The sailors cheered when they learned Menedemos intended to sail straight for Rhodes. They wanted to go home, too. When the northerly breeze went fitful, they clamored to take a turn at the oars. Breeze or no, the Aphrodite cut through the waters of the Inner Sea like a knife through meat boiled tender.

With his wounded leg, Kallianax still found rowing painful. Using a spearshaft as a stick, he’d taken his place on the foredeck as lookout. The merchant galley was only a couple of hours out of Patara when he called, “Sail ho! Sail ho, dead ahead!”

“Better not be another gods-cursed pirate, not so close to Rhodes,” Menedemos growled. His hands tightened on the tillers till his knuckles whitened.

That same thought had just crossed Sostratos’ mind. He stood on the poop deck, not far from Menedemos and Diokles. Like both of them, he peered toward the new ship. Having the sun at their backs helped. And… “She’s really closing the distance hand over fist, isn’t she?” Sostratos murmured a few minutes later.

“She sure is.” His cousin sounded worried. “I’ve never seen anything honest move so fast.” He shouted, “Serve out the weapons, by the gods! Whoever she is, she won’t have an easy time with us.”

But then, from the bow, Kallianax called, “She’s got a foresail, skipper!”

“Belay the weapons!” Menedemos called. Any galley big enough to carry foresail as well as mainsail was also big enough to carry a crew that could overwhelm the Aphrodite ’s without breathing hard: was, in fact, almost surely a war galley, not a pirate ship.

Shading his eyes with the palm of his hand, Sostratos said, “What’s that emblem painted on her sails? Isn’t it… isn’t it the Rhodian rose?” He hesitated for fear of being wrong.

But Menedemos, whose eyes were probably sharper than his, dipped his head. “It is, by the gods!” He shouted again, this time in joyous relief: “She’s one of our own, boys!” The sailors whooped and clapped their hands. But after a moment, in more nearly normal tones, he went on, “But which one of our own is she? She’s not a regular trireme, or you’d see marines stomping around up on her decking, and her oarbox would be fully timbered to keep arrows and catapult bolts from tearing up the rowers. But she’s too big and too fast for anything else. What in the name of the gods could she be?”

A lamp went on inside Sostratos’ head. “My dear, to the crows with me if she’s not your trihemiolia.”

“Do you think so?” Menedemos rarely sounded awed, but this, Sostratos thought, was one of those times. “Do you really think so?”

“What else could she be?” Sostratos asked. “She’s very new. Look how pale and unweathered her planking is.”

Whatever she was, she was curious about the Aphrodite . As she drew near, Sostratos saw she did indeed have three banks of oars. Her crew had stowed the rear benches of the upper, thalamite, bank so she could lower mast, yard, and mainsail in a hurry, but those hadn’t come down yet. An officer at the bow called the inevitable challenge: “What ship are you?”

“We’re the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes and bound for home from Phoenicia,” Menedemos yelled back. “And what ship are you? You’re a trihemiolia, aren’t you?”

“You must be a Rhodian, or you wouldn’t know the name,” the officer answered. “Yes, we’re the Dikaiosyne.”

“ ‘Justice,’ “ Sostratos murmured. “A good name for a pirate hunter.”

The officer on the Dikaiosyne went on, “The Aphrodite , you say? Who’s your skipper there? Is that Menedemos son of Philodemos?”

“That’s me,” Menedemos said proudly.

“You’re the chap who had the idea for a ship like this, aren’t you? I heard Admiral Eudemos say so.”

“That’s me,” Menedemos repeated, even more proudly than before. He grinned at Sostratos. “And now I know how it feels to look at my baby, and I didn’t even get a slave girl pregnant.” Sostratos snorted and grinned back.

12

Menedemos walked with Sostratos through a poor, quarter of Rhodes: the southwestern part of the polis, not far from the wall and not far from the cemetery south of it. With a sigh, Menedemos said, “This is the sort of duty I wish we didn’t have.”

“I know,” Sostratos answered. “I feel the same way. But that only makes it more important we do a good job.”

“I suppose so.” Menedemos sighed again.

Skinny naked children played in the street. Even skinnier dogs squabbled over garbage. They eyed the children warily. Maybe they were afraid the children would throw rocks at them. Maybe they were afraid they would get caught and killed and thrown into a pot. In this part of town, they probably had reason to worry. A drunk staggered out of a wineshop. He stared at Menedemos and Sostratos, then turned his back on them, hiked up his tunic, and pissed against a wall.

“O pat!” Menedemos called, pointing to one of the children. He would have said, Boy! to a slave just the same way.

“What do you want?” the boy, who was about eight, asked suspiciously.

“Where is the house of Aristaion son of Aristeas?”

The boy assumed a look of congenital imbecility. Not knowing whether to sigh one more time or burst out laughing, Menedemos took an obolos from between his cheek and his teeth and held out the small, wet silver coin in the palm of his hand. The boy rushed up and snatched it. He popped it into his own mouth. His friends howled with rage and jealousy. “Me! Me!” they clamored. “You should have asked me!”

“You’ve got your money now,” Menedemos said in a friendly voice. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll wallop the stuffing out of you.”

There was language the youngster understood. “Go over two blocks, then turn right. It’ll be on the left-hand side of the street, next door to the dyer’s place.”

“Good. Thanks.” Menedemos turned to Sostratos. “Come on, my dear.

And mind the dog turd there. We don’t want to step in it barefoot.”

“No, indeed,” Sostratos agreed.

They had no trouble identifying the dyer’s: the reek of stale urine gave it away. Next to it stood a small, neat house that, like a lot of homes in a neighborhood such as this, doubled as a shop. Several pots, nothing especially fancy but all sturdy and well shaped, stood on a counter. Menedemos wondered how much the stink from the dyeworks hurt the potter’s trade. It couldn’t help.

“Help you gents?” the potter asked. He was a man of about fifty, balding, with what was left of his hair and his beard quite gray. Except for the beard, he looked like an older version of Aristeidas.

To be sure, Menedemos asked, “Are you Aristaion son of Aristeas?”

“That’s me,” the man replied. “I’m afraid you’ve got the edge on me, though, best one, for I don’t know you or your friend.” Menedemos and Sostratos introduced themselves. Aristaion’s work-worn face lit up. “Oh, of course! Aristeidas’ captain and toikharkhos! By the gods, my boy tells me more stories about the two of you and your doings! I didn’t know the Aphrodite ’d got home this year, for you’ve beaten him back here.”

Menedemos winced. This was going to be even harder than he’d feared. He said, “I’m afraid that’s why we’ve come now, most noble one.” Sostratos dipped his head.

“I don’t understand,” Aristaion said. But then, suddenly, his eyes filled with fear. He flinched, as if Menedemos had threatened him with a weapon. “Or are you going to tell me something’s happened to Aristeidas?”

“I’m sorry,” Menedemos said miserably. “He was killed by robbers in Ioudaia. My cousin was with him when it happened. He’ll tell you more.”

Sostratos told the story of the fight with the Ioudaian bandits. For the benefit of Aristeidas’ father, he changed it a little, saying the sailor had taken a spear in the chest, not the belly, and died at once: “I’m sure he felt no pain.” He said not a word about cutting Aristeidas’ throat, but finished, “We all miss him very much, both for his keen eyes-he was the man who spotted the bandits coming after us-and for the fine man he was. I wish with all my heart it could have been otherwise. He fought bravely, and his wound was at the front.” That was undoubtedly true.