White Lotus Read online

  Quickly, Doricha loosened her belt, pulled up the skirt of her blue silk gown until it hung high above her ankles, and re-tied the sash. If the gods were good, that would be enough to keep her from tripping and floundering about the andron like a cow in a mire. She whirled into one of the lively ring dances performed by girls at Thracian harvest festivals. The ring dances were supposed to be the work of a dozen girls or more, with arms linked and feet stamping in unison. Together, the girls worked themselves into intricate, interweaving lines. But Doricha could recall the steps of her favorite ring dance even without other village girls surrounding her.

  The music carried her around the room; she followed naturally where it guided her, responding to its cheery refrains with smiles that were forced in the first few moments of her dance, but that yielded to genuine joy as the music overtook her fears. As she passed the guests one by one, she paused to charm each man in turn. She bent back to grin at one man upside-down, and batted her eyes shyly at another. She dipped down to sit for one beat of the drums on the next man’s couch, then leaped up and spun away with a mischievous grin the moment he reached out to touch her. She whirled, making the silk of her skirt trail enticingly along a man’s arm or the back of his hand. She stamped and clapped and linked her arms with invisible Thracian girls, glorying so completely in the music that the men began to clap along with her, caught up in her own honest pleasure. Soon the andron reverberated with the rhythm of one great, shared joy.

  The music sped, rising in pitch, racing toward its climax. Doricha took one brief moment to set her path, eyeing a narrow passage between tables and couches. Then she bent backward and pushed off with her feet, flipping sandals-over-hands down the length of the andron, just as Iunet had taught her. She ended with a bounce on her toes, her arms flung up in victory, right between Iadmon and Xanthes.

  The music ended on a boisterous, upsloping note. The silence that followed couldn’t have lasted longer than a few heartbeats, but in that brief time, fear flooded Doricha again. Had the men discerned, after tall, that the dance was not Egyptian? Would they chastise her—would Iadmon be disappointed, disgusted with her disobedience? Then, with one great roar, the men shouted her acclaim, raising cups and calling out for another dance. It seemed the very walls of Iadmon’s estate quaked with approval.

  Doricha flushed, allowing pleasure and relief to wash over her in a wave. She lowering her eyes demurely to the floor.

  “I would say this girl has potential after all,” Xanthes said over the cheering of the crowd. “What do you call her, Iadmon?”

  “Her name is Doricha.”

  Xanthes pushed himself, sitting on the edge of his couch. He leaned closer to Doricha. “And you say she is to be a hetaera.”

  Young as she was, Doricha’s skill at reading men went only so far. There was a peculiar light in Xanthes’ eyes, but she couldn’t determine what it meant, what he was feeling. It was akin to hunger, or lust… and yet it was more calculated than that, less visceral.

  She tried to think of some response to Xanthes’ statement. Was she expected to respond at all?

  “See how she blushes,” Xanthes said to the room. “Skin as pale as alabaster, yet her cheeks are red as roses. Did you ever see a girl so charming? Won’t we all be lucky fellows when she makes her debut as a hetaera?” He plucked one of the flowers from the garland around his neck, then slid the blossom into Doricha’s hair. “To Iadmon’s white lotus!”

  The men repeated the cheer, and Iadmon, with his barely-focused eyes and wide grin, seemed as pleased as if they had saluted him personally.

  “I do believe, little lotus,” said Xanthes softly, leaning closer to Doricha’s ear, “that your master needs more wine.”

  Doricha bit her lip. “My good man, I don’t want my master to have a sour head in the morning.”

  “Such a conscientious slave,” Xanthes said. His voice was amused, but his emphasis on that last word frightened Doricha. She hurried to fetch her wine pitcher. As she ran, the light sweat her dance had raised chilled her skin and made her shiver.

  Iadmon drank down half his cup of wine as soon as Doricha filled it.

  “What a night!” Xanthes exclaimed. “You do know how to celebrate, Iadmon, my old friend. Good food, excellent wine, a beautiful girl to dance for us… only one thing could make this night more enjoyable.”

  “And what is that?” said Iadmon, slurring.

  “Why, a gamble, of course! Who doesn’t enjoy games of chance?”

  The men of the andron agreed with hearty cheers.

  “Dice?” Iadmon suggested. There was a thick eagerness in his voice that made Doricha feel cautious and small. Iadmon never sounded so boyish, so… coarse. He was a man of refinement, of self-control. He didn’t stoop to frivolous amusements like dicing.

  “I’ll play you at dice,” Xanthes said.

  “Excellent!” Iadmon summoned one of his household servants and sent for dice. When they arrived, he rattled them enthusiastically in their cup. “What shall we wager?”

  Xanthes turned to Doricha, raking her head to foot with a speculative, almost predatory air. She couldn’t stifle a gasp, nor could she stop her knees from buckling. Without being told to sit, she sank down on the edge of Iadmon’s couch.

  The master laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. “Not her, Xanthes.” Some of the drunkenness seemed to flee his voice, if only for a moment. “She is too precious to me.”

  Xanthes relented immediately, with no display of ill humor. “That collar of yours, then. I could use an authentic Egyptian piece myself, for when I’m feeling nostalgic for the old days.”

  “Very well!” Iadmon had some trouble with the clasp of his beaded collar. Doricha moved to help him, but was almost as useless as he had been. Her fingers trembled badly, and she could feel Xanthes’ greedy stare upon her.

  The night was deep and old by the time Doricha returned to her room. She slipped inside, weak with relief, and leaned hard against the door, as if her small, frail body was strong enough to stop the world from entering.

  The party had dragged on for hours; Iadmon had grown morose as the night wore on. He seemed to feel the loss of his Egyptian necklace keenly.

  The more despondent Iadmon became, the greater seemed Xanthes’ self-satisfaction. The bull-broad man had lounged on his couch with an air of victory that made Doricha’s skin creep every time she passed with the wine pitcher. She could feel Xanthes’ eyes upon her everywhere she went—could sense all too clearly the slow, careful nature of his speculation.

  Helena had left a small basket of supplies on Doricha’s bed: a vial of oil and a soft linen cloth to remove the paint from her face, and a tiny iron scissor with sharp blades. Doricha stood before her mirror and delved into her high crown of hair with her fingers, searching until she found the knot of wool that held together the elaborate braid. She pulled the thread out to expose it and raised the scissors; she was just about to squeeze the flexible curve of thin iron and snip the thread, when she heard two male voices, soft and low, very close to her narrow window.

  She set the scissors aside and crept to the window. There was no mistaking the voices now: Aesop and Iadmon. The master was still quite drunk. His speech was thick and stumbling, but even through the wine-haze, Doricha could hear his despair. “That necklace, Aesop! It was priceless.”

  “It wasn’t priceless, Master. I have your account books in my chamber; I can tell you exactly what it cost. You can always buy another.” He sounded patient and long-suffering, a parent comforting a squalling child.

  “It’s not the price, after all,” Iadmon moaned. Doricha had never known him to sound so undignified. “It’s the principle.”

  “The principle, Master?”

  Iadmon sighed deeply. “You know what I mean, Aesop. You know what I mean.”

  There was a pause, a hesitation. Doricha found herself holding her breath, tingling with anxiety, wondering whether her tutor would speak frankly.

  He did, though his t
one was obsequious. “Your fondness for drinking and games of chance will get you into worse trouble someday, I fear. The wise philosophers all counsel moderation, Master.”

  “Moderation,” Iadmon said with an energy of disgust.

  “Master, I fear your propensity for strong drink is too well-known among your enemies.”

  “My enemies! Who is my enemy?”

  “Xanthes, for one.”

  “Bah.” Iadmon hawked and spat, and Doricha flinched at the sound of such unexpected coarseness. “Xanthes is a fellow after my own heart. We work toward the same ends.”

  “You certainly do now—now that you are training a hetaera of your own.” Aesop’s spoke quietly, but the caution in his words was plain.

  Doricha trembled, glancing nervously at her bed. She should be in that bed now, drifting off to sleep—not listening in on these men, not frightening herself with things she could never hope to control. But she remained rooted to the spot, held fast by a perverse need to know more.

  Aesop continued, “When you were a peddler of mere pornae, Xanthes could afford to see you as a friend. But now… now you are his competition. And he has seen Doricha for himself; he knows what a treasure she is. You mustn’t give him the opportunity to best you, Master. He will ruin you if he can. I know Xanthes better than you do; he is the most ruthless man the gods ever made.”

  Doricha backed away from the window until she collided with her wash stand. She turned in time to stop the half-empty pitcher from falling to the ground. The scissors still lay beside the washing bowl. She cut the thread that bound her hair and let it fall, shaking out the braid, massaging her scalp until the ache of her tight-pulled hair dissipated. Then she cleaned the paint from her face and stood staring into the mirror, her eyes wide and her features stilled by dull, throbbing shock.

  She didn’t look like a hetaera now. She looked like a girl—just a girl, ordinary and common. Yet now this ordinary, common girl—this slave—knew she was a bargaining chip in the hands of two of the most powerful men in Memphis. Couldn’t they see she was only a plain, common thing?

  With a searing pain in her chest, she remembered the first conversation she’d ever had with Iadmon. He had asked her, Are you brave enough to make a good attempt? Brave enough to learn the ways of a hetaera? And she had answered, Do I have a choice, but to try?

  Now, staring hopelessly at her own face, Doricha thought, I don’t want to be a hetaera, if this is what it means. Put up for the trade, tossed into the kit on a drunkard’s gamble.

  But she had no choice—none at all. That was what it meant, to be a slave.

  Holding back useless tears, Doricha pulled off the blue-green silk and hung it on the peg beside her door. Helena would come for it in the morning.

  8

  The Master Accepts

  The flood receded from the farms and fields that surrounded the sprawling metropolis of Egypt’s capital city. Memphis had been like an island during the long, wet season of the Inundation, ringed all about with water that had glittered in the sun. But as the months turned and the waters abated, the city rejoined the rich, black land, and native Egyptians who had left with their homes to build monuments for the Pharaoh returned now to Memphis. In the lush farm lands north and south of the city, the Egyptian workers sowed crops of barley and emmer, of onions and squash, melons and greens, all planted in the rich black mud that the shrinking river had left behind.

  When the early crops had grown to their full height and the year’s first harvest was approaching, Doricha knew her thirteenth year had come. Aesop had taught her how to read the Egyptian calendar, how to watch the moon’s phases and count the days between the appearance of each new constellation on the horizon. Doricha had never known the exact date of her birth, but she knew that a year had passed since she’d left her family in Tanis and stepped into Iadmon’s world.

  Every day, she examined herself carefully in the little round mirror, searching for signs that she would soon leave girlhood behind. The changes were slight, but she was observant, and could discern them easily. Her breasts had begun to grow more prominent; her face had shed the soft blur of immaturity, that round, snub-nosed sameness common to all children. Now her features had begun to define themselves, taking on the sharpness, the angularity that would define her grown-up appearance.

  Doricha could tell her maturity was approaching by the changing way men looked at her, too—and she was often in the company of men. Iadmon was very fond of parties and feasts. There was little to do during the flood season anyhow, except to entertain—and Iadmon never missed an opportunity. His trade had done quite well over the preceding year; thanks to the wise advice of Aesop, the master’s prosperity had steadily increased, and he was eager to show his peers how his star was rising.

  Doricha’s training had grown in step with Iadmon’s fortune. The master had devoted ever more time and care to Doricha’s dancing; he cultivated her carefully, almost obsessively, as an orchid is trimmed and watered and pampered under glass. For hours each day, Doricha drilled under Iunet’s stern gaze—and she danced again almost every night, for whenever her master didn’t host a lavish supper or an afternoon boating party, he offered small, intimate gatherings to his closest friends. Doricha looked forward to the parties, whether big or small, for now she could see how her dancing skills increased with every performance, and as her talent grew, so too did her confidence and self-worth.

  It was well that Doricha’s dance progressed well, for her other lessons presented more of a hazard. Young as she was, the finer points of sophisticated conversation were still beyond her—and neither Aesop nor any other tutor had succeeded in erasing the inflection of rural Thrace from her voice. But she had a charming habit of self-deprecation that Iadmon’s guests seemed to like. She was quick-witted enough to realize that most men were flattered by her displays of simplicity and girlishness. By playing the country bumpkin, she allowed the men she entertained to adopt the role of wise and sophisticated lords of Memphis—people of real importance and power. She played along gamely, giggling and joking, batting her kohl-darkened lashes, and allowing every man she encountered to believe that she was nothing more than a pretty little bauble, and ornament hanging from Iadmon’s neck.

  But Doricha was no mere ornament. She was more intelligent, more subtly observant, than Iadmon’s friends suspected. In fact, she was even brighter than Iadmon knew her to be. She flitted around the andron, giving every impression that she was nothing more than a butterfly—pretty, enchanting, and ultimately mindless. But her jewel-studded ears heard every whisper that passed from couch to couch, and those exotic green eyes may hide behind a screen of fluttering lashes, but still Doricha saw every glance, every frown, every secret gesture that passed from one man to another. The only man under Iadmon’s roof who knew Doricha’s true strengths—her burgeoning potential—was Aesop. For it was he who had taught Doricha what powers might come to an observant and discerning slave, he who had refined her, he who had trained her so well.

  Despite her growth, her quiet successes as an observer of men—despite even the great joy she took in dance—the months since Doricha’s first party had not been entirely pleasant. The shocking realization that she could be traded off without a moment’s notice had sharpened something in Doricha’s spirit. The fear that she might be sent to live with some other master often plagued her. She had grown accustomed to this life—indeed, it was a far better life than any she had known before, even if she was a slave.

  Doricha didn’t know how she could hope to secure her place in Iadmon’s household, other than to make herself so remarkable, so valuable, that Iadmon would never be able to justify her loss. And so Doricha became as keen as a hungry hound, intent on her quarry, racing on to close with her fate, to subdue and conquer it. Day by day, she strove toward her goal with a focus that impressed even herself. She would become a hetaera, and not because Iadmon had left her with no other choice. She wanted to be a hetaera. That single, shining goal had bec
ome her sustaining passion, her inner fire. It was, as the Egyptians said, her ankh: the breath of her spirit, the force that made her live. For when she achieved the power and latitude all hetaerae enjoyed, then she would be all but impervious to Iadmon’s drunken whims. When she was a hetaera, Doricha would have her own crowd of admirers—high-status men whose wealth and patronage would keep her safe against any sudden shifts in the winds of fate.

  Of course, Doricha now knew that some hetaerae earned enough money to free themselves from their masters, and continue their work independently—or take up a new life, as a wife and mother, if they wished. That possibility had only heightened Doricha’s ambition. The more she had seen of Memphis—its parties, its grand estates, the lives of the wealthy and powerful—the less she could understand why any hetaera would give up access to all that beauty, that wealth and glory. Surely a quiet marriage and a brood of children couldn’t compete with Memphis society.

  By the time the flood season had ended, Doricha’s reputation as a dancer and a charmer had spread far enough that Iadmon had begun receiving requests for the loan of his slave girl with the rose-gold hair. She was asked to entertain at other men’s parties so often that Iadmon employed an extra scribe, whose only task was to write polite but firm refusals to all Doricha’s invitations.

  “You won’t be ready to entertain on your own until you have become a woman,” Aesop had told Doricha, one afternoon when she had complained about all those missed opportunities. “And believe me,” he added drily, “Iadmon’s stance on this issue is to your benefit. You are still very young, my girl.”

  “But I’ve had ever so much experience with men now!”

  Aesop had smiled rather grimly at that. “Men tend to behave themselves when they’re guests in another man’s home. Especially when they’re guests in Iadmon’s home, for his reputation as a sophisticate is well known. It would be a different tale altogether if another man were at the helm of a night’s entertainments.”