Just for a moment, the pain and the urge to kill balanced against the knowledge that this was Briseis. She saw the daimon come into my eyes and her own widened. As I have said, it takes one to know one. But those eyes saved her, and I took control of my body with my left hand closed around her throat.
Her mother was shaken. Close up, I could see that her hair was not dressed and she was not herself. But she would not relent. 'Take the knife and finish it,' she mocked. 'You think your life is ruined, little princess? Perhaps it is time a dose of reality came into your life. You despised Diomedes when you had him. You are acting. There is a world bigger than that inside your head. Wake up.'
Archi stepped in between them. I still had Briseis, and she had dropped her gold pin of her own volition.
'Take her to her room,' he said. He nodded to me. Suddenly, we were allies. I obeyed, lifting Briseis and carrying her. Penelope came after us. She was holding her side. She got ahead of me and led the way, which was as well, as I had no idea where Briseis's room was.
Briseis put her arms around my neck and let me carry her without struggle. She smelled of jasmine and mint. It was hard to imagine, while carrying her, that she had just intended to kill her mother with a knife.
We pushed though a curtain of glass beads into a room painted in scenes of gods and goddesses – fine work. Archi's room was plain white, with a border of Hera's eyes painted around the cornice. Briseis's room had all the gods done as vignettes. Hera stood with mighty Zeus – a loving couple, painted as her mother and father. Her brother was Apollo with a lyre, and she was Artemis with a bow. Penelope was Aphrodite, and Darkar was a mighty Pluton. Diomedes was painted as a young and rather ambiguous Ares, and then I saw that I, too, was in the pantheon, as Heracles, a club on my shoulder and a lion skin draped over me. I didn't know the rest of the figures, but it was good work. Excellent work. The figure of Aphrodite-Penelope was unfinished, and the paints were there along one wall. The room smelled of marble dust and ox-blood.
Despite everything – adultery, betrayal, drama – I stopped and looked at the paintings on the wall. I took in the paint pots and the smell.
'Your work?' I asked Penelope, amazed.
'Hers,' Penelope said. 'I need a bandage,' she said, and fled.
I laid Briseis on her bed. She was crying. I knew that sound. That was despair. The sound new slaves make when they are taken. The sound you make when your life is taken away from you.
I actually pitied her. So I put a hand on her back.
'It will get better,' I said.
She rolled over, and her eyes held anger, not sorrow. 'Kill him for me!' she said. 'Kill Diomedes!'
You have no idea what it is like to be alone with Briseis. I didn't slap her or run from the room.
But neither did I agree. 'I cannot kill him for you, despoina,' I said. I remember smiling. 'But I could hurt him for you.'
She brightened immediately. 'You could?' she asked. 'Really hurt him?'
She reached out and took my hand, and a flame licked me from my palm to my groin and up to my head.
'If I hurt him, will you stop this foolishness of hating your mother?' I asked. 'Diomedes is a piece or horse shit. You lost nothing in losing him. Your mother did you a favour.'
Her eyes widened. 'I had never thought of that,' she said. Her hand was still stroking mine. 'I know Archi hates him. And he tried to hurt you, didn't he? He bragged of it to me. And Penelope said you were too tough to be hurt by a thug.' She smiled at me.
Oh, the flattery of a beautiful woman. Let's look at this as adults, thugater. She never wanted Diomedes, but she was dutiful enough – she certainly wanted to be an adult, and she liked the attention. But being jilted was turning out to be better. More drama.
Who wants to play the dutiful wife when you can be Medea? And I played into her hands – all reasonable, knowing and male. Zeus Soter, honey, she played me like a kithara.
I pulled my hand out of hers and left the room. Then I went to find Archi.
He was making love to Penelope.
I found Darkar instead. 'See to Briseis,' I said. And then I understood. 'You knew Archi was doing Penelope!' I said.
He nodded. And shrugged.
I shrugged back. 'Thanks for trying to keep it from me, anyway,' I said. 'I suppose. But I know.'
Darkar looked at me for a moment. 'Come into my office,' he said. And when I was in, he closed the door. His office was a tiny room under the cellar stairs where he did the household accounts.
'You seem to know everything.' He paused. 'Listen, boy. You have a level head. If we aren't careful, this household will fall apart. And if it does – if Master kills Mistress, if Briseis kills herself – we will all be sold. Understand me? It is not just our duty to keep them all apart until things get better – it's for our own skins, too.'
'Ares!' I said. 'Is it that bad?'
'I drugged Master's wine the night – the night it happened. And every night since.' Darkar had hollows under his eyes. 'He's going to kill her.'
'We should give him something else to think about,' I said. 'Like war with Persia.'
Darkar shook his head. 'I thought that would happen, but it's worse, not better.'
I shrugged. I was seventeen, and I didn't want to be responsible for the happiness of a household. 'I have a task to do,' I said.
Darkar nodded. 'Can I count on you?' he asked.
'I swore an oath to Artemis to support them,' I said.
He smiled. 'Good man. Go on your errand. What did she tell you to do?'
'She told me to kill Diomedes,' I said.
He stroked his beard. 'You can't kill him.'
'But I can hurt him,' I said.
'His father would have you killed,' he said.
'Not if Archi comes with me,' I said. 'I'm waiting for him to finish consoling Penelope.'
Darkar was a hard man. His eyes glinted in the lamplight. 'That would help the household,' he said. 'People will know we are still standing. I approve.' He looked at me. 'You could still end up dead, though.'
I laughed. Even then, I had begun to feel the power. I was not going to die in some night squabble in Ephesus. An hour later, Archi was done with Penelope, and I walked in on them with a clean chiton for her and clothes for him.
It may have been the most courageous moment of my life. It was hard to meet her eyes – she was naked, entwined breast to breast with him, and all but purring. She had wept and been comforted. And they smelled of sex.
'Master, I need you now.' I tossed clothes and a towel at Penelope. 'I am sorry to intrude.' I raised a hand – something a slave never does – and silenced my master. 'I have consulted with Darkar. We need to strike Diomedes. We need to show the city that we are not dead as a household. He insulted your sister. He might have broken the match in a dignified manner, but he called her a whore. Let's punish him.'
Archi met my eye and smiled. Bless him, he understood immediately. 'This is for my sister?' he said.
'For all of us,' I said. 'For your mother, too.'
Penelope looked at us. 'You are a slave!' she said. 'You cannot punish a free man!'
I ignored her.
Archi nodded. 'Let's get him. How do you propose we do it?'
'He'll be in the agora or the gymnasium bragging – shaming her and excusing himself. You know him – you know what he'll do. On and on, to everyone he meets. We take Kylix as a spy. He'll watch the fucker. We follow him when he leaves for his dinner, catch him in a street and beat the shit out of him.' Pardon my language, honey – that's how men speak when they are ready for violence.
Archi pulled a chiton over his head and I pinned it for him. Penelope was wiping herself with the towel. I watched her. She turned her back and blushed.