Hetaera--Suspense in Ancient Athens (Agathon's Daughter)

by Suzanne Tyrpak

  “Callie! Come upstairs.”

  She raced to the door and opened it. A familiar meow greeted her. Laughing, she lifted Odysseus into her arms. When she saw Calonice, she could not contain her tears.

  “Come in,” she said, holding the door open.

  Calonice tiptoed into the room, her eyes wide with awe. She moved around the chamber in a daze, examining everything.

  “Sit down, Callie.” Hestia directed her to the chair.

  The girl seemed dumbstruck.

  Hestia returned to her sleeping couch and Odysseus jumped up beside her. The cat seemed scrawnier than ever, but he purred contentedly. Hestia settled against the pillows, wincing at the pain.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Calonice asked.

  “Nothing. Now, tell me all the news.” Hestia stroked Odysseus, and he stretched languidly as if he belonged on the couch.

  “You look different.”

  “Do I? It must be these surroundings.”

  Calonice shook her head, her wild braids bobbing. “You’re not the same.”

  Hestia got up and walked to the window. Sunlight filled the courtyard, waking the flowers. She heard birds singing. Calonice was right. She had changed, but how could she explain? She gazed out of the window, hoping Calonice might mention Diodorus, but she rambled on about old Therapon, the cook, the stable boy. Finally, Hestia could not contain herself.

  “How is he?” she asked. “How is Diodorus?”

  Calonice appeared surprised. “You haven’t heard? He left Athens the day you were sold.”

  “Left Athens? Where did he go?”

  “It happened quickly. I don’t know. Something to do with his father’s business.”

  Left Athens with no goodbye?

  But why would he say goodbye to her? He must despise her, must regret the things they’d said and done. Angry with herself for mentioning him she asked, “And how is the Despoina?”

  “I know you love him,” Calonice said. “And he loves you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes.”

  Hestia sighed. “Let’s not speak of him.”

  “My people say you may know who you love, but you cannot truly know who loves you.”

  “Your people have a saying for everything, don’t they?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well it’s annoying.” Hestia clenched her fists and noticed her friend’s dismayed expression. “I’m sorry, Callie.”

  Calonice shrugged. “I mean no harm.”

  “Of course, you don’t.” Hestia shook her head, angry at herself for treating her friend poorly. “My life here has been… Does the Despoina treat you well?”

  “The Despoina is crazy in love.”

  “With whom?”

  “Your Master. She sent me with a letter for him.”

  Hestia held onto the window ledge. The information was no news. “Melaina hopes to marry him?”

  “She’s desperate.” Calonice joined Hestia at the window. “I know where she keeps the ring.”

  “Which ring?”

  “The ring that belonged to your mother.”

  Hestia glanced at Calonice. “How do you know about that?”

  “I hear things. See things too.” Calonice drew the shutters closed. Sunlight slipped through the slats, cutting stripes on the wooden floor and carpets, leaving the rest of the room dark.

  “What are you doing?”

  “At this time of day, not quite light, yet not still dark, spirits slip through from the other side. I want to keep you safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “That ring belongs to you and I mean to get it back.”

  “You’re a good friend, Callie, but don’t do that.”

  The clink of pottery made the girls glance toward the door. Galenos entered, bearing a tray of cups, an elegant black jug, and a plate of cakes encrusted with nuts and oozing honey.

  “I thought you might like some refreshment,” he said, “since you have company.” He looked around the room, his face concerned. “Why is it so dark in here?”

  “We like it,” Hestia said. “Keeps out evil spirits.”

  “I see.” Galenos set the tray on the table and turned to Hestia. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, thanks to you.”

  “I’m sorry you went through that ordeal,” he said. “I’ve warned Zosime to stay away from you. I have some power as steward, but who knows if she’ll listen. Best avoid her in the future.”

  “Thank you, Galenos.”

  “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  He glanced at Odysseus, who had built a nest amongst the pillows, shook his head, and left.

  “What ordeal?” Calonice asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are those bruises on your neck nothing?”

  “Oh, Callie.” Tears filled Hestia’s eyes, and Calonice ran to her. She wrapped her arms around Hestia, and despite the pain, Hestia clung to her.

  “What has he done?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” But Calonice knew. Nothing escaped those dark eyes.

  “The Master beats you, doesn’t he?”

  “Just once.”

  “If he beat you once, he will again.”

  “Let’s not waste this food, Callie. We must make the most of what is sweet in life.” Hestia bit into a cake and honey dribbled down her chin. Laughing, she offered the cakes to her friend.

  “To what is sweet,” Calonice said, raising the cake in a toast to Hestia before taking a bite. “Ummm. These are good.”

  “Let’s eat all of them.” Despite everything that had happened, Hestia felt happier than she had felt for days. She poured hibiscus tea while Calonice helped herself to another cake.

  “Sit here.” Hestia patted the couch. “Do you miss your homeland, Callie?”

  Calonice sat next to Hestia, and Odysseus settled between them.

  “I miss the river,” she said, “and the cranes, so many they turn the sky white. It is a sight to see, and—”

  “Your grandmother?”

  Calonice licked her fingers, avoiding Hestia’s question. When she finished, she gazed around the room. “What is your position here with this fine chamber and your fine clothes? You don’t seem like a slave at all.”

  “You’re changing the subject.” Hestia sipped her tea while watching Calonice. “Haven’t you guessed?”

  “You found a magic lamp and made a wish?”

  “I’m his hetaera.” Hestia downed her cup of tea, afraid to meet her friend’s eyes.

  “His what?”

  “His consort.”

  “You mean his whore?”

  “You could say that.”

  Calonice frowned. “And what are your duties?”

  “Can’t you imagine?”

  The girls sat in the dark watching the play of light as it streamed through the window slats. And Hestia realized Calonice was right. She had changed.

  It seemed to Melaina that she’d been waiting outside the house for hours. The sun was well into the sky and her throat felt parched. Surely, it shouldn’t take so long for Lycurgus to write a reply.

  She contemplated knocking on the door, announcing herself, but that would not be proper. It would be inconceivable. Even though she was a widow, past the age of bearing children, walking around Athens and presenting herself at a man’s house would be considered scandalous. Besides, she was a mess. She ran her hand over her head and came back with a fist of hair.

  Finally, Calonice reappeared.

  As soon as the girl left the house, Melaina pounced on her. “Where is his response?”

  The girl handed her a scroll. She broke the seal and scanned the page, felt her knees go weak.

  “Perhaps I am misreading this.”

  Her eyes traveled down the page again. When he had a chance, he said, he would visit. Perhaps in a few weeks. Right now he was tied up with business.

  Wishing you the best. Your friend, Lycurgus.


  She reread his closing, sickness rising to her mouth. Your friend. Could anything be worse? The man was a scoundrel. He’d laid hands on their son, and that was all he wanted. No doubt he meant to steal not only Diodorus, but all of his fortune. Her fortune.

  She swatted at her face.

  “Calonice, do something about these bees.”

  “What bees, Despoina?”

  “Are you blind? They’re all over me.”

  The girl stared at her. “I don’t see them, Despoina. Let us start walking; maybe then they’ll leave.”

  Covering her head with her himation as protection from prying eyes and from the swarm, Melaina walked downhill.

  She wasn’t certain how, but she meant to end the schemes of Lycurgus. They had plotted together, made plans for the future. And now he planned to toss her aside? She felt certain that his change of heart was due to Hestia.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Over 30,000 slaves worked the mines. Men, women, even children, crawled through narrow galleries, holding oil lamps against the dark and scrambling through the bowels of the earth to find silver. The mines were owned by the state, the work farmed out to private contractors, and Lycurgus held the largest lease, providing the mines with over half of the slaves. The remaining slaves were owned by smaller contractors, and the lowest slaves belonged to the state.

  A salt breeze drifted through the open shutters of the hut where Diodorus sat hunched over the ledger. Through the window he saw the port of Lavrion. Aside from the blue strip of sea, the landscape appeared parched. But those barren hills held wealth, and tunnels cut through the rocky earth in search of rich veins of silver as well as copper, zinc, lead, cobalt, and arsenic.

  He stretched his arms and yawned.

  Days in the mines began at dawn and lasted until night, ten-hour shifts without much rest. He managed to tolerate the grueling hours, but he could not become accustomed to the work’s innate brutality.

  A patch of sky showed through the window, and a pale crescent moon floated in that sea of blue. He thought of Hestia and wondered if she would write. He picked up the letter he’d written to her. A ship bound for Athens was due tomorrow. He would send the letter then.

  He turned back to the ledger.

  Using an abacus, he calculated how much ore had been recovered over the past ten days. His father would have frowned to see him use a counting frame introduced by the Persians. Agathon had insisted on adding and subtracting manually. He called the abacus a foreign invention that could not be trusted, but Diodorus was a proponent of innovation, and he depended on the device for calculations. Moving the wooden beads swiftly, he added the columns: the weight of ore taken in; the amounts of silver versus lead after cupellation separated them; the value of the smelted silver.

  It was his job to oversee the operation. He felt comfortable manipulating numbers, but when it came to the actual mining and smelting, he depended on the foreman, Georgios.

  “Master Diodorus!”

  He glanced through the window and saw Georgios hurrying toward the hut, his gait lopsided due to an accident he’d suffered when a beam collapsed. Through hard work and treachery, Georgios had climbed out of the stinking tunnels and now spent most of his time above ground. But he understood the dark recesses of the work, had crawled through every tunnel, and had nearly lost his life on more than one occasion.

  The man’s appearance, at this hour, boded bad news. Leaving his desk, Diodorus went outside to greet him.

  “There’s been a collapse.”

  “Where?”

  “In Tartarus.”

  The mines were called Tartarus, named after the gloomy underworld.

  “What happened?”

  “A gallery collapsed in the west mine.”

  “How?” Diodorus grabbed his hat, slapped it on his head.

  “The earth trembled, and the ceiling collapsed.”

  “Let’s get over to the site.” Diodorus started walking. “How many are trapped?”

  “Don’t know. We’re digging now.”

  They headed for the mine as fast as Georgios could hobble. “The workers are angry,” he said. “Brutal hours, bad food, and not enough of it. There are whispers of rebellion.”

  “I intend to make some changes.” Diodorus glanced back at Georgios, and saw him struggling to keep up. He slowed his pace.

  Ahead, men ran back and forth, yelling, dragging bodies from the mine, laying the dead and wounded on the ground. Other workers lowered themselves into the shaft, a hole as dark as an abyss, to search for survivors.

  “If they weren’t crushed,” Georgios said, “chances are the fumes will choke them.”

  Diodorus threw off his himation. “Let’s get to work.”

  The sun beat down on the scarred landscape as the men dragged bodies from the mine. They stopped only to drink water. Diodorus worked side-by-side with the others. Hardened miners, criminals, the dregs of society whom the state had sent here as punishment, today they had a common cause.

  After a few hours the accumulation of bodies slowed.

  “That might be all,” Georgios said.

  “I’m not ready to give up.” Using his forearm, Diodorus wiped sweat and grit from his brow. “I’m going down.”

  “Master, you can’t. It isn’t safe.”

  “Please, don’t call me Master. Call me Diodorus.”

  Georgios eyed him suspiciously.

  “All right,” Diodorus said, “call me whatever you want. Are you coming or not?”

  They began the descent. Diodorus held a lamp and Georgios carried a large basket for removing rubble. Georgios led the way as, rung by rung, they descended a wooden ladder. The shaft, painstakingly carved into the earth using hammers and chisels, was no wider than the height of a man.

  Diodorus coughed, his lungs constricting. The air stank of sulfur. “Can you see?” He called down to Georgios.

  “Barely.”

  “How much farther?”

  “Almost there.”

  Almost there was relative. Finally, his foot touched the ground. The oil lamp flickered, casting shadows on the rough stone.

  “This way.” Georgios pointed to a tunnel carved out of the rock.

  Diodorus ducked. Pillars of rock had been left in place to support the tunnel, but the ceiling was too low for him to stand. He sank onto his knees and, still carrying the lamp, began to crawl.

  Voices echoed deep within the mine. Diodorus heard the sound of digging.

  They met up with several other workers, their faces caked with dirt.

  “Anyone alive in there?” Diodorus asked.

  “Maybe.”

  Georgios moved deeper into the tunnel and began removing rubble.

  “I found someone!”

  The men scrambled to remove the rock, using baskets, their hands, whatever they found. They were rewarded by a cry for help.

  “Dig faster.”

  They dragged out a man.

  “He’s alive!”

  Cheers burst from the workers.

  The man sucked in a rasping breath. Cuts scored his body, and his face was badly bruised. He moved his lips and made a sound.

  “What does he say?” Diodorus asked.

  “There’s someone else in there.”

  Georgios dug faster, filling up his basket and throwing earth into what remained of the gallery. Diodorus held his ground, digging with the best of them.

  “Here he is,” Georgios called. “I see feet. They’re small.”

  Finding a length of rope, Diodorus tied one end to his waist and handed the other end to Georgios.

  “Tie this around the ankles.”

  Using his weight as leverage, Diodorus pulled the rope, and the body shifted.

  “Wait!” Georgios shouted. He began digging frantically, uncovering two thin legs and then narrow hips.

  Diodorus helped him while the other men stood back.

  The boy couldn’t have been more than ten, his fragile features crushed and bloody.
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  “Does he breathe?” Georgios asked.

  Diodorus pressed his ear to the boy’s chest, heard nothing. He felt for a pulse. Still nothing.

  “Zeus,” he cried, “the boy is dead.”

  Tears filled his eyes as he gathered the boy into his arms, holding him against his chest as if that action might mend the boy’s broken body.

  “It can’t be helped,” Georgios said.

  “He’s just a child.”

  “Many children work in the mines, Master, I mean, Diodorus.”

  “And I am responsible.” Diodorus felt his heart split open and, for the first time in his life, he felt he had a purpose. Looking Georgios in the eye, he said, “I swear, by the gods and my father, I will put an end to this.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dressed in a chiton finer than any she had ever worn, Hestia sat between Lycurgus and a distinguished-looking woman waiting for the pompe to begin. Most of the bruises that Lycurgus had inflicted had faded. Those that hadn’t, she covered with lead powder.

  Holding her spine erect, she focused on the arena.

  The parade of phalluses marked the opening of the five-day festival of the Dionysia. People flooded into Athens from throughout Attica to witness the competition. The first day began with poets and singers, the next three days were devoted to tragedies, and the last day, comedy. Lycurgus held the prestigious position of choregoi, which required him to finance the production of a new tragedy by the famous playwright, Sophocles.

  The distinguished woman touched Hestia’s hand. “I don’t think we’ve met. Aspasia of Miletus.”

  The famous hetaera, consort to Pericles. Hestia sat even straighter. Aspasia’s face was not only intelligent, but kind.

  “Hestia,” Aspasia said, extending her hand. “I’ve heard rumors about you. You’re the—”

  “Consort of Lycurgus,” Hestia said.

  “Yes.” Aspasia’s expression became guarded.

  Unwittingly, Hestia touched a hidden bruise on her neck. Aspasia’s eyes followed, and Hestia could tell she knew.

  “Lovely weather, isn’t it?” Aspasia said.

  “No need to retreat to a safe topic.” Hestia bent her head toward Aspasia, deciding to take a chance. “I know what my Master is. But fate determines destiny.”

  “Does it?” Aspasia appeared doubtful. “I believe we have a say in destiny. As Socrates might say, know thyself.”