Backing oars, the Dikaiosyne’s crew positioned her just in front of a shipshed. A couple of naked slaves came out of the shed and fitted a stout cable to the ship’s sternpost. One of them turned his head and shouted back toward the shed. More slaves inside hauled at an enormous capstan. The line went taut. Little by little, the work gang hauled the trihemiolia out of the sea and up the sloping ramp inside the shipshed. The beech planking of her protective false keel scraped on the timbers of the ramp.
As soon as the ship’s stern came out of the water, the slaves at the capstan paused. Sailors and marines began leaving the Dikaiosyne, lightening her so the haulers would have an easier time. Easier, though, was a relative term; Sostratos wouldn’t have cared to bend his back and push against one of the great bars of the capstan.
He and Menedemos waved to the trihemiolia’s crew. “Hail, best ones!” Menedemos called. “How was the hunting?”
“Good,” answered a sailor who wore only a loincloth. He laughed. “As we were heading away from Rhodes, we scared the piss out of one of our own merchant galleys coming home. She looked like a pirate till we got up close. We were all set to sink her and let her crew try and swim back to Rhodes, but they had the right answers, so we let ‘em go.” He spoke with a certain rough regret.
Sostratos could laugh about it, too-now. He bowed to the sailor. “At your service, sir. We’re the toikharkhos and captain from the Aphrodite .”
“Is that so?” The fellow laughed some more as he returned the bow. “Well, I bet you’re glad we did stop and ask questions, then.”
“Oh, you might say so,” Menedemos allowed. “Yes, you just might say so. How did things go once you got to the Lykian coast?”
“Pretty well,” the sailor from the Dikaiosyne replied. “She’s fast as a galloping horse, the Justice is. We went after one hemiolia that couldn’t have been anything but a pirate. Most of the time, those bastards’ll show their heels to anything, even a trireme. But we didn’t just keep up-we gained on her. Finally, the fellow in charge beached her. The pirates aboard her ran for the woods and got away, but we sent men ashore and burned the ship.”
“Euge!” Sostratos said. “To the crows-to the cross-with pirates.”
“Pity you couldn’t have burned them, too,” Menedemos added.
“We sank a couple of others, and many goodbyes to the whipworthy rogues they carried,” the sailor said. “Whoever came up with the notion for the Dikaiosyne was a pretty clever fellow, let me tell you. And now farewell, friends-I’m off for some wine and a go or two at a boy brothel.” With a wave and a smile, he hurried away.
“Well, you pretty clever fellow, what do you think of that?” Sostratos asked.
“I like it,” Menedemos said. “Let the pirates beware, by the gods. Here’s a ship they can’t hope to fight, and one that can hunt them down even when they try to run. I hope we build a fleet of trihemioliai, a big fleet. It’d make things a lot safer for merchant skippers. What do you think, my dear?”
“I’m with you,” Sostratos answered. “With any luck at all, your name will live forever-and deserve to.”
He expected his cousin to strut even more after that. He didn’t praise Menedemos every day. When he did, Menedemos had to know he meant it, and to be sure such praise was well deserved. But Menedemos, as it happened, wasn’t thinking about him just then. With a sigh, he said, “I could be as famous as Alexander, and it wouldn’t be enough to suit my father. He’d stay convinced nobody’d ever heard of me.”
“You must exaggerate,” Sostratos said. “It can’t be so bad as that.”
“As a matter of fact, it can be worse than that. It can be-and it is,” Menedemos said.
“That’s… unfortunate,” Sostratos said. “And you didn’t give him anything to complain about this sailing season. See what a handy thing your oath was?”
“Oh, yes.” But that was sarcasm from his cousin, not agreement. “He started railing at the whole younger generation, not just at me.”
“Why did he start railing at the-?” Sostratos broke off. “You told him about Zilpah?” he asked in dismay.
“I’m afraid I did, O best one. I’m sorry. Part of me is sorry, anyhow. He was holding you up for a paragon, and I wanted to show him you were made of flesh and blood, too, not cast from bronze or carved in marble. But that wasn’t the lesson he drew. I suppose I should have known it wouldn’t be.”
“Yes, you should have.” For a moment, Sostratos was furious. He discovered he couldn’t hold on to his anger, though. “Never mind. It can’t be helped, and it’s not as if you told him about anything I didn’t do.” He kicked at a pebble with the side of his foot. “I understand the temptation now, where I never did before. To have a woman want you enough to give herself to you regardless of the risk-that’s a powerful lure. No wonder you enjoy fishing in those waters.”
“No wonder at all,” Menedemos agreed. “In fishing, though, you eat what you catch. With women, if you like, what you catch eats you.”
Sostratos made a face at him. “I should have known better. Here I was trying to tell you I’d found some sympathy for what you’ve been doing, and what do I get for it? A lewd pun, that’s what. I think all your Aristophanes has gone to your head-or somewhere.”
“Why, whatever can you mean, my dear?” Menedemos asked archly. Sostratos made another face. Menedemos went on in a more serious vein: “You’re right, though. That’s what makes wives more fun than whores- they really want it. Anybody can buy a whore’s twat. Wives are different. Some wives are, anyhow.”
“True enough. Some wives stay loyal to their husbands.”
“Well, yes, but those aren’t the ones I meant,” Menedemos said. “Some wives’ll give it away to just about anybody, too. They aren’t worth having. That horrid Harpy of an Emashtart…” He shuddered. “You had the luck with women this trip, believe me.”
“Mine wasn’t all good,” Sostratos said.
“Mine was just about all bad,” Menedemos said. “I could make it better, but-” He tossed his head.
“What do you mean?” Sostratos asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Not a thing,” Menedemos answered quickly.
He was lying. Sostratos had no doubt of that. But, whatever the truth was, his cousin wouldn’t give it to him.
A delicious smell came from the kitchen. Menedemos drifted toward it, sniffing like a hunting dog on the trail of a hare. He stuck his nose in the door. “What is that?” he asked the cook. “Whatever it is, you’ve outdone yourself.”
“Thanks, young master,” Sikon answered. “Nothing fancy-just prawns baked with a little oil and cumin and some leeks.”
“ ‘Nothing fancy,’ he says.” Menedemos came all the way in. “If the gods had you for a cook, they’d be better-natured than they are.”
“That’s kind of you-mighty kind.” Sikon scooped a prawn, still in its shell, off the clay baking dish and handed it to Menedemos. “Here. Why don’t you try one? Supper won’t be for a little while yet, and I expect you’re hungry.”
“Starving,” Menedemos agreed. As it often did, flattery had its reward. Holding the prawn by the tail, he left the kitchen. He paused just outside to peel off the shell and take a big bite, then sighed ecstatically. It tasted as good as it smelled. He could imagine no higher praise. Another bite got him down to the tail. He took the prawn by the very end, bit gently, and pulled it away from his mouth. The flesh stuck in the tail came free. Savoring the last delicious morsel, he tossed the empty tail to the ground next to the rest of the shell.
“I hope you enjoyed that.”