Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"I'm not the only one," Sostratos answered. "Did they bother giving us a chamber pot? If they didn't, I'm going to piss in the corner." He looked under the bed. To his relief, both metaphorical and literal, he found one.

After buying more wine from Skylax to open their eyes, the Rhodians went back to Xenophanes'. "Good day, my masters," Pixodaros told them. "My master still sleeps. He told me to bring you food if you came before he rose." With a bow, the Karian slave went into the back of the house. He returned with bread and cheese.

"Thank you," Sostratos said, and then, "This business will be yours one of these days, won't it?"

"It could be." Pixodaros' voice was carefully neutral. "The gods gave my master no children who lived, so it could be."

Even if Xenophanes liberated Pixodaros on his deathbed, the Karian would never be a full citizen of Kos. His children might, though, depending on whom he married. Life is a changeable business, Sostratos thought - not original, but true.

He and Menedemos and Pixodaros made small talk till Xenophanes came out about half an hour later. "I still say you're asking too much for a jar of dye," the silk merchant began without preamble.

Menedemos put on his most winning smile. "But, my dear fellow . . ." he said. He could charm birds out of trees and wives into bed when he worked at it.

But he couldn't charm Xenophanes, who said, "No. It's too much, I tell you. I spent a deal of time thinking on it last night in bed, and my mind's made up."

"All right, then," Sostratos said before Menedemos could speak. Sostratos was the one who used bluntness, not charm, as his main weapon. He got to his feet. "I guess we'll go see Theagenes" - Xenophanes' chief rival - "if you won't see reason. And if Theagenes is stubborn, too, I guarantee we can get a better price for the dye in Taras or one of the other Italian cities than we can here."

That was likely true, though silk would bring more profit still. Mentioning Theagenes' name had the desired effect. Xenophanes looked as if he'd taken a big bite of bad fish. "He'll cheat you," he spluttered. "His silk is full of slubs. It's not nearly so thin and transparent as mine."

"No doubt you're right, O best one." Sostratos didn't sit down. "But he usually knows better than to price himself out of a bargain, and at least we'll have something to show the Italiotes. Come on, cousin." Menedemos rose, too. They both started for the door, though Sostratos was anything but eager to throw away most of a day's haggling.

"Wait." That wasn't Xenophanes - it was Pixodaros. He put his head together with his master. Sostratos stayed where he was. Menedemos started to get closer to try to hear what they were saying, but checked himself at Sostratos' small gesture.

"It's robbery, that's what it is!" Xenophanes spoke loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Pixodaros didn't. The slave - the slave who might be a master himself one day - kept his voice low, but he kept talking, too. At last, Xenophanes threw his hands in the air and dipped his head to Sostratos and Menedemos. "All right," he said grudgingly. "A bargain. The Karian is right - we do need the dye. A hundred jars, for the bolts of silk you proposed last night."

Slaves carried the silk to the Aphrodite and took the dye back to Xenophanes' shop. Watching them go with the last of the jars, Menedemos said, "Gods be praised, our fathers don't have to worry about passing on what they've spent a lifetime building up to a barbarian slave."

"And here's hoping we never have to worry about it ourselves," Sostratos said, at which his cousin gave him a very peculiar look.

Menedemos decided not to stop in Halikarnassos, even though it lay close by Kos. For one thing, he wanted to press north to Khios, to get some of the island's famous wine to take west. And, for another, he'd left an outraged husband behind on his last visit to the former capital of Karia, and he didn't care to appear there before things had more of a chance to settle down.

Instead, traveling under oars into the breeze, the Aphrodite went up the channel between the mainland and the island of Kalymnos, and beached itself for the night on Leros, the next island farther north. Sostratos quoted a fragment of verse:

\t" 'The Lerians are wicked - not just one, but every one

Except Proklees - and Proklees is a Lerian, too.' "\t

"Who said that?" Menedemos asked.

"Phokylides," his cousin answered. "Is it true?"

"I hope not," Menedemos told him. "Leros and Kalymnos are supposed to be the Kalydian isles Homer speaks of in the Iliad."

"If they are, they've changed hands since," Sostratos said, "for the Lerians nowadays are Ionians, colonists from Miletos on the Asian mainland."

The peacock started screeching. Menedemos winced. "You don't know how sick I am of that polluted bird," he said.

"Oh, I think I may," Sostratos replied. "I may even be sicker of it than you are, because you get to stay back at the steering oars most of the day, while I have to play peacockherd."

Before Menedemos could point out that his staying at the steering oars did have a certain importance to the journey, someone hailed them from the brush beyond the beach. " 'Ere, what's making that 'orrible noise?"

"Ionians, you see," Sostratos said smugly. "No rough breathings."

He didn't say it very loud. In similarly soft tones, Menedemos answered, "Oh, shut up." He raised his voice and called, "Come and see for yourself," to the stranger.

"You'll not seize me for a slave and 'aul me off to foreign parts?" the Lerian asked anxiously.

"No, by the gods," Menedemos promised. "We're traders from Rhodes, not pirates." In another soft aside to Sostratos, he added, "Some withered old herdsman wouldn't be worth our while grabbing, anyhow."

"True enough," Sostratos said. "And it wouldn't be sporting, not after you've promised to leave him alone."

Menedemos cared little for what was sporting and what wasn't. But the rustic who emerged from the scrubby brush was middle-aged and scrawny. He wore only a goatskin tunic, hairy side out. That by itself made Menedemos' lip curl; country bumpkins were the only ones who preferred leather to cloth. And, when the Lerian got closer, Menedemos' nostrils curled, too: the fellow hadn't bathed in a long time, if ever.

"All right," he said. " 'Ere I am. What was that screeching like it was being turned into a eunuch?"

"A peacock," Menedemos answered. "For a khalkos, you can go aboard and see it for yourself." He didn't think he would be able to get two bronze coins out of the local; even one might be pushing it.

As things were, the fellow in goatskins made no move to produce a khalkos. He just stared at Menedemos. "A what?" he said. "You're 'aving me on. You think because I live on a little no-account island you can tell me anything and I'll swallow it. Can't fool me, though. I know there's no such beasts, not for true. Next thing is, you'll be telling me you've got 'Ades' three-'eaded dog Kerberos on your ship, or else a tree nymph out of 'er tree. Well, you must think I'm out of mine, and I'm 'ere to tell you I ain't." He stomped off, his nose in the air.

"No, you can't fool him," Sostratos said gravely. As if to prove the Lerian couldn't be fooled, the peacock let out another screech.

"Sure can't," Menedemos agreed. "He knows what's what, and he's not about to let anybody tell him anything different."

"He would have voted to make Sokrates drink the hemlock," Sostratos said.

"How does that follow?" Menedemos asked.

"You said it yourself," his cousin answered. "He already knows everything he wants to know. That means anyone who tries to tell him anything else must be wrong - and must be dangerous, too, for wanting to tell him wrong things."

"I suppose so," Menedemos said with a shrug. "Sounds like philosophy to me, though."