The Stormcrow Cycle [Slow-burn Slice-of-Life Tragic Fantasy Romance]

Chapter Twenty-one: Kyros, Part I

Glossary: 

Mastropos: Pimp. It's an insult.

Agora: The Greek equivalent to a Roman forum. It was the central market and the heart of the city, so every city had at least one.

Stoa: A covered colonnade that usually formed the perimeter of an agora. This was a Greek phenomenon and it was not uncommon for people to use this public area as a hangout site. Stoic philosophers were purported to gather and philosophize there (at least in Athens).

Taverna (Updated 16/12/2022): The Greek equivalent to the Roman taburna (linguistically, not archaologically!). The name taburna means shop, but it was derived from tabula, meaning table. I'm using this term in the modern sense of a restaurant or a fast-food joint. Achaeologists actually refer to Roman fast-food joints as thermapolia (pl.; sing. thermapolium), but I'm going with the linguistic rationale, not the historical. =) 

Hetaera: A courtesan, in contrast to pornai (prostitute). Hetaera were often educated and were expected to provide both intellectual and sexual stimulation. Unlike other classes of women, they were permitted into the male-only symposium. (For those of you who remember Plato's Symposium, the backdrop of the work is indeed, a literal symposium, which is a male-only after-dinner party. The only exception to this rule are prostitutes and musicians, and in the ancient Greek world there were often one and the same.) There's some argument as to whether hetaerae were always freewomen or not, though my personal thought on this is that it's likely some were actually slaves, since in the ancient world, slaves were represented in nearly every job class with the exception of the senatorial class (obviously, slaves were not permitted to become politicians, even once freed, though plenty of slaves had complex roles as lawyers or diplomats).

The only K'Avaari term is vir-vuti, which is the hunting home (it's where the hunters train and organize). 

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"What did he say?" Ba'an frowned at Lukios, even as she raised a hand to smooth away the one on his face. His jaw clenched. For a moment he seemed to be struggling with his temper.

"He—fucking mastropòs!—he wanted to buy you."

"What?"

"He thought you were—we were—fuck. Wait. Let's walk for a bit."

Kyros was not big by Dolkoi'ri standards, but it was a city. She could smell the filth immediately. Animals shared the streets with humans, and thus the streets were dirty, noisy, and crowded.

It was a Dolkoi'ri city. Such things were expected.

Ba'an could see the central buildings in the distance were stonework—granite, maybe—and built well. But on the outskirts were the merchants and hawkers and the poor, all crowded together in the perimeter just inside the walls.

Lukios' hand never left her back. "Here. The moneylenders are all up by the agora." He guided her through the streets with more confidence than she had expected. He had told her he rarely visited Kyros; his memory was good.

The main streets were all cobbled. Buildings nearer to the agora were made of stone, and Ba'an knew how close they were getting by the dwindling number of wooden constructions. Ba'an had rarely set foot near the agora itself. When she had first started trading in Kyros the merchants there had cheated her, so now she only dealt directly with her buyers.

Even so, the architecture was impressive: smooth stones for the floor of the square, and even smoother stone columns lining the market to create a sheltered colonnade. This was what Lukios had called a stoa—it was full of men speaking to each other with very animated expressions, arms gesticulating with enthusiasm.