Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Would you want him in the family?” Erinna asked.

That was the very question Sostratos was asking himself. Since he had no good answer for it, he gave back a question of his own: “What does Father think?”

“He didn't send Damonax away with a flea in his ear,” his sister said. “He's—thinking things over, I guess you'd say.”

“Good. These dickers can take a long time,” Sostratos said. “The one for your first marriage did. I probably remember that better than you do—you were still a girl then.”

“I didn't have much to do with it,” Erinna agreed. “But it's different now. I'm not a girl any more. And I don't want this dicker to take a long time, because I'm not getting any younger.”

“Time is a terrible enemy. Sooner or later, it always wins.”

Erinna sprang to her feet and hurried upstairs to the women's quarters. Sostratos stared after her. Oh, dear, he thought. That wasn't what she hoped I'd say at all. Then he realized something else: no matter what Father thinks, she wants to marry Damonax. He must feel like a second chance for her.

Do I want Damonax in the family? If I don't, have I got any good reason for not wanting him? And why does he want to join us? We're tradesfolk, and he's got land. Is he in debt?

Those were all good questions. He had answers for none of them. He couldn't ask his father; Lysistratos was down at the harbor. From what Erinna said, his father was at least thinking about the match. That was interesting. Erinna, no doubt, found it much more than interesting.

A bumblebee buzzed through the garden. Sostratos went into the andron. He'd been stung before, and didn't care to get stung again. After a while, the bee had drunk its fill and went away. Sostratos returned to the courtyard.

Threissa, the family's redheaded Thracian slave girl, came out with her arms full of freshly washed tunics and mantles. She started spreading them in the sun to dry. “Hail,” Sostratos said.

“Hail, young master,” she answered in her oddly accented Greek. Carrying a load of wet clothes had got the front of her own tunic wet, too, so that it clung to her breasts. Sostratos eyed her. She noticed him doing it, and spoke quickly: “You excuse me, please, young master? I terrible busy.”

He took her up to his bedroom every so often. She was only a slave girl; how could she say no? Even asking him to wait would have landed her in trouble in some households. But taking her for his own pleasure while she was in the middle of work would have landed him in trouble with his mother and sister. And, since she was more resigned to their occasional couplings than eager for them, he was less eager for them himself than he might have been. And so he said, “All right, Threissa,” though he didn't leave off eyeing the way the wet wool displayed her nipples.

“I thank you, young master,” she said. “You a kind man.” Despite such praise, she stood with her back to him as much as she could.

Terrible to be a slave, Sostratos thought. Terrible to be a woman and not a man. And if you're unlucky enough to be both, what can you do? Turn your back and hope, no more. Gods be praised I'm a free man.

He might have gone upstairs with her when she finished spreading out the clothes, but his father got back while she was busy there. Lysistratos looked pleased with himself, saying, “I may have a deal for some olive oil of the very first pressing. That won't be long now; the fruit's getting on toward being ripe.”

“That's good, Father,” Sostratos said, “but what's this I hear about Damonax son of Polydoros sniffing around after Erinna?”

“Well, I don't quite know what it is,” Lysistratos answered. “It's all very tentative right now. But she should be married again if we can arrange it—you know that. And I wouldn't mind a connection to Damonax's family—I wouldn't mind that at all.”

“I understand—they've owned land for generations,” Sostratos said. “Why do they want anything to do with us, though? Have they fallen on hard times?”

“That occurred to me, too, but not that I know of,” his father said. “I am sniffing around—I'm sniffing around like a scavenger dog sniffing for garbage, as a matter of fact. Haven't found anything out of the ordinary yet.”

“There must be something. Otherwise, he wouldn't be willing to join with mere tradesmen.” Sostratos smiled a sour smile. People whose wealth lay in land always looked down their noses at those who made money by their wits. Land was safe, stable, secure— boring, too, Sostratos thought.

“Actually, son, you had something to do with it,” Lysistratos said.

“Me?” Sostratos' voice was a startled squeak. “What? How?”

“Seems you impressed Damonax no end when you wouldn't sell him the gryphon's skull this spring,” Lysistratos told him.

“I wish I had. Then it would still be here.”

“That's as may be,” his father said. “But Damonax thought all merchants were whores, and they'd do anything for money. He knew you'd gone to Athens, to the Lykeion, but when you put knowledge ahead of silver, that opened his eyes. 'Not many gentlemen would have done the same,' was how he put it.”

“Did he?” Sostratos said, and Lysistratos dipped his head. “That's . . . surprising,” Sostratos went on in musing tones. “What I was afraid of at the time was that he would call for half a dozen burly slaves and keep the gryphon's skull. I thought he was admiring that, not my integrity. You never can tell.”

“No, you never can,” Lysistratos agreed. “Would you want him in the family?”

“I've been thinking about that. Before what you said just now, I would have told you no,” Sostratos answered. “Now...” He shrugged and let out a rueful chuckle. “Now I'm so flattered, my advice probably isn't worth a thing.”

“Oh, I doubt that. If there's one thing I can rely on, son, it's that you keep your wits about you.”

“Thank you,” Sostratos said, though he wasn't quite sure his father had paid him a compliment. He might almost have said, Coldblooded, aren't you? Sostratos chuckled again. Compared to, say, his cousin, he was coldblooded, and he knew it. After some thought, he went on, “Do I want Damonax in the family? Erinna wants the match; I know that. It would be a step up for us, if he's not after our money to repair his fortunes. Actually, it would be a step up for us even if he is, but I don't think I care to take that kind of step.”

“I told you you keep your wits about you,” his father said. “I don't care to, either.”

“I didn't think you did, sir.” Sostratos plucked at his beard. “Damonax isn't bad-looking, he isn't stupid, and he isn't a churl. If he's not hiding something from us, Erinna could do worse.”

“Fair enough,” Lysistratos said. “I was thinking along the same lines. I'll keep talking with him, then. We have some haggling to do. He wants a big dowry—you already knew that, didn't you?”

Sostratos dipped his head. “He has some reason to ask it, because Erinna's a widow, not a maiden. But if he won't come down, if he cares more about the dowry than he does about her, that's a sign his own affairs aren't prospering.”

“Good point—very good,” Lysistratos said. “We'll take a few steps forward and we'll see, that's all.”

Menedemos spent as much time as he could away from the house. That kept him from quarreling with his father, and it kept him from having much to do with his father's wife. He exercised in the gymnasion. He strolled through the agora, looking at what was for sale there and talking with other men who came there to look and to talk. All sorts of things came to the marketplace at Rhodes. He kept hoping he would see another gryphon's skull. If he did, he intended to buy it for his cousin. He had no luck there, though.