Epander 2.I

I decided to go ahead and continue on with the second Epander chapter, straight out of the first one. I would like to say that it was incredibly hard to find any imagery of Hellenistic period palaces, particularly the interior. That none really are left is a given, but has so little effort been put into their reconstruction? Well, by that I mean to say that there are no sketches or paintings or anything. Weird.

He sat in a parlour of bravura splendor, pillars of lavish black marble supporting the ceiling, the capstones profligately gilded with gilt, carved as though they were rose vines joining the onyx pillars to the ceiling. Tapestries hung from near every wall, woven with threads of silver and gold to commemorate victories over lesser peoples, subjugated by right of the strength of the victor, separating lifelike statues of Basileis and generals past alike. The floor was of black and white marble, flawlessly situated with one another. The room was absolutely beautiful and absolutely perfect, and all of it made him sick; absolutely sick to the stomach with absolute disgust.

He waited there with his personal slave, Apistos, as well as two others that he had taken with him, as he would certainly have need of their service. He was a long way from home, in a city foreign to all of them, and had dire need of their assistance in the capital of the largest nation in the world. He had picked slaves whose loyalty he was beyond sure of, as in a place like this, and for what he was tasked to do here, he must be absolutely sure that he would not face betrayal from those who he thought were the only ones he could truly trust. They were all foreigners here.

Epander was certainly nervous. He didn’t even feel particularly perturbed, but as he looked down at his hands which lay placed on his thighs, he could not help but be taken aback by just how blanched they appeared to have been, stressed even further in contemplation of whether or not indeed the rest of him kept the appearance of being so devoid of the sanguine humours, for when soon invariably he should need to make acquaintance with high ranking officials within the palace of the Basileus of Arche Aigaios. He had to be calm, to bestill his beating bosom, to flush his fingers and face.

And so he sat, left to wallow within his own apprehension for the predicament with which he was beset, mere iotas of time stretching themselves thin as they grinded themselves into greater length. Silence harassed him excepting the breaths of his slaves in the room with him, the occasional shifting in their seats or adjustment of apparel. Every correction in their cloth was like a needle to his mind, interrupting everything which flowed through it and bringing him great discomfort. Even so, his mind could only race with every possibility, everything that may possibly got wrong, every terrible outcome that may come of this. He speculated doubtfully within his own mind if silence would have been better than the noises which afflicted him, only for all he would have been left with was for his heart to thump, and thump, and thump.