Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"Not quite so bad." Philodemos looked as if he were sipping vinegar, not wine. "And Taras is an important polis, too, the first one you're likely to come to on the way west from Hellas. What are we going to do with you, son?" Menedemos found it expedient to stay mute. His father grunted again, then said, "Well, at least you don't do things like that here in Rhodes, the gods be praised."

Menedemos didn't answer that, either. His father, fortunately, took silence for agreement.

"I was hoping I might hear my sister had been betrothed when I came home," Sostratos remarked to his father as they sat in the andron.

"And I was hoping I might be able to tell you Erinna was," Lysistratos replied. "I did have some discussions about it with - oh, never mind what his name was: what point to going into the details when these things don't work out?"

"What was wrong with him?" Sostratos asked.

"Not a thing," Lysistratos said. "But he made a match with another family for their daughter who's never been married. They aren't so well off as we are, but the girl's fourteen, not eighteen. He's more likely to breed sons on her than he is on Erinna. You can't blame him for having that uppermost in his thoughts. What are wives for but sons?"

"It's not Erinna's fault - " Sostratos began before checking himself.

"It's not anyone's fault that I can see," his father said. "It's just one of those things that make life difficult for mortals."

Gyges, the Lydian majordomo, stuck his head into the men's chamber. "Master, Xanthos is at the door. He wants to congratulate the young master on the Aphrodite's safe return."

Sostratos rolled his eyes. "Speaking of the things that make life difficult for mortals . . ."

His father laughed, but told Gyges, "Bring him in. He can drink some wine with us. Sooner or later, he'll go away."

"Later," Sostratos predicted, but in a voice low enough to keep his father from giving him a reproving look. A moment later, when the majordormo brought Xanthos into the andron, Sostratos got to his feet and bowed to the older man. "Hail, O marvelous one. How are you today?"

"Hail, Sostratos," Xanthos said. "It's good of you to ask. To tell you the truth, I do marvel that I failed to go down to the house of Hades while you were off in the west. My piles have been torture - and all the worse because I've been so constipated. And my shoulder joints ache whenever the weather gets damp. I dread this winter season, I truly do. I haven't been sleeping well, either. Old age truly is a misery; never let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Here you are, Xanthos." Lysistratos gave the other merchant a cup of wine, no doubt hoping to slow the tide of words. "Drink with us. We have reason to be glad, with the boys home safe and with a tidy profit, too."

"That's good news, very good news, very good news indeed," Xanthos said, flicking a few drops out of the cup for a libation. "Pity your son here couldn't have heard me at the Assembly earlier in the month. I'm immodest enough to say I surpassed even my usual eloquence."

"What did you speak on?" Sostratos asked.

"On how we should conduct ourselves if the fighting between Antigonos and Ptolemaios gets worse," Xanthos replied.

"That is important," Sostratos agreed.

He didn't ask the plump merchant to summarize the speech. He knew better. And Xanthos didn't summarize it. He said, "I believe I can remember how it went," and launched into it, complete with gestures that looked as if they would have been more at home on the comic stage than in the Assembly. His main point was that, since Rhodes did so much business with Egypt, she should stay on Ptolemaios' side provided she could do so without making Antigonos attack her. That made good sense to Sostratos, but he mightily wished Xanthos hadn't taken half an hour to get where he was going.

"Stirring," Lysistratos said when Xanthos finally finished. He poured himself more wine, which showed just how much he'd been stirred. Sostratos held out his cup for a refill, too. His father didn't offer the oinokhoe to Xanthos.

"Tell me the news from Italy," Xanthos urged Sostratos.

"Up north of Great Hellas, the Samnites and the Romans are still fighting," Sostratos said. He started to tell the other Rhodian how the Aphrodite had wound up in the middle of that war, but decided not to. It would only have brought more questions, and maybe, the gods forbid, another speech. Instead, he went on, "And from Sicily, Agathokles has invaded Africa to pay the Carthaginians back for besieging Syracuse." He didn't say anything about how the Aphrodite had been involved there, either.

"Well, well, isn't that interesting?" Xanthos said. He sensed he was being thwarted, and cast about for an opening: "You sold all your peafowl?"

"All but one, which, uh, died before we got to Great Hellas." Again, he said not a word about peafowl eggs or peafowl chicks.

"Ah, too bad," Xanthos said. "That cost you some money, it did, it did." Sostratos gravely dipped his head. He didn't say anything. Much later than Xanthos should have, he began to suspect he'd outstayed his welcome. "Well, I guess I'll wander over and pay my respects to Menedemos and his father."

"Good to see you," Sostratos said. Good to see you go, he glossed silently. He was glad enough to clasp Xanthos' hand as the other merchant took his leave. So was Lysistratos. Son and father looked at each other. When they heard Gyges close the door behind Xanthos, they sighed in unison. "Is there any more wine left in the oinokhoe?" Sostratos asked. "He's windy without eating beans and cabbage."

When his father shook the jar, it sloshed. He poured some into Sostratos' cup, the rest into his own. "He means well," he said.

After hearing every word of Xanthos' speech before the Assembly, Sostratos was not inclined to be charitable. "So does a puppy that piddles on my feet," he said, and drank the wine his father had given him.

"I know what you're thinking," Lysistratos said. "I'll have you know, though, that I suffered worse than you. I've heard his speech twice now."

"Oh, poor father!" Sostratos exclaimed, and put an arm around Lysistratos' shoulder. They both started laughing. Once they started, they had a hard time stopping. It's not the wine. Sostratos thought. We didn't drink that much. It had to be Xanthos' speech. That would have paralyzed a man who'd drunk nothing but water his whole life long.

"We shall have to have a feast to welcome you back," Lysistratos said. "A couple of feasts, in fact: one for your sister and your mother, and the other a proper symposion where you and your cousin can speak at length of your adventures in Great Hellas. Did you truly beat a trireme in the Aphrodite?"

"We wrecked its starboard bank of oars, and that let us get away," Sostratos replied. "Menedemos was telling Uncle Philodemos about it just before you got down to the harbor. I'm sure, at the symposion, he'll make a much more exciting story of it than I ever could."

"Exciting stories are all very well after the wine's gone round a few times," his father said. "I'd also like to have some notion of what really happened, though." Lysistratos' smile was lopsided, the smile of a man who'd learned not to expect too much from the world. "It might even make the stories more exciting."

"I'll tell you everything, as best I remember it," Sostratos promised. "But you should also listen to Menedemos' version, and Diokles' as well. Then you can put them together for yourself and decide where the real truth lies." He laughed at himself. "Anyone would think I wanted to write a history one day. That's how Thoukydides says he went about figuring out just what happened in the Peloponnesian War."

"Seems a sensible way to try to learn things," Lysistratos said.

Sostratos snapped his fingers. "Diokles!" he exclaimed. "I do want to put in a good word for him. We couldn't have had a better oar-master. Honest, sensible, brave when he needs to be - I'd love to sail with him as keleustes again next spring, but he'd make a good captain, too."