As the akatos sailed past the healing god's shrine—easily visible from the south—Menedemos remarked, “All sorts of offerings in there from people the god cured.”
“And I know just which one in particular you're thinking of, too,” Sostratos said.
“Do you?” Menedemos sounded particularly innocent, which convinced Sostratos he was right.
“I certainly do,” he said: “the Aphrodite rising from the sea that Apelles painted.”
His cousin grinned, unabashed. “A painting of a beautiful girl—a beautiful goddess—with no clothes on is a lot more interesting than all those terracottas of knees or feet that people cured of sore joints or bunions give the god.”
“It does make you wonder what Apelles was cured of, though,” Sostratos said. “The clap, maybe?”
“Scoffer,” Menedemos said. “His portrait of Antigonos is in the Asklepeion, too.”
“So it is,” Sostratos agreed. “Now if the whole Hellenic world could just be cured of not only old One-Eye but all the marching generals.”
Menedemos laughed and clapped his hands. “Now there's a wish, my dear. Too much to hope for, though, I'm afraid.” Sostratos dipped his head in agreement; he thought it was too much to hope for, too. And one thing a love for history had taught him was that poleis didn't need competing marshals to give them excuses to fight among themselves. The wars nowadays, however, were on a larger scale. Thoukydides, who'd reckoned the Peloponnesian War the greatest the Hellenes had ever waged, would have been horrified and amazed at the sheer scale of the fighting among Alexander's successors.
Several of Ptolemaios' fives patrolled the waters outside the harbor of the city of Kos. Sostratos would have been astonished had Ptolemaios not had ships ready to fight on the sea at all times. Kos looked northeast, toward Halikarnassos on the mainland only a little more than a hundred stadia—two or three hours' journey—away. Antigonos surely kept a fleet of his own there, and as surely had ships on patrol in front of his own harbor. Neither general would risk a surprise from the other.
One of those prowling galleys spotted the Aphrodite and came centipede-walking across the sea toward her, three banks of big oars rising and falling in the smooth unison that bespoke a well beaten-in crew. The five was fully decked, her oar-box also encased in timber to protect the rowers from missiles. She mounted a catapult near the bow. Its crew stood by to send darts farther than any archer could. Armored marines, the plumes on their helmets waving in the breeze, strode here and there across the planking.
“You couldn't pay me enough to wear a corselet aboard ship,” Menedemos said. “One slip and splash!—right down to the bottom of the sea.”
“A swimmer sometimes has a chance,” Sostratos agreed.
Before his cousin could answer, an officer aboard the war galley cupped his hands in front of his mouth and bellowed, “You, there! Heave to!”
Diokles looked a question to Menedemos, who dipped his head. “Oöp!” the keleustes called, and the rowers rested at their oars. The Aphrodite slid to a halt, bobbing in the light chop. Sostratos' stomach tried to complain. He ignored it.
Up came the five, a wooden cliff rising from the sea. She had twice the freeboard of the Aphrodite; her deck stood six or seven cubits above the sea. The officer peered down from the deck at the merchant galley. So did her marines, some armed with bows, some with javelins, some with thrusting-spears. “Who are you and where are you from?” the officer demanded.
“We're the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes,” Sostratos answered.
That impressed Ptolemaios' officer less than he'd hoped it would. “All the stinking spies and pirates say they're Rhodians,” the fellow said. “Whose ship is this?”
“My cousin's father's and my father's,” Sostratos said. “Philodemos and Lysistratos.”
By his accent, the officer wasn't a Rhodian. He turned and spoke in a low voice to some of the marines. One of them dipped his head. Asking if they've ever heard of our fathers, Sostratos thought. The answer the officer got must have satisfied him, for his next question was less hostile: “What are you carrying?”
“Crimson dye. Papyrus. Ink. Fine Rhodian perfume,” Sostratos replied.
“Balsam from Engedi. A couple of lion skins. A tiger skin from far-off India,” Menedemos added. He said not a word about the thirteen emeralds in the pouch on his belt. Sostratos would have been astonished if he had. Since they'd been smuggled out of Egypt, these servants of the master of Egypt were all too likely to confiscate them.
Sostratos hadn't said anything about the gryphon's skull, either. His reasons were different from the ones Menedemos likely had. He simply couldn't imagine a naval officer caring about old bones or being able to see that the skull might be valuable.
“A tiger skin?” the officer said. “You show me a tiger skin and I'll send you right on in to the harbor.”
“Just as you say, O marvelous one,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos wouldn't have used that sarcastic formula to a fellow aboard a war galley that could have crushed the Aphrodite like a man stamping on a mouse, but his cousin always liked to push things. Menedemos waved to him. “Show the gentleman the skin, Sostratos,”
“Certainly,” Sostratos said. Menedemos assumed he knew exactly where it was stowed, and Menedemos was right. He got out the large oiled-leather sack that protected the tiger skin from seawater and undid the rawhide lashing holding the sack closed. The rank odor of a not quite perfectly cured hide and, he supposed, of tiger itself wafted out.
A couple of sailors helped him spread out the great striped skin. The officer leaned forward, staring so hard he almost fell into the sea. The marines aboard the galley gaped, too. Finally, the officer blinked a couple of times and seemed to come back to himself. “I'm a man of my word,” he said, and waved toward the harbor of Kos city a few stadia away. “Pass on.”
“Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” Diokles called, beating out the stroke with his mallet and bronze square. As the rowers began to work, the oarmaster aboard the war galley also began his endless chant. Those three banks of sweeps bit into the Aegean. Ptolemaios' galley resumed its patrol, and the Aphrodite glided into the harbor.
Finding a place to tie up took a deal of time and a deal of shouting. The harbor was much smaller than that of Rhodes. It didn't have nearly enough shipsheds to accommodate all the triremes and bigger galleys from Ptolemaios' fleet; close to half of them had to moor at the quays like so many merchantmen. Because of that, space for real merchantmen was at a premium.
Menedemos almost rammed a round ship in his haste to seize a spot near the end of a pier. The round ship's sailors, who stood on deck ready to fend off the Aphrodite with poles, screamed curses at him. The akatos' rowers screamed back, louder and more foully. Since the Aphrodite had five or six times as many crewmen aboard, they shouted down the sailors on the other ship.
As had happened at Knidos, an officer came hurrying up to the end of the quay to question the men of the Aphrodite on where she was from, where she'd been, whither she was bound, and what she was carrying. Sostratos' patience frayed. “No one hounded us like this when we came here a year ago,” he complained.