Over the Wine-Dark Sea

by Harry Turtledove

  "Thank you. That's the lecture my father would have given me, too," Menedemos said. "I told you, I didn't know she wasn't a slave till after she'd stuck her bottom out and after I'd stuck my lance in. Do you know what I want to do now?"

  "What?" Sostratos asked apprehensively.

  "I want to sell Gylippos a peafowl's egg, to go along with the cuckoo's egg I may have put in his nest." Menedemos' grin was foxy and altogether shameless.

  Nevertheless, Sostratos let out a sigh of relief. "I was afraid you'd say you wanted to go after her again."

  "I wouldn't mind," Menedemos said, and Sostratos considered smashing the winecup over his head. But then his cousin sighed and went on, "I probably won't get another chance, though, worse luck. Wives have to keep to themselves. It's what makes them so tempting to go after, don't you think?"

  "I certainly don't!" Sostratos exclaimed, and Menedemos laughed at him. He stood on his dignity: "I'm going out with some silk. Try not to get murdered before I come back, if you'd be so kind."

  Menedemos chuckled, for all the world as if Sostratos were joking. Sostratos wished he were. His cousin had always been like that: if someone said he might not have something, he wanted it the more for its being forbidden. Taking Gylippos' wife once, not knowing who she was, might make him want to go back to the man's house and do it again, this time with premeditation. Sostratos spat into the bosom of his tunic to avert the evil omen. Menedemos laughed again, as if he could see the thoughts inside Sostratos' mind. Muttering under his breath, Sostratos took a bolt of Koan silk and hurried out of the rented house.

  Poseidon's temple lay only a few plethra from the house; he had no trouble finding it. When he asked the way from there, the fellow to whom he put the question went into what was almost a parody of deep thought. "Lamakhos' place? I ought to know where that is, I really should . . .." He fell silent, his brow furrowed.

  Sostratos gave him a couple of khalkoi. His memory improved remarkably. He gave quick, precise directions. Sostratos turned right, turned left, and there it was.

  "Hail, friend," said a man whose hard face and watchful eyes didn't match the warmth he tried to put in his voice. "Well, well, you're here early this morning. Some of the girls are still asleep - they had a busy night last night. I can boot 'em out of bed if you want something special, though." He looked Sostratos up and down. "You're a long-shanked fellow. You might fancy a couple of the prettiest Kelts you ever did see. They're big girls, but full of fire."

  "You must be Lamakhos," Sostratos said, and the brothelkeeper dipped his head. Sostratos went on, "I met your Keltic girls last night."

  "Did you?" Lamakhos' eyes lit up. Sostratos had little trouble thinking along with him. If he, Sostratos, had been at the symposion, he was prosperous. And if he was here so early, he was probably besotted with at least one of the Kelts - which could only profit the man who owned them. "If you want to meet 'em again, friend, I'll be glad to get 'em for you."

  I'm sure you would, Sostratos thought. Lamakhos wasn't so far wrong, either, but Sostratos didn't want him realizing that. And so, as casually as he could, he said, "Later, maybe. The real reason I came here was that I noticed your flutegirls were decked in thin linen last night."

  "Well, what about it?" Lamakhos' bonhomie dropped away like a himation in hot weather.

  "They'd make more for themselves and more for you if they wore silk." Sostratos showed him the bolt of Koan cloth he'd brought along.

  "Ah." Now Lamakhos looked thoughtful. This was business, too, if not quite the business he'd had in mind. He pointed. "Come on into the courtyard, so I can have a look at this stuff in the sunlight."

  He led Sostratos through the main reception room, where the girls sat around waiting for customers. Some of them wore linen tunics, as the flutegirls had the night before. Others were altogether naked. As they sat, most of them spun wool into thread - if they weren't making money for Lamakhos one way, they'd do it another.

  "Hail, little brother!" one of them called to Sostratos, and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Her bare breasts jiggled, too.

  "Shut up, Aphrodisia," Lamakhos said. "He's not here for a piece. He's here to try and sell me some silk."

  Telling that to the whores proved a mistake. By their excited squeals, they all wanted to wear the filmy, exotic fabric. Sostratos displayed the bolt. The women reached for it. Lamakhos looked sour, but took Sostratos into the courtyard, as he'd said he would. Sostratos displayed it again. "Oh, look!" one of the girls said. "You can see right through it. What the men wouldn't pay if we went to a symposion dressed like that!" The other whores loudly agreed.

  Lamakhos looked harassed. Even though the women were slaves, they could make his life miserable. "Well, what do you want for it?" he growled at Sostratos.

  "Fifteen drakhmai for each bolt," Sostratos answered. "Plenty of silk in each one for a chiton, and your girls will make the price back inside a few months."

  The women put up a clamor that hamstrung Lamakhos' tries at dickering. They made such a racket, they woke up the flutegirls and dancers who'd been at Gylippos' symposion the night before. The fluteplayer who'd given Menedemos the name of her master and the redheaded dancer with whom Sostratos had enjoyed himself both waved to him. They and the other girls joined in the outcry for silk.

  Despite that outcry, Lamakhos did his best, but he couldn't get Sostratos down below thirteen drakhmai a bolt for twenty bolts. "You've seduced my girls, that's what it is," he said unhappily.

  "You'll make money in the long run," Sostratos said again. Since the brothelkeeper seemed prepared to pay and didn't argue, he concluded Lamakhos held the same opinion. And then inspiration struck. "If you'll do something for me, I'll knock five drakhmai off the total."

  "What's that?" Lamakhos asked.

  Sostratos pointed to the Keltic girl. "Let me come by and have Maibia" - the name she'd given him didn't fit well in a Hellene's mouth - "whenever I like for as long as I'm in Taras this year."

  Lamakhos pursed his lips, considering. "I ought to say no. I'd get more than five drakhmai out of you that way."

  "You might," Sostratos replied. "On the other hand, you might not. You should know that I am not one who spends wildly on women."

  That made Lamakhos look unhappy again. "You haven't got the look, I have to say. You'd probably stay away just to spite me, too, wouldn't you?" Sostratos only smiled. Lamakhos drummed his fingers on the side of his thigh. "All right - a deal, as long as you don't hurt her or do anything that makes her worth less. If you do, I'll take you to law, by the gods."

  "I wouldn't," Sostratos said. "I'm not somebody who hurts slaves for sport. In fact, I'll even ask her if it's all right." He turned to Maibia.

  She shrugged. "Why not? You weren't cruel last night, even with wine in you, and your breath doesn't stink." Such tiny praise - if that was what it was - made Sostratos' ears burn. The Keltic girl went on, "And if you want me enough to bargain for me, I expect you'll be giving me summat every so often to keep me sweet."

  "I . . . expect I will." Sostratos didn't know why such a mercenary attitude surprised him. What did Maibia have to bargain with, except the favors she doled out?

  Lamakhos stuck out his hand. Sostratos clasped it. "A bargain," they said together. The brothelkeeper went on, "I'll pay for this bolt now, and come to the house you're renting for the rest this afternoon or tomorrow."

  "Good enough," Sostratos said. "Ah . . . You ought to know we have some stout sailors keeping an eye on things."

  "Everybody knows that, on account of the Samnite," Lamakhos said. "I wasn't going to try and rob you." But he smiled, as if Sostratos had complimented him by thinking he might. In the circles in which he traveled, maybe that was a compliment.

  7

  Menedemos probably would have gone to Gylippos' house even without a good excuse. He knew that much about himself, from experience: that was how he'd got in trouble with the merchant he'd cuckolded in Halikarnassos. But he had a perfectly good excuse here - two
perfectly good excuses, in fact, which he carried in a canvas sack.

  When he knocked on Gylippos' door, the dried-fish merchant's majordomo, a stonefaced Italian of some sort named Titus Manlius, said, "Hail, sir. My master is waiting for you." He did speak Greek with an an accent different from Herennius Egnatius', so maybe Sostratos was right in guessing him a Roman.

  As Menedemos walked across the courtyard toward the andron, his eye naturally went to the dark corner near the stairs where Phyllis had bent herself forward for him. The corner wasn't dark now, of course, not with the warm sun of southern Italy shining down on it. Menedemos had hoped for a glimpse of Gylippos' wife, but he was disappointed in that. He shrugged as he walked into the andron. He wasn't sure he could have told her from a slave woman, anyhow. All he really knew was that she was short and young - and friendly, very friendly.

  "Hail," Gylippos said. "Have some wine. Have some olives." He pointed to a bowl on the round three-legged table in front of him.

  "Thank you." Menedemos popped one into his mouth, worked off the pulp with his teeth and tongue, and spat the pit onto the pebbles of the floor mosaic.

  Gylippos pointed to the canvas sack. "So those are the chicks, eh?"

  "Either that or I've caught a kakodaimon in there," Menedemos replied with a grin.

  The purveyor of dried fish chuckled. "Let's see 'em."

  "Right." Menedemos upended the sack on the floor. Out spilled the two peafowl chicks. "Here - I brought some barley for them." Menedemos scattered the grain over the mosaic. The chicks started contentedly pecking away. They were a good deal bigger than newly hatched chickens, brownish above and buff below. The little noises they made were louder and sharper than ordinary chicks', too, though not nearly so raucous as those of adult peafowl.

  "I see they can take care of themselves," Gylippos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. "Figures that they would - most birds of that sort can," the fish dealer went on; he was no fool. "Still, it's good to see with your own eyes. Now - d'you know how to tell the peacocks from the peahens when they're this little?"

  "I'm sorry, but I don't," Menedemos replied. "These are the first chicks I've seen, too, you'll remember. Either way, though, you'll have something unique in Great Hellas."

  "The fellow who got something unique in Great Hellas will be heading out of Great Hellas pretty soon: the gods-detested Samnite you sold the grown peacock to," Gylippos grumbled.

  "He paid for it, too," Menedemos answered. "I'm not asking nearly so much for the little ones." He ate another olive and spat out the pit. One of the chicks gulped it down. Menedemos wondered whether it could get nourishment from the pit or would use it as a gizzard stone.

  "Well, how much are you asking?" Gylippos asked.

  "A mina and a half apiece," Menedemos said lightly.

  "A hundred and fifty drakhmai?" Gylippos howled. "By the dog of Egypt, Rhodian, either you're mad or you think I am."

  Dickers always began with such cries. Menedemos sold the two birds for two Tarentine minai, just about the price he'd wanted to get. "My cousin will curse me when I get back to the house where we're staying," he complained, not wanting Gylippos to know how pleased he was.

  Gylippos laughed. "He's probably off spending the money you make, screwing that barbarian with the ugly whey-colored skin and the hair like copper. He's welcome to her, you ask me."

  "I'm with you." Menedemos laughed, too. He was far more likely to be accused of squandering silver on women than was his cousin.

  "Speaking of which," Gylippos went on, "which of the house slaves did you have at the symposion? None of them owns up to it, and they usually brag about such things."

  Alarm shot through Menedemos, though he did his best not to show it. One of the chicks wandered over and pecked experimentally at his toe. He thought fast while shooing it away. "I didn't ask her name," he said when he straightened. "It was dark - I can't even tell you what she looks like. But I will tell you this: I gave her three oboloi."

  "Ah. That could be it." The dried-fish merchant looked wise. "I suppose she thinks I'd take it away from her. She ought to know better - I'm no skinflint, not like some people I could name - but you never can tell with slaves."

  "True." Menedemos let out a sigh of relief. Gylippos didn't suspect him. Gylippos didn't suspect his own wife, either. Maybe Phyllis was good at keeping her affairs secret, or maybe she hadn't strayed till she met Menedemos. He preferred the latter explanation.

  "Do you know," Gylippos said, "I offered Herennius Egnatius ten minai for the peacock, and he wouldn't take it. I still say it's not right to let him go off with a prize like that instead of selling it to a Hellene."

  "Well, O best one, if you'd offered me ten minai, you'd have a peacock in your courtyard right now. Since you didn't . . ." Menedemos shrugged.

  Gylippos gave him a sour look. Before Herennius Egnatius bought the peacock, he hadn't thought it was worth ten minai, or even five. He wanted it more because somebody else had it. Menedemos thought he was entitled to look sour himself, too. He would have loved to get ten minai for the bird. Because of her many rowers, sailing in the Aphrodite cost a lot more than a regular merchantman would have. The two chicks he'd just sold Gylippos were worth about three days of wages for the crew. Sostratos was the one who did most of the mumbling over a counting board, but Menedemos worried about turning a profit, too.

  Instead of scowling, though, he gave Gylippos a broad, friendly smile, one so charming that the Tarentine couldn't help smiling back. Gylippos wouldn't have smiled had he known what Menedemos was thinking: I will lay your wife again, by the gods. Do I want her more because you've got her? What if I do?

  Gylippos called to Titus Manlius. His majordomo went off, soon to return with a leather sack pleasantly full of silver. Menedemos opened the sack and began to count the coins. "Don't you trust me?" Gylippos inquired in injured tones.

  "Of course I trust you," Menedemos lied politely. "But accidents can happen to anyone. With the money out in the open between us, there's no room for doubt." Before long, he was saying, "A hundred ninety-three . . . ninety-five . . . This nice fat tetradrakhm makes a hundred ninety-nine . . . and a last drakhma for two hundred. Everything's just as it should be."

  "I told you so." Gylippos still sounded huffy.

  "So you did." Menedemos started scooping the coins back into the sack. "When you sell your fish, best one, do you always take your customers' payments on trust?"

  "Those thieves? Not likely!" But Gylippos didn't, wouldn't, see that anyone could reckon him anything less than a paragon of virtue. Menedemos sighed and shrugged and said his farewells.

  Titus Manlius closed the door behind him as if glad to see him go. The Italian slave didn't seem to approve of him. Menedemos chuckled. From what he'd seen, the majordomo didn't seem to approve of anyone, save possibly his master. Some slaves got to be that way: more partisan for the families they served than half the members of those families.

  Menedemos didn't go straight back to the house he shared with Sostratos. Instead, he walked around the corner so he could look up to the second-story windows. The women's quarters would be up there. Phyllis and the house slaves were doing whatever women did when shut away from the prying eyes of men: spinning, weaving, drinking wine, gossiping, who could say what all else?

  The shutters were thrown back to let some air into the women's rooms. Looking up from the dusty street, Menedemos could see only ceiling beams stained with smoke from the braziers that would fight the cold in wintertime. Experimentally, he whistled one of the tunes the flutegirls had played the night of the symposion.

  A woman came to the closest window and looked out at him. She was small and dark and young - not any great beauty, not to Menedemos' eyes, but not ugly, either. Was she the one who'd leaned forward against the wall for him? He started to call her name, but checked himself. He silently mouthed it: Phyllis?

  She dipped her head. Her own lips moved without a sound: Menedemos? He bowed low, as he might have t
o Ptolemaios or Antigonos or another of Alexander's generals. She smiled. Her teeth were very white, as if she took special pains to keep them that way. She mouthed something else. Menedemos couldn't make out what it was. He did his best to look comically confused. It must have worked, for Phyllis raised a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing. Then she repeated herself, moving her lips more exaggeratedly.

  Tomorrow night. This time, Menedemos understood what she was saying. He blew her a kiss, waved, and hurried off. When he looked back over his shoulder as he rounded the corner, she was gone.

  You're mad. He could hear Sostratos' voice inside his head. You're a stupid little cockproud billy goat, and you deserve whatever happens to you. That wasn't Sostratos' voice; it was his father's, and it held more than a little gloating anticipation.

  He didn't care. For years, he'd made a point of not listening to Sostratos, and his father was back in Rhodes. If I can sneak over here and get it in, I'll do it, by Aphrodite's tits. That was his own voice, and he heard it louder and stronger than either of the other two.

  Maibia looked over at Sostratos from a distance of perhaps a palm and a half; the bed they shared in Lamakhos' establishment was none too wide. "Sure and you're so rich and all," she said, "so why don't you buy me for your very own self?"

  Sostratos had heard ideas he liked much, much less. He enjoyed himself with the Keltic girl even more than he'd expected. If she didn't enjoy herself with him, she was artful at concealing it.

  Of course, she might well have been artful at concealing it. What girl in a brothel didn't hope to escape it by becoming a rich man's plaything? He ran a hand along her smooth, pale curves. She purred and snuggled against him. "I have something for you," he said.

  "Do you, now?" Maibia didn't speak Greek according to any rules of grammar Sostratos recognized, but her odd turns of phrase only made the language more interesting. "And what might that be?"