Chapter summary: The chapter in which Sappho buys, names, and frees "Tri," the girl she saw towed to the market by those Etruscans yesterday.
Bright and early the next morning, Achilles, Theseus, Zeno, and I made our way to the market. I marched purposely past the food stalls and the merchants hawking their wares, right to the "meat" market.
It wasn't hard to spot her, the girl from yesterday. She stood a hand taller than me, and her golden hair glinted in the early morning light.
"Ah, Lady Sappho!" The merchant greeted me with a superficial smile. I didn't know him, but I was known to most of the isle's inhabitants by reputation. "It's a pleasure to have you here. Was there anything that I could help you with today?"
"What is the price of the girl?" I didn't waste time, pointing to her with my chin, but not looking over to her. I couldn't afford to be distracted now.
"Oh, that one, my lady," he sucked in this breath regretfully, "I see you have fine taste, but her training lies elsewhere and wouldn't be useful in a house as exalted as yours, and I don't wish to have a customer walking away from a transaction dissatisfied. I'm sure there are other more ..."
"How much?" I cut in.
He grimaced, playing the trade, and probably annoyed at my breaking etiquette.
"Well, my lady, the thing is, with her looks and talents, she would catch quite a fine price, but only for the temple or for a house in need of servicing the master," here he emphasized the word, "of the house, so I prefer to wait for more interested buyers to come later in the day."
Zeno piped up in irritation, "Lady Sappho is interested; give the price."
The merchant turned his eyes from me, looking at Zeno contemptuously and threw a twenty-drachma weight onto the scales. It was considered bad form to say the opening price out loud, but that much? The merchant was sending a clear message, and that message was: fuck off.
Zeno's face went ashen, and then he sputtered. He looked over at the girl and then rounded on the merchant.
"Twenty? Twenty drachma! No," my Gaul stated with finality. "One drachma is the going rate for a female slave, and maybe one more for any speciality that you say we won't need, but twenty?"
The merchant smiled and shrugged, daring us to play his game. One drachma could not be the opening bid. Any negotiation we'd engage with him, he would come out a winner from the get go.
Zeno turned to me, "My lady, let's come back tomorrow when he realizes that no one would ev-..." but he stopped when he saw the set look in my face, and he changed course very quickly.
"My lady, no, listen to me, please!" he began to beg, but he was too late, and he knew it.
I looked at the merchant, who couldn't contain the smug look of satisfaction. I could read his thought: sucker!
But he didn't know what was coming.
"You know, merchant, my accountant is right: twenty drachma is not even close to the correct price."
I knew he was waiting for me to offer ten, and we would eventually settle on fourteen, sixteen or seventeen drachma after several rounds of haggling. We both knew the outcome before we started, but it was the pleasure of playing the game that made the exchange worth it.
This exchange would occur just like every other bartered exchange occurred on these islands over centuries of buying and selling ... if we both played by the rules.
I didn't.
I picked up a one-hundred drachma weight and added it to the scales alongside the twenty drachma weight. Then I grabbed the purse hanging off Zeno's belt and balanced the scales.
"Sold; thank you for your time," I said dismissively.
The merchant's face purpled. He had quoted me a fuck off price of twenty drachma, but my counter of one hundred twenty drachma was a fuck you back. My exile in Sicily wasn't entirely a waste: the Etruscans had honed the art of the insult, and used it with stunning effect when the situation merited.
"Why you little ..." my new favorite merchant, whom I would never see again, began.
But he stopped when both Achilles and Theseus removed their swords from their scabbards. Apparently, they were very interested in the sharpness of their blades, testing the edges with their thumbs and looking at the merchant speculatively.
I raised my eyebrow at him. "Yes?" I asked.
He looked at me stonily.
"Didn't think so." I growled out quietly.
"Gentlemen," I turned to my men, "it seems our money is good enough here, ..." but it looked to Zeno that he wished it wasn't good enough, he was giving me the we'll talk later about this look. That would surely be a lovely and high volume conversation. "Let's go to the town center where the air is a little less vapid."
Achilles and Theseus sheathed their weapons reluctantly, and Achilles went to the girl: "Come along, then."
This was the first I took her in this day. She was looking between me, the merchant, and the scales. Her attention turned to Achilles, and her eyes narrowed.
I could see Achilles' body stiffen, but his lips twitched upward. If there was anything my Saxon guards loved, it was a fight, and this girl looked like she wanted to make his dream come true. But, instead of bating her, he simply offered his hand. She looked at it briefly, but walked right past him to stand in front of me.
Her eyes measured me.
"Hello," I said pleasantly in Aeolic Greek, my native language, "my name is Sappho, shall we go?"
I didn't wait for her answer. I didn't know if she understood what I said. I turned away quickly, wanting to get away from this merchant as soon as possible.
But before we could leave the stall, Zeno stopped me: "My lady, I forgot something here."
I turned to watch Zeno return the the merchant.
"Excuse me, sir," Zeno couldn't have put more distaste into his false civility, "but our payment was in coin; the purse is ours."
Quick as lightning, Zeno lifted the purse of the scales. His dagger flashed out, slicing a hole into the purse, and the coins rained down into the tray of the scale but then overflowed onto the table and the ground.
The merchant cried out and made to pick up the coins, but before he could bend, Zeno's now empty hand rested on his shoulder, staying him. Zeno whispered something in the merchant's ear, and the poor man blanched almost as white as the girl standing beside me.
Zeno returned to me, a small, grim grin ghosting his face.
I was going to make a show of dusting the dirt off my sandals, showing that man what I thought of him and of his business, but I guess Zeno's message was loud and clear already.
As we walked toward the center of the market I asked Zeno, casually, what he had told the merchant.
"Oh, nothing, m'lady," he said easily, his voice smiling, "nothing you need concern yourself with. I just told him some good places where he could invest his earnings, and that he may wish to make that investment soon."
"What kind of investments did you suggest, Zeno?" I had learned to connect news-worthy events going on in the isle to that smirk in his voice.
"Oh, there's some good wine worth drinking tonight, you know, before any unfortunate ..."
I cut him off. "I don't want to hear about any 'accidental' deaths tonight, Zeno."
"Oh, you won't hear about it, m'lady." He smiled evilly.
"Zeno," I put as much venom as I could into my voice, "no killings."
Zeno just shrugged.
I sighed. My crew was rather colourful, and Zeno was, as far as I could tell, very, very careful. Nothing could ever be tied back to him, nor to our House.
Besides I had other important matters to attend to now. I turned to the girl.
"Do you speak Aeolic?" I asked her. She nodded, so I proceeded, "Would you please tell me your name?"
She nodded, and responded, "My name is ..."
This was the first time I heard her use my mother tongue, and she spoke it well. It was accented with the Etruscan accent but there was something else there, not Achilles and Theseus' accent but something like it, but then something not like it.
But these thoughts left my mind when she said her name.
Syllable after syllable. I lost count after five syllables. It sounded like two names in the Etruscan tongue, but then her name ended with a sound I couldn't identify as language. The third name, I guessed, her last name, sounded like the breeze blowing in the forest.
I looked at her, speechless. So I turned to my Gaul. "Help?" I pleaded. He knew the Etruscan well, at least.
Zeno looked almost as befuddled as I felt, but he marshalled a reply. "I got her first name, at least, it was something like the Etruscan word for άσπροτριαντάφυλλο."
Oh! Aspro-Tri-anta-phyllo, the greek translation for her first Etruscan name, I surmised. Why didn't she just say her name was 'White Rose'? Fitting name, I reflected, given her carriage and looks. ... And she seem to be wearing a floral perfume ... very subtle. I was rather surprised, however, that the merchant allowed her this luxury of applying perfume. I supposed it made good business sense to have the wares look and smell their best for a better sale, but ...
Well, anyway.
"Ah," I confirmed my understanding verbally. It was so odd, always being off balance around this girl. I looked at her and began to convey what was about to happen.
"So, um ..." I began, but then I stopped. There was no way I would pronounce her Etruscan name. First of all, it was more syllables in that strange and disgusting tongue that my mouth could manage, and, second of all, I refused to debase myself by uttering a sound of that brutish language.
"Um, may I call you by your name in Greek?" I asked. "No need to be formal," I added hastily added, "if the name is too difficult for you to pronounce, I could call you 'Tri,' if that's all right with you..." My voice faded with my resolve under her unwavering stare.
She looked at me critically, and I wondered if I had trespassed on her sense of self-possession or some rule of propriety of hers. I blushed in embarrassment.
"That is, if that's okay ... I mean ... with you?" Why was it getting so warm outside all of a sudden?
She regarded me for a second then turned to Achilles and asked something, haltingly, that didn't sound like Etruscan at all.
Achilles smirked and responded quickly, but this seemed to take her aback and to displease her. She looked at him, disbelievingly and questioningly, but he shrugged easily, looking over to me. She hesitated, then asked something of Achilles quietly, which caused both Achilles and Theseus to chuckle, earning them a sharp look from the girl, but Achilles turned to me, seeing my confused look and clarified the issue.
"M'lady, she just wanted to make sure it wasn't a derogatory term; I told her it wasn't." He shrugged.
"Why by the Titan Gaia would calling her 'τρι' be derogatory?" I demanded.
"Well, m'lady, in her native tongue 'tree' means, you know, 'δέντρο,' and she just was concerned that you were mocking her height and figure."
She thought I was calling her a tree? Certainly she was taller than the Etruscans and Hellenists, but her figure?
Well, I couldn't possibly call her thin. She was, well, she was ... perfect.
"No, it's not derogatory," I told her, but I couldn't look at her.
"All right, then," she agreed regally, "you may call me 'Tri.'"
The way she said it, it sounded like she was granting me a royal favor.
I let it pass.
"All right, Tri," I told her, liking her new name, "I'm going to stand in the center of the market, and say something, and you'll stand beside me. When I place my hand on your shoulder, I need to say your full name so that all may hear. Can you do that?" I'm sure she was able, so I clarified with: "Is that all right?"
She regarded me. She was giving me that look that everybody gave me. The look that I had grown accustomed to when I had returned from my exile. Oh, well.
However, she responded evenly, even though her eyebrow was raised. "Yes, I suppose I could just about manage that."
"Good," I sighed, and prepared myself for more of those looks from everybody else as I signaled Theseus of the strong voice.
"Your attention, everyone," he bellowed out, and the activity in the market square ceased as curiosity overtook the pleasure and earnestness of trade, "Lady Sappho has an announcement to make!"
An annoyed susurration of the town responded to Theseus' voice.
I stepped up onto the central platform and eyed the sea of faces regarding me with curiosity and ridicule and disdain and dismissal. I tried to dismiss them as easily as they dismissed me.
I cleared my throat.
"All here present know this," my voice rang through the market, even though is was much smaller than Theseus', "this woman, of whose contract I have bought and paid for in full," I held up the transfer of ownership, "is mine to do with as I wish, and I wish to do the following. Under the law of the Isle of Lesbos, and by the command of the House Cercylas, my House, this woman," and here I touched her shoulder, and she said her name, "is a free woman, beholden to no one, and under the protection of our House."
When people heard the beginning of speech that I had given many times before I saw them begin to tune me out and return to their activities. But when Tri said her name, they all looked with interest, and, for some, their interest turned to fear. I saw those make the sign to ward off death and hastily leave the market, earning me cross looks from the merchants attempting to earn their daily bread.
But why the fear? Her name was magical, and, hearing it the second time, it had a musicality to it that I never expected to hear in the Etruscan, but her own name that finished with a sigh of air was ... unearthly. It sounded like nothing that could be described. It sounded like the sound the waves made in the distance as they kissed the shore: Pegasus rising, a subtle roar of wind. It didn't sound like Death, it sounded like Life. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before.
And Tri herself, who was looking at me now, not with servile gratitude at being freed, but with mild curiosity — it was if she were doing me the favor of granting me her presence — didn't look like death. Well, okay, she was paler than any other person I've ever seen, but she wasn't inhuman: she was alive, she was breathing, she was standing there, waiting on the next thing to happen.
And what happened next was this: "Zeno," I said, "remove her collar, please."
Zeno was a man of many skills, some I knew, many I did not. But the lock on her collar? Zeno could have removed her collar — simple lock notwithstanding — blindfolded. He took off her collar, with a politely murmured apology to the girl, with his eyes closed peacefully as he went about his work.
Zeno was quite the show-off.
I stepped back down and turned to the girl.
"You are free now. You have no obligation to me or my House. If you wish to go, you may go, but if you wish to stay with us, you may stay as long as you wish."
She looked at me guardedly.
"There are no strings attached here," I reassured her, "you are free to go."
"Go where?" she asked sharply. "And if I stay with you, stay where and what do you expect me to do if I do stay?"
"There are no expectations placed on you," I responded calmly. "You are a guest; that is all. As for the future ..." I shrugged, "well, that's up to you and the Fates."
She looked at me in confusion and disbelief.
Achilles said something in a reassuring tone to her, but it didn't reassure her at all. She waved to the market saying something disparagingly. Achilles shrugged and said something else.
What Achilles said seemed to affect her: she looked down petulantly at the ground and crossed her arms.
I looked at Achilles questioningly, but he just shrugged. I sighed.
"Well, okay," I said to my group, "let's go. Tri, you may come with us if you wish."
I set out back toward our compound. I didn't usually lunch at home, but I had had enough of the market and other people for today. Maybe enough for the rest of the week, too.
There were just the four of us in our party. I looked back toward the market to see Tri still looking down at the ground where we left her. Oh, well. I hoped she faired well in whichever fate she chose for herself.
I intended to not think of her again: I gave her her freedom, and she chose to take it. That was it. But the sound of footsteps approaching our group had us turn to see Tri jogging up to us.
She was breathing heavily and held up a finger, so I stopped and waited a minute for her to catch her breath as she rested her hands on her knees. Hm; it didn't seem like all the much of a distance.
"So," she demanded around her gasps, "I can leave whenever I want, right?"
I couldn't stop my heart from singing — the poor girl really was just cast adrift in our land that was strange for her, I imagined, she really did need an adult to look after her until she found her own footing — but tried to respond evenly, "Yes, you may leave on any day of your choosing and at any time."
Even though my response sounded even, I think my relieved smile gave me away.
"And how do I earn my keep?" she asked sharply. "I have no money." She added this obvious statement, for, of course, a slave just sold would have nothing of her own.
That wasn't quite right. She had a sack that appeared to contain personal items. I wonder what the merchant would allow her to keep? Images of gods from her own land?
I set aside my wondering, however, to respond to her question. "You will not need to earn your keep. You will be our guest," I emphasized the word, "for as long as you wish."
"Okay, I'll go with you ... for now," she breathed out. She seemed to have caught her breath.
"Okay," I responded, pleased, and turned to complete our trip home.
Endnotes:
A hand is a unit of measure of about four inches by the imperial system or about ten centimeters by the metric system.
Ancient Greek had (at least) three dialects: Attic, Homeric and Aeolic. Attic became the predominant language, Homeric was widely studied because of the high regard for the eponymous author. Sappho spoke and wrote in Aeolic, and her works were unfortunately lost in antiquity along with the loss in interest in Aeolic. It is only in the last century that there been a renewed interest in her and her poetry.
The ancient greek myth about the creation of Pegasus, the winged horse, was that he was created from the white caps of the waves as they crashed ashore.
