by A. J. Demas
The music changed to a dance he obviously knew, and then, almost seamlessly, they were really dancing together, hands clasped, moving in unison in a highly modified form of the steps which they fell into with ease. Dami had a good sense of rhythm and moved easily; he would have been good at the martial, masculine dances when he’d had the full use of both knees. But he could still do this, though Varazda thought that perhaps he hadn’t realized it until now. He looked like he might cry, but the tears stayed in his eyes, sparkling.
The music changed once more, and they stopped and stood, hand in hand, foreheads resting against each other for a moment. Varazda thought of their sparring the day before, and how that had been like the mirror-image of this.
They were interrupted by the arrival of Ariston, rather breathless, announcing, “These are the friends I told you about. Damiskos, uh—Varazda—this is Kallisto.”
Kallisto, it turned out, was the woman Ariston had been dancing with.
She was in no way what Varazda had expected. She was older than Ariston, perhaps in her late twenties, and taller than Ariston, her skin the colour of copper, her curly black hair pulled severely back from her face. “Kallisto” could not have been the name her mother gave her—if her mother had had the opportunity to name her at all. From what Ariston had said, she was a freed slave. She was big-boned without being voluptuous, her shoulders rather broad, her face strong-featured. She was the kind of woman you might call “striking rather than beautiful.”
“Delighted to meet you, Varazda,” Kallisto said, leaning in to give Varazda a firm handshake, as appropriate between women on the Asteria. She pronounced his name with care and precision.
Varazda shook her hand, although with the end of the dance, like the breaking of a spell, he had gone back to being a non-woman in women’s clothes. He tried not to feel too annoyed by the interruption.
“So, uh.” Ariston wiped his hands down the skirt of his tunic. “We should go somewhere and talk. We have to—uh, ask you about some things.”
“Of course,” she said, smiling at Ariston and reaching out to readjust the fold of his mantle which had once again fallen back around his shoulders. “Lead the way—or rather, let your friend Varazda lead the way.” She shot Varazda a smile.
They went up the steps of the Palace of Art and into its cool, quiet interior. There were few people looking at the pictures today, and it was easy to find seats on a bench in a corner where they could be assured of not being overheard. Kallisto settled herself and arranged her mantle with a careless grace.
Ariston cleared his throat loudly and began. “The other night—Orante’s night—I came over to see you, late, around the second hour. I’d just come from a party, and I was a bit … well, Themistokles said he was going to show some people one of my sketches, but he never did, which wasn’t his fault, there was never an opportunity, but still I felt a bit … uh. You know.
“Leto said you were busy, but … she says that sometimes even when you’re not. So I went around to the window at the back, I was just going to knock and see if you wanted to … ” He glanced miserably at Varazda and Dami, then forged on. “If you wanted to have a game of robbers. But I heard you inside talking to someone. You said, ‘I’ll do to you what I did to Themistokles.’ And I thought—somehow—it meant you’d killed Themistokles.”
“I didn’t!” A woman of her poise could not really be said to yelp, but she came close.
“We know,” Ariston assured her, actually putting a hand on her arm. “We know. The public watch has been—”
“The public watch?” she repeated in dismay. She shook off Ariston’s hand. “Holy Waters. You were eavesdropping on me, Ariston. What business did you have being back there? I showed you that back gate because I trusted you.”
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have been there, I know I should have left as soon as I heard voices.”
“You should have.”
“I know that. But I did hear you say, ‘I’ll do to you what—’’
“Which was none of your business. And didn’t mean I killed him.”
“Well, uh, it’s just that then the man said, ‘What did you do to Themistokles?’ And you said, uh, something about, about holding him by the throat until he couldn’t breathe.” Ariston cringed. “At least that’s what I thought I heard. Probably—I mean obviously—I heard wrong, but I … it was just, there was just something about the way you said it. You sounded so, so—not even angry, just fierce. You sounded like you could have killed someone. And I thought—I was just worried about you.”
Kallisto had been gritting her teeth through this new revelation, but she unclenched them to say, “You what? You heard that, and you were worried about me?”
“Yes, because I thought—I thought you’d killed Themistokles, and I thought if you had, you must have had a good reason. I thought maybe he’d done something to you.”
Kallisto looked at Ariston for a moment with an unreadable expression that might have been tenderness. “Oh. I see. No. It is not that at all.”
“I’m so glad.”
She heaved a sigh. “It was very sweet of you to worry, Ariston.”
“He turned himself in to the public watch to protect you,” said Varazda.
“Ariston, you didn’t! What did they do?”
“Held me in a cell while they went and found out Themistokles wasn’t dead.”
“Do I need to clear your name now?”
“No! They’ll just think that I was drunk or something.” Ariston gave Varazda a pleading look.
“The chief officer of the watch is a friend of ours,” said Varazda. “We will be able to smooth things over. Indeed, in large part we already have.”
“But you’re telling me this now … ” said Kallisto. She looked away for a moment. “I will tell you why I said what you heard me say, Ariston. I think that I owe it to you for your heroism.” She turned back to Varazda. “Here is what it is. I am a courtesan. I get my living by making men feel however it is they want to feel with me. Mostly, the way men want to feel with me is … how to put it? Mastered. Powerless. It’s like the Asteria in a way. They just want to feel that way for a little while and then go back to their regular lives, where they are the powerful ones.
“Themistokles Glyptikos is my main client these days, but he isn’t a rich man, and he has other concerns—he wants to marry and is seeking patrons—so I have always seen other men besides him. One of them was with me on Orante’s night, when Ariston heard us together. I said that I would do to him what I did to Themistokles.” Her voice dropped into something like a growl, suggestive of big cats, and her eyes fell half-closed, menacingly. It was remarkably effective. “It was part of the game,” she added in a normal tone. “As for what I did to Themistokles, well—that too is part of the game. Some men like it.”
“Oh,” said Varazda blankly. He glanced at Dami, who was not looking surprised. Dami, in fact, had guessed this. This was Kallisto’s “specialty.”
“I have shocked you,” Kallisto said, with just a hint of archness. “You are a respectable Zashian woman. Please forgive me.”
“What? No, no, I’m not—a respectable Zashian woman. Not at all.”
He was shocked, though, so he didn’t know what else to say. It didn’t help that he had noticed Ariston’s expression now, and it was different from either his own or Dami’s. Ariston looked entranced.
“Why the reference to Themistokles, specifically?” Dami asked.
Kallisto sighed. “It’s part of the fantasy for him. He … he considers Themistokles a rival and enjoys being chastised by Themi’s mistress. He proposes specific scenarios. I can’t tell you more. Likely I have already told you more than I should.”
“We will be discreet,” said Varazda. “Do not worry. It seems this was a misunderstanding, and we will all forget it ever happened.”
“We’re glad to know you’re all right,” said Ariston fervently.
They parted ways on the steps of the Palac
e of Art. Kallisto walked out to rejoin the crowd of women, tall and regal in her red gown.
“What are we going to do now?” Ariston asked anxiously, as they stood watching her.
“Ah,” said Varazda. “Well.” He looked to Dami.
“We don’t have to tell Marzana that I thought Themistokles was dead because I eavesdropped on a sex game, do we?” Ariston squeaked.
“I don’t think we have to tell him that,” said Dami. “But were you eavesdropping?”
“No! No. It was like I said. I stopped outside the window, because … because I thought she might be in there with someone, and I wanted to hear her voice. I’ve—I’ve done it before,” he admitted in an abject whisper. “I guess—actually, that is eavesdropping, isn’t it?”
Varazda put an arm around Ariston’s shoulders.
“I never heard anything like that before, though,” Ariston went on, “and I didn’t know that was, you know, what she did. Though … ” He looked off into the middle distance. “It does make sense. I mean, a woman like Kallisto? Why wouldn’t you want her taking, taking charge of you? Who wouldn’t want that? R-right?”
“Nothing wrong with wanting it,” Dami said quickly. “In my view. Or doing it, either, if she’s agreeable—which it seems she is. But that’s my view, and I may not be the person to ask.”
Ariston laughed. “You mean because you’ve got a thirty-year-old boyfriend?”
“That’s what I mean. My view may not be typical.”
Varazda released his hold on Ariston and gave him a thump on the back instead.
They walked on down the street away from the Palace of Art.
“Where should we go now?” Ariston asked. “If we’re not, uh, going to go tell Marzana everything.”
“There’s the sandal-makers’ wives’ picnic,” said Varazda, still feeling somewhat distracted. “It would be starting soon. We will need to tell Marzana something, though, eventually.”
“Yeah yeah.” Ariston waved a hand airily. “Plenty of time. Don’t want to miss the sandal picnic.”
They bent their steps in the direction of the leather market where the picnic was always held. Ariston began walking ahead, and Varazda fell back to keep pace with Dami.
“Does it appeal to you?” Varazda asked in an undertone.
“Does … you mean what Kallisto does? No, it does not.” He shuddered slightly. “Divine Terza, no. The thought of being powerless doesn’t turn me on—never has. In fact … ”
“In fact?”
“Well, all things being equal, I like being in charge. Not that … ”
“I like it too. You, in charge.”
“That means a lot.”
“It does, yes.”
They smiled privately at one another for a moment.
“Ariston,” Varazda called, “slow down, will you? Remember you’re not allowed to go about without a chaperone.”
“Oh, yeah.” He glanced back and saw how far he had gotten ahead of them. “Gods, yes. Sorry! Sorry,” he repeated to Dami, when they had caught up to him. “I forgot.”
“Lykanos Lykandros,” said Varazda, changing the subject but to some purpose. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Eh?” said Ariston. “To me?”
“To you, yes.”
“Um, sure. I haven’t met him, myself, but he was Themistokles’s old patron.”
“Was he really?”
Ariston nodded. “When Themistokles was really young, before he went to study with Tellephoros in Kos. Lykanos was a sculptor himself, but he gave it up years ago. They’re still friends, though, him and Themistokles.”
“Indeed?”
“Why? That came out of nowhere.”
“Not really. I saw Lykanos at Kallisto’s house just now.”
“Wait, you know him?”
“Not to speak to. He’s a spice merchant,” Varazda added, to Dami. “A very wealthy man and a patron to a lot of artists in the city.”
“You don’t think he’s Themistokles’s rival?” said Ariston excitedly. “The one she was talking about, who—with the—you know?”
Varazda shrugged, disingenuously. “I just wondered.”
“What would he have been doing at Kallisto’s when she was out, though?” Ariston pursued. “D’you think he’d spent the night?” He grimaced.
“With the Asteria the next day?” Varazda was sceptical.
Dami shook his head. “Didn’t sound like they have that kind of relationship. More likely he’s got something with the servant, Leto, too.”
Ariston’s eyes widened. “When he gets to be with Kallisto any time he wants? No way. And Leto’s so … so ordinary.”
“I can’t say I disagree,” said Damiskos, flashing Ariston a rather roguish smile. “Kallisto’s something, though.”
“Isn’t she wonderful?”
“Does she know how you feel about her?”
“Wh … I mean … ” Ariston wrinkled his nose. “Probably. She’s very smart.”
After the sandal-makers’ wives’ picnic, which was chaotic and enjoyable as always, they headed up to the sea wall—in hired chairs, this time, at Varazda’s suggestion—to Chereia’s sweet shop. The sky soared dazzlingly blue out over the harbour, the breeze off the water strong and chilly. But the benches which Chereia had recently added outside her shop were packed with women, wrapped in warm mantles, chatting and eating under the brightly-painted new sign. Inside the shop’s honey-scented interior they found Marzana and his elder son behind the counter, dealing with a mob of female customers. Marzana spotted them by the door and spared them a harried wave.
“This is such a weird festival,” said Ariston, who was being very chummy with Damiskos again. “You don’t have anything like it in Pheme, do you?”
The spectacle of Marzana with his beard and military bearing doling out fritters and making change behind the sweet-shop counter was definitely an odd one. His son Sorgana, who was seven and took prizes at school for rhetoric and geometry, was not a tremendous amount of help when it came to the practical tasks of running a shop. As they watched, he dropped a tray full of sesame sweets, began gathering them up one at a time, and was putting the ones that had rolled across the floor back on the tray with the ones that hadn’t until a grandmotherly woman swooped down and scolded him.
“Not remotely,” Dami answered with a grin.
“I think about moving to Pheme sometimes,” said Ariston. “When I’ve finished my studies. Though Kos would probably be better for my career. Have you ever been to Kos?”
“Ariston,” said Varazda warningly. “Not now, if you don’t mind.”
“Why don’t I go spell Marzana off,” Dami suggested, “while you and Ariston talk to him?”
“Oh, I can come help you,” Ariston said eagerly.
“Sure,” said Dami before Varazda could intervene to protect him.
Varazda led the way through the packed shop, Dami remembered to follow meekly behind him, and Ariston got elbowed in the ribs by a woman with a large basket and made it to the counter by clinging to the back of Dami’s mantle and frantically squeaking “Excuse me, excuse me!”
“No time to talk now, I’m afraid,” said Marzana when he saw them arrive. He reached around Varazda to make change for a group of girls.
“I’m here to offer you some assistance so you can take a break. Damiskos and Ariston here are good workers.”
Marzana glanced sceptically between Dami and Ariston, shrugged, and lifted up the hinged section of counter to let them all come through.
“Everything’s one obios for a half dozen,” he said by way of instruction. “Good luck.”
Marzana led the way into the back room, which was the sweet shop’s kitchen. A half-full tray of fig fritters lay on the counter, and he pulled it toward himself as he sat on one of the stools.
“Thanks for the rescue,” he said. “I assume you’ve something to tell me?”
Varazda perched on another stool and helped himself to a fritter.
“Yes, but I don’t know what you’ll think of it.” He explained what they had learned from Kallisto, though without mentioning her name.
“I believe it,” said Marzana when Varazda had finished. He licked honey off his fingers. “I wouldn’t have ten years ago, though I’m sure there are men in Zash who like their concubines to play-act like that. It’s just that in Boukos one talks about it.”
“The woman in question is free, if that makes a difference.”
Marzana looked up. “A difference in what?” he asked rather sharply.
“A difference in how you feel about the play-acting,” Varazda clarified. “It would be one thing if she were a slave or a concubine, but she’s a freedwoman making her living as a courtesan. She’s not absolutely powerless.”
“No. And you’re right, that does make a difference. I thought you meant, did it make a difference to whether I believe her or not—and of course it doesn’t. Though I suppose I should ask if you believe her.”
Varazda nodded. “I do.”
“She didn’t tell you the man’s name.”
“No, but that’s as one would expect. She can’t go around revealing her clients’ fantasies, even in Boukos.”
Marzana laughed. “No, you’re right. Even in Boukos. Strange thought.”
The back door of the shop opened just then, and Chereia came in.
“Varazda!” she gasped as the door swung shut behind her. “Look at you! That gown—it’s stunning!”
Varazda had almost forgotten what he was wearing. He looked down at the rust-coloured gown and laughed.
“You look lovely yourself, as always,” he said truthfully.
She was dressed for the festival in leaf-green, her brown hair simply and elegantly swept back from her face. Varazda thought she radiated a kind of wholesome beauty, in manner as well as appearance. She was a few years older than he.