The innkeeper started to get off the floor. She flicked one nicely arched foot at him and it caught him on the temple, and he was out.
Quite a performance.
She collected her coins, showing a great deal of herself, doing little acrobatics like walking on her hands — naked — to pick up coins, and doing the splits and backwards handsprings and such stuff. She put the coins into a bag around her waist that seemed to be her only permanent possession. This process went on a long time, because men threw more money and she had to come up with ever more inventive methods of picking it up.
Finally, she pulled Seckla’s cloak around her and suddenly, with a spring, she was sitting on the bench across from me, where I sat beside Dionysus.
‘You two are the captains, yes?’ she asked.
Dionysus shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he said.
I pointed at Neoptolymos, who was very carefully not looking.
‘He’s a captain. So’s young Achilles, there.’ Achilles was Dionysus’ hard-bitten second.
Achilles, whose real name was Teukes, gave me a mock glare. He was older than any of us, and calling him ‘young Achilles’ was, well, teasing, of a sort. Hah, hah.
At any rate, she leaned across the table, and I couldn’t really keep my eyes on her face, if you take my meaning. I was old, but not so very old.
‘I have something to sell,’ she said, with a wink.
‘I’m sure any man in this room will buy,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘Not that. I don’t sell that — what do you think I am? A whore? I’m a dancer. Listen, trierarchs. I have something to sell. The value of it won’t last.’ She shrugged, a lovely motion.
Dionysus was quicker witted than I. ‘Information?’ he asked.
She smiled at him. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, reaching up to put her hair back up.
It takes a superior courage to be a woman, alone in a room full of pirates, wearing nothing but a borrowed cloak and dickering over the price of information. I couldn’t do it.
‘Are you a slave?’ I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘On and off,’ she said. She shrugged. ‘Just now, I own myself.’
‘Tell me your information and I’ll tell you what it’s worth,’ I suggested.
She smiled. ‘You have a special herb and I won’t ever get pregnant?’ she shot back. ‘You’ll pay tomorrow? Your rich aunt just died and you haven’t got the bequest yet?’
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
She leered. ‘Don’t be like this. I have something amazing to relate, and you are my only customers. By Aphrodite, gentlemen!’
‘How much do you want, then?’ Dionysus asked.
‘A talent. In gold.’ She looked back and forth, evaluating our reactions.
‘Ten silver drachma would seem to be more your price,’ Dionysus said.
‘Ten silver mina,’ she said.
‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Is this shipping information?’ I asked.
She grew demure. ‘Perhaps.’
‘On this coast?’ I asked.
She looked down. ‘No. But by Aphrodite, gentlemen, it’s an opportunity for wealth, beyond-’ She shook her head.
‘How’d you get it, then?’ I asked.
‘A gentleman friend told me some things,’ she said, smiling.
‘Navarchs don’t actually whisper secrets to porne,’ Dionysus said, his voice hard. ‘Go and ply your trade with the others, woman.’
She looked at me. ‘Why? You two are heroes. I want to tell you. Death to Carthage. Eh? We all hate the bastards. Why can’t I make a killing with you?’
Dionysus caught her, pinned her hand to the table and put a knife against her wrist.
‘Hey!’ she said, and then the confidence went out of her.
‘I wager this is a trap,’ Dionysus said. ‘You are far too expensive and far too out of place to be here. Who told you to come here?’
She wriggled. ‘Damn you! Every porne on the waterfront knows who you are and how much cash you have! I know something worth knowing! I won’t give it for free!’
Dionysus rolled his dagger blade over her wrist, and she whimpered. He was a cruel bastard. In fact, he liked inflicting pain — it wasn’t just that he was a strong leader. He liked watching his men suffer when he trained them.
‘I can maim your hand,’ he said. ‘Or your face. Or have every oarsman on my ships fuck you till you die. Now talk, whore.’
I can be a hard man. I’ve killed a lot of men, and some women. But this sort of thing sickened me.
On the other hand, I was fairly sure Dionysus was right.
Seckla, on the other hand, was watching, and he wasn’t having any of it. ‘Let her go,’ he said, lurching up to our table in drunken arete.
Dionysus pushed the blade down harder.
She moaned. ‘I’m not-’
Seckla pulled at her hand. I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause her more pain, but he rotated her body and she screamed: ‘Fuck you, you bastards! I’m not lying!’
Dionysus leaned back and let her go.
She snatched her hand away and nursed it against her breast. She seemed smaller and dirtier. She began to cry.
‘Why?’ she asked, looking at me. ‘Why did he have to do that?’
‘I’ll slit your nose, next,’ Dionysus said. He leaned back and motioned a porne for wine. He looked at me. ‘You can’t believe any of this.’
I rubbed my beard.
Dionysus rolled his eyes, even as Seckla tired to comfort the dancer and she kept away from him. ‘Listen, if you want this woman, lean her against the wall and take her from behind so you don’t have to listen to the shit that spews from her mouth,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a door that opens and closes a great deal.’
I shook my head. ‘She has a fair amount of courage,’ I said. ‘I want to hear her information.’
She turned and threw herself at my knees. ‘Please!’ she said. ‘I will-’
I raised a hand. ‘Listen to my terms. You want to offer us a target, yes?’
She nodded emphatically. ‘A rich target.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘You come along, as our guest. I will make you some guarantees — swear oaths with you. You will receive a share of our take — when we make the capture. Not before.’
She shrank away. ‘Never. Go to sea — on a pirate ship? You must think I’m simple.’ She laughed. It was a terrible laugh. ‘That’s not the way I want to die — raped to death by criminals.’ Her eyes flickered to Dionysus. ‘I thought you were different — the heroes of Lades and Marathon.’ She spat.
Dionysus shrugged. ‘I think Arimnestos is too kind,’ he said.
She spat on the floor. ‘My curse on all your kind,’ she said, and ran out of the taverna.
Seckla glowered at me.
I nodded. ‘Go and chase her down and make her a better offer,’ I suggested.
He stumbled after the dancer. Now, I don’t think Seckla had shown interest in five women in his entire life up until then, so you may find my choice odd, but women can be sensitive to these things, and Seckla was not a hard man. Seckla suffered every time he had to fight — every wound he inflicted sat on him. He was only with us because of his love for me — and for Neoptolymos and Doola and Daud.
He followed her into the edge of darkness.
I remember telling Dionysus that he was a right bastard. I remember him telling me I was a fool.
In the morning, Seckla was sleeping with the woman wrapped in his arms on a palliasse of straw under the upturned hull of the Lydia. She was as pretty in the morning, rising from her blankets, as she was in the night — and as naked. She ran into the water and bathed, and wrapped herself in Seckla’s chlamys and planted herself in front of
