“Not much,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos didn't know he was the one who'd suggested giving the emerald to his father, and he wasn't about to tell him. “Come on. Let's go.”
Mnesipolis was already banging away when they walked by the smithy. He waved, hammer in hand. They were as familiar to him as he was to them.
“Give him a limp and he'd make a good Hephaistos,” Menedemos remarked.
“Why, so he would,” Sostratos said. “There's a game: who of the people we know best matches the Olympians?” He eyed Menedemos. “Eh, wingfooted Hermes?”
Menedemos strutted with pride for a few paces. He was a formidable sprinter, even if he hadn't been quite fast enough to go to the Olympic Games to run for Rhodes. He hadn't thought of his chance remark as the start for a game, but was quick to fall in with it: “We've got Poseidon as keleustes.”
“So we do,” Sostratos said. “And Aristeidas will do for all-seeing Argos.”
They went past Agathippos the banker's still playing the game. Menedemos said, “I know who gray-eyed Athene would be, too.”
“Who?” Sostratos asked.
Menedemos pointed at him. “You.”
“Me? Athana?” His cousin was so surprised, the goddess' name came out in a broad Doric drawl he hardly ever used. “You're out of your mind. I've got a beard, in case you hadn't noticed.”
“It's the theater, my dear,” Menedemos said airily. “Actors play all the female roles. With your face behind a mask, no one would care, for you've got the quick-darting mind the part needs.”
“Thanks very much,” Sostratos said, and kissed him on the cheek. “I don't think anyone has ever said anything kinder about me.”
“I've never denied you have a clever mind, the cleverest I know,” Menedemos replied. But if he gave Sostratos two undiluted compliments in a row, his cousin might die from the shock, so he added, “Now if you only had the good sense the gods gave a gecko . ..”
“You're a fine one to talk,” Sostratos shot back. “You're the one who jumps out of second-story windows to get away from a husband home too soon.”
“And you're the one who's been mooning over an old skull as if it were a young hetaira,” Menedemos said. They chaffed each other all the way down to the harbor. Menedemos hurried down toward the Aphrodite. “Euxenides had better not keep us waiting. I want to get out on the open sea again.”
“So do I.I want to sail for Athens.” Sostratos pointed ahead. “Isn't that the man himself, already on the foredeck? You were right, up by our houses.”
“Dip me in dung if it's not, and so I was,” Menedemos said. “Good for him. I don't expect he got out of Phaselis and Xanthos by being late to his ship. And now he'll get out of Rhodes, too.” He started up the pitch-smeared planks of the pier that led out to the akatos, calling, “Ahoy, the Aphrodite!”
Diokles gave answer in his raspy bass: “Ahoy, skipper! Passenger's already aboard.”
“Yes, we saw him,” Menedemos said. “Do we have all the rowers?”
“All but one,” the oarmaster replied. “No sign of Teleutas yet.”
Menederaos eyed the sun, which had just climbed up out of the sea. “We'll give him a little while—half an hour, maybe. If he's not here by then, we'll hire one of the harbor loungers, and many goodbyes to him. Rhodes has plenty of men who know how to pull an oar.”
“That's how we got Teleutas a year ago,” Sostratos said. “He's a funny one. He will work if you put him to it, but to him getting paid is the only part of the job that really matters.”
“I still think he ran away in the market square in Kallipolis, too,” Menedemos said. “He came back with more sailors so fast, I couldn't really call him on it, but I think he left us in the lurch. I wouldn't be sorry to see somebody else on his bench.”
He walked down the gangplank and onto the Aphrodite's poop deck. Standing between the steering oars, even with the ship still tethered to the pier, was in its own way almost as satisfying as lying between a woman's legs.
Fishing boats made their way out of the great harbor and onto the waters of the Aegean. Gulls followed them overhead like gleaners in the fields, knowing the pickings would be good. Menedemos drummed his fingers on the steering-oar tillers and gauged the creeping shadows. If he doesn't get here soon. I will sail without him.
Teleutas came up the pier and aboard the Aphrodite just before Menedemos set about replacing him. “By the dog of Egypt, where have you been?” Menederaos snapped.
The rower flinched. “Sorry, skipper,” he said with a placating gesture. He kept his own voice low and soft. He also squinted, as if even the early-morning light was too bright to suit his eyes.
“You knew we were going out this morning,” Menederaos said. “Why did you get drunk last night?”
“I didn't mean to,” Teleutas answered. “It just sort of . . happened.” He gave Menedemos a sickly, ingratiating smile.
Menedemos wasn't about to let himself be appeased so readily. “Go to your oar,” he said. “I hope you hurt as much as you deserve all day long.” That hangdog smile still on his face, Teleutas hurried off the raised poop deck and down into the waist of the merchant galley.
“Cast off!” Diokles called. Once the lines that had moored the Aphrodite to the quay were aboard, the keleustes smote his little bronze square. “Back oars! “Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” The akatos slid away from the pier.
Once Menedemos had room to do so, he swung the ship about till her bow pointed out toward the mouth of the harbor. But he hadn't even passed out beyond the moles before he said, “I want everybody to do lookout duty on this voyage. It's not just pirates we have to be careful of—it's Antigonos' war fleet, and Ptolemaios', too. If you see anything, sing out. You may be saving all of our necks, including your own,”
“We're Rhodians, and neutrals,” Sostratos added. “That may help us in case of trouble, because neither side much wants to offend our polis. But some captains may not care about that. We'd rather not take the chance if we don't have to.”
As it had a few days before, the motion of the waves changed as soon as the akatos left the sheltered waters of the great harbor. Menedemos smiled. He liked the livelier feel to the ship. Sostratos looked less happy. He would have preferred the sea as quiescent as the land. Menedemos glanced toward crapulent Teleutas. The rower had already gone a delicate green. Too bad, Menedemos thought. It's his own foolish fault.
“Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” Clang! Clang! Diokles beat out the stroke. Once they were outside the harbor, Diokles cut the rowing crew down to eight men on each side. He left Teleutas at his oar. The rower sent him a look of appeal. He ignored it.
Euxenides of Phaselis made his way back to the stair that led up to the poop. “May I come up?” he asked politely. Menedemos dipped his head, and Euxenides joined him and Dioldes. The passenger said, “You've got a good crew here.”
He spoke in tones of professional appraisal. “Thanks,” Menedemos answered. “We're Rhodians, remember. We go to sea a lot.” He pointed to the mouth of the naval harbor, which lay just northwest of the great harbor. A trireme was coming out, all three banks of oars manned, each stroke enviably smooth. Not lifting his hands from the steering oars, Menedemos pointed toward it with a thrust of his chin. “Most of my men have rowed in one of those, or else in a five.”
“I hadn't thought of that,” Euxenides said. “Now that I do, though, I see that you could put together a formidable little fleet.”