sorry condition. He dimly remembered reeling back to the rented house arm in arm with Menedemos behind a couple of torchbearers, each of them trying to sing louder than the other and both succeeding too well. Then he remembered the Keltic girl. All at once, his head didn't hurt quite so much. Maybe he liked her looks because he'd bedded the red-haired Thracian slave his family owned. And maybe he'd bedded both of them because redheaded women appealed to him. He chuckled as he got out of bed and threw on his chiton. That sounded as if it might be the subject of one of the dialogues Platon had put in Sokrates' mouth, even if it was on the bawdy side. When he walked out into the courtyard, Menedemos was scattering barley for the peafowl. Menedemos looked about the way Sostratos felt. He managed a smile nonetheless. 'Hail,' he said. 'That was quite a night, wasn't it?' 'So it was,' Sostratos agreed. 'I could do with a little wine - well-watered wine - to take the edge off my headache.' 'I've already done that,' his cousin said. 'It helps a little - not much.' 'Nothing helps a hangover much.' Sostratos went into the kitchen, dipped up some water from a hydria, and poured wine into the cup with it. After a few sips, he walked back out into the courtyard. 'I was thinking I might go and find this Lamakhos' place today, to see if he wants to buy some of our silk to deck out his girls.' He kept his voice elaborately casual, but not casual enough. Menedemos laughed at him. 'I know what else you're after. You want another look at that Kelt you had at Gylippos' - maybe another go at her, too.' '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
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