The Sweet Girl (6 page)

“Once,” I say.

“
And
your clothes are always dirty. You look like a goose-girl just in from the yard.”

“It’s only dust.” I lick my thumb and rub a brown spot clear on my grey-brown foot. My hems are a little ratty, it’s true.

“You should be in linen. Silk. A daughter of mine.” She sticks the comb in her mouth and executes something complicated with my curls and a gold clip in the shape of a bee, one of her own. She takes the comb out, frowns, and thumbs my eyebrows smooth. “Daughter of mine.”

Pyrrhaios appears in the archway that separates the inner yard from the outer, where we keep the horses. “Lady,” he says.

I stand. Herpyllis gathers the hair things into her basket.

“A visitor, Lady.”

“Who is it?”

“Master Theophrastos, Lady.”

Herpyllis follows me to the outer yard, where Theophrastos is pacing. When he sees us, his face contorts.

“Fetch your master,” Herpyllis tells Pyrrhaios. She touches his hand and he goes.

“Uncle,” I say, and hug him. He’s hugely tall and when I hug him my head fits comfortably in the hollow of his chest. In the past I’ve felt the life in him against my belly, but this time he stays soft. His shoulders shake. He lets me go and takes my face in his hands. I echo the gesture, and thumb the tears away as I did with Nico just last night. “So it’s true?”

He blinks. I let him go and Herpyllis takes my place, hugging his tall skinny self, the tree-like length of him. He pats her back and kisses the top of her head but his eyes find mine. “Your father?”

“He doesn’t know.”

Herpyllis lifts her face from his chest and I see she’s crying, too. “It’s
not
true,” she says. “It’s not.”

I look at the packed earth of the yard, the clean sky, the gate.

“What’s not true?” Daddy comes stomping into the yard, his old-man stomp, with Pyrrhaios behind him. He looks from face to face. “What’s happened?”

“The gate’s open,” I say.

Herpyllis throws her veil over her face, squats, and starts to rock, keening softly.

“Gods’ sake,” Daddy says. He looks annoyed. “I’m trying to work.”

“He’s dead,” Theophrastos says.

The earth, the sky.

Daddy looks at me.

“The gate’s open,” I say. “We should close it.”

Daddy nods at Tycho, who’s come in from his cleaning. He closes the main gate behind him.

“We should lock it.”

“Shut your mouth,” Daddy says to me, and then he starts to sob.

Theophrastos stays the night, although his house is only a short walk from ours. At first my fears are justified: we can hear the uproar from the city, farther and nearer and farther again, and see elegant spires of smoke rising from different districts. Once our front gate is fiercely rattled, but by the time Pyrrhaios gets
to the yard, whoever tested it is gone. By nightfall we can hear music and smell smoke and roasting meat on the breeze. Parties, then; celebrations. I intuit Myrmex is out there somewhere, drinking and carousing, the party mattering more than the reason for it. Shame stops us eating, speaking, until well after dark. Daddy, Theophrastos, and I lie on couches in the courtyard. Herpyllis returns from putting Nico to bed with a tray of bread and pickings from last night’s bird. Her eyes look poached. Theophrastos is rolling and unrolling a set of scrolls on his lap, not reading. Daddy stares into nothing.

I make room on my couch for Herpyllis.

“Their own king,” Daddy says. “They’re turning on him that fast.”

“They never loved him.” Theophrastos puts the scrolls aside and reaches for food. He makes up a plate, not a scant one, and I’m just having thoughts about his ability to eat at a time like this when he sets it beside Daddy. Daddy looks disgusted.

“Please, Master,” Theophrastos says.

When I was a baby, he was Daddy’s student; now he teaches with Daddy at the school and will head it one day, Herpyllis says. His name used to be Tyrtamos, but Daddy changed it to Theophrastos because of his divine eloquence. I’m unfamiliar with his divine eloquence because I’m not allowed to attend classes. He’s so tall and thin and mild and affable. He loves Daddy like a father and Nico like a little brother. He told Herpyllis once that I laugh too loudly.

Daddy had another pet before Theophrastos, a man named Callisthenes. Well, I don’t remember him. He went East with the army and got locked in a cage for disobedience and died.
Daddy says Callisthenes needed a spur but Theophrastos needs a bridle. Theophrastos keeps the botanical garden at the school and curates the museum specimens. He knows a lot of collectors and has acquired my father’s gift for talking to people who know more than he does and writing down what they say. I shift on my couch, reaching forward for a bite of something, far enough to see that the scrolls in his lap are in his own hand.

“Thirty-two summers,” Daddy says of the king.

“We die just when we are beginning to live,” Theophrastos says.

Daddy grunts and starts to pick at the plate. Herpyllis pours the men watered wine, us water. They dip their bread in saucers of olive oil and bowls of salt. There are apricots in the kitchen, but they’re probably too happy a fruit for the moment. Herpyllis doesn’t eat so I don’t either, even though I’m hungry. I should probably try to cry. Nico cried. That’s why he’s in bed already: exhausted by grief.

“We’ll leave the city, of course,” Daddy says.

“That’s probably wise.” Theophrastos takes a last piece of bread to wipe the grease from his fingers, then drops it on his plate. “Just until they get the vengefulness out of them. A few days by the sea until the fuss dies down. A week or two, maybe? The girls will enjoy a holiday.”

“Nico, too,” Herpyllis says.

“He’s a grand boy.” Theophrastos pulls his scrolls back into his lap. “How about you, Pythias? Who’ll miss you if you’re gone a few days? I bet there’s someone.”

Apricots, lovely apricots.

“Leave her alone,” Herpyllis says. “She’s my good girl.”

“We’ll be foreigners here until we die,” Daddy says. “No Athenian would have her. She’s Macedon-born. She can’t breed a citizen. We should probably just go home.”

A curious silence.

“Athens is home,” Herpyllis says.

“Athens is home to Athenians. We’re Macedonian.”

“Athens
is
Macedonian. Alexander’s death doesn’t change that.” They look at me because I said the words aloud.
Alexander’s death
.

“Antipater is still regent,” Theophrastos says. “Pythias is right about that. You have powerful friends still. This outburst”—he waves a hand to indicate the sounds of singing and drunkenness that waft in from all sides—“this isn’t rebellion. It’s a little release, a little letting-off of old feelings, old desires. Athens is in no real position to overthrow Macedonian rule. Those days are over.”

“They pleasure themselves tonight,” Herpyllis says bitterly. “And they’ll be spent in the morning.”

“That’s enough.” Daddy squeezes his eyes shut and opens them looking confused, like he can’t focus. “I’m a symbol. A known associate of the king. They’ll kill me just as soon as they think they can get away with it. Look at Socrates.”

We all look at Daddy.

“They made him drink hemlock for corrupting the youth of Athens. They kill philosophers,” Daddy says, slowly and loudly, like we’re all stupid. “Athenians kill philosophers.” He stands. Slowly, painfully, with great nobility. “I love my king,” he says hoarsely. “I am loyal to my king. We leave.”

Herpyllis rises abruptly, loads the tray with our plates, and goes to the kitchen.

“Sounion,” I say.

“What’s that?” Daddy says.

“We could go to Sounion.”

Theophrastos smiles bemusedly, as he always does when I have an opinion.
If a cat could speak
, he asked me once,
what would it say?

I don’t know
, I answered.
I’m a dog
.

“Whyever?” Theophrastos says now.

“It’s close,” I say. “No hard journey for Daddy. And it’s on the sea.”

“And,” Daddy says.

“It’s beautiful.”

“And.”

“And the Macedonian fleet is there.”

“Good girl,” he says. “However, Chalcis is better.”

“It’s farther.”

“And less beautiful. But it has a full garrison, and I have property there. The farm.”

“Chalcis,” I say. “We need to tell Myrmex.”

“Myrmex is fine,” Daddy says.

I raise my eyebrows.

“He sent word,” Daddy says. “He got trapped on the other side of the city when the riots started. He’s staying with Akakios. You remember Akakios. He’ll be home in a few days, when it’s safe.”

I see Akakios walking slowly through the streets with Myrmex, his hand on my brother’s shoulder the way Daddy used to do, speaking thoughtfully to him while around them the party continues. I see them stop at a stall to buy meat
skewers and bread, then walk on, enjoying the festive night, talking about the nutritive faculty.

The next morning, Theophrastos gives my father gifts: some books he’s been working on. “Something new for the journey,” he says to Daddy. “This is a bibliography I’ve been assembling. I’m rather proud of it, actually, how much I’ve done these last few years. When you look at it all together like that. And then this one—”

“Ah,” Daddy says. “Your plants.”

“My plants,” Theophrastos says.

We will see him again before we go; it’s arranged. We’ll visit the school in a day or so, and Daddy will give him final instructions.

“Not final,” Theophrastos says. “A few weeks, maximum. Will you bring Nico?”

“If he’ll come.”

When he’s gone and the gate is bolted behind him, Daddy says to me, “Come on. Let’s take a look at these.”

We go to his study and sit side by side, looking through the bibliography.

“Juices, Complexions, and Flesh,”
Daddy reads.

“On Honey,”
I read.

“Animals That Live In Holes.”

“The Difference of the Voices of Similar Animals.”

“Look,” Daddy says. “He’s written one on hair, one on tyranny, and three on water.”

“Political, Ethical, Physical, and Amatory Problems.”

“Amatory problems,” Daddy snorts, and we laugh until our guts ache. It’s the first time we’ve laughed in days.

Herpyllis says when a man is at ease his testicles are tender, but when he’s excited they go wizened and tight. I don’t know if she’s trying to give me the world or take it away.

I watch her now, standing in the courtyard next to my father as he explains the move to the assembled household, Tycho and Simon and the rest of them. Her eyes find our big slave, Pyrrhaios, then the ground.

“I will not pretend that this move will be easy,” my father is saying. “I will not pretend that our life in Chalcis will be better. I’m confident it will be worse. But our way of life here is over now. We are not wanted in Athens anymore. I am not wanted. My loyalty to my students—”

His chest heaves, but he collects himself.

“We leave the day after tomorrow. Pack only what you cannot leave behind. Your mistress will instruct you about the household goods. Now, as for food. My own requirements are minimal, as you all know—”

While he drones on, I watch Simon and Tycho exchange glances. They are my father’s best oxen, and they know the greatest burden will fall on them. The women have started to weep, and Olympios’s child is gumming dirt again. It’s a filthy little thing. Nico stands as tall as he can, listening as a soldier to his general.

Myrmex still isn’t home.

I hatch a little egg of a plan: I’ll take it upon myself to speak with every member of the household privately, to assure them that the move is only temporary and we’ll be back in
Athens by the apple-picking. It would be natural for me to enquire after Myrmex in such a context. Even to visit his room. To penetrate his thick, hot, sour, salty-smelling room.

I start with my little brother.

“You don’t pack like that, silly,” I tell him. “Those’ll break. You need some thorny burnet to wrap around each of them. There are lots of bushes on the road to the market. It’s springy when it’s dry. It’ll protect them.”