I said softly, ‘It is maybe that he likes my flute playing.’
And he snorted and leered, and said that I should put on my new gold and purple bodice.
For the rest of that day I had to endure the jealousy of the other women, their side-long glances and small barbed words. But living in the women’s courts, one grows used to such foolishness.
When the evening meal was over, I put on the bodice of purple and gold striped silk, and the full, rose-coloured Median trousers, and painted my eyes with stybium and green malachite and reddened my lips and cheeks. In my own land we keep such painting for the faces of the dead, so that whenever I looked in the polished silver mirror and saw mine painted so, I thought, ‘This is my dead face.’ Only there would be no one to paint my face for burial when the time came, here in the alien south.
And when I had been looked over and approved by the chief eunuch, I covered it all with a thick cloak, and went out from the women’s courts with my flute. And on the way I took from the secret place where I had laid it by, the last flask of wine that I should take to Hanno.
The guards on the double doors of the Guest Court knew of my coming, and parted spears and let me through with a jest. The latch lifted easily to my hand, and I went in and closed the door-leaf behind me.
I looked up and saw the bare branches of the almond tree. It had snowed a little, earlier, but now the sky had cleared. The new moon was set, but from the city below I could hear the soft bronze throbbing of the Moon-gongs, and the bright flash of cymbals, where the procession of Cybele still wound through the streets. Across the tiny court, a torch flared under the colonnade, and before the door of the same chambers where Alkibiades had been lodged before, two more of the Nubian guard stood with crossed spears. The one on the left was Hanno. I had been wondering all the way, what I should do if his watch had been changed that night. I walked towards them. Hanno challenged; and I said, ‘It is I, Timandra. The Athenian asked for me, and I am come by the Satrap’s order.’ I stepped into the torchlight, and hovered a moment, smiling up at him, to show that I was grateful and would not forget to show my gratitude; and brought out the wine-flask from under my cloak. His teeth smiled white in the dark ripe-fruit red of his lips. ‘It is a cold night. I have brought you something to warm you. Both of you — there is plenty for your comrade.’
‘There’s my girl,’ he said; and to the other, ‘That’s the kind of girl to have, eh, Buba? Even if her bones do show through her skin.’ And he put out his hand for the flask.
I would have mixed a harmless drug with wine if it could have been done that way. I bore him no ill will, and his comrade I had never even spoken to. But if he lived, he would tell things that were death to Phaeso, and to me. For myself I did not greatly care, but I did not want to be the death of Phaeso, and it was their deaths or his. I had used a kindly poison; no more than a coldness and heaviness that creeps about the heart, and a sleep from which there is no waking. I gave him the flask, and Buba unfastened the door for me, and I went in, and they made it fast again behind me.
There were heavy hangings drawn across the window frets to keep out the winter chill; and it was warm inside, and hazy with the scented smoke of the glowing brazier. A lamp burned in its niche high in the wall, and Alkibiades stood beneath it. He looked across the room to me, and said, ‘So you have really come.’
‘Did you not ask for the flute girl who eased your sleeplessness before?’
He said, ‘There was always the chance that that was only to keep me quiet for a few days. Or even a very pretty piece of woman’s revenge.’
‘If you expect revenge from every woman you lie with in passing, it is small wonder that you do not sleep well of nights,’ I said, and walked towards him.
He set his hands round my shoulders. ‘Little she-wolf, not every woman leaves my own dagger and a spray of flowering almond on my breast … What do we do now?’
‘We wait. I have given the guards before the door drugged wine to drink. Soon they will sleep.’ I do not know why I did not tell him then that it was the Long Sleep.
‘They refastened the door behind you,’ he said.
‘I know. That is why we must wait. At midnight the Officer of the Guard will make his rounds. When he finds them, before he can cry out or summon others of their kind, you must get him in here — groan, and cry out that you are poisoned, and when he comes —’
‘He may well summon help first, even so.’
‘That is a risk that we must take; I do not think that he will do so. If you are poisoned during his guard, it will mean death to him also; that he will know. When he comes, he must find you in the inner room and lying on the bed-place. I will be behind the doorway as he enters, so that he does not see me, and when he bends over you, I will knife him in the back — I have the dagger here — and we can get out.’
‘Have you drugged the guards at the outer doors also?’
I shook my head. ‘They would be noticed. With the help of the almond tree we will go another way, over the roof-tops.’
‘Ah, the almond tree again,’ he said. ‘And then?’
‘There is a postern door in the outer wall close to the women’s courts, that is left unguarded during the feast of Cybele, for certain purposes of the Satrap’s women — I doubt if the Satrap knows it. And a horse will be waiting for you.’
‘Perfect,’ he said, ‘except for one thing. It is I that will have the dagger.’
‘I know where to strike,’ I said.
But his hands had already found the weapon stowed beside my flute in the silk bindings at my waist. ‘I do not doubt it, she-wolf, wildcat; but I’ll do my own killing.’ I had caught at the dagger, and we struggled an instant, in silence for the guards before the door, before he twisted it from my grasp. And while I stood panting, he slipped his free arm round me, and pulled me close and kissed me on the mouth.
Outside the door, one of the guards — I think it was Hanno — said something in a puzzled tone; and the other answered, but slow and slurred. I pulled away from Alkibiades and signalled to him to shield the lamp; then went to the window and drew aside a fold of the embroidered hangings and peered out through the fret. They seemed to be still on their feet. But it could not be long now; the cold would hasten the working of the poison.
I drew back from the window and shook my head. We stood looking at each other. In the silence I could still hear the throbbing of the Moon-gongs from the lower city. Somewhere a dog howled; a piece of charcoal collapsed with a tinselly rustle into the red heart of the brazier. And then there was a sharp clatter beyond the door as one of the guard dropped his spear.
Alkibiades flicked up his head like a stallion that scents wolf; and it seemed to me that the noise was enough to alert every living thing in the Satrap’s palace. I waited, listening until my ears ached inside my head, for men on the outer doors to come rushing in; but it must be that the sounds of gongs and cymbals from the city had dulled the clatter of the falling spear before it reached them. The slow heartbeats of time went by, and no one came; and at last I let my breath go in a long sigh, and turned again to the window. Hanno was lying face down on the white-speckled ground. His comrade stooped over him, and even as I watched, swayed forward, and gave at the knees, and with a small surprised grunt, crumpled across him.
‘Yes,’ I said, and turned back to the room. ‘Now we must make all ready, for when the officer comes we may not have much warning.’
Alkibiades pinched out the lamp; in the glow of the brazier, he was all red and black like a warrior on a vase. Then he picked up a thick goat-skin coat that lay across a painted chest, and shrugged himself into it. ‘It will be cold riding, tonight,’ he said, as though he were setting out on a quite ordinary journey. We went into the inner room, and when he had pulled on a pair of soft rawhide boots, I helped him make a small bundle of such things as he had that might be useful — especially a purse with a little money. ‘It’s a pity we don’t wear as much jewellery as we used to in my gra
ndfather’s day,’ he said; and I thought for an instant of Hanno and the tale that I had told him; but not for long.
When all was ready, it still seemed a great while that we had to wait. But at last, on the very edge of my stretched hearing, I caught the distant sound of feet. I said, ‘He’s coming!’
And Alkibiades bowed to me like an actor, and went and lay down on the griffon couch, pulling the coverlid over him. And as the footsteps drew nearer, he began to writhe and moan; he began to retch like a man who has vomited up all but the heart out of his body, and cry out that he was poisoned; but feebly, so as not to rouse up the guards on the outer doorway or any others who might be within hearing.
The steps ceased before the door of the outer chamber, and I heard a startled curse, and knew that the Officer of the Guard was bending over the two out there in the puddled sleet. I held my breath for the next thing. But it was only a heartbeat of time before he was freeing the door and flinging it open. He checked an instant on the threshold, then came striding across the outer room. He flung aside the curtains of the inner doorway. He cried out sharply, ‘Light of the Sun! What has happened here?’ and plunged across to the couch where Alkibiades lay moaning and writhing among the bed-rugs. He bent close over him, for the one small lamp high in its niche gave little light; and Alkibiades’ hand came out from the tangle of coverings in a flash of movement; I saw the knife blade blink under the lamp; and the Officer of the Guard gave a little wet cough and crumpled forward across the couch. I never saw it done more skilfully.
Alkibiades pulled himself out from under the body, and wiped the dagger on the man’s own cloak. He picked up from the darkest corner, the bundle that we had made ready. He said, ‘So far, very good.’ Then he went back across the outer chamber, and through the open courtyard door. I followed, and made it fast behind us, lest it should slam in the rising wind.
He glanced at the two lying in the thin speckled snow, but said nothing; I slipped past him to lead the way. I rolled my own cloak into a bundle, and flung it up to the roof; I should need it, both for the cold, and to cover my flute-girl’s finery from anyone we might meet, but I could not climb with its folds to hamper me. It caught on a branch of the almond tree and unfurled, hanging there billowing in the wind, but I could gather it up again easily enough in passing.
I went first, for my lighter weight to test the way. It was easy, scarcely a climb at all, for the almond was old and strong, its crooked branches widespread, and in one place actually over-lying the roof of the little colonnade. I seemed scarcely to have left the ground before I was lying full length along the sloping roof, stayed from rolling off again by the Greek acanthus tiles that edged it, and reaching down for the bundle which Alkibiades held up to me. My fingers just grazed the knot; he shifted stance on to the ball of one foot, to gain another finger’s breadth of height; I could see the pale blur of his upturned face through the wind-swayed boughs. I eased myself farther over the edge. At any moment a tile would go crashing; the roof was slippery with its scattering of half-frozen snow. But I had the bundle now; I felt its weight carefully released into my hand, and I pulled back from the edge. There was a movement down below, a swaying among the old knotted branches that was not much more than the wind; and Alkibiades was beside me with my cloak flung round his arm.
‘And now where?’ he whispered.
‘This way — along to the end —’
He came close behind me, his soft rawhide boots as silent on the roof tiles as my own slippers — slipper; I realised that I had lost one in the climb. But it made no matter, they knew that I was with him that night, they would know that it was I who had helped him away. Hanno’s death might save Phaeso, but it could not save me.
We came to the end of the colonnade and gained a flat roof beyond; and after that it was simple going, with no more than a scramble from one level to another. And twice a narrow chasm between roofs to be leapt, till we came to another sloping roof, and dropped from it, by way of a wall and a clump of cistus bushes, into an alleyway. And Alkibiades gave me my cloak. The sky was darkening above the roof-tops, fresh snow-clouds coming up before the wind; and no one could have seen whether I was man or woman; let alone that I was a palace flute-girl, now; but oh! the knife-edged cold of that wind on my body through the gay silks that were damp with sweat! I dragged the heavy folds of the cloak round me, and went on, longing to run but not daring to, by the winding alleyways and courts, the flights of steps between walls, the tunnels running between and under houses, that riddle the Satrap’s palace like mouse-runs. And so I brought him at last to the unguarded postern in the outer wall.
We crept through, and closed it behind us. To one side a track led off close under the walls and down toward the city, ahead, the cliff path dropped steeply to lose itself in the thickets of the river valley below. The sky had broken again for a little while, and the snow, lying thicker there, gave its own light to the hillside, so that it was clear.
‘Come,’ I said, ‘there is no cover till we reach the bushes. We must put our trust in the Great Mother, and run.’ And down the path we went at breakneck speed, keeping to the snowy grass on the very edge of the drop, where the softer ground muffled our footsteps. And every step of the way I thought to hear the shout of a guard on the wall-turrets; but we gained the shelter of the riverside scrub at last, and checked for a moment among the willows and oleanders to draw breath after the nightmare of the winding palace ways and the open track.
It was more sheltered from the wind, down there, and it all seemed very quiet, very empty of life. I began to wonder desperately if Phaeso had kept his promise. And then I heard the restless stamp of a horse and the faint chink of a bridle bit, and knew that he had.
Alkibiades said, ‘They were dead, those two before the door.’
‘Yes,’ I said after a moment.
‘You are very thorough.’
We were moving forward again, keeping now to the shadows of the bushes. ‘If they had lived, one would have talked,’ I said. ‘That would have been death to me and to — the friend who helped me in all this.’
He said nothing more until we came out on the river-bank. The water was running high and yeasty, and against the pale swirl of it was the dark shape of a horse, its bridle looped over a low-hanging alder branch. It swung its head towards us, stamping uneasily. There was no sign of Phaeso himself, and I thought, ‘He was afraid to wait here till we came. Well, he has been brave already, for a eunuch.’
And then I almost tripped over something dark lying half across the path. He must have meant me to find him. It was as though he had left me a message, and I knew what it was, even before I stooped, and felt the stickiness of blood on my fingers, and his hand fell away from the hilt of the dagger driven in under his breast.
‘What is it?’ Alkibiades said.
‘It is the friend I spoke of. The friend who helped me in this.’
He stooped beside me an instant; then I felt his hand whip to the dagger in his belt — my dagger — and his head go up, searching the shadows of bush and rock.
‘It was his own hand on the hilt,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to be done here, and no time for you to waste.’
I felt his gaze on me an instant in the dark. Then he went to slip the horse’s bridle from the alder branch. He sprang on to its back, and brought it fidgeting and plunging round.
‘Take his shoes,’ he said.
For a moment I did not know what he meant, and he said it again, impatiently. ‘His shoes, woman. We shall have to walk a good part of the road we’re taking. He’s a small man, they should not be so much too big for you.’
A few moments before, everything within me had been crying out to him to take me too. That I was his, and I did not want to die; but most of all, that I was his. But I hung back, none the less; for one long moment I hung back; I think it was for Phaeso, lying there in the puddled snow, who was nothing to Alkibiades but a pair of shoes. He had thought that I was better than I was, and would not des
ert him to face alone whatever might be coming in payment for that night’s work; and so he had made sure that there was nothing to hold me back. And all the while, I would have gone; at a word, a whistle, from Alkibiades, I would have left him without a backward glance. So for that one moment, I nearly stayed.
‘You will ride the faster alone.’
‘I shall ride the faster, the sooner we get away from here. Take those shoes and put them on; you’re a wildcat, but I’ll not have you a dead wildcat because of me.’
I took the shoes from Phaeso’s feet. They were icy, but so were my own, so that I could scarcely feel the shoes when I put them on — it was not until much later that I found that my right foot was torn and bleeding from going bare on the frozen ground. I left my own embroidered slipper beside him, and turned back to Alkibiades.
He leaned down and caught my wrist, his fingers closing round it in a quick bruising grip. ‘Your foot on mine. Now — up with you.’
So I set my foot on his, and sprang, and next instant was sitting before him in the hard crook of his bridle arm. He heeled the horse from a stand into a canter.
17
The Whore
The hen-speckle of snow on the ground made light enough to ride by, even though there was no moon; and we rode hard that night, and before morning took to the hills and lay up in the woods through the daylight hours. They must have been scouring the countryside for us, but the Gods were kind, and covered our trail with a fresh flurry of snow, and neither sight nor sound of hunt came near our hiding place.
We ate some of the food in Phaeso’s wallet and lay down on my cloak with the other wrapped about us both. We mated then, as much for warmth, I think, as anything else. He was hasty and harsh with the urgency of life in him. And afterwards we slept a little, crushed together with our arms round each other; and it did not seem to me at all strange or wonderful, but as though it had always been so.