“No, not at all.” Sostratos tried to hold amusement out of his voice. “I can’t recall the last time I wore shoes, and my soles are hard as leather. I’d say we could race, but you know where you’re going and I don’t. Even if I knew, you’d probably win; I’ve never been a fast runner.”
Damonax cocked his head to one side, plainly having trouble believing that. “But didn’t you fall just short of going to the Olympic Games a few years ago?”
“Me?” Sostratos laughed at the absurdity of the notion. Then he snapped his fingers. “1 know why you think so. That wasn’t me-that was Menedemos.”
“So you say.” Damonax kept waiting for him to start to sprint, or to offer a bet about which of them could run faster, or something of the sort. Only when Sostratos just kept placidly ambling along did it seem to occur to his brother-in-law that he might be telling the truth.
Several streams from the mountains ran down toward the sea. Most of them dried out in summer, leaving their beds nothing but rock-strewn gullies. One, though, kept a trickle of water even at the driest season of the year. A hare bounded away as Sostratos and Damonax came up.
Pointing upstream, Sostratos asked, “Does a spring feed this river?”
“That’s right.” Damonax dipped his head. “We follow it now, until we get to the Valley of the Butterflies.”
They flushed another hare a few minutes later. Damonax sighed, perhaps wishing he had dogs along so he could hunt. A mouse skittered into the bushes. A hedgehog rolled itself into a ball. A lizard on a boulder by the stream stared at the Rhodians out of beady black eyes. It stuck out its tongue, as if in derision.
After a while, Damonax stooped and dipped some water from the stream with his hand. “Warm work,” he remarked.
“Yes.” Sostratos drank a little water, too, and splashed some on his face. It felt good.
They went on. The stream bent a little more toward the north. “There!” Damonax said. “You see those treetops? The trees themselves are growing down in the valley, or you’d be able to spy the rest of them. We’re almost there.’
The Valley of the Butterflies was long and narrow. Sostratos wondered how long the stream had taken to carve it from the hard gray stone. Branches from the trees on either side met above the gurgling stream, shading and cooling the valley. Sostratos sniffed. A faint, almost familiar spicy smell filled his nostrils. “What is that?” he asked, sniffing again.
“Styrax,” Damonax answered. “They make incense from the gum. The butterflies seem to like the fragrance, too.”
“The butterflies…” As Sostratos’ eyes got used to the shade, he saw them, and let out a soft, marveling sigh. They were everywhere in the valley: on the rocks, and covering the trunks and branches of the trees. Their favorite spot seemed to be a big, mossy rock next to a little waterfall at the far end of the valley. Mist swirled around them; perhaps they especially liked the moisture there. “How marvelous!” Sostratos exclaimed. “Thank you so much for bringing me here!”
“My pleasure,” Damonax said, as if he’d created the valley for Sostratos’ benefit.
Sostratos reached out and delicately plucked an insect from a branch. Its body was about as long as the last joint of his thumb, though far thinner. Its upper wings were brown, almost black, and streaked with yellow. When it fluttered for a moment, lackadaisically trying to escape, it revealed lower wings of a rich crimson with a few dark spots. Then it seemed to resign itself to disaster and sat quiet in his hand.
After examining it a little longer, Sostratos turned to Damonax. “I’m sorry, best one, but this isn’t a butterfly.”
“No?” His brother-in-law raised both eyebrows. “What would you call it, then? A stingray? An olive, maybe?”
Though Sostratos smiled at the sarcasm, he answered, “A moth.”
“By the dog, what’s the difference?”
“Ah. Theophrastos must have skipped that lecture while you were at the Lykeion. Butterflies rest with their wings up over their backs, while moths let them lie flat-as this one does. And butterflies have slim, clublike antennae, while moths have thick, hairy ones-like these. If it has the characteristics of a moth, what else can it be?”
“Nothing else, I suppose,” Damonax replied. “But would you have wanted to come here if I’d invited you to see the Valley of the Moths?”
“Me? Probably. I’m curious about such things. Most people would stay away, though, I admit.” Sostratos put the moth back where he’d got it. It wriggled in among the others, then held still. He asked, “How is it that the birds don’t come here and feed till they burst?”
“That I can tell you, for I’ve seen birds take these butterflies- moths, I mean.” Damonax corrected himself before Sostratos could. “They take them, yes, but they don’t swallow them. The… moths must taste nasty.”
“How interesting!” Sostratos said. “And so they stay here undisturbed all through the summer? “
Damonax dipped his head. “That’s right. When the rains come in the fall, they mate-some of them even fall in the stream while they’re coupling-and then they fly away, so you might see them all over the island. But when things dry up in spring, here they are again.”
“And why not?” Sostratos gazed around the valley in awe tempered by affection. “After all, they’re Rhodians, too.”
Menedemos watched his father go over the accounts Sostratos had kept during their journey to Athens. “Almost a pity to take the rowers along,” Philodemos remarked. “Their pay ate up a good chunk of profit. If you’d gone in a round ship instead-”
“We wouldn’t have got there till later,” Menedemos said. “As things were, we had the market in our goods to ourselves for quite a while. Who knows how it would have gone if we’d come in second? And we’d surely have had to carry Damonax’s olive oil then.”
“I suppose so.” But Philodemos still sounded unhappy. He had other reasons to sound that way, too: “I wish your cousin would write larger. When you have to read at arm’s length the way I do, these little squiggles drive you mad.”
“Sorry, Father, but I can’t do anything about that now,” Menedemos said.
A slave came into the andron. “Excuse me, sir, but a man is here to see you…” Philodemos started to get to his feet. The slave said, “No, sir. To see the young master.”
“Me?” Menedemos said in surprise.
“Some husband catch you going after his wife?” his father asked. I hope not, Menedemos thought. Before he could say the words or so much as toss his head, Philodemos told the slave, “Bring this fellow here. I want to see this for myself.” Menedemos couldn’t even contradict the order. Miserably, he watched the slave hurry back to the entry hall.
When the caller appeared, though, his heart took wing with relief. “That’s Admiral Eudemos!” he said, adding, “And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t had anything to do with his wife.” His father only grunted.
Eudemos was in his mid- to late forties, burned walnut-brown by the sun, with a gray beard, a beaky nose, and hard eyes that seemed to see everything at once. “Hail, Philodemos,” he said as he strode into the andron. “Need to talk to your son for a minute. Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Nothing that won’t keep, most noble one.” Philodemos could be polite; he just didn’t bother while talking to Menedemos.
“Good.” Eudemos turned to the younger man. “So you’re back from Athens a little sooner than you thought you’d be.”
“That’s right, sir,” Menedemos said, wondering why the admiral cared.
Eudemos was not the sort to keep a man hanging. With a brisk dip of the head, he said, “How would you like to take the Dikaiosyne out on a sweep after pirates? Seems a shame you weren’t her first skipper, seeing as you were the one who came up with the idea for the class, but I know you’ve got to make a living. Still, anyone who can captain a merchant galley can captain a war galley, too, and anyone who can captain a merchant galley should captain a war galley, too. The more people who know how to do that, the better off the polis is. What do you say?”