The Etruscan (11 page)

“Silence, woman!” roared Dorieus, the veins at his temples bulging. “I can stand no more. If you continue I shall leave the house and it will be your fault if I kill every Himeran who crosses my path.”

He clutched his head and moaned, “Friends, friends, why did you ever desert me! My head is on fire, my stomach aches and my limbs are helpless. I have been vomiting all day and only now have I been able to eat a few simple mouthfuls.”

Mikon worriedly tried his head, rolled up his eyelids, studied his eyes and throat and pressed his stomach. While Dorieus was groaning I extended the golden chain to Tanakil with the hope that it would compensate for the damage we had done.

She accepted the chain readily and placed it around her neck. “I am not a petty woman,” she said. “What good are riches if one cannot hold a banquet for one’s friends? It is true that the vases you broke were valuable, but all vases break in time. I don’t think that even my household god was insulted, for early this morning I gave him new clothes and burned incense before him. So I suffered no damage and accept your beautiful gift merely not to displease you. The only harm that has resulted from your visit is the fact that one of the girls who entertained you has been struck dumb.”

Mikon and I glanced guiltily at each other, for neither of us remembered exactly what had happened. Mikon presumed that the girl had been frightened by my violent goat dance, but it turned out that the girl in question was the one Mikon had carried into the garden. Mikon declared that the girl must have slept on the dewy grass and that this had caused her throat to swell. At least, he didn’t remember having done anything to hurt her.

Tanakil replied that the matter was serious and reflected unfavorably on our reputations as strangers. “Himerans are a superstitious people,” she said. “Also I and my house will fall under a shadow because of this incident, for everyone knows that a person who suddenly loses his power of speech is bewitched, unless of course he has unwittingly hurt some excessively sensitive god.”

Mikon became agitated like all men who are conscious of their guilt. “The only god we could have hurt was the foam-born, but by her magic belt I swear that we honored her in every way that I learned on Aphrodite’s sacrificial ship, and the girl certainly did not lose her speech during that time. Indeed she used it loudly to express her joy at the completeness of my education.”

“I am not blaming you,” said Tanakil, “for you are a gentle and inoffensive man. I have already sent the girl some compensation on your behalf but her parents are alarmed and fear that the girl will never be married if she remains dumb.”

Tanakil sent for the girl that we might see her condition for ourselves. When she finally entered with her father and mother I had difficulty in meeting the accusing looks of those simple people.

Mikon tried to hide behind us but when the girl saw him she ran to him joyously, knelt to kiss his hands and held them fondly to her cheek. With a helpless glance at her parents Mikon raised the girl to her feet, embraced her and kissed her lips.

No more was needed, for the girl drew a deep breath and burst into speech. She talked, wept, shouted and laughed until her parents, elated though they were, began to feel ashamed and told her to be quiet. Mikon gave them a handful of silver coins, whereupon they left rejoicing at their good fortune and taking their daughter with them.

When the matter had been so happily resolved I thanked Tanakil for all her goodness to us and said that we must go to seek permanent lodgings in the city.

Hastily she said, “My house is unassuming, I know, and you have probably been accustomed to the luxury of lonia. But if you don’t scorn my house, remain as my guests for as long as you wish. The longer you remain the happier I will be.”

To strengthen her invitation and to prove that she did not extend it in the hope of gain, she disappeared into an inner room and reappeared with gifts for each of us. Onto Dorieus’ thumb she slipped a gold ring, to Mikon she presented an ivory-framed wax tablet, and to me a moonstone suspended from a cord. The valuable gifts did much to cheer us.

Tanakil then had three beds placed in a row for us. They had copper feet and crossed iron bottoms and were made by the Tyrrhenians. On them were placed soft mattresses. We would have fallen asleep immediately had not Dorieus groaned and tossed. Finally he threw off the covers and snapped that as a soldier he was not accustomed to soft mattresses but preferred the hard ground with a shield as his cover. In the darkness he groped his way out of the room, bumping into chests and overturning objects. Then we heard no more and slept soundly through the night.

So we settled in Tanakil’s house, leading a carefree existence as her guests. After our treasure had been safely locked behind the iron doors of Krinippos’ vaults life began to flow as evenly as a stream. Dionysius’ only mishap resulted from his anxiety to salvage the large vessel. Believing that its cargo had been sufficiently lightened, he tried again to drag it to shore, but so powerful were the windlasses and so strong the ropes that the ship split in the middle.

When we had dived and scraped the mud for our remaining loot we were free to do as we pleased. But before long the people of Himera demanded that Krinippos put an end to the turmoil caused by the Phocaeans.

“The Phocaeans are upsetting our days thoroughly,” they complained. “Formerly we awakened at cockcrow to practice our trades but now every house echoes with snores until midday. If we try to awaken our guests they are enraged. We are not unduly sensitive about the morals of our wives and daughters but it is annoying to see them clinging to a sailor’s beard from morning to night or fondly combing the lice from his hair. As to what happens at night, we dare not even say.”

Krinippos leaped to his feet from the simple wooden chair whose seat was woven of the skin of his unsuccessful predecessor.

“You came at an opportune time, citizens, for my amulets have warned me that danger threatens Himera and my spies in Syracuse have confirmed it. We will therefore put Dionysius’ men to work raising the city wall by three ells, to repay our hospitality. When Syracuse hears that Himera’s wall will be that much higher I hardly think that it will attack us but will choose some other city.”

Dionysius had little faith in Krinippos’ amulets but realized that, without discipline, the sailors would soon become an unruly herd. In their restlessness they were already picking quarrels with one another and even fighting, the men of one ship against those of another or the windward rowers against the leeward rowers.

Thus Dionysius concurred readily. “Your plan is excellent, Krinippos, and I assure you that my well-disciplined men will gladly labor to raise the wall of this friendly city. However, in specifying three ells, do you mean Greek or Phoenician ells?”

As a shrewd man Krinippos well understood what was meant and said admiringly, “You are a man after my own mind, Dionysius, but naturally I mean Phoenician ells. Simple courtesy toward my Carthaginian allies demands that I use the Phoenician measure.”

Dionysius tore his shirt, pulled his beard and cried out to his men, “Did you hear, all of you, how that despicable tyrant is insulting our honor as lonians? Naturally, we will raise Himera’s wall by three Greek ells and not one ringer’s width more.”

The men began to roar and the most rash among them even ran to [heir lodgings for their weapons. “A Greek ell, a Greek ell!” they howled, knowing well that a Greek ell is shorter than a Phoenician ell by three fingers.

Krinippos withdrew behind his famous seat and began bargaining with Dionysius, but he had to yield to the use of the Greek measure. Hearing that, Dionysius’ men cheered and embraced one another in glee as though they had won a great victory. In that manner Dionysius achieved their voluntary submission to an entire winter’s heavy labor. Dorieus, Mikon and I, however, did not have to participate since we had not been guilty of disturbing the peace.

We had not been many days in Tanakil’s house before the Siculian couple returned with their daughter. The girl was pale and her glance roving.

“We are ashamed to have to disturb you again,” they said, “but our daughter seems to be cursed. As soon as we reached home she became speechless again and has not been able to say a word since then. We are not blaming you, although it was peculiar how easily that Greek physician freed her tongue merely by kissing her. Let him try it again and we shall see what happens.”

Mikon protested that there was a time for everything and that it was not proper to kiss women while meditating on divine matters. Tanakil and Dorieus, however, felt that he had bound the girl to him either wittingly or unwittingly and thus was obliged to free her.

Obediently Mikon took the girl in his arms but nothing happened. Then he flushed and kissed her with marked enthusiasm. When he released her the girl began chattering once more and laughing and crying. It was not her fault, she said, that she had fallen under a spell. Away from Mikon her throat swelled and her tongue became immovable, therefore she begged to be allowed to remain with him.

Mikon scolded her and said that it was impossible. Her parents also protested. Nothing hindered her from occasionally singing and dancing for strangers in order to increase her dowry, but it was unthinkable that she should move to a strange house to live with an alien. A respectable girl would lose her reputation and no honorable man would wish to marry her.

The girl screamed that she could not live without Mikon, suffered a fit and sank to the floor unconscious. Her father slapped her cheeks, Tanakil poured a jugful of cold water on her face, and her mother thrust a hairpin into her thigh, and still she did not move. But when Mikon stooped to rub her limbs her eyelids flickered, the color returned to her cheeks and she sat up, demanding to know what had happened.

Reluctantly Mikon began to be interested in the matter as a physician. He urged the parents to take the girl with them and to test her once more. They returned immediately from the street with the information that the girl had become dumb as soon as they had stepped through the gate.

Mikon became serious and drew Dorieus and me aside. “I have long suspected that unseen forces are leading us,” he said. “I should have mistrusted the feather that led us to this house. We have been caught in the meshes of Aphrodite and it is she who led this girl here to bind me. Having finally found the opportunity for undisturbed meditation I was just on the verge of divine comprehension, and that angered the golden-haired one for she cannot suffer any man to have thoughts other than those of her liking. If we send the girl away and she remains dumb the entire city will censure us and we will be brought before Krinippos. What shall we do?”

Dorieus and I said immediately that it was his problem, for it was he who had taken the girl into the garden and presumably done something that should not have been done to a sensitive girl.

“That is the simple reason,” I said in conclusion. “No divine explanations are required.”

“Don’t try to roll the guilt onto my shoulders,” protested Mikon. “You yourself thrust the white pebble into my hand and led me to this house. Aphrodite has flung her nets over us, as Dorieus likewise knows. Why else would he have fallen into the lap of an old hag?”

Dorieus gritted his teeth. “Tanakil is an intelligent and unprejudiced woman. You are exaggerating her age needlessly. For my part I don’t understand how you—yes, and Turms, too—could stoop to touch a low-born girl. You see now what the results are. Tanakil is a refined woman and would never even dream of asking for more than she can get.”

“Be that as it may,” said Mikon, “you are struggling in the golden net although you may not even realize it. I also am ensnared in it. But you, Turms, you are the one I pity. She is merely playing with us to prove her might, but I dare not even think of the dreadful trap that she has set for you who are her chosen one.”

“You are dreaming,” I said arrogantly. “You are exaggerating the power of the goddess. I accept her gifts willingly and enjoy her friendship but I have no intention of submitting to her. There is something wrong with both of you in permitting that frivolous goddess to break your will. In that respect I am stronger than you.”

As soon as the senseless words were spoken I covered my mouth in dismay, for they were a direct challenge to the foam-born.

Unable to advise Mikon, we returned to the others. The girl had become even more obstinate and was threatening to hang herself from the torch by the gate. Then we could explain that to the people and to Krinippos if we could.

Her threats placed us in an uncomfortable position. Finally, wearying of the fruitless discussion, Mikon said, “So be it. I shall take the girl and purchase her as my slave if you will be content with a reasonable price. I cannot pay exorbitantly for I am but a poor itinerant physician.”

The girl’s parents stared at each other in horror and then pounced on Mikon, beating him with their fists.

“Do you think we would sell our own child into slavery?” they cried. “We are free Siculi and the natives of this land!”

“Then what do you want?”

It is unlikely that the girl’s parents had known exactly what they did want upon their arrival, but their thoughts had been clarified by the conversation and the girl’s conduct.

“You must marry her,” they declared. “You have only yourself to blame, for you have bewitched her. We will give the girl the usual dowry and it is larger than you imagine, for we are not as poor as we

seem.

Mikon tore his hair. “This is unbearable! It is but a trick of the goddess to keep my mind off supernatural matters. What man with a wife can think of anything but the problems of everyday life?”

The girl’s parents took her hand and thrust it into Mikon’s. “Her name is Ahura,” they said.

As they pronounced the girl’s name in their own language Mikon clutched his head.

“Aura—if that is your name—we can do nothing, for the gods are mocking us. Aura, you will remember, was a fleet-footed girl and one of Artemis’ hunting companions. Dionysus loved her but she did not submit until Aphrodite touched her with madness. The name is an omen, for Dionysus and Aphrodite both had their hand in leading me into this trap.”