Salamis

II

Damonax tore a chunk from a loaf of barley bread and dipped it into a small bowl of olive oil. Then he held it out to Sostratos. “Here, O best one, try this.”

“Thanks.” Sostratos took the morsel from his brother-in-law with odd reluctance. He popped it into his mouth and chewed, smacking his lips once or twice as he judged the flavor.

“Tell me what you think. Be honest.” Damonax’s smile was crooked. “As if you could be any other way.”

He’s nervous of me, Sostratos realized with surprise. He was also nervous of Damonax. Any handsome, self-assured man could do that to him. Menedemos certainly did, and he and his cousin had known each other since before either could remember. He also resented Damonax for taking his sister Erinna, one of the few friends he’d had in the world, out of his house, and for caring more about himself than about the trading firm he’d married into.

But Sostratos was honest: relentlessly so, sometimes. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—tell Damonax the oil was fit only for greasing capstans unless that were true. And it wasn’t. “Good oil,” he said after swallowing. “Nice and fruity—you can really taste the olive in it.”

“Is it good enough to take off the island?” Damonax sounded anxious. And well he might; he was still paying down debts he’d had before he married Erinna. Before Sostratos could answer, his brother-in-law held up a hand. “Your father and I went round and round last summer while you and Menedemos were in Athens. He made me see why none of you wanted to ship the oil there. I still don’t like it, but I understand it.”

“All right.” Sostratos left it at that. Lysistratos had told him he’d finally told Damonax he would sooner stick an amphora of his olive oil up his back passage than carry it to Athens. He’d also told Sostratos not to let on that he knew that, so he didn’t.

Damonax continued, “But Alexandria isn’t Athens. Olives don’t grow there, so they have to bring in all their oil. You could get a good price for mine in Egypt.”

“It is good oil.” Of his own accord, Sostratos dipped another chunk of bread into the bowl and ate it. “We can probably take some. Trouble is, an akatos like the Aphrodite doesn’t have the carrying space a sailing freighter does. We have to weigh value against bulk a lot more carefully than those ships do.”

“How much do you suppose you can get for each amphora?” his brother-in-law asked. Yes, Damonax was anxious about silver.

Sostratos had a figure in mind, but named one only half as high. Damonax’s face fell. “We’ll try to do better, O marvelous one,” Sostratos assured him. This way, if he did better than he said he could but not so well as he hoped, Damonax would stay happy. If he promised the high price but didn’t deliver, he’d never hear the end of it. Few merchants’ tricks were so basic, and few worked better.

“I shall have some jars ready to load before you sail away,” Damonax said. “Try not to leave without them this time, all right?”

“We’ll do our best.” Sostratos matched dry with dry. The year before, he and Menedemos had had to feign deafness to keep Damonax’s oil off the Aphrodite as she headed towards Athens.

Lysistratos walked into the dining room. He dipped his head to Damonax. “Will you excuse us, please? Someone is here with whom Sostratos and I need to consult in privacy.”

“However you please, of course, my father-in-law,” Damonax replied, though curiosity stuck out all over him like a hedgehog’s prickles. No, not just curiosity, Sostratos judged: annoyance, too. Damonax would be wondering, Why don’t I get consulted, too?

Because you aren’t important enough, that’s why, Sostratos thought, enjoying the other man’s discomfiture even though he had no idea who his father’s prominent guest might be. Damonax sulkily took his leave. When his sandals flapped on the stairs leading to his second-story room, Lysistratos also left the dining room. He returned a moment later with Komanos.

“Hail, best one!” Sostratos said in surprise. He clasped the Rhodian leader’s hand.

“Hail,” Komanos said. Threissa came in with wine, a mixing jar of water, and a tray of little cakes sweetened with honey and almond paste. He made small talk till the slave woman left the room. After pouring himself a little wine and watering it well, he resumed: “So you and Menedemos will be going across to Alexandria soon?”

“That’s right, sir. As soon as the weather gives us a decent chance to cross safely,” Sostratos said. “You’ll know this from my father?”

Komanos dipped his head. “So I will,” he agreed. “Do you think you might be able to get in to see the Ptolemaios and let him know what the Rhodian Assembly told Demetrios? He should hear as quickly as possible. Knowing what we’ve done will affect what he does.”

“And knowing we haven’t allied with Antigonos and Demetrios will make him better inclined towards us?” Sostratos asked.

Instead of answering, Komanos glanced at Lysistratos. “He knows things, he sees things, this one. And I see why you told me he talks about writing history. He should do it. He has the understanding.”

Sostratos was nearly thirty. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so flattered before. Hoping he wasn’t blushing like the embers of a fire, he said, “Right at the moment, sir, aren’t we just trying to live through history?”

“Everyone tries to live through history,” his father put in. “No one’s done it yet.”

“Too true.” Komanos gave his attention back to Sostratos. “Can you arrange an audience with Ptolemaios?”

“I … think so,” Sostratos said cautiously. “We met him when he was on Kos … let me think … three years ago now. He’s the kind of man who remembers names. And you’re right, sir—he will be curious about what Rhodes has been up to.”

“This gods-cursed war! Alexander died”—Lysistratos counted on his fingers, reckoning it up—“seventeen years ago now, if I have it right, and his generals keep clawing away at each other like a big bowlful of crabs. If they’d just be happy with what they have ….”

“Some people are, Father. Some always want more,” Sostratos said. “I don’t think you get to be a general unless you have that in you.”

“That sounds right to me,” Komanos said. His wealth argued that he wanted more, too, even if he was no warlord. “The gods brass you and protect you for doing the polis’ business along with your own.”

“About that, O best one …,” Sostratos coughed discreetly. “we may need to spread some silver around to get to see Ptolemaios. We may need to sit in waiting rooms for days, too, instead of trading. Ptolemaios isn’t officially a king any more than Antigonos is, but he lives in as much state as if he were.”

Komanos laughed. “By the dog, son of Lysistratos, you see all kinds of things! On my oath, your business won’t suffer because of what you do for Rhodes. There! Are you happy?”

“Malista! I should say so!” Sostratos did his best to sound grateful. He wished he had an actor’s smiling mask to clap on. Oaths like Komanos’ were all the better if written down. But to come out and say so would only offend the magnate.

A few years ago, I would have asked him to put it in writing, Sostratos thought. And he would have got angry. One step at a time, I’m learning how to be a human being.

Komanos turned back to Lysistratos. “I’ll go over and talk to your brother and nephew now, let them know you’re all right with the arrangements.” He started for the front door, and held up a hand when Lysistratos moved to accompany him. “Don’t bother, best one. I know the way. Hail!”

“Hail!” Sostratos’ father echoed. When Komanos had gone, he scratched his head. “Isn’t that interesting? I’d have guessed he’d already talked with Philodemos. I’m just the younger brother, after all. Maybe he thought we’d be easier to persuade. I’m not sure I like that.”

“Maybe he thought we’d be the ones with the sense to see what the polis needs.” Sostratos had been thinking about actors’ masks a moment before. Now he thought about the men who wore them. “Sometimes Menedemos can be as proud and vain as anyone who goes on the stage.”

He said nothing about Philodemos. It was not his place to criticize a man a generation older. By the way Lysistratos chuckled, he didn’t need to say anything. No one was more likely to know his uncle’s flaws than his father.

Lysistratos asked, “Do you think you and Menedemos have enough diplomacy in you to serve the polis this way?”

“I hope so.” Sostratos took the question seriously. He took most questions that way. Sometimes it annoyed Menedemos. He went on, “Dickering for Rhodes shouldn’t be much different from dickering for the firm. And we know as much about what’s going on as anyone is likely to.”

“However much that is, or however little,” his father said. “Do you know where the Demetrios went after he sailed back to the mainland?”

“No, Father.” Sostratos tossed his head. “But fishing boats are going out farther from the harbor as the weather gets better, and our patrols against pirates will start putting to sea before long. We’ll hear as soon as anyone else does.”

“I hope we hear before you put to sea yourself,” Lysistratos said. “That would be something else important you could pass on to the Ptolemaios.”

“It would, yes.” Sostratos hesitated. “Antigonos and Demetrios may not like it if Rhodians go telling tales to Ptolemaios. They may decide we like him better than we like them.” He paused again, then finished, “Which we do, but we don’t want to throw it in their faces.”

“True enough,” his father said. “Ptolemaios is less dangerous to our freedom and independence than Antigonos and Demetrios are. We’d make them a nice snack—at least they think so. And most of what Egypt ships to Hellas and Anatolia comes through Rhodes. We make a lot of silver from the lands the Ptolemaios holds.”

“Antigonos will know that,” Sostratos said. “I’m not sure how smart Demetrios is. He’s not stupid, but I don’t know if he’s that smart. Antigonos, though … Antigonos has only the one eye, but I think he sees everything anyway.”

“True again, however much I wish it weren’t.” Lysistratos set a hand on Sostratos’ shoulder. “All we can do is all we can do. Gods grant it be enough.”

Sostratos had his doubts about the gods, as many young men who’d studied a bit did. When his father’s father was young, talking about doubts like that might have led to hemlock. It had for Sokrates. Things were looser now, but he didn’t want to risk upsetting his father. And …. “The way things are, I’ll take any help Rhodes can get.”

“So will I, son,” Lysistratos said. “The way things are, we’ll need it.” His father walked out of the dining room.

Sostratos stayed there a little longer, scratching at the edge of his mustache as he worried. Most young men these days shaved their whiskers, imitating Alexander’s style, but he’d let his grow out in hopes of being taken for a philosopher. Maybe he’d let them grow in hopes of persuading himself he was a philosopher, not someone who worried more about the price of papyrus than the nature of the good.

He was harder to persuade than he had been when he first came home from Athens. Then he’d hated to return to a life he scorned. Now? Now I make a pretty god merchant, maybe a better merchant than I would a historian.

Should I cut off the beard, then? he wondered. But he tossed his head, rejecting the idea. Stylish or not, shaving every day was a cursed nuisance.

He walked into the courtyard. A lizard skittered away from him. That it was out and moving was another sign spring was on the way. Someone down the street shouted “Exito!”—Here it comes!—and dumped a slop jar out a second-story window. The splash was followed by curses from passersby who hadn’t got out of the way fast enough. Sostratos laughed and sympathized at the same time. It wasn’t as if he’d never got splattered.

Damonax came down the stairs and hurried up to him. “What did Komanos want with you?” he asked eagerly.

“Oh, this and that,” Sostratos answered. He could have made a better liar, but he knew blabbing about the polis’ business wasn’t the smartest thing he could do.

His brother-in-law exhaled in annoyance. “Do you think I’ll go spreading the news from Karia to Carthage?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Sostratos answered, more or less honestly. “But if … whatever it was should get about and Komanos asks me, ‘You didn’t tell anyone, did you?’, I don’t want to have to say, ‘Well, only my brother-in-law.’ Do you see what I’m saying?”

Damonax waved his hand, a gesture full of impatience and contempt. “You just tell him, ‘No, of course I didn’t,’ and go on about your business.”

Sostratos stared at him. They both used Greek, but they were speaking two different languages. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, O marvelous one.” He freighted the overblown honorific with as much scorn of his own as he could.

“Well, to the crows with you, then!” Damonax turned on his heel and stamped away. Had there been a small dog in the courtyard, he would have kicked it as he went.

Sostratos wanted to kick something—or someone—himself. He hoped his brother-in-law wouldn’t take out his anger on Erinna. His sister would have understood that some things needed to be kept quiet; she had the same kind of good sense as Sostratos himself. But Damonax? No wonder he’d got into trouble over debt if he had no more self-control than he was showing.

Once the Aphrodite put to sea, it would be tempting to dump the olive oil overboard and claim the amphorai had somehow broken. Reluctantly, Sostratos tossed his head. The sailors would gossip, and it would cost the firm money. But it was tempting.

Sikon the cook tipped Menedemos a wink. “They’ve been selling fine squid the past few days. The agora is full of fishermen with wicker baskets. So many of ’em out now, I bet they’re nice and cheap,” he said.

“They’d better be,” Menedemos answered. “If they aren’t, my father’s wife won’t be happy with you.”

Sikon shrugged. “She hasn’t been so bad lately, young master. You and your father, the two of you managed to talk some sense into her. And she hasn’t cared about food so much, anyway, since she started carrying the baby.”

He took the kind of casual liberties a trusted slave with an important job could. He was about Menedemos’ father’s age, and had been with the family longer than Menedemos had been alive. Born in Karia or Lykia or some other barbarous place, he’d got a Greek-sounding name when he was sold. Some sort of accent still flavored his speech, but he’d used the dual you to talk about Menedemos and Philodemos, something even native Hellenes were doing less and less often these days.

“Don’t give her trouble, especially while she’s pregnant,” Menedemos said. Baukis tried to make Sikon spend less on food for the household than he wanted to. That was the mistress’ prerogative, as trying to get around it was the slave’s.

“If she had her way, we’d eat barley mush all the time, with salted olives for opson,” Sikon said.

“Don’t give her trouble, I told you.” Menedemos spoke less sharply than he wanted to. He couldn’t show half of what he felt about Baukis, not without landing in more trouble than anyone would want. If only I knew whether the baby she’s carrying is Father’s or mine, he thought.

“I heard you, young master.” Like any cook worth his prawns, Sikon had a double chin. The flesh under there wobbled as he drew his head back in touchy pride. Yes, he thought the household revolved around him and the kitchen.

Sometimes he wasn’t so far wrong, either. “Why don’t you head for the market and come back with some of those squid?” Menedemos said. “As long as they’re as cheap as you think they are, I mean.”

“Of course, young master.” Sikon could have posed for a statue of innocence personified—one more trick every sly slave knew. If he kept a few oboloi out of the seafood budget, who’d ever heard of a slave that wouldn’t steal a bit? They only caused trouble when they got greedy.

Out the cook went, whistling a tune Menedemos had heard in a tavern in Athens the summer before. He didn’t remember hearing it here in Rhodes, but Sikon must have. It was probably a tavern tune here, too. Some masters wouldn’t have let their slaves have enough time or money to visit taverns. Some masters measured their slaves’ rations every day, and made sure their men and women didn’t get anything on top of what they were supposed to have.

Menedemos’ father wasn’t like that. Philodemos recognized that his slaves were human beings with human quirks and desires, not automata like the ones Homer had Hephaistos making. Menedemos’ mouth twisted. His father was easier on the slaves than on him. He had quirks and desires, too, but his father didn’t want to acknowledge them.

Since one of those desires was for his father’s wife …. His mouth twisted again, as if it were full of the sourest vinegar. He hoped the Aphrodite would sail for Alexandria soon. Alexandria was thousands of stadia, hundreds of parasangs, from Rhodes. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t think about—worry about—Baukis while at sea and down in Egypt. But, think and worry as he would, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. And physical distance gave emotional distance. It might, anyhowat any rate.

The political side of things, too …. He’d hashed that out with his father—who was cool and sensible about such things—and with Sostratos and his father. They all agreed Rhodes would be better off truly free and independent than under the muscular thumbs of Antigonos and Demetrios. Uncle Lysistratos had said, “Between you and Sostratos, you just about make one diplomat.” Menedemos rather liked that. He thought it might be true. He hoped it was.

His father stuck his head into the kitchen. “I just saw Sikon heading out,” Philodemos said.

“That’s right.” Menedemos dipped his head. “He says there’ve been lots of squid in the agora lately, so he can get them for a good price.”

“Whatever he really pays, he’ll swear to us it was more,” his father said. “The difference will go straight into his mouth.” He mimed sticking an obolos between his cheek and his teeth, the way people did when they stowed away small change. Then he laughed—sourly, but he did. “I’ve never known a cook who didn’t steal some. As long as it isn’t too much ….” He spread his hands.

“I was just thinking the same thing!” Menedemos exclaimed. “Isn’t that funny?”

“Maybe you’re growing up. Or maybe I’m slipping into my second childhood.” Philodemos couldn’t praise without adding a scorpion’s sting in the tail of what he said to Menedemos. He rubbed his chin as he eyed his son. “I really ought to get you married off. High time I had grandchildren.”

Maybe you do, or you will soon, Menedemos thought. Snow rarely fell on Rhodes, but ice walked up his back. He knew which woman he wanted to wed. He also knew how impossible that was. He rarely even got the chance to talk to Baukis, not about anything that mattered. You never could tell what a slave might overhear. Slaves were cursed nuisances in all kinds of ways. Living without them, though, meant doing all your own work. Life was easier with them.

Menedemos knew he didn’t change expression when his father brought up marriage. It wasn’t the first time, and he had practice holding his features still around the older man. After no more than a heartbeat’s pause, he answered, “Most of the time, Father, I’d say we should do it soon, too. But with the political situation the way it is—”

That worked better than he’d dreamt it would. His father clapped a hand to his forehead. “The political situation! Oimoi! I hunted you down to tell you what I just heard, and then we started talking about other things and I forgot. Maybe I really am losing my wits.”

“What did you hear?”

“When you take the Aphrodite to Egypt, I expect you plan to go by way of Cyprus. Am I right?”

“I meant to, certainly. It makes the passage across the Inner Sea as short as possible. Why? Are you saying I shouldn’t?”

“I’m afraid I am. That’s my news. Demetrios has a fleet in the waters there, and he’s landed an army near Karpaseia, at the tip of the peninsula in the northeast. The poleis on Cyprus mostly back Ptolemaios, and Antigonos’ son is attacking Menelaos, who’s holed up in Salamis. Where else on the island he may go, I can’t tell you.”

“Oimoi! is right, then,” Menedemos said. The last thing a trader wanted was to sail into the middle of a war. He’d done that in Sicily and southern Italy, and he never wanted to do it again. After a moment, he continued, “So you think we should go straight from Rhodes?”

“Don’t you?” his father returned.

“Probably. But—” Menedemos muttered to himself and counted on his fingers. In that moment, full of thought and calculation, he might almost have been Sostratos, though Sostratos would have been offended to hear it. “It’s … what? Something like three thousand stadia from here to Alexandria?”

“About that, yes,” Philodemos said. “I don’t know that anyone’s reckoned it up exactly.”

“I don’t know how you would,” Menedemos agreed. “But we’d cut a quarter or a third off the distance over open water if we could stop for food and water and a rest at Paphos or one of the other towns on the west coast of Cyprus.”

“I know. You wouldn’t get supplies if Demetrios’ men are attacking those places, too, though. You’d get your ship seized, is what you’d get. And your whole crew would be sold into slavery or held for ransom—or as hostages to make Rhodes do whatever Antigonos and Demetrios tell us to.”

“You’re right, Father. I wish you were wrong, but you’re right.” Menedemos retreated into that brown study again. “Three thousand stadia … with a good wind behind us, we could do it in three days. It’ll take longer if we have to row most of the way. We won’t man all the oars all the time—we’d kill the crew if we did. That will slow us down. Five or six days, I’d guess.”

“That sounds about right,” his father agreed. Neither one of them said a word about storms. Out in the middle of the vast Inner Sea, the Aphrodite would bounce like a toy boat made from a wood chip, a stick, and a bit of rag when boys threw stones into the rain puddle where it floated.

“All part of the business,” Menedemos said, putting the best face he could on things. His father dipped his head. For once, they understood each other perfectly.

Damonax stood on the pier, watching the workmen he’d hired pass amphorai of olive oil down to the rowers who were stowing them in the Aphrodite. “Put them well back towards the stern,” he said importantly. “Make sure they’re well padded, too. Straw and whatever else you have.”

Sostratos tossed his head. “No, they go forward,” he said, his voice sharp and annoyed. “We have other cargo we’ll need the stern space for.” He rounded on his brother-in-law. “I don’t tell you how to run your farm, O best one. I’m toikharkhos on this ship, and I’ll thank you to remember it. Things go where I say they go, and nowhere else. Have you got that?”

Damonax stared at him. Sostratos was usually a mild-mannered man, one who might let himself be pushed around where most Hellenes wouldn’t have. Not here, though. A nervous smile on his face, Damonax said, “I meant no harm, truly.”

“Neither did Oidipous,” Sostratos snapped. “Not a bit. How did that turn out?”

His brother-in-law flinched. Unlike Sostratos, Damonax was conventionally pious. He didn’t take the old myths as parables or explanations; to him, they were truth. “My dear fellow!” he managed after a false start. “That’s … a bit much, don’t you think?”

“And telling my men how to do their work on my ship isn’t a bit much, you mean?” Sostratos was implacable as a Fury.

“I won’t do it again.” Damonax sounded like a small boy who meant, Not while you can catch me, anyway. After a moment of weighing the odds, he asked, “What will be stowed back towards the stern?”

None of your cursed business. That got as far as the tip of Sostratos’ tongue, but no farther. You could always say things some other time. You couldn’t call them back once said, and he guessed he’d given Damonax enough already. What he did say was, “Wine. Fine wine. Grapes don’t do well in Egypt. The Egyptians make a brew out of dates—”

“Sounds disgusting!” Damonax broke in.

“I tried it a couple of years ago, when we went to the land of the Ioudaioi,” Sostratos said. “It will get you drunk if you pour down enough, and it won’t give you a flux of the bowels the way plain water can, but it’s not what anyone would call good. So ordinary freighters bring lots of ordinary wine into Egypt for the soldiers and cooks and carpenters and masons and what have you. We’ll bring some of the fine vintages, for the people who can afford them.”

“Why do you want them there and not the oil?” Damonax asked.

“Because a metretes of wine is heavier than a metretes of oil,” Sostratos said. A metretes was the amount a large amphora held. He went on, “The ship will handle better if we have more weight at the stern, not at the bow.”

“I didn’t know that,” Damonax said, as if he blamed Sostratos for his own ignorance. Realizing how that had to sound, he added, “Your business is more complicated than it looks at first glance, isn’t it?”

“Most things are,” Sostratos replied, which made his brother-in-law wince again. “We’ll get the oil aboard. We’ll get it to Egypt and get the best price we can for it. We’ll do the same with the wine, and with everything else we’re carrying.” He said not a word about the amber. The fewer people who knew of it, the better.

“What kind of wine will you carry?” Damonax asked.

Sostratos would have told him that—it wasn’t a secret. In fact, he was a little surprised his brother-in-law didn’t already know. But Damonax came up to the polis of Rhodes only when he had business here; he stayed on his farm most of the time. Before Sostratos could answer, though, a procession of bearers, each carrying a two-eared amphora, approached the Aphrodite from the direction of the family warehouse.

Pointing at them with his chin, he said, “Here they come now. Suppose you tell me where they’re from.”

Damonax scratched the side of his jaw as he considered. “Well, I recognize those jars the men in front have, the ones that are longer and skinnier and more conical than Rhodian ware. They’re from Khios, aren’t they?”

“Euge! Very good, best one!” Sostratos made as if to clap his hands. “That’s not just any wine from Khios, either. That’s Ariousian, from the northwestern part of the island. Some came into Rhodes last year, while we were in Athens, and my father and my uncle bought all they could.”

“Ariousian!” Damonax’s voice went dreamy. “The best wine in the world, people say.”

“Some people say that,” Sostratos allowed. “But what about the other amphorai, the ones that are fatter than those we make here?”

Those amphorai made his brother-in-law frown. At last, reluctantly, Damonax said, “I’m afraid they have me stumped.”

“Well, you don’t see them all that often in Rhodes.” Sostratos could afford to sound tolerant. He knew at a glance the shape of amphorai from at least a score of different islands and poleis, perhaps twice that many. Menedemos likely recognized even more. Sostratos continued, “Thasos lies way to the north in the Aegean; it’s off the European coast, just east of the fingers of land that come down from the Khalkidike. And Thasian wine …. Wine doesn’t get much better, if it gets any better at all.”

“Thasian! That’s the one with the bouquet like apples!” Damonax exclaimed. “I’ve had some once or twice. It was so smooth, I didn’t want to water it.”

“No?” One of Sostratos’ eyebrows slid upwards. “I didn’t realize we’d brought a Macedonian into the family.” Macedonians were notorious for drinking their wine neat, as if they were Thracians or other outright barbarians, not men who passed themselves off as Hellenes. From everything Sostratos had seen, they’d earned that notoriety.

“I hope you know me better than that, O best one,” Damonax said. Sostratos had to dip his head, acknowledging that he did. His brother-in-law had his share of human flaws and foibles, but drunkenness wasn’t one of them. Then Damonax turned the subject: “Is it true, what they’re saying about the Demetrios?”

Sostratos spread his hands, palms up. “I don’t know, my dear. What have you heard? I wouldn’t give you an obolos for a thousand of the stupid stories that go through the market square.”

“That the son of Antigonos is trying to take Cyprus away from Ptolemaios.”

“Oh. That is true. Or at least I’ve heard it from people I believe.”

“Like Komanos?” Damonax gibed. Sure as a daimon, being excluded from the meeting with the prominent politician still rankled.

“No,” Sostratos said. Not directly, he added to himself. He didn’t like to lie, but he didn’t want to tell Damonax the whole truth, either. “I got the news from Uncle Philodemos, as a matter of fact. My guess is, Menedemos told him. Menedemos gets everywhere and hears everything—you know that.”

Damonax sniffed. “Your cousin thinks he’s a lot more clever than he really is.”

It wasn’t a thought Sostratos had never had, but he’d had it more often and much more strongly about Damonax than about Menedemos. All he said was, “You may be right.”

“Will you sail straight across the Inner Sea, then?” Damonax asked. “How can you hope to find Alexandria if you do?”

“We’ll manage,” Sostratos said. “You go to sea often enough, you learn to steer pretty well by the sun and stars.” He prided himself on how well he could do that. If pressed, he would have admitted he was no better than Menedemos and might have been worse than Diokles. The oarmaster, of course, had started going to sea years before Sostratos was born.

Perhaps luckily, Damonax didn’t press him. Instead, with a small shiver, he said, “I wouldn’t care to get out of sight of land.”

Good. Otherwise you’d come along and want to run things. Sostratos didn’t say that, either. He said nothing at all. Around Damonax, nothing was often the best thing to say.