“No!” cried the maidens, shaking their hair.
“Yes,” said Aspasia. “He seemed intent on some errand and did not speak.”
“I have heard,” said Thargelia, “that he gave you a lesson in archery this morning.”
“He did. I requested it.”
Thargelia’s eyes narrowed. “You, who are so proficient with the bow, Aspasia? You desired a lesson alone?”
“I desire to excell in all things. I am yet no Amazon.”
Thargelia continued to regard her. “He has not been seen since one of the overseers saw him walking idly along the road to the city.”
Aspasia shrugged. “He will return.”
“Perhaps,” said Thargelia, still watching. “He has no money. He has only jeweled trinkets which I have given him. They are gone.” She pursed her lips. “I have sent slaves to the port, but none had seen him there. Nevertheless, he has run away.”
“Alas,” said Aspasia. “But I do not believe it. Why should he flee?”
“That is the question,” said Thargelia in a grim voice. Her eyes went to Cleo, who returned her regard innocently and Thargelia made a gesture of frustration. But she was a clever woman. Her gaze reverted to Aspasia. She bit her lip. The maiden had been very evasive.
Runaway slaves were not usual in Miletus, for all the punishments were dire and often resulted in death. But Thalias had been an indulged slave and the lover of Thargelia, who had adored him, and he had been given many privileges. Thargelia did not appear in the dining hall that night, and the maidens chattered discreetly among themselves, and laughed and winked. They knew that a wide search was being conducted for Thalias, and in the city itself, where officials had been informed. Thalias had been caught up into the air and had disappeared like a cloud of mist. Aspasia, listening, began to feel relieved. A gentleman, with a slave and a chest, richly attired, and arrogant of demeanor, would not be suspected as a fleeing slave. Moreover, Miletus was a busy port and multitudes of passengers boarded the vessels for many destinations.
Thargelia was beside herself. She loved Thalias, and he had been treated, in her house, as a free man, given gifts and tenderness and had dined with Thargelia and had slept in her bed. At no time had he appeared restive. Therefore, thought Thargelia, something extraordinary had occurred. Slaves like Thalias did not flee from delights and pamperings and all that they desired. He had shown his contentment and happiness. He was one who lived for the hour, and all his hours in this house had been filled with pleasure. He had been all laughter and gaiety and had come eagerly to Thargelia’s bed. It was not possible that he had been seized by a desire for liberty—not such a man as Thalias! Thargelia was an authority on the ways of humanity, and so she knew that Thalias had not fled for freedom but from fear. Of what had he been afraid? There was but one answer: He had feared discovery.
Suddenly she thought of Aspasia, who had been so indifferent and had hastened to assure Thargelia that Thalias had not fled, and had seemed intent on persuading Thargelia that she had encountered Thalias in the hall. Thargelia felt a deep grief. Aspasia had never attempted to deceive her before. Why had she engaged in deception today?
The answer was terrible and devastating.
Thargelia began to think of what the guardians and the guards had reported of the night before, and she almost wept. Aspasia! Aspasia, who was the bright jewel of this house, loved and protected, with a great destiny—it was not possible. But Thargelia knew that all things were possible in this world.
Later, she discreetly sent a slave to summon Cleo to her. In the meantime she bathed her eyes in water of roses and composed herself. Cleo entered the chamber shyly, looking about her, for she had never been here before. She was awed at the beautiful mosaics on the wall, which seemed to move, so brilliant and precise were they, and at the painted statues in the corners of Hera and Artemis and Athene and Aphrodite. Persian rugs of intricate colors lay on the marble floor and there were many dainty tables of lemonwood and ebony and ivory and gilded chairs covered with cushions. Egyptian lamps of glass and silver and smooth gold hung from the ceiling or stood on the tables. They gave out the odor of roses and lilies and sandalwood. There were also delicate vases of exquisitely wrought glass near the walls, and a parrot in a golden cage hummed a ribald ditty to himself. In a small room beyond stood Thargelia’s opulent bed with silken sheets and soft pillows, and woollen coverlets as fine as silk, itself. Everything glowed and sparkled voluptuously. The windows were open to the evening air and wind and through them came the tinkling soliloquies of fountains and the rustling murmur of the sea.
“Come, child,” said Thargelia, touched unwillingly at the sight of this little one hardly out of childhood and in appearance as fresh as an almond blossom. The girl approached her timidly and lifted her dark eyes questioningly. All at once Thargelia knew with bitter certainty that Cleo had never left the house the night before. She said, in a voice she tried to make kind, “Cleo, you must answer me in truth or I shall be very displeased with you and my displeasure is not to be despised. Did you sleep well last night?”
Cleo looked at her and then suddenly her face was deeply flushed and Thargelia had a momentary hope that it had been Cleo who had gone to Thalias under the moon and not Aspasia. Cleo was nodding now, unable to speak.
Her hope made Thargelia say almost tenderly, “Do not be afraid. I want only the truth. Did you leave this house at any time after you retired for the night?”
The girl shook her head with quick denial, and Thargelia knew that she was not lying and her own heart was again filled with grief, and also with formidable anger.
“I have heard from the guardians that your bed was empty at midnight, and that a maiden was seen in the gardens.” She looked at Cleo and now her eyes had changed and had become relentless. Her hands clenched on her embroidered knees. “Was it you?”
Cleo uttered a faint dying cry and then dropped on her knees before the mistress of the courtesans, and she beat her forehead on the floor in abject terror. Her black hair fell over her shoulders and covered her back. She wore the simple tunic of the hetairai with a girdle of ribbons, and the garment flowed over her child’s body and every frail bone was outlined. Thargelia was rarely moved to pity, but now she pitied Cleo. However, she touched the girl as if spurning her with her foot. She repeated, “Was it you? Ah, you shake your hidden head. Where were you last night, Cleo?”
The girl whispered, “In Aspasia’s bed.”
Thargelia breathed deeply, and hope lived with her again. Was it possible that Aspasia had not deceived her after all and had told her the truth?
“Why?” she asked of Cleo. She had a disgusting thought concerning Aspasia and Cleo, then rejected it. She looked down at the trembling child who had begun to weep, her shoulders and back heaving. “Cleo,” said Thargelia, “there is nothing reprehensible in that you crept into Aspasia’s bed, for consolation or because of an evil dream.”
Cleo crouched in stillness for a moment, then she sat up abruptly on her heels, throwing back her hair and her round wet face was bright with sudden relief and her eyes shone with the joy of one who had been delivered out of danger. “Yes, yes, Lady, that is what I did, and Aspasia comforted me!”
Thargelia studied her for a long moment and her experience told her that the child was lying, and she was sick with anger and sorrow. She clapped her hands for a servant and a slave woman moved aside a curtain and entered the chamber. Now a distant sound of lutes and girlish singing could be heard under the moon and in the outdoor portico. “Summon Aspasia to me at once,” she said to the slave. The slave bowed and retreated. Thargelia gave her attention to Cleo again. The girl was as white as new bone, even to her lips, and she stared at Thargelia with utter dread between the long lengths of her black hair. She is as one who gazes upon a Gorgon, thought Thargelia, so fixedly does she gaze at me and with so intense a horror and fear. Thargelia could not bear the sight, for she was not a cruel woman. Cleo had been used by Aspasia without regard for t
he mortal fright Cleo was now enduring. Thargelia looked aside. All was silent in the chamber, except for the raucous parrot and the music and singing in the portico which had invaded the room. Thargelia did not know what emotion was the more overwhelming, her grief or the hot hatred she felt for Aspasia, who had not only deceived her wantonly but had seduced Thalias. She had no doubt that the seduction had taken place, for Aspasia was no soft maiden and Thalias was too cautious to make an overt approach. Now Thargelia hated him also and was filled with humiliation. Had he been in this house she would have ordered him flogged to death, or tortured to the same end. She vowed in her torn heart to find him if it cost her all her fortune. She would post a reward in all of Miletus, and at the port.
The curtain was moved aside and Aspasia entered, her face calm but rigid. She had dressed her hair in the Greek fashion, bound up in ribbons, and Thargelia, looking at her, was conscious, with tremendous fury, of the maiden’s extraordinary beauty and youth and grace and regal air. These had seduced Thalias. Thargelia felt old and withered and undone and repulsive, and this increased her wrath. She was like a harpy in the presence of a nymph, a harpy who must buy love and not receive it ardently, and in truth.
Aspasia bowed, and then saw Thargelia’s face and the child kneeling on the floor, and her heart clenched with terror. I am undone, she thought. But she was proud. In her stately fashion she approached Thargelia closer and looked down in silence into those eyes raised to hers, and she saw that Thargelia’s eyes were vivid with hatred. I am to die, she said to herself. She had never been a slave, but this would not protect her from Thargelia’s vengeance, for Thargelia knew too many powerful men in Miletus who were in her debt.
Thargelia saw and savored her favorite’s helplessness, and she gloated and even smiled. The smile was hideous. What would this beauty be like after long flogging and torture? She envisioned Aspasia covered with blood, that exquisite body reduced to bleeding tatters, that face obliterated, those wondrous eyes blind with agony and death. She, Thargelia, would be avenged, and by a lift of her hand. She longed for the moments of destruction. She would watch in rapture. She felt no compassion for this maiden who had so humiliated and betrayed her.
Aspasia looked again at Cleo and she was sick with pity and regret. The gorgeous chamber appeared to swim before her eyes in a kaleidoscope of shifting and confusing colors, brightening, waning, fleeing, returning. Cleo gazed up piteously into Aspasia’s eyes, imploring help, and then her little hand reached desperately for Aspasia’s tunic and clung to it, winding her fingers in it. Contrition seized Aspasia so that her own eyes filled with tears. She would probably die, but nothing must harm this child. The very sight of the childish body, the faith in the round face, the small feet peering from beneath her tunic, the abjectness of her posture, moved Aspasia enormously. She said, as softly as a mother speaks to her little one, “Speak, Cleo. Tell the Lady Thargelia what transpired last night.”
Cleo hesitated and Aspasia could not bear the sight of her countenance, for she saw that Cleo was not only afraid for herself but for her friend. “Speak,” she repeated, “and all will be well.”
Reassured, but not looking away from the one she adored, Cleo spoke in a half whisper. “You said, Aspasia, that you wished to worship Artemis under the moon. So you requested me to lie in your bed, with my dark hair covered, and arrange my bed clothes so it would seem I lay in my own. You then left me, and I fell asleep. You awakened me before dawn and I returned to my bed.”
Ah, the sweet one is prudent even at her age, thought Aspasia. She will not repeat my promises of vileness to her. She placed her hand on Cleo’s bent head and looked at Thargelia. “That is all,” she said. “The girl is innocent of any wrong. If wrong there had been it was my doing, and my indiscretion. But I desired to look upon the moon. I was restless.”
“You are often restless, Aspasia,” said Thargelia, and laughed aloud in derision. Then she paused and regarded the girl with renewed love and hatred. Her intuition told her that she had heard the truth, and also lies. She looked down at Cleo, kneeling before her and weeping and she said, “You may leave us, child. I am no longer angry with you, for you have been victim and not transgressor. Go to your bed.”
Cleo stood up slowly, wiping her tears with the palms of her hands, like an infant. Her lips quivered. She looked at Thargelia and then at Aspasia, and Aspasia smiled with reassurance, bent and kissed the girl then pushed her towards the curtain. Cleo fled, scampering, her feet slapping on rug and marble.
“Are you not ashamed,” said Thargelia, “that you corrupted that child?”
“I did not corrupt her,” Aspasia replied. “She told you the truth. As I have told you the truth.”
“All of the truth, Aspasia?”
Though it did not seem possible that Aspasia could pale more she did so. She could only say, “Cleo and I have told you the truth.”
“You lie,” said Thargelia, calmly. “What of Thalias? You met him in the moonlight and for a purpose that I know. Do you deny this?”
Aspasia shut her eyes for a moment. Before she could speak Thargelia said, “He left me at midnight. He thought I slept. He did not return for some time. I believed he had gone to the latrines, or had strolled in the gardens, for the night was hot and the moon high.” This was not true, but Thargelia was determined to know the whole of her mortification.
“You seduced my slave, Aspasia,” said Thargelia. “He is young, and foolish, and you have been taught arts. Because of your infamy he will die, and painfully, and I will force you to be present to see what you have done.”
Aspasia could not control herself. “He has been found?” she cried in a loud voice.
Thargelia did not answer for a moment, and then she said, “Yes. He attempted to board a vessel in the harbor, and was taken into custody. I heard but a short time ago. He will be delivered to this house in the morning. Prepare yourself for an interesting spectacle, Aspasia. Thalias is strong, but he will shriek for mercy and death. I can assure you of that, though he is a man.”
Aspasia was young and so still possessed considerable credulity. Moreover, Thargelia had never lied to her before. She looked about her wildly, as if seeking succor. She was filled with despair. Then she sank to her knees before Thargelia and clasped her hands convulsively. Her beautiful white face was lifted and twinkled with sweat.
“Spare him,” she said. “I alone am guilty. I seduced him because the heat of my desire was too much for me and had to be relieved. Any man would have sufficed. As you have said of Cleo, he, too, was my victim. You have taught us that men are seized with irrepressible passions which they cannot control, and that any woman to them then is desirable. I have also been taught the arts of seduction, and he is not experienced as I am, and not intelligent. It was a moment’s madness to him, only. He is not guilty. He is only a man.”
Thargelia’s face twisted until it was extremely ugly, and the cosmetics on her face increased her wrinkles. Her dyed golden hair was a travesty. She saw her beloved Thalias in those round white arms; she saw him kissing that adorable breast. She saw him enter that body, and could hear his gaspings. They would be more delirious than in her own bed, for he had been embracing youth and divine loveliness. All that the girl was had been tended since her birth, and she had had a glorious destiny, which was now lost. Pain seized Thargelia then, pain for herself, pain for Thalias and even pain for this wanton, Aspasia, whom she had loved like an only daughter, and whose prospects had been destroyed. Thargelia rarely had wept in all her life but now she was taken with a desperate desire to weep. She controlled herself.
“How did Thalias flee?” she asked.
“I gave him the last of my mother’s money.” Then courage returned to Aspasia. “I told him to flee. I am not sorry, except that he will suffer for it. I wish he had escaped to safety! I should have that to remember with joy.”
“Do not mourn,” said Thargelia, with answering passion and fresh mortification. “He has not been taken, as yet. Wh
en he is I will send him only to the fields, for his punishment, in chains so that he cannot run again. Does that comfort you?”
Aspasia stood up and for the first time she regarded the mistress with loathing. “Then you have lied to me,” she said. “And I trusted you.”
Thargelia mocked her. “‘Then you have lied to me, and I trusted you.’ Go to your bed, Aspasia. I will consider your fate tonight. I assure you it will not be a happy one. I may send you into the kitchens or the fields. I may have you flogged to death, or your beauty destroyed forever. You will know in the morning.”
Aspasia knew that she had nothing to lose now. “I am not a slave,” she said. “I was born free and am free. You can do nothing unlawful against a free woman, no matter your wrath. In the eyes of the laws of Miletus I have done little wrong, nothing to merit extreme punishment.”
Thargelia had risen in dismissal of the maiden. Now she stopped and looked at the girl with contempt. “Do you think the law in Miletus will be concerned with the fate I mete out to a mere chit in my care, who has induced a slave to flee—a capital crime in itself? Ponder on that, insolent one.”
“Let me go, tonight,” said Aspasia. “We will see each other no more.”
“Where will you go, you fool? On foot, with only the peplos on your body, and no money? Or would you sell yourself into slavery, which is all you deserve? Or become a public whore?”
“I know not what I shall do,” said Aspasia, with the bursting wildness and recklessness of youth. “It is enough for me to go. I have long been rebellious of the fate you have designed for me. At least I will escape that, and with joy.”
Thargelia considered. She said, “The fate you so despise was a fate of power and wealth and comfort and adoration and cosseting, the mistress of a selected and distinguished man. You would prefer the streets of Miletus and its noisome alleys and squalid dwellings, and the encounters with brutes of the ports and the slaughterhouses and the manufactories and the sea—for a handful of drachmas or a little bread and wine?”