A generously breasted Arkadian reached into her bag for a sponge and a small oil flask shaped like an erect phallus. ‘Potainos! Will we be fucking tonight?’
She was so matter-of-fact she could have been asking what was on the menu. Well, in a way, she was.
Potainos was equally business-like. ‘Just a bit of cock-teasing and maybe a sticky handful.’
I watched the girl put her sponge and flask back in her bag. I supposed that design of flask was one good way to make certain that particular oil didn’t end up in someone’s kitchen.
‘Just as long as the guests know that,’ one of the musicians said dourly. He was a lyre player from Crete. There were two other pipe players and one with a hand drum. They were far more interested in checking their instruments than ogling these undressed beauties.
The lyre player caught my eye. ‘We’re not there just to play. If anyone gets rough with the girls, you get rough with them. Understand?’
‘Understood.’ I fervently hoped that Megakles’s guests would behave.
Potainos brought me a long grey tunic brocaded with startling red flowers. ‘If any of the dinner guests slips you some silver when a girl puts a smile on their face, you give it to me.’ He narrowed his eyes at me. ‘Are you expecting the usual share?’
‘No, thanks all the same. I’m not here to cheat anyone.’ Pretending to be a musician was one thing. I drew the line at playing whoremaster.
Potainos clicked his tongue, seeing how I was struggling to secure the pipe halter around my head. ‘Let me help you with that.’
Hyanthidas had found me a halter with wider leather bands than usual, to obscure my face all the more. There was an extra strap over the top of the head as well. That helped secure the wig I’d begged from Sosimenes, while we were waiting to hear back from the Corinthian.
I’d trusted the mask maker with the barest essentials of our plan, though not with everything that had led to it. Sosimenes had been happy to help and waved away any thought of payment. He’d said often enough how glad he was that Callias’s peace would save his sons from fighting in battles like the bloody clashes of his own nightmares.
Potainos didn’t blink when he discovered the false curls hanging down over my eyes. Enough of his girls were enhancing their own tresses with flowing locks shorn from some pauper or slave, or possibly an unwary horse’s tail.
The pipe players watched the two of us, amused. Neither of them wore a halter. Only a feeble musician would need such a thing for playing indoors. But, true to Potainos’s word, no one asked me any awkward questions.
Once we were done, the Aitolian clapped his hands. ‘Right, let’s be off!’
The girls hid their tantalising dresses under dowdy cloaks and we headed for Megakles’s impressive residence in the Diomea district.
This evening the city had a very different feel. The Dionysia was over, now that Oloros’s Theseid had won the tragedy competition, though personally I think Zoilos was robbed. The festival’s closing rites were concluded and everyone would be up at first light tomorrow, getting back to work.
As we threaded our way through the busy streets, we passed those who hired out their skills or labour heading home for a good night’s sleep. Merchants who’d be trading day-long in the agora were intent on the prospect of supper, barely sparing a glance for any passers-by. The wealthy had resumed their own entertainments. We saw another troupe of musicians heading for a private banquet, and Potainos and their leader exchanged a brief wave of acknowledgement.
Once we arrived, we humble hirelings weren’t invited into Megakles’s private dining room. We weren’t wanted until his honoured guests had eaten their fill of exotic delicacies. So we sat in the Kerykes courtyard and watched the rich man’s slaves carry out successive tables laden with plundered dishes, empty seashells and well-gnawed bones.
Over in the opposite portico, I saw Ambrakis, Aristarchos’s torchbearer, sitting with a handful of other tall, muscular men. These slaves were waiting to escort their masters home, so woe betide anyone prowling these streets after dark looking for well-dressed victims too drunk to fight back.
Ambrakis was chatting with the other bodyguards and I hoped he might glean some useful information before the night was out. I avoided meeting his gaze though. We didn’t want anyone to think we knew each other.
We were offered barley porridge. It was inadequately spiced, according to the lyre player’s whispered complaints. I hoped my refusal didn’t make me conspicuous, but I didn’t want to remove the pipe halter. Thankfully the food wasn’t nearly tempting enough to make me regret that. I barely sipped the thin, tasteless wine through the hole in my mouth strap. If I hadn’t already had good reason to dislike Megakles, such miserliness would have been enough.
The girls didn’t care. The food and drink was free and that made up for any lack of flavour. As they ate, they speculated about the guests in the dining room. Evidently these well-born citizens would pay Potainos generously for the right to fondle and kiss the sort of women they’d sneer at in the streets.
The dessert table was finally removed, bowls smeared with the remains of fruit in honey and dried grapes revived with aromatic wine. The girls gathered up their instruments: single pipes and light lyres. Two produced juggling balls from somewhere and the Arkadian girl fetched a set of pan pipes from beneath her stool. Standing up, they tugged open the unsewn sides of their dresses to reveal alluring skin from thigh to breast in every shade from barbarian ivory to Nubian ebony.
A
