Alex shrugged. ‘I was well oiled — Sappho took care of me. But none of them wanted her and all of them wanted me, and some of them were bastards.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s get to bed.’
They left the narrow room. Satyrus, who would have ignored them, scarcely even seen them as human under other circumstances, missed them instantly. He was bored and lonely, and afraid. He lay and thought about these things. Eventually, instead of passing out, he fell asleep, craving opium.
He awoke to a quiet brothel. From the angle of the sun, he knew it was morning — late morning, and the beds were quiet. He lay and listened, and all he heard was some distant laughter and the cry of a baby. Two babies.
He thought about young Alexander. About how bad a bad party might be — bad enough when you were a guest. He’d seen how a group of Macedonian officers could behave; to each other, to any man they might use. Worse if you were a porne. Probably much worse.
The swelling in his cheek was down. The pus was crusted over.
Alex or Aella had put more water in his jug, and he drank some. He made it to the amphora unaided. It hadn’t been emptied.
He was just back on the bed when the doctor came in.
‘Up and about, are we? Excellent.’ He opened his bag and took out a small alabaster jar.
‘No more poppy, thanks,’ Satyrus said.
‘Really? Don’t tell me you’re a miser.’ The doctor put the jar away, rolled in a piece of soft leather.
‘I’ve had quite a lot of it,’ Satyrus said. ‘Too much, for one life.’
‘Soldier?’ asked the doctor.
‘Something like that,’ Satyrus said.
The doctor nodded. ‘Well. You’d know best. But when I take that bandage off, it’s going to hurt like Hades.’
He was right. It did.
He didn’t pass out, but the pain was remarkable. He cried out — not once but twice. Then he was wrapped up again.
‘Somebody really doesn’t like you,’ the doctor said.
Satyrus nodded.
The doctor grinned. ‘Well. Hope you make the whores rich, lad. You can keep this bandage wrapped, I assume, and if you don’t want poppy … well, your cheek wound is clean and dry, and you’ll hurt for weeks — but I’m done with you. I’ve crotches to look at.’
Satyrus offered his hand, but the man vanished through the curtain.
Satyrus began to think that he could tell the difference between different sex acts by the sounds. He was appalled — sometimes amused — by the frankness of the vulgarity and the customers. Men asked for the crudest things — some in sing-song, little boy voices, some in harsh demands. Aella came in to check on him, and stayed to chat while washing and rubbing olive oil into her vagina, an act she performed without the least coyness or shame.
‘No girl can make enough juice to last a whole night — not during the feast of Aphrodite,’ she said. ‘That’s my bell!’ And she was off out the curtain.
Feast of Aphrodite! Satyrus thought. I’ve been here two weeks.
Afternoons were slow. The boys and girls talked, or bathed, sulked, read, debated — they were Athenians, and Satyrus had to laugh at how very Athenian they were: debating political matters, arguing the relative merits of Cassander and Lysimachos, Ptolemy and Antigonus. Aella was a confirmed supporter of Demetrios, who she had seen in person.
‘He’s like one of the gods,’ he heard her say as she walked down the hall. ‘His father has captured Mithridates — not the good one. The bad one. The one who’s against us.’ She laughed like the supporter of a winning sports team. No one disagreed.
Satyrus lay and wondered about how easily men could be labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’ because of their beliefs, or which side in a civil war they backed. It was … fathomless. He philosophised on it until he heard the proprietress inspecting the girls.
The proprietress was an older woman, with wide-set, large eyes and hair dyed jet black. In some lights she could be quite hideous, with a large nose and bad teeth — but when evening came, she was lovely, attractive the way an older matron is attractive, with a sense of dignity that Satyrus would never have associated with this world of porne and sex. Her name — frequently called out — was Lysistrada.
He knew her by voice and by glimpses through his curtain, but that afternoon she entered his cubicle.
‘Medea!’ she called — the voice of command, or of a mother.
A young woman came in. Her Sakje blood was obvious — her cheekbones were high, and besides, she had tribal scars on her right shoulder and down her arms. She had a strong face, not a pretty one. ‘Yes, despoina?’ she asked. She was meek, and her eyes were downcast.
‘Empty this pot. It stinks. The smell of urine is not an aphrodisiac, young lady.’
‘Yes, despoina.’ The Sakje girl flicked her eyes at Satyrus.
‘Good afternoon,’ Satyrus said, in Assagetae.
She started, eyes wide. Then she fled, carrying the broken amphora full of waste. In moments, she could he heard sobbing in the hall.
‘That was a fine trick to play me, sir, and my house footing your bills.’ Lysistrada glared at him. ‘I came to see to your well-being, and — what did you say to her?’
‘I gave her good afternoon, in the language of her folk.’ Satyrus suddenly felt exposed. Traders from Alexandria don’t know Sakje languages.
‘She’s the worst slave imaginable,’ she sniffed. ‘She’s injured two gentlemen. I should sell her as a nurse but some of those households are … well, worse than brothels.’ Lysistrada smiled. ‘And it took me for ever to break her to our ways. I’ll make my investment back — and you, sir. I will make my investment back on you, as well. I understand from my young people that you have a connection with our Polycrates.’
Satyrus nodded.
She crossed her arms. ‘Only, dear, there’s another rumour on the street that someone is offering a very large sum of money in cash for the location of a man from Olbia or Pantecapaeaum. A man with a cut on his cheek like an alpha, and tall.’ She smiled.
Satyrus knew he was taken. She’d sent the Sakje girl in on purpose. His brain ran on — he was fit enough to grab her. Perhaps … use her as a hostage?
No. Phiale would care nothing for that. He had to run. Immediately. He was naked on the stained sheets of a cot in a brothel — no clothes, no money …
‘What is it worth to you — in cash, not promises — for me to continue to hide you? Sir?’ she asked.
Satyrus struggled for a calm he really didn’t have. He took a breath, as if squaring off on the palaestra. ‘Polycrates will pay for me,’ he said, more to buy time than anything. The most likely result was that she would sell him to Phiale and to Polycrates. Except that Polycrates was dead, and unless he managed to meet with, and talk to, a family member, they’d have no reason to help him.
Two weeks! His grain ships would be gone. Leon’s factor would have the grain money — plenty to ransom a king or two.
A bold front was the essence of the thing. He managed a smile. ‘There is a woman seeking to have me killed,’ he said, succinctly. ‘If she succeeds, and your house is blamed …’ Satyrus left the threat unspoken. ‘Whereas, if I make it to my friends, I would expect that you might receive a great deal of money, and perhaps something more.’
‘Empty threats and promises I might receive from any agora ruffler,’ she said — but she was interested.
Satyrus had seen Leon and Diodorus do this — had watched Philokles do it a thousand times, using a person’s cupidity and greed against their better judgement. But Philokles, sometime spy and spymaster, had spoken against it for a king. ‘Manipulation is the poorest form of management,’ he was wont to say.
Satyrus had no options. ‘My promises are not empty. You be the judge — do I look to you like a man of worth?’
‘Give me a name,’ she said.
‘I have. Polycrates. Bring me a member of his family.’ Satyrus paused — this woman was intelligent, and he didn’t want to give away his weaknesses. ‘Or the man himself, and I will see you paid — an enormous amount. A shocking amount.’