His wine wasn't bad, though, and he didn't seem put out to see Sostratos and Menedemos eating bread and not giving him anything to throw into that bubbling vat. When Sostratos asked about his rooms, he said, "Two oboloi for the pair of you." He wouldn't haggle. When Sostratos tried, he just tossed his head. "If you don't like it, strangers, go somewhere else."
The two Rhodians couldn't very well do that, not in a strange city after dark. Sostratos thought he could have found his way back to the Aphrodite, but he didn't want to sleep on planking again. After a glance at his cousin, he paid Skylax the little silver coins. A slave carrying a lamp guided Sostratos and Menedemos to the room. It held only one bed. The slave set down the lamp and dragged in another one from across the hall. Then he departed, taking the lamp with him and plunging the room into Stygian darkness.
With a sigh, Sostratos said, "We might as well go to sleep. Nothing else we could possibly do in here."
"Oh, there's one other thing," Menedemos said. "If you were a cute little flutegirl . . ."
"Me?" Sostratos said. "What about you?" They both laughed. Sostratos groped his way to a bed, took off his tunic, and draped it over himself. He wished he'd thought to bring his mantle, too; that would have made a better blanket. But the little room was too cramped and stuffy to get very cold. He twisted, trying to make himself comfortable. Creaks from the other bed said Menedemos was doing the same. Just as he heard the first snore from Menedemos, he fell asleep, too.
His cousin shook him awake. A little gray light was sneaking through the closed shutters over the narrow window. "You sound like a saw working through hard wood," Menedemos said.
"I'm not the only one," Sostratos answered. "Did they bother giving us a chamber pot? If they didn't, I'm going to piss in the corner." He looked under the bed. To his relief, both metaphorical and literal, he found one.
After buying more wine from Skylax to open their eyes, the Rhodians went back to Xenophanes'. "Good day, my masters," Pixodaros told them. "My master still sleeps. He told me to bring you food if you came before he rose." With a bow, the Karian slave went into the back of the house. He returned with bread and cheese.
"Thank you," Sostratos said, and then, "This business will be yours one of these days, won't it?"
"It could be." Pixodaros' voice was carefully neutral. "The gods gave my master no children who lived, so it could be."
Even if Xenophanes liberated Pixodaros on his deathbed, the Karian would never be a full citizen of Kos. His children might, though, depending on whom he married. Life is a changeable business, Sostratos thought - not original, but true.
He and Menedemos and Pixodaros made small talk till Xenophanes came out about half an hour later. "I still say you're asking too much for a jar of dye," the silk merchant began without preamble.
Menedemos put on his most winning smile. "But, my dear fellow . . ." he said. He could charm birds out of trees and wives into bed when he worked at it.
But he couldn't charm Xenophanes, who said, "No. It's too much, I tell you. I spent a deal of time thinking on it last night in bed, and my mind's made up."
"All right, then," Sostratos said before Menedemos could speak. Sostratos was the one who used bluntness, not charm, as his main weapon. He got to his feet. "I guess we'll go see Theagenes" - Xenophanes' chief rival - "if you won't see reason. And if Theagenes is stubborn, too, I guarantee we can get a better price for the dye in Taras or one of the other Italian cities than we can here."
That was likely true, though silk would bring more profit still. Mentioning Theagenes' name had the desired effect. Xenophanes looked as if he'd taken a big bite of bad fish. "He'll cheat you," he spluttered. "His silk is full of slubs. It's not nearly so thin and transparent as mine."
"No doubt you're right, O best one." Sostratos didn't sit down. "But he usually knows better than to price himself out of a bargain, and at least we'll have something to show the Italiotes. Come on, cousin." Menedemos rose, too. They both started for the door, though Sostratos was anything but eager to throw away most of a day's haggling.
"Wait." That wasn't Xenophanes - it was Pixodaros. He put his head together with his master. Sostratos stayed where he was. Menedemos started to get closer to try to hear what they were saying, but checked himself at Sostratos' small gesture.
"It's robbery, that's what it is!" Xenophanes spoke loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Pixodaros didn't. The slave - the slave who might be a master himself one day - kept his voice low, but he kept talking, too. At last, Xenophanes threw his hands in the air and dipped his head to Sostratos and Menedemos. "All right," he said grudgingly. "A bargain. The Karian is right - we do need the dye. A hundred jars, for the bolts of silk you proposed last night."
