White Lotus

by Libbie Hawker

  Doricha did her best to ignore the irritations of fringe and ash… the spider-creep along her legs and arms, and there in the middle of her back, in exactly the one spot she couldn’t reach with her hands. She clenched her jaw hard to distract herself from the feeling, and whirled in time to the music, sending the fringe out to spin like a desert whirlwind around her agile legs and her slim, girlish hips.

  Aesop, perched upon his folding stool beside the musicians, called out to Doricha as she danced. “What was the name of the Babylonian king who sought to invade Egypt?”

  Doricha’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t falter in her dance. Her arms moved like two snakes, precisely at the right moment, when the music reached a sinuous transition—the flutes taking over where the harps had left off. “Many Babylonian kings have sought to invade,” she said.

  “In the Pharaoh’s fourth hear,” Aesop answered.

  Doricha bent backward, arching until her palms found the smooth, flat stones of the portico floor. She kicked her feet up and over, and as she turned right-side up again, she replied, “Nebuchadnezzar, the second of his name.”

  Rap. The sound of Iunet’s wooden staff striking the ground cut through the beat of the drums. Doricha looked to her dancing-mistress, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

  “Your turn-over was slow!” Iunet barked. “Now you’re off the beat.”

  Iunet raised a hand to cut off the music. Like her once-lovely face, the woman’s hand was just beginning to show the wrinkles and spots of age.

  Doricha braced her hands against her hips, panting—and trying not to look too desperate for breath while she did it. The back of her throat stung even though the air was thick with moisture, for the season of the river’s flood had come, and Egypt was wet and sweet-smelling once more.

  “I thought I did well that time,” she protested. She looked to Aesop for support, but he only shrugged, glancing away with a sly smile. He always deferred to Iunet’s judgment where Doricha’s movement and rhythm were concerned.

  Iunet advanced across the portico. Her fearful, thin stick waved in her hand like a drover’s lash. The old dancer hadn’t struck Doricha with that stick—not yet—but she never doubted that hard-eyed Iunet would not hesitate to use it like a weapon if she ever found cause to do so.

  “You reached with your hands,” Iunet said, “and there was your downfall. Do not wait for the floor to come to you, or you will lose the beat. And when you lose the beat—”

  “I lose the charm and the magic,” Doricha recited.

  The dancing-mistress gave a brusque nod. “You must spring from your feet instead, and trust your hands to find the floor when the time is right.”

  “But what if the time isn’t right? What if I misjudge when I ought to spring?”

  “Then you’ll land on your head, and you’ll soon learn better. In any case—” Iunet cut a narrow-eyed glance in Aesop’s direction— “your head is so overstuffed now that it will hardly hurt you to land on it a time or two. Now, bend backward.”

  Doricha did as she was told at once, arching sharply back from the waist. Instinctively, her fingers stretched out, feeling for the floor.

  Crack! Iunet’s stick sliced through the air and connected with Doricha’s palms. Doricha was so contorted that she couldn’t even gasp in pain; all she could do was gape, her eyes burning with sudden tears.

  “Stop reaching!” the old dancer shrieked. “Spring—now! Without thinking!”

  She had no desire to feel the stick again. Doricha pushed off hard with her feet, before she could talk herself into greater caution. To her surprise, the floor came up to meet her outstretched hands in exactly the right way; the smooth stone even felt soothing against her stinging palms. The momentum of her leap carried her smoothly through the arc of the turn, fluid and easy.

  “Do you see now?” Iunet said. She turned and marched back toward the musicians, but Doricha caught the briefest twinkle of approval in her dancing-mistress’s eye.

  I am doing well, no matter what she says. Doricha knew it was true; she could feel it. Each time she danced, she felt grace and strength building inside her, and confidence, too—just as Aesop had promised. Now she longed to dance every waking moment of every day, and would have done so, had Aesop and Iadmon not been there to oversee her.

  Doricha had more duties, more lessons, than she would have preferred. In the seven months since her arrival in Memphis, she had spent every day at Aesop’s side, learning all she could from his great store of knowledge. He had taught her everything he knew of politics, of the ways of kings and common men. And Aesop—as thoughtful and observant as he was clever—was a deep well of knowledge. From him, Doricha had learned all about Egyptian trade—the routes and goods, how wealth worked inside the Pharaoh’s empire and outside of it—how trade conferred power upon men and rescinded it, too. She learned histories and gods, riddles and jokes and rhymes. She learned how to speak with culture and care—though she still had not managed to shake all the provincial intonations of backwater Thrace from her tongue. Learning excited her, for she knew that each piece of knowledge she gained was another brick in her hand, another inch gained on her tower of confidence and self-worth. And Aesop was ever a pleasant companion, patient and kind.

  But it was dance Doricha loved best. When she lost herself in music, she lost all the substantial cares of her young life, too. It seemed fitting to her that in Egypt dancers went nearly naked, for when the drumbeat rose up around her and the wail of reed flutes shielded her like a screen, Doricha felt as if she were disrobing, shedding all her fears and sorrows, dropping them to the ground like an old, cast-off garment. When she danced, she knew, in the most visceral and unshakable core of herself, that she was strong and good and capable—and free. Truly free, as she never was with the blue sash tied around her waist—free, as she never could be elsewhere in her life. Through dance, she had learned to see herself as someone other than a slave. When she donned her fringed dancing belt, the only master she had to obey was the music.

  And Iunet, of course.

  Iunet snapped her fingers, cuing the musicians. They took up nearly where they had left off, at the transition of harps and flutes. Doricha felt the keening notes of the reeds swell inside her heart, raising a curious flutter in her chest. She shivered her shoulders in time to the beat, shaking those flutters down her arms to the tips of her fingers, making the subtle, serpentine motions of graceful enticement.

  “Good,” Iunet said shortly.

  Aesop, too, picked up where he’d left off. “What is our Pharaoh’s name?”

  It was such an easy question that Doricha knew it had to be a trick. As she whirled and spun, she guessed at Aesop’s true meaning, and meant to surprise him with a trick of her own.

  She bent back and sprang into the turn-over exactly in time with the music. “He calls himself Amasis the Second,” she said in Greek. As her feet swung up and over and she turned right-side-up again, she flung herself back into another quick, flashing turn-over. This time she said in clear Egyptian, “But those who speak the Old Tongue call him Ahmose.”

  Doricha had said the words in a sly, teasing tone—a coy nod to the tense currents that ran through Memphis; indeed, through all of Egypt. It was a clever acknowledgment of the way true Egyptians felt about their Pharaoh. The king had done much to regain the country’s glory after a dynasty of shameful foreign rule—yet he was so enamored of Greek culture that he seemed to have forgotten he was a native Egyptian.

  Iunet, an Egyptian through and through, startled Doricha a raspy laugh of surprise. This time when the mistress’s stick cracked against the ground, it was a display of appreciation for her wit—not a correction.

  Doricha hadn’t missed a beat; she danced on, grinning cheekily at Aesop.

  Smiling wryly, Aesop warned, “I wouldn’t repeat a jest like that one in uncertain company.”

  Wise counsel. There was always turmoil between native Egyptians and foreigners, especially those of Greek extraction. Tal
es had filtered back to Iadmon’s household of innocent jests in beer shops and inns, turned in the blink of an eye to drawn knives.

  Still, Aesop seemed pleased that Doricha had anticipated his trick and outmaneuvered him. He went on with his questions as she continued her dance, correcting her steps now and then whenever Iunet rapped her stick and barked out a remonstration.

  At Aesop’s command, Doricha ran through a recitation of the governors of all the nearest sepats—the districts up and down the Nile that sent their taxes and tributes to the king in Memphis. As she did so, she executed an intricate, pattering stagger-step across the portico, punctuated by yearning motions of her hands and wrists. Iadmon wandered outside to lean casually against a pillar, watching her double performance of politics and dance.

  At sight of her master, Doricha’s steps faltered along with her tongue. She stumbled, lowering her hands to her sides. The list of sepat governors trailed off with a graceless “Erm…”

  Iunet cut the musicians off with a peeved smack of her stick against a pillar. “What is wrong with you now, girl? You were doing Reed in the Current perfectly, better than I’ve seen you do it before—and then in the blink of an eye you turn into a lumbering hippopotamus!”

  “Sorry,” Doricha mumbled. She peered at Iadmon from the corner of her eye, then looked away again quickly, her skin prickling even more than it usually did under the ointment of ash and oil.

  In the months since her removal from Tanis, Doricha had seldom encountered her master, for he was often away on business, taking the Samian Wind to far-flung cities where he worked diligently at his trade. Although Iadmon was kind—and Doricha’s initiation into to the art of dance had been his idea—she was perfectly content to remain apart from him. Doricha had never been able to forget Aesop’s darkly muttered words on her first day of training, when she’d practiced with the balance beam. On that day, months ago, Aesop had planted the notion in Doricha’s mind that Iadmon might one day be rid of her—sell her or trade her, as he might any other asset. She had never felt easy in Iadmon’s presence from that moment on.

  Doricha bowed hastily, acknowledging the master’s presence.

  “Your dance is coming along well, Doricha,” Iadmon said. “And Aesop has been teaching you well, too, I see. You are even cleverer than I suspected when I first acquired you.”

  “Thank you, Master.”

  “But you must lift up your face. A girl as lovely as you should never hide.”

  Lovely—me? With sweat and ash and oil streaking my skin and the fringe of my dancing-belt tangled? But Doricha did as she was told. She raised her eyes and gazed calmly at Iadmon, pretending her heart wasn’t pounding.

  “She has all the easy confidence of a hetaera,” Iadmon said to Aesop, though he never once looked away from Doricha. “And twice the beauty of most of them, with that exotic coloring.”

  “That’s so, Master,” Aesop agreed.

  “All we need now is for Hera to touch her, and then her work may begin.”

  Doricha swallowed hard. Hera was certainly among those goddesses favored in Thrace. She knew what Hera’s touch meant: the bleeding that signified a woman’s ripeness, her readiness for a man’s bed. Although it was her duty and her fate as a hetaera-in-training, still the very thought of it was enough to turn her knees to water.

  Iadmon pushed himself away from the pillar and strolled casually toward Doricha. She stood still for his inspection, conscious of his eyes roving over her bare skin. Though he did not touch her, his assessment tickled and itched worse than the belt’s fringe or the ointment’s dryness. Finally, Iadmon laid a hand on her head, caressing her rose-gold hair, which was braided and pinned tightly about the crown of her head. Doricha’s heart gave a painful lurch. For better or worse, Iadmon’s household was her place in the world—her only place, her only hope, with her family flown back to their homeland. The fear that he might sell her, and send her off to some unknown fate, sent a sickly shiver through her bones.

  “You aren’t old enough yet to do the work of a true hetaera,” Iadmon said, “but you have come quite far with your dance, Doricha, and you’re as sharp and bright as I’d hoped. You are certainly capable of entertaining.”

  He paused, smiling broadly. It was clear to Doricha that he expected her to react with delight. She couldn’t think why.

  She shrugged helplessly. “I… I’m not sure, Master, what you—”

  “I am hosting a party tonight—here, in the andron—to celebrate the Flood Season. These Inundation parties are an old Egyptian tradition—quaint, charming. It should be a popular diversion with some of the more powerful men of Memphis. And I will have you there tonight, to serve food and wine in the andron. Perhaps to dance for my guests, too, if the opportunity arises. It will be a debut of sorts for you—your first venture out into the world of men. What do you think of that?”

  Doricha’s eyes widened; she gave a little gasp of surprise. She forgot her itching skin and even the sting on her palms where Iunet had cracked her. Seven months of training had been leading up to this—her first presentation as an entertainer, the first step of her novice foot into the realm of the glittering, privileged hetaerae. A swell of nervous illness rose in her stomach, but excitement soon quelled it. At last, she would have a chance to prove herself in Iadmon’s eyes—to secure her value and her place in his comfortable, easy household, so that he would never feel the need to be rid of her.

  She nodded eagerly, relieved that she could at last begin stacking the bricks of her worth. “I like the idea very much, Master. Oh—ever so much indeed!”

  6

  Blue Silk

  As the afternoon waned, Doricha returned to her small chamber to prepare for the evening to come. Her body was sore, aching with the deep, familiar, satisfying pain of a day spent dancing. Usually the pleasant soreness of dance cheered her, and allowed her to sleep well. But now, the complaints of her muscles and bones only reminded Doricha that she was small and insignificant, and about to step into a world where she would be completely out of her depth.

  In her chamber, Doricha lingered furtively beside the door, staring down at her toes and fidgeting with her feet, as if she were afraid the shadows in the corners of the room might see her discomfiture and mock her for it. A gleam of light caught her eye, forcing her to glance up. The bright glow of afternoon sun shone in a place it shouldn’t have been—on the wall just above her wooden stand with its simple, clay-fired pitcher and wide washing bowl.

  Doricha approached the stand hesitantly. The flare of sunlight changed as she neared, dimming somewhat, taming its intensity. At last she could see that it was a mirror. Small, round, made of well-polished bronze, it hung over the pitcher and bowl, casting her own reflection back at her. The natural paleness of her features was warmed and livened by the rich color of the metal.

  She stared at the mirror—at her face—in frank wonder. Over the past several months, she’d had little occasion to look at herself. She had seen her arms and legs often enough, coated in the white sun-paste when she spent hours outdoors, but seldom had she looked at any of her other features. Doricha examined the face that peered curiously back at her. All traces of the urchin from Tanis were gone. Good feeding had fleshed her out, adding a healthy glow to her cheeks and a certain refinement to her features. She was, much to her surprise, rather pretty. And she was on the verge of womanhood. She could pick out the traces of it here and there—the hint of high, sharp cheekbones yet to come, a loss of softness about the nose and chin as vestiges of her childhood fell away. She stared at her mouth—plump and pink with the natural curve of a half-smile—and saw the lips of a woman, not a girl. Her hair, pinned up in its coiled braid as usual, might have made her look more childlike if it hung loose, tangled by the wind. But piled up as it was, it made her look older than her true age of almost thirteen years.

  She heard a soft tap at the door. Doricha turned to face it, waiting expectantly—she still had no right to give permission to enter, nor
any right to tell a person to leave her be. The door creaked open and Aesop entered. He grinned when he saw her standing before the mirror.

  “I see you’ve found your gift.”

  “Is it from you?”

  “From me, and the master. Iadmon is very pleased with your progress, Doricha. He asked me to choose something nice for you at the market today—something to celebrate your achievement.”

  “And what is my achievement?” She gave a half-hearted laugh, trying to sound light and coy, as Aesop had taught her to sound when she spoke to men—for, as Aesop had often told her, men were put off guard by a girl who giggled and jested, and a man off guard was a man easily read, easily led.

  But Doricha knew she had failed at sounding coy. She was a ball of tangled fears, a hopeless knot of anxiety. She had no idea what to expect—what she might encounter that night at Iadmon’s party. She couldn’t begin to guess what the night may bring, and to her dismay, uncertainty was quite enough to undo all her carefully cultivated poise.

  “Your achievement,” Aesop said, “is your maturity. You have come far since Tanis.”

  “Reckon I have,” Doricha said, allowing herself to lapse back into quaint Thracian manners. “It was five days’ sail at least from Tanis, wouldn’t you say? Would have been ever so much farther if I’d walked the distance.”

  Aesop gave a grunt of appreciation. “Amusing, girl. Truly, though: you’ve come on in your studies better than either Iadmon or I had dared to hope. Do you know, he expected it would be at least five more months until you were ready to entertain for the first time? He thought to train you for a full year before he saw any gain from his investment.”