White Lotus Page 16
“Don’t know as I’d call that ‘easy,’” Doricha replied. “Seems you did an awful lot of work for the money.”
“Oh, that rolling around and moaning isn’t hard. It’s all theatrics—like the shows the players put on, down in the amphitheaters. I can teach you how to do it; it’s easy enough to learn.” Archidike threw an arm around Doricha in an unexpected show of camaraderie. “I don’t mind teaching you. You put on a good show of being sweet and innocent—that’s your style, isn’t it? But you’re really a sharp girl, Doricha. I can tell; you’ve got watchful eyes. Someday, when we’ve both bought our freedom, we could work together, you know.”
“Together? I’ve only heard tell of hetaerae being in competition. At each other’s throats, like. How could we work together?”
“Most hetaerae work on their own once they’re freed, I grant you that. But a few of them work together. There are all sorts of ways to do it. We could play off each other, make a big show of the contrasts between us—you’re the pristine little farm girl, I’m the dangerous cat—that sort of thing. Or we could put on shows together, if you take my meaning. Might be, we can appeal to a wider group of men if we work together: you’re the great dancer; my particular talents may be less refined, but they’re in higher demand. Imagine: you dancing and playing the gentle flower for the men who like that sort of thing, who like to feel they’ve got real refined taste—and me taking them off to the nearest closet to relieve them of their silver.”
“Do you think we really could go into it together?”
“Of course. Once we’re free, we can do whatever we please. Who’s to stop us?”
“But you’ll get free ever so much sooner than I will.”
“Don’t lose sleep over it, Duckling. While I’m working out there in Memphis, a free hetaera, I’ll find us a beautiful house where we can live, just the two of us and our servants. So by the time you’re all done with the old pig Xanthes, it’ll be straight to the heights of society for you.”
They arrived back at Xanthes’ house, to Doricha’s relief. Archidike shouted for the guards to open the gate. The blue-robed men greeted her as she came inside, but the young hetaera made no reply, abandoning the candor she’d shown on the walk with Doricha and resuming her act as the haughty gem of Xanthes’ stable. The garden shade swept its crisp blessing across Doricha’s skin, driving off the terrible heat and cooling the sweat from her body. She sighed with relief and lowered the feather fan, letting Archidike lead the way back toward the Stable.
The big chamber was empty when the girls returned. “Middle of the day,” Archidike said. “Most of the girls are off working by now, heading out to meet their first assignments. The newer ones will be out in the garden taking lessons—practicing their singing and dancing, that sort of thing. But since we worked today—” Archidike stretched luxuriously— “we’re exempt from our lessons. Three hours at least until supper; if I were you, I’d use the time wisely, and sleep. There’s never enough time to sleep, believe me.”
Archidike stepped into her alcove and shut her curtain with an abrupt, suspicious jerk. A moment later, Doricha heard furtive rustling behind the curtain—Archidike extracting her money from beneath her clothing, hiding it away in whatever secret nook she’d found to hoard her growing fortune.
Doricha undressed. She hung the pink robe and green girdle on the hook beside her alcove; Amenia would collect the garments that night, check them for damage, and send them off to be cleaned. She plucked a clean kerchief from her shelf and wiped the sweat from her body, then settled on her bed with a sigh.
She wanted to sleep, and the gods knew she was tired enough that she should have nodded off easily. But now that she was lying still, in the quiet of the Stable, she found that thoughts of Aesop preoccupied her mind. Did Aesop know what had happened to her? Had Iadmon confessed what his secret weakness had cost him?
If only I could get some word to Aesop. He could find a way to get me back safely, and then I could become a hetaera on my own terms, without having to train in Xanthes’ way, or live here in the Stable, or put up with Vélona’s temper.
For a long while—hours, perhaps—Doricha thought of Aesop, dreaming up a hundred different ways to contact him… and discarding each in turn, for every plan she made was more flawed and impossible than the last. Sleep evaded her in that grim territory of hopeless surrender to her fate. This was her life now—Xanthes, the Stable, trailing after Archidike as she flitted from patron to patron. She had best make up her mind to accept it, for there was nothing she could do now to change it.
As the afternoon wore on, its pervasive heat crept even into the depths of the Stable. The air grew closer; the clamoring smells of a dozen different perfumes hung more thickly in the room, reviving Doricha’s headache with a vengeance. When the door banged open at the far end of the room, the sound was enough to make her wince.
A few of the newer girls, freed from their lessons, had come back to the Stable to prepare for the supper hour. Their voices were loud and tense, and their insistence on talking over one another set Doricha’s teeth on edge.
“I swear to Isis, I never saw a worse dancer than you.”
“Give over, you lumbering hippopotamus. Think you’re the gods’ gift to dancing, but—”
“You would swear to Isis. The Egyptian princess here thinks she’s too good for any proper Greek gods.”
“Proper? Whose land are you in, anyway? This is still Kmet, even if it’s over-run with Grecian insects.”
“Kmet!” one of the girls hooted with cruel amusement. It was, Doricha knew, the native name for Egypt.
“Better watch yourself, Bastet. Grecian insects have kept your precious Kmet from crumbling into nothing.”
“We thank you, I’m sure,” Bastet retorted, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“You’d better.”
Bastet spat a few Egyptian words at the other girl. “Ankh, wedja, seneb.” Life, health, prosperity—it was the traditional expression of greeting and gratitude, delivered with an unmistakable note of irony. Bastet went on in Greek: “You pus-filled cleft. All praises to the Greeks, the saviors of Egypt!”
“The Greeks did save you ignorant beasts from yourselves. Don’t forget it.”
“Yes, we’ve been doing so poorly these past three thousand years. You call yourselves saviors; I call you invaders!”
There was a loud bump from Archidike’s alcove, then the rattle of her curtain as she ripped it aside. “If you can’t shut your ugly mouths, then go find some cocks to stuff them with! We’re trying to sleep!”
“Shouldn’t you be picking lice from your pubic hair?” one of the girls shouted to Archidike. “Everybody knows you’re infested!”
Doricha crept to the edge of her bed. She peeked around the edge of the alcove. Archidike was on her feet, arms folded below her breasts, leaning casually against the wall. She watched the fight build with a lazy smile. The girls who had returned to the Stable gathered in a tense knot, milling and shouting. At the center, two stood almost toe-to-toe, bristling in one another’s faces like cats in an alley.
“Invader!” one of them spat. Dark of skin and hair, she could only be Bastet, the native Egyptian dancer.
“Mindless pack-ass!” the other screeched. She had the lighter coloring that marked her as a Greek.
Bastet lurched at the other, swinging her fist. The Greek girl ducked, then dodged sideways and caught Bastet by the hair. They were both screeching now, like two eagles locked in aerial combat. They tore at one another with their talon-like nails, slapped and kicked with the violence of pent-up rage. Doricha gaped at the fight, but Archidike only laughed—coolly amused, unruffled by the force of the two girls’ fury.
The door banged open again. Vélona strode in with plump Amenia close behind her. The mistress cleaved through the group of spectators like a knife through goat’s cheese; she and Amenia each seized one of the fighters and pulled them apart. Vélona shook Bastet hard, bringing her back to sense.
“Blesséd Aphrodite’s glorious, golden tits,” Vélona boomed, “what is going on here?” She didn’t give either girl a chance to answer her question, but forged straight ahead. “How many times have I told you useless chits you’re never to strike one another? How many times?”
The group of spectators had scattered to the edges of the room. Every girl wisely held her tongue.
Vélona turned Bastet roughly around and looked her over. The thin woman’s cheeks hollowed even more as she frowned. Even from the other end of the Stable, Doricha could see that Bastet had taken a fist to the face. Her left eye was red and puffy; soon it would turn a hideous purple-black.
Vélona glared around the room for a long, silent moment, stabbing each girl in turn with the daggers of her eyes—even Doricha, still half-hidden in her alcove. Then she shouted through the open door: “Guards! Two of you in here, now—move yourselves, or Master Xanthes will hear why!”
“Please, Mistress,” the Greek girl said. “We’re sorry, aren’t we, Bastet? We won’t fight again.”
“Keep your mouth closed, Efthalia, or I’ll close it permanently.”
Efthalia subsided and hung her head. Doricha could see how she trembled.
When the guards arrived, Vélona shoved Bastet and Efthalia into their hands, then led the way out of the Stable. She gave no command to the other girls in the room, but they were all quick to follow. Clearly, they had seen this before. Archidike jerked her head at Doricha, silently bidding her to come along. On numb feet, Doricha joined the rest of Xanthes’ girls as they made their way out to the garden.
Vélona led her charges to a stone-paved courtyard, bare except for a fountain, which splashed gaily in the hot sun. The girls formed up in a half-circle; Doricha, terrified of incurring the mistress’s wrath, took her place among them. Archidike fidgeted beside Doricha, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and sighing heavily, annoyed at having lost the chance to nap.
“Strip off your tunics,” Vélona said.
Bastet and Efthalia complied. Neither lifted her eyes from the ground. All the girls stood in grim silence, until Amenia bustled up with a wide leather strap in her hands. She passed it to Vélona.
“Turn around,” the mistress said.
The two condemned girls reluctantly turned, presenting their backs to the mistress. Velona swung the strap over her shoulder, paused, then cracked it hard across Bastet’s back. Bastet jumped; a strangled cry ripped from her throat, but she quickly regained control. Efthalia was next; she flinched and shuddered under Vélona’s blow. The mistress lashed each girl in turn. The smack of her strap against their exposed flesh played a hideous, mocking counter-harmony to the splashing of the innocent fountain.
Archidike leaned close to Doricha’s ear. “Wide strap like that won’t leave any lasting marks on their flesh. You know why they’re being punished, don’t you?”
“For fighting,” Doricha whispered faintly.
Archidike chuckled, but not loudly enough to attract Vélona’s attention. “Don’t be a fool. No one cares if we fight. In fact, they expect it. No, Efthalia is being punished for giving Bastet the black eye, and Bastet is getting it for allowing herself to be marred. She can’t work again until that eye’s healed, you see. They’ve wasted the master’s time and money, for now Bastet will be a useless mouth to feed until her looks have returned.” Archidike’s voice dropped lower still. Doricha couldn’t decide whether she sounded menacing or humorous. “Take the lesson, little duckling: if you’re going to hurt another hetaera, do it in a way that leaves no physical trace.”
After ten lashes each, Vélona handed the strap to Amenia. “Take these two to the baths and leave them there,” she said to the guards. “Bastet, Efthalia: wash the tears from your faces and make yourselves presentable for supper. The rest of you: get out of my sight, and don’t let me catch any of you striking or scratching one another. Am I clear?”
Archidike and Doricha turned back toward the Stable, but Vélona snapped her fingers at them, and Archidike paused.
“Yes, Mistress?”
“I’ve had a request for the two of you,” Vélona said. “You’re both to attend Good Man Diokles’ party tomorrow night.”
“Diokles… do you mean that young spice trader?” Archidike said. There was a note of hopeful excitement in her voice.
“The very same. His wife has just given birth to a son; he’s in the mood for a grand celebration. You’ll both see Amenia tonight after supper, to plan what you’ll wear.” Vélona narrowed her eyes at the bath house, into which Bastet and Efthalia had just disappeared. “Don’t get any black eyes, in the meantime.”
13
The Spice-Merchant’s Party
Doricha and Archidike rode to the spice-trader’s party in one of Xanthes’ most beautiful litters, for Diokles’ party was far across town, on the western edge of Memphis where the bustling city gave way to the peaceful, rolling fields and orchards of the farming district. The litter was gilded, as were most of Xanthes’ possessions, its long carrying poles carved like outstretched harpy’s wings, the upright posts that supported its silk curtains crowned with roaring lion’s heads. Doricha reclined comfortably on dark-blue cushions, each one smelling faintly of the soft wool inside, and watched Memphis go by in the dusky tail-end of sunset. Vividly, she recalled her last litter ride—with Iadmon, on the night when he’d lost her to Xanthes. He had seemed so sad that evening—so wistful. Had he suspected he might lose Doricha? Had the gods whispered some dire premonition in his ear?
“You’re quiet,” Archidike said. “Are you sulking?” She lounged on the cushions beside Doricha, her dress pulled up so the cool air could caress her thighs. She looked lovely, in a forceful sort of way. The gown Amenia had chosen for her was flame-orange, a shade that bordered on the garish but reflected Archidike’s brazen style to perfection. She held a tiny white clover blossom by its thin stem. She plucked out its tubular petals one by one, sucked the sweet nectar from the base of each, then spat it away with a puff of breath.
“What’s there to sulk about?” Doricha said.
Archidike toyed with the end of Doricha’s green sash—the girdle that marked her as untouchable. “This, for one thing. You won’t have any fun at the party, poor thing. Won’t make any money, either.”
“Reckon my time for all that will come soon enough.”
“Soon enough to pay for the use of this dress?” Archidike blew one of the clover petals onto Doricha’s robe. It was an exquisite creation—ivory silk, embroidered all over with lotuses and ibis birds, picked out in golden threads. “Or this litter ride? Xanthes’ best litter. You can bet it’s costing us a small fortune.”
“My situation’s no different from what yours was, when you were my age.” Doricha’s pang of nostalgia, her longing for better days with Iadmon and Aesop, had made her snappish. “Why do you try to hurt me and frighten me, Archidike? I never did a thing to you.”
Archidike tossed her head and laughed lightly, as if Doricha had missed some all-too-obvious joke. “That’s just my way. You mustn’t take it personally, Duckling. All the girls in the Stable know what I’m like.” She fixed Doricha with a thoughtful stare. “You don’t have to wait until you’re officially made a hetaera, you know. You can start earning your money now.”
“This says I can’t,” Doricha retorted, holding up the end of her green sash. “And what would Vélona do, if I came back with my girdle undone and silver in my hand? She’d beat me senseless.”
“That girdle isn’t a fortress. It’s sewed around your middle, not between your legs. Or is that dress so heavy that it can’t be pushed up?”
Doricha’s face flushed. She said nothing. In truth, the same thought had occurred to her: the green silk sash was a very weak shield, and the threads that held its knot in place could be snapped as easily as one tears a spider’s web from a garden path. If she wanted to remain untouched, she must place her trust in the men of Memphis. Would they respect the green sa
sh, and leave her be? Could men of Xanthes’ sort ever be trusted?
“If the men have any sense, they’ll leave me alone,” Doricha insisted. “They wouldn’t want to cross Xanthes.”
“Oh, all men respect Xanthes,” Archidike said in a voice laden with irony. “What will you do, little lotus, if some of the men at the party want to have a go at you? Xanthes isn’t here to protect you. Vélona isn’t here with her leather strap, to drive them back. The men at the party might get other ideas, too, you know. They might all stand around and watch as you’re mounted by a dog or a goat.”
Doricha’s stomach roiled beneath the tight green silk. “They wouldn’t do such a thing.” She was proud that her voice sounded steady, unafraid—for the gods knew she didn’t feel that way. “You’re only trying to frighten me, Archidike. It’s not working.”
Archidike shrugged. She sucked the last petal from her clover blossom, spat it out, and turned her face away to gaze out at the city. “I may torment you, because it’s my way, but heed what I say all the same. Whether you’ve bled yet or not—that sort of thing matters very little to the great men of Egypt. Or of Greece. Or even men in Thrace, and yes, I know you think everything Thracian is superior, the very best the gods ever made. But this is the truth, Doricha: men don’t care about us. They don’t give a goose’s shit, how their greed or their lust or their thirst for violence affects our lives. Best get used to that idea now, for it is the truth.”
“Men respect hetaerae,” Doricha said, startled by Archidike’s sudden candor.
“I don’t speak of hetaerae. I speak of us all—hetaerae, pornae, slaves. Wives and sisters and daughters. To powerful men—and even many weak men—women are nothing more than trade goods. Just little bits of nothing, to be used in any way they please and discarded like trash afterward.” She tossed the wilted clover stem off the side of the litter. It disappeared in the street below.