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She pointed. "They'll be building a new temple for the goddess up there on the sacred rock-that's what I hear-when the war's over and they can raise the money."
"It will be a beautiful site," I said.
"Always has been. There's a spring of salt water up there that was put there by the Earth Shaker himself in the Golden Age, when he tried to claim the city. And up till last year, the oldest olive tree in the whole world, the first olive tree, planted by the goddess in person. The barbarians cut it down and burned it; but the roots have put up a new shoot, that's what I hear."
I told her I would like to see it, and that I was surprised the citizens had not fought to the death to defend such things.
"A lot did. The temple treasurers, because there was so much they couldn't get it all away, and a lot of poor people who were left behind by the last ships. Before the Great King's army got here, the Assembly sent to the Navel to ask what to do. The god always gives good answers, but he usually puts them so you wish he hadn't. This time he said we'd be safe behind walls of wood. I guess you understand that."
She looked back to see whether I did, and I shook my head.
"Well, neither did we. Most people thought it meant the ships, but there was an old palisade around the hilltop, and some people thought it meant that. They strengthened it quite a bit, but the barbarians burned it with fire arrows and killed them all."
After that she did not seem to wish to talk, and I contented myself with listening to the women's music and looking about at the destruction of Thought, which had not-or so it seemed to me-been very large to begin with.
Soon Kalleos directed the black man to turn down a side street. There we halted at a house with two walls still standing, and she stepped out. Her head was proud as she walked through the broken doorway, and she turned it neither to the right nor the left; but I saw a tear roll down her cheek.
The women stopped their playing and singing, and scattered to search for possessions they had left behind, though I think none of them has yet found much. The sailors laid down their burdens and demanded their pay, an obol apiece. The black man and I explained (he by signs and I with words) that we had nothing and went inside too, to look for Kalleos.
We found her in the courtyard kicking at rubbish. "Here you are at last," she said. "Get busy! We'll have guests tonight, and I want all this cleared out, every stick of it."
I said, "You haven't paid the sailors, madame."
"Because I've got more work for them, you ni
We did what we could, saving those things that appeared repairable or still usable and burning the rest, as a thousand others were doing all over the city. Soon the sailors were at work too, patching the door and setting brick upon brick to rebuild the walls. Kalleos asked how many urns had been left whole. There were only three, and I told her.
"Not nearly enough. Latro, you can remember for a day or so-isn't that what Hypereides said?"
I did not know, but the black man nodded in agreement.
"Fine. I want you to go to the market. Most of the people selling there will have stalls or a cloth on the ground. Pay no attention to those. Find a potter who's selling out of a cart. You understand?"
"Yes, madame."
"And find a flower-seller with a cart too. Tell them to follow you. Bring them and their carts back here, and I'll buy everything they have. There's nothing like flowers when you don't have furniture. Your friend's to stay here and work, understand? And you're not to loiter, either. We've a lot to do before tonight."
I did as Kalleos had told me, but on the way back I was stopped by a man of unusual and rather less than prepossessing appearance. The chlamys that draped his narrow shoulders was of a pale hyacinth; he carried a tall, crooked staff topped with the figure of a woman, and his dark eyes were so prominent they seemed about to leap from his head.
With his staff held to one side, he bowed very low in the Oriental way. It seemed to me there was something of mockery in it; but then there seemed something of mockery-lent by his eyes, his tall, lean frame, and his disordered hair-in all he said and did.
"I should be most grateful for a trifle of information, good sir. May I inquire whom it is who has need of so many urns and blossoms? That it's none of my affair, I well understand; but surely it will do no harm to tell me. And who knows? Soon I may be in a position to do you, sir, some little favor in return. It is the mouse, after all, that gnaws the net that binds the lion, as a certain wise slave from the east taught us long ago."
"They're for Kalleos, my mistress," I told him.
His mouth opened so widely when he gri
"She came back only today," I said.
"Wonderful! May I accompany you?" He looked around as though reconciling the destruction with the city as he had known it. "Why, her house is only a few doors away, I believe? Tell her, fellow, that an old admirer who would pay his respects awaits her leisure. I am Eurykles the Necromancer."
CHAPTER XIV-How Strange a Celebration
Pindaros said, "Was there ever anything like it?" He waved at the banks of flowers, with the broken walls beyond them only half restored. "Now it's the city of the Lady of Thought indeed, Latro. The people are here again, yet her owls roost in the ruins. What a poem I shall make of all this!"
Behind him, Hypereides said, "When you write it, don't forget to say I was here, and that I drank my wine and cuddled my wench as of old."
"You're no fit subject for great poetry," Pindaros told him. "No, stop, I'll make you so. For a thousand years, your name will be linked with Achilles's."
I had tallied them in my mind as they trooped in, six in all: Pindaros, Hypereides, the kybernetes, Acetes, and two others I did not recognize, the captains of Eidyia and Clytia. Now Acetes was holding out the bundle he had carried into the house. "Here, Latro, Hypereides said you should have these."
I unwound the sailcloth and found bronze disks for the breast and back, and with them a hooked sword and a bronze belt. It was strange to touch the cool metal of the sword and belt, because I, who remembered nothing else, felt I remembered them, though I could not have told where I had worn them or even when I had lost them. I buckled them on, knowing they had been mine before, but no more than that.
When I had put the disks in the room Kalleos had given me, I returned to the courtyard, where she had greeted her guests and was making them comfortable on the couches she bought this afternoon. "Hypereides," she said, pouring his wine herself, "I've a proposal to make to you."
He smiled. "No one can say he found Hypereides unready for business."
"I told you there'd be nobody here tonight but you and your guests. If you'll look around, you'll see I've kept my word."
"You've cheated me already," Hypereides told her. "The stars are coming. But never mind, I won't ask for my slave back. Only for the black one, whom you took without a by-your-leave."
"Certainly," Kalleos said. "I thought he was a free sailor when I borrowed him. He can return with you in the morning. But Hypereides, a friend of mine dropped in today when he heard I was back in the city. He's as merry a fellow as you'll ever meet, full of jokes and stories, I promise you. If you don't want him to join your party, just say so and I swear you'll never see him. But if you've no objection, I'll be forever grateful. And of course there'll be no charge to him or you. His name's Eurykles of Miletos."