Zopyros squirmed in an agony of indecision. He liked this small, dark, pretty girl immensely. He had seldom had an opportunity to talk at length to a girl of his own class outside his immediate family. As Zopyros plodded on, frowning at the road before him, Korinna said:
"You might at least escort me back to Messana. Otherwise I don't know how I shall ever get home safely. Then, you could catch an eastbound ship and be back in Taras before your comrades."
"I'll ask the Archon ..."
When Zopyros and his fellow Tarentines, bathed and oiled, appeared in front of the town hall of Cumae, a low red sun was staining the white stucco of this edifice rosy pink. The town hall was a boxlike building of stuccoed mud brick. A pair of Doric columns, of stucco-covered local limestone, relieved the plainness of the building and testified to the precarious lodgment of Greek culture on the barbarous Italian coast.
"O Zopyros!" It was Korinna, who stepped out of the shadows where she had stood with Sophron the bodyguard and her two slaves.
"Rejoice!" said Zopyros. "Dear old Bryson says I may take you to Messana. But not a step further; he made me swear by the holy tetractys to return thence at once to Taras."
"We may never get to Messana!" she said. "A terrible thing has happened."
"Zeus! Don't tell me Captain What's-his-name has sailed off without you!"
"No, but it's just as bad. He absolutely won't take a corpse on board; he babbles about ghosts and sea daemons and bad luck."
"Furies take him! We can't delay. If we get a warm spell, your uncle won't... Well, I'll try to find another ship."
"Where?"
"I don't know." Zopyros waved an arm. "I'll inquire at the banquet. If there is none here, perhaps there's one at Neapolis. I'll manage something. Now get a good night's sleep."
Inside the town hall, oil lamps shed a soft yellow glow on the banquet tables. The president and a few men of the highest rank were already reclining on dining couches at the far end of the room. The other diners sat on benches at long tables. Zopyros tried to count the assemblage but gave up; too many people were moving about.
"Welcome!" said Gellius Mutilus. "I am sorry we cannot accommodate you all in proper style, but our little basilica is not large enough for so many couches. I hope you will drink enough of our best Falernian so that you shall not notice the difference."
Zopyros found himself between Segovax the Celt and the Neapolitan with whom he had had words before the battle.
"Rejoice, Master Zopyros!" said the latter. "You and your friends did what I thought impossible; namely: made me a hero in spite of myself. It proves that the gods do indeed intervene in human affairs; for, without divine help, you, I, and our fellow heroes should all be weltering in our gore. By Herakles' balls, I wouldn't have bet a moldy olive against a golden Persian stater that a raggle-taggle crew like ours had a chance against a gang of professional murderers!"
Zopyros said: "My friend Archytas, here, has a mysterious knack nf talking people into doing what he wants them to do. Some god lakes possession of his tongue."
"Anyway I, like a sensible man, prepared to go elsewhere. Only, ns things turned out, common sense was not sensible after all. Your health, sir!"
"Thank you, Master Ingomedon," said Zopyros. "Tell me: how can I catch a ship from here—or from Baiae or Neapolis, for that matter—bound for Messana? A ship, moreover, whose captain is not superstitious."
"Taking the old Messanian home, eh? Let me see. Strabon is leaving tomorrow, I believe."
"He won't carry the cargo in question."
"Well then—hmm—do you see that fellow over there, with the earrings and the necklace of glass gimcracks?"
"The lean one who twiddles his fingers and drums on the table?"
"Yes. He's a Phoenician captain who put in a few days ago. He was at the Sibyl's grotto ahead of us this morning. I don't know his name or his home port, but you could ask him. What he's doing here, I can't imagine, since he is neither a hero of the battle nor a Cumaean citizen. Maybe the president owes him money, or maybe they have some shady deal. Some say all Phoenicians are thieves, although I have no prejudice against foreigners. Why, some of my best friends—"
"I'm part Persian myself," said Zopyros with emphasis.
"Think nothing of it." Ingomedon hastily swallowed a mouthful of diced octopus and resumed in a lowered voice. "Actually, purity of blood is a sore subject in Cumae. You see, the Cumaeans are of bastard origin, just like you Tar—excuse me, but you know what I mean. Not two generations ago, when Cumae was still Greek Kymê, an army of Samnites seized the town, slaughtered the men, and grabbed the women. Some of those old brigands are still alive. The Samnites settled down with their new women and begat as fine a crop of little half-breeds as you ever saw. Since most of the women were Hellenes, however, the children grew up to speak more Greek than Oscan. They still do, albeit with that weird Italianate accent you hear. But they carry Oscan names, since the man has the final say in that."
Zopyros asked: "Is there a Pythagorean Society around here?"
"You mean a gang of philosophical fanatics, plotting to seize power and make everybody stop eating beans?"
"No, nothing like that! The Pythagoreans haven't touched politics for years, save in Rhegion. Nowadays they are simply men interested in mathematics and the other sciences—seekers after the hidden truths of the universe."
Ingomedon laughed. "Not around here! We Neapolitans think of three things only: our purses, our bellies, and our pricks. Excuse me; my food is getting cold."
Zopyros asked his other neighbor: "How goes it with you, O Segovax? Have you seen the Sibyl?"
"That I did, young sir. The wise woman told me: 'Seek thou the place where the island rules the shore.' Now where would that be?"
Zopyros frowned. "I hear the Dionysios makes his headquarters on the island of Ortygia. Thence he rules the Syracusans on the mainland of Sicily and a lot of other peoples besides."
The Celt nodded sagely. "I am after thinking about him. I once soldiered for the fellow they had before him, Hermokrates, and a grand man he was. What did the lady druid tell you?"
"She told me I should someday smash the world."
Segovax's blue eyes widened. "You don't say, now! I hope I'll be somewhere else when that happens. You look like a nice lad, not one who goes around breaking up worlds, and them so pretty and all."
"She also," said Archytas from the other side of Segovax, "told us to beware of the Wolf of the North, whoever that might be."
"Hold your tongue, you polluted rattlepate!" said Archon Brvson from further down the table. "Such sacred matters should not be blabbed from Karia to Carthage."
"Ah, well," said the Celt, "wine makes the tongue wag easier, like grease in the hub of a chariot wheel. But you will not be talking of Sibyls and prophecies now, I'm thinking."
The buzz of conversation died as a dancing girl sprang into the cleared space in the midst of the tables. Clad in a thin shift of purple Koan silk, she went into gyrations to the tune of a double flute with a nose piece, blown by another girl in the corner.
When the girl had finished her dance, the men whooped and applauded. The girl curtseyed and ran off. Soon she was back, juggling knives and balls. The applause was louder.
The third time, the girl placed on the floor several candlesticks bearing lighted Etruscan candles. Then she cast off her shift and, naked, turned cartwheels and did handstands amid the candles, which cast golden highlights on her well-oiled skin.
"Isn't he the sour-face, though!" said the Celt in a loud whisper.
"Who?" said Zopyros.
"The Roman, that Cornelius Arvina."
Segovax nodded towards the couches on the dais at the end of the hall. The Roman knight, wearing a look of chill disapproval, was sitting up on the side of his couch, with his feet dangling, pretending to adjust his toga so that the stripe on his tunic showed. The Celt continued: