I wanted to explore the city on my own terms, but the city decided otherwise. The crowds carried me along like a tuft of feathers caught in a gale. I was jostled up one street, down a second, straight through a third, and from one side of the road to the other. When I pulled myself out of the human current to look at the buildings, it was always in some dull little side street where there was nothing worth looking at. I had no choice but to rejoin the endless rush of people, hoping I’d be able to see something interesting the next time I got away from the crowds.
I finally got my wish when I managed to put myself behind an oxcart. It was so bulky that it cleared a wide path through the mob, and the oxen walked slowly enough for me to stroll after the cart at a pleasantly unhurried pace, looking around at my leisure. I just had to look down from time to time to watch where I was putting my feet, oxen being oxen.
That was how I happened to stumble across the image maker’s house. It stood at the intersection of two paths near the place where the street widened into a market square. This open space was filled with even more merchants than the ordinary city streets, some selling their wares from the doors of the houses, some camped in ramshackle wooden booths, some with their merchandise spread out on a blanket, and some simply squatting in the dust with a basket full of goods.
I let the helpful oxcart go on without me as I wandered up to have a closer look at the house selling the clay images. They stood in rows on a narrow table beside the door, watched over by a dull-eyed girl who yawned with every breath she took.
“What are you looking at, you little grub?” she lashed out when she noticed me. “Touch any of my dad’s stuff and I’ll snap your dirty fingers like bean pods.”
I stood as tall as I could and shrugged back my plain-looking, dusty cloak. My brothers had told me to wear my best dress that morning, hoping until the last instant that I’d change my mind and come into the temple with them. Now the gorgeous colors of the tiered skirt, the intricate embroidery patterns on the short-sleeved jacket, the gold and silver charms sewn over everything, all hit the girl with the force of a tooth-rattling slap in the face. Her jaw dropped and she stared at me.
At that moment, a bald, beaming, potbellied man came out of the house to see what was going on. When he saw me, his smile stretched so wide it seemed like the corners would meet at the back of his head. He clutched the stunned girl by the shoulders, shoved her back into the house, and gave me his full attention, apologizing for his daughter and begging me to handle as many of the figurines as I liked. He didn’t need to ask twice.
Oh, they were wonderful! There were images of leaping bulls and placid sheep, goats and doves and donkeys, and many different sorts of men and women. All of them were painted with extraordinary skill and detail. I’d seen plenty of such things before—everyone took clay images to the temples as offerings for the gods—but these were works of art. I picked up one figurine shaped like a priestess of Gaia, the great mother goddess of the earth. She was holding up two snakes, creatures sacred to Gaia because their whole bodies were always pressed against the ground. The potter had painted in every detail, from the serpents’ eyes to the scales covering their backs.
“I’ll buy this one,” I said. “What will you take for it?” I got ready for the haggling to begin.
He was about to reply when a hand slammed down on the boards between us and a brash voice proclaimed: “There’s your price, old man!” It was a voice I knew. I looked up as Theseus of Athens lifted his hand from the table. He’d slapped down a strand of silver beads worth enough to buy every image in the shop. Rings of gold and crystal glittered on his fingers, and an enameled silver belt clasping his embroidered tunic gleamed in the sunlight. He looked so splendid that for a moment I forgot just how much I disliked him.
“Well?” he demanded. “Is it a bargain?”
The potter was overwhelmed. His hands trembled as he reached for the silver, as if he were afraid that this would all turn out to be a dream. He jabbered nonstop thanks and blessings at Theseus. Then he picked up one after another of his best figurines, offering them to his new benefactor as humbly and reverently as if he were offering them to a god.
“Give them to the lady Helen, if they please her,” Theseus said. If he was trying to impress me by playing the part of the grand, noble, open-handed king, he failed. All I could see was a loudmouthed show-off.
“This one is enough for me, thank you,” I said. “Now I have to bring it to the temple. Good-bye.” I started down the street, trying to melt into the crowd.
“Not so fast, little lady.” Theseus pushed and shoved his way to my side as if the other people were bales of hay. When one man protested, Theseus casually backhanded him so hard that he staggered into a wall. The great hero of Athens planted one hand on the small of my back and forced me to walk beside him. “It’s a good thing I happened to find you,” he said, leering like an ape. “If you want to go to the temple, you’re heading the wrong way.”
I gave him a haughty look. “I’m not taking this to the temple of Apollo,” I said. “I’m going to a little shrine to Gaia. You wouldn’t know where it is; only women can worship there.” I was rattling off one lie after another, hoping Theseus wouldn’t catch on, since he was also a visitor to Delphi.
“But I do know the place you mean,” he replied so smoothly that I was willing to bet he was lying too.
“And you’re still heading in the wrong direction. At least let me take you there safely, even if I can’t go in.”
As I walked along in his unwanted company, he tried to keep up a conversation. I let him yap away, hoping he’d give up and shut up. No such luck. He was one of those people who adored the sound of his own voice.