Over the Wine-Dark Sea by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical
ISBN: 9781612421407
Google: h5uXngEACAAJ
Amazon: B00F7LGGZA
Barnesnoble: B00F7LGGZA
Goodreads: 18718568
Publisher: Arc Manor
Published: 2013-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

“The fellow who got something unique in Great Hellas will be heading out of Great Hellas pretty soon: the gods-detested Samnite you sold the grown peacock to,” Gylippos grumbled.

“He paid for it, too,” Menedemos answered. “I’m not asking nearly so much for the little ones.” He ate another olive and spat out the pit. One of the chicks gulped it down. Menedemos wondered whether it could get nourishment from the pit or would use it as a gizzard stone.

“Well, how much are you asking?” Gylippos asked.

“A mina and a half apiece,” Menedemos said lightly.

“A hundred and fifty drakhmai?” Gylippos howled. “By the dog of Egypt, Rhodian, either you’re mad or you think I am.”

Dickers always began with such cries. Menedemos sold the two birds for two Tarentine minai, just about the price he’d wanted to get. “My cousin will curse me when I get back to the house where we’re staying,” he complained, not wanting Gylippos to know how pleased he was.

Gylippos laughed. “He’s probably off spending the money you make, screwing that barbarian with the ugly whey-colored skin and the hair like copper. He’s welcome to her, you ask me.”

“I’m with you.” Menedemos laughed, too. He was far more likely to be accused of squandering silver on women than was his cousin.

“Speaking of which,” Gylippos went on, “which of the house slaves did you have at the symposion? None of them owns up to it, and they usually brag about such things.”

Alarm shot through Menedemos, though he did his best not to show it. One of the chicks wandered over and pecked experimentally at his toe. He thought fast while shooing it away. “I didn’t ask her name,” he said when he straightened. “It was dark - I can’t even tell you what she looks like. But I will tell you this: I gave her three oboloi.”

“Ah. That could be it.” The dried-fish merchant looked wise. “I suppose she thinks I’d take it away from her. She ought to know better - I’m no skinflint, not like some people I could name - but you never can tell with slaves.”

“True.” Menedemos let out a sigh of relief. Gylippos didn’t suspect him. Gylippos didn’t suspect his own wife, either. Maybe Phyllis was good at keeping her affairs secret, or maybe she hadn’t strayed till she met Menedemos. He preferred the latter explanation.

“Do you know,” Gylippos said, “I offered Herennius Egnatius ten minai for the peacock, and he wouldn’t take it. I still say it’s not right to let him go off with a prize like that instead of selling it to a Hellene.”

“Well, O best one, if you’d offered me ten minai, you’d have a peacock in your courtyard right now. Since you didn’t …” Menedemos shrugged.

Gylippos gave him a sour look. Before Herennius Egnatius bought the peacock, he hadn’t thought it was worth ten minai, or even five. He wanted it more because somebody else had it. Menedemos thought he was entitled to look sour himself, too. He would have loved to get ten minai for the bird.

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