Ptolemaios' officer shrugged. “The war hadn't come to these parts a year ago, either.”
That held some truth, but only some. As he had at Knidos, Sostratos said, “It's not our war. We Rhodians are free and autonomous and neutral.”
“Kos is free and autonomous, too,” the officer said. Sostratos almost laughed in his face. Free to obey Ptolemdios, he thought. Autonomous as long as it does what he wants. The fellow said nothing whatever about Koan neutrality,
Menedemos had been drumming his fingers on the mismatched steering-oar tillers for a while, too. Now he inquired, “Do we pass muster?”
“I suppose so,” Ptolemaios' officer said grudgingly. Then, as the fellow aboard the war galley had done, he asked, “Have you really got a tiger skin aboard?”
“By the dog of Egypt, we do,” Menedemos answered. “Do you want to show him, Sostratos?”
“Why not?” Sostratos said, thinking he shouldn't have bothered rolling up the skin and stuffing it back into its sack after displaying it to the naval officer. As he had out on the Aegean, he called on a couple of sailors to give him a hand. They soon had the skin stretched out.
Not only the officer but his retinue and the usual gaggle of portside loungers crowded up to the edge of the quay for a good look. We ought to charge a khalkos or two for a peek, the way we did with the peafowl last year. Sostratos thought. The officer stared and stared. “It's a ... very big beast, isn't it?” he said at last.
Seeing the hide shown that way made it seem even bigger than it was. Sostratos gravely dipped his head even so. “Bigger and fiercer than a lion,” he said. He had no idea whether a tiger really was fiercer than a lion. He did know this hide was bigger than either lion skin aboard the Aphrodite.
When he started to stow the skin in its sack once more, the officer sighed as if sorry to have to come back to the mundane world, “All right, Rhodians,” he said. “Good trading here in Kos.” He turned and walked back down the quay, his hangers-on following. Some of the loungers drifted away, too. Others crowded forward, hoping for something else new that might make interesting gossip.
They were disappointed. Perfume and balsam and papyrus and dye were much less interesting than tiger skins. Again, no one had said a word about emeralds—Sostratos hoped nobody would, not here—and the gryphon's skull remained in its wrappings. This wasn't the place to take it out.
“At least they're still willing to let us trade,” Sostratos said.
“Once we talk them into it, yes,” Menedemos said. “I wonder how much longer they will be, though. I don't know which is worse for people like us; pirates prowling as they please or war among the marshals.”
Sostratos eyed his cousin in some surprise. Menedemos didn't usually think in such terms. Sostratos said, “They go together. If the marshals weren't warring, someone would put down the pirates. As things are, the marshals use them, and so they flourish.”
“You're probably right.” Menedemos waved around the crowded harbor. “Ptolemaios could put them down if he had a mind to. He's got the fleet for it right here. So could Antigonos, though his ships are more scattered. But who does the pirate-hunting around these parts? Our little Rhodes, that's who.”
“If one of the marshals won, he might care more about proper rule for the lands he held.” Sostratos sighed. “But they've been fighting among themselves ever since Alexander died, and even the truces they've made haven't been much more than breathing spells.”
“No end in sight, either,” Menedemos said. Sostratos wished he could have argued with his cousin, but he clipped his head in agreement instead.
Whitewash AND marble and bright tile roofs against the lush green of springtime made Kos one of the prettier cities around the Aegean—indeed, around the whole of the Inner Sea. Menedemos hurried down the quay from the Aphrodite, Sostratos close behind. “I even remember how to find old Xenophanes' place,” Menedemos said. “Two streets in, turn right, three streets over, and it's right across from the boy brothel.”
Like Rhodes, Kos city was built on a sensible grid. It was an even newer town than Rhodes. The earlier polis on the island, Meropis, had lain in the far southwest, but an earthquake and a Spartan sack during the Peloponnesian War had put paid to it. The new polis looked forward to Anatolia, not back toward Hellas.
Going two streets up and three streets over produced no sign of the silk merchant's establishment—or of the boy brothel, either. Menedemos dug his toes into the dirt of the narrow street. “I'm sure that's how we got here,” he muttered. “Remember? Last year we had to pay somebody an obolos to tell us the way.”
“I remember,” Sostratos said. “In fact, I remember the fellow saying three streets up and two streets over. If we go up one more street and back to our left...”
“I'm sure it was two up and three over.” Menedemos looked around, then shrugged. “But it couldn't have been, could it?” He gave his cousin a glance half respectful, half rueful. “AH right, my dear, we'll try it your way. I know you've got the same nose for details as a fox does for chickens.”
One block farther up, one block back to the left, and there was the boy brothel, with the slaves lounging about in an anteroom open to the street, waiting for whoever might want them. Sostratos didn't say, I told you so. Menedemos wished he would have; he would have preferred it to the smug expression Sostratos wore.
The house across from the brothel was also familiar. Menedemos knocked on the door there. Before long, a plump Karian opened it. He smiled at them. “Well, if it isn't the gentlemen from Rhodes! Hail, both of you. Welcome. Come in.” He spoke almost perfect Greek.
“Hail,” Menedemos said, stepping forward as the Karian slave stood aside to let him and Sostratos into the house.
“How are you, Pixodaros?” Sostratos asked, Menedemos smiled. His cousin did have the nose for details. He'd come up with the slave's name the year before, too. Menedemos had heard it and promptly forgotten it again. Sostratos went on, “And how's Xenophanes these days?”
Pixodaros' expressive black eyebrows leaped toward his hairline. “Haven't you heard—?” he began. But then he shook his head, proving he remained a barbarian no matter how long he'd lived among Hellenes. “No, of course you wouldn't have, for it happened a couple of months after the end of the sailing season. Xenophanes took sick with an inflammation of the lungs and died. He had no living children of his own, you know. In his will, he was kind enough to manumit me and leave me his business.”
“I... see,” Menedemos said slowly. Such things happened all the time. If his father, or Sostratos', had been childless ... He didn't want to think about that. What he did think was, / won't forget Pixodaros' name now.
“Here we are.” The slave—-no, the freedman—led them to the parlor where they'd dickered with Xenophanes the year before. He waved them to stools. “Sit down, best ones.” He called for a slave to bring wine. The year before, he'd done it himself. When the wine came, he splashed out a small libation. “My master had more than seventy years when he died. We'll be lucky if we match him.”
“That's so.” Menedemos poured a little wine onto the floor in Xenophanes' memory. So did Sostratos. Menedemos glanced over to his cousin. Both our fathers are past fifty. How long will they live? How long will we live? He shivered, as if he'd heard an owl hoot in daylight, and took a long pull at the wine. Again, Sostratos did the same thing. Maybe he was thinking along similar lines. Menedemos wouldn't have been surprised. Such thoughts fit his cousin better than him. I'm not made for looking deep, he thought, and drank again.