The innkeeper started to get off the floor. She flicked one nicely arched foot at him and it caught him on the temple, and he was out.
Quite a performance.
She collected her coins, showing a great deal of herself, doing little acrobatics like walking on her hands – naked – to pick up coins, and doing the splits and backwards handsprings and such stuff. She put the coins into a bag around her waist that seemed to be her only permanent possession. This process went on a long time, because men threw more money and she had to come up with ever more inventive methods of picking it up.
Finally, she pulled Seckla’s cloak around her and suddenly, with a spring, she was sitting on the bench across from me, where I sat beside Dionysus.
‘You two are the captains, yes?’ she asked.
Dionysus shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he said.
I pointed at Neoptolymos, who was very carefully not looking.
‘He’s a captain. So’s young Achilles, there.’ Achilles was Dionysus’ hard-bitten second.
Achilles, whose real name was Teukes, gave me a mock glare. He was older than any of us, and calling him ‘young Achilles’ was, well, teasing, of a sort. Hah, hah.
At any rate, she leaned across the table, and I couldn’t really keep my eyes on her face, if you take my meaning. I was old, but not so very old.
‘I have something to sell,’ she said, with a wink.
‘I’m sure any man in this room will buy,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘Not that. I don’t sell that – what do you think I am? A whore? I’m a dancer. Listen, trierarchs. I have something to sell. The value of it won’t last.’ She shrugged, a lovely motion.
Dionysus was quicker witted than I. ‘Information?’ he asked.
She smiled at him. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, reaching up to put her hair back up.
It takes a superior courage to be a woman, alone in a room full of pirates, wearing nothing but a borrowed cloak and dickering over the price of information. I couldn’t do it.
‘Are you a slave?’ I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘On and off,’ she said. She shrugged. ‘Just now, I own myself.’
‘Tell me your information and I’ll tell you what it’s worth,’ I suggested.
She smiled. ‘You have a special herb and I won’t ever get pregnant?’ she shot back. ‘You’ll pay tomorrow? Your rich aunt just died and you haven’t got the bequest yet?’
‘How did you know?’ I asked.
She leered. ‘Don’t be like this. I have something amazing to relate, and you are my only customers. By Aphrodite, gentlemen!’
‘How much do you want, then?’ Dionysus asked.
‘A talent. In gold.’ She looked back and forth, evaluating our reactions.
‘Ten silver drachma would seem to be more your price,’ Dionysus said.
‘Ten silver mina,’ she said.
‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Is this shipping information?’ I asked.
She grew demure. ‘Perhaps.’
‘On this coast?’ I asked.
She looked down. ‘No. But by Aphrodite, gentlemen, it’s an opportunity for wealth, beyond—’ She shook her head.
‘How’d you get it, then?’ I asked.
‘A gentleman friend told me some things,’ she said, smiling.
‘Navarchs don’t actually whisper secrets to porne,’ Dionysus said, his voice hard. ‘Go and ply your trade with the others, woman.’
She looked at me. ‘Why? You two are heroes. I want to tell you. Death to Carthage. Eh? We all hate the bastards. Why can’t I make a killing with you?’
Dionysus caught her, pinned her hand to the table and put a knife against her wrist.
‘Hey!’ she said, and then the confidence went out of her.
‘I wager this is a trap,’ Dionysus said. ‘You are far too expensive and far too out of place to be here. Who told you to come here?’
She wriggled. ‘Damn you! Every porne on the waterfront knows who you are and how much cash you have! I know something worth knowing! I won’t give it for free!’
Dionysus rolled his dagger blade over her wrist, and she whimpered. He was a cruel bastard. In fact, he liked inflicting pain – it wasn’t just that he was a strong leader. He liked watching his men suffer when he trained them.
‘I can maim your hand,’ he said. ‘Or your face. Or have every oarsman on my ships fuck you till you die. Now talk, whore.’
I can be a hard man. I’ve killed a lot of men, and some women. But this sort of thing sickened me.
On the other hand, I was fairly sure Dionysus was right.
Seckla, on the other hand, was watching, and he wasn’t having any of it. ‘Let her go,’ he said, lurching up to our table in drunken arête.
Dionysus pushed the blade down harder.
She moaned. ‘I’m not—’
Seckla pulled at her hand. I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause her more pain, but he rotated her body and she screamed: ‘Fuck you, you bastards! I’m not lying!’
Dionysus leaned back and let her go.
She snatched her hand away and nursed it against her breast. She seemed smaller and dirtier. She began to cry.
‘Why?’ she asked, looking at me. ‘Why did he have to do that?’
‘I’ll slit your nose, next,’ Dionysus said. He leaned back and motioned a porne for wine. He looked at me. ‘You can’t believe any of this.’
I rubbed my beard.
Dionysus rolled his eyes, even as Seckla tired to comfort the dancer and she kept away from him. ‘Listen, if you want this woman, lean her against the wall and take her from behind so you don’t have to listen to the shit that spews from her mouth,’ he laughed. ‘It’s a door that opens and closes a great deal.’
I shook my head. ‘She has a fair amount of courage,’ I said. ‘I want to hear her information.’
She turned and threw herself at my knees. ‘Please!’ she said. ‘I will—’
I raised a hand. ‘Listen to my terms. You want to offer us a target, yes?’
She nodded emphatically. ‘A rich target.’
‘So,’ I said. ‘You come along, as our guest. I will make you some guarantees – swear oaths with you. You will receive a share of our take – when we make the capture. Not before.’
She shrank away. ‘Never. Go to sea – on a pirate ship? You must think I’m simple.’ She laughed. It was a terrible laugh. ‘That’s not the way I want to die – raped to death by criminals.’ Her eyes flickered to Dionysus. ‘I thought you were different – the heroes of Lades and Marathon.’ She spat.
Dionysus shrugged. ‘I think Arimnestos is too kind,’ he said.
She spat on the floor. ‘My curse on all your kind,’ she said, and ran out of the taverna.
Seckla glowered at me.
I nodded. ‘Go and chase her down and make her a better offer,’ I suggested.
He stumbled after the dancer. Now, I don’t think Seckla had shown interest in five women in his entire life up until then, so you may find my choice odd, but women can be sensitive to these things, and Seckla was not a hard man. Seckla suffered every time he had to fight – every wound he inflicted sat on him. He was only with us because of his love for me – and for Neoptolymos and Doola and Daud.
He followed her into the edge of darkness.
I remember telling Dionysus that he was a right bastard. I remember him telling me I was a fool.
In the morning, Seckla was sleeping with the woman wrapped in his arms on a palliasse of straw under the upturned hull of the Lydia. She was as pretty in the morning, rising from her blankets, as she was in the night – and as naked. She ran into the water and bathed, and wrapped herself in Seckla’s chlamys and planted herself in front of me.
‘I’ll come. I lift my curse, trierarch. I offer my apologies, but your friend hurt my wrist something cruel. Seckla and I have made a deal.’
Seckla said, ‘I gave her my word. She gets the same share that I get.’
I was staggered.
‘Seckla – listen, lady. Without meaning to dicker, he can’t offer you the same share he has. Not without seven men voting to agree.’ I glared at him.
‘She can have my share, then,’ Seckla said.
‘We’ll split it,’ she said. Her eyes were interesting. She could be cold as – well, as cold as a warrior. Or quite the passionate thing. She’d settled her claws into Seckla, and I couldn’t decide if she was a porne or not. In her heart, I mean. In fact, she was.
Dionysus came up.
She slipped behind Seckla.
‘Good morning, young lady,’ he said. He looked at me. ‘Slit her throat and let’s be on our way.’
She stepped back.
He grinned. Seckla stepped up to him, fists clenched. Dionysus, however, was twenty years his senior and had a dignity not usually found in pirates – although, come to think of it—
‘Let her alone,’ Seckla said.
‘It’s a trap,’ Dionysus said. ‘One of the Carthaginians you’ve robbed is setting you up. Or that fellow – what’s his name? Who enslaved the lot of you.’
‘Dagon,’ I said. While I loathed Dagon and wanted him under the edge of my sword, I didn’t really think of him all that often, and I didn’t see him as – well, as intelligent enough to plan something like this. He was sly – crafty – evil. But not capable of setting a trap with, of all unlikely allies, a woman.
I looked at the dancer. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Men call me Despoina,’ she said. When I made a face, she shrugged. ‘I was born to Geaeta.’
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘Athens,’ she said.
I shrugged. ‘Beware,’ I said. ‘I know Athens fairly well.’
‘Really?’ she said. ‘I’d have said you were a Boeotian bumpkin who had visited once or twice.’
‘Not bad,’ I allowed. ‘Tell me where the bronze-smiths gather.’
‘The Temple of Hephaestos, on the hill below the Areopagus,’ she said.
‘What’s the rostra?’ I asked.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Anyone knows that. The speaker’s stone in the Pnyx.’
‘How did Miltiades die?’ I asked.
‘His wound festered while Cimon tried to raise the money for his debts,’ she said.
I looked at the ground. ‘Damn,’ I said. My emotion must have showed.
Her eyes softened. ‘Don’t tell me you really are the great Plataean?’ She laughed. ‘Come on. Arimnestos of Plataea is dead. Everyone says so.’ She looked at me. ‘I wish I could ask you about Plataea.’
‘How is it with Aristides?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘We’re not exactly bosom friends,’ she allowed.
‘What are you doing in Magna Greca?’ I asked.
She looked around. Men were watching from a distance.
‘I was sold,’ she said. She raised her face defiantly. ‘I was a free woman, but I was sold. As a porne. I ran, and got caught. They sold me to a Carthaginian.’ She shrugged. ‘I lived. They didn’t know I could swim. I jumped over the side at Rhegium. I’m better-trained than any kid on this coast. Better-looking, too.’ She shrugged. ‘And I won’t be a slave again, and I don’t open and shut for free, either.’ She looked at Dionysus.
‘A pretty story,’ he said.
‘Fuck you, pirate,’ she said.
His fist smashed into her cheek and she fell. ‘Speak respectfully, whore,’ he said. ‘I am not your equal.’
‘Women who sell their bodies are so much lower than men who kill for money,’ she spat from the sand.
He looked at me while Seckla fumed. Don’t imagine Seckla was too much the coward to fight for his woman. It was more complex than that. Dionysus was a superior officer and also an old friend of mine. And Seckla didn’t trust his sleeping companion yet.
Anyway, Dionysus looked at me. ‘I’m inclined to try her,’ he said.
‘If it’s a trap, we’ll fight our way out,’ I said. I remember grinning.
He shrugged. ‘The best way to get out of a trap is never to enter it.’
‘We need Gaius,’ I said. I looked at the woman, who was rubbing her cheek. Dionysus liked to hit women. I’d figured that out. ‘Despoina, how much time do we have?’
She considered rebellion. I saw it on her face. She considered telling us all to fuck ourselves. She had a lot of pride and a lot of . . . arrogance for a woman who’d been so ill used.
But good sense won out.
‘If you believe me, you need to catch them at the new moon,’ she said.
That gave us two weeks.
‘Where?’ I asked softly. I held her eyes.
‘Do we have a deal? I split Seckla’s share?’ she breathed.
‘If you tell the truth, and we get a prize, you will have a sizeable share,’ I said. ‘Not less in value than one half of Seckla’s share. Is that agreeable? And I guarantee your body, your person and your freedom on my oath to Zeus, the God of Kings and Free Men, and I offer you bread and wine, hospitality and guest friendship from my house to yours until my heirs and yours are all shades in Elysium.’ I held out my hand. ‘Unless you betray me or mine, in which case, by the same oath, I will hunt you like the Furies and cut your throat.’
Seckla nodded at her and gave her a small smile. ‘He means it.’
She smiled back, and took my hand. ‘Deal,’ she said.
Dionysus snorted in disgust.
‘New Carthage,’ she said. ‘The tin fleet.’
19
Carthage got her tin from Iberia, as I’ve mentioned. Four times a year, when the Iberians had filled the Carthaginian warehouses, they sent a fleet to pick up the tin and sail it home – half a dozen round ships guarded closely by a squadron of galleys.
This was, well, I won’t call it common knowledge. It was uncommon knowledge. Shippers, tin miners, bronze-smiths and pirates knew it.
I’d say that the Carthaginians kept the movement of the tin fleets secret, but that wouldn’t do justice to how secret they kept it. They didn’t want the Greeks to know where the tin came from, or how much there was. Most merchants – even tin traders – thought that the tin came from Etrusca, or Illyria. Or some hazy point outside the Gates of Heracles.
Geaeta had quite a story – an adventure of her own, with knife-fights, lovemaking and clever escapades worthy of Odysseus. I even believed a few of the stories. She had courage and strong muscles, and I can witness that those two things alone can win you free of slavery.
Her story – the parts that made sense and I believed – was complex. She had started the spring sailing season in a slave pen in Carthago, and gone west in a consignment to New Carthage, a colony on the Inner Sea coast of Iberia facing the Balearic Islands. She said that she was sold off to a brothel there, and two weeks later, the first ships of the spring tin convoy had arrived, all badly storm-damaged by a freak spring storm in the strait.
‘They were all afraid, and angry,’ she said. ‘All the owners. All the rich men.’ She shrugged. ‘Your friend says navarchs don’t talk to porne. Maybe; maybe not his kind,’ she spat. ‘But most men talk. And good friends – a pair of them will hire a pair of girls – you know, together.’ She shrugged. ‘And the men will chat while—’ She shrugged again.
‘I got the captain of one of the round ships,’ she said. ‘He had had quite a scare. That’s when men talk the most. He almost lost his ship – and his life. He went to the temple four times while he was staying in my room.’ She shrugged, smiled. ‘He wanted me.’ She made a face – pride and revulsion together. ‘He wanted me every hour of the day and night – besotted, he was. So he paid a bribe to the brothel owner so that I could come with him to Carthage and back – he was being sent for replacement oarsmen and all sorts of chandlery that New Carthage didn’t have.’ She met my eyes. ‘The day we left, news came that the other survivors of the tin fleet had returned to Gades. And that we could expect them in fifteen days, at the new moon.’ She looked around. It was the evening of our second day at sea. She�
��d told the story enough times that it had a polished ring to it that made her sound like a liar. The problem was that she was a damned good storyteller, and that didn’t actually help her veracity.
Gaius – now a surly, somewhat domineering Roman magnate who clearly didn’t want to go to sea that summer – shook his head. ‘Dionysus is right,’ he said. ‘You can’t believe a word she says.’
Seckla spat. ‘I believe her,’ he said.
Gaius made an obscene suggestion as to exactly why he believed her, and Daud laughed and laughed. It was good to hear the Keltoi man laugh; he had been silent for so long. His second brush with slavery had all but ruined his cheerful disposition, leaving him dour.
‘How’d you come to be in Ostia?’ Daud asked, when he was done laughing.
‘I jumped ship at Rhegium,’ she said.
‘Why, exactly?’ I asked. ‘I mean, why would a Carthaginian ship bound for Carthage ever come anywhere near Rhegium?’
She shrugged. ‘How would I know?’ she said. ‘I’m not a great sailor. When we were at sea, he’d, um, make use of me when he pleased, and otherwise the boat went up and down, men ran about and the oarsmen all watched me like cats watch rats. I swore I’d never go to sea again.’
Gaius pursed his lips and scrated his red hair. ‘I’m leaving my farms at a touchy time – to be killed by the Carthaginians,’ he said. ‘Perhaps if I’m lucky, I’ll only be a slave.’
Geaeta looked pointedly at his waistline. ‘At least you know you won’t be sold to a brothel,’ she said.
Gaius wasn’t used to being talked to that way, much less by a mere woman. He stomped off.
That night, Dionysus said to me, ‘She’s either real, or she’s the most gifted actress I’ve ever seen.’
I agreed. I believed her. Most of the time.
Of course, it was possible. It was all plausible. Ships go off course. But an unarmed merchant ship headed for Carthage should have avoided the north coast of Sicily – the Greek coast – like a plague. He should have run south and coasted Africa.
On the other hand, she was just the kind of girl who got the trierarchs in a brothel – not a broken spirit in a vaguely fleshy body, but a passionate woman with good looks and a mouth. If I owned a brothel, I’d buy a dozen of her.
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