"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 kind 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?"