Tyrant: King of the Bosporus by Christian Cameron Read Free Book Online

the surety!’ She gave him an impish grin and he returned a frown.
    ‘A daughter would not have carried my name,’ he said.
    Melitta laughed. ‘Oh, Uncle Coenus, Greeks are all fools. What would you like me to call this lovely boy?’
    Coenus leaned close, inhaling the fragrance of his grandson. ‘Kineas,’ he said.
    *
     
    The summer sailing season drew on, the wind from the north freshening every room in Leon’s great oceanside house. In the courtyard, figs began to ripen. The yearly convoy from Massalia in far-off Gaul came in on time and heavily laden, and Leon’s fortunes soared.
    Sappho healed slowly, rebuilding her blood with sweets and the small beer that the Aegyptians drank. She sat on a kline in the private courtyard – a colonnaded space between Leon’s house and Diodorus’s, where the women gathered unless it rained. Slaves brought wine and dates and other sweets while she held court, dispensing wisdom and even justice to her household.
    Nihmu, a Sakje woman from the sea of grass, had four quivers of arrows and she stood at one end of the courtyard shooting bronze-barbed shafts into a target hidden in the shadow of the colonnade. Unlike Sappho, who ran her husband’s affairs, Nihmu had virtually no interest in the trade that drove her husband. But she never spoke of what she missed.
    Melitta sat in the grass, envying Nihmu her archery and yet fully engaged in talking nonsense to her son as she walked him around the grass, hands under his tiny armpits so that his feet just barely brushed the ground.
    ‘Who’s going to be a great athlete, eh? With long, long legs?’ she asked as he managed a grab at her breasts. ‘And grabby, grabby arms?’
    He spat a little, and reached out for her. He was just a few days short of two months old, and she named him Kineas – in the Temple of Hathor and in the Temple of Poseidon. And now she spent her days playing with him in the garden.
    ‘You could let Kallista play with him,’ Sappho said, raising her eyes from a scroll. ‘He’s not a toy, or a chore. Shoot your bow!’
    Melitta sighed. Motherhood – fatherless motherhood – had not changed her status in the household. She was the veteran of battle, a grown woman, a mother – and Sappho still spoke to her as if she needed a lesson in every aspect of life.
    ‘Kallista is not his mother,’ Melitta said.
    Sappho shrugged, her eyes never leaving her scroll. ‘She’ll be a mother in a matter of days,’ she said. ‘But – as you wish, dear.’
    ‘What are you reading, Auntie?’ Melitta asked.
    ‘Aristotle. This is Philokles’ copy – I’m going to see that it goes tothe library. I’m cataloguing all his scrolls. He had hundreds.’ Sappho looked up.
    ‘What’s it about?’ Melitta asked.
    ‘Well,’ Sappho said. She sat back on her couch. ‘It says that it is a study of nature, but so far, it seems more like a survey of other men’s ideas.’
    ‘Philokles didn’t think much of Aristotle,’ Melitta said.
    Sappho raised a beautifully manicured eyebrow. ‘You have read Aristotle?’
    Melitta shrugged. ‘Some. His work on gods – on religion. Philokles copied it all out for me to read.’
    Sappho leaned forward as if noticing her niece for the first time. ‘Really?’ she asked.
    Melitta was stung by her surprise. ‘I studied every day with Philokles from the time I was six!’ she said. ‘I’ve read Aristotle, Plato, all the speeches of Isocrates, all the sayings of Heraklitus, all the books of Pythagoras. All! Even that useless twit Pericles.’
    Sappho smiled. ‘I know, dear.’
    ‘You act as if I’m too stupid for conversation!’ Melitta said.
    ‘You act as if you never plan to read a scroll again,’ Sappho said.
    ‘I have a baby!’ Melitta shot back.
    ‘Often the result of ill-considered sex.’ Sappho smiled. ‘Needn’t determine the rest of your life.’
    ‘Ill-considered?’ Melitta stood up, gathering Kineas in her arms. She took a breath for a