Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"May that not come to pass!" Menedemos exclaimed. "We might be stuck forever, and we haven't got the time to waste." He relaxed his grip on the mercenary. Sostratos and Aristeidas followed his lead. Menedemos said, "All right, Alexidamos. Count yourself lucky."

Gingerly, Alexidamos felt of his nose. He hissed in pain at the slightest touch, and cursed at the blood on his fingertips. It was running down his face, too, but he couldn't see that. "Lucky?" he said. "I'm going to be ugly for the rest of my days on account of you - " Remembering he didn't have the advantage, he swallowed a couple of choice epithets.

"You are lucky," Sostratos said. "You still have the rest of your life." Even though I did my best to knock your head right off your shoulders when I threw that stone. "You were ready to rob us of ours, the same way you tried to rob us of our peafowl eggs."

Alexidamos didn't answer. He staggered away, still dripping blood. "May we never see him again," Menedemos said.

"I thought we were rid of him when we put him on the beach," Sostratos said, "and then especially when we didn't see him in Taras."

"So did I," his cousin said. "We'll be gone tomorrow. We can keep enough men here till then to make sure he doesn't try anything. If we hadn't spent two nights in a row at sea, and if this weren't the last chance before we sail back to Hellas to let the men get their share of wine and women, I'd leave port now."

"You say that?" Sostratos demanded. "You say that after risking everything on the trip to Syracuse?"

With a shrug, Menedemos replied, "We made a lot of money in Syracuse. I don't see much chance for profit here, do you?"

"Nobody could make much of a profit in Kallipolis, and that includes the Kallipolitans." Sostratos spoke with great conviction. He also spoke quietly, lest any of those Kallipolitans hear him and think he slandered their city. He intended to, but he didn't want them to know it.

A moment later, Menedemos donned a wide, artificial smile. "Hail, best one," he said to the local who'd been dickering for fine Khian when Alexidamos made his unexpected appearance. "Good to see you again."

"Have things, ah, settled down?" the Kallipolitan asked. Then he answered his own question: "Yes, I see they have. Well and good. Where were we?"

"We were right here," Menedemos replied. And we stayed here, while you ran like a rabbit with a pack of Hipparinos' Kastorian hounds baying at your heels, Sostratos thought. He exhaled noisily through his nose in lieu of sighing. Doing business with a man too often meant you couldn't tell him what you thought of him. Smoothly, Menedemos went on, "Here, why don't you have another taste of a wine Dionysos himself must have specially blessed? The genuine Ariousian of Khios doesn't come to Kallipolis every day, or every year, either."

The cup they'd borrowed had got broken in the scuffle with Alexidamos. They had to pay for it and get another from the potter. When the local tasted the sweet, golden wine for a second time, his eyes got big. Sostratos smiled to himself; he'd seen that before. The Kallipolitan had to work to keep eagerness from his voice as he said, "Now, you named some ridiculous price before the ruction started."

"Sixty drakhmai the amphora," Menedemos repeated calmly.

"Yes," the local said. "I mean, no. I thought that's what you said, and I won't pay it. I'll give you twenty, and not a drakhma more."

"Good day, sir." Menedemos politely inclined his head. "It's been pleasant talking with you."

"Are you mad?" the Kallipolitan said. "You had to open the jar to give me a sample. It won't keep -  wine never does, not after you broach the amphora. How much will you get for vinegar? You'd better take what I offer, and be thankful you're getting that much."

His smug smile said he'd played this game with merchants before. He'd probably got away with it with a few of them, too. Another small-town, small-time chiseler, Sostratos thought. Aloud, he said, "Good day to you, sir, as my cousin said. And to the crows with you, too." He didn't have to waste politeness on a cheat.

The Kallipolitan's eyes widened again, this time with a different sort of astonishment. "But . . . But . . .," he floundered. "You have to sell the stuff, and - "

Sostratos had enjoyed bedding some girls less than he enjoyed laughing in the local's face. "We don't have do do a cursed thing, O marvelous one." Not for the first time, he stole Sokrates' sardonic salutation. "We just ran the Carthaginians' blockade to get grain into Syracuse. We have more silver than we know what to do with, friend. If you don't want the Ariousian -  and if you don't want to pay our price for it -  we'll give the jar to our sailors to drink."