price. I didn’t haggle. She grinned at me.
‘You’re the new smith,’ she said, as she took my money. ‘Going to marry our Lydia, are you, boy?’
News travels fast.
Then I went to the silversmith’s ghetto, and traded six of my good bronze pins for one heavy silver cloak pin. The smith came out and dealt with me in person. I knew him from the gymnasium. He fingered the chlamys. ‘I know that work,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see a young man do well. See that you stay among us.’
Dressed in my finery, I went to the great Temple of Poseidon by the harbour, and there I counted twenty drachma into the bronze urn by the entrance, watched at a distance by one of Anarchos’s runners. I knew most of them by now, as I was in the city all the time. A day-priest — one of the citizens — came and clasped my hand.
‘First fruits of a trading voyage,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘But you are surely the new smith — the one who fought at Marathon?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘I am also sometimes a trader — a sailor.’
He laughed. ‘Any Hellene serves the sea. The god thanks you. We do too. We need a new roof.’
From the temple, with my cloak on, pinned with fine silver, I walked down to the waterfront where Anarchos sat with his ‘friends’. He had two big ‘friends’ who stood behind him. I stood at the edge of the terrace until a slave deigned to notice me, and then one of the big men came and led me to the great man’s presence.
He looked me up and down slowly, and then gestured with his stick at the stool closest to him. ‘Sit!’ he said.
Wine was brought.
‘You have something for me? And you have brought it with a proper humility?’ he said, loudly, because this being a patron of the lower orders was a performance art.
I nodded. Took a purse from a fold of my cloak and put it in his hands.
‘We put our first fruits in the temple,’ I said. ‘So you have our second fruits.’
He glanced in the bag, and if he was disappointed, he hid it well. ‘Very proper,’ he said with a firm nod. He leaned forward. ‘Nice cloak,’ he said.
‘I may be courting,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘So I hear. Although other things come to my ears. You tried to mix with the citizens. That was foolish.’
I shrugged. And smiled.
Just for a moment, I threw back my cloak and looked him in the eye. Lydia, in a similar flash of the eye, could convey I am a virgin, and yet I burn with a fire so hot that you would flinch from it.
I could learn from a fourteen-year-old girl.
In one flash of the eye, I said I fought in the front rank at Marathon, and I’ve buried more enemies than you’ll ever have. You may have the upper hand here, but you do not want a fight.
Then I dropped my eyes, smiled and went back to my wine, which was good wine.
He nodded, leaned forward, and put a hand on my shoulder. He was not afraid of me. That, by itself, was interesting.
‘I wish you luck, smith. Your friends — they are lucky to have you. I think we understand each other.’
‘I will continue to value your… friendship, when I own a shop,’ I said.
He took a breath.
I let one go.
We both smiled.
I rose, shook his hand as lesser man to greater, and walked away.
A few paces on, he called out: ‘Are you really Arimnestos of Plataea?’
I turned back. ‘Yes,’ I called.
He nodded.
When I got home, Doola was sitting by the door with a cudgel, and Neoptolymos and Daud were in their leather armour. I shook my head.
‘I told you so,’ Daud said to Doola. He fingered my cloak. ‘There goes all our profits.’
Demetrios raised an eyebrow.
‘It is done,’ I said.
Daud looked at me. ‘You are the brains here, but I swear, Ari, you’ll wish we’d killed the bastard.’
Neoptolymos agreed. ‘We can take his whole gang.’
‘And the citizens of the city? And the courts?’ Demetrios nodded to me. ‘How much?’
‘I bought the cloak from my own money,’ I said, a little defensively. ‘Twenty for Anarchos, and twenty for Poseidon.’
Daud shrugged and Neoptolymos stared at the floor, but Doola clapped me on the back.
‘And now, brothers, I have a plan.’ I looked around. ‘Are we still going to Alba?’
A chorus of cheers erupted. Damn, it makes me want to weep, even now. We had the dream — the best dream men ever dreamed. We were going to be heroes. That dream bound us as thoroughly as iron manacles, but better by far.
‘Listen, then,’ I said. ‘Anarchos wants to own us. He wants to loan us money. When we can’t pay it, he’ll own our boat and our lives and get his claws into a smith.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ve been offered the bronze-smith’s daughter, friends.’
You can imagine what response met this. I’ll leave you to picture it, friends, because many of you are too young to hear the expressions that men use to each other.
Heh, heh.
‘Listen, you sex-starved oarsmen! Anarchos has every reason to want a piece of us.’ I smiled. ‘So we risk it all — we make another voyage to Italy for perfume. If we make it, we make a good profit, and then we go to Anarchos to borrow money for a larger ship. ’ I looked around at them. ‘He won’t loan us enough for us to succeed. But he won’t know how much we already have.’
Demetrios got it immediately. ‘We could never come back here again,’ he said. Just thinking about it made him breathe heavily.
Doola got it, too. ‘So we take the great man’s money, and we just sail away. Apparently to Etrusca, for perfumes.’ He laughed his great laugh.
Daud joined the laughter, and Seckla, and finally, so did Neoptolymos.
One of my better plans.
The next morning I realized that my plan had two painful flaws.
One was that I had to pretend that I was going to marry Lydia, or at least, that I hadn’t decided.
Herein lies the complexity of the human heart, my young friends. When I was in Nikephorus’s shop, I wanted to marry her. I wanted that life.
When I was in my two rooms, staring at the place amid the thatch where the money rested, all I wanted was Alba. I was both men. Both men lied, both told the truth.
And so, though I had intended to make the dangerous winter crossing to Italy with the boat, I couldn’t go. If I had, Anarchos would have seen in a moment that I wasn’t staying.
So I had to sit at home, while they took the risks.
Or sit in the andron of Nikephorus’s house, with Lydia playing the lyre, or singing. We were left together more and more.
Lydia was quite sure we were to wed. And she was quite prepared to move on. Quite aggressively prepared, really. She was perfectly modest. She didn’t grab my shoulders and push her tongue down my throat — pardon me, ladies, but I’ve known it done. But autumn turned to winter, it grew colder and wetter outside, and Lydia wore less and less to our chaperoned evenings. Her mother either took no notice or cooperated actively. Things were said.
I remember one evening she finished a song and said, in a matter of fact voice: ‘My best friend kissed her husband for months before they were wed.’ She smiled, and went back to playing the lyre.
When she danced, her hips took on a life of their own. When she handed me wine, her fingers brushed mine.
Listen, my young friends. A woman has natural defences against the assault of a man. A woman is like a
