Lykon shot questions at Sostratos as if he were a slinger shooting lead bullets. As Sostratos was answering them, another merchant, a plump fellow named Telephos, came up to the doorway and started asking some of the same ones over again. To Sostratos' relief, he didn't have to answer them twice, for the door opened and Philodemos said, 'Welcome, my friends. Hail, Lysistratos. Hail, Sostratos. Come in, all of you.' He sniffed. 'By all means, come in. You can already smell the opson cooking, and it will be ready soon.' The odor of frying seafood came wafting out through the doorway. The guests jostled one another, each more eager than the next to get inside. Sostratos dipped his head in greeting to Philodemos. 'Hail, Uncle,' he said. 'Hail,' Philodemos said again, his voice more sour than not. 'I thought, when you went down to the Aphrodite, you would keep Menedemos out of mischief. Instead, I find you joining in. Three hundred twenty-five drakhmai. Pheu!' 'Three hundred twenty-four and three oboloi, actually,' Sostratos replied. 'And we'll bring back more from Italy. I truly think we will.' He was also truly annoyed Philodemos should reckon him hardly better than a pedagogue, a slave who took a boy to and from his teacher's and kept an eye on him to make sure he stayed out of mischief on the way. 'I hope you do.' By the way his uncle said it, he might hope, but he didn't expect. Menedemos stood in the entranceway to the andron, silhouetted by the torches and lamps within. 'Hail,' he said as Sostratos came up. Sostratos sniffed again. The ambrosial aromas from the kitchen weren't all he smelled. 'Roses?' he asked. 'And why not?' Menedemos replied. He'd always been something of a dandy. 'Rhodes is the city of the rose. There's a rose stamped onto the port side of the Aphrodite's ram, along with far-shooting Apollo on the other. I thought I'd deck myself out with scented oil tonight.' He lowered his voice: 'I hoped it would help sweeten Father, too, but no luck there. What did he say to you on the way in?' 'Nothing too good,' Sostratos said, and his cousin winced. He went on, 'But the bargain stands. We still have the chance for the last laugh - as long as the birds don't take sick.' Menedemos spat into the bosom of his chiton to avert the evil omen. Sostratos asked, 'Where will you have us reclining?' 'Almost all the way over to the right, of course, on the couch next to Father and me,' Menedemos said. 'Why? Did you think we would slight you?' 'Not really,' Sostratos said. He must have sounded hesitant. His cousin said, 'Father may be angry at you and me, but he'd never insult Uncle Lysistratos by moving him, and he can't very well move you alone and give your father a new couchmate. As far as the outside world knows, all's well - mm, well enough - among us.' 'The outside world certainly knows about the peafowl,' Sostratos said. 'I hope Himilkon hasn't been going through the wineshops boasting of getting the better of us.
Вы читаете Over the Wine Dark Sea
