I nodded. ‘Yes, my lady, yet I would be a poor commander if I trusted anyone — anyone — with the security of my ships.’ I held up my hand. ‘I’m not suggesting you give up the duty — which you have earned the right to hold!’
That got a hesitant smile.
‘I wonder if we couldn’t have two towers — one watching north and the other south.’ I smiled. ‘Because my people will serve best if I help them to avoid temptation.’
She blushed. And laughed a sweet, free laugh. ‘I think perhaps you may have a point, courteously rendered.’
‘I will order a second post built, closer to my beach, watching north,’ I said. ‘And then perhaps we might tell our people that they should speak to each other’s posts at the beginning and end of each watch … and no more.’
She nodded. ‘I think I can approve this plan without any further discussion. Thanks for coming over!’
‘Now I wish to see my daughter. Dancing?’
The priestess laughed. ‘There is naught to do on this beach’ she said. ‘We have a great deal of dancing.’
‘Don’t you all use bows?’ I asked.
‘We don’t have enough bows,’ she said. ‘They were collected and didn’t make it here. Much of our temple furniture and equipment was sent to safety in the Peloponnese or to the other side of the island.’
‘How many bows would make this better?’ I asked.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Six, I think.’
I liked her. I had to work to avoid looking at her long, naked legs, but inside her handsome body was a fine brain and she thought rapidly and made decisions well. I thought the same as I’d thought among the Keltoi and again with the Spartans. Women, left to themselves, are very different from women carefully trained to be weak.
‘I think I can find you six bows,’ I said. ‘I’ll certainly try.’
‘I have girls who can draw a man’s bow,’ she said, ‘but not so many, either. We need some lighter bows.’
I shrugged. ‘Somewhere on this island are some Attic refugees who brought hunting bows,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘It must be fine to be a man, and famous,’ she said. She said this with no bitterness at all, but in those days, for a woman to roam about asking even the most innocent of questions would have been unthinkable.
Much less a woman in a chitoniskos.
‘I’ll take you to your daughter,’ my priestess said. ‘I was dancing myself.’
So we walked down to the hard-packed sand at the edge of the sea, where forty girls and young women were practising an elaborate festival dance, one of the bear dances, I believe, although ordinarily no man is allowed to see.
We no sooner emerged from the welter of tents than I knew why the four young men were so finely dressed. There were girls. Of course!
What a fool you can be, to forget your own youth.
The four of them immediately launched into a display of sullen boredom, as if, having spent ridiculous care dressing and oiling themselves, and gone to extra effort to be brought along, they now wanted me to believe that they didn’t want to be there.
In the meantime, forty very young women in very short chitons were vividly aware that four handsome young men were standing watching their dance.
Even now I roll my eyes. There are excellent reasons to train the young separately. One is that it’s so painful to watch them together.
Girls preened and hid and shrieked and giggled and pointed at each other, while my boys pretended indifference and then attempted to casually look to see if anyone was paying attention to them.
Now, I noticed that neither Iris nor Heliodora seemed interested in my young men; in fact, the pair of them continued to work on a figure. Their discipline, and their form, probably did them more credit than a storm of giggles and blushes might have, but in plain fact my young men were soliciting their attention and they were not giving it.
I find it delightful, my daughter, that this portion of my story reduces you to laughter. Perhaps, unlike stories of ship fights and sword duels, this part seems like something you have experienced yourself?
At any rate, they danced, and as they danced, I could see Cleitus in Heliodora. He was handsome, however much I hated him, and his daughter was not beautiful, but pretty — at least until she started dancing, and then she was with the gods. And Hipponax was gone, lost to Eros, a slave to Aphrodite, and too young to know what to do about it.
Thankfully for all of us, Despoina Thiale, the dance mistress, came over. She didn’t grin, but her strong face showed more amusement than resentment. ‘You’ll have to take the young men away or I’ll have nothing to show for my day,’ she said.
But Pericles grinned and exchanged kisses with her.
‘My great-aunt,’ he said. Of course, they were all related, all the eupatridae. The well-born.
Anaxagoras bore Thiale’s scrutiny well and clasped her hand as if she was a man.
‘You are my nephew’s new friend?’ she asked.
The Ionian showed very little on his face. He merely bowed his head with dignity, more dignity than Hector and Hipponax had ever shown, I promise you. ‘I value Pericles,’ he said.
‘You have a fine bearing for a man so young,’ Thiale said. ‘Like a Laconian.’
Among Athenian aristocrats, this would pass for a compliment.
The Ionian bowed again. ‘I find that displays of emotion are a waste of effort,’ he said.
Thiale laughed. ‘How … rare.’
I lost the next few exchanges as my own daughter came running across the sand and embraced me — a powerful clasp from a girl already taller by a finger than when I’d last seen her.
‘The dance is even more complicated,’ she said. ‘I’m actually leading my line. I wasn’t actually the leader, but I understood the tempo better than the other girls, and Despoina Thiale said that I could be the leader, and then-’
I kissed her. ‘Hello!’ I said in greeting.
She hugged me again. ‘Hello, Pater,’ she said. She laughed. ‘But I need to tell you-’
‘Sweet, we’re going over the headland to the temple to make sacrifice and I thought that you might like to come,’ I said.
‘May I bring my friend?’ she asked. She indicated another girl — there is a certain sameness to girls — smaller by a head, but also thin and agile and full of smiles. ‘She’s Ariadne and her parents have gone to Corinth for a few days and we’re best friends and-’
I smiled at Thiale. ‘May I have my daughter and her friend for a few hours?’ I asked.
Thiale laughed. ‘Would you like fifteen or twenty more?’ she said.
We walked to the old temple — more than six stades, in fact, and the girls had no trouble keeping up. In fact, they climbed rocks and ran down ravines and righted a turtle that had turned upside down and was grilling in the sun then they poured water on him because they were sure he was parched. I don’t think he appreciated them but I was happy to have my canteen returned to me.
Unbroken.
I had Eugenios purchase a fine, fat black ram and I sacrificed it to Apollo. My prayers and thoughts were about the end of youth, but my prayer was for the salvation of Attica and victory over the barbarians.
When the sacrifice was over, and the priest poured water over my blade, Pericles bowed. ‘That was very elegant,’ he said.
Anaxagoras, who, until that moment had seemed to me to be a self-important prig, also allowed himself a smile. ‘Very impressive,’ he said. ‘I would like to learn how to do that.’
‘Pater says you have to learn to draw the sword before you can use it,’ my daughter said.
There is something funny and very alarming about hearing your views repeated — verbatim — by a ten-year-old. ‘He practises drawing every morning. He says that just as every sacrifice is an offering to the gods, so is the skill you display in making the kill.’