“Unconventional?” she supplied helpfully. “I guess I’m the lucky one.”
“No,” I said, “that’s me.” And I took her in her arms and kissed her, just as a woman with two girl children walked past. The woman turned her head and sniffed. The young girls watched closely.
“We’re in public!” Diotima, the girl with the unconventional family, had the most conventional morals in Athens. To kiss one’s wife in public is scandalous behavior.
So I dragged her back into her tent.
“Nico!” Diotima said, startled. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure your genitals are still concave.”
Diotima squealed.
“Sorry. Cold hands.”
I escorted Diotima to my father’s tent, eventually.
“You’re late,” he complained.
“Sorry, Father, something came up.”
Not being a camping or fighting man by inclination, Sophroniscus hadn’t his own canvas. He’d hired one from the local scam merchants. It was tattered and smelled of decay, but it kept the sun off our heads and was warm enough at night. By rights we should have met at the house of the bride’s father, or in this case his tent, but Pythax had refused, I suspect because he was embarrassed.
Pythax had come to respectability late in life. Perhaps that was why he held onto it so tightly. He dressed in a formal chiton, dyed in bright reds and greens, that hung all the way to his ankles and covered a body that would have done credit to a man half his age. He wore sandals on his wide, flat feet, feet that had never before known any protection. A himation of the finest Milesian wool draped about his shoulders and trailed down his left arm. It was the dress of a wealthy gentleman, and it must have cost him a small fortune. On a man like Pythax, who had spent his life in leather armor, the effect was faintly ridiculous. Or perhaps that was because I’d known him when he was still a slave. On his head, a circlet of flowers sat askew. Beneath it, his craggy features and scarred, sunburned skin gave lie to the entire pose.
Pythax and Father sized each other up, and it was almost comic to see: the large, well-muscled man who looked so totally out of place, and the short, stocky sculptor.
“I never thought I’d negotiate a marriage opposite a northern barbarian,” my father said.
I winced.
“And I never thought I’d be negotiating with an artist weakling,” Pythax growled.
I forced a smile. “Can I bring you refreshments, sirs?”
They ignored me.
They sat down on either side of a low traveling chest to face each other. The camp stool onto which Pythax lowered his bottom creaked under the strain, but didn’t quite splinter.
I set out cups and poured wine for them both. The more the better, I reasoned, and poured only an equal measure of water. For a business meeting the ration would normally be three water to one wine.
Sophroniscus said, “We are here to negotiate the marriage of my son Nicolaos with your stepdaughter Diotima.”
“They’re already married,” Pythax said.
“They are not,” said Sophroniscus.
“They are,” said Pythax. “They say they did the ceremony.”
“Then perhaps we should review what happened.” Sophroniscus turned to me. “Nicolaos, did you perform the rite of marriage with Diotima?”
“Yes, sir.” It wasn’t the answer my father wanted, but it was the truth, and I didn’t regret it.
“There, you see?” said Pythax.
Sophroniscus persisted. “In this ceremony you say you performed, did the girl hand her girdle to her mother?”
“No, Father, how could she? Diotima’s mother wasn’t there.”
“So the girl wasn’t prepared by her mother. Did either of you bathe in the morning?”
“No.”
“Did you walk from our home to hers, to collect her from her father?”
“No.”
“Did you place her in a chariot drawn by a horse, to lead her to her new home?”
“Father, everything you ask was impossible.”
“Precisely,” said Sophroniscus. “It is impossible that the marriage ceremony could have taken place as it is practiced by the Athenians. Therefore no marriage has occurred.”
Pythax turned a dangerous red. “You’re saying my daughter’s been used and now you won’t do anything about it.”
“It would help if we weren’t doing everything backward.” My father said to me, “It’s traditional to negotiate the dowry before you bed the girl.”
Diotima had sat silently behind Pythax up to this point. Now she sat up straight and angry and said, “That was my choice, thank you very much!”
Pythax said angrily, “Sophroniscus, if you try to deny this marriage, I’ll sue you.”
“On what grounds?” Father demanded.
“Damage to my property.”
“Property?” Diotima fairly screeched. “I’m pretty sure those bits are my property.”
But Pythax was right. No father in his right mind would contract a non-virgin for his son. After what had happened, if we returned Diotima, she’d only be good as a second wife for older men whose first had died.
To calm the situation, I said, “We didn’t mean to get married, sirs. It sort of just … happened. Sorry.”
“Don’t add lying to your father to your crimes. You’re not sorry at all,” Father said. He sighed. “Pythax, I’ll be honest with you. I’m not against my son marrying your daughter, not necessarily anyway, but I insist we negotiate on the basis that nothing has yet happened. There is no fait accompli here, no certainty, and certainly no presumption that the girl has been accepted without a dowry.”
“All right,” Pythax said gruffly. “Can’t say I agree, but it sounds fair. What do you call a reasonable dowry?”
“The normal arrangement would be the girl’s inheritance from her late father. I’ve looked into this, and I know she’s in line for his house and his farm.”
I had to stifle a gasp. Diotima’s late father had been comfortably well off, not dirty rich like the aristocrats, but worth far more than my own father. Such a dowry would more than double our family’s wealth. It seemed an outrageous demand, and yet Father was correct. Tradition clearly required the woman to bring her inheritance with her. Anything less amounted to theft by the stepfather.
For the first time I realized this negotiation might not be as simple as I thought.
Pythax said, “I can agree to the house in the city, but the farm has to stay with me. The city house will give the young couple a place to live.”
Away from my Diotima’s new in-laws, Pythax didn’t say but clearly implied. It’s the custom that the bride will join the family of her husband in his family home, where she must live in the women’s quarters with her mother-in-law. It wasn’t the most comfortable arrangement for the bride, who would frequently be bossed and lectured by her mother-in-law, but she would learn the ways of her new family very quickly. The son of a very wealthy man might move out of the family home with his bride-Pericles had done so-but only with the permission of his father.
Father shook his head. “That won’t work,” he said. “A city house is a sink for wealth, not a source of it. How could my son maintain such a household?”
“You could help him,” Pythax said.
“I’m not made of money.” Father carefully avoided revealing his financial straits. “The farm must come with the house, or Nico will have no way to maintain his household. I must insist.”
“Take the city house,” Pythax urged. “I’ll throw in the house slaves.”
As he sat thinking, my father glanced over the shoulder of Pythax and caught my eye. I nodded vigorously.
Father said, “I’m sorry, Pythax, but I can’t agree to this.”
“It’s the best offer you’ll get,” Pythax said.
Sophroniscus said, “Then we have an impasse.”
And no marriage. I gripped Diotima’s hand, out of sight.
Diotima could contain herself no longer. She burst out, “Dear Gods, I don’t care about the farm! Why don’t we all just share the bloody thing?”