Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

Something else struck him: “Eurydike is Kassandros' sister, remember. He won't be happy if she loses her place.”

“One more reason for a fight, maybe,” Menedemos said.

“Don't the Macedonians have enough already?” Sostratos said. “It's not as if they need more.”

“They're like a gang of pankratiasts fighting it out,” the longshoreman said. “They won't quit till only one's left standing.”

Sostratos thought uneasily of Kleomedes of Astypalaia. He'd slain his foe, and been disqualified for it. Nobody disqualified a Macedonian marshal who killed a rival or a royal heir. Unlike athletes, the marshals advanced their positions through murder.

Menedemos said, “Now that we've put Dionysios ashore here, to the crows with me if I'm not tempted to head straight for Rhodes and not spend even a night.”

Diokles gave him a reproachful look. “Seeing how hard the men worked through the hot spell, skipper, and seeing all the miserable, good-for-nothing places we stopped at on our way across the Aegean, don't you think they deserve one night's fun in a real polis?”

“Oh, I suppose so.” Menedemos donned a lopsided grin. “I may even deserve a night's fun in a real polis myself.”

“Sounds fair,” the oarmaster said. “Except that once over in Aigina, you had yourself a pretty quiet run this year.”

“We were talking about pankratiasts a minute ago,” Menedemos said. “I didn't realize everyone was keeping score on me.” Diokles and Sostratos solemnly dipped their heads at the same time. Menedemos made faces at both of them. Diokles laughed.

And Sostratos said, “Well, my dear, even if you do go out drinking and wenching tonight, I'm glad you sound as though you want to go home. When we set out this past spring, you didn't seem to care if you ever saw Rhodes again.”

Menedemos' face froze—and the expression on which it froze was one not far from hatred. Sostratos took a startled, altogether involuntary step away from him. After a moment, his cousin's bleak look faded ... a little. Menedemos said, “I'd almost forgotten about that, and you went and made me remember.” He sighed and shrugged. “I don't suppose I can blame you much. It would have come back to me when we got into the great harbor.”

“What would have?” Sostratos had known something was bothering Menedemos, but he'd had no idea what. And he still didn't; Menedemos had been unusually close-mouthed—astoundingly so, for him—all through this season's sailing.

He still was. He smiled at Sostratos and said, “However strange and sorrowful you may feel about it, O marvelous one, there are some things you aren't going to find out, no matter how much research you do.”

“No, eh?” Sostratos almost made a crack about going on with his investigations, but the memory of the look his cousin had given him a moment before made him hold his tongue. Whatever reasons Menedemos had for wanting to stay away from Rhodes, he was serious about them.

“No,” he said firmly. Maybe he'd expected a crack from Sostratos and was relieved not to get it, for his manner lightened again. He went on, “Why don't you come drinking and wenching tonight, too? It'd do you good.”

“Me?” Sostratos tossed his head. “Going around with a thick head the next day isn't my idea of fun.” He held up a hand before Menedemos could say anything. “Oh, once in a while—in a symposion, say. But getting drunk in a tavern isn't my idea of fun.”

“Well, don't get drunk in a tavern, then. Get laid in a brothel instead.” Menedemos smiled once more—or was that a leer? Whatever it was, his good humor seemed restored. “You can't tell me that's not your idea of fun, not after that girl in Taras last year, the one with hair like new copper.”

“Every now and then,” Sostratos admitted, “but not tonight.”

“Wet blanket.”

“I am not,” Sostratos said irately. “No such thing, by Zeus! You can do whatever you want. Do I complain about it?”

“Only when you talk,” Menedemos assured him.

Since he was right, or at least partly right, Sostratos tried a different tack: “Did I tell you not to go drinking tonight? Did I tell you not to go to a brothel tonight?”

“Not yet,” Menedemos said.

“Funny man,” Sostratos grumbled.

His cousin bowed, as if thinking he'd meant it. “Thank you very much.”

That evening, most of the sailors, and Menedemos with them, went into Kos to revel. “Try not to drink up all our profits, anyhow,” Sostratos said as Menedemos strode up the gangplank.

“You sound like the pedagogue who took me to school every morning when I was a boy,” Menedemos said. “But you haven't got a switch, and he did.”

Sostratos spent the night aboard. He ate bread and olives and cheese and a fish he bought from a little boy who'd caught it at the end of the pier, and washed the supper down with wine. If I wanted to get drunk, I could do it here, he thought. If he wanted a woman . . . He tossed his head. He wouldn't have cared to do that aboard a ship, even one called the Aphrodite.

He got little sleep. Drunken sailors kept reeling back to the merchant galley at all hours. At some point, Menedemos must have come back, too, though Sostratos didn't remember that. Morning twilight was beginning to make the eastern sky turn pale when he jerked awake yet again at a snatch of drunken song and found Menedemos snoring on the planks of the poop deck beside him.

Sunrise woke Sostratos for good. It also woke his cousin, who looked none too happy about being awake. “If I jump into the sea, do you suppose I'll turn into a dolphin?” he asked. “I'm sure dolphins don't get hangovers.”

“By the way your eyes look, I'd say you were more likely to turn into a jellyfish,” Sostratos answered. “Was the good time you had worth the sore head you've got now?”

“From what I remember of it, yes,” Menedemos said, which wasn't the conclusion Sostratos had hoped he would draw. Menedemos peered through half shut eyes at a couple of well-dressed men coming up the quay toward the Aphrodite. “What do they want? Tell 'em to go away, Sostratos. I don't want anything to do with 'em, not this early in the morning.”

“Maybe they're passengers,” Sostratos said.

“Tell 'em to go away anyhow,” Menedemos answered, something Sostratos had no intention of doing.

His intentions turned out not to matter. One of the men said, “Menedemos son of Philodemos and Sostratos son of Lysistratos? Come with us at once, if you please.”

There was breathtaking arrogance. “Who says we should?” Sostratos demanded.

“Ptolemaios, the lord of Egypt,” the man answered. “He assumed you would come peaceably. If not, we can make other arrangements.”

“What does Ptolemaios want with us?” Sostratos asked in surprise.

“That's for him to tell you, not me,” his man answered. “Are you coming?”

Sostratos dipped his head. After a moment, so did Menedemos. He ran his fingers through his hair to try to make it a little less disheveled. “I'm ready,” he said, seeming anything but.

By all the signs, the tramp through town did little to improve his spirits. He paused once to hike up his tunic and piss against a wall. City stinks—dung and unwashed bodies and tanneries and all the others—were nastier away from the breezes of the harbor. His squint got worse as the sun rose higher in the sky.

When he came before Ptolemaios, he gave only a perfunctory bow, muttering, “My head wants to fall off.”

“You should have thought of that last night,” Sostratos said out of the side of his mouth. Menedemos sent him a horrible look.

“I hear you're thieves,” Ptolemaios said without preamble.