"How did you know that?" The tavernkeeper stared at him. "You said you were a Rhodian."
"I am," Sostratos said.
"He must have read it in a book," Menedemos said. "He reads all sorts of things in books." Sostratos had trouble gauging his cousin's smile: was it proud or mocking? Some of each, he thought. Menedemos asked, "Is that your pal Herodotos again?"
"No, it's in Thoukydides' history," Sostratos replied.
"A book," the tavernkeeper said. "A book. Well, ain't that something? Don't have my letters myself, nor much want 'em, neither, but ain't that something?"
"Ain't that something?" Menedemos echoed wickedly as Sostratos and he headed for a cookshop not far away.
"Oh, shut up," Sostratos said, which made his cousin laugh out loud. Irked, he went on, "Natural philosophers say that earthquakes aren't Poseidon's fault at all, that they're as much a natural phenomenon as waves stirred up by wind."
"I don't know that I can believe that," Menedemos said. "What could cause them, if they're natural?"
"No one knows for sure," Sostratos replied, "but I've heard people suggest it's the motion of gas through subterranean caverns pushing the ground now this way, now that."
He'd always thought that seemed not only probable but sober and logical to boot. Menedemos, however, took it another way. His whoop of delight made several passing mercenaries whirl to gape at him. "Earthfarts!" he said. "Instead of Poseidon Earthshaker, we've got Kyamos Earthfarter. Bow down!" He stuck out his backside.
"No one ever made a bean into a god until you did just now," Sostratos said severely, resisting the urge to kick the proffered part. "You complain about the way I think sometimes, but you're more blasphemous than I'd ever be. If you ask me, all that Aristophanes has curdled your wits."
His cousin tossed his head. "No, and I'll tell you why not. Aristophanes has fun mocking the gods, and so do I. When you say you don't believe, you mean it."
Sostratos grunted. That held more truth than he cared to admit. Instead of admitting it, he said, "Come on, let's tell this fellow we're looking for passengers."
"All right." Menedemos made a very rude noise. "Earthfarts!" He giggled. Sostratos wished he'd never started talking about the natural causes of earthquakes.
To get a measure of revenge - and perhaps expiation as well - he all but dragged Menedemos to Poseidon's temple. Sure enough, there among the offerings stood the statue of Arion astride the dolphin. Sostratos clicked his tongue between his teeth. "It's not so fine a piece of work as I thought it would be. See how stiff and old-fashioned it looks?"
"Arion jumped into the sea a long time ago," Menedemos said reasonably. "You can't expect the statue to look as if the sculptor set it there yesterday."
"I suppose not," Sostratos said, "but even so - "
"No. But me no buts," Menedemos said. "If you laid Aphrodite, you'd complain she wasn't as good in bed as you expected."
If I laid Aphrodite, she'd complain I wasn't as good in bed as she expected, Sostratos thought, and then, Or would she? She being a goddess, wouldn't she know ahead of time what I was like in bed? He scratched his head. After pondering that for a little while, he said, "The problem of how much the gods can see of the future is a complicated one, don't you think?"
"What I think is, I haven't got the faintest idea of what you're talking about," Menedemos answered, and Sostratos realized he'd assumed his cousin could follow along in a conversation he'd had with himself. While he was still feeling foolish, Menedemos went on, "Let's get back to the boat and see if we've got any passengers looking to go west."
"All right," Sostratos said. When they left the temple precinct, he let out a sigh. "Except for this shrine, Tainaron's about as unholy a place as I've ever seen."
"It's not Delphi," Menedemos agreed, "but we wouldn't pick up mercenaries bound for Italy at Delphi, now would we?" Sostratos could hardly argue with that. What he could do - and what he did - was keep a wary eye out for thieves and cutpurses all the way down to the beach. He credited his eagle eye for their getting to the boat unmolested.
A couple of brawny, sun-browned men with scars on their arms and legs and cheeks were talking with Diokles when Sostratos and Menedemos came up. The oarmaster looked very much at home with them: but for the scars, he might have been one of their number himself. "Here's the skipper and the toikharkhos," he said. "They'll tell you everything you need to know."
"Twelve drakhmai to Syracuse, we heard," one of the mercenaries said. "That right?"
Sostratos tossed his head. "Twelve drakhmai to Taras," he answered. "I don't know if we'll be putting in at Syracuse at all. There's no way to tell, not till we hear how the war with Carthage is going."
"Twelve drakhmai to Italy is a lot of money," the other mercenary grumbled, "especially when I've got to pay for my own food, too."
"That's the way things work," Menedemos said. "That's the way they've always worked. You don't expect me to change them, do you?"
To Sostratos, expecting things to work a certain way because they always had was nothing but foolishness. He started to say so, then shut up with a snap; as far as a dicker with mercenaries went, his cousin had come up with an excellent argument. "All right, all right," the second hired soldier said. "When do you figure you'll sail?"
"We have room for five or six passengers," Menedemos replied. "We'll stay till we've got 'em all, or till we decide we're not going to."
"Well, you've got one, even if you are a thief," the second mercenary said. "I'm Philippos."
"Two," the other Hellene said. "My name's Kallikrates son of Eumakhos."
"I'm the son of Megakles myself," Philippos added. He pointed out to the Aphrodite. "You're not sailing today, though?"
"Not unless we get three or four more passengers in a tearing hurry," Sostratos assured him. "We have some cargo to unload, too. Come down to the beach every morning for the next few days, and we won't leave without you."
"Fair enough," Philippos said. Kallikrates dipped his head in agreement. They both ambled off the beach and back up toward the town that had sprung into being at Tainaron.
"Well, there's two," Menedemos said to Sostratos. "Not so bad, the first day we anchor offshore."
"No, not so bad, provided we get away with coming here in the first place," Sostratos replied. "If this were a proper harbor, a harbor where honest men came, we wouldn't have to anchor offshore."
"This is a harbor where honest men come," Menedemos said with a grin he no doubt intended as disarming. "We're here, aren't we?"
"Yes, and I still wish we weren't," Sostratos said. His cousin's grin turned sour. That didn't keep Menedemos from getting into the boat with him and returning to the Aphrodite. Sostratos raised an eyebrow as they climbed up into the akatos. "I don't see you spending the night ashore, honest man."
This time, Menedemos was the one who said, "Oh, shut up," from which Sostratos concluded he'd made his point.
They got another passenger the next day, a Cretan slinger named Rhoikos. "I'm right glad to get out of here," he said, his Doric drawl far thicker than that of the Rhodians. "Everything's dear as can be in these here parts, and I was eating up my silver waiting around for somebody to hire me. Don't reckon I'll have much trouble getting 'em to take me on over across the sea. Always a war somewheres in them parts."
He tried to haggle Sostratos down from his price. Sostratos declined to haggle; Rhoikos had made it clear he didn't want to stay in Tainaron. The slinger complained, but he said he'd come down to the beach every morning, too.
For the next three days, though, nobody showed any interest in going to Italy. Menedemos grumbled and fumed up on the foredeck. Sostratos tried to console him: "The peahens are laying more eggs."
"You were the one who wanted to get out of here," Menedemos snapped. "D'you think you're the only one?"
Sostratos stared at him. "I thought you were as happy as a pig in acorns."
"Do I look that stupid?" his cousin said in a low voice. "I put up a b
old front for the men. So I took you in, too, eh? Good. We'll make money here, and that's why we came, but I'll thank all the gods when the cape slides under the horizon."
Plucking at his beard, Sostratos murmured, "There's more to you than meets the eye."
"You don't need to sound so accusing," Menedemos said with a laugh.
When the sailors rowed them to the beach the next morning, Philippos, Kallikrates, and Rhoikos were all waiting for them. As Sostratos had for the past several days, he said, "Not today, not unless we get lucky." The mercenaries growled things that didn't sound complimentary under their breaths.
And then Menedemos pointed in the direction of the huts and tents and said, "Hello! Somebody wants to see us."
Sure enough, a man was trotting down toward the beach. He wore a tunic and sandals, and carried a soldier's panoply in a canvas sack. "You there!" he called. "Do I hear rightly that you're sailing for Italy?"
"Yes, that's so," Sostratos answered.
"I'll give you a quarter of a mina to take me there," the fellow said, "as long as you sail today."
Sostratos and Menedemos looked at each other. Here was somebody who didn't just want to go to Italy; here was someone who needed to go there. "You'd be our fourth passenger," Sostratos said. "We were hoping for six."
"What are you charging for each?" the newcomer asked.
"Twelve drakhmai," Sostratos answered. He and Menedemos exchanged another look, this one not altogether happy. If the other three mercenaries hadn't been standing right there, he could have named a higher figure.
"All right, then. I'll give you" - the newcomer paused to count on his fingers - "thirty-six drakhmai to leave today." He rummaged through the sack and pulled out a smaller leather bag that clinked.
Philippos and Rhoikos muttered under their breath. Rhoikos stared at the fellow with the fat moneybag, or perhaps at the moneybag itself. Along with the silver, they saw the same thing Sostratos had: anybody willing to spend so freely was bound to have an urgent reason to be so willing. "Hold on," Sostratos said. "Tell me who you are and why you're in such a hurry to leave Tainaron."
Menedemos looked sour. Sostratos pretended not to see him. No matter how sour Menedemos looked, no matter how anxious he was to come off with a profit, Sostratos didn't want to carry a murderer, say, away from justice - assuming any justice was to be found at this southernmost tip of the mainland of Hellas.
"I'm Alexidamos son of Alexion," the mercenary answered. "I'm a Rhodian - like you, if what I heard is right." Sostratos dipped his head. Alexidamos' accent wasn't far removed from his own. The fellow continued, "I, ah, got into a disagreement with a captain named Diotimos, and all his men are looking for me, or will be soon."
Kallikrates pointed. "So you're the fellow who buggered Diotimos' boy! I'd get out of Tainaron, too, if I were you."
That told Sostratos what he needed to know. It told Menedemos the same thing. "Pay my toikharkhos now," he said dryly. "Something tells me you won't be so grateful once we've put Tainaron under the horizon."
Alexidamos glared, from which Sostratos concluded his cousin was right. But the mercenary started counting out Athenian drakhmai with their familiar staring owls. Sostratos accepted the coins without a word and with his face carefully blank. Attic drakhmai were heavier than those of Rhodes, so he was getting more silver from Alexidamos than he'd expected. If Alexidamos didn't worry about that, Sostratos didn't feel obligated to bring it to his notice.
Having paid, Alexidamos said, "Now can we leave?" He looked anxiously over his shoulder.
"What about us?" the other three mercenaries chorused. Still in unison, they went on, "We haven't got our gear here."
Menedemos took charge. "Go fetch it," he said briskly. He turned to Diokles. "Take this fellow to the Aphrodite. Come to think of it, take Sostratos and me, too. Things are liable to get lively here."
"Thank you," Alexidamos said as he stowed his sack in the bottom of the boat.
"Don't thank me yet," Menedemos said. "If there's a commotion and those other fellows can't come aboard, you'll pay their fares, too. I'm telling you now, so you can't say it's a surprise."
"That's robbery," Alexidamos yelped.
"Call it what you want," Menedemos said coolly. "The way I see things, you might be hurting my business. If you don't see them that way, you can always talk them over with Diotimos, or whatever his name was. Now - have we got a bargain, or haven't we?"
"A bargain," the mercenary choked out.
"I thought you'd be sensible," Menedemos said. He climbed into the boat. So did Sostratos. The sailors pushed the boat into the sea, scrambled in themselves, and rowed back to the Aphrodite.
Once they'd come aboard, Diokles pointed back toward the beach. "I think maybe we got out of there right in the nick of time, skipper," he said.
Along with the oarmaster and Menedemos, Sostratos looked over to the shore. Several men stood there, looking across the water toward the Aphrodite. The sun glittered from swords and spearheads. One of the men shouted something, but the akatos stood too far out to sea for his words to carry. Even if Sostratos couldn't hear them, he didn't think the shouter was paying Alexidamos any compliments.
"Pity about those other chaps," Sostratos said to Menedemos. "How are we going to get them off the beach if these soldiers keep hanging around?"
Menedemos shrugged. "We end up with the same fare either way."
"I think you ought to try to get them, too," Alexidamos said, which surprised Sostratos not at all: he wouldn't have wanted to pay an extra thirty-six drakhmai, either. In its cage on the foredeck, the peacock screeched. Alexidamos jumped. "By the dog of Egypt, what's that?"
"A peacock," Sostratos answered. "Leave it alone."
"A peacock?" Alexidamos echoed. "Really?"
"Really." Sostratos looked in the direction of the beach again. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw Philippos, Kallikrates, and Rhoikos returning: three newcomers, at least, were staring out toward the merchant galley. Plucking at his beard, he beckoned to Menedemos. They put their heads together and talked in low voices for a little while.
Not much later, four rowers and Alexidamos got into the ship's boat. The boat made for one of the blue-green-painted pirate ships anchored a few plethra away. Diotimos and his bully boys hurried along the beach after the boat. It pulled up behind the pirate ship. When it came back to the Aphrodite, only the rowers were to be seen. They climbed back up into the akatos.
The angry mercenaries on the beach shouted at the pirate ship through cupped hands. A pirate shouted back. Neither side seemed to have much luck understanding the other.
Sostratos had counted on that. Quietly, he told the rowers, "I think you can try picking up the others now. Tell them to move fast. If they don't, or if Diotimos' men make trouble, turn around and come back."
"That's right," Menedemos said. "That's just right."
As Diokles had before, he headed this expedition to the beach. He didn't let the boat go aground. Instead, the three mercenaries who wanted to go to Italy waded out into the sea; the rowers helped them into the boat. They were on the way back to the Aphrodite before Diotimos and his pals came trotting back along the sand toward them.
Up came the rowers, into the merchant galley. Up came Rhoikos and Kallikrates and Philippos. And up came Alexidamos, who'd lain in the bottom of the boat since it used the pirate ship to screen it from Diotimos' men for a moment. He clasped Sostratos' hand. "Very neat. Very clever. You should be an admiral."
Sostratos tossed his head. "I leave that sort of thing to my cousin." He glanced toward Menedemos, about to suggest that sailing on the instant would be a good idea. But Menedemos had already gone to the bow. He was urging the men at the anchor lines to haul the anchors up to the catheads. He was plenty savvy enough to see what wanted doing here without any suggestions from Sostratos. And that suited Sostratos fine.
* * *
Three days after leaving Cape Tainaron, the Aphrodite sailed northwest out
of Zakynthos. "I could be Odysseus, coming home at last," Menedemos said, pointing out over the akatos' bow. "There's Kephallenia ahead, with Ithake just to the northeast of it."
"But you're not going to stop either place, or go up to Korkyra, either," Sostratos said. "You're going to strike straight across the Ionian Sea for Italy." He sighed. "And you the man who loves Homer so well."
Menedemos laughed and pointed a finger at him. "You can't fool me. You don't care a fig for trade. You just want to see the islands. I had to drag you away from Zakynthos."
"It's an interesting place," his cousin answered. "It's still a woody island, as the poet says. And the people speak an interesting dialect of Greek."
"Interesting?" Menedemos tossed his head. "I couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. It's almost as bad as Macedonian."
"I didn't have too much trouble with it," Sostratos said. "It's just old-fashioned. But are you sure you don't want to go up the coast and cross the sea where it's narrowest? We'd only spend one night - two at the outside - on the water that way, and sailing straight across we'll be out of sight of land for five or six days."
"I know. I have my reasons." That should have been all Menedemos needed to say; he was captain of the Aphrodite, after all. And Sostratos didn't argue, at least not with words. But he did raise an eyebrow, and Menedemos found himself explaining: "For one thing, most merchantmen sail from Korkyra across to Italy just because it's the shortest way."
"Exactly," Sostratos said. "Why are you doing something different, then?"
"Because all the pirates around - Hellenes, Epeirotes, Illyrians, Tyrrhenians - know what the merchantmen do, and they hover around the passage where the Adriatic opens out into the Ionian Sea the way vultures hover over a dead ox. Even if this trip across the open sea is longer, it should be safer."
"Ah." Sostratos spread his hands. "That does make good sense. You said it was one reason. You have more?"
"You've got no business grilling me," Menedemos said.
"No doubt you're right, O best one." Sostratos could be most annoying when he was most ironically polite. And then he struck a shrewder blow yet: "If anything goes wrong, though, our fathers will grill you, and it will be their business. Wouldn't you sooner practice your answers on me?"
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