"Thank you." Menedemos popped one into his mouth, worked off the pulp with his teeth and tongue, and spat the pit onto the pebbles of the floor mosaic.
Gylippos pointed to the canvas sack. "So those are the chicks, eh?"
"Either that or I've caught a kakodaimon in there," Menedemos replied with a grin.
The purveyor of dried fish chuckled. "Let's see 'em."
"Right." Menedemos upended the sack on the floor. Out spilled the two peafowl chicks. "Here - I brought some barley for them." Menedemos scattered the grain over the mosaic. The chicks started contentedly pecking away. They were a good deal bigger than newly hatched chickens, brownish above and buff below. The little noises they made were louder and sharper than ordinary chicks', too, though not nearly so raucous as those of adult peafowl.
"I see they can take care of themselves," Gylippos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. "Figures that they would - most birds of that sort can," the fish dealer went on; he was no fool. "Still, it's good to see with your own eyes. Now - d'you know how to tell the peacocks from the peahens when they're this little?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't," Menedemos replied. "These are the first chicks I've seen, too, you'll remember. Either way, though, you'll have something unique in Great Hellas."
"The fellow who got something unique in Great Hellas will be heading out of Great Hellas pretty soon: the gods-detested Samnite you sold the grown peacock to," Gylippos grumbled.
"He paid for it, too," Menedemos answered. "I'm not asking nearly so much for the little ones." He ate another olive and spat out the pit. One of the chicks gulped it down. Menedemos wondered whether it could get nourishment from the pit or would use it as a gizzard stone.
"Well, how much are you asking?" Gylippos asked.
"A mina and a half apiece," Menedemos said lightly.
"A hundred and fifty drakhmai?" Gylippos howled. "By the dog of Egypt, Rhodian, either you're mad or you think I am."
Dickers always began with such cries. Menedemos sold the two birds for two Tarentine minai, just about the price he'd wanted to get. "My cousin will curse me when I get back to the house where we're staying," he complained, not wanting Gylippos to know how pleased he was.
Gylippos laughed. "He's probably off spending the money you make, screwing that barbarian with the ugly whey-colored skin and the hair like copper. He's welcome to her, you ask me."
"I'm with you." Menedemos laughed, too. He was far more likely to be accused of squandering silver on women than was his cousin.
"Speaking of which," Gylippos went on, "which of the house slaves did you have at the symposion? None of them owns up to it, and they usually brag about such things."
Alarm shot through Menedemos, though he did his best not to show it. One of the chicks wandered over and pecked experimentally at his toe. He thought fast while shooing it away. "I didn't ask her name," he said when he straightened. "It was dark - I can't even tell you what she looks like. But I will tell you this: I gave her three oboloi."
"Ah. That could be it." The dried-fish merchant looked wise. "I suppose she thinks I'd take it away from her. She ought to know better - I'm no skinflint, not like some people I could name - but you never can tell with slaves."
"True." Menedemos let out a sigh of relief. Gylippos didn't suspect him. Gylippos didn't suspect his own wife, either. Maybe Phyllis was good at keeping her affairs secret, or maybe she hadn't strayed till she met Menedemos. He preferred the latter explanation.
"Do you know," Gylippos said, "I offered Herennius Egnatius ten minai for the peacock, and he wouldn't take it. I still say it's not right to let him go off with a prize like that instead of selling it to a Hellene."
"Well, O best one, if you'd offered me ten minai, you'd have a peacock in your courtyard right now. Since you didn't . . ." Menedemos shrugged.
Gylippos gave him a sour look. Before Herennius Egnatius bought the peacock, he hadn't thought it was worth ten minai, or even five. He wanted it more because somebody else had it. Menedemos thought he was entitled to look sour himself, too. He would have loved to get ten minai for the bird. Because of her many rowers, sailing in the Aphrodite cost a lot more than a regular merchantman would have. The two chicks he'd just sold Gylippos were worth about three days of wages for the crew. Sostratos was the one who did most of the mumbling over a counting board, but Menedemos worried about turning a profit, too.
Instead of scowling, though, he gave Gylippos a broad, friendly smile, one so charming that the Tarentine couldn't help smiling back. Gylippos wouldn't have smiled had he known what Menedemos was thinking: I will lay your wife again, by the gods. Do I want her more because you've got her? What if I do?
