Sappho (10 page)

“Hold!” Sappho's voice was terrible. It was also unexpected.

The man froze, his bared buttocks collapsing. The girl rolled from beneath him, pulling at her chiton. Her eyes fastened on Sappho. She hiccupped in earnest now.

“What are you doing with my slave? Mine, I say. Have you purchased her from me that you take such liberty with my property?”

Pulling his clothes straight, the man tried to regain a semblance of dignity. “It was nothing, an innocent frolic,” he muttered. “Nothing to make a fuss about.”

“If another such innocent frolic occurs, your superiors in Mitylene shall hear of it.”

The man knew her high connections and said again, “An innocent frolic.” Then buckling on the sword that had been cast aside, he recalled his status in captaining this small expedition. “You've wandered far. My orders are to keep you close. However, O daughter of Skamandronymos, each small infraction need not be reported.”

“I understand you,” Sappho said. Niobe crept to her for protection. “You have nothing more to fear,” Sappho assured her. But the maid walked in her mistress's footsteps the rest of the way.

When they returned, the others were finishing their game and ready to start out.

“Where is the asparagus?” Alkaios asked.

Later in the day they came to washing springs. There were women at work who stared at them in amazement. Alkaios gave greeting and would have stood in talk, but a soldier prodded him. As he left, he set up his sprightly whistle and the girls and women gazed after him.

The exiles and their guards encountered a wagon, pulled by broad-browed oxen, on which were strapped great beams, wending downward the way they had just come to the ship-builders in Mitylene. Oh, if she could hide among those timbers!

On the floor of Zeus's palace, they say, stand two amphorae with double handles, one heaped with evil gifts and one with good. At first sight, Pyrrha seemed to have been forged from the urn of evil. Its steep terraced sides reached up to a wall built on a rock promontory austere and forbidding. Sappho's hopes dissolved. Life would be hard here. Even Alkaios's whistling faltered.

The soldiers motioned them to wait outside the gates and went in before them. They were gone a long time, and the day began to wear away. Their story, Sappho supposed, was being told to the Archon, or the council, or whoever ruled these desolate heights. Perhaps they were eagles and not men at all. Boys came out to look at them, mouths open at the sight of strangers. Sappho returned their scrutiny. She was not particularly attracted to children, considering them simply people shorter than even herself.

Presently the gates opened. The first thing Sappho saw was a small girl playing with a top. This was such a common sight in the streets of Mitylene that she was somewhat reassured. The walls and houses were mostly limestone, and the roofs wood rather than tile. There were some villas of imposing size with large walled gardens. They were led past these into the countryside, along a crooked lane that had been cobbled but was now overgrown. They stopped finally before an abode of wattle, extended by the addition of a porch, which was built on a windy, unsheltered spot.

The master came out. “You're late,” he said by way of greeting, then spoke with the soldiers at some distance. It looked to Sappho as though they were haggling over money. When the householder was satisfied, he came over to them and nodded to Sappho. “You are Sappho of Lesbos?”

“I am Sappho.”

“You, with your woman, are to stay here.”

“But my brother…” she said in sudden panic. It had not occurred to her they would be separated.

“You and your woman,” the householder said firmly. “The price has been paid.”

“It's all right,” Khar said. “I'll get word to you where I am.”

“And I.” Alkaios grasped her arm reassuringly before the soldiers marched them off. Sappho stared after them. How childish and ridiculous seemed the plottings that had brought them to this.

She turned to face her jailer, who said crustily, “I am Didymus, son of Thestes.”

“What are your instructions regarding me?” Sappho asked.

“That you are not to think of escape. It is impossible except by boat. Our boats would overtake you, and the outcome would not be a pretty one.”

“No such thought is in my mind,” Sappho assured him.

“Come, then, enter and we will talk further.”

The room was poorly lit and it was with difficulty she discerned two women. Didymus followed and then Niobe. “Well then,” Didymus said. “This is my wife and daughter. We are simple folk. We do not know or care about the ins and outs of politics in Mitylene. You and your brother and the other young man are out of favor with the Tyrant there. It puts a few drachmas in our pockets, and by next spring I will buy another mule. What we have is yours to share, neither more or less. I can see you are a fine lady and it will seem less to you. But we manage very well. You will be expected to help the women, taking your turn at spinning and washing. If you don't know how to cook, your slave will do that under my wife's direction.” It was apparent the speech was a long one for him, and when he was done he went outside.

“Where is he going?” Sappho asked.

“He is the master,” the wife said reprovingly. “It is not for us to ask.”

The daughter giggled. “He is gone to play knuckle bones, of course.”

Sappho looked at her. The light from the dying sun flamed in at the window and she was touched with a glow that transformed her into a golden girl, her light hair falling down her back. Even the coarse robe carelessly belted seemed of shimmering gold.

“What is your name?” Sappho inquired.

“Leto.”

“After the mother of revered Apollo,” Sappho said. “Pyrrha is not without beauty, and flowers do grow here.”

The mother expressed her cantankerous feelings to a pot she scoured vigorously, not daring to reprove the lady herself a second time. Instead she instructed Niobe that she would sleep in the hay piled in a corner, and told her to spread in the niche by the fireplace whatever personal things the lady Sappho had brought.

Sappho realized for the first time there was no other room in the house, that pallets were spread about at night. She was appalled there was to be no privacy. This, for her, would be the most difficult to bear. How could she compose? How could she sing new songs and retain the old, without privacy?

The girl, Leto, brought Sappho a mint-flavored drink. Sipping it calmed her. “Thank you, it's very good.”

“Not what you are used to,” the girl demurred.

Sappho smiled. “If each day were to bring what one was used to, why bother to open your eyes?”

The girl was too flustered to understand the words, but she recognized the kind tone in which they were spoken.

Sappho added, “May Father Zeus watch this house,” a formula in general use when one wished to retire. Niobe brought her comb and mirror, shook out a chiton and placed a second pair of sandals for morning. Niobe whispered, “It is a very poor house. I do not know how to bring my mistress comfort.”

“Bring water, Niobe, and a tub. I suppose they have one, and I cannot go to bed a second night without a proper bath.”

There was a commotion, as Sappho's request involved heating water. Sappho paid not the slightest attention. She had stated her wishes. She applied herself to her bronze mirror, sweeping her heavy hair high on her head, while Niobe blew fire into dead coals. She decided that in the morning ribbons of many colors should flow down her back.

When the water was ready, Niobe dragged a wooden tub into their corner of the room and filled it, making many trips between it and the hearth. The washing sponge, fortunately, was among the items that had been gathered in haste. Sappho let her tunic fall and stepped into the tub.

Leto turned to her own corner and unrolled her pallet.

“Gentle Leto, do not sleep,” Sappho whispered. “Talk to me.” Niobe squeezed the warmed water continuously over her, letting it cascade down her body. Sappho saw that Leto was too shy to speak, so she began in an intimate tone that made the girl a confidante. “It is strange being here, yet I am not distressed. I feel I am a homely Helen or plain Penelope, caught by those spinning women, the Fates. I can almost feel the tautness of Clotho's thread, for Lachesis is laying out the pattern.”

“I am glad that you do not feel too bad.” Leto spoke softly so as not to rouse her mother. “It must be hard to be exiled.”

“It is one way to learn about other people.” Here she stretched her arms above her head so that the drops of water on her skin glistened. “For instance I have heard that among the Barbarians nakedness is a sin and they are shamed by it.” Laughing, she stepped from the tub and allowed Niobe to rub her skin to a glow.

Leto gained courage to raise herself on her elbow and ask, “Are you the Sappho who sings? Are you that Sappho?”

“Have you heard my songs then? How, I wonder, did they climb to this craggy place?”

“We must seem very poor to you,” Leto said.

“Well, I do not think I am in the palace of King Alyattes of Lydia, or among the Pharaohs.”

This made Leto laugh.

“Which bed is mine?” Sappho asked as she slid into a sheer gauze sleeping robe.

Leto stared at it, then recollected herself. “The guest spot by the fireside, and the gods grant you rest.”

Sappho went to the designated place. “The gods give you sleep, Niobe.”

“Mistress,” the slave murmured, withdrawing to spill the bathwater and settle herself.

“Have you always had someone to wait upon you?” Leto asked from her covers.

“Not someone. Many.”

“How alone you will feel here!” the girl exclaimed.

“No, my brother and my friend are with me … and others.” She breathed the last words to herself.

*   *   *

In the morning Sappho volunteered to go with Leto to the washing springs, certain she would learn from the gossip of the women where her brother and Alkaios were lodged. Niobe attempted to accompany them, but Chloris, the woman of the house, had other plans for her. She did not order Sappho about, for who is out of favor one day may be in favor the next, and she was a great and powerful lady, though small. But when in her life again would the Fates provide her with a slave? Didymus, who had come home late, still snored against the wall when the young women left.

Balancing her basket of clothes on her head, Leto asked, “Do the girls of Mitylene look like you?”

“No. For the most part they have light hair and are taller.”

“I think it would be nice not to look like everybody else.”

Sappho smiled. “I am accustomed to being Sappho. Tell me, do you have any idea where my brother is? He and Alkaios?”

“My father said they board with the hewer of wood. He is a rough man, but the gods gave him a good heart.”

“It will be all right then. My brother is a lord who tolerates no one over him.”

“No need to fear. I'm sure they were up half the night at odd-even.”

They were on the main street of the town now, and people turned to look after them. Sappho had changed into a fresh chiton, adding a cloak of finespun wool, for it was cool in high Pyrrha, even when Sun was at his brightest. It was a respectable city, not the bare rock Sappho had imagined. Leto told her it was terraced to the sea and had a port and thriving trade.

Sappho seized on this. “There is a way to the sea?”

“You must not think of escape,” Leto warned her. “They will not stop at killing, and a bad death it will be if you enter their boats.”

“I do not think of escape, Leto. I have a love of the sand shore and the sea. Perhaps it could be a meeting place.”

“Let a day or two pass,” the girl advised, “and you will not be so closely watched. I can get word to your brother and, when it is safe, guide you to him.”

“Then you are my friend, Leto.”

The girl took the basket from her head and dropped to her knees, kissing the hem of her cloak. Sappho, glancing quickly around, lifted her up, but they were by now in forested country and quite alone. They kept walking and soon heard the laughter and chatter from the washing springs. This at least is not different from Mitylene, Sappho thought. But as they drew near, the women fell silent. Their eyes took in the cut of Sappho's garments, the rich material, the studded sandals. Nothing escaped their scrutiny. They did not need to know her history to see she was of a great house.

The soldiers had made a good story during their drinking and dicing the night before, and everyone knew of the feud with Pittakos and the circumstance of the dead dog—everything, in fact, leading to the exiles being among them. What seemed most strange was that a
woman
should be famous among poets, and at the same time a rebel banished with men.

Leto set down the bundle of clothes, gave greeting, and knelt at her accustomed place. Sappho would have knelt with her, but Leto prevented her, saying, “This is work not meant for you, Lady.” Then shyly, “I noticed you wrapped a flute under your cloak.”

Sappho took it out and undid the fastenings. She sat and, with a prayer to the Nine, began to play. It was a pleasant tune with the familiar sounds of morning in it. The women continued their work, but they listened so they could say, “I heard Sappho play.”

She sang:

Though few,

they are roses

A spell was cast, an enchantment. Her vision was so sure that she made the roses bloom. The women murmured their thanks and went their way to tell of it in the village. Sappho, too, gave thanks to the Muses, who won her this sympathy. And when Leto laid out their simple meal, she set aside a tenth part, and spilled a tenth part of the wine.

*   *   *

Three days later Leto whispered, “Do not sleep tonight.”

Sappho pressed her hand, and when Chloris drowsed off and the father had gone to the tavern, the girls got up and left.