Over the Wine-Dark Sea

6

The Aphrodite's boat came through the light surf and beached itself a couple of hundred stadia southeast of Taras - that was Menedemos' best guess of the landfall. He dipped his head to a couple of the rowers. "Take this bastard" - he pointed at Alexidamos - "off and untie his hands. Let him tend to his feet himself. It should take him a while - we tied him tight."

"What if the barbarians find me before I get loose?" Alexidamos said. He had a black eye where Sostratos had hit him.

I expect I'd have cut his throat just then, Menedemos thought. He said, "Tough luck. You've got nobody to blame but yourself. I ought to keep your gear, too. If you say one more word, I will."

Alexidamos shut up. The sailors hauled him out of the boat like a sack of barley. They dumped his canvas duffel beside him; his weapons and armor clattered together. A man freed his hands. Then the sailors and Menedemos shoved the boat out into the water again, scrambled into it, and rowed back to the Aphrodite, which lay two or three stadia offshore.

"Who are the barbarians hereabouts?" a sailor asked.

"I think the Salentinoi live in these parts," Menedemos answered. "They're a lot like the Illyrians, over on the other side of the Adriatic."

"Nasty bastards, then," the sailor said. "I hope they do come for Alexidamos. What makes it even worse is, he's from Rhodes just like us."

"I don't care where he comes from," Menedemos said. "I only hope I never see him again."

When they came alongside the Aphrodite, Sostratos gave Menedemos his hand and helped him up into the akatos. "Thank you," Menedemos' cousin said again. "I thought you were going to - I don't know what I thought you'd do when the bird went overboard."

Menedemos hadn't know what he would do when the peahen sprang into the Ionian Sea, either. His first impulse had been to do something a great deal more drastic than what he did. He explained why he hadn't: "You're flogging yourself harder right now than I could if I tried for a year."

"That's true." Sostratos hesitated, then added, "I know that's true. I didn't know if you'd know it."

"Well, I do." Menedemos looked back toward the shore. "I don't see Alexidamos. He must have got loose. Too bad." Then he looked toward the westering sun. "And we won't make Taras by nightfall, either. That's too bad, too."

"I don't suppose you intend to beach us for the night?" Sostratos said.

"Not likely!" Menedemos exclaimed. "Do you think I'm mad, or just stupid? These Italian barbarians would land on us like a fox on a rabbit." Only when one corner of his cousin's mouth curled up ever so slightly did Menedemos realize he'd been had. He stabbed out an accusing finger. "You set me up for that."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Sostratos might have convinced a jury, but he didn't convince Menedemos.

Here close to the mainland, the wind didn't blow steadily out of the northwest any more. Menedemos ordered the sail lowered from the yard. The sailors sprang to obey. They'd spent a lot of time taking turn and turn again at the oars, and were glad to let the breeze push the akatos along for a while. The Aphrodite probably would have gone faster had Menedemos kept the men rowing, but he didn't worry about it. They wouldn't have made Taras before sundown if he'd tried a sprint with a man at every oar. That being so, he was content to loaf along with the fickle breeze.

"Sail ho!" Aristeidas called, and pointed out to sea.

"Maybe we'll see what all that rowing practice got us," Diokles said.

"Maybe," Menedemos said. The lookout's call had been plenty to bring the crew back to full alertness. He liked that.

But the sail, when they got closer, proved to belong to a little fishing boat. Menedemos relaxed. So did his crew. The fishermen tried to flee, as fishermen usually did on spotting the Aphrodite. The wind, though, chose that moment to fail. Menedemos put some men on the oars and easily overhauled the boat.

When the frightened fishermen found out he aimed to trade and not to rob, they were so relieved, they gave him enough squid to feed the whole crew to the point of gluttony in exchange for a couple of jars of wine - not golden Ariousian, but the rough red the men drank at sea. Fried in olive oil on little charcoal-burning braziers, the squid smelled wonderful. Menedemos' mouth watered. His belly rumbled.

"Sitos is all very well," he said, "but we can be opsophagoi to our hearts' content tonight."

"I'll eat bread with my squid," Sostratos protested.

But Menedemos pounced. "Ha! From your own mouth you stand convicted. If you weren't going to be an opsophagos, you'd eat squid with your bread."

Sostratos considered that, then dipped his head. "Guilty, sure enough." He grinned. "Why not? We've got plenty." He popped a little one into his mouth.

The sun was still low in the east the next morning when the Aphrodite came to Taras. Plenty of ships were on the water there: fishing boats like the one whose crew they'd frightened, beamy merchantmen, and a couple of patrolling fives. One of the war galleys came up to give the akatos a closer inspection.

"We're the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes," Menedemos said in some annoyance as an officer shouted questions. "We're not fornicating pirates, and I'm getting tired of being taken for one." He cupped a hand behind his hear. "What's that? Cargo? We've got fine Khian wine - the best - and papyrus and ink, and Rhodian perfume and Koan silk for your ladies. And we've got peafowl and peafowl eggs, the likes of which you've never seen here in Great Hellas."

"We hope they've never seen them," Sostratos said softly.

By the way the Tarentine officer exclaimed in astonishment, that hope looked like coming true. "Go ahead, Aphrodite," the fellow called when he'd regained his composure. "Pass on into the Little Sea and tie up where it suits you. Good trading."

"Thanks." Menedemos let himself be mollified. And he had a question of his own: "What's the news in the war between Syracuse and Carthage?"

"Not good for the Hellenes," the Tarentine answered. "From what we hear, Carthage may be able to lay siege to Syracuse, maybe even by land and sea at once. I don't know what Agathokles can do to save his polis this time."

"That's not good," Menedemos said, to which the officer aboard the five dipped his head. Menedemos turned to the mercenaries he'd brought west from Cape Tainaron. "If you want to go on to Syracuse, you'll have to get there on your own. Doesn't look like we'll be sailing to Sicily this season."

"Not if you're smart, you won't," the Tarentine officer agreed. "If Syracuse falls, that will give Carthage rule over the whole island, and then she's liable to come after us next. I wish Alexander hadn't died before he could head west and smash up the Carthaginians the way he did the Persians."

Like any Rhodian, Menedemos worried more about Macedonian marshals left over from Alexander's day. But he politely said, "That is too bad," and added, "What are things like in the Hellenic cities along the west coast of Italy? The war between Syracuse and Carthage isn't troubling them, is it?"

"Not very much - they're too far away," the Tarentine answered. "The Samnites and the Romans are still brawling up in those parts, though. But that's a land war, and shouldn't trouble you - neither set of barbarians has much in the way of a fleet."

"Thanks," Menedemos said. The Tarentine didn't even think of pirates. In a five, he didn't need to unless he was hunting them. But any trader who sailed into Italian waters - any trader who ventured far from Rhodes, for that matter - had to keep them in mind.

Her three banks of oars working in smooth unison, the five glided away from the Aphrodite. Menedemos waved to Diokles. The oarmaster struck his bronze square with his mallet. The merchant galley's rowers, who'd rested while their captain talked with the Tarentine officer, began to stroke once more. Menedemos guided the ship through the narrow entranceway into the Little Sea, the enclosed lagoon that gave Taras perhaps the finest natural harbor in all of Great Hellas.

Taras itself lay on the eastern spit of land forming the mouth of the lagoon. Small boats, some of them close enough to let Menedemos see the nets they trailed in the water, dotted the calm surface of the Little Sea. "Do you suppose they actually catch anything?" Sostratos asked as he came up onto the poop deck. "Is there anything left to catch, after they've been fishing here so long and so hard?"

"There must be something, or they wouldn't try," Menedemos said.

His cousin pondered that, then slowly dipped his head. "I suppose you're right, but none of them will get rich."

"When did any fisherman anywhere ever get rich?" Menedemos returned. "Hang of a way to make a living." Sostratos agreed with that much more quickly than he had with Menedemos' earlier opinion.

Diokles pointed. "Look, skipper - there's a pier where we can tie up. See it? The one not far from the shipsheds where they keep their galleys dry, I mean."

"Yes, I see." Menedemos' eyes swept the harbor. "Looks good, and nobody else seems to be making for it, either." He pulled one steering-oar tiller forward, the other back, and guided the akatos toward the pier.

"Easy there - easy," Diokles told the rowers as the Aphrodite came alongside. "Back oars . . . a couple more strokes, stop her nice and smooth. One more . . . Oöp!" The rowers rested. Longshoremen trotted up the pier toward the Aphrodite. Sailors near the bow and stern tossed them lines. They made the akatos fast.

"What are you carrying?" one of them asked in the broad Doric spoken through most of Great Hellas.

"We have papyrus and ink," Menedemos answered in a loud voice: not only the longshoremen but also the usual gaggle of spectators were listening. "We have the finest perfume, made from Rhodian roses. We have fine Koan silks and fine Khian wine - not just Khian, mind you, but Ariousian." That sent a hum through the Tarentines, though Menedemos doubted whether any of the people standing on the wharf could afford the splendid wine. He struck a dramatic pose. "And, for the very first time ever in this part of the world, we have for sale a peacock, five - uh, four - peahens, and eggs to yield more peafowl."

That produced another buzz, but less than he'd hoped for and expected. A moment later, somebody's question explained why the buzz was subdued: "Just exactly what kind of a thing is a peacock, anyways?"

Before Menedemos could answer, the thing in question let out one of its horrible, raucous screeches. Smiling, he said, "That's a peacock."

"You're selling it for its pretty song, right?" a wag in the crowd asked, and got a laugh from the Tarentines.

Menedemos laughed, too. He said, "I'll show you why we're selling it. Sostratos . . ." He waved to his cousin, who'd already gone up onto the foredeck. This would be a free show, unlike the ones they'd put on at other stops. They hoped to do business here.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Sostratos said, fumbling with the hooks and eyes on the cage, "behold - the peacock!" He threw open the door. The bird, however, declined to come forth. That drew more laughter. Sostratos muttered something uncomplimentary to every bird ever hatched. Having cared for the peafowl all through the voyage, having finally failed to keep one of them from leaping into the sea, he loathed them with a pure, clean loathing that far outdid Menedemos' dislike for them. "Behold the peacock!" he repeated, and got ready to drag out the bird by main force.

But, perverse as usual, it chose that moment to emerge on its own. And then, instead of running around and making a nuisance of itself as it often did, it peered up at the people on the pier like an actor looking up at the crowd in a theater - and, like an actor taking his cue, spread its tail feathers as wide as they would go.

"Ahhhh!" That was the sound Menedemos had hoped to hear when he announced they had peafowl for sale. It was a little late, but it would do.

"That's a pretty bird, sure enough, but what good is it?" somebody asked.

"If you're pretty enough, you don't have to be anything else," Menedemos replied. "What good is a beautiful hetaira?"

The wag spoke up again: "I'm not doing that with a peacock!"

He got another laugh. Menedemos didn't have a comeback ready. But Sostratos said, "A polis with a peacock is surely more splendid than one without. You'll be the envy of all the other cities of Great Hellas, and of the local barbarians, too." Menedemos feared the response was too serious, but it seemed to go over well.

"How much do you want for that creature?" asked a fellow whose threadbare chiton made him a most unlikely candidate to buy.

"Ah, that would be telling," Menedemos said slyly. "Suppose you ask the man who buys him, and see if you get a straight answer."

"Fat chance," the Tarentine said mournfully. Menedemos smiled. That's just what it is, he thought: a chance to get fat. And I intend to make the most of it.

Taras' central district had the streets laid out in a neat Hippodamian grid. Farther west, they ran every which way, as they had throughout the city in the old days. Sostratos rented a house right on the border between the grid and the alleyways. But for the peafowl, he would have sold from the ship or from a stall in the agora, but he didn't want to keep them caged up any more than he had to. They could also be displayed to better advantage strutting around the central courtyard than huddled behind wooden slats.

"And," Menedemos said, "this is a much more comfortable arrangement for us."

"That's not why I did it," Sostratos said.

"I know." Menedemos grinned at him. "That doesn't make it any less true."

Sostratos started to get huffy. Before he launched into a lecture, though, he checked himself - that was just what his cousin wanted him to do. "All right," he said mildly, and Menedemos looked disappointed.

"Maybe we should have got a stall, too," Menedemos said.

"If our goods don't move so well as we'd like, I'll get one," Sostratos said. "But for now, I think going through the agora and letting people know where we are and what we've got for sale will work well enough. We've already moved a lot of the Ariousian - and all that papyrus, too."

Menedemos laughed out loud. "Didn't that Smikrines say he was going to write a history? You should have made him promise to have a copy made for you when he finished."

"If I'd thought he'd do it, I would have," Sostratos answered.

"If you thought he'd do which?" Menedemos asked. "Finish the work, or have a copy made once he did?"

"Either one," Sostratos said. "Writers are an unreliable lot." He knew that was true. How much writing had he done himself, after all? What he wanted to do was leave behind a work to rival those of Herodotos and Thoukydides, but what was he doing? Selling wine and silk and peafowl and papyrus and perfume.

You're traveling, he told himself. Herodotos traveled all over the world so he could learn things at first hand, and Thoukydides went all over Hellas and got to know men on both sides of the Peloponnesian War. If you don't see things and come to know about people, your history can't possibly be any good.

That was some consolation, but only some. To keep Menedemos from knowing what was in his mind - and perhaps to keep himself from dwelling on it, too - Sostratos said, "I'm going over to the market square myself."

"You just want to make me keep an eye on the peafowl for a while," Menedemos said, which also held some truth. But Sostratos' cousin slapped him on the back. "Go on, then. I don't blame you. You had charge of them all the way from Rhodes to here."

Taras' agora lay a few blocks south of the rented house, close by the Ionian Sea - the Tarentines called it the Big Sea, in contrast to the Little Sea that was their sheltered harbor lagoon. Fishermen sold their wares there. So did potters and weavers and cobblers and netmakers and all the other sorts of craftsmen who worked in the city. And so did merchants from other Hellenic poleis and Italians from the interior with wool and tanned hides and honey and other products of the countryside.

Some of the customers were Italians, too. A good many of them wore tunics and mantles like Hellenes, and couldn't be told from Tarentines till they opened their mouths and spoke Greek with an accent. Others, though . . . In the midst of calling out the wares the Aphrodite had brought from Rhodes, Sostratos broke off and asked one of them, "Excuse me, sir, but what do you call that garment you're wearing over your chiton?"

"It is called a toga," the Italian answered in good Greek. "I am a freeborn citizen, so I have the right to wear it."

"I see. Thank you," Sostratos said. "Do you mind my asking how you wear it?"

"You Hellenes are always curious, and about the strangest things, too." The Italian's eyes twinkled. "Well, why not? You ask politely enough, I must say." He pulled off the toga and displayed it for Sostratos in his outstretched arms.

"What an unusual shape for a piece of cloth," Sostratos exclaimed. "We Hellenes just use rectangles, which are simple. This is . . . a broad octagon, except that two of the sides are curved instead of straight. Now I have another question: why do you wear such an oddly shaped mantle?"

"It's our custom," the stranger replied with a shrug. "Many people here in Italy wear the toga. We Samnites do, and so do the Lucanians, and even our enemies the Romans farther north. As for how we wear it . . ."

He folded the toga in half at its broadest point, then draped it over his left shoulder so that one corner was level with his left foot. He wrapped the rest of the garment over his back under his right arm, and back over his left shoulder again, then slowly turned so Sostratos could see how the enormous mantle covered him.

"Thank you very much," Sostratos told him. "I hope you will not mind if I say a himation seems much less . . . cumbersome."

"No, I don't mind," the Samnite answered. "I often wear a himation myself. But I am Herennius Egnatius, a man of some importance among my people, and so I sometimes wear the toga to show who and what I am."

To Sostratos' way of thinking, a barbarian coming into a Hellenic city should have wanted to make himself look as much like a Hellene as he could. He gave his own name, and clasped the Italian's hand. Then he stroked his beard in thought. If this Samnite with the cumbersome name was important, he might well be rich. And if he was rich . . . "Sir, as I've been saying all through the agora, among the things my cousin and I have brought from the east are fine Khian wine - Ariousian, in fact; the best of the best - and several peafowl. I am sure no Samnite today is lucky enough to own a peacock. In fact, the birds we brought are the first of their kind in Great Hellas." He wasn't absolutely sure that was true, but he thought so - and no one in Taras seemed to have seen one before.

"I know something of good wine," Herennius Egnatius said. "But what sort of a bird is a peacock?" He pronounced the unfamiliar name with care. "If I have one of these birds, will it show I am a man not of the common sort?"

"That it will, O best one - it will indeed." Sostratos coughed delicately. "Because these birds are rare, you will understand that we do not sell them for a few oboloi."

"Of course," the Samnite said. "One of the marks of a man's distinction is what he can afford. Is your ship in the harbor on the Little Sea?"

"Yes, but Menedemos - my cousin - and I have taken a house here in Taras, the better to show off the peafowl to men who might want to buy them," Sostratos said.

Herennius Egnatius drew himself up very straight. He was at least a palm shorter than Sostratos, but, like Menedemos, acted as if he were taller. "Take me there," he said. "My toga made you curious. Your . . . peafowl do the same for me."

Sostratos thought about going through the agora for a while longer, but then wondered why. He'd been trying to drum up customers, and here he . . . might have one. Worth finding out, he decided and dipped his head to the Samnite. "Come with me."

Aristeidas looked surprised when he knocked on the door to the rented house. "I didn't expect you back so soon, sir," he said.

"This foreign gentleman" - Sostratos nodded to Herennius Egnatius - "is interested in peafowl."

Just then, the peacock started screaming. Herennius Egnatius' eyes widened. "What is that appalling racket?" he asked.

"Those are the noises peafowl make." Sostratos wished he hadn't had to admit it quite so soon. He also wished Menedemos hadn't chosen that precise moment to shout, "Oh, shut up, you miserable, polluted thing!"

Herennius Egnatius smiled a thin smile. As the funny man at the harbor had, he said, "I take it you do not sell them for the beauty of their song?"

"Well . . . no." Again, Sostratos admitted what he could hardly deny. He tried to rally: "Come with me to the courtyard, and you'll see why we do sell them."

He led the Italian through the entry hall and into the rather cramped courtyard at the center of the house. There stood Menedemos, hands on hips, glowering at the peacock. Maybe he'd dozed off and it had wakened him. And there stood the peacock himself, his ocellated tail fully spread as he displayed himself to a peahen that took no notice whatever of him. Maybe that's why he's screaming, Sostratos thought - in some ways, the peacock wasn't so different from a man.

"Oh," Herennius Egnatius said softly, and then something in his own language - Oscan, Sostratos supposed it was. The sounds weren't so very different from those of Greek, though of course Sostratos couldn't understand the words. After a moment, the Samnite recovered and returned to Greek: "Now I do understand. What is your price?"

"Before we speak of such things, let me introduce you to my cousin, Menedemos son of Philodemos," Sostratos said. "Menedemos, here I have Herennius Egnatius, who is interested in peafowl."

Menedemos instantly went from grouchy to charming, clasping the Italian's hand and saying, "Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. May I get you a cup of wine? It's just a local vintage, I'm afraid, though if you should want our Ariousian I could get you a sample."

Herennius Egnatius shook his head; as it did to Himilkon the Phoenician and to many other barbarians, that meant no to him. "The local wine will do well enough for me. I am looking for a way to make myself stand out. Many traders bring fine wine to Italy; some even bring it up to Samnium. But I have never seen such a bird as that." His eyes kept going back to the gleaming polychrome splendor of the peacock's plumage.

"We have only the one peacock." Menedemos stuck his thumb in the air to emphasize the point. "We have four peahens, and we have - how many eggs now, Sostratos?"

"Twenty-nine," Sostratos answered: he was the fellow who kept track of things. "The first of them should start hatching in less than half a month."

"Thanks." Menedemos dipped his head and went on, "Twenty-nine eggs, then. Unless you make us an extraordinary offer for the peacock, we would rather sell you a peahen or some eggs, to let you start your own flock in . . .?"

"I live in Caudium." The Samnite shook his head again, and pointed at the peacock. "This is the bird I want. I will also buy a peahen, so that I may breed peafowl for myself."

He didn't lack for arrogance. Gently, Sostratos said, "As my cousin told you, you would have to make an extraordinary offer, because we probably would not be able to get so much for the other peahens and the eggs without the peacock to show what the buyer is really getting."

"I understand," Herennius Egnatius said. "I also understood your cousin. For the pair of birds, I will pay five minai of silver in the money of Taras."

"Five minai." Sostratos did his best to sound thoughtful rather than delighted. That was a good deal more than Menedemos and he had paid for all six peafowl. Of course, the Samnite didn't know what they'd paid.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than Menedemos said, "I'm sorry, sir, but we do have to make a profit. Ten minai for the pair would, but five?" He tossed his head. If he had any trouble concealing his delight, he didn't show it.

"I am sure you would make a profit on ten minai," Herennius Egnatius said. The haggling began. It followed familiar lines - except that the Samnite didn't realize how high his opening offer was. Sostratos and Menedemos made sure he didn't figure it out, either: they bargained with him as hard as if that first offer were outrageously low. By fighting over every drakhma, they made him think it was.

"Is the Tarentine drakhma lighter or heavier than ours?" Menedemos asked as the dicker drew toward a close.

"A little heavier," answered Sostratos, who'd had to change money - and to pay the fee for doing it.

"Well, shall we take eight minai, fifty drakhmai, then?" Menedemos said.

But now Sostratos was the one to toss his head. "No. I think eight minai, seventy-five drakhmai is the least we can take. I hate going below nine minai at all." He folded his arms across his chest and gave Herennius Egnatius as stony a stare as he could. He didn't think the Samnite would walk away from the deal - the fellow had already talked himself into buying the birds, which meant he had to talk the men who owned them into selling.

And, sure enough, Herennius Egnatius nodded to show he agreed. "I shall pay you eight minai, seventy-five drakhmai of Taras for the peacock and a peahen," he said, and held out his hand. Sostratos and Menedemos clasped it in turn. The Samnite went on, "Let me go back to the house of my guest-friend. My slaves and I will bring you the money this afternoon."

"That will do," Sostratos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. Sostratos went on, "If you don't mind my asking, why did you bring so much money here to Taras in the first place? It can't have been for peacocks."

"No," Herennius Egnatius said. "I came here to buy a fancy woman and bring her back with me. But your birds will set me apart from my neighbors even better. Anyone can buy a fancy woman, but not just anyone can have a peacock."

"I see," Sostratos said, and he did, too. A social climber, that's what he is. Sostratos had to fight to hold his face straight. Who would have thought a backwoods Italian town spawned social climbers?

Anticipation in his voice, Herennius Egnatius added, "I should like to see Gellius Pontius match me now." He bowed to Sostratos, and then to Menedemos. "Thank you, gentlemen. I shall see you this afternoon."

As soon as he'd left, Menedemos said, "Aristeidas!"

"What is it?" asked the sailor serving as doorman.

"Hurry over to the Aphrodite," Menedemos answered. "Round up six or eight sailors and get 'em back here as fast as you can. Have 'em bring swords - not knives, swords - and wear helmets if they've got 'em. Don't waste time - get moving."

Aristeidas dipped his head and was gone. Sostratos said, "You don't think - ?"

"That he'd try to steal the birds instead of paying for them?" Menedemos shrugged. "The Samnites are warriors, which means they're robbers if they see the chance. If he doesn't see the chance, I think he'll be mild as overwatered wine and sweet as honey."

Sostratos didn't have to ponder that for very long before he said, "You're probably right. Better safe than sorry."

"Just what I thought myself," Menedemos said. "I'm going to wear my sword, too. And you ought to dig yours out and belt it on."

"Me?" That hadn't occurred to Sostratos. "But I'm a hopeless dub when it comes to fighting."

"You know that, and I know that, but Herennius Egnatius doesn't know it," Menedemos said. "All he knows is that you're taller than anybody has any business being and that you'll have a sword on your belt. Nobody who hasn't seen you working in the gymnasion wants any trouble with you."

The obvious implication was that anyone who had seen Sostratos at his exercises wouldn't worry about him very much. Since the obvious implication was true, he said no more than, "Let me rummage through my gear. I hope I didn't leave the blade back on the Aphrodite."

"You'd better not have!" Menedemos exclaimed.

"Taras is a civilized city," Sostratos said with dignity. "Am I a barbarian, to go armed inside a polis?" But then, automatically looking at the other side of things, he went on, "Of course, Taras isn't an ordinary polis, like the ones back in Hellas, not with the Italian barbarians just over the border. And there are some towns farther north that used to be Hellenic, but that the Italians have overrun."

"Thanks for the history lesson, but save it for another time," Menedemos said dryly. "What you need to do now is find that sword."

Sostratos went through the two duffel bags he'd brought from the ship. Somewhat to his own surprise, he discovered the sword at the bottom of the second one. The bronze scabbard slapped against his left thigh after he put on the sword belt. He felt as if he should lean a little to the right to compensate for the weight of blade and sheath.

Menedemos, by contrast, looked quite impressively martial with a sword on his hip. "What I wish I had is a hoplite's spear," he said. "But there's not much point to bringing one aboard ship, is there?"

Someone knocked on the door to the rented house. "If that's the Samnite here so soon, I wish you had a spear, too," Sostratos said. But it wasn't - it was Aristeidas, back from the Aphrodite with half a dozen men, Diokles among them.

"So you've sold a couple of birds, have you?" the oarmaster said. "That'll make a nice pile of silver, I expect. Don't blame you a bit for wanting to make sure you get it." He carried a stout, iron-headed club in place of a sword. Sostratos wouldn't have wanted to stand against him.

A couple of the sailors looked a little the worse for wear from wine, but they all seemed ready to fight if it came to that. Sostratos hoped it wouldn't. But his cousin was right: being ready for trouble made it less likely.

Half an hour later, another knock sounded. Sostratos opened the door again. There stood Herennius Egnatius. He had a sword on his hip, too. The four stocky, broad shouldered men at his back didn't look like slaves - they looked like soldiers. They all wore helmets, three of bronze, one of iron. One of them did carry a spear; the others wore swords. Seeing the blade on Sostratos' belt, the Samnite said, "I don't care to be robbed carrying money through the streets."

"Of course not," Sostratos answered smoothly. He stood aside. "Come in."

The Samnite's retainers and the sailors from the Aphrodite eyed one another. Herennius Egnatius took the armed Hellenes in stride. "I see you are men who let no one use you unjustly," he said. "That is very good."

"Not that you would have done such a thing," Sostratos said, not raising an eyebrow - much.

"Of course not," Herennius Egnatius said blandly. "Perhaps it is just as well that we have no misunderstandings."

"Indeed." Sostratos' eyebrow climbed a little higher. "I hope you did bring the money as well as your retainers, on the off chance you might need it."

"I did." If Herennius Egnatius noticed Sostratos' sarcasm, he didn't acknowledge it. He spoke to one of his own men in Oscan. Again, Sostratos was struck by how similar the sounds of the language were to those of Greek, though he could make out none of the words. The Samnite had to repeat himself, raising his voice the second time; his retainers were as captivated by their first sight of the peacock as he had been. The bird's display even kept them from sending quite so many mute challenges to the sailors from the Aphrodite.

The leather sack the Samnite retainer handed to Sostratos was nicely heavy with silver. "I thank you," Sostratos said. By the shrug the Samnite gave him, the fellow knew no Greek. Sostratos turned back to Herennius Egnatius. "As soon as I have counted the coins, the birds are yours."

Counting out 875 drakhmai took some little while. There were fewer than 875 coins in the sack, for it held didrakhms and tetradrakhms as well as the pieces of silver worth a single drakhma. Not all of them were Tarentine coins; a fair number came from Syracuse. Sostratos went into a back room and weighed a Syracusan drakhma against a Tarentine counterpart. When the coin from Syracuse proved heavier, he came back and went on counting without another word.

At last, he dipped his head. "This is payment in full for the peacock and for one peahen," he said formally, and held out his hand to Herennius Egnatius. As formally, the Samnite clasped it.

"How shall I take the birds back to my guest-friend's house?" Herennius Egnatius asked.

"If you'd like, I can sell you the cages in which we brought the birds from Hellas," Sostratos replied. "Or, if you would rather, you can put ropes round their necks so they don't run away. I wouldn't try just herding them through the streets of Taras - they can run about as fast as a man can."

Herennius Egnatius drew himself up straight again. Speaking as proudly as a Hellene might have, he said, "I think five men can control two birds." He switched languages. After a couple of sentences of Oscan, his followers nodded. They thought they could handle the peafowl, too.

Sostratos shrugged. "The birds are yours, O best one. Do with them as you please. You asked me a question, and I answered it as best I could."

Maybe a couple of the Samnites had experience herding geese, for they managed to chivvy the peacock and peahen out the door and onto the street without too much trouble. Sostratos closed the door after them. When he came back into the courtyard, Menedemos said, "There's two of the miserable birds gone, anyhow."

"Many good-byes to them, too," Sostratos said. "May we get rid of the rest soon." The two cousins both dipped their heads.

Gylippos was a fat fellow who'd made a fortune in dried fish. His andron was large and, by Tarentine standards, splendidly decorated, though to Menedemos the wall paintings, the couches, and even the wine cups in the men's chamber were gaudy and busy. Gylippos himself was gaudy, too, with heavy gold rings on several fingers.

He wagged one of those fingers at Menedemos, who reclined on the couch next to his. "You were a naughty fellow, selling that barbarian the one peacock you had," he said.

Menedemos answered, "He paid me well. His silver's as good as anyone else's." Better than yours would have been, he thought, because you'd have been careful to give me the exact weight of metal we agreed on, and not an obolos more. Had all cities coined to the same standard, life would have been simpler. As things were, the fellow who took pains in his dealings with money had the edge on the man who didn't.

Gylippos wagged that finger again. His slaves had already cleared away the supper plates - he'd served squid and octopus and oysters and eels with the sitos: no dried fish for his guests - but the symposion that would follow hadn't started yet. He said, "And the scene he made in the streets getting the peacock to the house where he's staying! My dear fellow, you couldn't have done more to build demand for the birds if you'd tried for a year. Everybody saw the peacock, and everybody wants it."

Sostratos shared the couch with Menedemos. As usual, Menedemos had taken the head, though his cousin was older. Sostratos hadn't complained; he never did. He did speak up now, though: "That parade was the Samnite's idea, not ours. I offered to sell him two peafowl cages. I even suggested that he use ropes to keep the birds from running every which way. He wouldn't listen."

"And so," Menedemos added with a grin, "he had half the people in Taras chasing his precious peacock - and the peahen, too. You're right, best one" - he inclined his head to Gylippos - "we couldn't have made more folk notice the birds with anything we did on purpose."

"You certain couldn't." The purveyor of dried fish looked past Menedemos to Sostratos. "As for trying to tell an Italian anything, well . . ." He tossed his head. "I don't think it can be done. Samnites are stubborn as mules, and the Romans to the north of them are just as bad. It's no wonder they're bumping heads again."

"Again?" Sostratos looked interested. Menedemos recognized the eagerness in his cousin's voice - he hoped he'd find out about some obscure bit of history he hadn't known before. Sure enough, Sostratos went on, "They've fought before?" It was, Menedemos supposed, a harmless vice.

"Yes, a generation ago," Gylippos answered. "The Romans won that fight, and the Samnites went to war with them again ten or twelve years ago. They won a big battle early on, but the Romans were too stubborn to quit, so they've just been hammering away at each other ever since."

Another guest of Gylippos', a Tarentine with a face like one of the host's dried fish, said, "The Samnites who overran some of our poleis in Campania are almost civilized these days."

"Well, so they are, Makrobios - some of them." But Gylippos didn't seem much impressed. "And some of the Hellenes who have to live under their rule are almost civilized, too, if you know what I mean. Greek with an Oscan accent is ugly whether it comes out of a Samnite's mouth or out of a Hellene's."

"It sounds better than Greek with a Latin accent," Makrobios said.

"What's Latin?" Menedemos and Sostratos asked the question at the same time.

"The language the Romans speak," the fish-faced Makrobios answered. He held up his hand with the fingers spread. "We say pente. When the Samnites mean five, they say pumpe - not much different, eh? So you can understand a Samnite when he talks Greek."

"That Herennius Egnatius didn't speak badly," Menedemos agreed.

"But when the Romans mean five, they say quinque" Makrobios pronounced the barbarians' word with obvious distaste. "I ask you, how can anyone who makes noises like that learn good Greek?"

"Some of those Campanian cities are doing pretty well for themselves, though, even if they've got Samnites ruling them," Menedemos said. "I was thinking of taking the Aphrodite up that way after I've done all the business here I can."

Makrobios shrugged. "Whatever you like, of course. Perhaps I'll see you again afterwards. On the other hand, perhaps I won't, too." His clear implication was that perhaps nobody would see Menedemos again afterwards.

With some irritation, Menedemos asked, "Do you think I'd be wiser to go to Syracuse? I don't, by the gods."

"Well, neither do I," the Tarentine admitted. "Unless Agathokles does something extraordinary, I don't see how he can keep Carthage from taking his city. And he's been ruling Syracuse for seven years now, so I don't know what he can do that he hasn't already done."

"You see my problem, then," Menedemos said. "I'm not going to turn around and go straight back to Hellas when I leave Taras, so what else can I do?"

"Believe me, I'm glad it's not my worry." Makrobios leaned forward. "Tell me, what price are you asking for peafowl eggs?"

"Thirty drakhmai," Menedemos answered at once; he and Sostratos had been over that ground, and had sold a couple of eggs at that price. "From their size, I'd also say you'd do better to have a duck or a goose brood them than a hen."

"And suppose I spend thirty drakhmai and the egg doesn't hatch? What then?" Makrobios demanded.

It was Menedemos' turn to shrug. "I'm afraid that's the chance you take. I'm not a god, to look inside an egg and tell whether it's good or bad."

"We'll soon have chicks for sale - for a good deal more," Sostratos added. "You can save some money if you want to gamble a little."

"You'll ask something outrageous, I'm sure," Makrobios muttered.

Menedemos smiled his suavest smile. "You have some fellow citizens who don't think so. You even have a barbarian neighbor who didn't think so. If you want to be among the first, O best one, you have to pay the price. If we had the second shipload of peafowl into Taras, we couldn't charge nearly so much - because the first ship would have."

Makrobios looked so unhappy, he might have been a hooked fish. But he said, "The house you're renting is north of the market, isn't it? Maybe I'll see you tomorrow." Before Menedemos could answer, Makrobios pointed to the doorway. "Ah, here come Gylippos' slaves with the wine."

Menedemos pointed in surprise. "Those are jars of our Ariousian."

"I sold them to his majordomo this afternoon," Sostratos said, a little smugly. "You were dickering with somebody over a peahen."

"Krates the potter," Menedemos answered in a low voice: the man in question reclined a few couches away. "He wouldn't meet our price."

"Well, Gylippos' majordomo did. He talks so strangely, he may be one of these Romans." Sostratos leaned forward to whisper in Menedemos' ear: "And now we get to drink some of the wine we just sold. I quite like that."

"So do I." Menedemos chuckled.

Gylippos' slave poured some of the Ariousian into the metaniptron from which they drank the first, neat, toast of the symposion and poured the libation to Dionysos. The guests murmured appreciatively. Menedemos wondered if they would be appreciative enough to elect him symposiarch, but they chose Krates instead. Menedemos wasn't surprised or offended; the potter was one of their circle, while he was a guest.

Krates was a solid man in his late thirties or early forties, handsome enough that he'd probably been much pursued as a youth. "Ariousian, eh?" he said, and Gylippos dipped his head and waved to Menedemos and Sostratos to remind the men in the andron where it had come from. Krates stood up and declared, "Since the wine is so very fine, let it be mixed one to one with water."

Everyone clapped. Menedemos laughed out loud. Turning to Sostratos, he said, "It's not his wine, so why shouldn't he mix it lavishly?"

"We're all going to get very, very drunk." Sostratos sounded disapproving. "I don't remember the last symposion I went to where they mixed it one to one. That's too strong."

"No wonder you don't remember, then." Menedemos laughed again. His cousin looked annoyed at him for deliberately misunderstanding. Menedemos had been at a good many symposia where the wine went around evenly mixed with water. They weren't like the ones at his father's house, or his uncle's, but they were fun in their own right. He asked Gylippos, "Where's that house called 'the trireme'? I know it's somewhere in Great Hellas. Is it here?"

" 'The trireme'?" Sostratos echoed. "I don't know that one."

"I do," their host said. "No, it's not here - it's in Akragas, on the south coast of Sicily. The symposiasts got so drunk, they thought they were in a storm at sea, and started throwing furniture out the windows to lighten ship. When people heard the racket, they came by to see what was going on and started carrying off couches and tables and chairs, and the fellow whose house it was had a nasty time getting things back once he sobered up." He grinned. "That's what I call a symposion."

He didn't seem to mind Krates' ordering strong wine. Back in Hellas, the Italiotes had a reputation for debauchery. Sostratos still looked primly unhappy. Menedemos enjoyed his father's symposia, but he enjoyed the wilder kind, too. Looking back to his cousin as the slaves mixed the wine, he said, "I don't think you'll have to remember your Euripides tonight."

"Probably not," Sostratos agreed, "though his verses ransomed some of the Athenians the Syracusans captured in the Peloponnesian War."

Instead of the long-dead past, Menedemos thought about the cup of potent wine Gylippos' slave - a short, broad-shouldered Italian - handed to him. Before drinking, he paused to admire the kylix. Its pure shape argued for the Athens of a hundred years before, but the yellow and purple glaze accompanying the usual red, white, and black and its obvious newness said otherwise. He nodded to Krates. "A work from your establishment?"

"Why, yes, as a matter of fact," the potter answered with a pleased smile. "How good of you to guess."

"It's nicely done," Menedemos said. Krates hadn't bought a peahen today, but he might come back.

He smiled again. "Thank you." He tasted the wine. His eyebrows rose. "Oh, this is very fine. I'm fond of the local vintages - don't get me wrong - but this makes them seem like vinegar by comparison. If you don't mind my asking, what did Gylippos pay?"

"Sostratos?" Menedemos said; he didn't know himself.

"I don't mind at all," his cousin said. "He paid forty-eight drakhmai the amphora."

Menedemos waited for Krates to wince. And Krates did, but not too badly. "That's steep," he said, but then he sipped again. "I can see why he paid it, though." A couple of other symposiasts also made enthusiastic noises.

"You'll understand, O best one, it wasn't cheap for us at Khios," Menedemos said, "and the one drawback of a merchant galley, of course, is the high cost of the crew's wages. I really don't see how I can come down." He'd sold for less at Cape Tainaron, but Tainaron was a good deal closer to Khios. And the Tarentines didn't need to know what he'd sold it for there.

Two flutegirls came in, one with a single flute, one with a double. They both wore short tunics of thin, gauzy linen. Before they began to play, Menedemos called out to them: "Hail, girls! Who's your master? He might want to know I've got fine Koan silk for sale, so transparent the men'd be wondering if you were wearing anything at all. You'd probably get some extra tips for yourselves that way, too."

"We belong to a man named Lamakhos, sir," replied the girl with the double flute. "You can find him not far from Poseidon's temple." She sighed. "I'd like to wear silk."

"Thanks, sweetheart." Menedemos blew her a kiss. "You'd look good in it." She smiled at him in a marked manner. He smiled, too, even if he didn't think she was especially pretty. Pretty or not, a willing slave made a much better partner than one who was only doing what she had to do.

Sostratos said, "I don't know how you do it, but you always do. You've got her eating out of the palm of your hand."

"It's not that hard," Menedemos answered. "You could do it yourself, if you set your mind to it."

"I don't think that much of her looks," Sostratos said. Menedemos had expected him to say something like that. His cousin most often seemed to find reasons not to have a good time.

"Send the wine around again," Krates told Gylippos' slaves - sure enough, this symposion would center on drinking. The symposiarch waved to the flutegirls. "Let's hear some music, too." The girls raised the flutes to their lips and began to play a love song in the wailing Lydian mode. It wasn't a tune Menedemos knew, but a couple of guests started singing along to it.

He leaned over toward his host. "Is that a Tarentine song?"

Gylippos tossed his head. "I think it comes from Rhegion, the town right opposite Sicily on the Italian coast. It's been all the rage in Great Hellas for the past year or so, though."

"I wonder how I missed it when I was in these parts last summer." Menedemos shrugged. "These things happen."

As the two flutegirls played, a handsome young juggler came into the andron. He was naked; his oiled body gleamed in the torchlight. Gylippos' eyes and those of several other guests hungrily followed him as he kept a stream of balls and knives and cups in the air.

Menedemos turned to Sostratos. "He's not bad at all. How'd you like him to play with your balls?" His cousin had been taking a sip of wine. He snorted and spluttered and did a good impression of a man choking to death. Menedemos laughed. He held up his own cup to show the slaves it was empty. One of them hurried to refill it.

As the juggler went from table to table, Krates got up from his couch and came over to Gylippos. "What's next?" he asked. "Have you got dancers out there in the courtyard?"

"I certainly do," Gylippos answered, "a pair of Kelts from the Keltic country this side of the Alps. Are you ready for them to come on?"

"I think so," Krates said. "People are getting jolly, and there's nothing like a couple of naked girls to liven things up." He spoke to one of Gylippos' slaves, who went over to the doorway and called out into the darkness beyond.

The symposiasts clapped and whooped as the dancers, graceful as leopards, bounded into the andron and began turning cartwheels. Menedemos joined the applause, but more for politeness' sake than anything else. The girls were nicely shaped, but almost fishbelly pale, with hair the color of untarnished copper - not to his taste at all. Both of them also were several digits taller than he.

He took a pull at his cup of wine, then leaned toward Sostratos. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to bed a woman who looks like she can beat me up."

Sostratos didn't answer. After taking a look at his cousin, Menedemos doubted whether he'd even heard him. Sostratos was staring at the two redheaded dancers as if they were the first naked women he'd ever seen in his life, the expression on his face somewhere between awe and raw lust. "Aren't they beautiful?" he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Funny-looking, if you ask me," Menedemos answered. That made Sostratos notice him, and look at him as if he'd never heard anything so idiotic in all his born days. Menedemos patted him on the shoulder. "Never mind. Some men would sooner chase boys. Some like their women thin, others like them round. If you want to try to tame a wild Kelt or two, go ahead. You're bigger than they are, anyhow."

"They're - unusual," Sostratos said. Menedemos just shrugged. What was unusual, as far as he was concerned, was Sostratos' showing interest in women at a symposion. He was much more likely to want nothing to do with them.

"Enjoy yourself," Menedemos told him. "That's what they're for." He finished the wine in his cup, then set the kylix down and got to his feet. The andron seemed to sway a little as he rose. The Ariousian was potent to begin with, and cutting it with only its own measure of water left it still very strong. He dipped his head to Gylippos and walked out into the courtyard to ease himself.

However bright the torchlight was inside the men's room, it didn't reach far past the door. Menedemos paused for a moment to let his eyes adapt to the darkness outside, then walked over to the far wall and hiked up his tunic. Behind him, the snatches of song accompanying the flutegirls' music grew more raucous. Then a chorus of men's voices let out a loud, bawdy cheer. He knew what that meant: at least one of the girls had started doing something for one of the men. He hoped she'd chosen his cousin. Sostratos deserved more fun than he usually got.

As Menedemos turned to go back to the andron, a woman only a few cubits away gasped in surprise. "Who are you?" she said. "What are you doing here?"

She must not have noticed him in the gloom till he moved. He hadn't seen her, either. "I'm Menedemos son of Philodemos, one of Gylippos' guests," he answered. "And who are you, dear?"

"My name is Phyllis," she told him. "I came down from the women's room for some fresh air because it's so hot and stuffy up there, and I couldn't sleep with all the noise from the symposion. I didn't expect anyone inside there to notice me."

"I had to get rid of some of the wine I'd drunk." Menedemos tried to make out what she looked like, but didn't have much luck in the dim light. She wasn't taller than he was, though - on the contrary - and she sounded young. "How about a quick one, sweetheart? Do you want to lean forward against the wall?"

She laughed quietly. "You work fast, don't you?" she said, and then, giggling again, "Why not? Come over here where it's darker - and hurry."

"I'd follow you anywhere," Menedemos said. She led him into a corner that was dark indeed, then bent forward and down. Menedemos stood behind her and tugged at her chiton, then yanked up his own. He went into her from behind, his hands clutching her backside. She gave a little mewling cry of pleasure that would have worried him more had the andron not been so noisy - and had he not spent himself a moment later.

Phyllis quickly set her clothes to rights. "I've got to go back upstairs," she said. "You were sweet."

"Let me give you half a drakhma," Menedemos said.

She looked back at him over her shoulder as she hurried toward the stairway. "Did you think I was one of the house slaves?" Her laugh was all breath and no voice, but full of mirth just the same. With a toss of her head, she told him, "I'm Gylippos' wife." She hurried up the steps and was gone.

Menedemos gaped after her as if she'd hit him in the head with a rock. "Oh, by the gods," he muttered, "how do I get myself into these things?" But the answer to that was only too obvious - and getting into her had been most enjoyable. He laughed, too, though it wouldn't be so funny if his host found out.

When he strolled back into the andron, Gylippos said, "What were you doing out there so long? Diddling one of the slave girls?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," Menedemos answered - he couldn't very well brag to the husband he'd just cuckolded. The answer produced whoops from most of the couches. He rocked his hips forward and back, which produced more whoops. "She said it was too hot in the women's quarters, but I made it pretty hot out there, too."

"Resourceful Odysseus," Gylippos said.

But your Phyllis is no Penelope, Menedemos thought. He wondered if he would have taken her had he know she was the dried-fish magnate's wife. He didn't wonder long. He was no philosopher, but he knew himself pretty well. He hadn't put in at Halikarnassos because a certain prominent merchant there would have done his level best to kill him on account of the good time he'd had with the fellow's wife.

A slave handed him a fresh cup of wine. "Thanks," he said. "Looks like I'll have to drink this standing up - no room for me on my couch right now." Sostratos and the redheaded Keltic dancing girl with him were both big people, and the way they were thrashing about left the couch barely big enough for the two of them, let alone anyone else. The flutegirls and the juggler were entertaining other guests, while the other dancing girl, sweaty and unhappy, stood leaning against a wall: aside from Sostratos, nobody seemed much interested in an outsized barbarian bed partner.

By the time Sostratos finished what he was doing, Menedemos had almost finished his wine. He admired his cousin's stamina. So, evidently, did the Keltic girl. "I hadna thought to find sic a man amongst the Hellenes, indeed and I hadn't," she said in musically accented Greek. Sostratos' face lit up till he seemed to glow brighter than the torches. That that might well have been purely professional praise never seemed to enter the mind of Menedemos' usually so rational cousin. Menedemos didn't intend to enlighten Sostratos, either. A happy man was easier to deal with than a gloomy one.

Sounds of revelry came from the street. Somebody pounded on the door to Gylippos' house. When one of the house slaves opened it, another band of symposiasts swarmed into the courtyard and then into the andron. Wreaths and ribbons garlanded their hair; more dancing girls came in with them. They seemed a younger, rowdier, drunker crowd than most of Gylippos' guests.

Gylippos, by then, was far enough into his cups not to care. "Welcome, welcome, three times welcome!" he cried, and called to his slaves for more wine.

Sostratos woke the next morning with a head he would gladly have traded for anything small and worthless and quiet, not that anyone would have wanted his head in its present sorry condition. He dimly remembered reeling back to the rented house arm in arm with Menedemos behind a couple of torchbearers, each of them trying to sing louder than the other and both succeeding too well.

Then he remembered the Keltic girl. All at once, his head didn't hurt quite so much. Maybe he liked her looks because he'd bedded the red-haired Thracian slave his family owned. And maybe he'd bedded both of them because redheaded women appealed to him. He chuckled as he got out of bed and threw on his chiton. That sounded as if it might be the subject of one of the dialogues Platon had put in Sokrates' mouth, even if it was on the bawdy side.

When he walked out into the courtyard, Menedemos was scattering barley for the peafowl. Menedemos looked about the way Sostratos felt. He managed a smile nonetheless. "Hail," he said. "That was quite a night, wasn't it?"

"So it was," Sostratos agreed. "I could do with a little wine - well-watered wine - to take the edge off my headache."

"I've already done that," his cousin said. "It helps a little - not much."

"Nothing helps a hangover much." Sostratos went into the kitchen, dipped up some water from a hydria, and poured wine into the cup with it. After a few sips, he walked back out into the courtyard. "I was thinking I might go and find this Lamakhos' place today, to see if he wants to buy some of our silk to deck out his girls."

He kept his voice elaborately casual, but not casual enough. Menedemos laughed at him. "I know what else you're after. You want another look at that Kelt you had at Gylippos' - maybe another go at her, too."

"Well, what if I do?" Now Sostratos knew he sounded embarrassed. He wanted to rule his lusts, not let them rule him. But he did want to see the girl again, and he wouldn't have minded taking her to bed again, either - not at all.

"It's all right with me," his cousin said expansively. Menedemos rarely wondered about whether he or his lusts had the upper hand. He smiled an ever so knowing smile. "I did all right for myself last night, too, thank you very much."

"What? A quick poke with a slave girl out in the dark?" Sostratos said. "Since when is that anything to brag about?"

Menedemos looked around. Seeing none of the Aphrodite's sailors who guarded the rented house close by, he leaned toward Sostratos and spoke in a whisper: "She wasn't a slave girl, though I thought she was when I asked her. She was Gylippos' wife."

"Gylippos' . . . wife?" Sostratos repeated the words as if he'd never heard them before and had trouble figuring out what they meant. Then he clapped a hand to his forehead. "You idiot! He could have killed you if he'd caught you. He could have shoved one of those big radishes up your arse. He could have done anything he bloody well pleased, especially since you're a foreigner here."

"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.