Glory and the Lightning (22 page)

Her thoughts delighted her. She had never been so beautiful, and now her mouth dimpled with mischief.

Seeing this, Al Taliph frowned. He had never deceived himself that he knew all there was to know about Aspasia. Aspasia was full of mysteries to him, and that was why he found her forever entrancing. She withheld something from him, and he was always in chase and never did he seize upon her inmost thoughts.

Seeing her secret smile as she tranquilly ate and drank, he remembered that the hetairai had been rigorously taught all arts, and especially the arts of alluring deceptions. Was she trying to deceive him that his punishment of her was of no consequence to her, and that she felt herself the victor? He frowned again.

Thalias was scrutinizing her no less intently. Finally, as he was no fool, he began to understand that Aspasia would never betray him, as he would never, he said to himself with virtue, betray her. They had memories of one joyful night. Aspasia glanced up serenely and their eyes met and she smiled briefly then averted her gaze. Al Taliph saw that smile, but Aspasia frequently smiled in this manner at his guests and he saw no significance in it. She was trained to be silently amiable and charming.

Thalias, immeasurably relieved, felt all his not inconsiderable courage returning to him. He addressed his host with great courtesy and respect. “It is said, lord, that we have, throughout the world, entered upon a period of peace and enlightenment. Is your noble Emperor in agreement with this?”

“There will be peace,” said Al Taliph, “only when all the world, my dear Damos, becomes one vast market place.” He smiled cynically. “I never discuss wars, which are tedious. Wars interrupt the natural discourse between nations, for they diminish and constrict the markets of the world, and impoverish them. War has no victors but only victims, whether conqueror or conquered. But the market place is the only peaceful ground where all men can meet, argue, cheat, lie, purchase the pleasurable, exhibit simple honest greed without shame, arrange caravans and commerce, engage in sincere and vivacious conversation—except with customers—and disputations with rival merchants, plan expeditions, display novelties and beauteous objects from far countries, thus increasing understanding and admiration for that which is strange and felicitous, and so enhancing knowledge of one’s fellow men. Even the hot uglinesses of the market place are a warmth to the spirit.”

He paused to eat of a melon, a handful of cherries and some plums. A sudden cool gust of air came through the arches of the hall, for the year was drawing to a close and only the days now held scalding heat. Aspasia thought, So, our Thalias is now Damos, and where is his home, and why is he here in this house? Her sympathy for him and her affection increased, even as she listened to the conversation, which was now in Greek.

Al Taliph was smiling a little to himself. “I have seen merchants whose governments were at war speak amiably and with happy laughter to each other, in the market place. Commerce is the one subject on which all men can agree, and in which all men can engage, except for the philosophers who prefer to argue contentiously to prove superior activities of the mind. New ideas are not negotiable in the market place, and so possibly they are rightly despised.” He directed his smile at the Indians, who looked aristocratically thoughtful, for India teemed with ideas and religions.

The host continued: “Commerce is the one activity in which customs and cultures from all over the world are regarded with amity, and therefore the market place is our only hope for peace. Merchants have the greatest respect for each other, for they deal in tangibles and realities. You, my dear Damos, and all our friends here tonight are merchants, and do we not converse in a common tongue? We compete, but we do not kill each other. That is left for ambitious governments and professional soldiers and such lesser beings. Tell me, Damos, have you not discovered that the roads of Persia, and all the caravan routes from your Damascus through Persia, are safe from robbers? You will see that even governments have the greatest regard for us merchants.”

“But you, yourself, dear Al Taliph, are of the government,” said one of the Indian merchants. He did not eat the meat served but only the vegetables and the fruit and the wine, for he was a Buddhist.

“True, I am governor of this province, and my Emperor is pleased to have a merchant here. Merchants rarely loot, and if they do it is taken with good nature by fellow merchants, who are prepared to do the same to them. Even on these occasions there is a certain frank honesty mixed with roguery, which we all understand. Merchants can only survive and gain a profit—and is not a profit profoundly admired?—in an atmosphere of trust and peacefulness. When profits are destroyed and in abeyance, as in a time of war, civilizations decline. Let us drink to the market place, where the rabble can meet merchant and prince in the utmost understanding and equality, without carnage or hatred.”

So, thought Aspasia, with kind inner mirth, our Thalias is a merchant from Damascus. Al Taliph was absently stroking her neck, and the other merchants, having drunk from their goblets, watched with interest and concealed envy.

Now Al Taliph looked at Aspasia, and his large and brilliant eyes smiled upon her. He said in his remarkably rich voice, “Tell me, my love, what you think of this conversation?”

Thalias was the only man present who did not raise eyebrows in surprise at this question asked of a woman, however beautiful. Aspasia smiled at Al Taliph in return, with an acid sweetness that was very significant to him. “I am thinking of what a Greek philosopher has written of such as you, my lord, who pretend to be a mere simple merchant. ‘We must look about under every stone, lest an orator bite us.’”

Some gasped at this impudence, but Al Taliph pretended to wince, and laughed. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to it. “Ah,” he said, “to be praised by such lips for my eloquence is more intoxicating than wine.” He raised his own goblet and held it to her mouth, and she drank and then inclined her head.

He added, tweaking her ear, “Let me, in turn, quote from Euripides: ‘A woman should be good for everything at home, but abroad good for nothing.’”

The guests laughed with appreciation, and Aspasia continued her acerbic if charming smile while she flushed.

“Permit me, my lord,” she said, “to reply to you from what Herodotus has remarked of your nation: ‘They are accustomed to deliberate on matters of the highest importance only when drunk. Whatever else they discuss when sober is always a second time examined after they have been drinking.’ My lord, are you drunk or sober?”

All the guests sat as moveless as statues, holding their breath at this unpardonable insult to their host. But Al Taliph only laughed again, and laid his hand on Aspasia’s shoulder. He addressed his guests: “You will observe that my pretty thing can quote from the philosophers—as a parrot repeats words without understanding them. Nevertheless, you have discovered that her remarks are astonishingly pertinent and her banter swift. So, here is the puzzle: Have I been a good teacher?” He put his hands over his face in mock horror. “Or, can she truly think?” He shook his head and shuddered. “From such, the gods deliver us!” The guests burst into laughter. Aspasia stared fully at him, a deliberate affront, and she was filled with such anger that she began to rise without permission to leave the hall. She was as white as bleached linen and her eyes were like the flashing of knife blades. The guests saw this. (Only Thalias thought, My poor Aspasia.)

As aware of her as always, without actually looking at her, Al Taliph darted his hand from his face and pressed it strongly on her thigh with such force and command that she sank down again on the divan. Her mortification was complete. She was certain now that she hated him. The slaves poured more wine, and pastries were brought and peaches the color of dawn. Al Taliph looked at Thalias, but Aspasia, as acute as himself, understood he was addressing her, for she recognized that certain tone of voice. She waited, her heart tumultuous, for calamity.

“Damos of Damascus, and Greece itself, I have a gift for you, for you and I have done profitable affairs together though never were you in this house before.” He clapped his hands and a eunuch came running from an archway. Al Taliph said, “Bring to me the little maidens I purchased but two days ago.”

Aspasia sickened. She thought of the small girls she had seen in the harem but this day. She closed her eyes briefly. Al Taliph said, “They are rare treasures, my dear Damos, and I chose them myself, thinking of you. For do not we all prefer the young and untouched?”

Thalias murmured in assent. “I promise you,” said his host, “that they are mindless and can only babble pleasingly, and is that not to be desired, in a female, above all things?”

Thalias smiled uneasily, not glancing at Aspasia, who was now gazing at him fiercely. The guests repeated as one man, with smiles at each other, “Above all things!”

The little girl children were brought in together, and they held each other’s hands tightly for protection, and it was obvious that they were frightened and had just been aroused from sleep. White linen tunics clung to their diminutive bodies, and their tiny feet were bare. But their fine sleep-dampened hair had been combed hastily and was tied with white silken cords so that their faces could be seen with all their appealing infanthood, their innocent vulnerability and bewilderment. They blinked in the light of the lamps. The guests murmured approvingly and a number with desire.

Their lips were the lips of babyhood, and without artifice, and their small olive-tinted arms and legs and complexions shone with perfumed oil and their defenseless throats were clasped with pearls as lustrous as themselves. Aspasia’s eyes filled with tears and her mouth shook.

Al Taliph drew them to him as gently as a father, and then he lifted their tunics so that their hairless childish bodies and private parts could be seen clearly. He admired them elaborately. “They are twins,” he said, “and as healthy as newborn lambs, without blemish or stain or the touch, so far, of a man’s hands. Will they not grace your bed, Damos? It will be ten years—before they are too old for your taste. In the meantime, they are delightful as little boys, and do not you Greeks prefer such?”

Thalias was more uneasy than before. His cheeks colored. Now he felt the force of Aspasia’s stare and he looked quickly at her.

She did the unpardonable: She spoke without first being addressed. She said, “They are slaves, and too young and helpless to run away. Who would succor them? Who would hide and comfort them—or give them gold?”

Thalias paled. He heard and understood the explicit threat in her raised clear voice, and he knew that she was prepared to destroy herself, and him, for the sake of these children. Moreover, he had no lust for such little ones and he was not depraved. He hesitated in confusion. He dared not refuse a gift from his host, and he wet his lips. He could feel Aspasia’s wild and terrible challenge though she did not speak again. As for Al Taliph he ignored her as if she had not spoken at all. The guests were incredulous at his sufferance of this forward woman.

Thalias said, “I am deeply touched, lord, for your kindness and condescension.” He paused. The guests nodded and moistened their own mouths.

Thalias continued: “My wife has given me one son, and longs for a female child or two. I will give these children to her, for she can bear no more, and she brought me an excellent dowry and has been most dutiful in all her ways.”

Al Taliph’s smile became fixed, and the guests exchanged glances of amazement. But Thalias’ smile was brave.

“My wife,” he went on, “is a lady of much virtue and the only offspring of her parents, and she was nurtured and tended and educated. One can understand this, for her people were brought out from Babylon by a leader of the name of Abraham and they now live in the land of Israel. They have a certain respect for women. Permit me, in my wife’s name, to thank you, lord, and if it will not offend you I shall request her to send you a grateful message.”

Al Taliph spoke with gravity, inclining his head. “They are yours, my dear friend, to do with as you will.” He looked suddenly at Aspasia, saw the tears in her eyes and her trembling smile and he touched her knee with a caressing hand, and left that hand there. She sighed. She bent her head so that she would not weep openly. She pressed her knee, without volition, against Al Taliph’s fingers, in an involuntary caress of her own. I have been forgiven, he thought, and laughed inwardly at himself. Yet, he was pleased.

He said, “The message from your lady will be received by me with pleasure. Let them be daughters to her, these little ones.”

Later he summoned Aspasia to his bed and kissed the wounds he had inflicted on her, and she turned impulsively to him and laid her head on his breast and did not know why, in her turmoil of thoughts, she felt happiness and desire and a dangerous emotion she refused to examine.

He said, “Had you, today, asked me for those children as handmaidens for yourself, my empress, I should have given them to you at once. No, do not speak,” and he laid his lips on hers and drew her down beside him.

CHAPTER 13

Al Taliph was about to go to Damascus with one of his caravans, and he had invited Thalias to accompany him and permit Thalias’ overseer to guide his own caravan to the city. Thalias had heard of the splendor and foods and wines and girls who accompanied Al Taliph on these expeditions and eagerly accepted, thinking of huge Persian tents and luxuries, and of the dancing and singing women. He also thought of Aspasia and wondered if she accompanied her lord.

The satrap was still away this afternoon, just before sunset, and Thalias, who was always bored when not engaged in some activity, wandered out into the garden, chewing a handful of ripe dates. He found the palace oppressive with all its halls and fountains and its eastern air. He did not like Damascus, either, but he lived there on his business and with his wife—he had only one—and often longed for Miletus, or for Greece which he could visit at will, and in particular, Athens. As yet he had not dared to go to Miletus, where he had been born, for he might be recognized as a runaway slave and seized. In Greece, however, he found refreshment from the hot turgidity of the east, and it was good to speak his own tongue among fellow merchants, who admired and respected him, and to enjoy, as he said, honest food.