Lo! You walk amidst the thronging souls of bright-helmed Athens, where the sun, charioteer of the sky, drives his blazing steeds across the firmament, gilding the white-stone colonnades and the shouting stalls of the agora with fire. There, amid the clamor of coin and the scent of figs and fennel, your eyes are drawn— as a ship to harbor— unto a maiden of noble bearing.

Andromeda, called Mastropolis, child of gold-wrought lineage and proud oaths, stands among her wares like a lioness guarding her pride. Amphorae of gleaming oil lie at her feet, vessels of dark wine kissed by Dionysus himself, robes of fine-threaded wool hang like banners in the breeze, and flowers— fresh-cut and fragrant— exhale the breath of springtime nymphs.

With swift and cunning hands she seals each vessel, pouring wax and stamping it with the sigil of her house: an eagle, wings wide in flight over the city of Athens, its talons gripping the scales of right judgment.

“Ugh— Father should really be here instead,” she complains, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Tinkering with gears and springs all day, while I stand here sweating, sealing jars and smiling at strangers like some common market girl... Gods, and it’s not even noon.”

And you, stranger cloaked in last season’s wool, the heat of summer shining onto your face, eye the garments of her stall. Fine they are, as fit for a hero as for a king. But silver speaks in Athens, and the name Mastropolis does not bend to haggling lips...