“Oh, yes,” the wet nurse said again, and then, softly, “‘What’s it like?’ Men!” She didn’t have to worry about keeping Sostratos sweet.

“I can’t very well know unless I ask, can I?” he said, stung by the scorn in her voice.

If he thought his question would get him less, he rapidly found himself wrong. “Men!” the wet nurse said again, this time not bothering to hold her voice down. “What you don’t understand is, you can’t know even if you do ask.”

“Gorgia’s right, I’m afraid.” Erinna sounded sad. She knew of Sostratos’ unrelenting itch to find out whatever he could. Sad or not, though, she tossed her head here. “Unless you had a baby yourself, you couldn’t know what it was like. You’re not.. equipped for it.” That made the wet nurse-Gorgia-giggle.

It made Sostratos angry, at least for a moment. “But-” he began. Then he spread his hands in defeat. “No, I suppose not, any more than you can understand what growing a beard is like.” He scratched his own hairy chin. Most Hellenes of his generation, Menedemos among them, shaved their faces as Alexander had done. Sostratos thought his beard made him look like a philosopher. Maybe he was right.

Someone rapped on the front door. Erinna said, “That’s Damonax-I know his knock.” By the way one of the house slaves hurried to the entrance, he recognized his master’s knock, too.

The door scraped as it turned on pivots set into the floor and the lintel above. The house slave spoke to Damonax in a voice too low for Sostratos to make out what he said. He didn’t need to have studied logic to figure out what it must have been, though, for Damonax replied, “He is? Well, good. I’ve been meaning to talk with him for the past few days, anyhow.”

Erinna’s husband strode into the courtyard. He was a handsome man of above average height, though not so tall as Sostratos. Unlike his brother-in-law, he bore himself with the air of a man who knew he was somebody. His chiton was of fine, soft white wool. A gold ring on the index finger of his right hand flashed in the sun. Sostratos smiled to himself. Damonax looked and acted like a rich man, as befitted one whose wealth lay in land. But Sostratos knew whose family was really better off.