham seemed like a return to a better time. A safer time. Whereas Xeno now lived in a world of war. And Xeno was probably in love with his sister.
His stomach turned over, and he was standing in a public street, the intersection of two great avenues constructed by the conqueror to allow the breezes to move freely through his chosen city. He leaned against a
