“Power again,” Sostratos murmured. Protomakhos dipped his head. Menedemos eyed Sostratos with a mix of respect and pity. His cousin could learn, and learn quickly. But he had to reason everything out, one step at a time. He seldom used his heart or his belly to gauge how things worked. It had to be his mind or nothing.
“Tomorrow,” Menedemos said, “tomorrow I’ll take a couple of jars of perfume into the agora and I’ll start shouting about how wonderful it is. Some of the better hetairai are bound to have slaves out shopping for them. Once a slave girl gets a sniff, she’ll take word back to her mistress. Then I’ll see if I can do business with her.”
The Rhodian proxenos laughed. “What sort of business do you aim to do?” He gestured lewdly.
“Don’t you start, if you please,” Menedemos said. “Sostratos was giving me a hard time about taking it out in trade, too.”
“I don’t want you giving the hetairai a hard time,” Sostratos said, “at least not in exchange for the firm’s merchandise. If you’re going to be firm, do it on your own time and pay for it.”
Protomakhos winced, though he was the one who’d started the puns. I won’t have to pay for it if I do it with a wife and not a hetaira, Menedemos thought. But, with Xenokleia the wife in question, that was much better left unspoken.
Turning to Sostratos, Protomakhos asked, “And what will you be doing while your cousin’s out having a good time?”
“I’ve still got truffles to sell, and I’ve got the Byblian and Lesbian,” Sostratos answered. “I think the first thing to do is try to sell the wine to some of Kassandros’ Macedonian officers. Everybody knows how thirsty Macedonians are, and everybody knows how much money they’ve got, too.”
The proxenos chuckled. “That’s a good combination, all right. I wish you both good fortune, and you”-he pointed to Menedemos- “can take that any way you please.”
“I know I can sell perfume,” Menedemos said. “Whether I get to do any buying…” He shrugged. “I’ll find out.”
“You two won’t need the scales any more, will you?” As Protomakhos had a moment before, he used the dual number in referring to Menedemos and Sostratos. That grammatical form was common in Homer’s Greek, much less so in modern Attic. By using it, Protomakhos implied the Rhodians were a natural pair. Menedemos’ eyes flicked toward Sostratos. Sostratos was looking his way, too. Both of them, evidently, were trying to decide whether they wanted to be part of such a pair.
Distracted, Menedemos had to make himself remember the question. “No, O best one. We do thank you for the use of them, though.”
“I ought to charge you the extra you got from Kleokritos as commission.” Protomakhos smiled to show he didn’t mean that seriously.
“Take it,” Menedemos said at once. “You’ve shown us all sorts of kindnesses. The least we can do is pay you back a little.” Sostratos looked wounded, but set his face to rights so quickly that Menedemos didn’t think the proxenos noticed. Menedemos knew his cousin had less simple generosity than he did himself: one more thing that made Sostratos a good toikharkhos.
Protomakhos, meanwhile, tossed his head. “No, no. That’s kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly. I’m here to help you Rhodians, not to take your money.”
Menedemos didn’t insist. That might have offended the proxenos. He resolved to do something nice for Protomakhos before leaving Athens. After all, his wife has done something nice for me.
Now Menedemos let his eyes slide across the windows of the upper story. He didn’t linger at the one belonging to Xenokleia’s bedchamber. He knew better than to do anything so foolish. He hoped Xenokleia knew how to keep her mouth shut-and how to keep her demeanor from giving anything away, too. Life would get more difficult if she didn’t. He tried not to contemplate how much more difficult it might get. Sostratos was also better than he at brooding over things that might go wrong.
No disaster had struck by the time the two Rhodians set out the next morning. “Have fun in the agora,” Sostratos told Menedemos.
“People would talk if I did it there,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos spluttered and choked, spraying watered wine. Protomakhos laughed out loud.
When Sostratos could speak again, he said, “You’re trying to sell to hetairai, and I to Macedonian officers. I may make more money, but you’ll have more fun.”
“You never can tell,” Protomakhos said. “Some of those Macedonians are as wide-arsed as any Athenian effeminate.”
“I’m sorry, best one,” Sostratos said. “No matter what a Macedonian officer’s idea of fun may be, no Macedonian officer is mine.”
Menedemos made his way to the agora through morning twilight. He didn’t have a stall, of course, or even a tray slung around his neck to hold his goods. He did have lots of little jars of perfume in a leather sack, a brash manner, and a loud voice-and he got there early enough to stake out a spot by the Street of the Panathenaia, where lots of people would surely pass by.
The sun touched the buildings of the akropolis-and, to the north, the top of the hill called Lykabettos. That one was sharp and conical and useless as a fortress, or for anything else Menedemos could see. For that matter, the akropolis itself couldn’t come close to sheltering all the people of Athens, not any more. In the old days, he supposed it might have.
He reached into the sack and pulled out a jar. “Fine perfume from Rhodes!” he called. Selling this, his Doric drawl wouldn’t hurt him. “Sweet-smelling rose perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses!”
A woman with the rough hands and bent back of a laundress said, “Can I have a sniff?” He yanked out the stopper. Sniff she did, and then smiled. She asked, “How much do you want for a tiny little jar like that?” She knew how to haggle-the first thing she did was disparage Menedemos’ goods.
He told her.
Her jaw dropped. After that moment of astonishment, she got angry. “You’re having me on!” she said, and shook a fist in his face. He wouldn’t have wanted to brawl with her; she looked formidable. “I don’t make that much money in a month!”
“I’m sorry, my dear, but that is the price,” Menedemos said.
“Then you’re a polluted thief!” she exclaimed.
He tossed his head. He didn’t want her saying that. “No, indeed,” he told her, “for this jar”-he balanced it on the palm of his hand- “holds a lot of labor. The roses have to be grown and picked, the sweet-smelling petals plucked, the lot of them boiled down into an essence and mixed with fine oil-I don’t know all the details, for the perfumers keep them secret. But I do know that everyone who does that labor has to be paid, too, and that’s what you see in the price I charge.”
She didn’t call him a liar. She did say, “It’s a cursed shame when honest folk can’t afford something nice, I’ll tell you that. Who’s going to buy at your price? Those bastards who run the polis and suck our blood, that’s who, them and brothelkeepers and fancy whores. Furies take the lot of ‘em, and you, too.” She flounced off without giving Menedemos a chance to answer.
He didn’t know what he could have said to her. The people she’d named were the ones who could afford what he was selling. Hetairai weren’t exactly whores-they entertained the men they chose, not the men who chose them-but their entertainment involved, or could involve, going to bed with their clients, so they weren’t exactly not whores, either.
Oh, rich merchants could buy perfume, too. On the one hand, though, how likely were they to be honest? And, on the other, they were more likely to buy it for hetairai than for their wives. Wives would always be there. A man had to work to make a hetaira want to stay with him. He had to work, and he had to spend silver.