Sthenelus, settling against the pillowed couch, drew a long, satisfied draught from his wine cup, peering over the rim at his prize.
Her dancing was strange, awkward. Her tall, red felt cap swayed as she spun. Was that simply the way of her people, or was it the fresh weight of new captivity dragging on her long limbs? The distance in her eyes suggested the latter.
"Sthenelus!" called out one of his guests, the Theban warrior Labdacus. "You claim you've captured an Amazon, but how can we even tell girl from boy under that absurd barbarian getup?"
"Well you may ask," Sthenelus laughed. "In the heat of battle, we never even realized many of the Scythian archers were women."
He had heard tales of such Ares-worshipping horse-women, from men who had been in Asia longer than he, but he had not believed them.
Labdacus had risen from his sofa, and now he seized the dancing girl around the waist. Her eyes went wild, and she said something in her own tongue.
Hauling her up over his shoulder, so that her arms dangled over his back and her legs swung helplessly in front of his chest, Labdacus reached under the hem of her brightly patterned tunic studded with little gold plates.
For the amusement of his guests, Sthenelus had asked the girls to send the Amazon out in her own barbarian clothing, and beneath the tunic she wore wildly dotted tubular leg-coverings, sewn together at the waist. With his free hand, Labdacus found purchase on the leg-coverings and tugged them down.
A cheer rose from the gallery as the Amazon's ass was exposed to the lamplight, and, mugging for the crowd, Labdacus spread her with his fingers, showing off where tawny curls gave way to pink woman-flesh.
The man set her back on her feet, and with vicious accuracy threw the balled-up leg-coverings at the face of one of his friends who was unspooling a not-very-funny joke. The men broke out in a chorus of laughter.
Sthenelus kept his eyes locked on the Amazon, flattening her tunic down to try to cover herself, glancing around as if calculating her chances against 23 drunken men. Drink made men feeble and stupid, but it could also make them
more
dangerous, in ways that she would do well to consider.
Her bare legs were slashed with tattoos, lines and dots and animal figures. She caught his gaze, took in his calm smile. He thought he saw the briefest flash in her of something wild, the terror-rage of the cornered beast. But as quick as it appeared, it was swallowed up by resignation. Warrior she may be, but she was conquered, and she knew it.
Sthenelus had marched out to punish the troublesome Scythians, wandering herdsmen who sat so naturally on their mounts it seemed as if rider and horse were one joined creature. For months they had been stealing his cattle, and he had seen strong men dragged to their deaths by swinging lassos.
In the end, he had burned their village. Those who hadn't escaped, desperately driving into the hills what horses and cattle they could, he had taken as slaves.
Sthenelus had been shocked to examine the unconscious rider he had pulled screaming to the ground with a wrench of his spear. The Scythian was not the beautiful young boy he had supposed, but a woman, of perhaps 25 years. Thick layers of felt and glue had protected her, blunting the oblique strike of his spearpoint.
Now, standing before him, she had cause to regret his imperfect aim.
There had been a dozen more of her sister-warriors among the captives, but this one's strength, and grace, and beauty was beyond them all.
The aulos-boy, who had lost the plot during the hubbub, began a new song. A few of the men began to clap out a beat again, and with evident reluctance, the Amazon returned to her dance.
She appeared to be trying, without much success, to limit her already stilted movements to ones that would keep her tunic from flashing the men a view of her cunt, or the ripe cleft of her ass.
"Your new dancing-girl is a dud!" someone sneered. "Perhaps she can play the pipes?"
"She can play my pipe!" guffawed the next man.
