The most stunning member of the group was its obvious leader, a companion, apparently of Thrakian blood, dressed in the finest silk and clutching a lyre. She permitted her child-slave to heckle Doryklus in her stead as the barbarian scholiast, holding a scroll case, appealed to the boxer’s sense of reason. “Please, we owe Aristotle harm not, but praise.”
Doryklus held fast, but had only two hands.
His eyes then met her eyes. Aristotle peered into the sparkling green eyes of the redheaded beauty, a well-compensated companion by her look.
Oh my, she desires my company.
No fool, she merely seeks gain, has come to pick your bones in the very hour of your extremity!
My, she is so fit, appears almost the model of Spartan womanhood beneath that alluring robe.
She is your medusa old fool, come to steal your soul even as you seek egress from Hades-on-earth!
The young woman’s restless eyes followed his, and would not let him look away.
Nonsense, such power does not exist!
She then handed her covered lyre to the chattering girl, who she then hushed, and then stepped toward Aristotle, never taking her eyes from his. Doryklus placed his great hand above the woman’s breasts and so stopped her progress. Without taking her eyes from Aristotle the finely formed companion used both of her small hands to guide Doryklus’ great one to her throat. With that, she looked into the aged philosopher’s eyes and pleaded without a word, none being needed.
Yes, a man, even a condemned man, remains a man, and a man has the needs of a man.
Fool, she shall poison you at dinner, drown you in your bath, or slay you in your sleep!
The slight man, as thin, but shorter than Aristotle, piped up in his alien accented Ionian even as the waif cursed the boxer like a porne of Tie-up in crude Attik jargon, “Aristotle, a fellow philosopher seeks your company, and she is beautiful as you can see.”
The woman pursed her lips just so even as Doryklus wrapped his massive hand more tightly around her throat.
A woman cannot be a philosopher?
[TALIC]Well, in barbaric circles a well-educated companion might as well be a philosopher and could be regarded as such by the rude.
“Yes, enter, thank you Doryklus. I am honored by your arête.”
As the battered hand dropped from the delicate throat the woman walked directly to Aristotle and prostrated herself as if he were the Great King of Media himself. She did not, however, take her green eyes from his. He helped her rise immediately. “Welcome companion, though this precinct is no longer mine to preside over.”
She refused to let go and pulled his thinning right hand to her lips and kissed it deeply.
I do not think I shall miss my plump housekeeper as much as I might have!
Be wary old fool!
She then locked eyes with him again and spoke, in a pleasing voice, Ionian, with an accent that was impossible to place, “Aristotle, we have admired your work from afar. I have dreamed of this meeting since I was chosen to contact you. I am Arlene, from Virginia Tech, of the Nation America. Our land is to the west of Ultima Thule.”
“You were contacted by Pytheus then?”
“No My Dear, but we know of him; the Massaliot searcher-on-The-Ocean. We know—knew far in advance rather—of the death of Alexander, and have been sent here to take you away to safety.”
Just then the Italic philosopher approached and stood obediently, obviously in a state of worship for Arlene. Aristotle nodded to the man. “So you have come by way of Italy and acquired this guide, and have acquired also the services of one of Attika’s finest linguists,” he said nodding also to the unruly child who pranced about like the dimwitted often do when forced by circumstance to be still.
Arlene seductively licked her lower lip before answering in a whisper, “Yes My Dear, a woman of wiles may gain entry to a nation that would bar the way for an army of men.”
“Well said my sweet Odyssea!”
His spirit was lifting already, yet reason intervened, as it must. “Companion, you being an alien from distant shores, must have surely been reliant on this man. What has been his counsel may I ask?”
Her voice hit a slight squeak, finally betraying her otherwise oddly confident bearing for a woman, even of the companion class, “Apology, this is Sebastian, of northern Iberia—Navarre is the nation—who speaks Latin and has travelled to that country. Please My Dear—She speaks as if she owns me!—permit me to hold your hand while Sebastian takes up the subject of your peril.”
This woman seems needy of your company.
And she is too assertive by half!
She is simply smitten by my great-mind.
You are no less salacious than the rest, a fool old stallion after all.
