Over the Wine-Dark Sea

5

On the fourth afternoon after the brush with the pirates, the lookout at the bow called, "Land! Land dead ahead!" and Menedemos knew it had to be Cape Tainaron, the most southerly point on the mainland of Hellas. The Aphrodite had sailed through the narrow channel with Cape Maleai and Cape Onougnathos on the right hand and the little island of Kythera on the left not long before, so he'd been expecting the call, but it still sent a jolt of mixed excitement and alarm through him.

We'll pick up some mercenaries here, he thought. We'll take them to Taras - maybe even to Syracuse, depending on what kind of news we hear when we get to Italy - and we'll rake in the silver doing it. He did his best to keep that thought uppermost, but another one kept intruding. We'll rake in the silver, provided we get away from Tainaron in one piece.

Diokles said, "Even if the lookout hadn't seen land, all these other ships bound for the tip of Tainaron would tell us we were heading towards a fair-sized town."

"A fair-sized town at the tip of the cape has to be supplied by sea," Menedemos answered. "You can't get much in the way of grain down there by road. You can't get much of anything down there by road - which is why the mercenaries have their camp there."

"True enough." Diokles pointed to the rocky peninsula leading down to the sea. "A handful of men could hold off an army coming south just about forever."

"That's why this place is where it is," Menedemos agreed. "And, since Kassandros and Polyperkhon haven't got much in the way of ships, the mercenaries can do what they want - and hire out to whomever they want." He started to say more, but Sostratos came running back toward him, excitement on his face. Menedemos wasn't sure what sort of excitement it was. He tried to forestall his cousin, asking, "All right, who spilled the perfume into the soup?"

"No, no." Sostratos tossed his head so emphatically, a couple of locks of his hair flew loose. As he brushed them back from his eyes, he explained, "I was going to let the peahen called Helen out for a run when I found she'd laid an egg!"

"Ahh." Visions of drakhmai danced in front of Menedemos' face. "That is good news. And if Helen has started laying eggs, the others won't be far behind her. We can sell eggs for a nice price once we get across the Ionian Sea." He scratched his chin. Bristles rasped under his fingernails. "Have we got any straw, so the birds can make nests?"

Sostratos tossed his head again. "No, but I can get some light twigs from the dunnage without having amphorai knock together or anything like that. Those would probably be better than nothing."

"Good. Do it," Menedemos said. Sostratos turned to go. Menedemos pointed at him. "Wait. I didn't mean you personally go and do it right this instant. It's important, but it's not that important. Tell off a couple of sailors and have them take care of it."

"Oh. All right." Plainly, that hadn't occurred to Sostratos. He pointed ahead. "They've got themselves a real polis here, haven't they? - and not the smallest one in Hellas, either."

"No. Nor the worst-governed city in Hellas, probably," Menedemos said. As he'd thought it would, that made his cousin squirm. In musing tones, Menedemos went on, "This really is a polis, or something close to one. It's not just the mercenaries, not even close. They've got their wives here, and their concubines, and their brats, and their slaves - "

"And the people who sell things to them, like us," Sostratos put in.

"And the people who sell things to them," Menedemos agreed. "But you won't find too many merchants' shops right there in the mercenaries' encampment. Most of the traders come here by sea, too, and anchor out of bowshot from the shore."

Diokles said, "I hope you're going to do the same thing, skipper."

"I hope I am, too," Menedemos said, which made the keleustes laugh and Sostratos smile. Dipping his head, Menedemos went on, "I want to get away from Tainaron nice and safe myself, you know."

"That would be good," Sostratos said. "The generals and the Italiote cities aren't the only ones recruiting here." He pointed toward a couple of low, lean craft painted blue-green. "If those aren't pirates, I'd sooner eat the peahen's egg than sell it."

"Even without that paint job, they'd be pirates," Menedemos said. "Not much else hemioliai are good for." The galley had two banks of oars, but the upper, or thranite, bank stopped short just after the mast, to give the crew plenty of space to stow mast and yard and sail when they took them down for a ramming attack. No other variety of galley was so fast and so perfectly suited to predation.

"I hope they aren't watching us the way we're watching them," Sostratos said.

"They aren't," Menedemos assured him. "The fox doesn't look at the hare the way the hare looks at the fox."

"You so relieve my mind," Sostratos murmured. Menedemos grinned.

"We're not your ordinary hare, though," Diokles said. "We showed that triakonter we're an armored hare." He chuckled. "Aphrodite's a good name, mind, but I wouldn't mind sailing in a ship called Hoplolagos, just for the sake of surprising people."

"No one gives ships names like that," Menedemos said. "You name them for gods, or after the sea or the waves or the foam or something like that, or you call them swift or fierce or bold - or lucky, like that five of Ptolemaios' we met. I've never heard of a ship with a silly name."

"Does that mean there should never be one?" Sostratos asked, a certain glint in his eye. "Is the new bad merely for being new?"

With most men, that glint would have been lust. With Sostratos, Menedemos judged it likelier to be philosophy. He tossed his head. "Save that one for the Lykeion, cousin. I'm not going to thrash my way through it now. We've got more important things to worry about, like coming away from Tainaron without getting our throats cut."

He wondered if Sostratos would argue about that. When his cousin was feeling abstract, the real world often had a hard time making an impression on him. But Sostratos said, "That's true enough. It's so true, maybe you should have thought about it sooner, thought about it more. I tried to get you to, if you'll recall."

"I did think about it. You know that," Menedemos said. "I decided the chance for profit picking up men to go to Italy outweighs the risk. That doesn't mean I think there's no risk."

Diokles pointed. "There's the temple to Poseidon. It looks like the one building hereabouts that's made to last, set alongside all these huts and shacks and tents and things."

"That's the temple with the bronze of the man on the dolphin, isn't it?" Sostratos said. "I'd like to see it if I get the chance: it's the one Arion the minstrel offered after the dolphin took him to shore when he jumped into the sea to save himself from the crew of the ship he was on."

The keleustes gave him a quizzical look. "How do you know about that bronze? You've never been here before, have you?"

"No, he hasn't." Menedemos spoke before his cousin could. He pointed a finger at Sostratos. "All right, own up. Whose writing talks about it?"

"Herodotos'," Sostratos said sheepishly.

"Ha!" Menedemos wagged that finger. "I thought as much." He turned back to Diokles. "Let them bring us a couple of plethra closer to land, but no more than that. Then we'll go ashore and see if we can hunt up some passengers. Pick some proper bruisers to man the boat, too - I don't want to come back to the beach and find it's been stolen from under our noses."

"Right you are," the oarmaster said. "Matter of fact, if you don't think you've got to have me here aboard, I wouldn't mind taking boat duty myself."

Menedemos looked Diokles up and down. He dipped his head. "As far as I can see, any mercenary who's stupid enough to get frisky with you deserves whatever happens to him."

"I'm a peaceable man, captain," Diokles said. A slow smile spread over his face. "But I might - I just might, mind you - remember what to do in case somebody else didn't happen to feel peaceable."

"Good," Menedemos said.

"OöP!" Diokles called. The other rowers in the Aphrodite's boat rested at their oars. The boat grated on the sand. Sostratos wore only a tunic and a knife belt. As he stepped onto the beach, he wished he had on a bronze corselet and crested helm, greaves and shield, and long spear and shortsword. Armor and weapons might have made him feel safe. On the other hand, they might not have been enough.

"This is a place with no law," he murmured to "If anyone takes it into his mind to try to kill us, what's to stop him?"

"We are," Menedemos replied. Sostratos found that unsatisfactory. But his cousin was grinning from ear to ear and strutting a jaunty strut. Just as some men were wild for women or wine or fancy opson, so Menedemos was wild for trouble. He sometimes seemed to get into it deliberately so he could have the fun of getting himself out.

A couple of mercenaries dressed like Sostratos and Menedemos except for wearing sandals and having swords on their belts instead of knives came up to them. "Ail," one of them said in Ionian dialect. "What are you selling, sailors?"

"Passage to Italy," Menedemos answered. "We're bound for Taras. Always something lively going on in Great Hellas." He used the common name for the colonies the Hellenes had planted in southern Italy and Sicily.

"That's so." The second mercenary dipped his head. "How much for the trip?" He sounded like an Athenian - his dialect wasn't far removed from Ionian, but preserved rough breathings.

Menedemos turned to Sostratos. As toikharkhos, he set fares. "Twelve drakhmai," he said.

Both mercenaries winced. "You won't find many who'll pay you that much," said the one who spoke Attic.

"We can't take many," Sostratos answered. "We've got a full crew and not a lot of room for passengers. But you'll get where you're going if you travel with us. We don't have to stay in the harbor for half a month if the winds are against us, and we won't get blown to Carthage if a storm comes up at sea."

"Even if all that's true, it's still robbery," the mercenary said.

He looked as if he knew plenty about robbery. How many men have you murdered? Sostratos wondered. How many women and boys have you forced? He didn't let any of what he was thinking show on his face. If he had, the mercenary probably would have yanked out that sword on his belt and gone after him with it. Instead, he just shrugged. "No one says you have to pay it if you don't want to."

Grumbling, both mercenaries walked on. Menedemos said, "Don't take such a hard line that you turn away business."

"I won't," Sostratos answered. "I think we can get five or six passengers at twelve drakhmai, and we don't want any more than that. If it turns out I'm wrong, I'll come down a little. But I don't want to do that too soon."

"No, I suppose not," Menedemos said. "You'd get a reputation like a girl who's easy with her virtue."

"That's right." The comparison was apt. Several others might have been, too, but Sostratos wasn't surprised that that one had occurred to his cousin.

Along with huts and tents, the mercenaries' encampment at Tainaron did boast taverns and cookshops and armorers' shops and swordsellers' establishments. Sostratos and Menedemos stopped at several of them, letting the proprietors know the Aphrodite lay offshore and where she was bound. Word would spread fast.

When one of the taverners heard they were coming from Khios, he surprised Sostratos by asking if they carried wine, and surprised him more by paying twenty-five drakhmai an amphora for some of the Ariousian without so much as a whimper. "I'll get it back," he said. "You bet I will. Some of these fellows won't take anything but the best, and they don't care what they have to pay to get it, either."

To celebrate the bargain, he poured cups of wine a long way from the best for Sostratos and Menedemos. Sostratos had taken one sip from his own when the ground jerked beneath his stool. The flimsy walls of the tavern rattled for a moment, then were still. "Earthquake!" he exclaimed, as a nearby dog barked. "Just a little one, though."

"Gods be praised," the tavernkeeper said, and everybody else in the place, Sostratos and Menedemos included, dipped his head in agreement. Even though the quake had been small, Sostratos' heart still thudded in his chest. When the earth started to shudder, you couldn't tell ahead of time whether it would stop again right away - as it had here, as it did most of the time - or go on and get worse, sometimes bad enough to level a city. Everyone living around the Inner Sea knew that too well.

Menedemos said, "Let me have another cup of wine." When the taverner gave it to him, he poured a small libation onto the dirt floor. "That's for the Earthshaker, for not shaking too hard this time." Then he drained the cup. "And that's for me."

"It's the Spartans' curse, that's what it is," the tavernkeeper said.

"The what?" Menedemos asked.

Sostratos spoke before the taverner could: "A long time ago, back before the Peloponnesian War, some helots took refuge in Poseidon's temple here. The Spartans hauled them out and killed them. Not long afterwards, a big earthquake almost knocked Sparta flat. Plenty of people claimed it was Poseidon's vengeance."

"How did you know that?" The tavernkeeper stared at him. "You said you were a Rhodian."

"I am," Sostratos said.

"He must have read it in a book," Menedemos said. "He reads all sorts of things in books." Sostratos had trouble gauging his cousin's smile: was it proud or mocking? Some of each, he thought. Menedemos asked, "Is that your pal Herodotos again?"

"No, it's in Thoukydides' history," Sostratos replied.

"A book," the tavernkeeper said. "A book. Well, ain't that something? Don't have my letters myself, nor much want 'em, neither, but ain't that something?"

"Ain't that something?" Menedemos echoed wickedly as Sostratos and he headed for a cookshop not far away.

"Oh, shut up," Sostratos said, which made his cousin laugh out loud. Irked, he went on, "Natural philosophers say that earthquakes aren't Poseidon's fault at all, that they're as much a natural phenomenon as waves stirred up by wind."

"I don't know that I can believe that," Menedemos said. "What could cause them, if they're natural?"

"No one knows for sure," Sostratos replied, "but I've heard people suggest it's the motion of gas through subterranean caverns pushing the ground now this way, now that."

He'd always thought that seemed not only probable but sober and logical to boot. Menedemos, however, took it another way. His whoop of delight made several passing mercenaries whirl to gape at him. "Earthfarts!" he said. "Instead of Poseidon Earthshaker, we've got Kyamos Earthfarter. Bow down!" He stuck out his backside.

"No one ever made a bean into a god until you did just now," Sostratos said severely, resisting the urge to kick the proffered part. "You complain about the way I think sometimes, but you're more blasphemous than I'd ever be. If you ask me, all that Aristophanes has curdled your wits."

His cousin tossed his head. "No, and I'll tell you why not. Aristophanes has fun mocking the gods, and so do I. When you say you don't believe, you mean it."

Sostratos grunted. That held more truth than he cared to admit. Instead of admitting it, he said, "Come on, let's tell this fellow we're looking for passengers."

"All right." Menedemos made a very rude noise. "Earthfarts!" He giggled. Sostratos wished he'd never started talking about the natural causes of earthquakes.

To get a measure of revenge - and perhaps expiation as well - he all but dragged Menedemos to Poseidon's temple. Sure enough, there among the offerings stood the statue of Arion astride the dolphin. Sostratos clicked his tongue between his teeth. "It's not so fine a piece of work as I thought it would be. See how stiff and old-fashioned it looks?"

"Arion jumped into the sea a long time ago," Menedemos said reasonably. "You can't expect the statue to look as if the sculptor set it there yesterday."

"I suppose not," Sostratos said, "but even so - "

"No. But me no buts," Menedemos said. "If you laid Aphrodite, you'd complain she wasn't as good in bed as you expected."

If I laid Aphrodite, she'd complain I wasn't as good in bed as she expected, Sostratos thought, and then, Or would she? She being a goddess, wouldn't she know ahead of time what I was like in bed? He scratched his head. After pondering that for a little while, he said, "The problem of how much the gods can see of the future is a complicated one, don't you think?"

"What I think is, I haven't got the faintest idea of what you're talking about," Menedemos answered, and Sostratos realized he'd assumed his cousin could follow along in a conversation he'd had with himself. While he was still feeling foolish, Menedemos went on, "Let's get back to the boat and see if we've got any passengers looking to go west."

"All right," Sostratos said. When they left the temple precinct, he let out a sigh. "Except for this shrine, Tainaron's about as unholy a place as I've ever seen."

"It's not Delphi," Menedemos agreed, "but we wouldn't pick up mercenaries bound for Italy at Delphi, now would we?" Sostratos could hardly argue with that. What he could do - and what he did - was keep a wary eye out for thieves and cutpurses all the way down to the beach. He credited his eagle eye for their getting to the boat unmolested.

A couple of brawny, sun-browned men with scars on their arms and legs and cheeks were talking with Diokles when Sostratos and Menedemos came up. The oarmaster looked very much at home with them: but for the scars, he might have been one of their number himself. "Here's the skipper and the toikharkhos," he said. "They'll tell you everything you need to know."

"Twelve drakhmai to Syracuse, we heard," one of the mercenaries said. "That right?"

Sostratos tossed his head. "Twelve drakhmai to Taras," he answered. "I don't know if we'll be putting in at Syracuse at all. There's no way to tell, not till we hear how the war with Carthage is going."

"Twelve drakhmai to Italy is a lot of money," the other mercenary grumbled, "especially when I've got to pay for my own food, too."

"That's the way things work," Menedemos said. "That's the way they've always worked. You don't expect me to change them, do you?"

To Sostratos, expecting things to work a certain way because they always had was nothing but foolishness. He started to say so, then shut up with a snap; as far as a dicker with mercenaries went, his cousin had come up with an excellent argument. "All right, all right," the second hired soldier said. "When do you figure you'll sail?"

"We have room for five or six passengers," Menedemos replied. "We'll stay till we've got 'em all, or till we decide we're not going to."

"Well, you've got one, even if you are a thief," the second mercenary said. "I'm Philippos."

"Two," the other Hellene said. "My name's Kallikrates son of Eumakhos."

"I'm the son of Megakles myself," Philippos added. He pointed out to the Aphrodite. "You're not sailing today, though?"

"Not unless we get three or four more passengers in a tearing hurry," Sostratos assured him. "We have some cargo to unload, too. Come down to the beach every morning for the next few days, and we won't leave without you."

"Fair enough," Philippos said. Kallikrates dipped his head in agreement. They both ambled off the beach and back up toward the town that had sprung into being at Tainaron.

"Well, there's two," Menedemos said to Sostratos. "Not so bad, the first day we anchor offshore."

"No, not so bad, provided we get away with coming here in the first place," Sostratos replied. "If this were a proper harbor, a harbor where honest men came, we wouldn't have to anchor offshore."

"This is a harbor where honest men come," Menedemos said with a grin he no doubt intended as disarming. "We're here, aren't we?"

"Yes, and I still wish we weren't," Sostratos said. His cousin's grin turned sour. That didn't keep Menedemos from getting into the boat with him and returning to the Aphrodite. Sostratos raised an eyebrow as they climbed up into the akatos. "I don't see you spending the night ashore, honest man."

This time, Menedemos was the one who said, "Oh, shut up," from which Sostratos concluded he'd made his point.

They got another passenger the next day, a Cretan slinger named Rhoikos. "I'm right glad to get out of here," he said, his Doric drawl far thicker than that of the Rhodians. "Everything's dear as can be in these here parts, and I was eating up my silver waiting around for somebody to hire me. Don't reckon I'll have much trouble getting 'em to take me on over across the sea. Always a war somewheres in them parts."

He tried to haggle Sostratos down from his price. Sostratos declined to haggle; Rhoikos had made it clear he didn't want to stay in Tainaron. The slinger complained, but he said he'd come down to the beach every morning, too.

For the next three days, though, nobody showed any interest in going to Italy. Menedemos grumbled and fumed up on the foredeck. Sostratos tried to console him: "The peahens are laying more eggs."

"You were the one who wanted to get out of here," Menedemos snapped. "D'you think you're the only one?"

Sostratos stared at him. "I thought you were as happy as a pig in acorns."

"Do I look that stupid?" his cousin said in a low voice. "I put up a bold front for the men. So I took you in, too, eh? Good. We'll make money here, and that's why we came, but I'll thank all the gods when the cape slides under the horizon."

Plucking at his beard, Sostratos murmured, "There's more to you than meets the eye."

"You don't need to sound so accusing," Menedemos said with a laugh.

When the sailors rowed them to the beach the next morning, Philippos, Kallikrates, and Rhoikos were all waiting for them. As Sostratos had for the past several days, he said, "Not today, not unless we get lucky." The mercenaries growled things that didn't sound complimentary under their breaths.

And then Menedemos pointed in the direction of the huts and tents and said, "Hello! Somebody wants to see us."

Sure enough, a man was trotting down toward the beach. He wore a tunic and sandals, and carried a soldier's panoply in a canvas sack. "You there!" he called. "Do I hear rightly that you're sailing for Italy?"

"Yes, that's so," Sostratos answered.

"I'll give you a quarter of a mina to take me there," the fellow said, "as long as you sail today."

Sostratos and Menedemos looked at each other. Here was somebody who didn't just want to go to Italy; here was someone who needed to go there. "You'd be our fourth passenger," Sostratos said. "We were hoping for six."

"What are you charging for each?" the newcomer asked.

"Twelve drakhmai," Sostratos answered. He and Menedemos exchanged another look, this one not altogether happy. If the other three mercenaries hadn't been standing right there, he could have named a higher figure.

"All right, then. I'll give you" - the newcomer paused to count on his fingers - "thirty-six drakhmai to leave today." He rummaged through the sack and pulled out a smaller leather bag that clinked.

Philippos and Rhoikos muttered under their breath. Rhoikos stared at the fellow with the fat moneybag, or perhaps at the moneybag itself. Along with the silver, they saw the same thing Sostratos had: anybody willing to spend so freely was bound to have an urgent reason to be so willing. "Hold on," Sostratos said. "Tell me who you are and why you're in such a hurry to leave Tainaron."

Menedemos looked sour. Sostratos pretended not to see him. No matter how sour Menedemos looked, no matter how anxious he was to come off with a profit, Sostratos didn't want to carry a murderer, say, away from justice - assuming any justice was to be found at this southernmost tip of the mainland of Hellas.

"I'm Alexidamos son of Alexion," the mercenary answered. "I'm a Rhodian - like you, if what I heard is right." Sostratos dipped his head. Alexidamos' accent wasn't far removed from his own. The fellow continued, "I, ah, got into a disagreement with a captain named Diotimos, and all his men are looking for me, or will be soon."

Kallikrates pointed. "So you're the fellow who buggered Diotimos' boy! I'd get out of Tainaron, too, if I were you."

That told Sostratos what he needed to know. It told Menedemos the same thing. "Pay my toikharkhos now," he said dryly. "Something tells me you won't be so grateful once we've put Tainaron under the horizon."

Alexidamos glared, from which Sostratos concluded his cousin was right. But the mercenary started counting out Athenian drakhmai with their familiar staring owls. Sostratos accepted the coins without a word and with his face carefully blank. Attic drakhmai were heavier than those of Rhodes, so he was getting more silver from Alexidamos than he'd expected. If Alexidamos didn't worry about that, Sostratos didn't feel obligated to bring it to his notice.

Having paid, Alexidamos said, "Now can we leave?" He looked anxiously over his shoulder.

"What about us?" the other three mercenaries chorused. Still in unison, they went on, "We haven't got our gear here."

Menedemos took charge. "Go fetch it," he said briskly. He turned to Diokles. "Take this fellow to the Aphrodite. Come to think of it, take Sostratos and me, too. Things are liable to get lively here."

"Thank you," Alexidamos said as he stowed his sack in the bottom of the boat.

"Don't thank me yet," Menedemos said. "If there's a commotion and those other fellows can't come aboard, you'll pay their fares, too. I'm telling you now, so you can't say it's a surprise."

"That's robbery," Alexidamos yelped.

"Call it what you want," Menedemos said coolly. "The way I see things, you might be hurting my business. If you don't see them that way, you can always talk them over with Diotimos, or whatever his name was. Now - have we got a bargain, or haven't we?"

"A bargain," the mercenary choked out.

"I thought you'd be sensible," Menedemos said. He climbed into the boat. So did Sostratos. The sailors pushed the boat into the sea, scrambled in themselves, and rowed back to the Aphrodite.

Once they'd come aboard, Diokles pointed back toward the beach. "I think maybe we got out of there right in the nick of time, skipper," he said.

Along with the oarmaster and Menedemos, Sostratos looked over to the shore. Several men stood there, looking across the water toward the Aphrodite. The sun glittered from swords and spearheads. One of the men shouted something, but the akatos stood too far out to sea for his words to carry. Even if Sostratos couldn't hear them, he didn't think the shouter was paying Alexidamos any compliments.

"Pity about those other chaps," Sostratos said to Menedemos. "How are we going to get them off the beach if these soldiers keep hanging around?"

Menedemos shrugged. "We end up with the same fare either way."

"I think you ought to try to get them, too," Alexidamos said, which surprised Sostratos not at all: he wouldn't have wanted to pay an extra thirty-six drakhmai, either. In its cage on the foredeck, the peacock screeched. Alexidamos jumped. "By the dog of Egypt, what's that?"

"A peacock," Sostratos answered. "Leave it alone."

"A peacock?" Alexidamos echoed. "Really?"

"Really." Sostratos looked in the direction of the beach again. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw Philippos, Kallikrates, and Rhoikos returning: three newcomers, at least, were staring out toward the merchant galley. Plucking at his beard, he beckoned to Menedemos. They put their heads together and talked in low voices for a little while.

Not much later, four rowers and Alexidamos got into the ship's boat. The boat made for one of the blue-green-painted pirate ships anchored a few plethra away. Diotimos and his bully boys hurried along the beach after the boat. It pulled up behind the pirate ship. When it came back to the Aphrodite, only the rowers were to be seen. They climbed back up into the akatos.

The angry mercenaries on the beach shouted at the pirate ship through cupped hands. A pirate shouted back. Neither side seemed to have much luck understanding the other.

Sostratos had counted on that. Quietly, he told the rowers, "I think you can try picking up the others now. Tell them to move fast. If they don't, or if Diotimos' men make trouble, turn around and come back."

"That's right," Menedemos said. "That's just right."

As Diokles had before, he headed this expedition to the beach. He didn't let the boat go aground. Instead, the three mercenaries who wanted to go to Italy waded out into the sea; the rowers helped them into the boat. They were on the way back to the Aphrodite before Diotimos and his pals came trotting back along the sand toward them.

Up came the rowers, into the merchant galley. Up came Rhoikos and Kallikrates and Philippos. And up came Alexidamos, who'd lain in the bottom of the boat since it used the pirate ship to screen it from Diotimos' men for a moment. He clasped Sostratos' hand. "Very neat. Very clever. You should be an admiral."

Sostratos tossed his head. "I leave that sort of thing to my cousin." He glanced toward Menedemos, about to suggest that sailing on the instant would be a good idea. But Menedemos had already gone to the bow. He was urging the men at the anchor lines to haul the anchors up to the catheads. He was plenty savvy enough to see what wanted doing here without any suggestions from Sostratos. And that suited Sostratos fine.

Three days after leaving Cape Tainaron, the Aphrodite sailed northwest out of Zakynthos. "I could be Odysseus, coming home at last," Menedemos said, pointing out over the akatos' bow. "There's Kephallenia ahead, with Ithake just to the northeast of it."

"But you're not going to stop either place, or go up to Korkyra, either," Sostratos said. "You're going to strike straight across the Ionian Sea for Italy." He sighed. "And you the man who loves Homer so well."

Menedemos laughed and pointed a finger at him. "You can't fool me. You don't care a fig for trade. You just want to see the islands. I had to drag you away from Zakynthos."

"It's an interesting place," his cousin answered. "It's still a woody island, as the poet says. And the people speak an interesting dialect of Greek."

"Interesting?" Menedemos tossed his head. "I couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. It's almost as bad as Macedonian."

"I didn't have too much trouble with it," Sostratos said. "It's just old-fashioned. But are you sure you don't want to go up the coast and cross the sea where it's narrowest? We'd only spend one night - two at the outside - on the water that way, and sailing straight across we'll be out of sight of land for five or six days."

"I know. I have my reasons." That should have been all Menedemos needed to say; he was captain of the Aphrodite, after all. And Sostratos didn't argue, at least not with words. But he did raise an eyebrow, and Menedemos found himself explaining: "For one thing, most merchantmen sail from Korkyra across to Italy just because it's the shortest way."

"Exactly," Sostratos said. "Why are you doing something different, then?"

"Because all the pirates around - Hellenes, Epeirotes, Illyrians, Tyrrhenians - know what the merchantmen do, and they hover around the passage where the Adriatic opens out into the Ionian Sea the way vultures hover over a dead ox. Even if this trip across the open sea is longer, it should be safer."

"Ah." Sostratos spread his hands. "That does make good sense. You said it was one reason. You have more?"

"You've got no business grilling me," Menedemos said.

"No doubt you're right, O best one." Sostratos could be most annoying when he was most ironically polite. And then he struck a shrewder blow yet: "If anything goes wrong, though, our fathers will grill you, and it will be their business. Wouldn't you sooner practice your answers on me?"

The thought of having to explain things to his father made Menedemos spit into the bosom of his tunic. He said, "I'm sure you want me to tell you for my own good, not for yours." Sostratos looked innocent. He looked so innocent, Menedemos burst out laughing. "The other reason I don't want to stop at Korkyra is, it's about the most dismal place in the world."

"Not surprising, after all the wars it's lost," Sostratos said. "And it was the place where the Peloponnesian War began, and that ruined all of Hellas. But Korkyra's free and independent nowadays." He raised that eyebrow again - more irony.

"Yes, Korkyra is free and independent, all right." Menedemos raised an eyebrow, too, and quoted a proverbial verse: " 'Korkyra is free - shit wherever you want.' "

His cousin snorted. "Well, all right. Maybe it's just as well you didn't go up the coast. You would have recited that in a tavern after you'd had some wine, and got yourself knifed."

Since he was probably right, Menedemos didn't argue with him. Instead, he said, "I just wish the wind weren't right in our teeth. We'll have to row all the way. But it always comes out of the northwest hereabouts during sailing season."

With the passengers aboard, and with the peafowl cages taking up much of the foredeck, the poop deck was more crowded than usual. Philippos said, "You'll put right into the harbor at Taras, won't you?"

Menedemos didn't laugh out loud. Neither did Sostratos. But Diokles did, and so did Alexidamos and Rhoikos. They knew what an inexact art navigation was. Turning to his fellow mercenary, Rhoikos spoke in his broad Doric drawl: "Don't sail a whole lot, you tell me?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Philippos asked.

At that, Menedemos did laugh. He couldn't help himself. He wasn't the only one, either. He said, "Best one, I'm sailing northwest. I'm keeping my course as true as I know how. And if the weather holds, we'll make the Italian coast within a couple of hundred stadia of Taras either way, and then sail along it to the city. If the weather doesn't hold . . ." He shrugged. He didn't want to talk about that, or even to think about it.

Philippos looked as astonished as a young boy might on first learning where babies come from. In tones that said he had trouble believing what he'd just heard, he asked, "But why can't you get right where you're going?"

Patiently, biting down on new laughter, Menedemos answered, "We'll be out of sight of land pretty soon. Once we are, what have we got to go on? The sun - the stars at night - the wind and the waves. That's all. I haven't got a magic pointer to tell me which way north is. I wish I did, but Hephaistos has never shown anybody how to make such a thing."

"If I'd known that, I'd've stayed at Tainaron till I found a general who'd march me off to his army," the unhappy mercenary said.

"You're welcome to go back," Menedemos said. Philippos brightened, but only till he added, "Provided you can swim that far."

"Perhaps the dolphins would carry him, as they did Arion," Sostratos said helpfully.

"You're making fun of me," Philippos said, which was true. He pushed by Menedemos to the Aphrodite's stern. There he stood, staring out past the sternpost toward Zakynthos, which steadily dwindled in the southeast and finally vanished below the horizon. Philippos kept staring anyhow.

Menedemos fancied himself Prometheus rather than Epimetheus: he looked ahead, not behind. Fluffy white clouds drifted across the sky from north to south. The sea was low; the Aphrodite pitched a little because she headed straight into the swells, but the motion wasn't enough to make even a lubber like Philippos lean out over the rail.

In a low voice, Menedemos asked Diokles, "Do you think the weather will hold for the crossing?"

The oarmaster shrugged. "You'd do better asking the gods than me. We've got a pretty fair chance, I think - couldn't hardly ask for anything better than we've got right now. But it's still early in the sailing season, too."

"Would you head up to Korkyra?" Menedemos asked. "We could still swing back in that direction."

Diokles shrugged again. "If a blow comes, odds are we'd be at sea either which way. And we're a lot less likely to run into pirates cutting across - you're dead right about that, skipper. Six oboloi one way, a drakhma the other. You don't go to sea unless you're ready to take a chance now and then."

"That's true enough." Menedemos was about to say more when a yelp from the foredeck distracted him. Alexidamos stood there with a finger in his mouth. Menedemos raised his voice so it would carry. "Leave the peafowl alone, or you'll be sorry."

"I'm sorry already." Alexidamos inspected his wounded digit. "I didn't realize the polluted things could peck like that. I'm bleeding."

"Bandage yourself up, or get a sailor to do it for you." Menedemos showed no sympathy. No matter how much Alexidamos had paid, each peafowl was worth more. "You're lucky you won't have to face your foes nine-fingered from here on out."

"I'd have gone to law with you in that case," Alexidamos said.

"Go right ahead," Menedemos said cheerfully. "You're meddling with my cargo, and I've got the whole crew as witnesses." Alexidamos sent him a sour stare. Menedemos stared back. If the mercenary thought he could intimidate him on his own ship, he was daft. Maybe I should have let that Diotimos have him, in spite of getting three fares out of him, Menedemos thought. He's nothing but trouble.

But then Menedemos shrugged. Any passenger who made too much trouble aboard ship might unfortunately fail to reach his destination.

Diokles was thinking along with him. "Be a real pity if that fellow fell overboard, wouldn't it?" he murmured. "My heart would just break."

"Can't do that unless he really earns it," Menedemos answered. "Otherwise, the rowers start blabbing in taverns, and after a while nobody wants to go to sea with you."

"I suppose so," the oarmaster said. "If I had to guess, though, I'd say nobody would miss that chap much."

"Don't tempt me, Diokles, because I wouldn't miss him at all," Menedemos said. The keleustes laughed and dipped his head.

Menedemos kept twenty men on the oars, changing shifts every couple of hours to keep all the rowers fairly fresh. By the time the sun set ahead of them, they might have been alone on the sea. The bow anchors went into the water with twin splashes. The rowers ate bread and olives and cheese and drank wine. So did the mercenaries. "Are we really going to be several days at sea?" Alexidamos asked. "I fear I didn't bring enough in the way of victuals. Shall I hang a fishing line over the side?"

Yes, or else starve, Menedemos thought. But Sostratos said, "We'll sell you rations from the crew's supplies, at four oboloi a day."

"Still charging me triple, are you?" Alexidamos said with a nasty smile.

"Passengers are supposed to bring their own victuals - everyone knows that. If you don't . . ." Sostratos shrugged. "Whose fault is it?"

"I had to leave Tainaron in rather a hurry," Alexidamos pointed out.

Sostratos shrugged again. "And whose fault is that?" he answered, perfectly polite, perfectly deadpan. Alexidamos took a moment to realize he'd been skewered. When he did, he snarled a curse and let a hand fall to the hilt of his sword.

"Remember where you are, friend," Menedemos said. He wondered if he would have to say something more than that, if the mercenary from Rhodes was too dense to take a hint. But Alexidamos looked around and saw not a single friendly face anywhere. He also saw not a speck of land anywhere on the horizon. His hand jerked away from the sword as if the hilt were hot.

Menedemos sent Kallikrates and Philippos up to sleep on the foredeck; they'd shown no signs of causing trouble. With the other two mercenaries sharing the poop with him and Sostratos and Diokles, it was crowded. Even so, they all had room to stretch out. The rowers at their benches had to lean up against the ship's planking to steady themselves as they slept.

When Menedemos woke the next morning, the swells were bigger than they had been. The breeze had freshened, and brought more clouds out of the north with it. The sunrise was redder than he would have liked to see, too.

"We may be heading into a blow," he said to Diokles, hoping the oarmaster would tell him he was wrong.

But Diokles dipped his head. "Looks that way to me, too, skipper. One thing: no lee shore to be washed up on. We've got a good many stadia between us and the nearest land. If we ride it out, we're fine."

"Let's batten things down," Menedemos said. "We'd better do it, and then hope we don't need to." Rather to his dismay, Diokles dipped his head again.

When he gave the order, the sailors who weren't rowing hurried to obey. He drew the obvious conclusion from that: they thought a storm was coming, too. "Make sure the peafowl cages are well lashed down," Sostratos called. "We can't afford to lose any of the birds over the side." By the time the men were done with them, a spider-web of lines secured them to the ship.

Philippos came up to Menedemos. "Is it . . . going to blow?" the mercenary asked nervously.

"Only cloud-gathering Zeus knows for certain," Menedemos answered, watching large, dark clouds gather in the north and spread across the sky. "We don't want to take any chances, though." Philippos dipped his head and went away. Menedemos didn't know how reassuring he'd been, but he didn't have a lot of reassurance to offer. The other mercenaries asked him no questions. They could see for themselves what was likely to happen.

"This is what's wrong with sailing in the Ionian Sea," Diokles said. "A storm will start building at the top of the Adriatic and just blow all the way down."

"How bad do you think it will be?" Menedemos asked: the oarmaster had been going to sea about as long as he'd been alive, and he valued Diokles' experience. Only after the question passed the barrier of his teeth did he wonder if he wasn't looking for some reassurance himself.

Diokles shrugged. "We'll find out. I've seen skies I liked more, but you can't always tell ahead of time, either."

The wind kept freshening, and shifted till it came straight out of the north. It was a chilly wind, as if, wherever it had started from, winter hadn't yet decided to give way to spring. The waves built, and struck with greater force now that they weren't quite head-on. The akatos yawed a little at each impact. Kallikrates clapped a hand to his mouth and dashed for the rail. Menedemos' smile wasn't pleasant. It would get worse before it got better. He could see that.

Rain began falling about an hour later. By then, all the sky save a blue strip in the south was the dirty gray of a sheep's back. That last reminder of good weather vanished a moment later. The rain, blowing into Menedemos' face, was cold and nasty. He did his best to keep the Aphrodite headed northwest, but without the sun to steer by he had much less idea how good his best was.

Thinking along with him once more, Diokles said, "Navigation's gone to Tartaros, hasn't it?"

"You might say so." But Menedemos did his best to sound cheerful: "Italy's a big place. We probably won't miss it."

The keleustes rewarded him with a chuckle. "That's good, captain. I'll tell you what I wouldn't miss right now: I wouldn't miss being in port."

"If sailing were easy all the time, any fool could do it." Menedemos relished the tossing timbers under his feet, the resistance the sea gave the steering oars. He particularly relished those steering oars. Once again, he discovered what fine work Khremes and the other carpenters had done. He was able to keep the Aphrodite on the course he wanted - the course he thought he wanted, judged by shifting wind and wave - with far less effort than he would have needed before the repair.

Off in the distance, a purple spear of lightning stabbed from sky to sea. Diokles rubbed the ring with the image of Herakles Alexikakos as thunder rumbled through the hiss and splash of the rain. Menedemos wished he had a ring, too. Lightning could so easily wreck a ship, and ships seemed to draw it.

Another flash, this one brighter. Another peal of thunder, this one louder. Menedemos did his best to put them out of his mind. He couldn't do anything about them. The waves slapped the akatos' flank harder and harder. After a while, seawater started splashing over the gunwale.

"I wish we had more freeboard," Menedemos said. "That five of Ptolemaios' can ride out seas that'd swamp us."

"That five of Ptolemaios' is back in the Aegean," Diokles answered. "The sun's probably shining on him."

"To the crows with him," Menedemos said. Diokles raised an eyebrow. Menedemos said it again, louder this time. Diokles dipped his head to show he understood. The wind was starting to howl, and to make the rigging thrum. Menedemos cocked his head to one side, gauging the notes from the forestay and backstay. They didn't sound as if they were in danger of giving way . . . yet.

Sostratos made his way up onto the poop deck. Like everyone else aboard the Aphrodite - including me, no doubt, Menedemos realized - he looked like a drowned pup. Water dripped from his nose and the end of his beard. He said something, or at least his lips moved, but Menedemos couldn't make out a word of it. Seeing as much, Sostratos bawled in his ear: "How do we fare?"

"We're floating," Menedemos shouted back. It wasn't any enormous consolation, but, as with Philippos, it was what he had to give. He shouted again: "How are the peafowl?"

"Wet," his cousin answered. "Too much moisture can affect a man's humors and give him a flux of the lungs. We have to hope that doesn't happen to the birds."

Menedemos grimaced, not because Sostratos was wrong but because he was right. When it came to the peafowl, hope was all he could do. He hated that. He wanted to be able to make things happen. As the captain of a ship at sea, he was usually able to do just that. But how could he do anything about derangement of the humors, or whatever caused sickness? He couldn't, and he knew it. The best physicians could do precious little. And so . . . he would hope.

"Are the cages lashed down well enough?" he asked. He could do something about that if he had to.

But Sostratos dipped his head. "The ship will sink before they come loose."

"Don't say such things!" Menedemos exclaimed. He thanked the gods he was the only one who could have heard it. With any luck, the wind would blow it away so even the gods couldn't hear it.

"Will we sink?" Sostratos didn't sound afraid. As he usually did, he sounded interested, curious. It might have been a philosophical discussion, not one whose answer would decide whether he lived or died.

"I don't think so," Menedemos answered. "Not if the storm doesn't get any worse than this, anyhow." But it was getting worse, the wind blowing ever harder, the lines howling ever more shrilly. He had no idea how long the storm had been going on; he couldn't gauge time without the sun's motion across the sky, and the sun had long since vanished.

He turned the Aphrodite straight into the wind. That made the pitching worse; he felt as if the ship were climbing hills and sliding down into valleys every few heartbeats. But the yawing eased, and the ram and the cutwater meant that the akatos didn't ship quite so much water.

And so the merchant galley fought her way north. A couple of big waves did crash over the stempost, but only a couple. Sostratos made his way forward. His waving hand told Menedemos the peafowl still survived. Menedemos wanted to wave back, but didn't dare take a hand off the steering oar for even an instant.

The sky grew blacker yet. At first, Menedemos feared the storm was growing worse. Then he realized it was only night coming. "Do you want me to spell you, skipper?" Diokles asked. "You've been at it a goodish while."

Until the keleustes spoke, Menedemos didn't realize how worn he was. But he'd been standing on one spot for a long time. His legs ached. So did his arms and shoulders; the steering-oar tillers sent every shock from the sea straight through him. When he started to answer, he found himself yawning instead. "Will you be all right?" he asked.

"I think so," Diokles answered. "If I feel myself wearing down, I'll get one of the rowers to handle her for a bit. We've got a double handful of men, likely more, who've spent enough time aboard ship to have put their hands to a set of steering oars now and again. All you'll want to do is keep her straight into the wind, right?"

"I don't want those waves smacking us broadside-to," Menedemos said. "We're liable to end up on our beam-ends."

Diokles rubbed his ring again. "Right you are. Get some rest then, if you can."

Menedemos doubted he'd be able to, not with the Aphrodite pitching as much as she was and the rain pouring down in sheets. He lay down on the poop deck even so. He didn't bother with a wrapping. What point, in such weather? He closed his eyes . . ..

When he opened them, it was still dark. He didn't think he'd slept till he noticed how the galley's motion had eased. It was still raining, but not so hard. "What's the hour?" he asked the man at the steering oars.

"Middle of the night sometime, captain - about the sixth hour, I'd say," the man replied - not Diokles, but a burly sailor named Hagesippos.

"How long has the oarmaster been off?" Menedemos asked.

"I've had the steering oars about an hour," Hagesippos answered. "He gave 'em to me not long after the weather started easing off a bit."

"That sounds like him." Menedemos yawned and stretched. He still felt abused, but he could return to duty. The Aphrodite was his ship. "I'll take them now, Hagesippos. Get some sleep yourself. Stretch out where I was, if you care to."

The sailor tossed his head. "All the same to you, I'll go back to my bench. That's how I'm used to sleeping when we're at sea."

"Suit yourself." Menedemos slapped the sailor's bare shoulder as Hagesippos went down into the waist of the akatos. The slap rang louder than he'd expected: his hand was wet, and so was Hagesippos' flesh.

As the rain diminished, men's snores came through it. The rowers who weren't at their oars grabbed rest as they could. Menedemos wondered how the peafowl had come through the storm. He peered up toward the bow, hoping to spot Sostratos' long, angular form silhouetted against the sky. When he didn't see his cousin, he felt miffed. He knew that was foolish - Sostratos had the right to rest, too - but he couldn't help it.

Because he was miffed, he took longer than he should have to realize he could see stars, there in the north. The rain died to spatters, and then stopped. The clouds blew past the Aphrodite. By the time rosy-fingered dawn began streaking the eastern sky, the storm might never have happened.

Diokles opened his eyes, saw Menedemos at the steering oars, and said, "Well, I might have known you'd be there. When did you take 'em back from Hagesippos?"

"Middle of the night sometime," Menedemos answered with a shrug. "That's what he told me, and how can I guess any closer?"

"You can't," the keleustes agreed. He got up, stretched as Menedemos had, and looked around. "Good weather after the storm."

"I'd sooner it were instead of, not after," Menedemos said. Diokles laughed. Easy to laugh under blue skies on a calm sea. Menedemos laughed, too.

A few at a time, the sailors woke up. So did Sostratos, who'd slept between the rows of peafowl cages. "They all seem sound," he called to Menedemos. Then he stripped off his chiton to let it dry and went around as naked as most of the sailors. That struck Menedemos as a good idea, so he did the same. Bare skin proved a lot more comfortable than soaked wool.

When the whole crew had awakened, Menedemos ordered the men not rowing to break out the several wooden buckets the Aphrodite carried and start bailing the water she'd taken on during the storm. Getting the water out a bucketful at a time was slow, hard work, but he knew no better way to do it, nor did anyone else.

Philippos the mercenary said, "Where are we at, captain? I'm all topsy-turvy on account of that horrible storm."

"We're somewhere in the Ionian Sea," Menedemos answered. Philippos looked as if he wanted a more precise answer. Menedemos wanted one, too; again, he didn't know where to get one. "I couldn't have told you any more than that if the weather'd stayed perfect. If we sail northwest, we'll raise the Italian mainland. Once we do that, I promise we'll find Taras. Fair enough?"

"I suppose so." The mercenary didn't seem convinced. With a shudder, he went on, "Wasn't that the worst blow you ever went through in all your born days?"

"Not even close." Menedemos tossed his head. "We didn't have to lower the yard" - he pointed up to the long spar at the head of the sail - "let alone start throwing cargo overboard to make sure we stayed afloat. This wasn't a little storm, but there are plenty worse."

"Zeus strike me dead if I ever set foot on another boat as long as I live," Philippos said, and descended from the poop deck into the akatos' waist before Menedemos could dress him down for calling the ship a boat.

Sostratos hadn't spent quite so much time asea as Menedemos. He was also a more thoughtful man, more in the habit of imagining things that could go wrong than was his cousin. Both those factors had made the storm seem worse to him than it had to Menedemos.

For once, he almost welcomed the attention he had to give the peafowl. As long as he was busy, he didn't have to think so much. He couldn't let the birds exercise while the sailors were bailing. They wouldn't have had much room to run around, and they would have made nuisances of themselves. He didn't need to give them water, not for a while; they'd had plenty during the storm. But he could pour barley into bowls for their breakfasts, and he did. His spirits lifted when the birds ate well. That was the surest sign the storm had done them no harm.

And he could check on the eggs in the peahens' cages. Being the meticulous man he was, he knew exactly how many each peahen had laid. One, to his annoyance, had broken the day it was laid, falling from the nest to the planks of the foredeck. He imagined drakhmai broken with it. How much would a rich man who couldn't get his hands on one of the peafowl pay for an egg? He didn't know, not to the last obolos, but he'd looked forward to finding out.

Checking the nests was easiest when the peahens came off them to feed. Helen had five eggs in her clutch. That made sense to Sostratos. The peacock had mated with her more than with any of the others, which was how she'd got her name.

"One, two, three, four . . ." Sostratos frowned. He leaned closer to the cage, risking a peck from Helen. He saw only four eggs. He didn't see any bits of shell that would have shown one had fallen out of the nest during the storm. The slats were too close together to have let an egg escape the cage altogether. His frown deepened as he went on to the next cage.

After finishing with the peafowl, he hurried back to the poop deck; pushing past anyone who got in his way. His face must have spoken before he did, for Menedemos asked, "What's wrong?"

"We're missing three eggs," Sostratos answered. "One from Helen's cage, one from the peahen with the scar on her leg, and one from the smallest bird."

"Are you sure?" Menedemos asked. Again, Sostratos' expression must have spoken for him, for his cousin said, "Never mind. You're sure. I can see it. They didn't fall out and break during the storm?"

"No. I thought of that." Sostratos explained why he didn't think it had happened. Menedemos dipped his head to show he agreed. Sostratos went on, "No, somebody's gone and stolen them. How much would a peacock egg be worth? Never mind - we don't know exactly, but more than a little. We can be sure of that. And it's money that belongs to us, not to some thief. We've earned it." As much as his sense of justice, his sense of order was outraged. That anyone else should try to take advantage of all the hard work Menedemos and he had done infuriated him.

"We'll get them back," Menedemos said, and then, less happily, "I hope we'll get them back. When was the last time you counted them?"

"Yesterday morning," Sostratos answered.

"Before the storm." Menedemos still didn't sound happy. "A lot of people have been up on the foredeck since, either securing the cages or just looking at the peafowl. The passengers have all been interested in them." He rubbed his chin. "I wonder if one of them got too interested."

In a low voice, Sostratos said, "I know which one I'd bet on."

"So do I," Menedemos said, also quietly. "Anybody who needed to come aboard in such a tearing hurry isn't to be trusted, not even a little. And Alexidamos is a Rhodian. He's liable to have a better notion of what those eggs are worth than the other fellows. Well, we'll find out." He turned to Diokles, who'd been listening. "Tell off the ten men you trust most. If they're on the oars, set others in their places. Belaying pins and knives should be plenty for this job, but nobody's going to raise a fuss when we search his gear."

"What do we do if we catch the thief?" Sostratos asked.

"If it's one of the rowers, we'll give him a set of lumps and he'll forfeit his pay and we'll put him ashore at Taras - and good riddance to bad rubbish," Menedemos answered. "If it's one of the passengers . . . well, we'll come up with something." Seeing the look on his cousin's face, Sostratos would not have wanted to be the thief.

Diokles gathered his sailors near the stern. He dipped his head to Sostratos and Menedemos to show they were ready. Sostratos raised his voice. He couldn't make it carry the way Menedemos did, but he managed: "Three peafowl eggs have been stolen. We are going to search for them. We will find them, and we will punish the thief. Each man will turn out his gear, starting with the passengers."

He eyed the four mercenaries. Philippos and Kallikrates looked astonished. Alexidamos and Rhoikos showed no expression. Rhoikos was Sostratos' second suspect. He hadn't done anything illicit Sostratos knew about, but to Rhodians Cretans were thieves and pirates till proved otherwise.

Rhoikos also stood closest to Diokles and his search party. "Let's see your duffel," the oarmaster told him.

"I'll watch to make sure you don't take anything," Rhoikos said, and handed Diokles the leather sack. The keleustes and a couple of sailors started going through it.

Sostratos, meanwhile, kept his eye on the other mercenaries. "Let that be," he called to Kallikrates when the latter made a move toward his sack. "Your turn will come." Alexidamos stood calmly, watching everything going on as if it had nothing to do with him. Isn't that interesting? Sostratos thought. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Menedemos was, too. Seeing his cousin wrong might almost be worth the blow to his own pride at making a mistake.

Diokles looked up from Rhoikos' weapons and tunic and mantle and kilt and his little sack of coins. "No eggs here."

"Kallikrates next," Sostratos said.

Reluctantly, the mercenary handed the keleustes the sack with his worldly goods: cuirass, greaves, helmet, wool headcover to fit inside the helm, sword, a wooden game board with ivory pieces and a pair of bone dice, and a leather sack. Diokles blinked when he picked it up. "Got to be three, four minai in there," he said.

"It's mine, every obolos of it," Kallikrates growled, warning in his voice.

"Nobody said it wasn't," the oarmaster replied, and set it down. "No eggs here, either." Kallikrates visibly relaxed.

"Now Alexidamos," Menedemos called from the steering oars.

The mercenary who'd paid a triple fare to come aboard the Aphrodite pointed to his sack. One of the sailors brought it back to Diokles. He took out Alexidamos' sword and his greaves and his helmet, in which the protective headcloth was bundled. Sostratos stooped and pulled up a corner of the cloth. Under it lay three large, off-white eggs, one of them speckled. "Oh, you bastard," Alexidamos said mildly, as if Sostratos had thrown a double six with Kallikrates' dice. "I thought I'd get away with it."

"You must have, or you wouldn't have done it," Sostratos answered. "Of course, you must have thought you'd get away with it when you took up with that captain's boy, too."

"Of course I did," the mercenary said. "And I would have, too, if the wide-arsed little fool had kept his mouth shut."

Sostratos looked back toward Menedemos. "It's your ship, cousin. What do we do with him?"

"If I threw him over the side, nobody would miss him," Menedemos said. That was true and more than true. No one but the Aphrodite's crew and the other three passengers would even know what had happened to Alexidamos, and none of them seemed likely to care. Menedemos scratched his head. "How much silver has he got there, Diokles?"

"Let's have a look." The keleustes went through the canvas sack till he found Alexidamos' money bag. He hefted it. "Not as much as Kallikrates, but a couple minai, easy."

"I wonder how much is his by right, and how much he's stolen," Sostratos said.

"By the gods, it's mine," Alexidamos said.

"You're not in the best position to be believed," Sostratos pointed out.

"No, you're not," his cousin agreed. "Here's what I'll do. For stealing from the cargo, I fine you a mina of silver. Diokles, count out a hundred drakhmai. Take Athenian owls like he paid us before or turtles from Aigina: we'll make it a nice, heavy mina. And we'll keep him in bonds except when he eats or eases himself till we sight land. Then we'll put him ashore by himself wherever it happens to be, and many good-byes to him, too."

"You might as well kill me now," Alexidamos muttered.

"If that's what you want, you'll have it." Menedemos' voice held no hesitation. If anything, it held eagerness. Alexidamos quickly tossed his head. "No?" Menedemos said. "Too bad." He took a hand off one steering oar to gesture to the sailors. "Tie him up."

They did, ignoring the mercenary's yelps of pain and protest. Diokles counted coins. They clinked musically as he stacked them in piles of ten. Sostratos took the eggs back to the peafowl cages on the foredeck. He got pecked twice replacing them. As far as he was concerned, Diokles was welcome to make a few drakhmai, or more than a few, disappear on his own behalf, too. Maybe the oarmaster would. Diokles was a practical man in every sense of the word.

Alexidamos kept whining and complaining till Menedemos said, "If you don't shut up, we'll put a gag on you. You did this to yourself, and you've got no cause to moan." The mercenary did quiet down after that, but the look on his face was eloquent.

Flying fish jumped from the water and glided through the air. One unlucky fish, instead of falling back into the sea, landed in a rower's lap. "Isn't that nice?" the fellow said, grabbing it. "First time I ever had my opson come to me."

Dolphins leaped from the water, too. Sostratos recalled that Arion had set out from Taras on the journey where the dolphins carried him to shore at Cape Tainaron. When he said as much to Menedemos, his cousin answered, "Well, of course. That's why the Tarentines put a man riding a dolphin on their coins."

Sostratos made an irritated noise. He'd forgotten that, and he shouldn't have. He said, "Now that we've bailed out the ship, may I start exercising the peafowl again? We'll want them at their best when we get in to Taras."

"Yes, go ahead," Menedemos said. "It does look to do them good."

Sure enough, the birds seemed eager to run up and down the length of the Aphrodite. After a while, Sostratos wasn't so eager to run after them. But he and the sailors he detailed to help him stayed with the peafowl. Each one got its exercise and went back into its cage. Sostratos hoped being away from the peahens hadn't hurt the eggs Alexidamos had purloined.

As he hurried past Alexidamos after the peacock, the mercenary growled, "Who would've thought anybody'd keep track of how many eggs each miserable bird laid?"

"I keep track of all sorts of things," Sostratos answered. Alexidamos suggested something rude he could keep track of. He contrived to step on the thief's foot. Alexidamos cursed. Sostratos said, "I told you I keep track of all sorts of things," and went on by to keep track of the peacock.

So things went until, on the afternoon of the sixth day out from Zakynthos, the lookout at the bow - it wasn't Aristeidas, but Teleutas, one of the men Sostratos had taken on at the last moment when they set out from Rhodes - sang out: "Land ho! Land ho dead ahead!"

From his station at the steering oars, Menedemos said, "That's not bad. That's not bad at all. The storm hardly slowed us at all." He raised his voice to call to Teleutas: "Can you make out what land it is? It's got to be Italy, but whereabouts along the coast are we?"

"I'm sorry, captain, but I'm not the one to tell you," the sailor answered. "This is my first time in these waters."

Sostratos peered northwest, too, along with everyone else aboard the Aphrodite except the men at the oars, who naturally faced the other way. He couldn't see land yet. He stood in the waist of the ship, beside a peahen that had hopped up onto a rower's bench. The peahen looked toward the bow, too, but only for a couple of heartbeats. Then, taking advantage of Sostratos' momentary distraction, it leaped into the air and, wings whirring, struck out as if for that distant shore.

The motion drew Sostratos' eye - just too late. "Oimoi!" he cried in horror, and grabbed for the bird. One tail feather - one drab, worthless tail feather - was all he had to show for the desperate lunge. "Oimoi!" he cried again, as the peafowl went into the sea perhaps ten cubits from the Aphrodite.

"Back oars!" Diokles shouted. "Bring her to a stop!" Sostratos yanked his tunic off over his head and jumped onto the rower's bench himself, ready to dive in after the peahen - unlike most of the sailors, he knew how to swim. But, before he could go into the water, the peahen, which had been swimming with surprising strength, let out a squawk and vanished. He never knew what took it - tunny? a shark? one of the playful dolphins? - but it was gone. A few bubbles rose. That was all.

"Go on," Menedemos told the rowers, his voice frozen with shock. "You might as well go on." As they resumed their usual stroke, Menedemos added one word more - "Sostratos" - and gestured for him to come back to the poop.

Alexidamos laughed when Sostratos hurried past him. Not even pausing, Sostratos backhanded the mercenary across the face. He mounted the stairs to the poop deck as if about to be put to the sword. Diokles silently stepped out of his way. When he came up to Menedemos, he said, "Say what you want to say. Do what you want to do. Whatever it is, I deserve it."

"It's over," Menedemos said. "It's done. I've thought all along that we'd be lucky to get to Italy with all the peafowl. We came close. Gods be praised, we didn't lose the peacock." He slapped Sostratos on the back. "We'll sell the birds we've still got for a little more, that's all. Forget it."

"Thank you," Sostratos whispered. Then, to his own astonished dismay, he burst into tears.