Of that he had no doubt, or that Philodemos tried much harder to run Menedemos’ life than his own father did with him. Still, Sostratos remained convinced Menedemos would have had a smoother time of it if he didn’t push back so hard against Uncle Philodemos. He’d tried saying as much now and again, but Menedemos, as usual, didn’t want to listen.
“I can’t wait till next spring,” Menedemos said now. “I want to get away, to be free, to be myself.”
Sostratos had never had any trouble being himself in Rhodes. If the number of wives Menedemos had seduced in the polis was any indication, he hadn’t had all that much trouble there, either. One more thing his cousin wouldn’t want to hear. Sostratos did say, “I can see why you’re eager to be gone, but I’m glad you don’t sound desperate, the way you did when we left Rhodes a couple of years ago.”
He’d thought that safe enough. No matter what he’d thought, he proved wrong. Without warning, Menedemos’ face turned into a slammed door. Sostratos’ cousin suddenly started talking in monosyllables-when he talked at all. For most of the next two or three hours, he just kept quiet. Sostratos didn’t think Menedemos was angry at him again, but Menedemos was plainly angry about something.
Partway through that unnerving silence, Sostratos asked, “What did I say that was wrong? Tell me what it is, and I’ll apologize for it.”
“It isn’t anything,” Menedemos said tightly. “It isn’t anything at all.”
He wasn’t telling the truth. He didn’t even come close to telling the truth. That couldn’t have been more obvious. Just as obvious, though, was that he didn’t want Sostratos poking and prodding at whatever he hid. Most of the time, Sostratos would have kept on poking and prodding anyhow. Being who and what he was, he might not even have noticed that Menedemos was holding something back. After the quarrel with his cousin, though, he found himself more alert to Menedemos’ moods, and pushed it no further.
He did send an inquiring glance Diokles’ way. Maybe the oarmaster had some notion of what was troubling Menedemos. But Diokles, after making sure Menedemos wasn’t looking at him, only shrugged a tiny shrug. Maybe he knew and couldn’t say with Menedemos listening. More likely, Sostratos judged, he wasn’t sure what troubled him, either.
Little by little, as Menedemos realized Sostratos wasn’t going to pry any more, he came out of the shell into which he’d retreated. He smiled. He laughed. He cracked jokes. But he gave no hint of why he’d gone into the shell in the first place.
Paros and Naxos, which lay side by side, were the two largest and wealthiest islands in the southern Kyklades. They were both much better watered than the barren, rocky islands farther west in the chain. Vineyards, olive groves, and fields of wheat and barley-fallow at this season-flourished on them. And they both enjoyed great mineral wealth, too. Parian marble was famous all around the Inner Sea. The stone of Naxos had a smaller reputation, but it was also quarried on the western slopes of the mountains that jutted up at the heart of the island.
Menedemos brought the Aphrodite in at the polis of Naxos, on the northwestern coast. The crew moored the merchant galley next to a round ship that was taking on blocks of marble bigger and heavier than a man could carry. A wooden crane was carefully swaying them aboard the ship. Menedemos watched in fascination; if the fellow in charge of the crane made a mistake, or if a rope broke, one of those blocks would tear right through the ship’s bottom. It would end up on the floor of the harbor and the round ship would end up sunk.
“Easy! Easy!” the boss called to the workers-probably slaves- straining at the capstan. “Lower away! A little more… A little more… Hold on! Now once more, a quarter of a turn… There!”
The block went down into the round ship’s hold. Sailors down below there must have freed it from the securing lines, for one of them called up something to a man on deck, who waved to the crane operator. At his command, the crane swung back to another block waiting on the quay. Its crew made the block fast. Before going any further, the boss carefully checked the rope that would lift the chunks of marble. That block could wreck the quay if it fell, too, or smash a man to a red rag.
Only after the last block had swung into the hold did Menedemos call, “Euge!” to the man in charge of the crane.
“Thanks, friend,” the fellow replied. His shoulders sagged for a moment as he allowed himself a sigh of relief. Then, straightening, he went on, “And thanks even more for not bothering me when I was busy there.”
“You’re welcome,” Menedemos said. “I could see you needed to pay attention to what you were doing.”
“Some people don’t care. By the dog, a lot of the whipworthy rascals don’t care.” Anger blazed in the boss’ voice. “They’ve seen you, and that matters to them, so of course the thick-heads think it must matter to you, too. And if something goes wrong and you wreck a ship or crush a man, what do they do? They point and they gape and they laugh, that’s what. To Tartaros with all of them!” He spat on the quay.
More fire to him than I thought. Menedemos asked, “How did you get into your line of work?”
“About how you’d expect: I learned it from my father, same as he learned it from his,” the Naxian answered. “Some of the things Grandpa did, and his father…” He tossed his head. “We know a lot more about pulleys now than we did a long time ago, I’ll tell you that.”
“You’re right.” Menedemos’ gaze went to the top of the Aphrodite s mast, where a pulley block helped sailors raise and lower the yard. Little fishing boats, still made the way they had been from time out of mind, offered no such advantages. Aboard them, raw muscle power was the only thing that counted.
“Good talking to you, friend. Safe trip to wherever you’re going.” With a wave to the Rhodian, the crane boss turned back to his crew. At his shouted directions, they broke the crane down into lengths of lumber and ropes and carried the pieces back into the polis of Naxos. Menedemos hadn’t realized the big, impressive device was so easily portable.
“I wonder how much a crane could lift,” Sostratos said.
“Why didn’t you ask the man in charge of that one?” Menedemos said.
“You seemed more curious than I was,” his cousin answered.
Menedemos thought nothing much of that till he remembered how his complaints about Sostratos’ unending curiosity had helped spark their quarrel. He supposed he could have started another one if he’d risen to the remark. Instead, he answered, “Watching somebody who really knows what he’s doing-no matter what it is-is always a pleasure.”
“Yes, I think so, too,” Sostratos agreed. “Are you planning to stay and do business here in Naxos?”
“It would only be luck if we found anything worth hauling back to Rhodes,” Menedemos answered. “I do want to refill our water jars, though. This is the place to do it. What we’ve got is hot and stale and hardly worth drinking, and I’ve never heard of anybody coming down with a bad flux from drinking the water here.”
The sailors he sent into town with the water jars laughed-giggled, in fact-as they went. Some of them patted at their hair or dragged wood or bone combs through it. Carrying water was usually women’s work. That accounted for the sailors’ silliness. Hoping they’d meet pretty women at the wellhead accounted for their primping.
In due course, the sailors came back with fresh water. “Hail, girls!” someone called from the waist of the Aphrodite. Menedemos thought it was Teleutas, but he wasn’t sure. Whoever it was, he infuriated the men with the jars. They didn’t seem sure who’d called out to them, either, which was probably lucky for him.
One of the water-carriers said, “Go ahead and laugh, you polluted catamite. We saw real women, honest women, women who aren’t whores. We didn’t just see ‘em, either. We talked with ‘em, and they answered back.”