Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"Do you, now?" Maibia didn't speak Greek according to any rules of grammar Sostratos recognized, but her odd turns of phrase only made the language more interesting. "And what might that be?"

"It might be anything," Sostratos replied, precise as usual. "It is . . ." He reached down and picked up a small bundle of woolen cloth closed with twine that lay on the rammed-earth floor with his tunic and sandals. "This, or rather, these." He handed Maibia the bundle.

She fumbled at it. With her long, pointed fingernails, she made short work of the knot he'd tied to keep it closed. "Ahh!" she said when she saw the earrings inside. "Are they gold, now, or nobbut brass?" Before Sostratos could answer, she bit one. She squeaked in delight. "Sure and they are gold! What a sweet man y'are! How can I be after thanking you?"

"Oh, you might think of something," Sostratos answered lightly, though his heart pounded in anticipation.

And she did. By the time they finished, he was ready to stagger back to the rented house and sleep for a long, long time. As he put on his chiton, Maibia said, "You could be doing this every day if you were to buy me, now."

"If I did this every day, I'd fall over dead before long," Sostratos said.

"Not a big, strong man like your honor," she said with a shake of the head that sent coppery locks flying.

"I meant it as praise for you," he said, which made her eye him from under lowered lids and tempted him not to leave no matter how sated he was. But, though his body might have been satisfied, his curiosity never was. He asked, "How did you come to be a slave? Why aren't you up in the north of Italy married to a Keltic solder?"

"Indeed and I might have been, were it not for three Roman traders, bad cess to 'em forevermore," she answered. "I was out in the fields minding the cows - 'tis a young man's job, but my father had no sons left alive - when they came along the road. They saw me and decided I was worth more nor whatever they had to sell. They lured me close by asking where they might be after finding water, then laid hold of me and carried me off. It wasna far to take me out of the Keltic country, and they got me away without a man of my village the wiser. They raped me and they sold me and" - she shrugged - "here I am."

Sostratos dipped his head. Most slaves not born to servitude had some such tale of horror to tell.

Maibia went on, "I look at that Titus Manlius, the which is majordomo to Gylippos, and I laugh to know it can happen to a Roman, too - though likely them as caught him didna hike up his tunic, with him so ugly and all."

"So he is a Roman, then?" Sostratos said. "I have to tell you, I can't keep all these different Italian tribes straight. It's not likely that any of them will ever amount to much."

When he kissed Maibia good-bye, she clung to him and murmured, "Would you not like to be after taking me along thee now?"

One of his eyebrows rose. He said, "My dear, you are very sweet, and great fun in bed. I am going to tell you something that will help us get along better: don't nag me. The more you tell me to do something, the more likely you are to make me want not to do it. Have you got that?"

"Aye," she said softly. A spark of anger flashed in her green eyes, but she did her best to hide it, adding only, "You're a cool one, aren't you?"

"So people keep telling me," Sostratos said, and went on his way.

She wants me to fall in love with her, he thought as he walked back to the house. Men who fall in love spend a lot of money and do all sorts of other foolish things. Menedemos seemed to fall in love with at least one woman in every city he visited. The life of a trader, never staying very long in any one place, probably kept him from landing in even worse trouble with some of them than he found.

Menedemos was beaming when Sostratos returned to the house. He was also singing one of the songs from the symposion at Gylippos' house. Sostratos pointed an accusing finger at him. "You're after another go with the fish merchant's wife!"

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, my dear fellow." Menedemos could be most annoying when he tried to seem most innocent.

"Not much, you haven't," Sostratos said.

"Oh, keep quiet," his cousin said, and then, turning the tables on him, "While you've been out buying trinkets for your mistress and screwing yourself silly, I've been doing business. Krates finally paid our price for a peahen."

"That is good," Sostratos said. "We're down to two of the miserable things now, and all these chicks." The little birds ran all over the courtyard, peeping and squawking and pecking at grain and at bugs and lizards and, every now and then, at one another.

"I bought a goose to help the peahens sit on the eggs that haven't hatched yet," Menedemos said. "From all I've seen, they don't make the best of mothers."

"No, they don't," Sostratos agreed. "It's a good thing the chicks can take care of themselves almost as soon as they hatch, because they need to." He glanced over to the goose, which indeed showed more interest in sitting on a nest than did either of the two remaining peahens. With a sigh, he went on, "I am sorry that one stupid bird jumped into the sea."

"So am I," Menedemos replied, "but neither one of us can do anything about it now." He raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to buy that little Kelt - no, by the gods, she's not little: that big Kelt, I mean - and take her along with you?"

"She wants me to," Sostratos said.

"Of course she does," Menedemos said. "If you were stuck in a brothel, wouldn't you want to get out?"

"It'd be a pretty desperate brothelkeeper who put me in amongst his pretty boys," Sostratos observed, and startled a laugh out of his cousin. He went on in more serious tones. "She's very pretty - "

"If you say so," Menedemos broke in.

"I think she is, which makes it true for me," Sostratos said. "She's pretty, and she has plenty of reason to treat me well, and - "

Menedemos interrupted again: "What more do you want?"

"Someone who treats me that way even though she doesn't have any special reason to," Sostratos answered. "But we weren't talking about me. We were talking about you, at least till you changed the subject. You and this Phyllis . . ."

"Yes?" Menedemos said when he paused.

"Never mind," Sostratos mumbled. Menedemos again raised an eyebrow, this time in astonishment. But Sostratos realized he'd just undercut his own argument. Gylippos' wife had no special, selfinterested reason to bestow her favors on Menedemos. She'd done it anyway. No wonder he was eager to get back to her. With another sigh, Sostratos said, "For the gods' sake, be careful. I'm not the seaman you are; I don't want to have to take the Aphrodite back to Rhodes by myself."

"I'm so glad you care." Menedemos chuckled. "When have I not been careful?"

"Halikarnassos springs to mind," Sostratos said dryly.

"I got away," his cousin answered.

"So you did, but you can't go back there," Sostratos pointed out. "And we're not ready to leave Taras in a hurry, the way we were in Halikarnassos. You could put the ship in trouble, not just yourself." He hoped that would get through to Menedemos if nothing else did.

But Menedemos just reached up to pat him on the back and said, "Everything will be fine. You'll see."

Sostratos threw his hands in the air. He wasn't going to change his cousin's mind. "Be careful," he repeated. He wished he hadn't thought about the difference between a woman who gave herself because she wanted to and one who did it for money. Now he didn't feel right about urging Menedemos to slake his lust in a brothel, no matter how expedient that advice would have been.

Menedemos grinned at him. "I'll tell you all about it in the morning."

"I don't think I'll want to hear," Sostratos said, which made Menedemos' grin wider. But then Sostratos thought, I hope you'll have the chance to tell me in the morning. He spat into the bosom of his tunic to avert that omen, even if he hadn't said the words aloud. Menedemos looked puzzled. Sostratos did not explain.