"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."
"You must be Lamakhos," Sostratos said, and the brothelkeeper dipped his head. Sostratos went on, "I met your Keltic girls last night."
"Did you?" Lamakhos' eyes lit up. Sostratos had little trouble thinking along with him. If he, Sostratos, had been at the symposion, he was prosperous. And if he was here so early, he was probably besotted with at least one of the Kelts - which could only profit the man who owned them. "If you want to meet 'em again, friend, I'll be glad to get 'em for you."
I'm sure you would, Sostratos thought. Lamakhos wasn't so far wrong, either, but Sostratos didn't want him realizing that. And so, as casually as he could, he said, "Later, maybe. The real reason I came here was that I noticed your flutegirls were decked in thin linen last night."
"Well, what about it?" Lamakhos' bonhomie dropped away like a himation in hot weather.
"They'd make more for themselves and more for you if they wore silk." Sostratos showed him the bolt of Koan cloth he'd brought along.
"Ah." Now Lamakhos looked thoughtful. This was business, too, if not quite the business he'd had in mind. He pointed. "Come on into the courtyard, so I can have a look at this stuff in the sunlight."
He led Sostratos through the main reception room, where the girls sat around waiting for customers. Some of them wore linen tunics, as the flutegirls had the night before. Others were altogether naked. As they sat, most of them spun wool into thread - if they weren't making money for Lamakhos one way, they'd do it another.
"Hail, little brother!" one of them called to Sostratos, and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Her bare breasts jiggled, too.
"Shut up, Aphrodisia," Lamakhos said. "He's not here for a piece. He's here to try and sell me some silk."
Telling that to the whores proved a mistake. By their excited squeals, they all wanted to wear the filmy, exotic fabric. Sostratos displayed the bolt. The women reached for it. Lamakhos looked sour, but took Sostratos into the courtyard, as he'd said he would. Sostratos displayed it again. "Oh, look!" one of the girls said. "You can see right through it. What the men wouldn't pay if we went to a symposion dressed like that!" The other whores loudly agreed.
Lamakhos looked harassed. Even though the women were slaves, they could make his life miserable. "Well, what do you want for it?" he growled at Sostratos.
"Fifteen drakhmai for each bolt," Sostratos answered. "Plenty of silk in each one for a chiton, and your girls will make the price back inside a few months."
The women put up a clamor that hamstrung Lamakhos' tries at dickering. They made such a racket, they woke up the flutegirls and dancers who'd been at Gylippos' symposion the night before. The fluteplayer who'd given Menedemos the name of her master and the redheaded dancer with whom Sostratos had enjoyed himself both waved to him. They and the other girls joined in the outcry for silk.
Despite that outcry, Lamakhos did his best, but he couldn't get Sostratos down below thirteen drakhmai a bolt for twenty bolts. "You've seduced my girls, that's what it is," he said unhappily.
"You'll make money in the long run," Sostratos said again. Since the brothelkeeper seemed prepared to pay and didn't argue, he concluded Lamakhos held the same opinion. And then inspiration struck. "If you'll do something for me, I'll knock five drakhmai off the total."
"What's that?" Lamakhos asked.
Sostratos pointed to the Keltic girl. "Let me come by and have Maibia" - the name she'd given him didn't fit well in a Hellene's mouth - "whenever I like for as long as I'm in Taras this year."
Lamakhos pursed his lips, considering. "I ought to say no. I'd get more than five drakhmai out of you that way."
"You might," Sostratos replied. "On the other hand, you might not. You should know that I am not one who spends wildly on women."
That made Lamakhos look unhappy again. "You haven't got the look, I have to say. You'd probably stay away just to spite me, too, wouldn't you?" Sostratos only smiled. Lamakhos drummed his fingers on the side of his thigh. "All right - a deal, as long as you don't hurt her or do anything that makes her worth less. If you do, I'll take you to law, by the gods."