“You don’t have to do that, sir,” the torchbearer said. “Philodemos, he already paid us.”
“I know. You’re a good man for saying so, though,” Sostratos replied. “This isn’t from my uncle. This is from me.”
Across the street, the squalls of a baby floated out from Philodemos’ house. The tough fellow who didn’t have a torch made a face. “You’ll have fun sleeping tonight with a brat so close and all,” he said.
“I won’t mind too much. I hope not, anyhow. That’s my new little first cousin,” Sostratos said.
“That’s Philodemos’ son?” asked the man with the torch. Sostratos dipped his head. The guard went on, “How about that? Philodemos, he’s not too young, but I guess he’s not too old, neither.”
Lysistratos stuck his head out into the street. “He’s my brother. My older brother, mind you. I’ll tell him you said that.”
Everyone laughed. The guards headed off to their own homes, or maybe to a wineshop. After Sostratos went back inside, his father closed and barred the door. “Is anything left to eat?” Sostratos asked. “It’s been a long time since breakfast.”
“Go on into the andron,” Lysistratos replied. “Threissa will bring you some supper.”
Lamps already lit the men’s room. A jar of wine, one of water, a dipper, and some cups sat on a small table by Sostratos’ usual couch. His father came in with him. “Will you drink wine with me, sir?” Sostratos asked him. “How strong would you like it?”
“A little less than half wine, I think,” Lysistratos said. “You’re coming home tonight—we can have it stronger than usual.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Sostratos watered the wine for his father and himself. He raised his cup. “Your health!”
“And yours,” Lysistratos answered. They both poured libations on the floor.
Threissa carried in a wooden tray with a loaf of barley bread, a small bowl of olive oil, a larger bowl of olives, and a platter of fried smelts—fried just now, Sostratos’ nose told him, not sitting on a counter in the kitchen since the rest of the family ate.
“Thank you, my dear,” Sostratos told the slave. “You’ve saved my life with this.”
“Is not’ing,” she said in her accented Greek. Like a lot of barbarians—and, indeed, like some Ionians—she had trouble with aspirated consonants. And she looked as if she wanted to hide while standing in plain sight. She was not enamored of Sostratos, but if he told her to come up to bed with him she had to go. He hadn’t told her that for a long time, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t, especially when he was just back from a long stretch at sea.
At the moment, he had other appetites that wanted slaking. He tore off a chunk of bread, dipped it in the oil, and popped it into his mouth. “That’s good oil!” he exclaimed.
“It’s Damonax’s,” his father replied. “The same kind of stuff you were flogging in Egypt. You must have got rid of it, too. I didn’t see our work gang hauling any back here.”
“I sold a lot of it to the fellow who cooks for Ptolemaios’ nomarch in Memphis. He’s a Rhodian himself, from the same village as Damonax’s family. It tasted like old times to him, so he bought quite a bit,” Sostratos said.
“Euge!” Lysistratos said. “Did you get a good price?”
“Father, I got a terrific price. He was playing with the nomarch’s silver, after all, not his own. He didn’t care how much he spent.”
“Egypt is as rich as they say, then?”
“Richer!” Sostratos paused to sip wine, eat a couple of olives, and pop first one smelt and then another into his mouth. As he chewed, he went on, “No one who hasn’t been there can imagine how rich it is. No one in Hellas, no one even in old Sybaris or in Syracuse, lives the way that nomarch does. And he was just a nomarch! Ptolemaios’ place in Alexandria ….” He tossed his head in disbelief, then took more smelts from the platter. After he ate them, he said, “I can’t finish all of this, Father. I’ll burst if I try. Have some with me, please.”
“Maybe one or two,” Lysistratos said. Then he held the platter out to Threissa. “Would you like some?” Sostratos wished he’d thought to do that.
“T’ank you, Master!” she said, and ate. The family didn’t keep its slaves hungry, but they seldom got anything so nice.
“Get yourself a cup and have a little wine, too,” Sostratos said, trying to make amends. She scurried away, returning a moment later with a cup like his and his father’s. Sostratos watered her wine the same as he had for himself and Lysistratos. She made a face at him. Like Egyptians and many other barbarians, Thracians drank neat wine when in their native land.
But she smiled as she poured it down. “Is tasty!” she said.
“Good,” Sostratos replied. He poured more for his father, then more for himself. Before long, the slave woman’s cup was empty, too. Thracians had a name for drunkenness; Hellenes said Macedonians had learned their bad habits from them.
When he offered her a refill, though, she shook her head. Then she remembered to toss it like a Hellene. “No, young master, t’ank you,” she said. “I will fall down taking t’ings back to the kitc’en for was’ing.”
He shrugged. “However you please.” Had he been thinking that, if she got tiddly, she might put up with him better? He knew perfectly well that he had.
His father asked, “Do I need to know anything your cousin didn’t tell people at the harbor?”
“Only that we made a lot of silver down in Egypt, sir. If you’re a Hellene, you have to work hard not to make silver in Egypt, I think,” Sostratos replied. “The question is whether we’ll be able to keep it.”
“The polis has been strengthening the walls and the forts ever since Demetrios called on us this spring,” his father said. “Our men are training with weapons, too—you know about that.”
“Yes, sir. I was training myself, before the Aphrodite sailed.”
“Everyone’s doing it. Even oldsters like your uncle and I have been practicing with spear and shield and sword.”
Sostratos smiled. “How much good do you think you’d do against a veteran mercenary half your age?”
“Probably not a lot.” Sostratos’ father was almost as thoroughgoing a realist as he was himself. But Lysistratos continued, “I’ll have a better chance than if I hadn’t practiced, though. So will Philodemos. And fighting is like dicing. Every once in a while, you roll a triple six. Maybe we’ll be lucky.”
“May the gods hear you!” Sostratos said.
“Thanks. Maybe we won’t have to fight at all,” Lysistratos said. “We won’t do Antigonos and Demetrios any harm if they let us stay free and independent. They have to be able to see that … don’t they?” The falling note in his voice said he was trying to convince himself.
“Let’s hope the Ptolemaios got back to Alexandria. If he did, we still have a counterweight of sorts against Antigonos and his son. If he didn’t.” If Ptolemaios was captured or dead … Sostratos poured more wine, and watered it less than he had before. No, he didn’t want to think about that at all.
Neither did his father. “Let me have another cup, too, if you please,” Lysistratos said. Sostratos poured out another strong draught. After taking it with a murmur of thanks, his father asked Threissa, “Would you care for more, my dear?” He spoke to her with as much courtesy as if she were a high-born lady he happened to meet on a trading voyage. Sostratos admired the effect while knowing he couldn’t hope to imitate it.
She’d turned him down. For his father, she dipped her head. “If you please, Master. T’ank you very muc’.”
Sostratos did the honors. Again, he mixed the slave’s wine as he had for himself and his father. She noticed the difference; she looked sharply at him after her first sip. But then she smiled. It might not have been the neat wine Thracians were said to crave so much, but it came closer to that than what she usually got.