The Gryphon's Skull

“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.

7

Sostratos looked up at the early morning sky and clicked his tongue between his teeth. It was after sunrise, but only twilight leaked through the thick gray clouds, “Do we really want to set out in this?” he asked Menedemos. The air felt even wetter than it had a couple of days before.

“It hasn't rained yet,” his cousin answered. “Maybe it will hold off a while longer. Even if it doesn't, making Miletos is easy enough from here. And besides”—Menedemos lowered his voice—”paying the sailors for sitting idle eats into the money we make.”

That struck a chord with the thrifty Sostratos. An akatos was expensive to operate, no doubt about it. The sailors earned about two minai of silver every three days—and, as Menedemos had said, earned their pay whether the Aphrodite sailed the Aegean or sat in port.

“You think it's safe to go, then?” Sostratos asked once more.

“We should be all right,” Menedemos said. He turned to Diokles. “If you think I'm wrong, don't be shy.”

“I wouldn't be, skipper—it's my neck we're talking about, you know,” the oarmaster replied. “I expect we can make Miletos, too— and if the weather does turn really dirty, we can always swing around and run back here.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Menedemos said. He raised an eyebrow at Sostratos. “Satisfied?”

“Certainly,” Sostratos answered; he didn't want Menedemos reckoning him a wet blanket. “If we can do it, we should do it. And it puts us one day closer to Athens.”

Menedemos laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “I thought that might be somewhere in the back of your mind.” He raised his voice to the sailors forward: “Cast off the mooring lines! Rowers to their places! No more swilling and screwing till the next port!”

The sailors had moved quicker. A good many of them had spent everything they'd made so far this season in their spree in the polis of Kos. Nobody was missing, though. Dioldes had a better nose than a Kastorian hunting hound for sniffing men out of harborside taverns and brothels. “Come on, you lugs,” the keleustes rasped now. “Time to sweat out the wine you've guzzled.”