"Taras, Father," Menedemos said, and Philodemos grunted as if he'd been hit in the belly. Menedemos went on, "I don't think it's quite so bad as at Halikarnassos." He didn't think Gylippos' toughs had intended to kill him, but only to beat him up. The fellow in Halikarnassos had definitely wanted him dead.
"Not quite so bad." Philodemos looked as if he were sipping vinegar, not wine. "And Taras is an important polis, too, the first one you're likely to come to on the way west from Hellas. What are we going to do with you, son?" Menedemos found it expedient to stay mute. His father grunted again, then said, "Well, at least you don't do things like that here in Rhodes, the gods be praised."
Menedemos didn't answer that, either. His father, fortunately, took silence for agreement.
"I was hoping I might hear my sister had been betrothed when I came home," Sostratos remarked to his father as they sat in the andron.
"And I was hoping I might be able to tell you Erinna was," Lysistratos replied. "I did have some discussions about it with - oh, never mind what his name was: what point to going into the details when these things don't work out?"
"What was wrong with him?" Sostratos asked.
"Not a thing," Lysistratos said. "But he made a match with another family for their daughter who's never been married. They aren't so well off as we are, but the girl's fourteen, not eighteen. He's more likely to breed sons on her than he is on Erinna. You can't blame him for having that uppermost in his thoughts. What are wives for but sons?"
"It's not Erinna's fault - " Sostratos began before checking himself.
"It's not anyone's fault that I can see," his father said. "It's just one of those things that make life difficult for mortals."
Gyges, the Lydian majordomo, stuck his head into the men's chamber. "Master, Xanthos is at the door. He wants to congratulate the young master on the Aphrodite's safe return."
Sostratos rolled his eyes. "Speaking of the things that make life difficult for mortals . . ."
His father laughed, but told Gyges, "Bring him in. He can drink some wine with us. Sooner or later, he'll go away."
"Later," Sostratos predicted, but in a voice low enough to keep his father from giving him a reproving look. A moment later, when the majordormo brought Xanthos into the andron, Sostratos got to his feet and bowed to the older man. "Hail, O marvelous one. How are you today?"
"Hail, Sostratos," Xanthos said. "It's good of you to ask. To tell you the truth, I do marvel that I failed to go down to the house of Hades while you were off in the west. My piles have been torture - and all the worse because I've been so constipated. And my shoulder joints ache whenever the weather gets damp. I dread this winter season, I truly do. I haven't been sleeping well, either. Old age truly is a misery; never let anyone tell you otherwise."
"Here you are, Xanthos." Lysistratos gave the other merchant a cup of wine, no doubt hoping to slow the tide of words. "Drink with us. We have reason to be glad, with the boys home safe and with a tidy profit, too."
"That's good news, very good news, very good news indeed," Xanthos said, flicking a few drops out of the cup for a libation. "Pity your son here couldn't have heard me at the Assembly earlier in the month. I'm immodest enough to say I surpassed even my usual eloquence."
"What did you speak on?" Sostratos asked.
"On how we should conduct ourselves if the fighting between Antigonos and Ptolemaios gets worse," Xanthos replied.
"That is important," Sostratos agreed.
He didn't ask the plump merchant to summarize the speech. He knew better. And Xanthos didn't summarize it. He said, "I believe I can remember how it went," and launched into it, complete with gestures that looked as if they would have been more at home on the comic stage than in the Assembly. His main point was that, since Rhodes did so much business with Egypt, she should stay on Ptolemaios' side provided she could do so without making Antigonos attack her. That made good sense to Sostratos, but he mightily wished Xanthos hadn't taken half an hour to get where he was going.
"Stirring," Lysistratos said when Xanthos finally finished. He poured himself more wine, which showed just how much he'd been stirred. Sostratos held out his cup for a refill, too. His father didn't offer the oinokhoe to Xanthos.
"Tell me the news from Italy," Xanthos urged Sostratos.
"Up north of Great Hellas, the Samnites and the Romans are still fighting," Sostratos said. He started to tell the other Rhodian how the Aphrodite had wound up in the middle of that war, but decided not to. It would only have brought more questions, and maybe, the gods forbid, another speech. Instead, he went on, "And from Sicily, Agathokles has invaded Africa to pay the Carthaginians back for besieging Syracuse." He didn't say anything about how the Aphrodite had been involved there, either.
