I did not know, but the black man nodded in agreement.
"Fine. I want you to go to the market. Most of the people selling there will have stalls or a cloth on the ground. Pay no attention to those. Find a potter who's selling out of a cart. You understand?"
"Yes, madame."
"And find a flower-seller with a cart too. Tell them to follow you. Bring them and their carts back here, and I'll buy everything they have. There's nothing like flowers when you don't have furniture. Your friend's to stay here and work, understand? And you're not to loiter, either. We've a lot to do before tonight."
I did as Kalleos had told me, but on the way back I was stopped by a man of unusual and rather less than prepossessing appearance. The chlamys that draped his narrow shoulders was of a pale hyacinth; he carried a tall, crooked staff topped with the figure of a woman, and his dark eyes were so prominent they seemed about to leap from his head.
With his staff held to one side, he bowed very low in the Oriental way. It seemed to me there was something of mockery in it; but then there seemed something of mockery-lent by his eyes, his tall, lean frame, and his disordered hair-in all he said and did.
"I should be most grateful for a trifle of information, good sir. May I inquire whom it is who has need of so many urns and blossoms? That it's none of my affair, I well understand; but surely it will do no harm to tell me. And who knows? Soon I may be in a position to do you, sir, some little favor in return. It is the mouse, after all, that gnaws the net that binds the lion, as a certain wise slave from the east taught us long ago."
"They're for Kalleos, my mistress," I told him.
His mouth opened so widely when he grinned that it seemed he showed a hundred teeth. "Kalleos, dear old Kalleos! I know her very well. We're good friends, Kalleos and I. I wasn't aware she had returned to this glorious city."
"She came back only today," I said.
"Wonderful! May I accompany you?" He looked around as though reconciling the destruction with the city as he had known it. "Why, her house is only a few doors away, I believe? Tell her, fellow, that an old admirer who would pay his respects awaits her leisure. I am Eurykles the Necromancer."
CHAPTER XIV-How Strange a Celebration
Pindaros said, "Was there ever anything like it?" He waved at the banks of flowers, with the broken walls beyond them only half restored. "Now it's the city of the Lady of Thought indeed, Latro. The people are here again, yet her owls roost in the ruins. What a poem I shall make of all this!"
Behind him, Hypereides said, "When you write it, don't forget to say I was here, and that I drank my wine and cuddled my wench as of old."
"You're no fit subject for great poetry," Pindaros told him. "No, stop, I'll make you so. For a thousand years, your name will be linked with Achilles's."
I had tallied them in my mind as they trooped in, six in alclass="underline" Pindaros, Hypereides, the kybernetes, Acetes, and two others I did not recognize, the captains of Eidyia and Clytia. Now Acetes was holding out the bundle he had carried into the house. "Here, Latro, Hypereides said you should have these."
I unwound the sailcloth and found bronze disks for the breast and back, and with them a hooked sword and a bronze belt. It was strange to touch the cool metal of the sword and belt, because I, who remembered nothing else, felt I remembered them, though I could not have told where I had worn them or even when I had lost them. I buckled them on, knowing they had been mine before, but no more than that.
When I had put the disks in the room Kalleos had given me, I returned to the courtyard, where she had greeted her guests and was making them comfortable on the couches she bought this afternoon. "Hypereides," she said, pouring his wine herself, "I've a proposal to make to you."
He smiled. "No one can say he found Hypereides unready for business."
"I told you there'd be nobody here tonight but you and your guests. If you'll look around, you'll see I've kept my word."
"You've cheated me already," Hypereides told her. "The stars are coming. But never mind, I won't ask for my slave back. Only for the black one, whom you took without a by-your-leave."
"Certainly," Kalleos said. "I thought he was a free sailor when I borrowed him. He can return with you in the morning. But Hypereides, a friend of mine dropped in today when he heard I was back in the city. He's as merry a fellow as you'll ever meet, full of jokes and stories, I promise you. If you don't want him to join your party, just say so and I swear you'll never see him. But if you've no objection, I'll be forever grateful. And of course there'll be no charge to him or you. His name's Eurykles of Miletos."
At that moment, one of the women came to tell me the food had arrived, and I went to the rear entrance to help the cookshop owner and the black man unload.
Kalleos came just as we were finishing. "Good, good! They're all hungry. Do you know anything about food, Latro?"
"I don't remember," I told her.
"I suppose not." She looked at the trays I was making up. "At least you're doing well enough so far. The girls will carry them in, understand? You don't go in again unless there's trouble. I don't expect any tonight, but you never can tell. Try to stay awake and don't drink, and everything will be fine. Sometimes a girl screams and sometimes she screams. You know what I mean?"
"I think so."
"Well, don't go in unless one screams. Got it? If all of them start screaming, come fast. Don't draw that sword unless you have to, and don't use it no matter what. Where'd you get it, anyway?"
"From the Swift God," I said, and only when I had spoken realized I did not know what I meant by what I had said.
"You poor boy." Kalleos kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Phye, dear, get some of those lazy sluts in here to take these trays so the man has room to work. Tune your lyre if you haven't already, and tell the flute girls to fetch their whistles. But wait till the trays have been brought in before you start."
"I know," Phye said. "I know."
Turning back to me, Kalleos shook her head. " 'Wine, music, and women-what else does a man need?' That's what your friend the poet asked me. And do you know, I nearly told him. Meat, for one thing; veal and lamb, and they cost me-I won't say, it isn't polite, but a lot. Not to mention some nice fish, three kinds of cheese, bread, figs, grapes, and honey. And tomorrow you'll sweep half of it off the floor. You didn't come free, Latro, let me tell you." She paused, studying me. "You know, I used to be a slave myself. From up north."
I said, "I wondered, because of your coloring. Very few people here have red hair or blue eyes."
"I'm a Budini, or I was. I don't even remember their words any more. Somebody stole me, I think, when I was just a little girl." She paused again. "Do you want to be free, Latro?"
"I am free," I told her. "It's only that I don't remember."
She sighed. "Well, as long as you don't, you're going to have to have somebody around who does and will tell you what to do. I suppose it might as well be me."
When all the food was ready, I went to the courtyard arch to listen to the flutes; but in a few moments Pindaros came out and drew me back into the kitchen. "Hypereides has sold you to Kalleos," he said.
"Yes, I've been working for her."
"That puts me in serious difficulties, as I hope you understand."
I told him that until I found my home and friends I would be as happy in this place as in any.
"Your happiness-permit me to speak frankly-doesn't much concern me now. The pledge I made in the temple of the Shining God does. I promised to take you to the shrine of the Great Mother. I've done my best so far, and I must say the Shining God's rewarded me handsomely: I've heard the playing of a god and your singing. That's a privilege given few, and it's improved my own poetry almost beyond belief. But if I return to my city without fulfilling my vow… "