Menedemos pointed to the boat, which lay on the beach. “What am I supposed to do when that’s there?”
Unfazed, the oarmaster replied, “Find some sailors who can swim, and make sure they’re good and ready.”
That made better sense than Menedemos wished it did. Muttering under his breath, he strode the length of the galley, asking men if they could swim. Less than half the crew could, which didn’t surprise him, though he knew how himself. “We’ll wait till half an hour after sundown,” he said. “If Sostratos isn’t back by then…”
But he was. Menedemos spied his long, angular form with a curious mixture of resentment and relief. After brief confusion when Sostratos didn’t see the sailors, he went into the wineshop and brought them out. They weren’t too drunk to row him back to the Aphrodite.
“And how was your precious sundial?” Menedemos asked after his cousin scrambled back into the akatos.
“It seemed remarkably like… an old, decrepit sundial.” Sostratos looked and sounded sheepish.
“Eat some supper and then lay your old, decrepit bones down on the planks.” Menedemos spoke gruffly, like a father annoyed at a wayward child. That was how he felt. Again, how Sostratos felt about him never entered his mind.
Resentment sparked in Sostratos’ eyes, but he seemed to decide he couldn’t disobey sensible advice like that without looking a proper fool. He wrapped himself in his himation. Before long, he was asleep. If he spoke very little to Menedemos… I don’t much want to talk to him right now, either, Menedemos thought, just before sleep also overtook him.
Sostratos looked down at the waxed wooden tablets on which he’d kept the accounts of the trading run to Athens. As long as he paid attention to those, he didn’t have to worry about Menedemos. That, at the moment, suited him fine.
Clang! Clang! The keleustes’ bronze square beat out time for the rowers. The wind had died. The sail was brailed up tight to the yard. The Aphrodite glided east from Syros across a dead-calm sea, propelled by ten grunting, sweating rowers on each side: every other bench had a man in place.
“Sail ho!” called the lookout on the foredeck. “Sail ho off the port bow!”
That made Sostratos look up from his accounts. The lookout was pointing northeast. Sostratos stood up to see farther. Before long, he spied the sail, too. He shaded his eyes with his hand to cut the glare from the morning sun.
Nor was his the only head to swing that way. After a few heartbeats, a sailor said, “That’s a round ship. Nothing to worry about.” He was right. That huge sail and broad, beamy hull could only belong to one of the merchantmen that hauled grain and lumber and cheap wine and oil and other bulk commodities around the Inner Sea. The only way a round ship could endanger the akatos was by colliding with her.
Once the sailors saw the ship to the northeast was no threat, they went back to whatever they’d been doing. Sostratos was tired of going over the accounts. He already knew them well. Keeping an eye on the round ship also let him avoid having anything to do with his cousin.
Because the Aphrodite?, sail was brailed up against the yard, the round ship’s crew needed longer to spot her than they would have otherwise. When they did, they swung their bow away from her. They couldn’t very well run, not on this windless day. Their ship would have had trouble outrunning a clam.
From his place on the poop deck, Menedemos said, “If I were ever tempted to turn pirate, a time like this would do it. That fat sow can’t flee, can’t fight, and can’t hide. She’s just sitting there, waiting to be taken.”
“I wonder how much loot she’s got,” Teleutas said wistfully-or was it hungrily? Sostratos couldn’t tell, though he was always ready to think the worst of the sailor.
Menedemos spoke sharply: “We’re Rhodians. Remember it. We knock pirates over the head when we get the chance. We don’t play that game ourselves.”
“Only kidding, skipper,” Teleutas said. “You were the one who brought it up, you know.”
And so Menedemos had-but he’d made it plain he was talking about something contrary to fact. He wasn’t really tempted to turn pirate. Was Teleutas? Sostratos wouldn’t have been surprised. But Teleutas, as usual, had an excuse just plausible enough to keep him out of trouble.
Sostratos stowed the account tablets in a leather sack. Then he went back to the poop deck. “Hail, young sir,” Diokles said, not changing his rhythm a bit as he beat out the stroke for the rowers. Menedemos didn’t say anything. He kept his hands on the steering-oar tillers and his eyes on the sea. Sostratos might not have been there.
But Sostratos finally had something he could talk about without starting a fight. “That Teleutas,” he said in a low, angry voice. He couldn’t stand the sailor, but was grateful to him in a curious way.
And, sure enough, Menedemos dipped his head. “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” he agreed. “You were right about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been a pirate now and again.”
“Neither would I,” Sostratos said. “I will turn him away if he tries to sail with us next year.”
“Suits me.” Menedemos suddenly seemed to realize he was talking with Sostratos instead of shouting at him. He tried to glue the scowl back on his face, but had less luck than he might have wanted. Instead, he gave Sostratos an odd, grudging half smile. “Hail.”
“Hail, yourself,” Sostratos answered in those same grudging tones.
“We’re… stuck with each other, aren’t we?” Menedemos said.
“We seem to be,” Sostratos said. “If we were married, we could divorce. Since we’re tied by blood… well, you said it. We can make the best of it or the worst, but we are stuck.”
“I saw you going over the accounts,” Menedemos said. Sostratos dipped his head. His cousin went on, “Just how well did we do?”
“Do you want it to the obolos, or will the nearest drakhma do?” Sostratos asked in turn. “If it’s to the nearest drakhma, do you want it in Athenian owls, or shall I convert it to Rhodian currency?”
Menedemos stared at him. Sostratos looked back, deadpan. Menedemos took a hand from the steering-oar tillers to point an accusing forefinger at him. “Oh, no, you don’t. You can’t fool me, you abandoned rogue. You almost did, but not quite. You’re having me on, and I’m smart enough to know it.”
Sostratos named a sum in Athenian drakhmai. Then he named a larger sum in lighter Rhodian drakhmai. He added, “That assumes we can convert currency without paying any fees, the way we did in Athens. Silver is silver, no matter what the people who run a polis think. If we do have to pay the fee, what we make goes down by two percent, in which case it would amount to”-he named one more sum-”in Rhodian drakhmai, of course.”
“You aren’t having me on. You couldn’t be making that up.” Now Menedemos sounded uncertain. For his part, Diokles looked as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“Go through the accounts yourself if you don’t believe me,” Sostratos said, knowing Menedemos wouldn’t. He couldn’t resist adding another barb: “Our fathers will, of course.”
“So they will.” Menedemos seemed disenchanted with that prospect, too. He said, “When we get back to Rhodes, we’re Philodemos’ son and Lysistratos’ son again. One of the reasons I like going to sea is that I can be my own man away from Rhodes, not just my father’s son.”
“Something to that, I suppose.” But Sostratos spoke more for politeness’ sake and to keep from starting another quarrel than from conviction. His own father was more easygoing than Uncle Philodemos.