Like most Cypriots, the fellow spoke such old-fashioned Greek that Sostratos had to hide a smile. It wasn’t quite like hearing a rhapsode recite Homer for coins at a fair, but it wasn’t far removed from that.
However odd the local sounded, his news was important. “We’d be better off with those sixty ships than without them,” Sostratos said.
“Yea, verily. But the admiral Antisthenes yet stoppeth the harbor’s outlet, as a dose of poppy juice will plug the bowels,” the Cypriot replied.
When Sostratos passed on to Menedemos what he’d heard, his cousin dipped his head. “Forsooth,” he said. “I’ve heard the same.”
Sostratos grinned. “You must have heard it from a Cypriot, too, by the gods.”
“They do talk funny, don’t they?” Menedemos smiled, too. “You can follow them, but it’s as if the rest of the world has moved on while they stayed the way they were.”
“When you do that, the rest of the world will break in whether you like it or not,” Sostratos said. “Or how else would Ptolemaios and Demetrios be fighting a thunderous big war here?”
“Too true, too true. All I ever wanted to do here was buy and sell, but that’s all I want to do most places,” Menedemos said.
“The ones where you don’t run across any women who catch your eye, you mean,” Sostratos said with a different kind of grin.
Menedemos should have grinned back and returned something bawdy, either from his own wit or from Aristophanes’. Instead, just for a moment, his face went so hard and cold, he looked twenty years older than he really was. In that instant, Sostratos would have believed he was looking at stern Uncle Philodemos, not Philodemos’ fun-loving son.
And Menedemos must have realized from Sostratos’ expression that he was alarming him, for he did smile then, if crookedly. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he murmured, “but I have other things besides loose women on my mind right now.”
“Are you well? Let me take your pulse!” Sostratos made as if to grab Menedemos’ forearm.
His cousin jerked it away, but he laughed with something that sounded like real amusement. “I’ll last till we get back to Rhodes. After that …. After that, we’re all too likely to have other things to worry about,” he said.
“Something’s gnawing at you. You haven’t been right since we set out, maybe even since before we did,” Sostratos said. “If I can do anything to help, you know I will.”
“Yes, yes.” But Menedemos seemed like a man with an impatient small boy tugging at his tunic. “Nothing anyone can do, I’m afraid. I’ve told you that before.”
“I thought something might have changed since then,” Sostratos said.
“Something might have. Nothing has.” Menedemos looked old and bleak again. This time, he didn’t seem to care. Sostratos thought he was talking more than half to himself as he went on, “By the gods, though, I’ll be glad when we get back to Rhodes.”
Sostratos almost asked, Why? He would have, had he thought he would get an answer that meant anything. Since he didn’t, he kept quiet.
By the way his cousin eyed him, Menedemos was looking for him to ask, and had readied some sort of comeback that would pierce him the way a catapult bolt could pin a rider to his horse. Sostratos smiled his most innocent smile. All he did ask was, “What do you think of Ptolemaios’ chances against Demetrios?”
Menedemos visibly relaxed, as if the oversized bow that propelled a catapult’s bolt were uncocked. For a couple of heartbeats, he looked grateful—not an expression Sostratos often saw on his face. With a shrug, he answered, “You never can tell ahead of time. That’s why you roll the knucklebones: to see who takes home the drakhmai.”
“But knucklebones are all luck. There’s skill involved in this,” Sostratos said.
“Yes, but I don’t know who has the better admirals or the better sailors,” Menedemos said. “We’ve come all this way across the Inner Sea, but I don’t think our rowers are too worn to give a good account of themselves.”
“No, neither do I,” Sostratos said. Menedemos could talk coolly about a sea-fight in which he was liable to get killed. It didn’t bother him nearly so much as the thing he wouldn’t talk about at all, whatever that might be. Again, Sostratos was tempted to ask. Again, he thought better of it. He went on, “Whatever happens, it will happen soon now.”
“Be a relief to get it over with,” Menedemos said. “I feel as if Ptolemaios tied a fat bag of silver to each of my good sense’s ankles and then threw it into the sea to drown.”
“What else could you have done but what you did? He would have stolen the Aphrodite out from under you if you hadn’t come along, stolen her, and left us stuck in Alexandria,” Sostratos said.
“I understand that, my dear. Believe me, I do,” Menedemos replied. “And do you know what else? We might have been better off stuck down there than we are up here.” Sostratos found no answer at all for that.
Suitably refreshed, Ptolemaios’ fleet left Kition the next morning. Sostratos’ belly tightened as the harbor shrank behind the Aphrodite’s sternpost and then disappeared. Not much save fire happened quickly on the sea, but the meeting with Demetrios’ naval forces couldn’t lie far away.
But for Cape Pedalion projecting out to the southeast, the meeting would have been closer yet. As soon as the ships rounded the cape and swung north toward besieged Salamis, they lowered their masts and went to oar power. That was partly because the wind lay against them once more, partly because galleys never trusted the world’s fickle breezes in battle.
“We’re the last juggler in this parade,” Menedemos said as the akatos finally passed the cape. “All kinds of things may be going on up ahead of us without our knowing.”
“Sooner or later, we’ll find out.” Sostratos remembered thinking how useful a way of directly communicating between Alexandria and Cyprus would have been. A way for the front part of a fleet to communicate directly with the back part would have been just as useful, since the one and the other were separated by a good many stadia.
“Sooner or later. Sooner, I think.” Menedemos sounded as if he looked forward to it. Maybe he did. If he was in the middle, or even at the back, of desperate action, he wouldn’t have time to brood about … whatever he was brooding about. This wasn’t the time to ask. Sostratos suspected there was no time to ask.
Somebody at the stern of the nearest transport shouted something back toward the Aphrodite. Whatever it was, distance turned it meaningless, at least to Sostratos’ ear.
To Menedemos’, too, for he called to the rowers, “Did anyone make out what he was saying?” When no one admitted it, Menedemos said, “Up the stroke, Diokles, so we can get closer and hear him. Sostratos, go forward and shout for him to give us whatever that was again.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Sostratos said.
As he hurried up toward the little bow platform, Diokles clanged harder than usual and started calling “Rhyppapai!” to draw the rowers’ notice to the quickened tempo. Sostratos could feel the akatos moving faster over the sea.
The man at the stern of the galley ahead also noticed the Aphrodite coming closer. He stayed where he was instead of going back to whatever he’d been doing before. As the gap narrowed, Sostratos cupped his hands in front of his mouth and bawled, “Tell us your news over again!”
“We’ve been spotted,” Ptolemaios’ man shouted back. When the Aphrodite got closer yet, he added, “One of those polluted seagoing cockroaches with fifty oars. We tried, but we couldn’t catch it.”
“Too bad,” Sostratos said, and then, “Thanks!” He turned and waved to Menedemos and Diokles, a signal that he had what he needed and they could let the rowers fall back to their usual pace. Sure enough, the stroke slowed. Sostratos walked back to the stern platform.