"I suppose so." The mercenary didn't seem convinced. With a shudder, he went on, "Wasn't that the worst blow you ever went through in all your born days?"
"Not even close." Menedemos tossed his head. "We didn't have to lower the yard" - he pointed up to the long spar at the head of the sail - "let alone start throwing cargo overboard to make sure we stayed afloat. This wasn't a little storm, but there are plenty worse."
"Zeus strike me dead if I ever set foot on another boat as long as I live," Philippos said, and descended from the poop deck into the akatos' waist before Menedemos could dress him down for calling the ship a boat.
Sostratos hadn't spent quite so much time asea as Menedemos. He was also a more thoughtful man, more in the habit of imagining things that could go wrong than was his cousin. Both those factors had made the storm seem worse to him than it had to Menedemos.
For once, he almost welcomed the attention he had to give the peafowl. As long as he was busy, he didn't have to think so much. He couldn't let the birds exercise while the sailors were bailing. They wouldn't have had much room to run around, and they would have made nuisances of themselves. He didn't need to give them water, not for a while; they'd had plenty during the storm. But he could pour barley into bowls for their breakfasts, and he did. His spirits lifted when the birds ate well. That was the surest sign the storm had done them no harm.
And he could check on the eggs in the peahens' cages. Being the meticulous man he was, he knew exactly how many each peahen had laid. One, to his annoyance, had broken the day it was laid, falling from the nest to the planks of the foredeck. He imagined drakhmai broken with it. How much would a rich man who couldn't get his hands on one of the peafowl pay for an egg? He didn't know, not to the last obolos, but he'd looked forward to finding out.
Checking the nests was easiest when the peahens came off them to feed. Helen had five eggs in her clutch. That made sense to Sostratos. The peacock had mated with her more than with any of the others, which was how she'd got her name.
"One, two, three, four . . ." Sostratos frowned. He leaned closer to the cage, risking a peck from Helen. He saw only four eggs. He didn't see any bits of shell that would have shown one had fallen out of the nest during the storm. The slats were too close together to have let an egg escape the cage altogether. His frown deepened as he went on to the next cage.
After finishing with the peafowl, he hurried back to the poop deck; pushing past anyone who got in his way. His face must have spoken before he did, for Menedemos asked, "What's wrong?"
"We're missing three eggs," Sostratos answered. "One from Helen's cage, one from the peahen with the scar on her leg, and one from the smallest bird."
"Are you sure?" Menedemos asked. Again, Sostratos' expression must have spoken for him, for his cousin said, "Never mind. You're sure. I can see it. They didn't fall out and break during the storm?"
"No. I thought of that." Sostratos explained why he didn't think it had happened. Menedemos dipped his head to show he agreed. Sostratos went on, "No, somebody's gone and stolen them. How much would a peacock egg be worth? Never mind - we don't know exactly, but more than a little. We can be sure of that. And it's money that belongs to us, not to some thief. We've earned it." As much as his sense of justice, his sense of order was outraged. That anyone else should try to take advantage of all the hard work Menedemos and he had done infuriated him.
"We'll get them back," Menedemos said, and then, less happily, "I hope we'll get them back. When was the last time you counted them?"
"Yesterday morning," Sostratos answered.
"Before the storm." Menedemos still didn't sound happy. "A lot of people have been up on the foredeck since, either securing the cages or just looking at the peafowl. The passengers have all been interested in them." He rubbed his chin. "I wonder if one of them got too interested."
In a low voice, Sostratos said, "I know which one I'd bet on."
"So do I," Menedemos said, also quietly. "Anybody who needed to come aboard in such a tearing hurry isn't to be trusted, not even a little. And Alexidamos is a Rhodian. He's liable to have a better notion of what those eggs are worth than the other fellows. Well, we'll find out." He turned to Diokles, who'd been listening. "Tell off the ten men you trust most. If they're on the oars, set others in their places. Belaying pins and knives should be plenty for this job, but nobody's going to raise a fuss when we search his gear."
"What do we do if we catch the thief?" Sostratos asked.
"If it's one of the rowers, we'll give him a set of lumps and he'll forfeit his pay and we'll put him ashore at Taras - and good riddance to bad rubbish," Menedemos answered. "If it's one of the passengers . . . well, we'll come up with something." Seeing the look on his cousin's face, Sostratos would not have wanted to be the thief.
Diokles gathered his sailors near the stern. He dipped his head to Sostratos and Menedemos to show they were ready. Sostratos raised his voice. He couldn't make it carry the way Menedemos did, but he managed: "Three peafowl eggs have been stolen. We are going to search for them. We will find them, and we will punish the thief. Each man will turn out his gear, starting with the passengers."
He eyed the four mercenaries. Philippos and Kallikrates looked astonished. Alexidamos and Rhoikos showed no expression. Rhoikos was Sostratos' second suspect. He hadn't done anything illicit Sostratos knew about, but to Rhodians Cretans were thieves and pirates till proved otherwise.
Rhoikos also stood closest to Diokles and his search party. "Let's see your duffel," the oarmaster told him.
"I'll watch to make sure you don't take anything," Rhoikos said, and handed Diokles the leather sack. The keleustes and a couple of sailors started going through it.
Sostratos, meanwhile, kept his eye on the other mercenaries. "Let that be," he called to Kallikrates when the latter made a move toward his sack. "Your turn will come." Alexidamos stood calmly, watching everything going on as if it had nothing to do with him. Isn't that interesting? Sostratos thought. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Menedemos was, too. Seeing his cousin wrong might almost be worth the blow to his own pride at making a mistake.
Diokles looked up from Rhoikos' weapons and tunic and mantle and kilt and his little sack of coins. "No eggs here."
"Kallikrates next," Sostratos said.
Reluctantly, the mercenary handed the keleustes the sack with his worldly goods: cuirass, greaves, helmet, wool headcover to fit inside the helm, sword, a wooden game board with ivory pieces and a pair of bone dice, and a leather sack. Diokles blinked when he picked it up. "Got to be three, four minai in there," he said.
"It's mine, every obolos of it," Kallikrates growled, warning in his voice.
"Nobody said it wasn't," the oarmaster replied, and set it down. "No eggs here, either." Kallikrates visibly relaxed.
"Now Alexidamos," Menedemos called from the steering oars.
The mercenary who'd paid a triple fare to come aboard the Aphrodite pointed to his sack. One of the sailors brought it back to Diokles. He took out Alexidamos' sword and his greaves and his helmet, in which the protective headcloth was bundled. Sostratos stooped and pulled up a corner of the cloth. Under it lay three large, off-white eggs, one of them speckled. "Oh, you bastard," Alexidamos said mildly, as if Sostratos had thrown a double six with Kallikrates' dice. "I thought I'd get away with it."
"You must have, or you wouldn't have done it," Sostratos answered. "Of course, you must have thought you'd get away with it when you took up with that captain's boy, too."
"Of course I did," the mercenary said. "And I would have, too, if the wide-arsed little fool had kept his mouth shut."