“I wish I could keep this one, but it won’t do,” he said.
“Why not, by the godsh?” Polykles demanded. Sostratos showed him the defects in the scroll. The scribe waved them away. “Who’ll know? Who’ll care?”
“The man who buys it from me?” Sostratos suggested dryly.
“Sho what?” Polykles said. “By the time he findsh that shtuff, you’re long gone. Long gone,” he repeated, and made flapping motions, as if he were a bird flying away. That struck him funny. He laughed hoarsely.
“Sorry, but no. I’m not a thief,” Sostratos said.
“You fush about every little thing,” Polykles told him.
Had the scribe sold a couple of books like the Xenophon? If he had, and especially if he’d sold them to Rhodians, he wouldn’t get much business after that. If he didn’t have much business, he’d worry more. If he worried more, he’d drink more. If he drank more, he’d turn out more books like the Xenophon… if he turned out anything at all.
More than a little sorrowfully, Sostratos held up the lewd poem and said, “I’LL give you five drakhmai for this one,” If anything, that was generous, for the scroll wasn’t very long. Polykles just stared at him. “Five drakhmai. Do you hear me?”
“Yesh,” the scribe said, “Five drakhmai. I’m shorry, besht one. I wish there were more. But…” Maybe he tried to explain. If he did, he had no words. But then, he didn’t really need any, either.
Sostratos set the five silver coins where Polykles couldn’t help but see them. “Farewell,” he said, and walked-almost ran-out of the scribe’s place of business. Would those five drakhmai make Polykles fare well? Would they even help him fare well? Or would he, as was much more likely, just use them to buy more wine to pour down his throat?
He would think that was faring well. But Sostratos tossed his head. How much did what Polykles drunkenly thought was faring well resemble what would in fact be well for him? Not much, Sostratos feared. And he’d helped the scribe continue on his drunken path.
He sighed and hurried away from Polykles’, hurried back toward the comfortable life he led. He hurried away from what he’d just done, too. While Polykles didn’t follow him-was, indeed, likely to be as grateful to him as his sodden state allowed-his own conscience did.
“Farewell! “ Menedemos’ father said, standing on the quay
“Farewell!” Uncle Lysistratos echoed, adding, “Safe journey there, safe journey home.”
“Thank you, Father. Thank you, Uncle,” Menedemos called from the Aphrodite ’s poop deck. She was ready to sail. Only a couple of ropes still bound her to Rhodes. Her cargo was aboard, her crew likewise. Soon she would nose out across the wine-dark sea to find out what profit, if any, lay in the east.
“Farewell!” Himilkon the Phoenician called. The bright spring sun glinted from the heavy gold rings he wore in his ears. A couple of the Aphrodite ’s rowers, though Hellenes, wore their wealth the same way. Another had a torn, shrunken earlobe that said some of his portable wealth had been forcibly detached from him once upon a time.
Himilkon added something else, not in Greek but in a language full of hissing and gutturals. Sostratos, who stood only a couple of cubits from Menedemos, haltingly replied in the same tongue. “What did he say?” Menedemos asked. “What did you say?”
“He said almost the same thing Father did,” his cousin answered. “He wished us good fortune on the journey. I thanked him.”
“Ah.” Menedemos dipped his head. “You really have learned some of that barbarous babbling, haven’t you?”
“Some,” Sostratos said. “I can count. I can haggle. I can get food or ask for a room in an inn. I can be polite.”
“That should be plenty.” Menedemos pointed to the base of the quay. “Here comes your brother-in-law.”
“Farewell,” Damonax called, panting a little. “Gods give you good weather and plenty of profit. You know you’ve got splendid oil there to sell.”
“Yes, my dear,” Sostratos said, proving he could be polite in Greek as well as Aramaic. Menedemos curtly dipped his head. He still wished they weren’t carrying olive oil to Phoenicia.
He turned away from Damonax and toward Diokles. “Are we set to go?” he asked the keleustes.
“As soon as we cast off we are, skipper,” Diokles answered. The oar-master was getting close to forty-five, his short beard grizzled. He was the best sailor Menedemos had ever known. Whatever he couldn’t get out of a crew and ship wasn’t there to be had.
A couple of the men on the pier took care of the last detail, tossing into the Aphrodite the lines that moored her fore and aft. Sailors coiled the ropes and secured them. For the departure, rowers sat at all twenty benches on each side of the merchant galley. They looked expectantly back toward Diokles, who stood not far from Menedemos on the raised poop.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Menedemos murmured.
“Right,” Diokles said. He took out a square of bronze hung from a chain and a little mallet he used to beat out the stroke. Raising his voice so it would carry all the way to the bow, he called, “All right, you lazy lugs, I know you haven’t pulled on anything but your own pricks all winter long. But we’ve got people watching us, and I don’t want us looking like a pack of idiots, eh? So even if you don’t know what you’re doing, pretend like you do, all right?”
“He’ll make them sorry if they don’t,” Sostratos said.
“Of course he will,” Menedemos answered. “That’s his job.”
Diokles poised the mallet. Menedemos settled his hands on the steering-oar tillers. They weren’t so smooth as he would have liked, not polished by long, intimate contact with his callused flesh: the Aphrodite had lost both steering oars in separate accidents the year before, and the replacements still had a rough feel to them he didn’t care for. Time will fix it, he thought.
Clang! Diokles smote the square. At the same time, he called out, “Rhyppapai!” to help give the rowers the stroke. Clang! “Rhyppapai!” Clang! “Rhyppapai!”
The men at the oars did him proud. They pulled as if they were serving on a trireme or a five in the Rhodian navy. Indeed, a lot of them had pulled an oar in the Rhodian navy at one time or another. Slowly at first, then with building momentum, the Aphrodite glided away from the pier.
“Farewell!” Menedemos’ father called one last time. Menedemos lifted a hand from the tiller to wave to him but didn’t look back.
“Good luck!” Uncle Lysistratos said.
“Good fortune go with you!” Damonax added. With his olive oil aboard the akatos, he had reason to worry about good fortune.
Artificial moles protected the Great Harbor of Rhodes from wind and wave. The water inside the harbor was as smooth as the finest glazed pottery. A tower at the base of the eastern mole mounted dart- and stone-throwing catapults to hold enemy warships at bay. A soldier on the tower, tiny as a doll in the distance, waved toward the Aphrodite . Menedemos returned the greeting.
More soldiers in gleaming bronze corselets and helms marched along the mole toward the tip. The early-morning sun glinted from the iron heads of their spears. Thin across the water came the voice of the under-officer in charge of them: “Step it up, you sorry, sleepy bastards! You can sleep when you’re dead.”
“He sounds like Diokles,” Sostratos said in a low voice.
“So he does,” Menedemos agreed. “His job’s not much different, is it?”
Little fishing boats were sculling out of the harbor, too. They couldn’t move nearly so fast as the Aphrodite and made haste to get out of her way. None of their captains wanted the akatos’ sea-greened bronze ram crunching into his boat’s flank or stern. The fishermen and Menedemos waved to one another as the merchant galley slid toward the Great Harbor’s narrow outlet.