The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies by Martin Millar

The timbers were bound to give way. But people do seem to make bad decisions when I’m around.’
    She turned to Idomeneus. ‘Idomeneus, we’re trying to remain discreet. Is it necessary for you to fight this woman?’
    ‘She’s an Amazon. I hate Amazons. I’d have killed her at Troy, if she hadn’t suddenly vanished when my spear was at her throat.’
    ‘Really?’ Laet regarded Bremusa with her coal-black eyes. The pallor of her skin suggested she was rarely exposed to sunlight, or even daylight.
    ‘You fought at Troy?’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘But you disappeared from the field of battle? Presumably you were saved by some god?’
    ‘By the Goddess Athena.’
    ‘Ah. I see. Have you been with her ever since?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then I assume the goddess has now sent you here to look for me?’
    That,
thought Bremusa
, was rather astute.
Not wanting to show she was impressed by her deduction, she didn’t reply.
    ‘No doubt Athena fears I’ll wreck the peace conference.’ Laet smiled, not pleasantly. ‘She’s right.’
    Incongruously, she yawned. Bremusa felt insulted.
    ‘Come, Idomeneus. I’m tired. There are children playing nearby and that always gives me a headache. I don’t find this Amazon very interesting. You can kill her another time if it really bothers you.’
    They walked off up the shingle beach towards the city. Bremusa watched them go. She suddenly realised how fatigued she was from the battle, under the sun, in her leather armour. Her skin was caked with perspiration.
    Two children ran screaming in front of her, pursued by their female attendant. She was a stern-looking woman who scolded her charges, both around eight years old.
    ‘Plato, Xenophon, stop fighting! Can’t you behave better in public? Stop staring at the foreign woman and come with me.’
    They departed, young Plato and Xenophon still scuffling with each other. Bremusa turned round and hurried towards the shrine. She urgently needed to talk to the Goddess Athena.

Luxos
     
    There were two shops in Athens which sold beautiful, expensive lyres, instruments good enough for a professional to play on stage. There were several stalls in the agora that stocked instruments of slightly lesser quality, the sort that wealthy young men might use while for playing music with their friends. Close to the harbour, there was Straton’s junk shop which sold the cheapest instruments in the city. That was where Luxos had bought his lyre. It wasn’t a high-quality instrument. He wasn’t even sure that it was made from genuine turtle shell. Nonetheless, Luxos loved his lyre, and had taught himself to play, copying the musicians he saw performing at the gymnasium. A true Greek poet recited his poetry to the accompaniment of the lyre, and Luxos had learned how to do it, without instruction.
    Not far from the junk shop was Lysander’s pawn shop, current location of Luxos’s lyre. He’d been ashamed when he pawned it to buy food; as ashamed as a man throwing down his shield when he fled from the battlefield: he’d only done it after fainting from hunger. Like many people in Athens, Luxos was very poor, and unlike most, he had no family to fall back on. As a young orphan the community, his deme, had fed and cared for him, after a fashion, but after he reached the age of eighteen he was on his own. It would have been difficult at the best of times. With Athens in the state it now was, he was struggling to survive. For a while he’d tried to earn money by singing and playing on the street, but no citizen in Piraeus had much money to spare for street performers. He tried playing in some of the wealthier areas uptown, but the Scythian archers chased him away.
    Now, with Aristophanes’ money, he hurried to reclaim his lyre. He was happy and excited to retrieve his instrument, but as he left the shop, he remembered what Aristophanes had said. No one would ever listen to his songs or his poetry. Previously Luxos had ignored all criticism, banished all