technical achievement by starting each verse with a letter of her name.
I wrote it fair.
The next time I was served dinner by my master, I put it in her hand.
She didn’t react at all. She scarcely noticed me, in fact. She made lovely small talk, asked after my friends and then went on to talk of her new friends since the festival — young women of the upper classes who had condescended to her before, but now sought her out.
Indeed, Nikephorus confessed to me that he’d had new clients the last few days — a gang of rich boys who wanted armour.
‘My daughter is the talk of the town,’ he said happily.
And Julia gave me a look — as expressive, in her way, as any of Lydia’s.
I took the bait and swallowed it whole.
Several days passed. I worked very hard, and I exercised even harder. But her eyes seemed to be everywhere. For the first time in many years, I didn’t imagine Briseis. I didn’t pine for my dead Euphoria. I didn’t ever stop thinking about Euphoria, precisely, but it was not her body I pictured in my arms.
The young sprigs came to be fitted for armour. I fitted them, and they were young, empty-headed and rich, so they were easy to hate. I guess they assumed I was a slave.
They wagered on which among them would have her first. Anaxsikles looked at me as if he expected me to kill one on the spot. Since our very short duel, he saw me as Achilles come to life. Funny, if you think about it.
She appeared from time to time, dressed to please in a carefully pleated chiton and blue himation, and served wine.
‘I’ve never thought of bronze this way before,’ said one sprig.
‘So ruddy,’ said the second.
‘So… hard,’ said the third. They thought they were the wits of the world. They sailed out of the shop like triremes in a stiff breeze.
In that moment, seeing her watch them with something like adoration, I hated those three boys more than Dagon and Anarchos and my cousin Simon all put together in one awful husk.
But they were gone.
I kept working, and she went back to her rooms. Her father came in, looked at the three roughed-out helmets I’d done and the pairs of greaves Anaxsikles had nearly finished, and gave my arm a gentle squeeze. ‘We’ll all weather this,’ he said. ‘And be the richer and better for it.’
He straightened up and admired a nearly complete sword hilt I had on the table. I’d made a trade with a cutler so that I could have new swords for my friends. ‘I’m going out to meet friends,’ he said. ‘Lock up.’
One by one, the slaves and apprentices looked to me for permission to withdraw. Already, in most minds, I was the young master. I remember Anaxsikles kept polishing at a greave until he put it down in disgust.
‘I made a planishing error,’ he said. ‘I can’t polish that out.’
‘Go home,’ I said. ‘Look at it again in the morning.’
He laughed, grabbed his chiton and vanished.
Then Julia appeared in the shop with a cup of lukewarm wine — housekeeping was never her strong point. ‘I need you to watch the house,’ she said. ‘My mother needs me for an hour.’
I went back to my work. It was getting dark too fast for anything but general work, and finally I missed a simple blow, shook my head in disgust and frowned at the apprentice boy. ‘Go home,’ I said. ‘You’re a good lad, but I can’t see to work.’
He flushed at the praise, and was out of the door before I’d washed my hands.
I went and drank Julia’s warmed wine. It was warm in the shop, but cold outside, and I’d left the wine far longer than I should have. It was cold, and had a fine layer of shop dust on the surface — a bronze smithy is never clean. I drank it off anyway. I remember that taste so well.
I took the cup — a fine piece of bronzework, of course — up the steps to Julia’s kitchen. I gave the cup to a kitchen slave, a Sikel. She grinned.
‘You staying for dinner, master?’ she asked.
I shook my head. ‘Not invited, lass,’ I said.
‘Oh!’ said the serving girl. ‘Cook! He ain’t staying!’
Cook, a big Italiote woman who never seemed to understand that she was a slave, came out of the kitchen. ‘Missy says you are staying to dinner, young master. And the mistress said so, too. Said she’d be home by now,’ added the cook with a significant sniff.
Well.
‘I’ll give you a nice bowl of hot water and a towel, eh?’ said Cook.
‘Is it true you was a slave?’ said the girl.
I nodded. ‘Twice.’
She sighed. ‘I’d like to be free.’
I washed my hands and face. I had a lesson. I was going to miss it, and I wasn’t sure why.
No, that’s a lie. I knew exactly why I was missing it. I was letting down my teacher, I was distracting myself from my exercise, and I was quite possibly about to betray my master’s trust while deflowering his daughter.
That’s why I stayed to dinner.
Men’s reasons are complex animals, my young friends. I told myself many things, but here, with you, in the firelight of my own hearth, I know — I know — that I wanted her. And despite guest oaths, and friendship and trust and even love, I was willing to have her body, not even for the sweet desirability of it, but because other men wanted it, and I could not stop myself from this contest.
Bah! Fill my cup. I disgust myself. And I do not want to tell this part of the story.
Lydia came down to dinner dressed like a goddess in a play: like Artemis as the patron of young women, or Athena as Parthenos, the virgin. She had on a chiton of Syrian linen dyed the colour of a stormy sea that must have cost as much as five of my helmets. My critical eye saw that her pins had already ripped a line of very small holes in the cloth along the contrasting linen-tape edges of pure white. Over the chiton, which fell to the floor, she wore a himation of wool that was almost transparent, and fell in frilly folds to the floor — just off white, with a stripe of pure Tyrian purple. In her hair was a fillet of white linen tape, and on her feet Lydia had the most beautiful feet.
On her feet she wore sandals of gold. In fact, they were leather, with gold leaf laid carefully over the sandals, and again, I could see where she had now worn them enough that the gold had come away from the very top of the arch of leather over her foot.
Noticing these things is not the same as caring. She was as beautiful as a goddess. Her face was radiant, and her carriage was proud and erect. Every line of her body showed through the fabric. She had muscles on her legs and arms that enhanced her posture.
‘ The girl with the golden sandals has shot me with the dart of love,’ I said. I knew my poets.
A man of twenty-six has every advantage with a girl of fifteen. Compared to any other possible suitor, I was better. I was better.
And I should have known better, as well.
I led her to the table. I clapped my hands for the slaves, and when they came, I pointed at Lydia.
‘Does she not look like a goddess?’ I asked.
Cook gave her a hug, and the two girl slaves curtsied.
And we sat to dine.
If we had been aristocrats, I’d have reclined, I suppose — I’ve honestly only eaten by myself about a dozen times in my life. She’d have sat in a chair, or even fed herself in the kitchen. But this had developed a sense of occasion, and so I sat in a chair — men did, you know, back then — and Cook served us herself. We had chicken with a lovely herb sauce thickened with barley, and thick bread with olive tapenade, and some other opson that was made with tuna and highly spiced. At every remove, we expected Julia home.
One of the slaves brought us honeyed almonds, which were a special treat, as we knew Cook didn’t really like the mess. The slave girl had obviously sticky fingers and a lot of honey around her mouth, and Lydia and I both saw it: our eyes met, and we laughed aloud.
And her foot rubbed up along the length of the inside of my leg. And she looked at me, an openly curious look. It said, I surprised myself, there, but now that I’ve done it, what do we think?
