Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“If you want to go back up to the women's quarters tonight, that's all right,” he said. Why not? He was tired, and she'd be there tomorrow. And so would he, because he still didn't know when a ship's carpenter would be able to work on the Aphrodite —or when Menedemos would get so fed up, he'd have some of the sailors make repairs that might at least carry the merchant galley to another, less crowded, polis.

Thestylis twisted. Now he could see her face, and the alarm on it. She tossed her head. “I don't dare do that,” she said. “Who knows what Kleiteles would do to me?” More tears slid down her face, leaving bright tracks in the lamplight.

He leaned over and kissed her. If she'd pushed him away then, he would have lain down beside her and gone to sleep. But her arms went around him. His hand closed on her breast through the wool of her long chiton. She sighed, deep in her throat, and squeezed him tighter. Again, he wondered if she really meant it. But with his own excitement rising, he didn't much care. He reached under the hem of her tunic, his hand sliding up the smooth flesh of her thigh to the secret place between her legs. The flesh there was smooth, too; she'd singed away the hair with a lamp.

Before long, her tunic and his both lay on the floor. He kissed her breasts. She sighed again as her nipples grew stiff to his caresses. He grew stiff, too, and took her hand and set it on his manhood. She stroked him, easing his foreskin back.

“Here,” he said. “Ride me like a racehorse.”

“All right.” She straddled him. He held his erection as she impaled herself on him. As she began to move, he squeezed her breasts and leaned up to tease their tips with his tongue. “Ah,” she said softly, and moved faster.

At the end, she threw back her head and made a little mewling cry. By the way she squeezed him inside herself, he thought her pleasure real. His hands clutched her meaty backside as his seed shot into her.

She toppled down onto him, all warm and soft and sweaty, as he was sweaty, too. But then, even when he might have started a second round, she scrambled off, took the chamber pot out from under the bed, and squatted over it, her legs splayed wide apart. A wet plop and a muttered, “Well, that's most of it,” said what she was doing.

“I'll give you half a drakhma,” Sostratos said. “You don't need to tell Kleiteles you got it from me.”

“Thank you, sir,” Thestylis said, reaching for her tunic. “You are a kind man. Some people, you might as well be a piece of meat, for all they care about what you feel.” It wasn't a complaint about men's treatment of women worthy of those Euripides had put in the mouths of his female characters, but sounded heartfelt even so.

“Don't put the chamber pot away,” Sostratos said. After using it, he put on his chiton, too. Thestylis would be lying beside him if he wanted that second round in the morning. Meanwhile .. . Meanwhile, he yawned and lay down. No need to wrap himself in his himation on a warm summer night. “Blow out the lamp.”

She did, then got into bed in the dark. Sostratos patted her, yawned again, and fell asleep.

Menedemos crouched under the Aphrodite 's poop deck, mournfully eyeing the sprung planks, the sailcloth stuffed between them, the broken tenons, the mortises that had turned into actual breaks in the timbers. He cursed the blundering round ship that had run into the akatos in the rain. He cursed Ptolemaios, too, for his siege of Halikarnassos, and for good measure cursed every carpenter in Kos.

When he came out from under the poop deck, he didn't duck far enough and, not for the first time, banged his head. That left him cursing life in general. With some sympathy, Sostratos said, “I've done that, too.”

Well, of course you have, Menedemos thought sourly. You're taller than I am, and clumsier, too. He rubbed his head before speaking.

That was probably just as well, for all that came out of his mouth was, “I know.”

“What do you think?” Sostratos asked. “Have you changed your mind?”

“I only wish I had,” Menedemos answered. “There's too much damage for me to want to risk the ship going anywhere very far, and too much for us to do the repairs ourselves. Resourceful Odysseus made a boat starting with nothing but logs, but we can't quite imitate him.” He stroked his chin. “Maybe we could get up to Myndos. Maybe...”

Sostratos tossed his head. “I don't think that will do us any good. Halikarnassos is still holding out, but Ptoiemaios' men just took Myndos.”

“Which means the carpenters there will be busy working for him, same as the ones here.” Menedemos rubbed his scalp again. The bump he'd got wasn't the only thing making his head ache.

“That's right,” Sostratos said.

“When did you hear that about Myndos?” Menedemos asked. “It's news to me.”

“Just now, as a matter of fact.” His cousin pointed to a couple of men walking along the quay. “They were talking about it. If you hadn't been all muffled down below, you would have heard them, too.”

With a sigh, Menedemos said, “Well, let's gather up our perfumes and such and head for the market square. Maybe we'll do enough business to break even.”

“Maybe.” Sostratos didn't sound as if he believed it. For that matter, Meneclemos didn't believe it, either. Sostratos put the best face on things he could: “The more we sell, the less we lose, even if we don't break even,”

To Menedemos' surprise, they promptly sold four jars of perfume to a fellow with his right arm bandaged and in a sling. He had scarred shins, too, and a scar seaming his chin, and was missing the lobe of his left ear. “I've got to keep my hetaira sweet on me,” he said. “You've got to give 'em presents, or they forget all about you, and how was I supposed to give her presents when I was sitting in a tent in front of Halikarnassos?”

“You weren't sitting in a tent all the time.” Menedemos pointed to the soldier's wounded arm.

“No, and I'm almost not sorry I got hurt, you know what I mean?” the fellow said. Menedemos dipped his head, though he thought, Whether you know it or not, you mean that hetaira's got her hooks into you deep. He recognized the symptoms from experience. The soldier went on, “Now that I'm back here, at least she can't forget I'm alive.”

Sostratos pointed to his arm, too. “How did it happen?”

“One of those things,” the scarred man said with a shrug. “We tried scaling ladders. I was moving up towards one of 'em when I got shot. Might've been just as well, too, on account of I heard later they tipped that ladder over with a bunch of men on it. If I'd been near the top . . .” He grimaced. “It's a long fall.”

“Have you got any idea how much longer the siege will take?” Menedemos asked.

“Not me, best one.” The soldier tossed his head. “We're liable to still be at it by the time this heals”—he wiggled the fingers sticking out of the bandage—”and I've got to go back to work. That place has strong walls, and you might think old One-Eye's men in there were all citizens by the way they're fighting.”

Menedemos grunted. That was exactly what he didn't want to hear. Ptolemaios' mercenary took the perfume and left the agora. He wasn't worried about the siege's going on forever; he just wanted to enjoy the holiday his wound had given him. Menedemos wished he could take such a bright view of things himself.

A juggler strolled past, keeping a fountain of six or eight knives and cups and leather balls in the air. Someone tossed him a coin. He caught it and popped it into his mouth without missing a beat. Menedemos was fond of such shows. Most days, he would have thrown the fellow an obolos, too. Today, he let the juggler go by unrewarded. The man shot him a reproachful look. He stared stonily back. With news like that which he'd just got, he felt he needed to hang on to every bit of silver he had.