Moskhion said, “Skipper, he’s a host in himself, your cousin is. Eight thieving Ioudaioi set upon us-eight! Sostratos shot two of ‘em dead before they could close, he wounded a third, and he went and drove off another one with rocks. If he didn’t show himself a second Teukros there, we all would’ve died amongst those boulders.”
“That’s the truth,” Teleutas agreed.
“Euge!” Menedemos stared at Sostratos as if he’d never seen him before. He’d known his cousin could shoot pretty well, but to hear him described in such terms was… startling. Sostratos was among the mildest and most inoffensive of men. Or, at least, he was most of the time. With his freedom and his life in the balance, that might be a different story. That evidently was a different story.
“I wish I’d done better,” he said now. “If I’d shot the bastard who speared Aristeidas, he’d still be with us now.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Menedemos said.
“We’ve been telling him the same thing,” Teleutas said. “He doesn’t want to listen.”
“Well, he should.” Menedemos looked straight at Sostratos. “You should. For four to drive off eight-that’s no mean feat, my dear, all by itself. You can’t expect everything to have gone perfectly.”
“Everything had, near enough, till we ran into those polluted robbers on the way back here,” Sostratos said. “Were another couple of days of luck too much to ask of the gods?”
“You can’t ask such things of me-I’ll tell you that,” Menedemos said. “Let’s get the goods off your donkey and onto the akatos. Balsam and beeswax and what all else did you tell me?”
“Embroidered cloth,” Sostratos answered. Business seemed to recall him to himself. “How did you do here?”
“Could have been worse. Could have been a lot worse, in fact,” Menedemos said. “I got rid of almost all your brother-in-law’s olive oil, and at a good price, too.”
Worn and sorrowful as Sostratos was, he sat up and took notice of that. “Did you? And what escaped madman came along to buy it?”
“Some went to the soldiers of Antigonos’ garrison here, after their gods-detested quartermaster wouldn’t pay a decent price,” Menedemos replied. “A Phoenician dealer bought the rest for the luxury trade. The books are all gone-you had a good idea there. And the Koan silk-and I got something better for it.” Just thinking of the silk he’d got from Zaker-baal set excitement bubbling inside him.
“What? More cloth?” Sostratos asked. When Menedemos dipped his head, his cousin looked dismayed. Sostratos, in fact, looked downright disgusted. He said, “What were you drinking, my dear, when the wily Phoenician convinced you of that? There is no finer cloth than Koan silk.”
“We do have some jars of Byblian wine aboard, and crimson dye, too,” Menedemos said. “But you’re wrong about the Koan silk. Before we got here, I would have said you were right, but I know better now.”
“This I have to see for myself,” Sostratos declared.
“Come aboard, then, O best one, and see you shall.” Menedemos steered Sostratos back toward the Aphrodite. He went on, “By what you and the sailors say, you were the best one with the bow. No one could have done better than you did.”
“It wasn’t good enough,” Sostratos said bleakly. “Otherwise, we all would have come back from Engedi.” As always, Sostratos looked for perfection from himself. Being only human, he didn’t always get it. And, when he didn’t, he blamed himself more fiercely than he should have for falling short.
Menedemos almost said so to his face. But then, knowing his cousin as well as he did, he thought better of it. Instead, he simply guided Sostratos down into the merchant galley, guided him along to the leather sacks storing the silk, and opened one of them to draw out a bolt.
Sostratos’ eyes widened. Menedemos had known they would. Sostratos stared at the fine, fine fabric, then reached out to feel it. He dipped his head decisively. “Well, when you’re right, you’re right. The Koans never dreamt of anything like this. Where does it come from? How is it made?” Curiosity came close to bringing him back to his usual self.
“I don’t know how it’s made,” Menedemos replied. “It’s from out of the east, Zakerbaal said-he’s the Phoenician I got it from. From somewhere beyond India, maybe north, maybe east, maybe both.”
“Like the gryphon’s skull,” Sostratos said.
“Yes, that occurred to me, too,” Menedemos agreed. “But I think we’ll see more of this silk coming west into the lands around the Inner Sea, where the gods only know if another skull like that will ever turn up.”
Plainly, Sostratos wanted to argue with him. Just as plainly, he couldn’t. He asked, “What did you pay for this, and how much did you get?” When Menedemos told him, he muttered to himself, then dipped his head again. “That’s not bad.”
“Thanks. I think we’re going to squeeze a pretty fair profit out of this run, though we’ll take a while to do it because so much of what we earn will depend on selling things we’ve got here back in Hellas,” Menedemos said.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure you’re right,” Sostratos said. “I know where we can get a good price for some of this silk, or maybe all of it: in Salamis.”
“Do you really think so?” Menedemos asked. “Don’t you want to take it farther from Phoenicia?”
“Normally, I’d say yes,” Sostratos replied. “But remember, my dear, Menelaos is in Salamis. And if Ptolemaios’ brother can’t pay top price for something strange from far away, who can?”
Now it was Menedemos’ turn to say, “When you’re right, you’re right. I’d thought you meant we’d sell it to some rich Salaminian. But Menelaos is a special case, sure enough. Yes, we’ll definitely have to call on him when we get back to Cyprus.”
“How soon can we leave?” Sostratos asked.
“Now, or as soon as Diokles pulls all the men out of the wineshops and brothels,” Menedemos answered. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back-that’s all that’s been keeping me here. You’ll want to sell the mule and the donkey, too, I suppose, but that won’t take long. Diokles has always been good at getting the crew out of their dives, so we should be ready to go in a couple of days. I won’t be sorry to head home, believe me.”
“I don’t look forward to calling on Aristeidas’ family,” Sostratos said.
Menedemos grunted. “There is that, isn’t there? No, you’re right. I don’t look forward to it, either. But we’ve got to do it. How did he and the others do while you were wandering through Ioudaia?”
Sostratos looked around to see where Moskhion and Teleutas were before he answered. Once he’d made sure they couldn’t hear him, he said, “I haven’t got a bad word to say about poor Aristeidas, or about Moskhion, either. Teleutas… Teleutas did everything he was supposed to do as far as helping me went. He fought bravely against the robbers, too-of course, it was fight or die-but he stole from the Ioudaioi on the way back here from Jerusalem.”
“Did he?” Menedemos eyed Teleutas, who was talking to some of the other sailors, probably telling them of his adventures. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I don’t know. Why aren’t you?” Sostratos said. “I wasn’t all that surprised, either. I was just glad the Ioudaioi didn’t come after us with murder in their hearts. We could have had a lot worse trouble than just robbers. We didn’t, but we could have.”
“Yes, I see that,” Menedemos agreed. “But it’s not the biggest question, not now. The biggest question is, will Teleutas steal from his own shipmates?”
“I know. I wondered about the same thing.” Sostratos looked very unhappy. “I don’t know what the answer is. This is the third year he’s sailed with us, and no one’s complained about theft on the Aphrodite, I will say that. Even so, I don’t like what happened. I don’t like it at all.”