I made room for her, with some confused reply. She settled her gown, smoothing out its embroidered borders, and said smiling, “I don’t believe you even know who I am. I am Lyra.”
Just so, on the slopes of Ida, might Aphrodite have declared herself to the young Anchises, simply, without fuss.
I must collect myself, before she thought me an oaf. “I have heard of Lyra, as I have heard of Helen. But I’ve neither the beauty of Paris, nor Menelaos’ rank.” (Nor his wealth, I thought.) “Fear of presumption kept me from your door.”
“Foolish man,” she said lightly. “Do you think that Helen would have shut her door to Homer?”
“Beautiful Lyra, but I am not Homer.”
“Sweet-tongued Simonides, but I am not Helen. So we’re quits. And because you have never deigned to attend my parties, I’ve had to sing your songs to the guests myself. Of course everyone said, ‘But where is the poet?’ And what could I reply?”
“Why, that the crow should stay in hiding, if he can have his song sung by the nightingale.”
Her blue eyes changed and grew soft. “They wanted the Lament of Danae. I know every word, but I dared not. It always makes me cry.”
She laid her hand on mine, and pressed it gently. I lifted and kissed it; the fingers were long and delicate, with faintly tinted tips. Even the slave with the jug and finger-bowl had seemed to rinse them with reverence. I recalled with shame the coarse grasping hands of Thalatta.
The first tables came in and were set beside us. You don’t get such meals any more in Athens. (Here in Sicily, yes, if I could still digest them.) She ate with an elegance I’d not seen since I left Ionia. Now and then she would take up some choice bit and dip it in sauce and feed it to me, with a gay subtle glance that said, “This will be good, but some things are more delicious.”
She leaned on her cushions just near enough for me to feel her scented warmth. Though she roused desire, she gave off too a sense of ease and harmony, both promise and present pleasure. Her skin was flowerlike however close one looked. I said, “Tonight for the first time I rejoice that I am not Homer. They say that he was blind.”
“He is dead, too.” She put a shelled shrimp into my mouth. “But don’t lie to me, poet. To be Homer you would forfeit me, and him up there, and all that he can give you. Even your eyes. Your life, maybe. Not so?”
“I thought so once. He is for all time, yes. But only his own time could have begotten him. He is a god to me, yet my own time made me otherwise; and time has taught me that I have my own things to say.”
“When will you come and say them to me, Simonides? I don’t eat men, like Odysseus’ sirens.”
“Ah, but those who dare the current can still be drowned.”
“Put your toe in the water, much-enduring voyager, and come to one of my parties. My friends only pay their share of the feast, you know. Sometimes we sing and amuse each other till dawn. Or sometimes we have a little contest of some kind; and then, of course, there is a prize.” The lamplight shadowed a laughing-crease beside her mouth.
“I should have got someone to bind me to the mast. It is too late now; I have heard the music from the island. Yes, I will come.”
The second tables came in, and she began to gossip about the guests, with a little salt but no vinegar. I remarked that our host’s chosen companion was well past her prime. “Oh,” she said, “Peitho will amuse him all the same. She has known everyone. His father too … well, of course he must know that. They say she was matchless in her day; she spent one fortune and saved another. Even now that she’s put away her mirror, she still gets rich. Some old lover tells her what ships to take a venture in; she has a cargo now with Theasides … Oh, you know him! He comes from your part of the world.”
“He’s my brother. Is he so well known in Athens?”
“He’s well known wherever he goes.” Maybe I was wrong, but I thought she sleeked herself a little, like a cat that has almost purred. “He doesn’t visit us very often; I think he prefers Corinthians. He tells us that he comes to Athens to see his brother. I might have known!”
“Most people say they never would have guessed it.”
“Oh, there’s a look. Men who both know what they can do. A style.” She nodded, and glanced round the room again. Her fine brows drew together. “But why has our host put Antenor with Phylinna? I wish he would not do those things.”
“It doesn’t seem that Antenor is complaining.”
“Oh no. That girl will get him and keep him, now. But everyone knows about him and Milto, he has been her friend so long. Poor girl; now when she’s been ill and can’t look her best, it really was not kind.”
Milto, with too much paint on a face that should have had distinction, was doing her best to look as if her supper partner delighted her. I said, “I don’t suppose he meant it. Parties like this he gives to please his friends; I doubt he knows much about such things himself.”
She glanced up from the bread she was cleaning her fingers with, looked round at me and seemed about to speak; but just dropped the crust to a little dog under the table, and started to talk about her own pet dog at home.
The tables were cleared, the wine and the wreaths came in; a pretty boy and girl danced naked, Herakles and Antiope, which made everyone laugh; then a couple of flute-girls who had played for them played on, a screen of sound for talk. There was a good deal of merriment, and calling from couch to couch. Lyra did her share; but would drop her voice to talk to me again, as if she found it better. She will take me, I thought, when I have courted her in the way she will expect. I must ask Theas to buy me a Persian necklace. She would like lapis. When will her next party be? The warmth of the wine brought out the scent she was wearing. My hope of possessing her was only a part of my pleasure; it was almost enough that a creature of such loveliness was here, contented, in my company.
The dancers had gone; the flute-girls now made their bow; there was the pause that expects departure. Lyra pushed back a feather of hair into her snood. Her soft lips brushed mine like a whispered promise; she spread out her skirt to step down with grace. Then her head turned sharply, so that I followed her glance.
The women were not gathering to leave together, as they had entered. Their partners had got down with them. The first pair was already before Hipparchos, holding hands; I could half hear, and clearly see, the complicit thanks, the answering smile of felicitation. Only now it came to me that the party had been just the appetizer of Hipparchos’ feast. The main course would be enjoyed in private. He had bought for each guest a night with one of the first hetairas in Athens. It was his little joke. He had done it mainly for me.
I don’t know how I saw so quickly that something was wrong. Since I was a man, I’d been used to seeing men leave parties with women they had picked up there, dancers or flute-girls or hetairas. It had been expected by everyone, the host, the guests, the woman. In late years I’d done it myself, if a girl made it clear enough that she was willing; I still half feared the disgrace of being refused in public. One made one’s own arrangement, said thanks to the host, and collected the girl as one left; she might wave to friends, one’s own friends might shout good wishes. But this was different. This girl with her grace and pride had not been fooling, playing the game of courtship when already bought. She’d believed she was free to choose.
Her head was turned away; she was watching Milto’s face, as Antenor led away laughing Phylinna. I said quietly, “You were not warned of this.”
She did not look round. “Were you?”
“No. Could you not tell?”
“Yes. I am sorry.” She was very angry, though, and I felt the burn from it. Her long fingers were clenched on the gold-starred border of her overdress. Half to herself as she watched the room, she said, “The fee was high. But it was not that kind of message … Some of them knew. Phylinna did. Not Milto … Look, he is amused.”