He whirled to help his comrades. Moskhion and Teleutas were both fighting hard. Sostratos didn’t see Aristeidas among the rocks and didn’t have time to look for him. “Eleleu! Eleleu!” he shouted, dashing toward the pair of Ioudaioi besetting Teleutas.

Either the war cry or the sound of running feet was enough to discourage them. They ran like their companion. “I never thought we’d pay so dear,” one of them cried as he fled.

“We must have angered the one god,” his friend said.

Robbing travelers who’ve caused you no harm might do that, Sostratos thought. He and Teleutas turned on the pair Moskhion was holding off with his pike. Suddenly, Hellenes outnumbered Ioudaioi. The last robbers ran off, too. One of them also loudly wondered why their god had forsaken them. Sostratos understood him, but knowing Aramaic hadn’t mattered at all in the fight.

As quickly as that, it was over. “Aristei-” Sostratos began.

He heard the groan before he finished the sailor’s name. Most likely, Aristeidas had been moaning behind a boulder a few cubits away ever since he went down, but in the heat of the fight Sostratos hadn’t paid any attention. Now, with his own life not immediately in danger, he gave more heed to things around him.

So did the other Rhodians. “That doesn’t sound good,” Teleutas said. He was bleeding from a cut on one arm and a scraped knee but didn’t seem to notice his hurts.

“No,” Sostratos said, and scrambled over the rocks till he came upon the Aphrodite ’s lookout. His breath hissed from him in dismay. “Oh, by the gods,” he whispered.

Aristeidas lay on his side, still clutching with both hands the shaft of the spear that pierced his belly. His blood ran down the smooth wood and pooled on the stony ground under him. It also poured from his mouth and from his nose. Every breath brought another groan. He was dying, but not fast enough.

From behind Sostratos, Teleutas said, “Pull out the spear, and that’ll be the end of it. Either that or cut his throat. One way or the other, get it over with.”

“But-” Sostratos gulped. Killing enemies from a distance with a bow was one thing. Ending the life of a shipmate, the bright, sharp-eyed sailor who’d been on the way toward turning into a friend, was something else again.

“He can’t live,” Teleutas said patiently. “If you haven’t got the stomach for it, young sir, move aside, and I’ll take care of it. It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”

Though Teleutas was obviously right, Sostratos might have argued further. But Aristeidas, through his pain, managed to bring out a recognizable word: “Please.”

“Do you want to do it, or shall I?” Teleutas asked again.

“I will,” Sostratos said. “It’s my fault he came here. I’ll tend to it.” Despite his words, he gulped again. He knelt by Aristeidas and tried to get the dying sailor’s hands away from the spear that had drunk his life. But Aristeidas wouldn’t let go. Sostratos realized a death grip was something real, not a clichй of bad tragedy.

“Pull it out,” Teleutas urged again. “He can’t last more than another couple of minutes after you do.”

“No.” Sostratos tossed his head. He knelt beside Aristeidas, lifted the sailor’s chin with his left hand, and cut his throat with the knife in his right. Some of the blood that spurted from the wound splashed his fingers. It was hot and wet and sticky. Sostratos jerked his hand away with a moan of disgust.

Aristeidas thrashed for a little while, but not long. His hands fell away from the spear. He lay still. Sostratos turned away and threw up on the dirt.

“No blood-guilt to you, young sir,” Moskhion said. “You were only putting him out of his torment. He asked you to do it. Teleutas and I both heard him along with you.”

“That’s right,” Teleutas said. “That’s just right. You did what you had to do, and you did it proper. You put paid to three of the robbers, too, all by yourself, and I guess you drove the fourth bastard away. That’s pretty good work for somebody who’s not supposed to be much of a fighter.”

“Sure is,” Moskhion agreed. “You’ll never have trouble from me anymore.”

Sostratos hardly heard him. He spat again and again, trying to get the nasty taste out of his mouth. He knew he would, before too long. Whether he ever got the blackness out of his spirit-that was a different question. He looked at Aristeidas’ body, then quickly looked away. His guts wanted to heave up again.

But he wasn’t done, and he knew it. “We can’t bring him back to Sidon,” he said, “and we can’t get enough wood for a proper pyre. We’ll have to bury him here.”

“Cover him with stones, you mean,” Teleutas said. “I wouldn’t want to try digging in this miserable, rocky dirt, especially without the proper tools.”

He was right, as he had been with putting Aristeidas out of his pain. Before beginning the work, Sostratos cut off a lock of his hair and tossed it down on the sailor’s corpse as a token of mourning. Moskhion and Teleutas did the same. Teleutas yanked the spear out of Aristeidas’ belly and flung it far away. Then the three surviving Rhodians piled boulders and smaller stones on the body, covering it well enough to keep dogs and foxes and carrion birds from feasting on it.

By the time they finished, their hands were battered and scraped and bloody. Sostratos hardly noticed, let alone cared. He stood by the makeshift grave and murmured, “Sleep well, Aristeidas. I’m sorry we leave you on foreign soil. May your shade find peace.”

Moskhion let a couple of oboloi fall through the gaps between the stones toward the corpse. “There’s the ferryman’s fee, to pay your way over the Styx,” he said.

“Good.” Sostratos looked west. The sun stood only a little way above the horizon. “Let’s get moving, and keep moving till it gets too dark to travel or till we find a campsite that’s easy to defend. And then… tomorrow we’ll push on toward Sidon.”

Menedemos busied himself about the Aphrodite , fussing over where the jars of crimson dye he’d bought from Tenashtart were stowed. He moved them farther aft, then farther forward. He knew they wouldn’t affect the akatos’ trim very much, but he fussed over them anyhow.

The amphorai of Byblian wine posed a more interesting problem. He had fewer of them, but each was far heavier than a jar of dye. And he couldn’t properly test the merchant galley’s trim till he got out onto the open sea any which way.

Diokles said, “Seems to me, skipper, you’ve got too much time on your hands. You’re looking around for things to do.”

“Well, what if I am?” Menedemos said, admitting what he could hardly deny. “I don’t feel like going out and getting drunk today. As long as I’m messing around here, I may get something useful done.” Or I may change things again tomorrow, he thought. If he did, it wouldn’t be the first time.

The oarmaster tactfully didn’t point that out. Maybe Diokles assumed Menedemos could see it for himself. He did say, “Time kind of wears when you stay in one port all summer long.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Menedemos dipped his head. “I had the same thought not so long ago.”

One of the sailors pointed toward the base of the pier. “Look! Isn’t that-?”

“By the dog of Egypt, it is!” Menedemos exclaimed. “There’s Sostratos, and Moskhion and Teleutas with him. Papai! Where’s Aristeidas, though?”

“Don’t care for the look of that,” Diokles said.

“Neither do I.” Menedemos ran along the gangplank from the Aphrodite to the quay, then down the planks to his cousin and the sailors. “Hail, O best one! Wonderful to see you again at last, after you’ve tramped the wilds of loudaia. But where s Aristeidas?”

“Dead,” Sostratos said shortly. He’d lost weight on his travels. His skin stretched tight over the bones of his face. He looked older, harder, than he had before setting out for Engedi. “Robbers. Day before yesterday. Spear in the belly. I had to put him out of his pain.” He slashed a thumb across his throat.