hoped he sounded hearty enough to be convincing. He must have, for the Rhodian proxenos chuckled indulgently and said, “Have fun, boys. When I was your age, I was that cockproud, too.” He sighed; he was feeling the wine, even if it was well watered. “Can't get it up as often as I used to, worse luck.” “Onions,” Menedemos said. “Eggs.” “Mussels and crab meat,” Sostratos added. “I've tried 'em.” Kleiteles' shrug said the sovereign remedies had done no good. “Pepper and nettle seed,” Sostratos suggested. The proxenos looked thoughtful. “That might be worth a go. It'd be bound to heat up my mouth and my stomach, so why not my vein, too?” He used a common nickname for the prong, Kleiteles glanced toward Sostratos and Menedemos. “Nettle seed is easy enough to come by, but pepper's foreign. I don't suppose you've got any in your akatos, do you?” “I wish we did,” Sostratos said. He looked at Menedemos. “Pepper, balsam—all sorts of interesting things come out of the east. We ought to think about that. Not this sailing season, of course,” he added hastily. “Next one.” His cousin laughed. “You mean you don't want to sail off for Sidon and Byblos tomorrow morning? I can't imagine why.” “We are going to Athens,” Sostratos said firmly. “If we ever find a carpenter, that is.” He got to his feet. “And I am going to bed.” Kleiteles led Sostratos and Menedemos back to the guest rooms. “Good night,” he said. He doused one of the torches burning in the courtyard in the fountain and carried the other one upstairs. Darkness abruptly descended. Sostratos had to grope for the latch. To his relief, a lamp was burning inside. The proxenos' slave woman lay on the bed waiting for him. “Hail,” she said, yawning. “You spent so long in the andron, I almost fell asleep.” Sostratos didn't want to apologize to a slave, but he didn't want a quarrel, either. Trying to avoid both, he asked, “How are you tonight, Thestylis?” “Sleepy, like I told you,” she answered. But she added, “It's nice that you remember my name,” and smiled at him. The smile was probably mercenary. Still, he preferred it to a scowl, “I don't think I'll forget you,” he said. He remembered all the women he'd bedded. He remembered all sorts of things, but Thestylis didn't need to know that. Her smile softened. “What a sweet thing to say,” she told him. “Nobody ever told me anything like that before. Most men, it's just, 'Take off your clothes and bend over,' and they never even find out what your name is, let alone remember it.” The light from the lamp suddenly sparkled off tears in her eyes. “Don't cry,” Sostratos said.
Вы читаете The Gryphon's Skull
