Salamis, p.28
Salamis, page 28
“Soaking it in cold water may help a bit.” Yes, Sostratos did fancy himself as at least something of a physician.
“Thanks a lot, Asklepios!” the mercenary jeered. Ears afire, Sostratos mumbled some kind of farewell and went off to shed his kit and scrape away the sweat and oil on his body. He knew he’d never practice with that particular soldier again. He wondered if he’d practice at all after this. Getting killed later seemed better than getting humiliated now.
That made no sense. The rational part of him understood as much. But the rational part of him was also coming to recognize that it didn’t rule all the time. Philosophers insisted that it should. Maybe it did for some of them. Sostratos wished it would for him. He couldn’t make it do any such thing, though, try as he would.
And, the older he got, the more he suspected it didn’t even for others who called themselves lovers of wisdom. Philosophers quarreled with one another no less than ordinary men did—they were just more eloquent about it.
They fell in love—and out of it—no less than ordinary men did, too. Even Sokrates, probably the wisest of them all, had stayed married to Xanthippe till the Athenians made him drink hemlock. She’d also cared for him in her own fashion. As he waited to take the poison, she’d wailed, “I don’t want you killed for something you didn’t even do!”
To which he’d replied, “Would you want me killed if I had done it?”
Neither Platon, Xenophon, nor anyone else had recorded her response to that. Sostratos imagined a comic playwright’s crack: something like, The only time a man ever got the last word!
He put on his chiton and left the gymnasion with his kit in his arms. That was the kind of thing Menedemos should come up with. Menedemos didn’t even pretend to be rational all the time.
As if thinking of his cousin conjured up the man himself, Sostratos ran into him before he got halfway home. “Hail!” Menedemos said. “What have you been up to?”
Sostratos hefted his corselet and helm. “What you’d expect—working out in the gymnasion, trying to learn how not to get killed.”
“How not to get killed? There’s a noble ambition! How did you do?”
Sostratos let out a horrible noise, one that would do for a death rattle, and made as if to slump to the ground. Straightening, he said, “Not too well, I’m afraid.”
His joke worked better than he dreamt it would. Menedemos laughed till tears ran down his face, laughed and laughed and had trouble stopping. At last, wiping his face with his forearm, he choked out, “Oh, my dear, you’ve gone and flattened me. You should tell stories in the taverns, the way some men who fancy themselves for their wits do. You’d run them all out of business, and make more money than you do on trading runs.”
“Did you bring home some poppy juice from Egypt?” Sostratos asked, less rhetorically than he’d intended. “You sound like a man who’s taken too much of it—you’re all full of hallucinations and phantasms.”
“I don’t think so,” his cousin said. “I’ve never laughed so hard for them as I did for you just now.”
Sostratos didn’t think tavern comics were funny, either—certainly not so funny as they thought they were. “Have you made some kind of special comparison lately?” he enquired.
Menedemos tossed his head. “Not me. I haven’t laughed much about anything lately. There doesn’t seem to be much to laugh at, for Rhodes or for the family. Or there didn’t, till you slew me just now.” He started giggling again.
“We made a fine profit coming back from Alexandria, even without selling Ptolemaios’ weapons to the polis,” Sostratos said. “As long as Rhodes does all right, the family should, too.”
Only a moment before, he’d wondered how to get Menedemos to quit laughing. Now he’d gone and done it, without even knowing just what he’d done. His cousin suddenly seemed as serious, even as somber, as if someone had jammed a stopper into the amphora that held his mirth. In a voice like winter, he replied, “Well, you don’t know everything there is to know, do you?”
“Plainly not, O best one,” Sostratos said, bewildered at the sudden mood swing. “How can I, though, if you won’t tell me anything?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Menedemos said: such an obvious lie that Sostratos just looked at him. Even under his seafarer’s tan, Menedemos flushed. “There isn’t, curse it!” he insisted.
“There may not be anything you care to tell,” Sostratos said, “but that’s not the same thing, is it?”
Menedemos stalked away. Sostratos took a step after him, then stopped. He could—sometimes—tell when something wouldn’t do any good. This was one of those times.
XVII
Menedemos had just bought some bread with fried cheese on it in the agora when a man strolling by told his companion, “Well, he’s gone and done it.”
“Who’s gone and done what?” the second man asked, which saved Menedemos the trouble.
“The Ptolemaios. He’s gone and put a crown on his own noggin now that Antigonos and Demetrios have started wearing them.”
“How do you know that?” The news-bearer’s friend couldn’t have done a better job of asking Menedemos’ questions for him if he’d rehearsed for a month.
“I heard it from someone who heard it from a ship just in from Paphos.”
“Oh.” The friend considered that. After a moment, he said, “I suppose the Demetrios doesn’t have such a tight hold on the southwest of Cyprus, even after Salamis has fallen.” He might have been a stage magician, only he was picking thoughts out of Menedemos’ head instead of drakhmai from his ear.
Cutting short his own wanderings through the market square, Menedemos hurried home. When he walked in, his father was talking about a fine-looking piece of tuna with Sikon the cook. Menedemos said, “You’ll never guess what I just heard.”
“What? That Ptolemaios has named himself king, too?” his father said. “Pretty soon, the only Macedonian who isn’t wearing a crown will be some knacker who carves up dead farm animals in the hills back of Pella.”
“I just heard it now,” Menedemos said in annoyance. “How did the news get here ahead of me?”
“I heard it in the fish market, young master, and brought it back myself,” Sikon said smugly.
“Ah,” Menedemos said. The fish market, naturally, lay next to the harbor. Any news from the sea would get there before it reached the agora.
“Everyone knew it was coming—more a matter of when than of if,” his father said. “Ptolemaios wouldn’t let Antigonos and Demetrios outrank him for long. And I hear that out in the east, Seleukos has been calling himself a king for a while now when he deals with barbarians—though he hasn’t had the crust to do it with Hellenes.”
“He will from now on,” Menedemos predicted.
“No doubt you’re right. He wouldn’t want to seem a mere general among all those ancient monarchs. They might not let him sit at the same table with their glorious selves when they all gather for supper.” Philodemos could be as sardonic about the great and powerful as he could about his own son.
Menedemos sent him an odd look. “That’s almost the kind of thing I’d look to hear from Sostratos, not from you.”
“I could do worse. Your cousin’s a clever youngster. Even the Ptolemaios—I beg your pardon, even his Magnificent Majesty, King Ptolemaios—thinks so,” Philodemos replied, still in that dry mood. “I could do worse than imitate him. And so could you.”
“I doubt it. If I tried, I’d think myself to death inside a month. And now, sir, if you’ll excuse me—” Menedemos didn’t wait to learn whether his father would excuse him or not. He turned on his heel and strode out of the kitchen.
As he made for the front door, he heard Sikon say, “Do you have to twit him like that?”
“Bah!” his father said. “He takes everything the wrong way. Why, he—”
What mistakes he’d made now, Menedemos didn’t wait to hear. He opened the door, then quietly closed it behind him, cutting off the voices from inside the house. He wanted to slam the door. He’d done that often enough, after one run-in or another with his father. But he held back this time, for fear of frightening Diodoros.
No, he’d never know if the baby was his. Bound to be just as well, he told himself, not for the first time. If he did know, he might throw it in his father’s face in a fit of fury. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have them, gods knew. When the two men clashed, they struck sparks off each other, as stones sometimes did.
Even Baukis couldn’t name Diodoros’ sire. That bothered Menedemos, too, in a different way. He didn’t want to look at the tiny boy—or at her—and imagine his father caressing her, imagine his father penetrating her. Of course his father did just that; he was Baukis’ husband, after all. But imagining it made Menedemos want to behave like one of the characters in the tragedies that Sostratos admired more than he did.
When he was away at sea, none of that mattered, or not so much. Hundreds or thousands of stadia from Rhodes, he didn’t think about it … except when he did. Whether he thought about it or not, he couldn’t do anything about it then. Maybe he wasn’t so clever or rational as his clever, rational cousin, but he was smart enough to get that.
But when he was home again, under the same roof as his father and Baukis …. That had been bad every winter since he’d found himself drawn to his stepmother. It had been worse last winter, when he took her as she was coming home from her women’s festival and when she found she was going to have a baby. Now the baby was here. Menedemos wanted Baukis more than ever, and she had no time even to think of him.
He drank more than he’d been in the habit of doing. He didn’t drink as much as he wanted to. As he’d feared what Baukis might blurt out in the pangs of labor, he feared what he might say if Dionysos seized his tongue in an unguarded instant. He did his best not to leave himself open to unguarded instants.
When he headed for the door late in the afternoon a couple of days later, his father asked, “Where are you off to now?”
“To Simaristos,” he answered truthfully. Simaristos ran far and away the grandest brothel in Rhodes.
Philodemos frowned. “Do you think we’re made of silver, the way Talos was made of bronze in the myth?”
Menedemos had been sure his father would say something like that. He was ready for it. Dipping his head, he said, “By the gods, sir, I do. After everything Sostratos and I brought back from Egypt, we’ve got plenty to let me have a good time if I fancy one. And you know it as well as I do, too.”
He didn’t sound defiant: more like a man stating facts so obvious, they shouldn’t really need stating. His father opened his mouth, but closed it without saying anything. After a couple of heartbeats, he tried again. “Well, enjoy yourself, then,” he managed.
No matter how gruff and grudging he sounded, that was more than Menedemos had looked for from him. “Thank you, Father,” he answered, and left the house whistling.
“Philodemos’ son! This is an unexpected pleasure!” Simaristos said when Menedemos walked in. The brothelkeeper rubbed his hands together, anticipating profit.
“That’s what I’m after—unexpected pleasure,” Menedemos said. Simaristos laughed; anything a client said was funny.
Octopus stewed in garlic sauce wasn’t exactly an unexpected pleasure, but was a savory one. So was Thasian as sweet and smooth as any that had ever traveled on the Aphrodite. Simaristos showed Menedemos the amphora before broaching it (but after making sure he could pay the price). “You will know such things, and know I’m not playing tricks on you,” he said.
“That amphora’s from Thasos, sure enough,” Menedemos agreed.
When he drank a cup’s worth neat, Simaristos clapped his hands, either in admiration or, more likely, in the hope of getting many more coins out of him once he was drunk. “I didn’t know you were Macedonian!” the brothelkeeper exclaimed.
“Please!” Menedemos tossed his head. “Anything but that! I had a bellyful of Macedonians this last trip. A bellyful and a half.”
“However you please, O best one,” Simaristos replied. “Let’s say you’re drinking like a Kelt, then—one of those new barbarians coming down into the lands north of where the Thracians live. They have a name for pouring it down as though there’s no tomorrow.”
“I’ve heard of the Keltoi, yes,” Menedemos said with owlish seriousness; the potent Thasian was hitting him hard. He might make vows against getting sozzled, but Dionysos had a will of his own, and gods were always stronger than men when they wanted to be.
“Would you like to see one? Would you like to futter one?” Suddenly, Simaristos was greasy as pork fat. “We have a new girl here, one of those Keltoi. We call her Khryse.”
“ ‘The Golden One?’ All right,” Menedemos said. Slaves got names like that, and Keltoi were said to be fair.
“Her tribe is the Tolistobogioi—I think I’m saying that right,” Simaristos told him. “To the crows with me, though, if I want to try to call her Tolistobogia, or to make my customers have to say that. Shall I bring her out for you? She’s something special when it comes to women. Even Aphrodite might be jealous.”
“Well, you’ve interested me, anyhow. Why not? Let me see what you’re talking up.” Even with the Thasian dancing through his veins, Menedemos felt sure the brothelkeeper was stretching things.
But when Simaristos brought the girl out of a back room, Menedemos saw he’d told nothing but the truth. She was a couple of digits taller than he was, with wavy golden hair falling down past her shoulders, sky-blue eyes, and skin pale as milk. Even her nipples were only a delicate pink.
Women among the Hellenes were in the habit of shaving or plucking their pubic hair; Menedemos remembered being intrigued to learn Egyptian women did the same. Khryse didn’t. As her bush was only a shade darker than the hair on her head, it seemed more intriguing than barbarous.
“What do you think?” Simaristos asked.
“She’s quite something,” Menedemos asked. To Khryse, he added, “You’re beautiful.”
“I do thank you,” she said quietly. Her Greek had an odd, almost musical, accent.
“What do you want for as much of the night as I feel like spending with her?” Menedemos asked the brothelkeeper.
“Six drakhmai will do it—eight if you want her to ride you like a racehorse,” Simaristos replied. Putting the woman on top and making her do the work always cost more.
Menedemos gave the man two fat silver tetradrakhms. “I may ask for change, and I may not. We’ll just see what happens,” he said.
Simaristos bowed, slick and polite as a Phoenician. “You always were a kalos kagathos, son of Philodemos. Khryse, take him to the blue room. Nothing but the best for him, now.”
“This way, O best one, if you please.” Khryse started up the stairs. Menedemos followed. She was as lovely from behind as from in front.
Sure enough, the blue room’s walls were painted that color. The bed was large and comfortable. Menedemos closed the door. It latched, but had no bar. In case a brawl broke out, Simaristos or a bouncer might need to get in there in a hurry. He shrugged. He didn’t plan on brawling with Khryse.
He took off his chiton and lay down on the bed. He felt the wine, but not enough to keep from rising to the occasion. Khryse got down beside him. “And what might you want, now?” she asked.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. We’ll do things, and then we’ll do some other things.” She wasn’t Baukis, but she was very beautiful.
After a while, he found it worked the other way round: she was very beautiful, but she wasn’t Baukis. She was also skilled; she gave him great pleasure. When it was over, though, he felt as if it might as well not have happened at all.
By then, it was getting dark. She looked at him in the gathering gloom. “Who did you wish I was, there?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, dully embarrassed. “I didn’t realize it showed.”
“Well, it did. You’re, after all, paying enough for me. Shouldn’t you get the joy you paid for? Will you try again?” Even slaves who were whores had their pride. Khryse was miffed he hadn’t enjoyed her more.
“Give me a bit,” he said; he didn’t rise to the occasion again so soon as he had a few years earlier. “Shall I get some wine for us in the meantime?”
“I won’t say no,” she answered.
If he was spending money, he’d spend money. He got a cup of Thasian for each of them. He knew he’d feel it in the morning, but the morning still lay most of a night away.
As he drank, he wondered why he hadn’t felt this way in Alexandria. He supposed it was that he hadn’t seen Baukis for a while then, and he was across the sea from her. Now she was only a few streets away, doing whatever she was doing with Diodoros … or with Menedemos’ father. Menedemos didn’t want to think about that, so he drank some more.
Khryse poured it down with an ease a tavern tosspot might have envied. Simaristos hadn’t lied when he said Keltoi drank like Macedonians. She reached for him with practiced fingers. “Let’s see if it’s better this time.”
It felt wonderful while it was going on. If you were a man, it always did. Afterwards, the only woman in Menedemos’ mind was Baukis.
Khryse’s sigh mingled resignation and annoyance. “If you cared for the girl you were with as much as you do for the one you haven’t got, you’d be a lover to remember.”
He’d been in the habit of doing that. He’d acquired a reputation for it, in towns around the Inner Sea. Now …. Now he wanted to burst into tears. Telling himself that was the wine, he made himself hold them in. He said, “Sometimes you just can’t get around what’s inside your head.”
She stayed silent some little while. Then, in a low voice, she answered, “Well, it’s plain you’ve never been a slave. Or a woman.”
