The Gryphon's Skull

6

As the Aphrodite made her way south and east through the Kyklades toward Kos, Polemaios took to calling himself Alkimos of Epeiros. “He's a mercenary captain in my uncle's pay,” he explained to Sostratos and Menedemos, “and a big, big man himself.” He let more of his Macedonian accent come out; to an ordinary Hellene, it might well do for the speech of a man from another, equally barbarous, place.

He is shrewd, Sostratos thought reluctantly. Odds were, that ran in the family like height. Antigonos was outstandingly clever, and his sons, Demetrios and Philippos, also seemed able. And Polemaios had been one of Antigonos' leading officers till he chose to turn against his uncle. No one had ever said old One-Eye suffered fools gladly.

Whether a fool or not, though, Polemaios alarmed Sostratos. Ambition blazed from the man as light blazed from a bonfire. Would he be able to conceal it when he got to Kos? If he couldn't, how long would Ptolemaios take to notice it? The ruler of Egypt struck Sostratos as a very canny fellow.

Of course, Polemaios' soldiers would be following him to Kos. How many men did he have? Sostratos didn't know. How many did Ptolemaios have on the island? Sostratos didn't know that, either, though he could make a guess from the size of Ptolemaios' fleet. Would all of them stay loyal, or could Polemaios seduce them away from his near-namesake? An interesting question, sure enough.

To keep from drawing undue attention to the return, Menedemos chose a route different from the one he'd used going up to Khalkis. No one would be able to note how many days lay between his westbound and eastbound visits to a port and, as a result, make guesses about where he'd been. From Karystos, on the southern coast of Euboia, he took the Aphrodite due south across the rough strait and, aided by a brisk northerly breeze, made the island of Kythnos by nightfall.

Fig orchards and vines straggled across the sandy hills of Kythnos. Looking north and west, Sostratos could see Cape Sounion, the great rocky headland that marked Attica. He sighed. I should be showing (he gryphon's skull to Theophrastos, he thought, but instead I'm sailing away again. Where is the justice?

Polemaios and his wife and bodyguards slept aboard the merchant galley. Antigonos' nephew took it in stride; he'd doubtless found worse places to lay his head on campaign. But, from Sostratos' place on the poop deck, he could hear the woman's shrill complaints at the other end of the ship. Polemaios sounded much less imperious with her than he did speaking to mere Rhodians.

With a soft chuckle—very soft, to make sure Polemaios didn't hear—Sostratos murmured to Menedemos: “Every hero has his weakness.”

His cousin's snort of laughter seemed much too loud to him. “Agamemnon lord of men had his vanity, Akhilleus his anger—and his heel,” Menedemos agreed. “Great Aias went mad.” He reached out and tapped Sostratos on the shoulder. “But what of resourceful Odysseus? He was always right, or as near as makes no difference, and he came home safe where most of the others died.”

“And he paid the price for always being right, too,” Sostratos said after a little thought of his own. “He's a hero in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but the playwrights make him out to be a villain, too clever for his own good. Nobody likes a man who's right all the time.”

“You would know, wouldn't you?” Menedemos said.

Sostratos grunted. That arrow hit too close to the center of the target for comfort. He had learned most people didn't take kindly to being corrected, even when they were wrong—often especially when they were wrong. He didn't do such things nearly so often as he had when he was younger. And if I hadn't done them so often then, I might be happier now.

He shifted on the planks of the poop deck, trying not only to get comfortable but also to escape his own thoughts. Like the Furies, they pursued him whether he wanted them to or not. But he could escape them, unlike the Kindly Ones, by falling headlong into sleep, and he did.

When he woke, it was to the sound of Menedemos cursing as if those Kindly Ones were hot on his trail. Yawning, Sostratos asked, “What's wrong?”

“Call yourself a seaman?” Menedemos snarled, which was most unfair: Sostratos was suddenly roused from sleep, and still flat on the deck besides. Upright and irate, Menedemos went on, “There's no polluted wind, that's what. None.”

“Oh.” Sostratos uncocooned himself from his himation and got to his feet, too. He wasn't naked, as he would have been most mornings aboard ship; out of deference to Polemaios’ wife, he'd left his chiton on. Menedemos was right: not a breath of breeze stirred his hair. “Oimoi! This isn't good. We'll have a hard time making Paros by sundown on oars alone.”

“Isn't that the sad and sorry truth?” his cousin agreed. “And even if we do, the men will be worn to nubs and in a dreadful temper. To the crows with me if I blame 'em, either. Rowing all day is a hard way to make a drakhma and a half.”

“I know.” Sostratos set a consoling hand on Menedemos' shoulder. “Well, my dear, we got this job because we can go against the wind, or even without it. We could give the rowers a couple of days to roister in Kos once we get there.”

“Not a bad notion.” Menedemos dipped his head, then smiled a wicked smile. “There you go, being right again.”

“I'm sorry. I'll try not to let it happen again,” Sostratos said, and thought he came out of the exchange fairly well.

Menedemos had the pleasure of waking Diokles, who wasn't up quite so fast as usual. The oarmaster noted the calm as fast as the captain had. “The men'll have their work cut out for 'em today if things don't pick up,” he said, and set about shaking sailors out of sleep. “We can't afford to waste time, then.”

Polemaios and his bodyguards also roused. So did Polemaios' wife, who was no more happy about waking up aboard ship than she had been about the sleeping arrangements the Aphrodite offered. Barley rolls and raisins and olives for breakfast didn't seem to be to her taste, either, and she had some sharp things to say about the wine the akatos carried.

“It'll be hot work,” Sostratos said. The sun was just climbing over the horizon, but, with the air so still, he could feel the furnace of noontime in his mind hours before it turned real. “Have we got enough water and wine to get us to Paros? We're carrying all those extra passengers.”

“For one day, we'll be all right,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos dipped his head; that was likely true. His cousin went on, “Besides, if I water the ship here, we lose that much traveling time, and we haven't got much to spare today.”

Diokles put eight men at the oars on each side of the Aphrodite. At his orders, the oarblades bit into the sea. The galley glided out of Kythnos harbor, past the southern tip of the island, and then south and east toward Paros.

Navigating in the Kyklades was easy enough. A sailor rarely found himself out of sight of land. There was Seriphos, due south of Kythnos, and there due east lay Syros. A tiny islet between them gave a good course for Paros, and in the distance Sostratos could see clouds hovering about Mount Marpessos, Paros' central peak. Before long, the mountain itself came into view.

The sea seemed smooth as a polished piece of Parian marble. The oars rose and fell, rose and fell. Diokles gave the rowers shifts of about two hours, keeping them as fresh as he could. Polemaios' wife amused herself by complaining. His bodyguards prowled the ship like so many feral dogs on the prowl for something they could eat.

They were going to steal this and that. Sostratos knew as much. He couldn't keep his eye on all of them all the time. They couldn't steal too much, if only because they had nothing but their already-full sacks of personal goods in which to conceal their loot.

Not all of them seemed to realize that. One—the big fellow who'd been standing outside Polemaios' front door—bent down under an unoccupied rower's bench and came up holding the big leather sack that contained the gryphon's skull. Sostratos jerked as if stuck by a pin. “Put that down!” he yelped.

“Who's going to make me?” the guard demanded. His free hand went to the hilt of his sword. He hadn't doffed his armor aboard ship. Under the brim of his bronze helmet, his face twisted into a nasty grin. Sostratos wore only a wool tunic, and had nothing but a knife on his belt. He bit his lip in humiliation.

From the stern, Menedemos called, “Well, best one, if you want what you've got so much, why don't you see what it is?”

“I will.” The Macedonian undid the lashing that held the sack closed. The gryphon's skull stared out at him from empty eye sockets. Now he was the one who yelped, in surprise and superstitious fear.

“Don't you dare drop that,” Sostratos warned. This time, he managed to put a snap rather than a whine in his voice. “Put it back where you got it.” Perhaps too startled not to, the bodyguard obeyed. He didn't close the sack, but that could wait.

Once the gryphon's skull was stowed under the bench once more, the fellow managed a question of his own: “What do you want with that horrible, ugly thing?”

Sostratos smiled his most sinister smile. “Before we got the commission to bring your master back to Kos, I was going to take it up to Thessalia, to sell it to one of the witches there.” Northeastern Hellas was notorious for its witches. Sostratos didn't believe in witchcraft—not with the top part of his mind, anyhow—but to protect the precious gryphon's skull he grabbed any weapon that came to hand.

And this one worked. The big, fierce Macedonian went pale as milk. His ringers writhed in an apotropaic gesture. He said something in Macedonian that Sostratos couldn't understand. Once he got it out of his system, he switched to a dialect of Greek that made more sense: “I hope the witches turn you into a spider, you wide-arsed son of a whore.”

Grinning, Sostratos said, “I love you, too, my dear.” Behind the grin was a fright he wouldn't show. If the bodyguard got angry enough, or frightened enough, he would draw that sword, and Sostratos couldn't do much to fight back.

But the big man only shuddered and made another warding gesture before turning and stomping back up toward the foredeck. A couple of minutes later, Polemaios strode toward the stern. “Thessalian witchcraft?” he said.

How superstitious was he? Sostratos couldn't tell by the tone of the question. He just said, “That's right,” and waited to see what happened next.

Polemaios grunted, ascended to the poop deck, and pissed into the sea. Then he too returned to his station on the foredeck. He and his bodyguard got into a shouting match. To Sostratos' frustration, it was in Macedonian. The bodyguard wasn't shy about saying whatever was on his mind, waving his hands in Polemaios' face and bunching them into fists. Polemaios showed no more restraint.

“A charming people, the Macedonians,” Sostratos remarked in a low voice as he went up to stand near his cousin.

“Aren't they, though?” Menedemos rolled his eyes.

“And they rule almost the entire civilized world,” Sostratos said mournfully. He drew himself up with more than a little pride. “But not Rhodes.”

“Gods be praised!” Menedemos exclaimed, and Sostratos dipped his head.

“OöP!” Dlokles called, and the Aphrodite's weary rowers rested at their oars. Behind them, the setting sun streaked the Aegean with blood and fire. A couple of harbor men took the lines sailors tossed them and made the akatos fast to a quay in the polis of Paros. Up at the top of Mount Marpessos, the sunlight remained a good deal brighter than it was down here on the sea.

Menedemos clapped his hands together. “Euge!” he called to the merchant galley's crew. “Very well done! It's a long haul from Kythnos to here.”

“Don't we know it!” somebody—Teleutas—said. Menedemos would have bet he'd be the one to speak up and carp, but he'd done as much as anybody else at the oars, and so he'd earned the right.

“Amorgos tomorrow,” Menedemos said. “Then Kos, and a layover. You boys will have earned it.”

Til say we will.” Again, Teleutas took it on himself to speak for the rest of the sailors, and to make agreement sound halfway like a threat.

“We won't make Kos in one day from Amorgos, not unless we get a gale out of the west,” Diokles remarked. “Not likely, although . . .” The oarmaster tasted the air, wetly smacking his lips a couple of times. “We'll have wind, I think. Tomorrow won't be a dead-calm day like this one.”

“I think you're right,” Menedemos said. The faintest ghost of a breeze brushed against his cheek, softer than a hetaira's hand. He looked north. A few clouds drifted across the sky; they didn't hang in place, as they had all through this long, hot day. “Be good to let the sail down.”

“That'll be fine, sure enough,” Diokles agreed. “Still and all, though, even Amorgos'H be a push, because we will have to spend some time filling our water jars before we sail tomorrow. Can't let ourselves go dry.”

“I know, I know.” Menedemos consoled himself as best he could: “Paros has good water, not the brackish stuff we'd have got on Kythnos.”

He stayed aboard the Aphrodite again that night. He didn't want to; he wanted to go into one of the harborside taverns, drink himself dizzy, and sleep with a serving girl or find a brothel. He hadn't had a girl since putting in at Kos. For a man in his mid-twenties, going without for several days felt like a hardship.

But somebody would ask, Say, who's that big son of a whore with those soldiers? Answering Alkimos of Epeiros might serve. On the other hand, it might not, and he might talk too much if he got drunk. He knew himself well enough to understand that. And so he wrapped himself in his himation on the poop deck, stared up at the stars for a little while, and fell asleep.

When he woke up, only the faintest hint of gray touched the jagged eastern horizon. He felt like cheering, for a brisk northerly breeze ruffled his hair. With sail and oars together, they had a much better chance of making Amorgos by nightfall. Then he took a deep breath, and frowned a little. The air felt damp, as if it was the harbinger of rain. He shrugged. It was late in the season for a downpour, but not impossibly so.

As soon as it got light enough for colors to start returning to the black and silver world of night, he started shaking sailors and sending them into Paros with the Aphrodite's water jars. “How will we find a fountain?” Teleutas whined.

“Ask somebody,” Menedemos said unsympathetically. “Here.” He gave the grumbling sailor an obolos. “Now you can give something for an answer, and it's not even coming out of your own pay.”

Teleutas, no doubt, liked lugging a hydria no more than anybody else. But Menedemos had quashed his objections before he could make them. He popped the obolos into his mouth and went off with his comrades. Menedemos imagined the surprise at a fountain when the sailors descended on women filling their water jars for the day's cooking and washing. Then he tossed his head. As at Naxos, a lot of ships put in at Paros. The local women would be used to such visits.

Sostratos pointed north. “I wonder if we'll get some rain,” he said. “Some of those clouds look thicker and grayer than the usual run.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Menedemos answered. “It would be a nuisance. Trying to figure out a course when we can't see more than a couple of stadia isn't easy. It'd slow us down, too, if the sail got soaked.”

“The men might not mind, not after rowing all day in the hot sun,” his cousin said. “Cool weather's more comfortable.”

“At first, maybe,” Menedemos said. “But it's easy to take a chill when you come off your stint at the oars, and to cramp up, too. Rain's no fun when you haven't any way to keep it off your head.”

They left Paros almost as early as he'd hoped they would. As soon as they were out of the harbor, he ordered the sail lowered from the yard. The freshening breeze thrummed in the rigging. The mast creaked in its socket as that breeze filled the sail and pulled on it. The merchant galley ran before the wind till she slid through the channel between Paros and Oliaros, the smaller island to the southwest.

“I've heard there's a cave full of spikes of rock sticking up from the floor and down from the ceiling on Oliaros,” Sostratos said. “That's the sort of thing I'd like to see.”

“Why?” Menedemos asked. At his orders, the sailors swung the yard so that it stretched back from the port bow to take best advantage of the wind.

“Why?” Sostratos echoed. “It might be pretty. It would certainly be interesting. And they say some men Alexander the Great was after hid out there for a while.”

“Do they?” Menedemos lifted his right hand off the steering-oar tiller to wag a forefinger at his cousin. “You're always going on about how 'they say' all sorts of things, and most of the time what 'they say' turns out to be nothing but a pack of nonsense. So why do you believe 'them' now?”

“There's supposed to be some writing inside the cave,” Sostratos answered, “but I guess you're right—that doesn't have to mean anything. People could have written it in the years since Alexander died.”

“Why would they?” Menedemos asked. “To draw visitors to these caves? If you ask me, anybody who wanted to go crawling through them would have to be daft.” He gave Sostratos a meaningful look.

Having been on the receiving end of a lot of those looks, Sostratos ignored this one. “Maybe,” he said, “though you'd need more than scratchings on a stalactite to get anyone to come to Oliaros. You'd need divinities born there, the way Delos has Apollo and Artemis.”

Menedemos, who was much more conventionally religious than his cousin, bit down on that like a man unexpectedly biting down on an olive pit. By the way Sostratos said it, the god and goddess might not actually have been born on Delos, but the Delians might have claimed they were for no better reason than to draw people to the island and separate them from their silver. Menedemos didn't ask if he did mean that, for fear he would say yes. He did ask, “What other reason would somebody have for writing something that wasn't true?”

“Perhaps just for the sake of fame,” Sostratos replied. “You know, like that madman who burned down the temple back before the Peloponnesian War. He did it just so he'd be remembered forever. Herodotos found out what his name was—and then didn't put it in his history,”

“Euge!” Menedemos exclaimed. The more he thought about it, the more elegant he reckoned that revenge.

Several small islands lay south of Naxos, on the way to Amorgos. They were like Telos, over by Rhodes; they had villages, not poleis, and a few people scratched out a living in their hinterland. They drew steadily nearer as the Aphrodite glided east. So did the clouds the rising breeze brought down from the north.

Those clouds covered the sun. The day went from bright to gloomy. Before long, rain started pattering down, light at first but then increasing. A little rain made a sail perform better, holding more of the wind than the weave of the linen could by itself. More than a little, and the sail got heavy and saggy. Menedemos could only try to wring as much advantage from what was going on as he could.

He'd known visibility would shrink in case of rain. The islands ahead disappeared in the veils of masking water falling from the sky. So did Kos, to the south of them, and so did Naxos itself. Menedemos sent sharp-eyed Aristeidas up onto the foredeck to look out for unexpected trouble. In a while, I'll send a leadsman up there with him to take soundings, too, he thought.

He hadn't got round to giving the order for that before he found himself in unexpected trouble of his own. Polemaios made his ponderous way back to the poop deck and stomped up to Menedemos. “How dare you place a man up there to spy on my wife?” he demanded.

“What?” For a moment, Menedemos had no idea what the Macedonian was talking about. Then he did, and wished he hadn't. “Best one, I sent Aristeidas up there to look for rocks and islands, not for women. Visibility's gone to the crows, what with this rain. I want to see something before I run into it, thank you very much.”

“You should have spoken of this to me,” Polemaios said, looking down his long, bent nose at Menedemos. “One of my guards could do the job perfectly well.”

Menedemos tossed his head. “No. For one thing, Aristeidas has some of the sharpest eyes I've ever found in anyone. For another, he's a sailor. He knows what he's supposed to see on the water and what he's not. Your bodyguards are hoplites. They'd do fine on land, but not here. This isn't their place.”

A slow flush rose from Polemaios' neck all the way to his hairline. Menedemos wondered how long it had been since anyone told him no. Antigonos' nephew set a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Little man, you'll do as I say,” he growled. “Either that, or you'll feed the fish.”

Before Menedemos could lose his temper, Sostratos spoke in calm, reasonable tones: “Consider, best one. By rejecting the best lookout in dirty weather, you endanger the ship, your wife, and yourself. Is that a choice a man who loves wisdom would make?”

Polemaios turned red all over again. He said, “I'm going to tell that sharp-eyed son of a whore to keep his eyes on the sea and not on other men's wives,” and stormed back toward the foredeck.

“Thank you,” Menedemos said quietly.

“You're welcome,” his cousin replied. “If Polemaios endangers the ship, he endangers me, too, you know.” His shoulders shook; Menedemos realized he was fighting not to laugh out loud. “And if he's going to tell somebody not to look at another man's wife, he could do worse than to start with you.”

Menedemos glowered at him in mock—well, mostly mock—rage. “Furies take you, I knew you were going to say that.”

“Will you tell me I'm wrong?”

“I'll do worse than that. I'll tell you you're boring,” Menedemos said. But Sostratos hadn't been wrong, and he knew it. He couldn't help looking at Polemaios' wife, not when he faced forward from the steering oars all day. And she hadn't thought to bring along a pot; she had to hang her bare backside over the rail when she needed to relieve herself, the same as any sailor. Menedemos hadn't stared. That would have been rude, and might well have brought Polemaios' wrath down on his head. Polemaios was the worst sort of jealous husband: the large, violent, dangerous sort. Menedemos had no trouble seeing as much. But he hadn't looked away. You never could tell.

Sostratos did know him pretty well, for he said, “Do you recognize the notion of more trouble than it's worth?”

“Occasionally,” Menedemos said. “When I feel like it.” He grinned. Sostratos spluttered. That made his grin wider.

They scudded on, under sail and oars together. The wind whipped up the surface of the sea. The Aphrodite rolled as wave after wave slapped the planks of her port side. Menedemos adjusted to the motion as automatically as he breathed, and with as little notice on his part. So did most of the merchant galley's crew. Sostratos looked a trifle pale under his seaman's tan, but even he shifted his weight as the ship shifted beneath him.

Polemaios' wife hung over the rail again, giving back whatever she'd eaten. Menedemos noticed that, too, but it didn't stir him— not even to much sympathy, for she'd shown herself a bad-tempered woman. Polemaios had the sense to get out of his corselet before leaning out beside her. Menedemos wouldn't have minded seeing him go straight into the sea, except that that would have meant forty minai going in with him.

Then Aristeidas sang out, “Land! Land dead ahead!”

Menedemos couldn't see it. The rain chose that moment to start coming down harder. But, as he'd told Polemaios, he had Aristeidas up on the foredeck precisely because the sailor's sight was keen. “Back oars!” he shouted to the rowers. “Brail up the sail!” he called to other sailors, who hauled on the lines with all their strength, bringing the great square sail up to the yard and spilling wind out of it. “Leadsman forward!” Menedemos added, kicking himself because he'd thought of doing that and then forgotten about it. He pulled one steering oar in and pushed the other out, swinging the Aphrodite’s bow away from the danger Aristeidas had seen.

As the ship came around, he did spy the little island—or maybe it was nothing more than a big rock: perhaps a plethron's worth of jaggedness jutting up above the waves. It would have been plenty to do in the merchant galley. No fresh water on it, of course, and nowhere to beach . . .

“Twelve cubits!” the leadsman called out, bringing up his line and tossing it into the sea again with a splash. He hauled it in again. “Ten cubits and a half!”

“Regular stroke!” Diokles bawled as soon as the akatos' bow pointed away from the islet. “Pull hard, you bastards! Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!”

“Nine and a half cubits!” the leadsman yelled.

“Full crew to the oars,” Menedemos ordered. The sailors scrambled to obey. More oars jutted from each side of the ship with every stroke, till all forty were manned. No one fouled anybody else. They'd been beaten in well enough to perform in smooth unison even in an emergency. A trierarch aboard a Rhodian war galley might have found something about which to complain. Menedemos couldn't.

“Eleven cubits!” the leadsman called, and then, “Fourteen cubits!”

“We're going to get away,” Diokles said as the danger receded.

“Yes, it looks that way,” Menedemos agreed. “By the dog of Egypt, though, I'm glad I'm in an akatos and not a wallowing round ship. I wouldn't want to try to claw away from there without oars.”

“No, indeed, skipper.” The keleustes' scowl mirrored Menedemos'. “That wouldn't be any fun at all. A round ship might have been able to swing away to southward if somebody spotted that polluted thing soon enough. Might, I say.”

“I know.” Menedemos dipped his head. But the other side of might was might not, as sure as the other side of the image of Apollo on a Rhodian drakhma was a rose.

Polemaios and the other passengers stayed up near the bow. Menedemos had hoped Antigonos' nephew might come back to the stern and apologize for complaining about Ansteidas' placement. The big Macedonian did no such thing. Well, to the crows with him, then, Menedemos thought as he brought the merchant galley back toward the west. I know what an ass he made of himself, whether he does or not.

Two days after almost going aground in the Kyklades, the Aphrodite came back to Kos. Sostratos watched Polemaios staring north and east across the narrow channel that separated the island from Halikarnassos on the mainland of Anatolia. Had Antigonos' war galleys in Halikarnassos known who was aboard the Aphrodite, they surely would have swarmed out to try to seize the smaller ship. But, except for those on patrol in front of the city, they stayed quiet.

As Polemaios looked toward his uncle's stronghold, his great hands folded into fists. He growled something in Macedonian. Sostratos couldn't understand it, but didn't think it any sort of praise for Antigonos or his sons.

A couple of stadia outside the polis of Kos, a five flying banners with Ptolemaios' eagle on them came striding across the sea to challenge the Aphrodite. “What ship?” shouted an officer on the war galley's deck, cupping his hands in front of his mouth to make his voice carry farther.

“We're the Aphrodite, back from Khalkis on Euboia,” Sostratos yelled in return, hoping Ptolemaios' men had been told to expect the akatos.

“And I,” Polemaios cried in a great voice, “am Polemaios son of Polemaios, come to join in equal alliance against my polluted, accursed, gods-detested uncle with Ptolemaios son of Lagos.”

Back on Khalkis, Polemaios had remembered he wouldn't be an equal partner in an alliance. Here, he traveled in a small merchant galley with a double handful of bodyguards along for protection. Ptolemaios had his whole great fleet and the army that went with it in and around Kos. The war galley approaching the Aphrodite could have smashed her to kindling with its great three-finned ram. The archers and catapult aboard the five could have plied the akatos with darts till she looked like a hedgehog. The marines from Ptolemaios' ship could have boarded and slaughtered every man on the merchant galley. All that being so, Sostratos doubted whether, in Polemaios' place, he would have dared claim equality with the ruler of Egypt.

But, for the time being, Antigonos' renegade nephew got away with it. “Welcome, welcome, thrice welcome, O best and most brilliant of men!” Ptolemaios' officer exclaimed, as if he were greeting Alexander the Great or a veritable demigod like Herakles. The fellow went on, “We had not looked for you for another few days.” He waved to Sostratos, who'd spoken up first. “Congratulations on your fine sailing.”

Sostratos, in turned, waved back to Menedemos at the steering oars. “My cousin's the captain. I'm just toikharkhos.”

“Euge!” Ptolemaios' man called to Menedemos, who lifted a hand to acknowledge the praise. “Pass on into the harbor. Ptolemaios will be very pleased you've brought his ally to Kos.” He said nothing about Polemaios' being an equal ally. Sostratos noticed that. He wondered whether Polemaios did.

The officer strode across the war galley's deck toward the stern. He spoke to another man, one who wore a crimson-dyed cloak fastened around his neck: the captain of the five, Sostratos judged. That worthy called out an order; Sostratos could hear his voice, but couldn't make out the words. Figuring out what it was didn't take long, though. The five's oarmaster began beating out the stroke. The warship's big oars bit into the sea. Two of its the banks had two men on each oar; only the thalamite rowers on the lowest level pulled alone. With so much muscle power propelling her, the five quickly built up speed and slid away from the Aphrodite.

“You boys heard him,” Menedemos called to his own crew. “Let's take her on in to port. Keleustes, give us a lively stroke.”

“Right you are, skipper,” Diokles replied.

As it had been before, Kos harbor was packed as tight with ships as an amphora might be with olives. Masts reared skyward like a leafless forest. “There!” Sostratos exclaimed, pointing as he spotted an opening. Menedemos steered the akatos towards it. Sailors on ships already tied up to that quay shouted warnings and stood by with poles and sweeps, ready to fend her off. But Menedemos made her fit without scraping against the vessel to either side.

“Thanks for spying the space,” he told Sostratos.

“You're the one who got us into it,” Sostratos replied.

His cousin grinned. “Oh, I can always find a way to get it in,” Sostratos made a face at him. Menedemos laughed.

An officer came hurrying up the pier toward the Aphrodite: the same one, Sostratos saw, who'd interrogated them on their previous arrival. The officer recognized them, too, saying, “You're back. And have you got Antigonos' nephew with you?”

“Zeus of the aegis!” Polemaios boomed. “Who d'you think I am, little man? Go tell your master I'm here.”

“Yes, go tell him, by the gods,” Menedemos echoed. Looking Sostratos' way, he spoke in a lower voice: “Tell him he owes us forty minai.”

“Here's hoping he doesn't need reminding,” Sostratos said.

“That's right. Here's hoping.” Menedemos sounded worried. His next words explained why: “What can we do if he stiffs us now that we've delivered the goods?”

“To Ptolemaios himself? Nothing at all. We can't even go to law against him. As far as Egypt's concerned, he is the law.” Sostratos had been thinking about that all the way back from Khalkis. “But we can make his name a stench in the nostrils of every Rhodian merchant we know, and everybody our fathers know. I don't think he'd like that. He needs Rhodes friendly.”

Menedemos considered, then dipped his head. “Blackening a man's name isn't the worst weapon,”

“No, it isn't,” Sostratos agreed. “We go round and round about what Aristophanes did to Sokrates in the Clouds—and Sokrates didn't even deserve it.”

“That's what we go round and round about: whether he deserved it or not, I mean.” Menedemos held up a hand. “I don't want to start doing it now, thank you very much.”

Since Sostratos didn't feel like taking up the argument just then, either, he turned away from his cousin. Ptolemaios' officer still stood on the pier, but a fellow in a plain chiton was hurrying back onto solid ground and into the city. Ptolemaios himself would soon know the Aphrodite had returned.

“We'll get paid,” Sostratos murmured. “I really think we will. And then we can head back towards Athens and see what the philosophers there think of the gryphon's skull. We'll see what we get for it, too,” he added hastily, forestalling Menedemos.

“So we will,” Menedemos said. “And I'll be able to do some . .. other business in Athens, too.” His eyes flicked toward the officer. Only the slight pause showed he meant the smuggled emeralds, and only someone who already knew he had them would understand what it showed.

Polemaios' wife started complaining when she and her man weren't immediately taken off the akatos and brought before Ptolemaios—-or maybe she was complaining because Ptolemaios didn't come hotfooting down to the harbor to meet them. Antigonos' nephew did what he could to calm her down. Thinking, I doubt he's had much practice playing peacemaker, Sostratos hid a smile.

After half an hour, or perhaps a bit more, the officer's man returned in the company of a couple of dozen armed and armored hoplites. Sostratos and Menedemos exchanged a glance that said, Ptolemaios isn't going to take any chances with his new ally. The force—which looked like a guard of honor—was plenty to take care of Polemaios' bodyguards in case they proved troublesome. Now, Sostratos judged, they probably wouldn't.

The messenger said, “Ptolemaios is pleased to welcome another foe of the vicious tyrant, Antigonos, to Kos, and summons Polemaios son of Polemaios and his party to his residence. As a seeming afterthought, the fellow added, “Ptolemaios also summons the two Rho-dians who brought Polemaios here so very promptly.”

Oh, good, Sostratos thought. He is going to pay us. But that wasn't the only reason he was beaming. He would have paid a good deal to watch the meeting between the two Macedonians with similar names. Bribery, though, wouldn't have let him do it. Ptolemaios' generosity did. He and Menedemos went up the gangplank and onto the quay as Polemaios and his companions came back from the bow.

Once everyone had left the ship, Antigonos’ nephew took the lead behind the messenger and Ptolemaios' officer. Menedemos, a proud and touchy man in his own right, seemed inclined to dispute Polemaios' place. Catching his cousin's eye, Sostratos tossed his head. Polemaios was the tunny here; the captain and toikharkhos of the Aphrodite were just a couple of sprats. To Sostratos' relief, Menedemos didn't push it, but hung back with him.

They all went up to Ptolemaios' residence, the ruler of Egypt's soldiers surrounding Polemaios' bodyguards, who in turn formed up around their master and his wife. After watching all those nodding horsehair plumes and all that gleaming bronze for a while, Sostratos glanced from his ordinary chiton to Menedemos' and back again. “We're underdressed,” he murmured,

“I don't care,” Menedemos answered; even more than Sostratos, he had a seaman's indifference to fancy clothes and abhorrence of armor. “We're not baking like a couple of loaves in the oven, either.”

With the sun high and hot in the sky, Sostratos wassweating by the time the procession got to the house Ptolemaios was using as his own. The soldiers surely were baked by then. At the doorway, Polemaios got into an argument with Ptolemaios' officer, who refused to let any of his bodyguards into the house. The officer said, “If you think you need bodyguards when dealing with Ptolemaios, O best one, you shouldn't have come to Kos.”

Polemaios fumed, but had to yield. So much for that equal alliance, Sostratos thought. Antigonos' nephew shifted his ground: “Will Ptolemaios at least have a slave girl waiting to take my wife to the women's quarters? By the nature of things, she's been out among men and under their eyes more than she should have since I left Khalkis.”

“Certainly, sir. Let me go take care of that.” By yielding at once on the smaller point, Ptolemaios' officer emphasized how unyielding he was on the larger. He disappeared into the house, returning a moment later to say, “A girl will be there waiting for your wife. Just come along with me.” He started to turn back, then snapped his fingers, annoyed at himself. “And you Rhodians, you come along, too.”

Sostratos and Menedemos made their way through the soldiers to get to the door. Ptolemaios' men simply stood aside. Polemaios' bodyguards glared. They were trained and paid to keep their master safe, and here they couldn't do their job. Even if they had been allowed into the residence, Ptolemaios' men would have preceded them and outnumbered them, but they didn't think in those terms. They didn't want to be on one side of a wall when Antigonos' nephew was on the other, and resented anyone who could go in while they couldn't.

When Sostratos walked along the entrance hall and into the courtyard, he got a glimpse of an unveiled slave woman taking Polemaios' wife to a stairway that would lead up to the women's chambers. Polemaios stood in the courtyard, looking after her.

Ptolemaios courteously waited in the andron till his new ally's wife-was out of sight. Then he emerged, saying, “Hail, Polemaios. Welcome to Kos.” He held out his hand.

Polemaios clasped it. Antigonos' nephew was more than a head taller than the lord of Egypt, and twenty years younger besides. Neither size nor youth mattered a khalkos' worth here. Ptolemaios, solid and blocky, was the stronger of the two.

He took that for granted, too, going on without giving Polemaios a chance to speak: “We'll strike some heavy blows against your uncle.”

“I'll fuck his asshole instead of a sausage skin,” Polemaios declared.

The gross obscenity staggered Sostratos. He hadn't dreamt even a Macedonian could come out with anything so crude. But Ptolemaios just chuckled. And so did Menedemos. Sostratos' horror must have shown on his face, for Menedemos leaned toward him and whispered, “That's Aristophanes.”

“Is it?” Sostratos whispered back. Menedemos dipped his head. Sostratos eyed Polemaios with new respect. Not only had he quoted the comic poet—though what a line to choose!—but he'd been shrewd enough to guess that Ptolemaios would know he was quoting and wouldn't be disgusted.

“You'll have your chance,” the ruler of Egypt said. “I can use every talented officer I can get my hands on, and as your men drift in I expect I'll get good service from them, too.”

Antigonos' nephew looked as if he'd bitten into an unbaked quince. What Ptolemaios was talking about didn't sound like anything close to an equal alliance. Evidently it didn't sound like one to Polemaios, either; he said, “I thought we'd be partners in this.”

“And so we will,” Ptolemaios said easily. He reached up and clapped Polemaios on the back. “Come on into the andron, and we'll drink to everything we're going to do to Antigonos.” He waved to Sostratos and Menedemos. “You boys come along, too. Don't you worry about a thing—I promise I haven't forgotten you.”

In the andron, a slave poured wine for Ptolemaios and Polemaios, and then for the two Rhodians. Sostratos poured out a small libation. When he drank, his eyebrows rose. For one thing, the wine was strong: one to one, wine to water, or somewhere close to it. For another.. . “Very fine, sir,” Sostratos said. “If this is Koan, I'd like to know from whom you got it. I wouldn't mind carrying some on the Aphrodite. We'd get a good price for it.”

“It's better than that pitch-flavored vinegar you and your sailors drink, that's for sure,” Polemaios said.

“It is a local wine, I think, but you'll have to ask my steward for the details.” Ptolemaios waved a negligent hand. One corner of his mouth quirked upward in an engagingly wry smile. “Figuring out how to spend die silver you'll get from me, eh?”

“Yes, sir. Why not?” Sostratos said. Not getting the silver from Ptolemaios was one obvious reason why not. He didn't want to think about that.

“No reason at all, young fellow,” Ptolemaios answered. “You're doing your job the best way you know how. Can't ask for more than that from a man. And you and your captain got this big fellow”—he pointed with his chin at Polemaios—”here in fine time, for which I thank you kindly. What did you think of them, Polemaios?”

“They both have tongues that flap too free. And this one”—Antigonos' nephew glowered at Menedemos—”will not keep his eyes to himself. But,” he added reluctantly, “they do handle their ship well.”

“Rhodians have that knack. Must come of their being islanders,” Ptolemaios said. Two of his servitors came in, each carrying four good-sized leather sacks. When they set the sacks down in front of Sostratos, they clinked. Ptolemaios' eyes glinted. “Here is the balance of your fee. I suppose you'll want to count and weigh to make sure I haven't cheated you.”

“No, sir,” Sostratos answered. “If you're ready for me to do it, that's the best sign I don't need to.”

“You see what I mean,” Polemaios rumbled.

“Tending to one's business isn't insolence,” Ptolemaios said. He pointed north and east, in the direction of Halikarnassos. “You and I have some business in common, some business with Antigonos.”

“So we do,” Antigonos' renegade nephew agreed. “But we'd do better not to talk about it where these fellows can listen.” He pointed to Sostratos and Menedemos as if they were pieces of furniture, unable to understand anything.

That made Sostratos want to bristle, but he didn't show his anger. His cousin did, snapping, “You trusted us far enough to let us bring you here. What makes you think we've suddenly turned into Antigonos' spies since we found a berth in the harbor?”

Polemaios surged to his feet. “I've had everything I'm going to take from you, you pretty little catamite, and—”

“Enough!” Ptolemaios' deep, angry rasp effortlessly dominated every other voice in the room. “The Rhodian asked a fair enough question,”

“He brought me here for pay.” Polemaios pointed to the leather sacks full of coins. “If my uncle gives him silver, he'll sing for pay, too.”

“What can he say? That you're here?” Ptolemaios shrugged. “Antigonos will know that by this time tomorrow. He'll have men here, the same as I do on the mainland. Some boat or other will sneak away from Kos and get over there with the news. Can't be helped.”

Antigonos' nephew scowled. He was, plainly, not a man who liked disagreement or back talk. Being who he was, being part of his family, he wouldn't have heard much of it, and he would have been able to ignore more of what he did hear. But he couldn't ignore Ptolemaios, not here in the middle of the ruler of Egypt's stronghold.

“All right, then—fine,” he said, not bothering to hide his disgust. “Tell them everything, why don't you?”

“I didn't say a word about telling them everything,” Ptolemaios replied. “I did say you were silly to insult them for no good reason. I said it, and I still say it.”

Could looks have killed, Ptolemaios would have been a dead man, with Sostratos and Menedemos lying lifeless on the floor beside him. Sostratos would have liked nothing better than hanging about and listening to the two prominent men wrangle: if that wasn't the raw stuff from which history was made, what was? But he didn't want Polemaios any angrier at his cousin and him than he was already, and he didn't want to make Ptolemaios angry by overstaying his welcome. Reluctantly, he said, “Menedemos and I had better get back to the Aphrodite.”

“Good idea,” Ptolemaios said. “You'll probably want an escort, too. I would, if I were walking through the streets with so much silver.”

“Thank you, sir—yes,” Sostratos said. “And if I might speak to your steward for a moment about the wine ...”

“Certainly.” Ptolemaios gave a couple of crisp orders. One slave went outside, presumably to talk to some of the soldiers there. Another led the Rhodians out into the courtyard, where the steward met them. He was a plump, fussy little man named Kleonymos, and had the details of Koan winesellers at his fingertips. Sostratos found out what he needed to know, thanked the man, and left Ptolemaios' residence.

By the time he got back to the Aphrodite, he discovered that lugging twenty minai of silver through the streets of Kos had other drawbacks besides the risk of robbery. His arms felt a palm longer than they had been when he set out. Menedemos seemed no happier. The concentrated mass of the silver made it seem heavier than if he'd been carrying, say, a trussed piglet of like weight.

After the soldiers headed back toward Ptolemaios' residence, Menedemos said, “Well, I can certainly see why Antigonos' nephew makes himself loved wherever he goes, can't you?”

“Yes, he's a very charming fellow,” Sostratos agreed. They could say what they wanted about Polemaios now: they didn't have him aboard the Aphrodite any more. Sostratos would have been just as well pleased never to have made his acquaintance, too.

But he'd made them a profit. Once aboard the akatos, they stowed the sacks of coins with the rest of their silver in the cramped space under the poop deck, where raiders—and any light-fingered sailors they happened to have in the crew—would have the hardest time stealing the money.

When they emerged once more, Sostratos said, “And now we can do what we should have done the last time we left Kos.”

“What's that, O best one?” Menedemos asked innocently. “Drill the crew harder on getting away from pirates and fighting them off if we can't? No doubt you're right.”

Sostratos, fortunately, wasn't holding one of those five-mina sacks of silver any more. Had he been, he might have tried to brain his cousin with it. As things were, the smile he gave Menedemos was as wolfish as he could make it. “That too, of course,” he said, “as we go to Athens.”

No matter what Menedemos' cousin wanted, the Aphrodite didn't immediately make for Athens, For one thing, Menedemos kept the promise he'd made to let the crew roister in the city of Kos for a couple of days to make up for the hard work they'd done rowing east from Kythnos in the calm. For another . . .

Menedemos eyed Sostratos with amusement as they walked through the streets of Kos. “This is your own fault, my dear,” he said. “You've got no business twisting and moaning as if you were about to shit yourself, the way Dionysos does in the Frogs.”

“Oh, to the crows with Aristophanes,” Sostratos snarled. “And to the crows with Di—”

“You don't want to say that.” Menedemos broke in before his cousin could curse the god of wine.

“You mean, you don't want me to say that.” Sostratos understood him well enough.

“All right, I don't want you to say that. However you please. Just don't say it.” Menedemos was a conventionally pious young man. He believed in the gods as much because his father did as for any other reason. Sostratos, he knew, had other notions. Most of the time, his cousin was polite enough to keep from throwing those notions in his face. When Sostratos started to slip, Menedemos wasn't shy about letting him know he didn't care for such remarks.

“Coming out!” a woman yelled from a second-story window, and emptied a chamber pot into the street below. The warning call let Menedemos and Sostratos skip to one side. A fellow leading a donkey wasn't so lucky; the stinking stuff splashed him. He shook his fist up at the window and shouted curses.

“You see?” Menedemos said as he and Sostratos walked on. “Aristophanes was as true to life as Euripides any day.” His cousin didn't even rise to that, which showed what a truly evil mood he was in. “It's your own fault,” Menedemos repeated. “If you hadn't asked Ptolemaios' steward about the wine we were drinking . . .”

“Oh, shut up,” Sostratos said. But then, relenting a little, he pointed to a door. “I think that's the right house.”

“Let's find out.” Menedemos knocked.

“Who is?” The question, in accented Greek, came from within. The door didn't open.

“Is this the house of Nikomakhos son of Pleistarkhos, the wine merchant?” Menedemos asked.

“Who you?” The door still didn't open, but the voice on the other side seemed a little less hostile.

''Two Rhodian traders.” Menedemos gave his name, and Sostratos'. “We'd like to talk to Nikomakhos about buying some wine.”

“You wait.” After that, Menedemos heard nothing. He started drumming his fingers on the outside of his thigh, Sostratos looked longingly back toward the harbor. If the door didn't open pretty soon, Menedemos saw he would have trouble persuading his cousin to hang around.

Just when Sostratos' grumbles were starting to turn into words, the door did open. The fellow standing there was a Hellene with a beard streaked with gray. He had a good-natured smile that showed a broken front tooth. “ 'Ail, my friends. I'm Nikomakhos. 'Ow are you today?” Most people on Kos used a Doric dialect not far from that of Rhodes, but he spoke an Ionian Greek, dropping his rough breathings.

“Hail,” Menedemos said, a little sourly. He introduced himself and Sostratos, then added, “Your surly slave there almost cost you some business.”

“Ibanollis is a Karian as stubborn as Kerberos,” Nikomakhos said with a sigh. “ 'E's been in the 'ouse'old since my father's day. Sometimes you're stuck with a slave like that. But do come in, and we'll talk. I've 'eard of you, 'aven't I? You were running some kind of errand for Ptolemaios.”

“That's right,” Menedemos answered. “We just fetched Antigonos' nephew here from Euboia.” Sostratos raised a finger to his lips as they followed Nikomakhos into the courtyard, but Menedemos shrugged and tossed his head. That Polemaios was here wouldn't stay secret, not when he'd tramped through the polis on his way to the ruler of Egypt's residence; Ptolemaios himself had known as much. Why not take credit for bringing him, then?

Nikomakhos whistled. “Old One-Eye over on the mainland won't like that a bit. Of course, 'e won't like anything Ptolemaios 'as done to him this campaigning season. The andron's over this way.” He turned left.

In the middle of the courtyard stood a bent, skinny old man with a bald head, a bushy white beard, and the angriest glare Menedemos had seen this side of an eagle—Ibanollis, without a doubt. The slave looked daggers at him and Sostratos. Menedemos wondered why he seemed so hateful. Did he think they would cheat his master? Or was he just angry because he'd had to answer the door? Probably-better not to know, Menedemos thought. Sostratos didn't ask any questions, either.

A clean-shaven young man—younger than the two Rhodians— joined Nikomakhos in the andron. “This is my son, Pleistarkhos,” the wine merchant said. “I'm teaching 'im the business, same as your fathers were doing with you not too long ago. Tell me what I can do for you, and I will if I can,”

“We drank some of your wine at Ptolemaios',” Menedemos replied. “We liked it enough that Sostratos got your name from his steward. If we can make a deal, we'd like to buy some to take aboard our akatos.”

“A merchant galley, eh? Then you'll want the best,” Nikomakhos said. Menedemos dipped his head. In an aside to his son, Nikomakhos went on, “Akatoi can't carry much. They make money selling top-of-the-line goods to the folk ‘oo can afford to buy them. There was one last year—remember?—came into the 'arbor with peacocks aboard, of all the crazy things. Bound for Italy, they were, to make the most they could.”

“That was our ship, as a matter of fact,” Sostratos said.

“Is that so?” Nikomakhos exclaimed. Both Rhodians dipped their heads. “And did you do well with 'em?” the wine merchant asked.

“We did splendidly.” Menedemos would have boasted even if he were lying. That was how the game was played. He would have sounded sincere, too, every bit as sincere as he did while telling the truth.

“Well, good for you,” the Koan said. “And now it's wine, is it?”

“Fine wine.” Menedemos turned to Pleistarkhos. “Your father's right. We carry the best. Last year, we had Ariousian from Khios. It cost us a lot, but we made a profit from it. Everybody around the Inner Sea makes wine, but most of it's pretty nasty stuff. When you've got something that isn't, people will pay for it.”

“Ariousian's first-rate,” Nikomakhos agreed. “I'd like to say that what I make is just as good, but you'd call me a liar to my face. Still and all, though, I'm not ashamed of it.” He eyed Menedemos. “You can't think it's too bad, either, or you wouldn't be 'ere.”

Menedemos grinned at him. “I told you, it was Sostratos' idea.”

“It's good wine,” Sostratos said. “I'd like to get some—if we can afford it.”

Nikomakhos' eyes glinted. “You're not poor men to begin with, or you wouldn't be in the trade you're in. And if you tell me Ptolemaios didn't pay you well to bring Antignnos' nephew 'ere, I'll be the one calling you a couple of liars.”

“What you say may be true, my friend, but that doesn't mean we can throw our money away, either,” Menedemos said. “We couldn't stay in business if we did. And even if I wanted to, my cousin would beat me.” He pointed to Sostratos. “He doesn't look it, but he's terribly fierce.”

Sostratos didn't look fierce. He did look annoyed. He didn't like being twitted. Menedemos didn't let that worry him, not when he was getting a dicker going. Pleistarkhos took Menedemos literally, and eyed Sostratos with a wary respect he hadn't shown before. Nikomakhos seemed more amused than anything else.

“Can't 'ave any beatings,” he said. “Well, what do you suppose a fair price would be?” Then he raised a hand. “No, don't answer that. Why don't you taste some first?” He called for a slave—not the bad-tempered Ibanollis—and told him to bring back samples, and some bread and oil to go with them.

The wine was as sweet and strong as it had been in Ptolemaios' andron. It wasn't the magnificent golden Anousian, but what was? After a few sips, Menedemos said, “I can see how you might get four or five drakhmai for an amphora.”

“Four or five?” Pleistarkhos turned red. “That's an insult!”

His father tossed his head. “No it isn't, son. It's just an opening offer. 'E knows it's worth three times that much, but 'e can't come out and say so.”

“It's a good wine,” Sostratos said. “It's not worth three times what my cousin offered. If you think it is—good luck finding buyers at that price.”

“We can do it,” Pleistarkhos said.

“Maybe so, but we won't be among them,” Menedemos said. “That's the kind of money we paid for the Ariousian last year. This is good, but it isn't that good.”

They haggled for most of the morning. Nikomakhos came down to ten drakhmai the amphora; Menedemos and Sostratos went up as high as eight. And there they stuck. “I'm sorry, my friends, but I don't see 'ow I can sell for any less,” Nikomakhos said.

Menedemos glanced at Sostratos. Unobtrusively, his cousin tossed his head. That fit in with Menedemos' view of things. “I'm sorry, too,” he told the Koan. “I don't think we could show a profit if I went higher. If we were heading off to Italy again, I might take the chance, but not for the towns round the Aegean. If ten's really as low as you'll go . . .”

Very often, a threat like that would make the other side see things your way. This time, Nikomakhos sighed and said, “I'm afraid it is.” He turned to his son. “Sometimes the best bargain is the one you don't make.”

“That's true.” Menedemos got to his feet. So did Sostratos. Menedemos dipped his head to Nikomakhos. “A pleasure to have met you, best one. We often come by Kos. Maybe we'll try again another time.”

Ibanollis the Karian slave was still standing in the courtyard when Menedemos and Sostratos headed for the door. With his dour expression and forward-thrusting posture, he reminded Menedemos oi a frowzy old stork perched on a rooftop. “Waste of time,” he croaked to the Rhodians as they left. Had he stood on one leg, the resemblance would have been perfect.

“Lovely fellow,” Menedemos remarked once they were out on the street.

“Isn't he just?” But Sostratos sounded embittered, not amused. He explained why a moment later: “However charming he is, he was right. We did waste our time, and we could have been—”

“Twiddling our thumbs aboard the Aphrodite,” Menedemos broke in. “You were going to say 'heading for Athens,' weren't you? But you're wrong. We couldn't have sailed this morning anyhow, not unless we wanted to break our promise to the crew, remember? And that was your idea, too.”

“Oh,” Sostratos said in a small voice. “That's right.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I don't feel so bad now about getting Nikomakhos' name from Ptolemaios' steward.”

They walked along toward the harbor. After a while, Menedemos said, “I've been thinking.”

“Euge,” Sostratos replied, his tone suggesting he was offering the praise because Menedemos didn't do it very often.

Refusing to rise to the bait, Menedemos went on, “I was thinking about the best way to get to Athens from here,”

“Same route we used to pick up Polemaios, of course,” Sostratos said, “though they'll probably be sick of seeing us in the Kyklades.”

“That's what I was thinking about,” Menedemos said. “Those are dangerous waters—we saw it for ourselves. And they're going to be more dangerous than usual. Polemaios' men, or some of them, will be heading this way. I don't want to run into them. The only real difference between mercenaries and pirates is that pirates have ships. When mercenaries take ship, they're liable to turn pirate, too.”

“You have been thinking,” Sostratos said. “That's well put.”

“And, of course, on our way back, the cities of the Island League may have learned we smuggled Antigonos' nephew past them,” Menedemos continued. “Since the league is Antigonos' creature . . .”

“They may not be any too happy with us,” Sostratos finished for him. Menedemos dipped his head. His cousin scowled. “How do we get to Athens, then?”

“That's what I've been thinking about,” Menedemos replied. “Suppose we go on up to Miletos and do some trading there.”

“Suppose we don't,” Sostratos said. “That's one of old One-Eye's chief strongholds, and ...” He broke off, looking foolish. “Oh, I see. Word of what we've done won't have got there yet.”

Now Menedemos indulged himself with a sarcastic, “Ettge.”

His cousin's scowl returned. “I still don't like it.”

Laughing, Menedemos said, “Of course you don't, my dear. It means one more pause before your precious gryphon's skull can be formally introduced to Athenian society. But consider: from Miletos, we can sail northwest to Ikaria, either stopping at Samos on the way or spending a night at sea, and then strike straight across the Aegean for the channel between Andros and Euboia instead of hopping from island to island. Traders hardly ever use that route, which means pirates don't, either. We could get almost to Attica without having anybody notice.”

He watched Sostratos contemplate that. It wasn't what his cousin wanted; Menedemos knew as much. Most men, when thwarted in their desires, lashed out at whoever held them back. Menedemos had seen that, too. Sostratos' mouth twisted. But he didn't let loose whatever curses he was thinking. Instead, he said, “Well, I don't like to admit it, but that's likely best for the ship and best for business. Let it be as you say.”

“I did think you would fuss more,” Menedemos said.

Sostratos smiled a crooked smile. “I will if you like.”

“Don't bother.” Menedemos smiled, too. “I'm glad you're being so reasonable. I was just thinking that not many men would.”

“Oh, I'll fight like a wild boar when I think I'm right, and I'll rip the guts out of the hunting dogs of illogic that nip my heels,” Sostratos said. “But what's the point in getting hot and bothered when that would be wrong?”

“You might win anyhow. Some would say you had a better chance, in fact,” Menedemos answered. “Look at what Bad Logic did to Good Logic in the Clouds.”

“You keep coming back to that polluted play,” Sostratos said. “You know it's not my favorite.”

“But there's a lot of good stuff in it,” Menedemos said. “By the time Bad Logic is done, Good Logic sees that practically all the Athenians are a pack of wide-arsed catamites.”

“That's not true, though,” Sostratos protested.

“It's what people think.” Menedemos applied the clincher: “And it's funny.”

“What people think to be true often influences what they do or say, and so becomes a truth of its own,” Sostratos said thoughtfully. “I’ll chase truth where it leads me, and it leads me there.” He wagged a finger at Menedemos. “But I would never throw truth over the rail for the sake of getting a laugh.”

“You're the soul of virtue.” Menedemos could have spoken mockingly; his cousin did get tiresome at times. But Sostratos really did have a great many virtues, and Menedemos was more willing than usual to acknowledge them because his cousin wasn't fussing about heading up to Miletos.

Sostratos pointed. “There's the Aphrodite.”

A couple of sailors aboard the merchant galley spotted their captain and toikharkhos and waved. Menedemos waved back. He also wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Hot and muggy,” he grumbled.

“It is, isn't it?” Sostratos looked north. “Breeze is picking up a little bit, too, I think,”

He spoke as if hoping Menedemos would tell him he was wrong. Menedemos, unfortunately, thought he was right. “I hope we don't get a blow,” he said. “It would be late in the year for one, but I don't like the feel of the air.”

“No. Neither do I,” Sostratos said, and then, “We might have done better not to let the crew do its celebrating here.”

Menedemos shrugged. “If it is a storm, we'd get it in Miletos, too. Just as well not to get it out in the middle of the Aegean, though,” His feet went from the gravelly dirt of the street to the planks of the quay, hot under the sun but worn smooth by the passage of countless barefoot sailors.

When he and Sostratos came up to the Aphrodite, Aristeidas asked, “Will they bring some of this famous Koan wine aboard tomorrow?”

“Afraid not.” Menedemos tossed his head. “Nikomakhos wouldn't come down far enough to make it worth our while to buy.”

“Ah, too bad,” the lookout said. A fair number of sailors had a lively interest in the business end of what the Aphrodite did; Aristeidas was one of them. Maybe he dreamt of owning a merchantman himself, or maybe of serving as captain aboard one and going on trading runs for the owner. The first was unlikely. The second was by no means impossible. Had things gone better for Diokles, he would have been doing that this sailing season. His time might— probably would—still come.

In his turn, Menedemos asked, “See anything interesting across the water at Halikarnassos?”

“No, skipper,” Aristeidas answered. “Everything's quiet over there. Ptolemaios' war galleys go back and forth outside the harbor here, and you can see Antigonos', little as bugs, doing the same thing over there. They don't even move against each other.”

“Just as well,” Menedemos said. “I wouldn't want to sail out of here and end up in the middle of a sea fight.”

“I should hope not,” Aristeidas exclaimed.

In a low voice, Sostratos said, “Oh, you had warships in mind when you asked about Halikarnassos? I thought you were still worrying about the husband you outraged a couple of years ago.”

“Funny,” Menedemos said through clenched teeth. “Very funny.” If he hadn't got out of Halikarnassos in a hurry, he might not have been able to get out at all; that husband had wanted his blood. But he made himself look northeast, toward the city on the mainland. “I'll get back there one of these days.”

“Not under your right name, you won't,” Sostratos said. “Not unless you come at the head of a fleet yourself.”

He was probably right. No: he was almost certainly right. Menedemos knew as much. He didn't intend to admit it, though: “I could do it this year if I had to, I think. In a couple of years, that fellow won't even remember my name.”

His cousin snorted. “He won't forget you till the day he dies. And even then, his ghost will want to haunt you.”

“I doubt it.” Now Menedemos spoke with more confidence. “He'll have another man, or more than one, to be angry at by then. If his wife bent over forward for me, she'll bend over forward for somebody else, too. Women are like that. And she'll probably get caught again. She's pretty, but she's not very smart.”

As was Sostratos' way, he met that thoughtfully. “Character doesn't change much, true enough,” he admitted. But then he pointed at Menedemos. “That holds for men as well as women. You in Taras last summer ...”

“I didn't know Phyllis was that fellow's wife,” Menedemos protested. “I thought she was just a serving girl.”

“The first time you did, yes,” Sostratos said. “But you went back for a second helping after you knew who she was. That's when you had to jump out the window.”

“I got away with it,” Menedemos said.

“And he set bully boys on you afterwards,” his cousin said. “It'll be a long time before you can go back to Taras, too. In how many more cities around the Inner Sea will you make yourself unwelcome?”

He wanted to make Menedemos feel guilty. Menedemos refused to give him the satisfaction of showing guilt. “Unwelcome? What are you talking bout? The women in both towns made me about as welcome as a man can be.”

“You can do business with women, sure enough,” Sostratos said, “but you can't make a profit from them.”

“You sound like my father,” Menedemos said, an edge to his voice. Sostratos, for a wonder, took the hint. That proved he wasn't Philodemos: the older man never would have.