“Why?” Menedemos exclaimed, “I’ll tell you-”
Now Sostratos cut him off: “My father and I have spent the past ten days arguing him down. We won’t be drowning in oil, anyhow. Even if we do have trouble unloading it, we’ll carry other things we know we can sell. Can’t go far wrong with good Rhodian perfume.”
“Well, no,” Menedemos said. “And we still have some of the silk from Kos we got this past summer. All sorts of strange things come out of the east, but I think the Phoenicians will have a hard time matching that.”
“I should say so.” Sostratos dipped his head. “And who knows what we’ll pick up along the way? We didn’t expect the gryphon’s skull last year, or the lion skins, or the tiger hide.”
“And we got real money for the hides,” Menedemos said. “The skull…” He’d twitted Sostratos about it ever since he spotted it in the market square in Kaunos. “I’ll bet the pirate who stole it from the Aphrodite hasn’t lived it down with his pals yet,”
“Too bad,” his cousin growled. “I still say we could have got something for it in Athens. After all, Damonax tried to buy it for six minai right here in Rhodes.”
“And if that doesn’t prove he has no idea what to do with his money, gods only know what would,” Menedemos said.
“Oh, go howl.” Sostratos eyed Menedemos, “Are you as eager to set sail as you were a year ago? You couldn’t wait to get out of Rhodes then.”
“I won’t be sorry to see it drop below the horizon this sailing season, either,” Menedemos allowed. He had tried to make that less obvious this past winter. Evidently, he’d succeeded.
His cousin frowned and scratched his head. “I never did understand why. You’ve got no outraged husbands sniffing after you here, or none I know of, anyway.” He studied Menedemos as if Menedemos were the same sort of interesting specimen as the gryphon’s skull. Sostratos had an itch to know, and he wouldn’t be satisfied till he scratched it.
All Menedemos said was, “No, no outraged husbands here.”
“What is it, then?” Sostratos picked at what puzzled him as if it were a scab.
“My, aren’t we nosy today?” Menedemos murmured, and his cousin turned red. Menedemos brought the conversation back to the cargo the Aphrodite would be carrying. That was important to Sostratos, too, so he turned most of his formidable intelligence on the question. Most, but not all-Menedemos could see him casting about for a chance to start probing again.
Well, my dear, I’m not going to give you one, Menedemos thought. Talk about outraged husbands-what would happen if I outraged my own father with my stepmother? I don’t want to find out, and so I won’t find out. But oh, by the gods, I fear she might want to go to bed with me, too.
What would Philodemos do? No, Menedemos didn’t want to find out. His father had never stopped mocking him, hounding him, for his love affairs. If the older man were to discover himself the butt of one… Sure enough, it might not stop at words. Menedemos feared it wouldn’t. It was all too likely to end in blood.
And so I won’t sleep with Baukis, no matter how much I want to-and no matter how much she might want me to. And, O cousin of mine, I don’t care how curious you are, either. Some secrets are going to stay secret, that’s all.
“Can we get more papyrus before we set sail?” Sostratos asked.
“Papyrus?” Menedemos echoed in some surprise. “I’m sure we can- the Egyptian grain ships that put in here often carry the stuff. But why should we bother? Phoenicia’s a lot closer to Egypt than we are.”
His cousin didn’t say, You thick-skull! or anything of the sort. But the look he got made him wish Sostratos had come right out and called him an idiot. It wasn’t that Sostratos was right so often, though he was. In fact, that made him very useful. But when he stared at you with pity in his eyes because you were too stupid to see what was obvious to him… I haven’t wrung his neck yet, Menedemos thought. I don’t know why I haven’t, but I haven’t.
“Ptolemaios and Antigonos are at war again,” Sostratos said. “Ships from Egypt won’t be going up to the Phoenician ports these days, not when Antigonos is holding those ports. If we can bring papyrus there, it ought to fetch a good price.”
And he was right again. Menedemos couldn’t have denied it if he tried. “All right. Fine,” he said. “We’ll get some papyrus, then. Might as well get some ink to take with it. We’ve done pretty well with ink before.”
“I’ll see to it,” Sostratos said. “I’m not sure what the market will be, though. It’s not like papyrus; the Phoenicians know how to make their own ink. They’re clever about such things.”
“They copy everything their neighbors do,” Menedemos said with more than a little scorn. “They don’t do anything of their own.”
“Himilkon wouldn’t care to hear you say such things,” Sostratos remarked.
“So what?” Menedemos said. “Are you telling me I’m wrong?”
Sostratos tossed his head. “No. From what I’ve seen, I’d say you’re right. But that doesn’t mean Himilkon would.”
Menedemos laughed. “Anyone hearing you would guess you’ve studied under the philosophers. No one who hasn’t could split hairs so fine.”
“Thank you so much, my dear,” Sostratos said, and Menedemos laughed again. His cousin went on, “When do you plan on sailing?”
“If it were up to me-and if we had all our cargo aboard-we could leave tomorrow,” Menedemos answered. “I don’t think my father will let me take the Aphrodite out quite so early, though.” He sniffed, “He went out right at the start of the sailing season when he was a captain-I’ve heard him talk about it. But he doesn’t think I can do the same.”
“Our grandfather probably complained that he was a reckless brat,” Sostratos said.
“I suppose so.” Menedemos grinned; he liked the idea of his father as a young man having to take orders instead of arrogantly snapping them out.
“I suppose it’s been like that since the beginning of time,” Sostratos said. “We’ll be proper tyrants ourselves, too, when our beards go gray.”
“I won’t have a gray beard.” Menedemos rubbed his shaven chin.
“And you accused me of splitting hairs-you do it literally,” Sostratos said. Menedemos groaned. Sostratos continued more seriously: “I wonder how you’d find out about something like that.”
“What? If old men were always the same?” Menedemos said. “I can tell you how-look at Nestor in the Iliad.” He paused for a moment, then recited from the epic:
“ ‘He, thinking well of them, spoke and addressed them:
“Come now-great mourning has reached Akhaian land.
Priamos and the sons of Priamos and the other Trojans
Would be delighted and would rejoice in spirit
If they learned of all this quarreling-
That you, best of the Danaoi in council, were fighting.
But hearken-you are both younger than I,
For I kept company with better men than you.
And never did they think little of me.
I don’t see such men as I saw then:
Such as Perithoos and Dryas shepherd of the people
And Kaineus and Exadios and godlike Polyphemos
And Theseus son of Aigeus, like the immortals.” ‘ “
His cousin laughed and held up a hand. “All right, all right-you’ve persuaded me. Old men are old men, and they always have been.”
“A good thing you stopped me,” Menedemos said. “Nestor goes on blathering for a lot longer. He’s a dear fellow… if he doesn’t make you want to kick him. Most of the time, with me, he does.”
“And why is that?” Sostratos asked. Menedemos didn’t answer, but they both knew why: Menedemos’ father put him in mind of Nestor. Sostratos said, “If you and Uncle Philodemos got on better, you’d like Nestor more.”