Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"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."