"You're a fine one to speak of foolishness," Sostratos snapped: that had got his notice. "How's your ankle feeling these days?"
"It's doing pretty well," Menedemos answered blithely. "It hardly bothers me unless I turn just the wrong way." That exaggerated his improvement, but not by a great deal. He got in a jab of his own: "At least I never imagined I was in love with Phyllis."
"I wasn't in love with Maibia," Sostratos said. "She hoped I would be, but I wasn't. I'm not so silly as that."
"Well, what is your trouble, then? Was she that good in bed?"
"Never a dull moment - I will say that," his cousin replied. "I do feel bad about leaving her back there to take on all comers again."
"All comers, indeed," Menedemos said, and Sostratos gave him a dirty look. Trying to get Sostratos to show a little common sense, Menedemos went on, "Do you think she thinks you were all that wonderful?"
His cousin turned red. Stammering a little, he answered, "I - I like to think so, anyhow."
"Of course you do. But are you thinking straight? To a girl in a brothel, a man's just another man, a prick's just another prick." Menedemos leered at Sostratos. "Or are you another Ariphrades? He found a way to make the girls in the brothels happy with him." Grinning, he quoted from Aristophanes' Wasps:
t" 'And so Ariphrades is the very cleverest fellow.
His father swore he learned from no one else,
But taught himself by his own wise nature
To work his tongue in the whorehouse, going in time after time.' "t
Sostratos looked revolted. "I wouldn't do anything like that," he said.
"I did hope not, best one," Menedemos said. "But if this girl was really mooning over you, I wondered if you'd given her some strange sort of reason." He quoted Aristophanes again, this time from the Knights:
t" 'Whoever isn't altogether disgusted with such a man
Will never drink from the same wine cup with us.' "t
"Nor with me." Sostratos raised an eyebrow. "I read the historians, and try to remember things they say that will help us when we trade. You read Aristophanes, and what do you remember? The filthiest parts, that's what."
"If you're going to read Aristophanes, that's the stuff worth remembering," Menedemos said. "And I read Homer, too, and there's nothing filthy about him." He glared a challenge at Sostratos. His cousin was so infected with radical modern ideas, he might even try to argue about that.
But, to Menedemos' relief, Sostratos dipped his head. "Nothing wrong with Homer."
"And nothing wrong with Aristophanes, either," Menedemos said stoutly. "He's just different from the poet." Wherever Hellenes lived - a vast stretch of ground indeed these days, after Alexander opened the whole of the east - Homer was the poet.
"You're looking for a quarrel," Sostratos said. Menedemos didn't deny it. If a quarrel would shake Sostratos out of his funk, Menedemos was ready to give him one. But his cousin just laughed. "I don't really care to squabble today, if it's all the same to you."
"All right," Menedemos said. Whether Sostratos felt like squabbling or not, he sounded a little more like himself. And if he sounded more like himself, he could be used: "Go forward and see how the peafowl chicks are doing. They're still your babies, you know."
"My babies?" Sostratos exclaimed in moderately high dudgeon. "The peacock was welcome to his ladies, as far as I'm concerned. All I ever wanted to do with them was roast them, not screw them." Clicking his tongue between his teeth at the absurdity of the notion, he headed up toward the foredeck.
Menedemos chuckled a little, under his breath. Sostratos did seem a bit happier. And every heartbeat put Taras farther behind the Aphrodite. The longer Sostratos was away from Maibia, the more likely he was to stop brooding about her. Maybe he'd get himself another girl he enjoyed. That would help.
Sostratos had plenty of hands to help him now: a brisk breeze from the north meant the Aphrodite went by sail, with the rowers off their benches and free to chase chicks. Diokles pointed southwest and asked, "Do you aim to put in at Kroton, skipper?"
"I hadn't planned to," Menedemos answered. "It's a good-sized town, I suppose, but it's not a place where much ever happens." The keleustes raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He knew his place; he wouldn't come right out and tell his captain he thought him wrong. But his expression was eloquent enough to make Menedemos pause and reflect. "Oh," he said. "You want to find out how the war is going before we try rounding Italy and heading up through the Sicilian Strait, don't you?"
"Might be a good idea." Diokles' voice was dry.
"Well, so it might," Menedemos admitted. "All right, we will put in at Kroton. Who knows? Maybe we'll sell something."
Kroton boasted the only real harbor between Taras and Rhegion - and to reach Rhegion, the Aphrodite would have to round the south-westernmost tip of Italy and start up into the strait. If the Syracusans or Carthaginians had ships in the neighborhood, that wouldn't be a healthy thing to do.
Menedemos worked the steering oars to change course to the southwest. At his command, the sailors swung the yard to take best advantage of the breeze on the new course. Had he not given the command, they might have done it on their own. They knew what wanted doing, and went about it without any fuss.
The harbor mouth faced northeast, so the men didn't even have to go to the oars to bring the Aphrodite into port. But the water inside the harbor remained choppy, for Kroton wasn't a town with all the latest improvements, and had built no moles to break the force of the sea. A lot of boats and even ships had simply been dragged up onto the beach, too, but Menedemos managed to find space at one of the piers.
"What do you hear from Sicily?" he called to a skinny fellow standing on the quay.
"Who're you, and what news have you got?" the Krotonite returned, his Doric accent much like that of Taras.
"We're out of Rhodes," Menedemos said. He gave his own name, and told of the deaths of Roxane and Alexandros, and of Polemaios' defection from Antigonos, his uncle. The local soaked up the news from the east like a sponge soaking up water. When Menedemos finished giving it, he repeated his own question: "What's the word from Sicily?"
"Well, the Carthaginians still have Syracuse harbor shut up pretty tight," the Krotonite answered. Menedemos dipped his head. He'd expected that; were it not true, he'd have seen more Syracusan ships in Taras. The dock lounger went on, "The barbarians have an army moving to lay siege to the place, too."
"Does it look like falling?" Menedemos asked anxiously; that would be a disaster.
With a shrug, the Krotonite said, "Who knows? They do say Agathokles pulled a fast one on his enemies in town, though."
"Ah?" Menedemos pricked up his ears. "Tell me."
"Rich folks in Syracuse never have fancied Agathokles," the local said. Menedemos dipped his head; he knew that. The Krotonite continued, "He said everybody who wasn't ready to stand siege and suffer should get out of town while the getting was good. Well, a lot of the folk who couldn't stand him upped and left - and as soon as they were gone, he sent a bunch of mercenaries after 'em and killed 'em all. Once they were dead, he confiscated their property and freed all their slaves who he reckoned could fight in his army."
Down in the waist of the Aphrodite, Sostratos let out a soft whistle. "That's one way to get your polis behind you."
"So it is," Menedemos said. "Not the way I'd choose, maybe, but one way. I'll tell you this: nobody who thinks Agathokles is wrong will dare open his mouth to say so, not for quite a while he won't."
"No," Sostratos agreed. "But then, no one would be much inclined to argue with him as long as the Carthaginians are outside the walls. No polis can afford factional strife with an enemy at the gates." His expression went bleak. "Of course, not being able to afford strife doesn't mean one can't have it. I can think of - "
The Krotonite cut short what would have turned into a historical lecture by pointing down toward Sostratos' feet and asking, "What's that funny-looking little bird there? Some kin
d of partridge? How much you want for it? I bet it'd be tasty, stewed up nice with leeks and cheese."
"It's a peafowl chick," Sostratos answered. "You can have it for a mina and a half." As the birds grew bigger, so did the asking price.
"A drakhma and a half, you say? That's not so . . ..
" The Krotonite's voice trailed off as he realized what Sostratos had really said. His jaw dropped. His eyes bugged out. "You people are madder than Dionysos made Pentheus," he declared, and stalked off up the pier toward dry land with his nose in the air.
"I frightened him off," Sostratos said.
"Maybe, maybe not," Menedemos answered. "Look how he's talking to that other fellow and pointing back towards us. Word will get around. If there are any Krotonites with more money than sense, we'll do all right."
"Always some of those people," Sostratos said. "They just have to decide we're what they want."
To Menedemos' disappointment, no rich merchants or farmers came out to the Aphrodite before sunset. Only a few sailors went into town to drink themselves under the table or find the closest brothel. Most of the men had spent all their silver in the long stay at Taras, and seemed happy enough to stay close to the akatos: Sostratos came up onto the poop deck to spread out his himation. Catching Menedemos' eye, he glanced toward the jumble of buildings that made up Kroton and opened his mouth to speak.
Menedemos cut him off: "Don't even start. I don't know anyone's wife here, and I'm not trying to meet anyone's wife here, either."
"I didn't say a thing." Sostratos sounded innocent, but not quite innocent enough. He lay down on the himation, rolled himself up in it to hold mosquitoes at bay, and kept right on not saying a thing. Menedemos approved of that. He listened to his cousin start to snore. After a little while, he stopped hearing Sostratos, which presumably meant he was doing some snoring of his own.
He jerked awake before sunrise when someone with a loud, harsh voice demanded, "Are those really peacock chicks you're selling?"
"Uh . . . yes," Menedemos said around a yawn. He untangled himself from his mantle and stood up, careless of his nakedness - Hellenes fretted much less about bare skin than most people. "Who are you?"
"I'm Hipparinos," the Krotonite answered, as if Menedemos ought to know who Hipparinos was. "Let me see these birds. If I like 'em, I'll buy a couple. A mina apiece, I hear you want."
"A mina and a half," Menedemos said. Hipparinos bellowed in outrage either real or faked as artfully as a fancy courtesan counterfeited the peak of pleasure. Menedemos went forward and got out a couple of chicks.
Hipparinos glared at them. "Those ugly little things really turn into peacocks? Why haven't you got any grown birds?"
"Yes, they turn into peacocks - or peahens," Menedemos said. "I haven't got any grown birds because I sold them all in Taras - and I got a lot more than a mina and a half apiece for them, too."
Hipparinos scowled. Menedemos would have been disappointed had he done anything else. He said, "Has anybody else in Kroton tried to buy these birds?"
"Indeed not, O best one," Menedemos replied. "And no one else will have the chance, for we intend to sail as soon as it gets light."
"I'll have the only ones, will I?" Hipparinos all but rubbed his hands in glee. He sounded much like Herennius Egnatius, but Menedemos would never have told him so: comparing him to a barbarian might have queered the deal. The Krotonite dipped his head in sudden decision. "I'll take two."
"At a mina and a half apiece?" Menedemos asked, to make sure there was no misunderstanding.
"At a mina and a half apiece," Hipparinos said. He took a leather sack from his belt and hefted it in his left hand. Menedemos went up the gangplank and onto the pier, a chick under each arm. Hipparinos gestured. A man - probably a slave - came up with a wickerwork basket in which to take the birds away. Before Menedemos could call anyone from the Aphrodite, Sostratos came of his own accord. Having equal sides went a long way toward keeping anything unfortunate from happening.
When Menedemos took the sack, it felt as if it weighed about three minai. He chuckled under his breath; Hipparinos had heard what his price was, sure enough. Menedemos handed the sack to Sostratos. "Count this quickly - you're good with numbers."
"As you say." His cousin made piles of silver coins on the pitch-smeared planks of the wharf. He did count money faster than Menedemos could. After a very brief time, he looked up and said, "Six drakhmai short. You can see for yourself." Sure enough, the last pile held only two didrakhms.
Hipparinos laughed. "Are you going to quarrel over six little coins?"
Menedemos had met this sort of small-time chiseler more often than he could count. He dipped his head. "As a matter of fact, yes. We agreed on a price. If you want the birds, you have to pay it."
Muttering under his breath, the Krotonite came up with the missing drakhmai. Menedemos was altogether unsurprised to find him able to. Down the pier Hipparinos went, the slave following him with the basket. In a low voice, Sostratos said, "I hope they both turn out to be peahens."
"That would be nice," Menedemos agreed. "Have you got the money back in the sack? The sooner we leave, the happier I'll be."
As the aphrodite came round Cape Herakleion, the southernmost bit of land in Italy, Sostratos exclaimed in astonishment and pointed west. "Is that really Mount Aitne, across all this distance?" he asked.
"Nothing else but," Menedemos answered, as if he were responsible for putting the volcano there and making it visible long before the rest of Sicily came into sight.
"How far from the mountain are we?" Sostratos wondered.
"I don't know." Menedemos sounded impatient. Where Sostratos found such details fascinating, they meant little to him. He made what was obviously a guess: "Five hundred stadia, maybe more."
"Ah," Sostratos said, in lieu of exclaiming again. "If we were coming from the southeast, where no land would block the view till the last moment, we could see it from much farther away, couldn't we?"
"I suppose so," Menedemos answered indifferently. "That would stand to reason, wouldn't it?"
"Of course it would," Sostratos said. "If we knew just how tall the mountain was and from exactly how far away we could see it, we could reckon up the size of the world."
His cousin shrugged. "So what?"
"Don't you care about knowing things for the sake of knowing them?" Sostratos demanded. He and Menedemos had had this argument a good many times before. He knew about how it would go, just as he knew about what Menedemos would try when they wrestled in the gymnasion. In the gymnasion, Menedemos almost always threw him despite that. When they wrestled with ideas, he had a better chance.
Sure enough, Menedemos said, "If knowing something will get me money or get me laid, I care about that. Otherwise . . ." He shrugged again.
Before Sostratos could tear him limb from rhetorical limb, one of the sailors at the bow yelped and made as if to kick the peafowl chick that had just pecked his ankle. "Oimoi!" Sostratos shouted. "Don't do that, Teleutas! You hurt that bird, it'll cost you just about all the wages you make on this cruise."
"Fine the stinking bird for hurting me, then," Teleutas said sulkily. "I'm bleeding."
"You'll live," Sostratos said. "Bind some cloth around it if it's really hurt. I doubt it is. I've had the grown birds get me more times than I care to remember, and the chicks don't peck anywhere near so hard." More sulkily still, Teleutas went back to whatever he'd been doing before he was wounded.
My, I sounded heartless, Sostratos thought, listening in his mind to the brief conversation. As Menedemos had, he shrugged. Rowers were easy to come by and cost a drakhma and a half a day. The peafowl chick, on the other hand, would bring in a mina and a half of silver, maybe even two minai.
It had other uses, too. One of the sailors near Teleutas said, "Look - it just ate a scorpion. That would have hurt you worse than the bird did." Teleutas grunted. But he didn't try to kick the chick again.
Sostratos thought about returning to the argument
with Menedemos. In the end, he decided not to bother. He made his way up to the foredeck instead, and peered out past the forepost at Mount Aitne. It was blue with distance and pale near the summit, where snow still clung despite the season. No smoke rose from it; no stones and molten rock belched from it, as had happened many times in the past. Sostratos would not have cared to live in the shadow of a mountain that might let loose catastrophe without so much as a warning.
He made his way back to the poop, where Menedemos was turning the Aphrodite's course from southwest to due west to approach the Strait of Sicily. Instead of resuming the argument the peafowl chick had interrupted, Sostratos asked, "Do you really think Polyphemos the Cyclops lived on the slopes of Aitne?"
That question interested Menedemos, even if it didn't involve money or girls. Sostratos had thought it would; his cousin truly cherished Homer. Menedemos answered, "It could well be so, I suppose. People have always put Skylle and Kharybdis in the Sicilian strait, so the Cyclops would have been somewhere nearby."
"But do you think people ought to put the monsters from the Odyssey in the real world?" Sostratos persisted. "No one but Odysseus and his comrades ever saw them."
"Egypt is in the real world, and Odysseus went there, or says he did," Menedemos said stoutly. "Ithake is in the real world, and you know he went there."
"But he doesn't talk about monsters in Egypt or Ithake," Sostratos said. "I think you'll find out where he saw the monsters when you find the cobbler who sewed up his sack of winds."
"I'd like to," Menedemos answered. "If I could pull out a south wind when we sent up the Strait, things'd be easier. As is, we'll have to row."
"Tomorrow," Sostratos said, eyeing the sun as it slid down toward Mount Aitne.
"More likely the day after, or even a day or two after that," Menedemos said. "I intend to put in at Rhegion, too, on the Italian side of the Strait. We may get rid of a couple of baby peafowl there."
Getting rid of peafowl chicks appealed to Sostratos, so he dipped his head. Sunset found the Aphrodite off Cape Leukopetra, which marked the Italian side of the entrance to the Sicilian Strait: the white stones of the bluffs just above the sea had given the cape its name. Menedemos chose to spend the night at sea, and neither Sostratos nor anyone else chose to argue with him, for beaching the akatos here would invite every bandit for tens of stadia around to swoop down on her.
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