The Gryphon's Skull

“What's he like?” Erinna asked. “I got a glimpse of him as he was leaving, and he's more than good-looking enough, but that only goes so far. What's he like?”

Sostratos had never thought he might be describing Damonax as a possible husband. Would I want him for a brother-in-law? he wondered. He wasn't sure. He said, “He's bright enough—he studied in Athens before I did, you know. I don't think he's as bright as he thinks he is, but how many people are? He's not stingy, not from anything I've ever seen. I've never heard anything bad about him.”

He hadn't heard that much praise for Damonax, either. He went on, “When he wants something, he really wants it—I have noticed that about him. But that's not necessarily good or bad.”

“Would you want him in the family?” Erinna asked.

That was the very question Sostratos was asking himself. Since he had no good answer for it, he gave back a question of his own: “What does Father think?”

“He didn't send Damonax away with a flea in his ear,” his sister said. “He's—thinking things over, I guess you'd say.”

“Good. These dickers can take a long time,” Sostratos said. “The one for your first marriage did. I probably remember that better than you do—you were still a girl then.”

“I didn't have much to do with it,” Erinna agreed. “But it's different now. I'm not a girl any more. And I don't want this dicker to take a long time, because I'm not getting any younger.”

“Time is a terrible enemy. Sooner or later, it always wins.”

Erinna sprang to her feet and hurried upstairs to the women's quarters. Sostratos stared after her. Oh, dear, he thought. That wasn't what she hoped I'd say at all. Then he realized something else: no matter what Father thinks, she wants to marry Damonax. He must feel like a second chance for her.

Do I want Damonax in the family? If I don't, have I got any good reason for not wanting him? And why does he want to join us? We're tradesfolk, and he's got land. Is he in debt?

Those were all good questions. He had answers for none of them. He couldn't ask his father; Lysistratos was down at the harbor. From what Erinna said, his father was at least thinking about the match. That was interesting. Erinna, no doubt, found it much more than interesting.

A bumblebee buzzed through the garden. Sostratos went into the andron. He'd been stung before, and didn't care to get stung again. After a while, the bee had drunk its fill and went away. Sostratos returned to the courtyard.

Threissa, the family's redheaded Thracian slave girl, came out with her arms full of freshly washed tunics and mantles. She started spreading them in the sun to dry. “Hail,” Sostratos said.

“Hail, young master,” she answered in her oddly accented Greek. Carrying a load of wet clothes had got the front of her own tunic wet, too, so that it clung to her breasts. Sostratos eyed her. She noticed him doing it, and spoke quickly: “You excuse me, please, young master? I terrible busy.”

He took her up to his bedroom every so often. She was only a slave girl; how could she say no? Even asking him to wait would have landed her in trouble in some households. But taking her for his own pleasure while she was in the middle of work would have landed him in trouble with his mother and sister. And, since she was more resigned to their occasional couplings than eager for them, he was less eager for them himself than he might have been. And so he said, “All right, Threissa,” though he didn't leave off eyeing the way the wet wool displayed her nipples.

“I thank you, young master,” she said. “You a kind man.” Despite such praise, she stood with her back to him as much as she could.

Terrible to be a slave, Sostratos thought. Terrible to be a woman and not a man. And if you're unlucky enough to be both, what can you do? Turn your back and hope, no more. Gods be praised I'm a free man.

He might have gone upstairs with her when she finished spreading out the clothes, but his father got back while she was busy there. Lysistratos looked pleased with himself, saying, “I may have a deal for some olive oil of the very first pressing. That won't be long now; the fruit's getting on toward being ripe.”

“That's good, Father,” Sostratos said, “but what's this I hear about Damonax son of Polydoros sniffing around after Erinna?”