Owls to Athens

by Harry Turtledove

  “We should, however, commonly distrust what people commonly say,” Theophrastos went on. “I know for a fact that, while the gibe did indeed originate with Stratonikos, it was in fact aimed at Simykas the actor, and taken from the old saw, ‘No rotten fish is large.’ Now one moment, my friends, if you please.” He turned to Sostratos, who was coming up through the olive trees. “Yes, my good fellow. You wish . . . ?”

  I can’t run away. They’ll all laugh at me if I do. Only that thought nerved Sostratos to keep walking forward. “Hail, Theophrastos, wisest of men,” he said, and knew some small pride that his voice wobbled only a little.

  “Hail.” Theophrastos cocked his head to one side. “I’ve heard your voice before, friend—to the crows with me if I haven’t. And I do believe I’ve seen your gangling frame as well. You’re a Rhodian. You studied here. You were interested in ... let me see . . . history and natural philosophy, as I recall. You’re ... Sostratos son of. . .” He snapped his fingers in annoyance. “Your pardon, please. I’ve had too many students over too many years. I can’t recall your father’s name.”

  “It’s Lysistratos, sir,” Sostratos answered. Some of the young men who’d been with him at the Lykeion were still here, still learning. How he envied them!

  “Lysistratos, yes.” Theophrastos dipped his head, “I was sad when you had to leave us. You had a good head on your shoulders.” Sostratos blinked. Suddenly he felt as if he were walking on air. Theophrastos . , . said that... of him? The older man went on, ‘‘Do you now hope to return to your studies, then? You would be welcome.”

  “Thank you,” Sostratos whispered. “Thank you more than I can say, most noble one, but no.” That last word was one of the hardest he’d ever had to say, for all of him wanted to scream, Yes! “I have come to sell you—”

  Several of Theophrastos’ students giggled. A couple of them laughed out loud. Sostratos’ cheeks felt afire. Of course these bright young men would mock anyone who had to make his living by trade. Their wealth let them spend all the time they wanted here, without worrying about making a living. Unfortunately, Sostratos did need to worry about that.

  “Let him finish, please,” Theophrastos said. “A man must live. Yes, Sostratos? You are selling . . . ?”

  Was that courtesy harder to bear than the students’ scorn? Sostratos didn’t know. But if the ground had opened beneath his feet and dropped him down to the house of Hades, he wouldn’t have been sorry to escape the dreadful moment. He had to force out the answer through lips that didn’t want to say it: “Papyrus, O best one.”

  “Papyrus?” Now Theophrastos forgot all about the young men who’d been strolling with him. He hurried forward, an eager smile on his face. “Are you really? By the dog of Egypt, that’s wonderful news! We were running low, and I wondered when we’d ever see any again.

  You are a friend in need!” He stood on tiptoe and kissed Sostratos on the cheek.

  Several of his students hurried up, too, all of them exclaiming about how much they needed papyrus. “Have you got ink, too?” one of them asked.

  “Yes, I do.” Sostratos hoped he didn’t sound too cold: that young man had been one of those who’d laughed hardest when he said he’d come to the Lykeion on business. Now that he turned out to have something this rich, pampered fellow wanted, he rated politeness—at least till his back was turned.

  I don’t belong here anymore, Sostratos realized, and the pain of that realization tore into him like knives, like fire. They’ve gone their way, I’ve gone mine, and I can turn around, go back, and pick up where I left off. If I write my history—no, when I write my history, it will have to be from the perspective of a man of affairs, not from that of a lover of wisdom.

  Tears stung his eyes. He turned away for a moment, to keep Theophrastos and the others from seeing them. I could have done this. Even Theophrastos thinks I might have done well if I had. I could have—but I won’t.

  Theophrastos tugged at his arm. “Come back to the residence, my dear,” he said. “I don’t want to let you get away. Let’s make this deal as quickly as we can, so that, if we find anything worth knowing, we will be able to set it down for posterity.” He waved to his students. “We are done for the morning, my friends. We shall return to the nature of the ridiculous another time.”

  “I was almost here a couple of years ago, in a different capacity,” Sostratos said, and told Theophrastos about the gryphon’s skull and its loss.

  His old teacher seemed less impressed, less interested, than he’d expected. With a shrug, Theophrastos said, “These peculiar bones do turn up now and again, I admit. My own view of them, though, is that they are more the province of temples and priests than of students of philosophy.”

  “Why?” Sostratos asked. “Isn’t learning that the gryphon was in fact a real beast and not something out of a legend a worthwhile addition to natural philosophy?”

  “It would be, yes, if the bones demonstrated that beyond conceivable doubt,” Theophrastos said dismissively. “But, since they are so often ambiguous—to say the least—and since we don’t have them here before us, this is surely but one of many possible interpretations. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  He smiled, as if sure Sostratos couldn’t do anything but agree. Without the gryphon’s skull in hand, Sostratos could only smile back. Had he had the skull, Theophrastos might have said the same thing. What old bones meant didn’t seem to interest him much. If Theophrastos had said the same thing, Sostratos would have been tempted to break the skull over his head.

  As things were, he had to get his revenge another way. They walked back to a medium-sized house where the Lykeion had its home; it was not far from the house of the polemarkhos, the Athenian official in charge of military affairs—a man whose job was much less important than it had been in days gone by. A slave brought wine as they sat on a stone bench in the courtyard. Theophrastos said, “And what do you want for the papyrus you were kind enough to bring us?”

  He’d already made the mistake of admitting the Lykeion badly needed the writing material. And he’d made the mistake of putting Sostratos’ back up. The sympathy Sostratos might have felt—had felt—for the place where he’d studied flickered and blew out when Theophrastos showed no interest in even hearing much about his stolen gryphon’s skull. And so he answered, “Four drakhmai a roll, most noble one.”

  “What?” Theophrastos yelped. “That’s robbery! A lot of the time, it costs only a third of that.”

  “I’m sorry, best one,” Sostratos replied. “I confess I was robbed by the supplier who sold it to me”—which was true—”and I can’t hope for a profit on less”—which was less than true.

  “Robbery,” Theophrastos repeated.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Sostratos said. “I do have to live, as you said yourself. If you can’t meet my price, I’d better talk to the folk at the Academy. I wanted to come to you first, out of the affection I felt for this place, but. . . .” He shrugged.

  “The Academy?” Theophrastos looked like a man smelling bad fish when he heard the name of Athens’ other leading school. “You wouldn’t deal with them? Nothing they turn out is worth writing down, anyhow.” Sostratos only shrugged. Theophrastos glowered at him. “Well, it’s plain to see you haven’t kept all the ideals we tried to inculcate in you.”

  Sostratos shrugged again. Theophrastos turned red. Sostratos got his price.

  Protomakhos waved a farewell to his house slaves, and to Menedemos and Sostratos. “Hail, all,” he said. “I’ll be back eventually, with wreaths and ribbons on my head and a torchbearer lighting my way home. My head will ache tomorrow morning, but the time T have tonight should make it all worthwhile.” Out the door he went.

  One of his slaves said to another, “And he’ll wake everybody up when he gets home, banging to be let in.”

  “Isn’t that how it always goes?” the second slave replied. They both used Greek. Maybe they’d been born into slavery and knew no other tongue, or maybe they came fro
m different lands and had only Greek in common.

  Menedemos didn’t care how much noise Protomakhos made when he came reeling home after a symposion. He cared only that the Rhodian proxenos was leaving the house and wouldn’t be back for hours. With any luck at all, he could sneak up to Xenokleia’s room.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Sostratos whispered as they stood in the courtyard.

  “I wouldn’t think of being stupid,” Menedemos answered, also in a low voice. “Stupid people get caught.”

  “What can you get from her that you can’t get in a brothel?” Sostratos asked.

  “Enthusiasm—and you know it,” Menedemos replied.

  His cousin turned away. Menedemos took that to mean that Sostratos did indeed know it. Whether it might also mean that Sostratos didn’t approve regardless of whether he knew it or not . . . Menedemos didn’t bother worrying about that. He ran his hand along the side of his jaw. He’d shaved in the morning, so his face was smooth. That was good. If he rubbed olive oil on his cheeks now and started scraping away, the house slaves would be bound to wonder why.

  Protomakhos’ cook served the Rhodians nice white barley rolls for sitos and some sort of fish baked in cheese for opson. The cheese helped obscure what sort of fish it was, which probably meant it wasn’t anything fancy. After supper, Menedemos said, “Myrsos wouldn’t have tried getting away with that if his master were here.”

  “It wasn’t bad,” Sostratos said.

  “No, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t up to what we’ve been getting when Protomakhos eats with us,” Menedemos said. “The cook got to put a few oboloi into his own mouth. Or else dear Protomakhos said, ‘I’m not going to be here tonight, so don’t bother spending much on supper.’“

  “He wouldn’t do that!” Sostratos exclaimed in dismay. “I don’t think he would, anyhow. No, he wouldn’t—the wine was the same as we always have here.”

  “Was it?” Menedemos considered. “Yes, I suppose it was. But if he had an open jar, dipping some out is nothing.” Their couches sat close together in the andron; they could talk without fear of being overheard.

  “You’re just looking for reasons to dislike him so you’ll feel better about sneaking upstairs to lie with his wife,” Sostratos said.

  Now Menedemos turned away. That held more truth than he cared to admit. He yawned and spoke in a loud voice, one he wanted Protomakhos’ slaves to hear: “I’m going to bed early tonight. I had a busy day in the agora, and I’m beat.”

  “Suit yourself,” Sostratos said, and then, in lower tones, “Shall I bar your door—from the outside?”

  “Funny. Very funny,” Menedemos said sourly, “You should write comedies. You’d run your precious Menandros straight out of business.”

  “I have no more idea how to write a comedy than . . . than I don’t know what,” Sostratos said. “What I don’t want to have to do is figure out how to write a tragedy.”

  Having got the last word, he went to his own room. He didn’t slam the door behind him. That might have shown the slaves he and Menedemos had been quarreling. Menedemos knew his cousin wasn’t showing restraint for his sake. Sostratos was showing it so they wouldn’t get in trouble doing business in Athens. But the reason didn’t matter much. That Sostratos was showing restraint did.

  Menedemos went to his own room and closed and barred the door. He blew out the lamp. No one outside could tell he wasn’t going to bed. He even lay down on the wool-stuffed mattress. The bedframe creaked, taking up his weight. He caught himself in a yawn. If he really did fall asleep here . . . Sostratos would be delighted, he thought, but Xenokleia wouldn’t.

  Not wanting to give his cousin the chance to gloat would have been reason enough to stay awake, even without the other. He waited and waited and waited. He wished moonlight spilled under the door to help him gauge the passage of time, but the room faced the wrong way and the moon hadn’t risen anyhow. And, for this, darkness was better.

  When he judged enough time had gone by to leave him likely the only one awake down here, he got out of bed and tiptoed to the door. Halfway there, he paused to yawn. Everyone else might be—had better be—asleep, and he was sleepy. Then why are you doing this? he asked himself. Why don’t you just lie down again and get up in the morning?

  He stopped in the middle of the dark room. He’d never really wondered about why before. That sort of question was much more likely to occur to Sostratos than to him. The answer that formed in his mind was, Because I can. Because I always have when I saw the chance.

  Was that reason enough? Sostratos, surely, would have said no. But Sostratos lay in the room next door. He was probably tight-lipped with disapproval even in his sleep. Menedemos thought of Xenokleias waiting arms. He hoped Protomakhos’ wife wasn’t asleep. If she was . . . If she is, I’ll feel like a proper idiot when I sneak back down the stairs. And oh, how Sostratos will laugh when he finds out in the morning!

  Menedemos silently slipped the bar from the brackets that held it in place. He opened the door. It scraped a little as it swung on the dowels that held it to the lintel and to a flat stone with a mounting hole set into the rammed-earth floor beneath it. Menedemos stepped out into the courtyard, closing the door behind him. He looked around. Everything was quiet and still. After the absolute darkness inside his bedchamber, starlight seemed full-moon bright.

  Heart thudding in the mix of anticipation and fear he always found so intoxicating, he tiptoed toward the stairs. Up he went. One, two, three, four, five. . . The sixth step creaked. He’d almost frightened himself to death discovering that the first time he sneaked up to Xenokleia’s bedroom. Now he took a long step up from the fifth stair to the seventh and went on his way, silent as a lion stalking its prey. No lions on Rhodes, of course, but they still prowled the Anatolian mainland not far away.

  The upper landing. To the right around the corner. His heart pounded harder than ever. If anyone discovered him here, no excuse could be good enough. His prokton puckered. How big were those radishes with which Athenians were allowed to punish adulterers?

  But then he forgot about radishes, forgot about fear, forgot about everything. For faint, flickering yellow lamplight spilled out from under Xenokleia’s door. She had been waiting for him! He hurried forward and tapped on the door, ever so lightly, with the nail of his forefinger.

  Footsteps inside. Xenokleia opened the door. Menedemos’ jaw dropped. She stood there naked and smiling, holding the lamp. “Come in,” she whispered. “Hurry.”

  As soon as he did, she blew out the little flame. Darkness descended like a thick blanket. “I wanted to see more of you,” Menedemos murmured.

  “Too dangerous,” Xenokleia answered. He muttered, but she was doubtless right. She reached out, found his hand, and set it on the soft, firm flesh of her breast. “Here l am.”

  “Oh, yes, darling,” He squeezed.

  She hissed and took an involuntary step back. “Be careful,” she said. “They’re sore. I remember they were the other times I got pregnant, too.”

  “Sorry.” Menedemos pulled his chiton off over his head. “I’ll be very careful. I promise.”

  Xenokleia laughed, but only for two or three heartbeats. Then she said, “We’d better hurry. We can’t know for sure when he’ll come home.”

  “I know.” Menedemos remembered jumping out a window in Taras when a husband who’d quarreled with his brother returned from a symposion hours before he should have. The Rhodian found the way to Xenokleia’s bed even in the dark. Why not? He’d been there before.

  He kissed her. He caressed her. He teased her breasts, and didn’t do much more than tease them. His hand glided down between her legs. When they joined, she rode him like a racehorse. That kept his weight from coming down where she was tender. He went right on stroking her secret place after they joined. Some women found that too much; others thought it was just enough. By the way Xenokleia arched her back and growled deep in her throat, she was one of the latter.

  Her final moan of deli
ght was almost loud enough to make

  Menedemos clap a hand over her mouth. He was glad he’d roused her. He didn’t want her rousing the household slaves. But then his own pleasure burst over him, and he stopped worrying about that or anything else.

  She sprawled down onto him, careless of her sore breasts. He ran a hand along the sweat-slick curve of her back. After a kiss, he asked, “Is the baby mine?”

  “I don’t know for certain,” Xenokleia answered. “I did what you said—that was clever, and I can’t say it wasn’t. So I can’t know—but I can tell you which way I’d bet.”

  “Ah.” So far as Menedemos knew, he hadn’t left any cuckoo’s eggs in other nests before. He still didn’t know, not for sure. But if his seed wasn’t stronger than that of a man more than twenty years older . . . Then it wasn’t, and Protomakhos would have himself a legitimate child.

  Xenokleia kissed him again. Then she said, “You’d better go downstairs.”

  “What I’d rather do is—”

  She tossed her head. “That would take a while now, and we may not have the time.” She was right—right that it would be risky, and right that his lance would need a bit to stiffen from boiled asparagus to iron. If we’d met five years earlier. . . But then, how long did Protomakhos need between rounds? Days, certainly. Poor old fellow, Menedemos thought with a young man’s heartlessness.

  The Rhodian found his chiton by the door and slipped it on. He opened the door. “I hope we find more chances,” he whispered as he stepped out.

  “So do I,” Xenokleia called after him. He shut the door. She barred it after him. As he tiptoed downstairs—again skipping the creaky one—he thought, Good. At least I kept her sweet. She won’t tell tales to her husband. Her being pregnant will help keep her quiet, too. She won’t want him wondering whether the baby’s his.

  He looked out across the courtyard from the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. All quiet. Quick as a lizard, he scurried to his room and closed the door behind him. A long sigh of relief. No Sostratos here now. No Protomakhos lying in wait, either. I got away with it again.