Harry Turtledove: Over the Wine-Dark Sea

He considered ways and means. "I'll let you have a couple of oboloi afterwards."

He didn't have to do that, not with a family slave. "All right," Threissa said, but this time in a different tone of voice. "Maybe even three?"

Slaves are mercenary creatures, Sostratos thought. But then they have to be. "Maybe," he answered. Threissa waited for him at the top of the stairs. They went down the hall together to his room. He closed the door behind them.

"Come on," Menedemos said as he and Sostratos made their way toward the gymnasion in the southwestern part of Rhodes, not far from the stadium and the temple dedicated to Apollo. "It'll do you good. We've been away too long."

His cousin accompanied him only reluctantly. "What you mean is, it'll do you good to show you can still outrun me and throw me when we wrestle. I don't know why you bother. We both know how that will come out."

"That's not the point," Menedemos said, which was at least partially true. "The point is, a proper Hellene doesn't let himself go to seed."

"I can think of quite a few things you do that a proper Hellene doesn't," Sostratos said tartly. "Why shouldn't I get to pick and choose, too?"

Since Menedemos knew he had no good comeback for that, he didn't bother trying to find one. Instead, he repeated, "Come on," adding, "No point in going back now. Look, you can already see the theater and the southern wall beyond it."

"And if I went back home, I could see Demeter's temple," Sostratos retorted. "Did you drag me out here to see the sights? I don't mind that so much. Going to the gymnasion is a different story."

"Quit complaining," Menedemos said, beginning to lose patience. "You can let yourself get all hunched-up and flabby, like a shoemaker stuck at his bench all the time or a barbarian who doesn't care what he looks like because he never takes off his clothes, or else you can try to be as much of a kalos k'agathos as you can."

"I have much more control over whether I'm good than I do over whether I'm good-looking," Sostratos said. Despite his grumbles, he accompanied Menedemos into the gymnasion. They stripped off their chitons - being seamen, they didn't bother with sandals - and gave an attendant an abolos to keep an eye on the clothes while they went out and exercised.

Some of the men running on the track or grappling with one another in the sandy wrestling pits plainly didn't get to the gymnasion often enough. But others . . . Menedemos pointed. "There's a pretty boy, fourteen or fifteen, and handsome enough to have his name scrawled on the walls." His own name had gone up on more than a few walls when he was that age; Sostratos', he remembered rather too late, hadn't.

All his cousin said now, though, was, "Yes, and doesn't he know it? If he sticks his nose any higher in the air, he'll get a crick in the neck."

"When you look like that, you can get away with a few airs," Menedemos said. Sostratos only grunted.

They ran a few sprints to loosen up. Menedemos savored the feel of the breeze against his skin, the grass at the verge of the track flying by as he strained to get every bit of speed from himself he could. He also savored leaving Sostratos in his wake, hearing his cousin's panting breath fade behind him time after time.

"You're a pentekonter, sure enough," Sostratos said. "Me, I'm just a round ship."

Menedemos' turn of speed drew the notice of a fellow a couple of years younger than he who also had the lean, muscular build of a runner. "Try yourself against me?" the younger man said. "I'm Amyntas son of Praxion."

"Pleased to meet you." Menedemos gave his own name, and introduced Sostratos, too. "I'd be pleased to run with you. My cousin will call the start."

"Good enough," Amyntas said. "Would you care to put a drakhma on the race, just to make it interesting?"

"Interesting, eh?" Menedemos raised an eyebrow. "All right, if it pleases you. Sostratos, turn us loose." He took his position on the track beside Amyntas.

"Ready?" Sostratos called. "Set." Both runners tensed. "Go!"

Amyntas went off like an arrow from a bow. Menedemos stayed shoulder to shoulder with him till they were within twenty-five or thirty cubits of the end of the stadion course, but Amyntas pulled away and won by five cubits or so. "I can do better than that," Menedemos said. "Try it again, double the stake to the winner?"

"Why not?" Amyntas said, not quite hiding a predatory smile as they walked back to the beginning of the course. Several men gathered to watch them now. Menedemos wondered if Sostratos would give him a fishy stare for gambling on his legs. But his cousin only shrugged and called the start again. He's probably glad not to be running himself, Menedemos thought, leaning forward to get the best start he could.

"Go!" Sostratos said, and Menedemos and Amyntas shot away once more. Again, Menedemos stayed close to the younger man till the race was almost over. Again, he couldn't quite keep up at the end. Again, he kicked at the dirt in frustration.

"That's two drakhmai you owe me," Amyntas said, not bothering to hide his grin now that he'd won.

"Let's double it one more time." Menedemos sounded like a man determined to win his way back to prosperity no matter how long it took - and no matter if it broke him first.

"Just as you say, best one," Amyntas replied as they walked back toward the starting line.

"Give us a start one more time," Menedemos called to Sostratos. "I'm going to whip this fellow yet, and I've doubled the bet to prove it." Some of the men who stood at the side of the track watching murmured among themselves. Amyntas' grin got wider; he had witnesses, in case Menedemos didn't feel like paying up.

They took their marks. "Ready?" Sostratos said. "Set . . . Go!"

Amyntas and Menedemos flew down the track side by side. As before, Menedemos hung at the younger man's shoulder till they were about thirty cubits from the end of the course. Then Amyntas, leaning forward for his final sprint, let out a startled grunt. Menedemos went past him as if his feet were suddenly nailed to the dirt, and won by three or four cubits.

"That's four drakhmai you owe me," he said cheerfully. "Or would you like to double the bet again?"

"Oh, no." Amyntas tossed his head. "I know what I just saw. You held back the first two runs to draw me in, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Menedemos' voice was arch. "Besides, how can I be sure you weren't trying to fool me there?" But he knew. Amyntas had been running flat out, and he hadn't been good enough. Menedemos chuckled. If he'd been fast enough to go to Olympia a couple of years before, Amyntas would have remembered his name. Nobody recalled the also-rans, but a man nearly fast enough to represent his polis at the Olympic Games was plenty fast to beat a fellow who picked up a little extra silver betting on his legs now and then.

"Why haven't I seen you round the gymnasion more?" Amyntas asked sadly. "I would have known better than to take you on."

"I just got back from Great Hellas," Menedemos replied, and the other man rolled his eyes in sorrow and chagrin.

They walked back toward Sostratos by the start line. Amyntas peeled off toward the building where the men left their tunics. "I hope he's not going to get dressed and skip out without paying you," Sostratos said. To him, it was the principle of the thing more than the money.

"I doubt it," Menedemos said. "He couldn't show his face here again for shame if he did - too many people watching. Shall we throw javelins while we wait?"

"Something to that," his cousin allowed. "Javelins? Why not? I'm not hopeless with them, anyway." And he wasn't. With his long arms, he threw fairly well - as Alexidamos had painful cause to know - though he would never be graceful. He matched Menedemos for distance, and almost matched him in accuracy throwing at a bale of straw.