Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) (15 page)

Demosthenes in turn spoke of the battle, but
Phormion, sensing his cousin's exhaustion, did not remain long.
 Just before he departed to his own home, discharged from his
duties as the keeper of his cousin's, Phormion asked, “Shall I stay
for the welcome of your new slave?”

Ordinarily, a new slave would sit before the
hearth, swear allegiance to her new master and be showered with
sweets and nuts. 

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Demosthenes said.
 He was in no hurry to ask Thalassia to submit to such a
ceremony.

The door shut, and Demosthenes turned to
find both females seated by the hearth.  Thalassia watched the
dancing flames, and Eurydike watched the other woman with a look of
consternation.  At Demosthenes' approach, Eurydike shook off
that look and leaped to her feet.  

“My lord,” she said, grabbing Demosthenes'
hand.  “Come upstairs and see that everything is in order.
 That one”—she nodded at Thalassia—“can tend to the
hearth.”

As was frequently the case with Eurydike,
her true intentions were transparent, if only because she wished it
that way.  Demosthenes had learned long ago that Eurydike only
played the fool, when in reality she was no such thing.  She
simply loved life, unkind as it had been to her, and sought to
enjoy it.  

Demosthenes let her lead him up the timber
stair.  He went not because he craved sex—though he would not
refuse it, not least because it was easier to give in than to defy
Eurydike in that regard—but because he hoped to share words with
her in private.  As soon as they had passed through the home's
disused women's quarters and into the master's bedchamber, which
was, as promised, in perfect order, Demosthenes said to Eurydike,
softly, but gravely enough to penetrate her girlish excitement,
“You have no cause for jealousy.”

Eurydike's lip curled in an exaggerated
sneer.  “Me, jealous?  Of 
her
?  You're
crazy.  Why would I be?”

“Precisely,” Demosthenes assured her.
 “So be kind and try not to work her very hard.  Between
you and me... I think she is 
mad
.”

“She would have to be, wouldn't she?”

Demosthenes chuckled nervously.  “Why
is that?”

Caught in a bluff, the Thracian shrugged.
 “I don't know, lord, I was just agreeing with you.  I'm
glad you're back.”

Her tongue reappeared, and it came forward
to lick the skin of Demosthenes' chest where it was exposed above
the drape of his loose chiton.  She pressed her warm body into
his.  During the embrace, an idea crossed Demosthenes' mind
which might simultaneously allay Eurydike's fears of displacement
and reap practical benefit besides. 

Conscious of Thalassia's better-than-human
senses, he whispered directly into Eurydike's ear: “I believe she
has secrets.  Learn what you can from her and bring it to me.
 Consider it a special mission vital to the safety of
Athens.”

Eurydike drew back with a sly smile on her
lips, delight in her emerald eyes.  She put her lips to his
ear and nibbled the lobe before whispering back, “She will not have
secrets for long, lord.  I'll break her!”

When she drew back, Eurydike's best dress
was a pile on the plaster floor.

“Enough about her,” she said too loudly for
Demosthenes' taste, and she kissed him.  “You need reminding
that there are enough holes in this house to be filled without
adding more.”

Demosthenes promised, when the other's
insistent lips allowed his a moment of freedom, “Her holes hold no
interest for me.”  

Eurydike walked him to his wide, low bed and
straddled him on its wool- and feather-stuffed mattress.
 Surrendering to her, there were two ironies which her master
did not bother to address, knowing it futile: one, that although
slaves in Athens had more rights than those elsewhere, sexual
exclusivity was not among them.  And two, Eurydike was not
even faithful to her master, as she freely admitted.

Pushing him onto his back, she came down
atop him on all fours so that her hanging curls of deep red formed
a tunnel between their faces.  Pink nipples brushed the chest
that one of her freckled hands worked to bare of its linen
covering.  When the other found his cock, Eurydike
frowned. 

“Why are you not pleased to see me, lord?
 You already want her, don't you?”  It was mostly
performance, but edged with a note of genuine insecurity.

“I was only thinking,” Demosthenes admitted
in a cautious whisper.  “I do not think you ought to try
to 
break
 her, exactly...”  He did not dare
speak Thalassia's name, knowing that only a floor of
plaster-covered beams separated her from the conspiracy above.

“Arrgh!” Eurydike groaned.  “Enough
about that brown bitch.  Leave her to me!”

She descended on him, and quickly made him
'pleased' enough to see to matters at hand in spite of the
exhaustion of the voyage.  He even managed, he believed, not
to let his concubine sense as they fucked how conscious he remained
of Thalassia's presence alone in the megaron below.

He was being paranoid, he told himself.
 If Thalassia was going to dwell here, he needed to try to
trust her.

As was the norm, Eurydike climaxed first,
some number of times, then deftly spilled her master's seed by hand
and mouth so as not to spawn a bastard in her womb.
 Afterward, they lay in a tau-shape with Eurydike's head
resting on his abdomen.

“I'll need some money tomorrow,” she
said.

“For what?”

“My mission, lord.  I'll need to take
Sea-thing shopping.”

Demosthenes flicked a copper ringlet.
 “That is a convenient plan.”  He spoke in normal tones
now, abandoning hope of secrecy.  “For you.”

“I know what I'm doing!  Half
a 
mina
 ought to do.”

Demosthenes laughed.  For a moment,
looking into Eurydike's wide, green, honest eyes, he managed to
forget about challenges to Fate and hot-tempered otherworldly
traitors bent on revenge.  “The price I paid for you was
scarcely more than that,” he lied.  “If only I had been told
that your upkeep would drain my coffers dry.”

He was only teasing her; she knew as well as
he that his resistance was  but a show.

“I drain other things.  And don't start
throwing numbers at me.  You're hurting my brain!” Eurydike
was quick to use her illiteracy as a defense when it suited her.
 “I only know I can't be lending the bitch my clothes all the
time.  She needs her own.”

“Fine, take it,” he said, as was inevitable.
 “Just promise not to try to 'break' her, all right?  And
 don't call her a bitch.”

Eurydike blew a raspberry.  “Whatever,
lord.”  The Spartan dagger he had given her appeared from
somewhere, and she absently prodded at her own navel with its dull
tip.  Staring at the blade, she said quietly, “I'm glad you're
back.”

The next day, Demosthenes rose earlier than
he would have liked given the prior day's sea journey, and left his
house praying that Eurydike would manage to treat her new housemate
well enough to avoid falling victim to the latter's explosive
temper.  With luck, he hoped, the disaster to which he
returned would be less than total.  Would that he could have
stayed and averted it, or even just helplessly watched it unfold,
but there was much business to attend to.  There were families
of the fallen to visit, pay and spoils to distribute, reports to
give to officials of the democracy, and any number of other minor
tasks which resulted either from the battle or his long absence
from public life.  Most importantly, perhaps, the citizen body
would just expect its returning hero to be seen, especially after
his sudden absence the day prior.

Seen he was, and he made his excuses for
having deserted the festivities, while in the meantime even
managing to accomplish his business.  Towards midday, he was
leaving the law-courts, having there made the pretense of his
ownership of Thalassia official, when an arm snaked around his
shoulders from behind.  A familiar, smiling face and sculpted
locks the color of chestnuts thrust into sight over his
shoulder.

"Demosthenes!" a pretty mouth greeted
him.

"Alkibiades," Demosthenes returned, stopping
to receive the younger man's embrace.

"Listen," the younger man said urgently, "if
Little Red told you I molested her, I swear by Zeus she begged me
to do it—three times.  You can ask Socrates.  He was
there, watching and polishing his knob, as usual."

Demosthenes winced and resumed walking while
trying his best to forget what he had just heard.  

Alkibiades fell into step beside him.
 "Sorry I couldn't make your homecoming.  Had some
pressing matters, you know."

"There's no need to tell me what you were
pressed up against."

It was obvious enough what Alkibiades had
been up to.  Events like the return from Pylos drew male
citizens out of their homes, leaving wives and daughters guarded by
little more than maids who were obliged to turn a blind eye if the
mistress ordered it, even if doing so put them at risk of torture
and death should the matter come to trial.

"Too right!" Alkibiades laughed.   He
clapped a hand on Demosthenes' shoulder.  "You'll have to tell
me all about Pylos, friend, since I'm certain the tale Kleon is
spreading like a bad rash bears little resemblance to the
truth."

"What tale is that?"

"Have you not heard?"  Alkibiades
raised a sculpted brow.   "According to him, you sat in Pylos
sulking and whining all summer long, until your savior Kleon
arrived to finish the job."

Demosthenes grunted distaste, but the matter
fled his mind quickly enough.  Let the demagogue say what he
would.  Athens was ever harsh with her most outspoken men,
even when their reputations were built on deeds and not just words.
 Solon, Themistokles, Aristides, Demosthenes' own tribemate
Kimon—all had been heroes one day, outcasts the next.  Had the
plague not cut down Perikles, the people doubtless would have done
the deed themselves, if in a less deadly fashion.

"Bah!" Alkibiades exclaimed with the
dismissive wave of a manicured hand, likely having mistaken his
companion's silence for irritation.  "I'm far more interested
in an interesting rumor I've heard..."

"And that is?" Demosthenes asked without
particular enthusiasm.

"It seems there's a new piece of tail in
town, and she lives in your house."

"Really?  That comes as news to
me."

"Hmm," Alkibiades intoned.  "Well, as
it happens, I was heading to your home right now to investigate.
 Care to tag along?"

***

They entered the megaron of Demosthenes'
home and found Eurydike by the hearth  mending a cloak brought
back from Pylos worse for wear.  There was no sign of
Thalassia.  Seeing them, Eurydike leaped to her feet, ran
across the room and delivered a kiss of affection on each man's
cheek, starting with her master.

On receiving his, Alkibiades patted her
round backside and asked, "Where's your new sister, Red?"

Eurydike feigned gagging.  "She
is 
not
 my sister."

"True," Alkibiades conceded.  "One
would not want to do with one's sister what I hope that you and she
soon will..."

Demosthenes interrupted loudly, "Eurydike,
where is Thalassia?"

Relaxing the nose which had been wrinkled in
disgust, Eurydike answered, "The cow is on the roof, lord.
 She has been making drawings, or some such useless crap.
 She took all the parchment you had in stores.  I tried
to stop her."

And probably failed deliberately,
Demosthenes thought, in the hope of seeing her rival punished.

"Go easy, sweet," he chided.  "Remember
what I told you."

"I didn't call her a 
bitch
.
 Even though she—"

Eurydike cut herself short when at the top
of the timber staircase at the megaron's rear, Thalassia appeared.
 She wore an ankle-length chiton which Eurydike had been
persuaded to lend her, a long, well-pleated one of soft flax linen.
 Its color was a pale blue-green like frothing sea-foam, a hue
that suited Thalassia's golden flesh better than it did the
speckled Thracian's, and it made her wintry eyes sparkle like twin
crystals.  She had washed her skin and too-short dark hair
clean of their salt haze, and styled the latter with a borrowed
hair clip of silver and bone.

Reaching the floor, she came forward with
head bowed demurely, eyes downcast, looking the part she had agreed
to play.  Smudges of ink showed on hands held folded in front
of her.

"Greetings, my lord," she said.  

Alkibiades' expression became instantly that
of the wolf into whose path a lost ewe has strayed.  And not
knowing that this ewe was herself at least half wolf, he pounced,
stalking a great circle around his prey with predatory gaze locked
upon her.  Halfway through encirclement, this
less-than-helpless quarry raised her eyes and fixed her would-be
devourer with a return look of mild curiosity, turning her head to
track him.

Completing his inspection circuit,
Alkibiades came to stand beside Eurydike, who leaned against a
smooth column of the megaron with arms folded petulantly on her
chest.  Alkibiades asked her, without removing his eyes from
the object of discussion, "What do you make of her, Little
Red?"

"Not much."

"Try to be impartial," Alkibiades
reprimanded.  "I want an honest evaluation.  Let us start
with the most obvious.  Her skin."

"Color of dirty bathwater," Eurydike
decreed.

"No, no."  Alkibiades stepped in closer
to Thalassia, appraising her.  "Surely it is autumn barley."
 Thalassia's level stare said she was anything but
intimidated.  "Or toasted almond."  He brushed the length
of Thalassia's arm with the backs of his fingers.  "And soft,
too.  Have you felt it, Red?"