Hilaeira said, "I don't want to be a freed slave. I'm a freeborn citizen."
"Of a conquered city," Pindaros reminded her dryly.
"Bowmen go ashore in Tieup?"
"Certainly. I imagine you'll be paid there, at least if you ask for it. Then you can go home, if you like."
"Oior will maybe leave this ship, go on some other."
I asked him whether fighting for anyone who would hire him were the only way he had to earn his living.
"You also," he said. "So this man speaks."
"I know," I said. "I wanted to learn about you because I thought it might tell me something of myself. You have a wife and children; do you have a house too, and a farm?"
He shook his head. "The Sons of Scoloti do not have those things. We live in wagons, follow grass. Oior has many, many horses, many cattle also. Here in south you have pigs and sheep. We never see them if not we come. They are slow to walk. They could not live in my land."
Pindaros asked, "Is the sun in your eyes, Oior?"
"Yes, yes. Light from the water." He seemed to stare at the deck. "Eyes are the bowman. I go now."
When he had left, Pindaros remarked, "That was rather strange, don't you think?"
I said, "For a bowman to have weak eyes? I suppose so."
Io murmured, "They were only weak when they looked at you, master."
Hypereides returned as the last of the sailors' families were being settled, just as he had promised. With him were a dozen attractive women, finely dressed in gowns of yellow, pink, and scarlet, with much silver jewelry and some gold. Several held flutes or little drums, but their many bags and boxes were carried for them by porters whom their leader paid.
This was a plump woman somewhat younger than Hypereides, with red hair and cold blue eyes. She came aft with him as we pushed off from the quay, now riding so deep that the greased boots of the thalamites' oars were almost in the water. "Well, well," she said, looking at me. "Here's a likely boy! Where'd you get this one?"
"Picked them all up at Tower Hill after we left Dolphins, as I told you. He's the perfect confidant-forgets everything overnight."
"Really?" I would not have believed those hard eyes could be sad, but for a moment they were.
"I swear it. I'll introduce you to him, but tomorrow he won't know your name unless he notes it down. Will you, Latro?"
Wishing to please her and discountenance him, I said, "How could I forget it? No one could forget such a woman, whom once seen must remain in the eye of the mind forever."
She dimpled and took my right hand between hers, which were small and moist. "I'm Kalleos, Latro. Do you know you're quite the figure of a man?"
"No," I said. "But thank you."
"You are. You might pose for one of the sculptors, and perhaps you will. In fact, you'd be just about perfect, if only you had money. You don't, do you?"
"I have this." I showed her my coin.
She laughed. "One spit! Where'd you get it?"
"I don't know."
"Is this a joke, Hypereides? Will he actually forget who I am?"
"Unless he writes it in that book he carries, and remembers to read what he's written."
"Wonderful!" Smiling at me still, she said, "What you have there isn't really money, Latro, only change. A daric or a mina, that's money. Hypereides, will you let me have him?"
He shook his head as though in despair. "This war's ruined the leather trade. In the old days, certainly. But now… " He shrugged.
"What do you think it's done for us, cooped up on Peace with a bunch of refugees? Latro, you look strong enough. Can you box or wrestle?"
"I don't know."
Pindaros said, "I've seen him with a sword-no spear and no hoplon. If I were a strategist, I'd trade ten shieldmen for him."
Kalleos looked at him. "Don't I know you, pig?"
He nodded. "Some friends treated me to a dinner at your house just before the barbarians came."
"That's right!" Kalleos snapped her fingers. "You're the poet. You got Rhoda to help you with a love lyric. It ended up being a little, uh-"
"Paphian," Pindaros supplied.
"Exactly! Pinfeather… What's your name?"
"Pindaros, madame."
"Pindaros, I'm sorry I called you a pig. It's the war, you know-everybody does it. Hypereides will let you come with him tonight, if he knows what's good for him. I don't know if my house's still standing, but we'll make it up to you whether it is or not. No charge. If you need money, I could even lend you a few drachmas till you get home again."
I do not think Pindaros is often without words, but he had none then. At last Hilaeira said, "Thank you. That's very, very kind of you, madame."
"Wait!" Pindaros leaped into the air, waving his hands. "I've got it-the city's saved!" He whirled about, arms wide, to address Hilaeira and Io. "Our freedom! My estate! We get to keep them!"
"It's true, Hypereides," Kalleos told him. "It's the Rope Makers. Our people wanted to burn Hill and take Cowland, but the Rope Makers wouldn't stand for it. They want to make sure we'll always have an enemy in the north."
CHAPTER XIII-Oh, Violet Crowned City!
Pindaros exclaimed, "Oh, bright bulwark of our nation, ruined!" A thin blue smoke overhung what had been the city of Deathless Thought; and though it was set well back from the sea (Tieup, at the edge of the water, had fared much better) the clear air and bright summer sunshine mercilessly revealed how little remained.
"Oh, violet crowned!" Pindaros turned away.
Hilaeira asked, "How can you sing its praises? This is what these people would have done to us."
"Because we chose to surrender," Pindaros told her. "And lost even when we fought for the Great King. They chose to resist, and won even with us against them. We were wrong, and they were right. Their city was destroyed; ours deserved it."
"You can't mean that."
"I do. I love our shining city as much as any man can love his home, and I'm delighted it's endured. But I studied here with Agathocles and Apollodoros, and I won't pretend this was the justice of the gods."
The black man pointed to himself and me to indicate we had assisted in the destruction. I nodded to show I understood, hoping no one else had seen him.
Hypereides came aft rubbing his hands. The wind had veered north as soon as we left the bay, so he felt certain he enjoyed divine favor. "What a ship! Loaded to the gunnels and still outreaching the others. That's the Long Coast whizzing past, my boy, the land that bore her and us. If I'd known she'd be this good, I'd have had three triremes instead of one and the triacontors. Well, too bad for their skippers, I say. This'll teach 'em their old boss's still the boss."
Io piped, "Clytia has her oars out, sir. Now Eidyia's putting hers out too."
"They think they can beat us like that, little sweetheart, but don't you bet on it. We can match 'em trick for trick." In a few moments more, our own crew was hard at work. "I love my boy, and so does he! But all I do is stir this sea!" They stirred it well enough; we reached the boathouses a ship's length ahead of Eidyia and three before Clytia.
I went forward to join Kalleos while the sailors were unshipping the masts. She was keeping watch over her women, who were alternately snubbing Acetes's soldiers and joking with them. "Wasn't that a lovely sail?" she asked. "I'll tell you, I hate to see it put away."
"Not half so beautiful as the original, madame." Her blue eyes shone.