Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Even so, he turned an ankle when he hit. Biting down hard against an exclamation of pain, he grabbed the chiton as Gylippos spoke from Phyllis' bedroom: "What was that? Is there a burglar trying to break in?"

As Menedemos limped around a corner as fast as he could go, he heard Phyllis answer, "I think it was just a dog, O husband of mine."

"Pretty big for a dog. Pretty clumsy for a dog, too," Gylippos said dubiously. He must have looked out the window, for a moment later he continued, "I don't see any dog. But I don't see any burglar, either, so I suppose it's all right." Maybe he turned away from the window and back toward his wife - his voice was harder for Menedemos to hear when he went on, "Come here."

"I obey," Phyllis said, as demurely as if no other thought had ever entered her mind, no other man had ever entered her body.

Gylippos didn't get what he wanted from a flutegirl or a dancer tonight, so he'll take take what he can get from his wife, Menedemos thought as he wriggled back into his chiton. He hadn't quite got everything he wanted from Phyllis himself. Inconsiderate of Gylippos, went through his mind. Why couldn't he have waited just a little longer to pick a fight with his brother?

He took his bearings. Gylippos' house lay in the central part of Taras, the part where a neat grid of streets superseded the jumble of lanes and alleys going every which way marking the rest of the town. That made things easier. As soon as Menedemos figured out which way was west, he started counting corners. His ankle hurt when he put weight on it, but it bore him.

He had one bad moment: three or four burly men, plainly bent on no good, padded up a north-south street just before he crossed it. But he'd stayed in the shadows and done his best to move quietly. They kept on going without so much as turning their heads his way. He let out a silent sigh of relief, waited till he was sure they'd passed, and headed on toward the rented house.

When he knocked on the door, he expected Aristeidas to be the one who made sure he was himself and not a robber too clever for his own good. But instead, he heard his cousin's voice: "Is that you, Menedemos?"

"Almonds!" Menedemos quavered in a high, thin falsetto. "Who wants to buy my salted almonds?"

Sostratos opened the door. "If I wanted almonds, I'd buy them in the shell and crack them on your hard head," he said. "You're back sooner than I thought you would be. No all-night debauch?"

"Afraid not," Menedemos said as he came in. Sostratos closed the door behind him. He went on, "I had a good time. You don't need to worry about that." He still wished Gylippos had waited a bit longer before coming home from his brother's, but leaping out of the window, landing badly, and having to limp away made not quite finishing his second round seem much less urgent than it had a little while before.

Altogether too observant for his own good, Sostratos noticed the limp even by the weak light of the single torch burning in the courtyard. "What happened to you?" he demanded. "Does Gylippos know who you are?"

"No, he doesn't," Menedemos answered. "He's not even sure I'm anybody, if you know what I mean. He got into a fight at his symposion, and left in a huff. That's why I had to go out the window."

"You're lucky you didn't break your leg, or maybe your neck," Sostratos said. "Is a woman really worth running that kind of risk?"

"If I hadn't thought so, I wouldn't have gone there, would I?" Menedemos said, a little testily. Looking back on it, he supposed it hadn't been worth the risk, but he would sooner have gone up before a Persian torturer than admit that to his priggish cousin. If Phyllis wanted him to pay her another visit, he knew he just might do it.

"Foolishness," Sostratos said.

"Yes, O best one." Menedemos used the honorific with intent to wound. By Sostratos' scowl, he succeeded. He said, "And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep. It's been a busy night." Trying to walk as straight as he could, he headed for the bedchamber. His ankle complained. So did Sostratos. He ignored both of them.

A house slave at Lamakhos' brothel shook her head, as barbarians were wont to do. "Maibia does not want to see you today," she said.

"What?" Sostratos stared as blankly as if she'd spoken Oscan or Latin rather than pretty good Greek. "She can't do that!" With a shrug, the slave just repeated herself. Sostratos started to push past her. A couple of other slaves - men: toughs with the look of bouncers - appeared behind her. He checked himself. "Let me talk to Lamakhos, then." The woman nodded and went away.

"Hail, friend," the brothelkeeper said, his smile still broad and, Sostratos judged, still false.

"Hail," Sostratos replied. "We had a bargain, you know."

"Yes, I do know." Lamakhos shrugged. "Women are funny, that's all I can tell you."

"We had a bargain," Sostratos repeated: for him, that was sacred. Lamakhos shrugged again. Sostratos nervously cracked his knuckles. "Is she angry at me? If I did something to offend her, I'll apologize."

Lamakhos turned to the slave woman. "Go find out." She nodded again and hurried off in the direction of Maibia's chamber.

When she came back, she spoke to Sostratos: "She says it is not that. She says you should come back tomorrow. Maybe then."

Realization smote. She's playing at being a hetaira. A girl in a brothel had to take her customers as they came, do what they wanted when they wanted it. A high-class courtesan, on the other hand, had the looks and the charm and the wit to take men on her terms, not theirs. That made them more alluring, of course - if you had to persuade them, that showed, or seemed to show, they really wanted you.

Do I let her get away with it? Sostratos plucked at his beard. Maybe Maibia thought he really had fallen head over heels in love, in which case he would put up with anything from her. If she thought that, she was mistaken. What Menedemos thought of as foreign homeliness attracted him - but love? He tossed his head. He couldn't imagine falling in love with someone with whom he couldn't talk seriously . . . and Maibia's mental horizons were no wider than was to be expected of a girl kidnapped from a Keltic village and sold to a brothelkeeper.

That still didn't answer his question. He'd given Lamakhos a break on the price of the silk for free access to the girl. He supposed - no, he was certain - Lamakhos could make Maibia give herself to him now. But that would only make her sullen, and Sostratos wasn't one of those who enjoyed his girls resentful. Had he been, he would have bedded the Thracian slave back home more often.

Or he could ask Lamakhos for the five-drakhma discount back. He could - but the brothelkeeper would laugh in his face and tell him to go to law. The fuss and feathers would prove more trouble than the money was worth, and what were his chances of getting a fair judgment, even against a brothelkeeper, in a polis not his own?

"Well?" Lamakhos said. "Shall I go shake this nonsense out of her?"

"No, never mind," Sostratos answered - the blunt question made up his mind for him. "I'll come back tomorrow."

As he turned to go, he saw contempt in Lamakhos' eyes. The brothelkeeper tried to hide it behind his friendly mask. His slaves didn't bother. "Pussy-whipped," one of them said to the other, not quite softly enough to keep Sostratos from hearing. His ears tingled, but he kept walking.

Back at the rented house, Menedemos said the same thing. "Complain all you want about me and Phyllis," he added, "but that's nothing beside letting a barbarian slave lead you around by the prick."

"No, no, no - you don't understand," Sostratos said. "She isn't. I'm not mad for her, the way men get when they're assotted of a woman. By the gods, I'm not."

"Then why didn't march right in there and screw her?" his cousin demanded. "You let yourself look like a fool in front of a whoremaster."