White Lotus Page 5

  Aesop busied himself in the open air, setting two sturdy mudbricks several paces apart on the garden path. When he had adjusted the bricks’ placement, he lifted a long wooden beam and laid it across the bricks like a long, thin bridge.

  He looked up from his work, caught sight of Doricha, and nodded, smiling in approval. The little boy, his errand discharged, skittered back into the hall of gods and vanished through the andron.

  Aesop gestured to the shaded portico, where a small ebony-wood table waited, laden with food. “There’s plenty here to break your fast. Eat, but not until you’re overfull. In this heat, a full belly will be a liability, and you have much to learn today.”

  Iadmon had kept good stores on the Samian Wind, so that none of his people went hungry on the journey from Tanis to Memphis. Even so, that had been food fit for travel—dried fruit, hard flat bread, and well-aged cheese. This was much fresher fare, of a quality and delicacy Doricha had never seen before in all her young life. There were ducks’ eggs, boiled and peeled and coated with red-brown flecks; there were airy, leavened breads shining with olive oil and sparkling with crusts of salt. The ends of the long, dark-skinned, green melons so loved by Egyptians had been cut and hollowed out, the cup filled with honeyed wine. Instead of the preserved figs Doricha had grown accustomed to, she found fresh ones, as velvety-purple as a twilight sky, cut open to reveal the tender pink, seed-bearing flesh inside. Dishes of pomegranate seeds and tart berries—rondels of cheese, white or wrapped in the leaves of pungent herbs—roasted fish flaking off the bone. There was so much food she didn’t know where to begin, and stood staring at the table in delight and astonishment.

  “Be quick,” Aesop called from the garden path. “There is much to do, and the sooner we begin your lessons, the sooner we’ll be finished.”

  Doricha picked up a wooden bowl and filled it with fig halves and a chunk of the soft, still-warm bread. Then she took two of the ducks’ eggs and balanced them carefully atop her heap of food. She sat cross-legged against a pillar and turned to her breakfast with zeal. She was still ravenous, for a few days in Iadmon’s care hadn’t been enough to sate her long, enduring hunger. The figs were sweeter than she could have imagined, better than a whole comb of honey, and the eggs had been rolled in some intriguing spice, earthy and biting on her tongue. When she bit into the salted bread, she found that beneath its crust it was strewn with rosemary leaves, and the taste reminded her of the pine-covered Thracian hills. She licked salt and olive oil from her fingers slowly, one at a time, savoring the memory.

  When she finished, Aesop approached, nodding down at her empty bowl in approval. Then reached a hand down to pull Doricha to her feet.

  “It’s good to see your appetite returning.”

  “Oh, the food is so delicious and so nice-made. Iadmon must have the best cooks in Memphis!”

  Aesop chuckled. “I don’t know about that—I’m sure the Pharaoh’s are even better. But Iadmon does have… certain tastes.”

  A shadow veiled Aesop’s face, so briefly that Doricha wasn’t sure she could trust her eyes. What had she seen in her tutor, in the tight pressing-together of his lips? Was it doubt? Disapproval? Warily, she laid her bowl aside and followed Aesop out into the sunlight, wondering what could trouble him so. Hadn’t Helena said—and Aesop, too—that Iadmon was a good master?

  “Keep eating heartily,” Aesop said, “and you’ll flesh out in no time.” They had reached the beam and the bricks. He gestured to the span of wood, longer than two men lying head-to-feet, its surface rough and splintery. It was raised at least three hands’ breadths off the ground. “But now that you are here, in your new home, it’s time to begin the training that will make you into a woman of elegance and grace.”

  Doricha glanced at the beam again, uncertain. Surely her knees were far too knobby and her body too thin; a bit of whittled bone like herself had no hope of elegance or grace.

  “Balance will be your first lesson,” Aesop went on. “You must develop the habit of carrying yourself well, for a proud carriage and a graceful step will be the foundations of all your power.”

  “My power?” Let Aesop speak all he would of bricks and dignity. Even with a wall of dignity as high as the midday sun, Doricha was still a slave. Slaves had no power.

  Aesop seemed to read her misgivings on her face. He clicked his tongue in a tutting, mother-goat sort of way. “You may be a slave, Doricha, but recall the plans Iadmon has laid for you. A hetaera has great power—more than any other Greek woman, and more than most Egyptian women, too. Your confidence and your beauty will gain you access to realms where no other woman may tread. That will be your strength, your blessing—and it is a true power, regardless of the sash you wear around your waist. But we cannot allow you to go about knock-kneed and blundering like a newborn colt. You must cultivate womanly movement, womanly poise, just as a flower in the garden is cultivated for its pleasing qualities.”

  Doricha was sorely tempted to cast a skeptical stare at Aesop’s hunched shoulders, the awkward cant of his neck. What did this man, with his bent posture and shuffling gait, know about graceful, pleasing movement? But she had come to trust Aesop completely in the days since she left Tanis. Even more did she trust him now, after the gentle comfort and advice he’d provided when she had been too sorrowful to eat her supper. And so she went obediently to one end of the beam.

  “Step up,” Aesop said.

  She did. The soles of her sandals were thin leather; she could feel the unevenness of the hewn beam as readily as if she’d laid her palm against it. The sensation made her wobble.

  Aesop, standing at the beam’s other end, called out his commands. “Don’t look down. The ground will only disorient you. Head up; that’s the way. Now, come to me.”

  Doricha took a deep breath and stepped out along the beam. At once her balance faltered; her arms shot out by instinct and flapped helplessly as she swayed to and fro, standing precariously on one trembling leg.

  “Steady,” Aesop said. “Feel with your foot.”

  Doricha glanced down at the beam, but as Aesop had predicted, it only made the situation worse. Both her feet came down on the beam; she stumbled about and turned until she’d lost sight of Aesop entirely, with both arms circling madly in the air. Then she tipped beyond all hope of righting herself and landed hard on her bottom in the flower bed.

  She coughed, waving a cloud of dust and gnats away from her face. Aesop came quickly to her aid and pulled her to her feet once again. She heard soft, masculine laughter, but it took her a few moments to realize it wasn’t coming from her teacher. Doricha blinked through the morning glare, into the shadows of the portico.

  Iadmon was there, standing beside the breakfast table, leaning one shoulder casually against a pillar. He chuckled as he bit into a fig.

  Doricha’s face flamed.

  “Are you hurt?” Aesop asked.

  “Not a bit of it.” She swatted at her bottom, scaring the dust away from her white tunic.

  “Good. Then back up you go.”

  “With the master watching? I never could!”

  “You can, and you will. He wants to see what you can do already, and what remains for me to teach.”

  Doricha went sullenly to her end of the beam. “As for what I can do already, reckon it’s nothing at all, or near enough.”

  Aesop smiled as he took his place. “Like most things, balancing is very difficult until you find the trick of it, and then it poses no trouble at all. Now—”

  Doricha didn’t wait for his command. She stepped up onto the beam again and kept her eyes on her tutor, refusing to glance into the portico where Iadmon waited. She could feel the master’s eyes upon her, thought, and it made her task no easier, for now her heart pounded and her skin felt flushed with the heat of embarrassment. She still wobbled fearfully, but she kept her arms steady, held out like slim little counter-weights. She would not allow her arms to flap. She swung her foot carefully, felt for the beam’s roughness with her so
le, and planted one step, steady as she could hope it to be, in front of the other.

  “Good,” Aesop said.

  Doricha took another slow, searching step. Then another. Half a dozen more found her at the midpoint of the beam, where it vibrated and bounced with her every movement, even though her weight was slight. S’pose even a tiny bird shakes the branch of a tree when it lands. She crept on for a few more hesitant paces, and finally found herself almost face-to-face with Aesop. He grinned and stepped back; Doricha hopped down from the beam with a swell of satisfaction in her chest.

  “Well done,” Aesop said. “Now do it again.”

  “Again?”

  “Of course. You’ll keep on until you can walk the whole beam gracefully, with your arms at your sides, and at a dignified pace.”

  The banner of Doricha’s victory fell. “Reckon I’ll be doing it for weeks and weeks, then.”

  “I doubt it will take quite so long. Now—”

  Again Doricha stepped up onto the beam before her tutor could say another word. But as she took her first hesitant step, Aesop spoke on anyhow.

  “This time, Doricha, each time you step forward you will name one of the gods of Egypt.”

  Doricha paused, wobbling. “But… why, Aesop?”

  “When you are a hetaera, you will perform many tasks at once: entertaining, loving, engaging men in conversation—and listening. And you must do it all smoothly, perfectly, without becoming flustered or distracted.”

  She swallowed hard. It seemed more than an impossible task; it seemed inconceivable.

  “Now, then—”

  “But I don’t know all the gods of Egypt!”

  “You will learn. You’ll observe, and remember. And little by little—brick by brick, yes?—your knowledge will grow.”

  She nodded, careful not to upset her precarious balance. “I’ll try.” What choice did she have, but to try?

  Doricha stepped forward. “Horus.” She stepped again. “Isis. Osiris. Set.”

  There she stopped, wavering near the beam’s midpoint. “Afraid that’s all I know, Aesop.”

  “Surely you’ve seen charms and statues in the marketplaces of Tanis. Describe the gods to me.”

  She stepped forward. “The one what looks like a hippopotamus, with the big dugs and the big fat belly.”

  Aesop laughed. “Tawaret is her name.”

  “The one with the head of an ibis-bird.”

  “Thoth, the god of knowledge.”

  They went on that way until she reached the far end of the beam—Doricha struggling to recall the faces of gods who were foreign to her, who held no more meaning in her heart than did the gods of Babylon or Kush, and Aesop reciting their names. But when she reached the end of the beam without falling she laughed in delight, turned in place, and re-crossed its length once. This time, she called out the names of all the gods she’d learned, but in reverse order, from the last Aesop had named to Osiris and Isis and Horus, her final three steps along the beam.

  “Very good indeed!” Aesop all but shouted his approval.

  “Quick to learn.” Iadmon drifted out from beneath the portico’s shade, confident and smooth as a great ship cleaving the Nile waters. “What did I tell you, Aesop? I know how to choose the ones with the best potential.”

  “You do at that, Master.”

  Doricha glowed under their praise.

  “More balancing,” Iadmon said. “Let us see just how quickly you’ve learned.”

  Doricha obliged. She walked the beam’s length quicker than she’d done before—Aesop was right; the task became easier every time—but when she reached the shivery midpoint, Iadmon calmly lifted one of his own feet from the garden path, placed it on the beam, and pressed down.

  The change in weight shuddered along the beam; the predictable rhythm of its bouncing changed all at once. It almost felt as if the thing were twisting sideways under Doricha’s sandals. She bit back a shriek of surprise and dismay, staggered a few quick steps forward, tipped back on one heel, and in a trice, she found herself facing the opposite direction. She didn’t remember turning around, but there she was, facing the wrong way. Her feet were still on the rough, narrow thing—just barely. Momentum carried her back along its course for several fast, dancing steps; she managed to catch herself before she could fall, twirling her arms gracelessly and raising up on the balls of her feet. Doricha rocked back to stand flat in her sandals; then, when she was as steady as she could hope to be, she turned lightly around to face Iadmon and Aesop once more.

  Both the men’s eyes were wide, their faces still with thoughts Doricha couldn’t read. Finally, after a heavy silence, Iadmon narrowed his eyes and tapped one long, graceful finger against his chin, allowing his dark gaze to travel down the length of Doricha’s twig-thin body and back up to her face again. He hummed quietly to himself, appraising. Then he lowered his head and said a few quiet words in Aesop’s ear.

  With that, the master left the garden, moving briskly, not bothering to look back at Doricha who still stood poised on the balance beam. She watched him go, mystified and dismayed. It had been a rotten trick, to rock the board while she’d been walking it. But she had showed him, all right—she wasn’t about to topple into the dust, no matter how he tried to sabotage her efforts.

  When Iadmon had vanished into the house, Doricha looked pleadingly at her tutor. “What did he say?”

  Aesop smiled broadly. “He said you’re to be trained as a dancer. And I agree with him; you’ve plenty of natural grace, and it’s clear you’re quick on your feet. A dancer—what do you think about that?”

  “I… I don’t know what to think. I’ve never danced much before, and then only the village dances in Thrace.” She restrained herself from casting a skeptical eye at Aesop’s bent and twisted frame. “Will you teach me how it’s done?”

  He laughed heartily. “Not I! Even if I were sound of body, I’d make a poor tutor in dance. But Iadmon will find the very best teacher; have no fear on that count. He paid dearly for you, Doricha, as you well know. He intends to get his money’s worth and then some.”

  “I’m an investment,” Doricha said. “I know. Like a cow or a she-goat, what a farmer expects to bear young to sell at the market, and give milk to make into cheese, and earn back more than what was paid for me.”

  “That is the way of it, though I doubt Iadmon will want you bearing any young. A hetaera can’t work when she is with child.”

  Doricha stepped down from the beam. “It was only a way of comparing.”

  “I took your meaning well. It was a clever analogy, my girl. An investment—yes. Assuming we can culture your talents and make a truly great dancer out of you—and I see no reason why we cannot—you should return handsomely on Iadmon’s investment. All hetaerae can dance, more or less. But real talent and skill, when honed and practiced, are rare things. Truly excellent dancers are rare, Doricha, as are the best singers, the best actresses, the best conversationalists. If you can excel at dancing, and do it better than any other hetaera in Memphis, you’ll be valuable indeed.”

  Doricha fidgeted in the hot sun. The sensible side of her knew Aesop was right; she was resigned to the blue sash, the inescapable fact of slavery. Yet still something inside of her rebelled at the thought. An asset, and investment. A cow at the market. This was her life now, her reality. She couldn’t change it, but neither could she make herself enjoy it.

  “Assuming,” Aesop muttered as he turned away, “Iadmon hangs onto this asset.”

  Doricha’s breath caught in her throat. Those words had been spoken so quietly, she was certain Aesop hadn’t intended her. She felt instinctively that she could not ask him what he’d meant. Uneasily, she squinted through the portico shade to the open doors where Iadmon had disappeared.

  He wouldn’t sell me on, would he? Not when he’s paid so much for me and has yet to see me make any money in return.

  No, Doricha decided. Iadmon would not sell her any time soon. Not until he learned whether she
could dance. Thoughts of collars and tattoos flashed through her head—images of rings pierced painfully through ears, through noses. She shivered, twisting the ends of her blue sash in fingers that were suddenly cold with dread.

  It won’t come to that. It can’t, that’s all.

  Luck had favored Doricha—as much as it ever favored a slave—by placing her in Iadmon’s hands. If she wished to stay here, living in relative comfort and ease, then she must give Iadmon no reason discard her, to pass her along to a master who was less congenial with a house hard and cold.

  If Iadmon wanted Doricha to become the greatest dancer in Memphis, then by the gods, she would do it. She couldn’t afford to do otherwise. Doricha was determined to allow neither ignorance nor inexperience to hold her back.

  5

  Lessons

  The musicians, gathered under Iadmon’s portico, played a tune on their harps and drums that was just a heartbeat or two more lively than Doricha would have preferred. She stepped quickly to the music, elevated on the balls of her feet. She moving in the space between the great, painted pillars with all the grace she could muster, given the quick pace of the music. The long, colorful fringe of her dancing belt swayed around her knees, tickling her skin horribly with every beat of the music, every trained and calculated movement of her limbs.

  The tickling added its torment to the subtle, prickly itch of the dried paste that covered her, head to toe. Her naturally pale complexion had proven too tender for Egypt’s sun, and whenever she danced outdoors—as she most often did, for there was little space inside Iadmon’s house that was suitable for practice—she was required to cover herself from head to food with the protective concoction. It was made of ash, chalk, and a bit of oil. The ash mixture did the job of keeping the worst of the sun’s brutal rays from burning her skin, all of which was exposed when she danced, save for the slim beaded belt around her hips with its strip of silk that ran down between her legs and up the other side. The paste made her look frightfully pale—paler than her natural coloring—and as soon as she began to sweat, it streaked and ran down her neck, down her back, and along the sides of her face. She looked ghastly in the stuff, like the spirit of a dead girl, and she never could decide whether it would be better to be scorched by the sun or prickled and itched nearly to death by the crust of ash and oil on her skin.