“You will know your own business best, of course,” Komanos said smoothly, and then, in a louder voice, “Lydos! Show the gentleman to the door, if you’d be so kind.”
By the speed with which Lydos appeared, he’d been standing just out of sight of the doorway. “Come with me, sir, if you would,” he said to Paramonos. “Will you need help finding your way back to the harbor?” He didn’t pretend he hadn’t overheard.
“Nay, though thou’rt good to enquire.” Paramonos smiled the kind of smile Sostratos had also aimed at landlubbers. “Sun and shadows will guide me back as well as any man might.”
“As you please, of course,” Lydos answered, and led him to the front door. How else could a slave respond to a free man?
After the door closed again and the bar thudded into place, Komanos used his fingers as if they were scissors blades to mime cutting a mourning lock from his gray hair. “I don’t see how we can hope to stave off war now when spring comes round again,” he said to Sostratos. “Shall we cheer for Antigonos and Demetrios in the present fight, or for Ptolemaios?”
“For Ptolemaios,” Sostratos said at once. “If he wins, it will weaken the two kings. Also, we’ll still have an ally then, even if not such a strong one as we’d like.”
“That’s very plain once you say it.” Komanos dipped his head. “And we buy a fair bit of our grain from Egypt. I wouldn’t want Antigonos and Demetrios to pinch us with hunger that way. Yes, you’re a sensible chap, all right.”
You could have seen it for yourself if you’d thought for a moment instead of just talking, Sostratos thought. There would have been a day, and it wouldn’t have been so long before, when he would have come right out with that. Little by little, he was learning you didn’t always help yourself with the full and exact truth.
Sokrates never did learn that. Men would remember Sokrates for centuries to come; Sostratos had the sorry certainty men wouldn’t remember him the same way. But, in the end, what had the full and exact truth got Sokrates? Hemlock. Having watched a man die from it, Sostratos knew Platon hadn’t told the full and exact truth about what a nasty way to go it was.
Komanos said something—Sostratos realized he had no idea what. “I’m sorry, O best one. I was woolgathering,” he said sheepishly.
“Thinking those fine, clever thoughts of yours, I’m sure,” the civic leader said with a smile. He knew how to keep men sweet, sure enough. To Sostratos, perhaps because he had so much trouble getting along with people, that seemed a more important talent than being clever. Komanos continued, “What I said was, if Antigonos and Demetrios do take Egypt from Ptolemaios, we may have to acknowledge them whether we want to or not.”
“Demetrios freed Athens last year. He says he did, anyway. So do the Athenians. But he has soldiers in the polis, and I think I’d sooner die than lick a man’s arse the way the Athenian Assembly did with him. I was there, sir, with my cousin. We saw it.”
“I understand. Believe me, I want Rhodes to stay truly free and independent, too. But when the choice is between submitting and actually dying, it gets harder. The Alexander had a garrison here for a little while when you were a boy. We got rid of it. We could do that again.”
“I remember, sir.”
“Yes, you would have been the kind of boy who took note of such things, I’m sure. I am no god. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t want to close off any choices, though.”
“That’s … bound to be wise,” Sostratos said with reluctant respect. “Maybe I could stand for Macedonian pikemen swaggering through the streets. But Antigonos and Demetrios pad out their fleet with pirates. The idea of those stinking jackals coming into our harbor ….” He made a fist.
“Spoken like a trading man. You won’t be alone in feeling that way, either. It’s the kind of thing we can dicker about if worse comes to worst. The kings will want our fleet to sail alongside them, too. I can hope they’ll be reasonable.”
“They’ll be reasonable—as long as we do whatever they command,” Sostratos said. “Flattering them till they glow with all the grease we’ve smeared on them won’t hurt, either. Demetrios laps up praise the way a Molossian hound laps up water.”
“I’ve heard the same thing,” Komanos replied. “Antigonos, though, is supposed to be harder to charm that way. The old Cyclops has a jaundiced view through the eye he’s got left, people say.”
“I’ve heard the same thing. I don’t know how true it is.” Sostratos left it there, not caring to quarrel with Komanos. He did know Antigonos hadn’t declined any of the ridiculous honors Athens had conferred on Demetrios and him. But he could have kept quiet about them because his son enjoyed them, not because he did himself.
Sostratos had also heard the old man doted on Demetrios, all the more so now that Philippos, his other son, had died. There was a story that he’d gone to visit Demetrios and got to his room just as an uncommonly beautiful hetaira was coming out. Later, Demetrios told him he’d been in bed with a fever, at which Antigonos chuckled and replied, “Yes, I saw her leaving a little while ago.”
That little tale sparked a thought in Sostratos. He said, “Sir, if the polis boasts something uncommonly lively in the female line and we make Demetrios a present of her, that might make him think better of us. After he and Antigonos come back from their fight in Egypt, I mean, of course.”
Komanos pursed his lips, considering. “That’s not the worst notion I ever heard, by Aphrodite’s sacred piggy,” he said. “I don’t go to the brothels as often as I used to, so I don’t know whether we’ve got anyone special enough or not. I’ll ask Simaristos, though. If he doesn’t have a girl like that himself, he’ll know whether any of the other brothelkeepers does.”
“Good enough.” Sostratos knew of Simaristos’ place. When he got to the urge, he visited less expensive establishments. Even if the women at those places weren’t quite so pretty, what you did with them or what you had them do for you felt just as good. And going home with more silver felt good, too.
Or he could just take Threissa to bed again. Most masters wouldn’t stop because she didn’t care for it. Her resentment might even have excited some men more. But he wasn’t one of those men. He wanted a willing partner, even if she was willing only because of money.
He said his farewells and started home, to pass the news to his kin. He hoped Ptolemaios prevailed, not only because that would be good for Rhodes but also because Egypt’s newly proclaimed king thought well of him. That mattered little in the grand scheme of things, but it did to him.
XVIII
Going to the harbor every day after news of the fight between Antigonos and Demetrios on the one hand and Ptolemaios on the other gave Menedemos an excuse to get out of his father’s house. Philodemos didn’t even bark at him when he left, though, the way he did when Menedemos headed for a tavern or a brothel.
Just because he went after news, though, didn’t mean he got any. It was late in the sailing season now, more than a month and a half past the equinox. He wouldn’t have wanted to sail from Egypt to Cyprus or Rhodes today. The risk of storms grew high after the cranes flew south.
So sometimes his walks to the harbor turned into walks to other places after he saw no new ships tied up at the quays. Sometimes he came home after drinking too much. “You’re turning into a Thracian,” his father grumbled. “Have you forgotten you’re supposed to water your wine?”
“When you drink to forget, you do better when you forget to water it.” Drunk, Menedemos thought that was the height of wit. His father only snorted and stalked away.