Owls to Athens

by Harry Turtledove

  Ahead, the ground rose toward steep hills and then, farther southwest, toward Mount Atabyrion, the highest peak on . Damonax’s farm and olive groves—about whose products Sostratos knew more than he’d ever wanted to—lay near the lower edge of the steeply rising ground. It was good country for olives: not so near the coast that flies ruined the crop, but not high enough to let cooler weather damage it, either.

  Before Sostratos got to Damonax’s farm, he was glad he’d decided to hire the donkey instead of walking. It wasn’t so much that he’d shifted the pain from his feet to his hindquarters. But when a farm dog came rushing up, yapping and growling, the donkey lashed out with a clever hoof and knocked the dog sprawling. When it got up again, it retreated even more rapidly than it had advanced. Its yelps were music to Sostratos’ ears.

  “What a good fellow!” he exclaimed, and patted the donkey’s neck. He didn’t think that meant much to the beast. Getting off and letting it crop the lush green grass by the side of a creek counted for more.

  A couple of pigs with ridges of hair down their backs nosed through garbage by Damonax’s farmhouse. A nanny goat tied to a tree had nibbled the grass around it down to the ground and had stood on her hind legs to devour all the shoots and tender twigs she could reach. Chickens scratched and clucked between the farmhouse and the barn.

  Out of the barn came a middle-aged, sun-browned man in a short chiton and stout sandals. He scratched at his shaggy beard—a beard worn not in defiance of fashion like Sostratos’ but seemingly in ignorance of it—and crushed something between his thumbnails. Only after he’d wiped his hand on his tunic did he call, “If you’ve come to pick olives, you’re still a few days early, and you know you’re supposed to bring your own pole to knock the fruit off the trees.”

  Sostratos’ gaze went to the olive grove. Sure enough, the olives were ripening on the branches, getting darker and fuller of oil. He turned back toward the overseer. “I’m not here for the olive harvest. I’m Sostratos son of Lysistratos, Damonax’s brother-in-law. You must be Anthebas.”

  “That’s me, young sir. Hail, and pleased to make your acquaintance,” Anthebas answered. “I beg your pardon for not knowing you by sight. I was, uh, expecting someone grander.” He dug the toe of one of those sandals into the dirt to show his embarrassment.

  Someone better groomed and all perfumed, he means—someone like his boss, Sostratos thought without much anger. Sliding down off the donkey, he let out a sigh of relief and rubbed at his hams. Anthebas sent him a chuckle and a sympathetic smile. Sostratos said, “Damonax and my sister and their son are here?” That was what the slaves had said back in . If they’d been wrong, or perhaps lied for the sport of it, his fundament would get even sorer on the way back.

  But Anthebas dipped his head. He pointed to the farmhouse. “Oh, yes, sir. They’re in there. Would you like me to take care of your donkey?”

  “If you’d be so kind.” Sostratos went over to the door and knocked on it.

  He’d wondered if his brother-in-law would let him in himself. But Damonax didn’t carry rusticity so far. One of his slaves, a man Sostratos had seen in , did the honors. Unlike Anthebas, who spent all his time out here, this fellow recognized the new arrival. Bowing slightly, he said, “Hail, O best one. Welcome, in my master’s name. Please come in.”

  “Thank you, Atys,” Sostratos said, and the Lydian slave beamed as he stood aside, proud to have his own name remembered.

  Though Sostratos didn’t say so, the farmhouse struck him as cramped and dark, especially compared to the fine home where Damonax lived while staying in the city. It was simply one room after another to form a square; it wasn’t built around a courtyard as all city houses above the level of shanty were. That contributed to the gloom, for the only light in the rooms came through the windows, which were small and partly covered by shutters. Sostratos wondered why anyone would choose to live in such an uncomfortable place when he didn’t have to.

  “Hail, most noble one!” There was Damonax, handsome and elegantly turned out as always. “Good to see you.” He stuck out his hand.

  Sostratos clasped it. Damonax’s grip said he was holding back strength. Sostratos hoped his said he didn’t care about such petty games. “How’s your son?” he asked. “How’s my sister?” He could ask that, where inquiring after Damonax’s wife would have been rude.

  “They’re both very well, thank you,” Damonax replied. “Polydoros seems a very healthy little boy, for which the gods be praised.” He was a man of no great piety—which didn’t bother Sostratos, who wasn’t, either—but spoke with the air of someone taking no chances. Since so many children didn’t live to grow up, Sostratos couldn’t blame him.

  A wail from another room declared something had happened that the very healthy little boy didn’t care for. “How do you get used to living with all the noise a baby makes?” Sostratos asked with genuine curiosity.

  “It was hard at first, when he cried so often,” Damonax said. “Now, though, his mother or a slave takes care of it, and it doesn’t bother me too much.”

  That hardly seemed fair to Erinna. On the other hand, if caring for a baby wasn’t woman’s work, what was? Sostratos muttered to himself, caught between loyalty to his sister and expectations about the way things were supposed to work.

  Damonax asked, “And how did you find Athens?”

  “Oh, you sail north and west from Cape Sounion, and there it is,” Sostratos answered blandly. His brother-in-law stared, then let out an undignified snort. Sostratos went on, “Seriously, it could be better. You’ll have heard that Demetrios son of Antigonos drove out Demctrios of Phaleron?”

  “Oh, yes, and restored the Athenians’ old democratic constitution, and knocked the fortress of Mounykhia flat. That all sounds promising.”

  “I suppose it would. But have you heard how the Athenians paid him back for liberating them?” Sostratos asked. Damonax tossed his head. As Menedemos had with his father, Sostratos told him, finishing, “You see.”

  “Oh,” Damonax said, and then, as if conscious that wasn’t enough, “Oh, dear. I’d ... hoped for better from them.” If that wasn’t an expression of philosophical restraint, Sostratos had never heard one. Damonax asked, “Did you get out to the Lykeion?”

  “Yes.” Sostratos hoped the one-word answer would keep Damonax from asking any more questions about that.

  No such luck. His brother-in-law inquired, “And how’s old Theophrastos?”

  “He doesn’t seem to have changed much from when I studied there,” Sostratos replied truthfully. “He remembered me.” He could say that with more than a little pride.

  “Good. Good.” Damonax set a possibly friendly hand on his shoulder. “And what did he think of your . . . going into commerce?”

  To the crows with you, my dear, Sostratos thought, shaking off the hand. If I weren’t in commerce, if my family didn’t make a good living from it, you wouldn’t have been able to use Erinna’s dowry and the money we made from your oil last year to pay off the debts on this land. The way you talk, though, I might have been keeping a brothel full of pretty boys.

  He caught himself before any of that passed the gate of his teeth. He didn’t want to quarrel with Damonax (though he had to remind himself he didn’t): not only would it ruin this visit to the farm, but it also might make life harder and less pleasant for Erinna. That being so, he smiled back and answered, “He said he understood it was necessary for me to help support my family.” Now, with a certain malice, he set his hand on Damonax’s shoulder, as if to say his brother-in-law was part of the family he supported.

  “Er—yes.” Damonax’s smile went fixed. He took the point—took it and didn’t care for it. Sostratos had hoped he wouldn’t. Damonax changed the subject in a hurry: “Let me show you to your room.”

  That was unexceptionable. Sostratos dipped his head and followed his brother-in-law. The chamber was small and cramped, with barely enough room for a bed. It did boast a south-facing window, though, which
made it lighter than most of the house. Through the window, Sostratos could look out at some of the olive trees on the farm. Indeed, narrow, silver-green leaves from one of the closest trees would probably blow into the room when the wind came from the south.

  “Very nice, best one. Thank you.” Again, Sostratos remembered he didn’t want to quarrel with Damonax. He might have, if he didn’t fear locking horns with him would cause trouble for his sister. Since he did, he tried to walk soft.

  His brother-in-law also took a moment and visibly composed himself before saying, “If you like, you can rest here before supper, and I’ll have a slave wake you if you’re not up by then.”

  Now Sostratos’ smile was broad and genuine. “By the dog, I’ll take you up on that. One of the nuisances of life aboard ship is that you can never grab a nap in the afternoon. After a while, you get used to going without it, but I like one when I have the chance.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Damonax slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Sostratos used the chamber pot under the bed, then lay down. The mattress was thinner and lumpier than the one back home, but far softer than the planking. And travel had taught him to sleep nearly anywhere. He dozed off almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

  Next thing he knew, someone was knocking on the door and saying, “Supper is ready, most noble one,” in accented Greek.

  The noise went on till Sostratos said, “I’m up. I’ll be there in a moment.” He rubbed sleep out of his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair and beard. He knew he wouldn’t be so elegant as Damonax come what may. That being so, he didn’t try too hard.

  Because he was Erinna’s brother, she and the baby dined with him and Damonax. “Good to see you, my dear,” he told her. “And my goodness, but Polydoros is getting big.” His nephew rewarded him with a smile wide enough to show top and bottom teeth.

  “He’s a good boy.” Erinna smiled, too. She looked tired. Even though Damonax’s slaves did a lot of the work of raising Polydoros, a mother had to do quite a bit, too, and it told on her.

  “Here’s the sitos,” Damonax said as a slave carried in snowy-white barley rolls and olive oil in which to dip them. Proudly, he added, “All of it grown right here on the farm.”

  “That’s good,” Sostratos said. Then he tried one of the rolls, still warm from the oven. “Mm! That’s very good.”

  “I’m so glad you like the oil.” Damonax’s voice had an edge to it.

  “My dear, I never said I didn’t like it. I merely said the wasn’t the right ship to carry it, and Athens wasn’t the right place to take it.”

  Erinna said, “Let’s enjoy the supper, shall we, and not squabble over it?” Both her brother and her husband dipped their heads.

  Cheese and olives appeared for opson. They too were products of the farm. Sostratos wondered if they would be all the opson there was. That would make a rustic supper, all right—more rustic than he really cared for. But then a slave brought in a ham on an earthenware platter; the platter, ironically, was decorated with pictures of fish, a far more common fancy opson.

  Damonax did the honors with a carving knife not much smaller than a hoplite’s shortsword. He hacked off a generous chunk close to the shinbone that stuck out from the meat and gave it to Sostratos. “We raised the pig here, too,” he declared, “and smoke the meat with our own wood.”

  “It’s delicious,” Sostratos said after he took a bite. “Do you eat meat here as often as you’d eat fish in town?”

  “Not quite,” Damonax answered, at the same time as Erinna said, “No.” He sent her a hard look. She flushed and stared down at the ground. He’d wanted to give Sostratos the impression of greater abundance than he really had, and she’d spoiled it for him. It’s your fault, not hers, Sostratos thought. She just told the truth.

  The wine that went with dinner was severely ordinary. Sostratos praised it anyway, asking, “Is this also from the farm?”

  “It certainly is,” Damonax answered; as Sostratos had hoped, the question put him in a better humor. “As a matter of fact, I crushed some of the grapes myself.”

  Had Menedemos said something like that, Sostratos would have made a crack about being able to taste his feet. But his brother-in-law didn’t take gibes like that in stride, and so he refrained. No matter how angry I get at Menedemos, there’s no denying he can laugh at himself. Damonax? No.

  “So you’ll want to visit the Valley of the Butterflies tomorrow?” Damonax asked.

  “If it’s not inconvenient, yes,” Sostratos answered. “I’ve heard of it since I was small, of course, but I’ve never had the chance to see it.”

  “We’ll go, then,” Damonax said. “It’s not inconvenient. I told you I’d show it to you if you came out here. You’re back from Athens a little sooner than I thought you would be, so I’m sure they’ll still be there.”

  “Good.” Sostratos manufactured a yawn to show he was tired and didn’t much feel like talking. “I look forward to it.”

  Damonax dipped his head. Something in Erinna’s eyes glinted. His sister knew him too well, and knew he wasn’t so tired as all that. She didn’t give him away, though. When Damonax went out of the room to tell a slave to bring in lamps, Sostratos grinned at her. Erinna smiled back.

  “Is everything all right?” Sostratos asked her in a low voice.

  “Everything is fine,” she answered. “I’ve had a son, and I haven’t caused any scandal. How could things be better?”

  Did she sound bitter, or just matter-of-fact? Sostratos couldn’t tell, and didn’t dare ask. He’d never worried about how Hellenes treated women. He still didn’t, not in any general way. But he worried a lot about how Damonax treated Erinna.

  His brother-in-law came back. The slave followed a couple of minutes later. The lamps he set out fought the gloom without vanquishing it. As twilight deepened, their small yellow pools of radiance seemed weaker and more fragile by the moment. Sostratos yawned again, this time in earnest.

  “You must be tired,” his sister said—she could take a hint, even if Damonax seemed to have trouble.

  “A bit,” Sostratos admitted. “The nap helped less than I’d have liked.” A slave with a lamp led him to his room. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep right away, but there wasn’t much else to do. He hadn’t brought a book, and reading by lamplight was an unsatisfactory business anyhow. He stretched out on the bed and looked up at the beams of the ceiling. A little gecko with sticky feet scurried along upside down, on the prowl for moths and mosquitoes and spiders.

  The next thing Sostratos knew, the room was dark except for a thin, pale strip of moonlight slanting in through the window. The smell of hot oil still lingering in the air said the lamp hadn’t gone dry long before. Yawning, Sostratos reached under the bed and pulled out the pot. After easing himself, he lay down again. He watched the moonlight creep across the floor for a little while. Then sleep claimed him once more.

  He woke with the morning sky going from deep blue toward predawn gray: early, but not impossibly so. Noises from the rest of the house said he wasn’t the first one up. From the days when he was a boy and Erinna a baby, he remembered that infants woke up whenever they wanted to, not when anyone else wanted them to.

  Sure enough, when he made his way to the dining room, he found a slave woman there feeding Polydoros bits of barley roll and heavily watered wine. A lot of the wine dribbled down the baby’s chin. “Hail, sir,” the woman said. “I hope he didn’t bother you.” If Polydoros had bothered Sostratos, she might get in trouble.

  But he tossed his head. “No, I woke up on my own. Can you bring me some rolls and oil and wine for my breakfast, or tell me where to get them for myself? “

  “I’ll get them for you, sir,” the slave said. “Will you make sure he doesn’t wiggle off this chair while I’m gone?”

  “Of course.” Sostratos stuck out his tongue at his nephew. The baby’s eyes widened. He gurgled laughter—and then he stuck out his tongue, too.

&n
bsp; Sostratos was halfway through his breakfast when Damonax came in. “Hail,” his brother-in-law said. “Ready for an early start, are you?”

  “I’d rather travel in the morning than in the heat of the day,” Sostratos answered. “Will we go by donkeyback or walk?”

  “I was planning to walk.” Damonax eyed Sostratos’ feet. “Do you want to borrow a pair of shoes? Mine might fit you, or Anthebas’ if they don’t.”

  “Kind of you, best one, but don’t put yourself to the trouble,” Sostratos said. “I’ve spent too much time at sea, and fallen into the habit of staying barefoot wherever I go.”

  Damonax shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a breakfast much like Sostratos’. He ate quickly, so he finished not long after his guest. Rubbing crumbs off his hands, he said, “Shall we be off, then?”

  “Lead the way. I’ll stay with you.”

  When Sostratos went outside with Damonax, he saw the sun shining to the north. Damonax’s farm remained shadowed a little while longer, for the mountain to the east shielded it from sunrise. Damonax set a brisk pace, heading up toward the peak. He seemed surprised when Sostratos had no trouble keeping up with him. “Your feet really don’t trouble you,” he blurted.

  “No, not at all.” Sostratos tried to hold amusement out of his voice. “I can’t recall the last time I wore shoes, and my soles are hard as leather. I’d say we could race, but you know where you’re going and I don’t. Even if I knew, you’d probably win; I’ve never been a fast runner.”

  Damonax cocked his head to one side, plainly having trouble believing that. “But didn’t you fall just short of going to the Olympic Games a few years ago?”

  “Me?” Sostratos laughed at the absurdity of the notion. Then he snapped his fingers. “1 know why you think so. That wasn’t me—that was Menedemos.”