“Listen to the lakkoproktos, why don’t you?” the officer said. That was one of Aristophanes’ choicer bits of obscenity. If someone who wasn’t a bosom friend called you anything like that, you’d punch him in the nose and then kick him in the teeth.
Ptolemaios just laughed. “Never mind him. Tell me what you hoped to make on your trading run here. I know what all you brought. I even know about the amber—and some of my customs men are looking for work somewhere else because they missed it. Tell me, then, and I’ll double it. By the gods, Rhodian, I will, and you have witnesses!” He waved to his officers. They solemnly dipped their heads.
“More than your little shit-stained galley’s worth, too,” Argaios said. “If we didn’t need every hull that can keep up with the fleet ….”
Menedemos gulped. He believed the overlord of Egypt. Ptolemaios literally had more silver than he knew what to do with. He spent a talent the way an ordinary man spent an obolos, and thought no more about it. Fear of not getting his silver wasn’t what made Menedemos stop and think. He had more than that to worry about.
After a long pause for thought, he said, “Sir, if I were just here working for the firm my father and uncle run, I’d say yes, I’d say thank you, and I’d spend the rest of my days singing your praises to the gods.”
“I doubt it,” Ptolemaios grunted. “Gratitude goes bad faster than octopus does.”
Don’t let him put you off, Menedemos told himself. Aloud, he went on, “I have to think of Rhodes, though. What good does your money do me if it makes Antigonos declare war on my polis? What good does it do me if Demetrios takes Rhodes the way he’s taking the cities on Cyprus? He’ll sell me into slavery or knock me over the head.”
Ptolemaios’ nostrils flared. His cheeks, already sun-browned, went darker still. He’d been playing a game before. Now he was really angry. “How much do you pay your rowers?” he said in a cold, deadly voice. “A drakhma and a half a day? Two drakhmai? How would you like to stay here in Alexandria till our campaign is over? Wouldn’t it be a shame if that weren’t till fall started and you’d risk going home in stormy weather? Wouldn’t it be a shame if you had to overwinter here, owing them close to a mina of silver every day?”
A mina—a pound—of silver held a hundred drakhmai. Menedemos wouldn’t owe his men quite that much every day, but they would easily soak up a talent’s worth—sixty minai—of debt if they couldn’t go back to Rhodes till next spring. And if Ptolemaios found or invented some fresh reason to delay them then ….
“You fight filthy!” Menedemos yelped.
Argaios, who seemed to do the talking for himself and Kallikrates both, guffawed. “You only just now noticed, pup of a Rhodian?” he said, and laughed some more.
“You’ve got yourself a choice, Menedemos,” Ptolemaios said, ignoring his officer. “You can let me pay you twice as much as you think your cargo’s worth and take your chances and your polis’ chances on the Cyclops and his boy, or you can stand on your principles and see how much your father and uncle love you when I finally decide to let you go home. If I ever do decide to let you go home, I mean.”
The kind of debt the firm could owe the rowers after months in Alexandria wouldn’t break it, but wouldn’t do it any good, either. Menedemos wanted to kick Ptolemaios in his plump belly. The overlord of Egypt looked insufferably smug, and well he might—he had all the power here. This wasn’t anything like a dicker between equals, and Ptolemaios had just rubbed Menedemos’ nose in that unpalatable fact.
What had Argaios called him? Pup of a Rhodian, that was it. Ptolemaios was treating him like a pup, all right, like a pup that had shat in the andron. The Macedonian was rubbing his nose in the turd. He was enjoying himself while he did it, too.
“Well, Rhodian? What’s it going to be?” Ptolemaios asked genially.
“I think you talked me into it.” Menedemos, by contrast, sounded as sullen as he had since he started shaving.
“You’ve decided to get rich instead of bleeding money. A merchant smart enough to do that will go a long way in this sorry old world,” Ptolemaios said. That sent Argaios into another fit of laughter. Even Kallikrates chuckled once or twice.
“Joke all you please, sir. You aren’t—” A few words too late, Menedemos broke off. Sure enough, he and Sostratos might add up to one diplomat. He certainly wasn’t a diplomat all by himself.
“I’m not what? Not putting my land on the line?” Sure enough, Ptolemaios could divine what Menedemos hadn’t swallowed soon enough. He’d mostly been playing at anger before, as a cat might play with a mouse. Now the mouse had nipped him, and he showed another spasm of real anger. The difference terrified Menedemos. “Furies take you if you’re fool enough to think I’m not. I’ll be in that fleet bound for Cyprus, you know. If Demetrios sinks my flagship, do you think a dolphin will carry me away like that one was supposed to do for Arion? Not fornicating likely! I’ll rot on the bottom of the sea, and the crabs and the eels will quarrel over who gets my eyes for opson.”
Menedemos stared at the floor between his feet. He hated being stupid. He hated getting called out for being stupid even more. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and meant it more than he was in the habit of doing.
“Likely tell! I ought to commandeer your gods-detested akatos, just for that crack. Even your father would say you deserved it,” Ptolemaios told him. Did he know Philodemos? Whether he did or not, he was much too likely to be right. Contemptuously, he tossed his head. “Can’t offend the other citizens of your free and independent pisspot, though—ah, polis. Is there any reason you can’t drag your men away from our brothels and taverns and be ready to head north in a few days’ time?”
“Yes, sir,” Menedemos answered. Ptolemaios glowered at him. The vultures tearing at Prometheus’ liver might have worn expressions like that. Menedemos quickly explained: “Sostratos and five rowers are down in Memphis, sir, trying to sell some of the olive oil we brought to Egypt.”
“Oh.” For a moment, a wordless rumble resounded, down deep in Ptolemaios’ throat. “I don’t give a fart about the rowers. “If you just need a handful of them, you can pick up others just as good right here from my fleet. But there are times when I think your cousin has enough in the way of brains to be worth noticing.”
“I thank you for him, then,” Menedemos said. Sostratos wasn’t likely to win praise from a more discerning judge of men any time soon. Too bad he wasn’t around to hear it in person.
“I will send up to Memphis to bring him and the rowers back here as soon as possible,” Ptolemaios said. “The few days won’t matter. We’re still bringing soldiers into Alexandria, after all.”
Argaios made a face at him. “You’ll send up to Memphis to bring him back, Ptolemaios? You old Egyptian, you!”
Menedemos hadn’t even noticed what Ptolemaios said till the officer spoke up. Sure enough, what Egyptians termed Upper Egypt lay below what they called Lower Egypt. They spoke in terms of the Nile, with farther up it being closer to its unknown source and farther down it being nearer to where it emptied into the Inner Sea. Hellenes didn’t commonly think in those terms—not unless, Menedemos supposed, they’d lived in Egypt for a long time.
Clicking his tongue between his teeth, Ptolemaios said, “You know, Rhodian, this fool has been my friend longer than you’ve been alive. He’s been taking advantage of it longer than you’ve been alive, too.”
“That’s what friends are for, sir,” Menedemos said. “My cousin and I, we’re the same way with each other.”