Glory and the Lightning (13 page)

Thargelia thought of Cleo. Once Cadmus had complained—the object being a reduction in price—that Aspasia was no longer young, being fifteen years of age, and so the price should be lowered. He preferred little girls and little boys. So Thargelia wrote a message to her dear friend, Cadmus, informing him that she had a young girl in her house, only twelve years old, though in fact Cleo was thirteen. She described Cleo, so like an almond blossom in the spring. The girl, she wrote, had not yet reached puberty, and that would be most desirable to Cadmus. Then, as if it were an afterthought, she invited Cadmus to bring his foreign guest to her house for dinner and revelry and music. Her dinners were famous, her maidens gifted in dance and song. Cadmus had always infinitely enjoyed these occasions and had always brought Thargelia lavish gifts in gratitude. He already had two of her hetairai in his house, as well as an assortment of beautiful female slaves. Yes, he would adore Cleo, in her innocence and virginity and, thought Thargelia, her stupidity. She had not as yet been taught all the subtle arts of seduction, but that would only enhance her in the eyes of Cadmus.

Certain that Cadmus would eagerly accept her invitation, she prepared her house, for the invitation was for this night. She sent orders to both Cleo and Aspasia that they must retire to their chambers for sleep, and then must elaborately array and dress themselves and perfume and oil their bodies.

Ah, thought Aspasia, then she will dispose of me. She was almost overcome with grief. Her vermillion complexion had paled during the events of the past days, and she was exhausted with her emotions. She hoped that the unknown man would find her undesirable and reject her. But the slaves were cunning in the arts of beauty. As for Cleo, she was elated, and Aspasia looked on her with pity, and listened to her excited babblings. Cleo had no doubts. She would enter the house of a rich man and there be pampered and adored and in many ways a mistress. What all this entailed was unknown to the child, and Aspasia sighed. The stupid were satisfied with any comfortable fate, where they would not be abused, and Cleo would be a happy concubine, unaware that she had a woman’s soul. But many of the Greeks asserted that a woman had no soul and was therefore of the status of a dog or a slave.

The most colorful and perfect and fragrant of flowers were chosen for the house, and long garlands of ivy and ferns and laurel and myrtle branches. Pots of ambergris perfumed with attar of roses and sandalwood and other delightful odors were stood against the walls, later to be ignited to diffuse the aromas. Thargelia ordered the dinner herself. There would be artichoke hearts in oil and vinegar, the softest and whitest of breads, to be served on fresh green leaves, anchovies and sardines swimming in olive oil and spices, eels from Lake Copais, imported, shellfish and mussels in butter, squid in a pungent sauce, pickled and smoked meats, beef hearts stuffed with barley and liver, fowl, including a peacock roasted and dressed in its feathers, nightingale tongues broiled and seasoned with more exotic spices, suckling pigs, legs of lamb also roasted, game birds stewed in olive oil and garlic and thyme and mint, young goats’ meat seethed in their mothers’ milk, famous black broths filled with bits of pork and blood and salt and vinegar, many varieties of fresh fish, briny cabbage, kykeon seasoned with pennyroyal, baked onions, cheeses of many kinds, green and black olives, maza—delicate pancakes flooded with honey—red and purple berries also sweetened with honey, lentils and beans prepared in many ways and flavored with smoked pork, grapes, figs, raisins, citrons and apples, and above all, Syrian whiskey and the finest of wines, and fragile pastries filled with ground nuts and poppy seeds and soft goat’s cheese.

This feast was only for distinguished and noble guests, but what remained was given to the young hetairai over several days. Their own diet was simple and frugal, Thargelia detesting fat though a dainty plumpness was not disdained. When the maidens heard, through the gossip of slaves, that Aspasia and Cleo were to be at the banquet they were filled with envy, for they knew that they had been chosen for the consideration of illustrious visitors. They embraced the two girls and Cleo laughed with glee but Aspasia’s pale face was somber. She said nothing but only submitted when her eyes were enhanced by black kohl and her cheeks tinted with vermillion and her lovely mouth reddened with an oily paste. She was mute while slaves bathed her and rubbed her rosy body with scented oils and put golden sandals on her feet. Her hair was dressed with flowers and colored ribbons. The slaves threw a new peplos over her, green as a lake and girdled with silver set with precious stones. A veil, as transparent as moonlight, was drawn modestly about her bare shoulders and arms, and the living flesh shone through it enticingly.

“A veritable Artemis!” cried the girls in extreme admiration, and clasping and clapping their hands, but Aspasia said nothing. “Let us pray a Paris chooses you,” said the maidens, “for surely you are more beautiful than Helen of Troy.” But Aspasia said nothing. She was filled with a stony agony of despair. She desired to flee but there was nowhere to flee, no habitation which would give her shelter, no compassionate friend who would harbor her. She thought of killing herself, but her youth revolted.

Cleo was in no wise of her mind. Clad in yellow with a gilt girdle, her long black hair braided with ribbons and left hanging down her back in a childish fashion, and with a string of small pearls at her amber throat, she was enchanted with herself and laughed and jumped with elation. Her terror of the night before was completely forgotten. Her black eyes were like black glass, shining and dancing. Her full lips were a blooming rose. Her young body might have been that of a boy, so small were her budding breasts and so narrow still her hips and her thighs. This had all been carefully considered by Thargelia, knowing Cadmus’ preference for young males, though he was not averse to females who had not reached puberty.

The girls most skillful in dancing and playing lutes and flutes were chosen to evoke soft music during the feast, and they were attired as woodland nymphs, with ivy in their hair and their feet naked. They wore translucent peploses the color of laurel leaves, and their varicolored tresses flowed unrestrained over shoulders and breasts. Their virgin breasts gleamed through the fabric of the peploses, and the nipples had been stained a fragile pink. They had been chosen not only for their skill in music but also because, though lovely, they were less so than Cleo and Aspasia, and thus would not dim the beauty of the damsels to be offered.

The dining hall was the largest room in the house and decorated with small perfumed fountains, the finest of statues and Persian rugs, the most costly of lamps, and mosaics beyond compare. Baskets of roses hung from the ceiling, and roses were scattered in heaps on the table, which was covered with cloth of silver. The plates and platters were of silver also, and so were the spoons and knives, and the goblets, wreathed in ivy, were of the most expensive Egyptian glass and enameled with gold and set with amethysts and opals.

The windows were opened to the warm night, the green curtains undrawn, and so the rattle of palm trees and the sighing of sycamores and oaks and myrtle and cypresses, and the surging of the ever-present sea, could be heard clearly.

Thargelia greeted her guests in the atrium. She was attired in crimson and yellow with an enormous Egyptian necklace falling over her bosom, and she exhaled exotic perfumes with every movement of her slender body. Jewels glittered in her dyed yellow hair and on her arms and fingers. She was splendid and even heroic, and her white teeth flashed and her eyes glinted amiably. “Welcome to my poor house,” she said to Cadmus and the Persian satrap, Al Taliph, and bowed deeply.

“It is hardly a poor house, dear Thargelia,” said Cadmus, who had a voice like a squeaking mouse and effeminate gestures. He looked about him with pride and then at Al Taliph and was pleased that the other was visibly impressed. What! Had he expected a mean brothel? thought Cadmus. We may not be as opulent as Persia, but we are not peasants in Miletus! They repaired to the dining hall where the girls were already singing and playing and posturing in a slow dance at a farther wall. Al Taliph and Cadmus sat on a soft couch covered with brocaded silk, and Thargelia seated herself in an ivory chair opposite them. Two chairs awaited Cleo and Aspasia. Slaves, dressed like fauns, poured whiskey into small glasses and wine into the goblets, and Cadmus offered a libation to the gods. Al Taliph looked about him curiously. This house of courtesans was far more lavish than the house of Cadmus, who was himself a rich man, and everything was in the most perfect taste. If the damsel to be presented him was as fair as her surroundings and as exquisite, then she was greatly to be desired. Al Taliph, a man not in the least garrulous, listened smiling to the light chatter of his hostess and Cadmus, and sipped his whiskey and listened to the music and idly watched the slow dance of the maidens in the distance. He would have been pleased to have had all of them in his harem, especially those of white skin and light hair. His favorite concubine was from the island of Cos, and she had hair the color of silver touched with gold and eyes as blue as the legendary blue rose. But, alas, there were few such treasures as his favorite and he doubted that Thargelia’s hetairai could compare with her, though, as promised by Cadmus, they were more seductive.

Thargelia knew that Cadmus still lusted for Aspasia, though she, at fifteen, was too old for him. So Thargelia said, “My dear Cadmus, I have a jewel for you, as I wrote you today, a mere infant, but like spring just budding into flower, and not yet a woman. Her name is Cleo and she was not born of slaves or mere peasants, but of a distinguished father and his adorable concubine. I warn you, however,” she added with a coquettish smile, “that her price is high.”

“Your prices are always high,” grumbled Cadmus, motioning to a slave to refill his glass with whiskey. “But then, the maidens are exceptional”

The hall was permeated with swooning fragrances. The cheeks of the guests began to be flushed both with warmth and whiskey. They sat contentedly on the soft couch and smiled with anticipation.

Thargelia summoned Cleo and Aspasia to join her and to be seated one on each side of her. She looked at Al Taliph and liked his appearance. She hoped he would be kind to Aspasia, and she sighed, remembering that the Persians had an even greater contempt for women than did the Greeks.

The maidens struck up a more lively and louder melody at a gesture from Thargelia, and Aspasia and Cleo entered.

CHAPTER 8

Al Taliph, the satrap from Persia, looked at Aspasia as she silently walked to the table with averted eyes, and he thought, Ah, she is far more entrancing than my Narcissa, that lily from Cos, and she is also much younger. He could not believe that any woman could be so fair and so bewitching, and of such perfection of face and form. He stirred on the couch and his face became delicately lustful. As for Cadmus, after a first desiring glance at Aspasia, his eye was caught by the pristine charm of Cleo, who had a young boy’s body and an infant’s face, and who retained the tender awkwardness of childhood. He imagined her in his bed at once, this little virgin. No matter Thargelia’s price, he must have this girl, and tonight. He would be gentle with her deflowering, for roughness might kill her, and then his money would be lost.

Cleo ate the unusual dishes with open and delighted pleasure. When Cadmus’ hand would steal under her peplos she merely pushed it away so as not to be disturbed in her enjoyment. To her it had no more significance than a vexation. She was too engrossed to consider herself as his mistress as yet. He rubbed the palm of his hand over her breasts and said to Thargelia with satisfaction, “She is like a boy, still.” Thargelia frowned. “I beg of you, Cadmus, not to annoy the child.”

Aspasia ate almost nothing and sipped a glass of wine. She became more and more withdrawn in herself. From under her long silken lashes she had scrutinized both Cadmus and Al Taliph. She had seen Cadmus once at a distance and her first impression of him as a gigantic toad had not changed. He was very short and very wide with a great round head and bulging eyes and no hair. Everything about him was florid and oily and coarse, including his high fat ears and his lips. (He also sweated even in cold weather when the winter winds roared from the sea.) He constantly wiped his face and his short neck and big splayed hands, and he drank copiously of the chilled wine at the table as if it were water. His face thickened, his distended eyes reddened. He could not look away from Cleo. He was splendidly arrayed in scarlet and blue, and his hands wore as many rings as did the hands of Thargelia. He reeked of sweat and attar of roses. His wide heavy thighs sprawled as his desire for Cleo increased.

Aspasia shuddered in herself that such a man was to be given Cleo, the immature little bird. He will crush her to death, she thought, with the weight of his body. He will tear those frail limbs asunder. Ah, if I had but gold I would flee with this child and hide her. Gold answers all things. Without it we are helpless and the gods are deaf to our importunities, despite the pieties of philosophers. She saw Cadmus’ hand fondling one of the budlike breasts of Cleo and Aspasia wished to kill him. Cleo irritably slapped his hand away and gave herself up to the voluptuous delights of the table. Her round face was rosy with wine.

Aspasia had never learned resignation but she was beginning to learn it now. There was nothing she could do to help Cleo, so she gave her full attention to Al Taliph, to whom she would be presented. She was not a slave, but Thargelia under the law was her guardian and she the ward of Thargelia, and what Thargelia willed for her would be legal and accepted. Thargelia desired Al Taliph to take her, Aspasia, and she must obey her guardian.

Al Taliph was not the man she had feared would resemble Cadmus. He was middle-aged, possibly thirty-five years old, and tall and slender, almost bony. He was magnificently arrayed in the Oriental fashion, and he wore a robe of intricate design in scarlet, blue, green, yellow, violet and gold, all in a pattern that had no beginning and no end. It was made of the finest silk, and glistened. His narrow waist was clasped by a girdle that resembled a living snake, with a jeweled head and an open mouth. A similar but smaller snake clasped his thin and sun-baked throat, and there were even smaller snakes on his arms and wrists. A short mantle of cloth of gold covered his shoulders, which were broad if thin. His sandals were of gold also, and the thong was in the form of a gemmed viper. There were many rings on his long dark hands, fabulous rings that glittered blindingly, and several of them were of the snake design also. He wore earrings, looped gold.