Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Gyges, the majordomo, unbarred the doors and threw the two panels wide. "Hail, young master," the Lydian slave said. "How is the Aphrodite shaping?" He knew almost as much about the business as Sostratos and his father.

"Well enough," Sostratos answered. "Is Father home? Menedemos and I bought some goods to take west when we sail, and I want to tell him about them."

"Yes, he's here," Gyges said. "He'll be glad to see you; Xanthos just left."

"He'd be glad to see anybody else, if Xanthos just left," Sostratos said with a laugh. The other merchant was honest and reliable, but deadly dull.

Sostratos walked through the courtyard on the way to the andron -  the men's room -  where he expected to find his father. His sister Erinna was out there, watering some of the plants in the herb garden with a jar. "Hail," she said. "What's the news out in the city? I think Xanthos had some, but I stayed in till he left."

"Some business I want to tell Father first," Sostratos said. "Other than that, I didn't hear much. The Aphrodite will be ready to sail whenever we decide the weather's good enough."

Erinna sighed. "And then you and Menedemos will be gone till fall." She was eighteen; she'd been married for three years, but had returned to her father's household after her husband died. The dark, curly hair she'd cut short in mourning had finally grown out to close to its proper length.

With a sly smile, Sostratos said, "You know we're only leaving to annoy you."

"I believe it," Erinna said, and went back to watering the herbs. "Well, go on and tell Father whatever you've got to tell him. I suppose I'll hear about it eventually." She made a point of looking put-upon.

If Father reacts the way I'm afraid he will, you'll hear about it right away, when he starts bellowing, Sostratos thought. Taking a deep breath, he went into the andron.

Lysistratos was sitting in a chair, flicking pebbles back and forth on a counting board and muttering to himself. Sostratos' father looked up when the light changed as the younger man came in. Lysistratos was more than a palm shorter than his gangling son, but otherwise looked much like him. His hair had been darker brown than Sostratos' -  almost black, in fact -  but gray streaked it these days, for he'd seen more than fifty years.

He smiled. His teeth were still good, which helped give him the appearance of a younger man despite the gray. "Hail, son," he said, and waved Sostratos to another chair. "I have news."

"Erinna said you might," Sostratos answered. "So do I, as a matter of fact."

"You go first." They said it together, and both laughed.

"Go on, Father," Sostratos insisted. That was both respect for his father's years and genuine liking; Lysistratos hadn't beaten him more than he deserved when he was a boy, and more than once hadn't beaten him at all when he knew he deserved it.

His father dipped his head in assent. "Xanthos was here a little while ago," he began.

"Yes, I know -  Gyges told me when I came in," Sostratos said.

"All right, then. You know how Xanthos is. You have to hear about the state of his bowels, and the speech he made in the last Assembly meeting -  which must have been as boring as all the rest he's ever made -  and how much worse we are these days than the heroes of the Trojan War." Lysistratos rolled his eyes. "But there's usually a little wheat mixed in with all the chaff, and there was today, too."

"Tell me," Sostratos urged.

"I will. You know the town of Amphipolis, next door to Macedonia?"

"Oh, yes." Sostratos dipped his head. "The historian Thoukydides talks about the place in his fifth book. Brasidas the Spartan beat Kleon of Athens there, though they both died in the battle."

His father looked impatient. "I don't mean Amphipolis in the old days, son. I'm talking about now. You know how Kassandros, the commander in Europe, has been holding Roxane and Alexandros, her son by Alexander the Great, in the fortress there."

"Oh, yes," Sostratos repeated. "Alexandros would be -  what, twelve now? I know he was born after Alexander died. He'll be old enough to make a proper king of Macedonia before too long."

Lysistratos tossed his head. "Oh, no, he won't. That was Xanthos' news: some time this past winter, when word would travel slow, Kassandros killed Alexandros -  and Roxane, too, for good measure."

Sostratos whistled softly and shivered, as if the andron had suddenly got colder. "Then it's just the generals now, to quarrel over the bones of Alexander's empire. Kassandros in Macedonia, Lysimakhos in Thrace, Antigonos in Anatolia and farther Asia, and Ptolemaios down in Egypt."

"And Polyperkhon over in the Pelopennesos, and that Seleukos fellow who's squabbling with Antigonos in inner Asia," Lysistratos said. "I wonder how long the peace your four made last summer will last. No longer than one of them sees an advantage in breaking it, or I miss my guess."