“Building up my fleet and getting soldiers aboard will take a bit,” Ptolemaios said, as if thinking out loud. “But when I hit Demetrios, by the gods, I’ll hit him with a rock in my fist.”
To that, Sostratos said nothing at all. Menedemos murmured, “Yes, sir.” That was what you were supposed to say to a man who could order you thrown to the crocodiles. But Sostratos wondered whether Ptolemaios had paid any attention to what Alexander was doing when he campaigned with him. As much as anything else, Alexander had beaten the Persians with sheer speed.
“On your way, lads,” the ruler of Egypt said. “I just wanted to let you know what I’ve heard. When you go back to Rhodes, you’ll pass it along. I may even pay your polis a call myself, once I’ve given the puppy the kicking he deserves.”
How did he mean that? Would he come with the fleet he was building up and the soldiers who’d travel in the ships? Sostratos feared he might prove as dangerous as Demetrios. When you were small, everyone large looked dangerous. An attendant appeared at his elbow. Another stood by Menedemos. The Rhodians bowed to Ptolemaios, who dipped his head to them as if he were Zeus in the Iliad. The attendants led them away.
Menedemos would have shushed Sostratos if he’d started talking about the audience while they were still inside the palace. Sostratos could be an innocent about such business (Menedemos conveniently forgot that his cousin had already shushed him once over the same thing). But Sostratos had the sense to keep quiet till they were out on the wide, noisy streets of Alexandria.
Two amphorai had fallen from an oxcart and smashed, spilling something sticky onto the street. Half a dozen Egyptian-looking men shouted at one another. A couple sounded angry enough to go for their knives, but they didn’t. The ox, standing in the middle of the street and blocking traffic, lifted its tail to deliver its own commentary on the situation.
Both Menedemos and Sostratos started talking at the same time. Menedemos laughed. The two Hellenes must have each decided the commotion would cover whatever they had to say.
“So he is going to fight Demetrios on Cyprus!” Menedemos said. “That’s important news.”
“It is,” his cousin agreed. “They need to know it on Rhodes. Now if only we had some way to tell them.”
“If only,” Menedemos echoed mournfully. “I wonder how many important affairs down through the years have smashed like a dropped amphora because the men in charge of them didn’t get news they needed soon enough.”
“Quite a few, I’m sure.” Sostratos plucked at his beard as he thought. He did that often; it never failed to annoy Menedemos. “Xerxes might have conquered Hellas if he’d known what was going on with all his forces while it was happening instead of later. And the Athenians’ attack on Syracuse might have gone better. It couldn’t very well have gone worse.”
“That came after the Persian War,” Menedemos said.
Sostratos dipped his head. “Yes, a lifetime later. It would have been … let me think … about a hundred years ago. Somewhere not far from the time when the polis of Rhodes went up.”
“How do you keep all that stuff straight in your head?” Menedemos asked.
“I never thought about how. I just do.” Sostratos sounded surprised. “You can come out with whole books of Homer or all the filthiest bits from Aristophanes.”
“But those are fun. Dates are just boring,” Menedemos said.
“No, they aren’t,” Sostratos said. “Dates are the bones of history. Knowing when something happened tells you about the other things that caused it to happen, and about the things it influenced in turn. Without dates, everything would be chaos. ‘Without form and void,’ the Ioudaioi say.”
“Do they?” Menedemos spoke without much interest. To him, the Ioudaioi were just another set of barbarians who got too excited about their religion to care about learning true civilization from the Hellenes. Sostratos’ opinion of them was a little higher, but he spoke a bit of their language and had spent more time among them.
“They do, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is getting word back to Rhodes. How can we do that?” Sostratos said.
“Quickest way would be to hop back into the Aphrodite and take her across the Inner Sea again.” Menedemos laughed a laugh sour as vinegar. “With most of our cargo still unsold, of course. Our fathers would skin us and grind us for sausage stuffing. The news about the Ptolemaios’ plans for Cyprus may be important, but it’s not that important. Trading comes first.”
“Which reminds me,” Sostratos said. “I still hope I’ll be able to sell the amber I brought for a good price here, but nobody in Alexandria wants Damonax’s olive oil for anything close to what he thinks it should bring.”
“Let me guess. The Egyptians think the stuff is nasty, and the Hellenes get theirs from the Phoenicians and the Ioudaioi,” Menedemos said.
“Right both times.” Sostratos smiled a twisted smile. “I’d tell him what I think of him, only I’m afraid he’d make my sister sorry if I did. Families are so enjoyable.”
“Aren’t they just?” Once more, Menedemos almost said more than he should have, but caught himself in time. Keeping Baukis’ secret meant keeping it. He’d come close to spilling his guts before. This time, he went back to business so smoothly, he could hope his cousin didn’t notice the hitch. “The wine is moving pretty well. After you finish your dealing with the amber, maybe you could hire a barge or a riverboat or whatever they use on the Nile and take some of the oil up the river to where people don’t see it so often.”
As he’d hoped it would, Sostratos’ face lit up like a just-kindled torch. “Do you think so, my dear? If I took it down to Memphis, say, I might get to see the Pyramids after all. That would be wonderful!”
“Do what you have to first,” Menedemos said. “After you’ve finished what you have to do, then you can have some fun.”
His cousin laughed in his face. “You say that? You? The fellow who sleeps with every unhappy wife he meets in every polis we go to?”
Menedemos’ cheeks heated. That was a hit, but he wouldn’t admit it. He laughed, too, lightly, and replied, “Not every unhappy wife. Only the pretty ones.” Sostratos stuck out his tongue at him. Menedemos laughed again. He’d distracted his cousin, anyhow.
Sure enough, Sostratos said, “Do you really think I could do that? I’d want to bring some rowers along, so the locals don’t just knock the stranger over the head and walk off with everything he has.”
“You should. All we’re paying them for now is sitting around and whoring and eating their heads off. You may as well get some use out of them,” Menedemos said.
“I’ll have to find out how expensive a riverboat would be. I’ll be paying Egyptian sailors along with ours—and yes, I know what ours cost. Keeping an akatos in business isn’t cheap,” Sostratos said.
“A good thing, too. More people would do it if it were easy.” Menedemos paused a moment in thought. “I wonder if we could get the polis to pay some of the cost for our crew. We aren’t just here for ourselves—we’re doing Rhodes’ business, too.”
“That’s pretty, but don’t hold your breath. Ptolemaios is here, not down in Memphis. The people who run Rhodes will say there’s no silver for side trips. They’ll say we should be glad to help the polis, because it’s our patriotic duty,” Sostratos replied.
“You know what? You’re probably right. You know what else? I’m going to submit the bill anyhow,” Menedemos said cheerfully. “What’s the worst they can do? They can tell me no. How am I worse off if they do?”