His cousin tossed his head. “Not in broad daylight. The slaves would notice, and they’d likely blab. Tonight, though… We’ll have to see what he does.” He hurried away. As Sostratos followed, he wondered whether clouting Menedemos over the head with the lekythos he carried would knock any sense into him. Off the evidence he had, probably not. Too bad, he thought. How I wish it would.

Menedemos bowed to Kleokritos. “Here is the oil, most noble one,” he said, pointing to the lekythoi lined up in Protomakhos’ courtyard.

“Ten rows of seven jars, plus one. May Demetrios and his friends enjoy them.”

“That’s a fine-looking phalanx,” Demetrios of Phaleron’s man said with a smile. He gestured to a couple of the men who followed him. Most of them looked to be laborers hired for the day to carry the jars of oil. These two were different: both were better dressed and brighter looking than their comrades. They carried nice-sized leather sacks. More of Demetrios’ retainers, Menedemos judged. Kleokritos went on, “They have your silver for you.”

“Good,” Menedemos said.

“As soon as I make sure it’s the proper amount, you are more than welcome to the oil,” Sostratos added.

Kleokritos’ smile vanished. “You’re not going to count out six thousand drakhmai!” he exclaimed. “We’d be here all day. You don’t think I’d cheat you?”

“Of course not, O best one,” Sostratos said suavely. Menedemos knew his cousin was lying. Kleokritos likely knew it, too. But Sostratos gave him no excuse to protest, continuing, “You have every right to count the jars of oil-and to open and taste them, too, if that seems good to you. And I don’t need to count so many coins. Protomakhos, may I borrow your scale?”

“Certainly,” the Rhodian proxenos replied. At his order, a slave brought out a huge balance. Another, grunting, carried a stone weight. “One talent,” Protomakhos said. “Being in the stonecutting business, I find such large weights useful. This one balances perfectly against the standard talent the officials in charge of weights and measures keep in the Tholos. If you want to go over there, I’m sure the metronomoi will show you that.”

“Never mind,” Kleokritos said sourly, to the obvious relief of the slave carrying the weight. “Set it on one pan of the balance, and I’ll set the silver on the other.”

The slave put the weight on the pan. The men with Kleokritos who had the money set their sacks on the other pan. The scales did not balance. Kleokritos turned a dull red. He took a stout leather wallet from his felt and started feeding coins from it onto the scale: a drakhma, a tetradrakhm-four times as heavy-a didrakhm, another fat tetradrakhm. Altogether, he had to load on more than fifty drakhmai before the weight finally rose.

“There!” he snarled. “Are you happy now?”

“Certainly, most noble one,” Menedemos said. “I know it must have been an accident.” This time, he was the one doing the lying. He didn’t want to embarrass Demetrios of Phaleron’s man any more than he had to. What a coincidence, though, he thought, that Kleokritos happened to have enough money with him to make good the error in case we challenged him. Without the scales, he and Sostratos never would have noticed the payment’s being light by less than one part in a hundred, but half a mina of silver was a tidy sum of money by itself. “Still, we do want things to be right, don’t we?”

“Right,” Kleokritos said. That wasn’t agreement. It was anger coming out in one word. Demetrios’ man said not a word about wine, Lesbian or Byblian. He barked at the Athenians he’d hired. They hurried to pick up the lekythoi and left Protomakhos’ courtyard not so much to escape it as to get away from Kleokritos.

“You boys have more nerve than I would,” Protomakhos said once Kleokritos was gone, too. “I wouldn’t risk offending Demetrios of Phaleron.”

“I like that.” Sostratos’ voice cracked in indignation. “His man tries to cheat us, but we’re the ones who have to worry about offending him. Where’s the justice in that?”

“He’s not talking about justice, my dear. He’s talking about power,” Menedemos said. “In a polis like this, they come from different places. You ought to know that-you lived here for a while.”

“It’s good to see one of you understands, anyhow,” the proxenos said. “Walk soft. If you get in trouble with Demetrios, I won’t be able to do much for you.”

“We’ll be careful,” Menedemos said, thinking, He doesn’t know about Xenokleia, or he wouldn’t want to warn me. He knew which upstairs window looked out from her bedroom. He carefully didn’t glance that way. No point making Protomakhos suspicious when he wasn’t already. Sostratos’ gaze held irony. Menedemos pretended not to notice.

“You’ll probably get away with this without anyone saying a word,” Protomakhos said.

“Because we’re right?” Sostratos asked.

“No-I already told you that’s got nothing to do with it,” Protomakhos answered. “But you’re Rhodians. Ptolemaios doesn’t want to offend Rhodes, Kassandros doesn’t want to offend Ptolemaios, and Demetrios of Phaleron won’t do anything to offend Kassandros. If you came from Samos or Mytilene or some other place Antigonos holds, you’d be wise to get out of Athens before Kleokritos and Demetrios could take their revenge, for they would.”

“Power again,” Sostratos murmured. Protomakhos dipped his head. Menedemos eyed Sostratos with a mix of respect and pity. His cousin could learn, and learn quickly. But he had to reason everything out, one step at a time. He seldom used his heart or his belly to gauge how things worked. It had to be his mind or nothing.

“Tomorrow,” Menedemos said, “tomorrow I’ll take a couple of jars of perfume into the agora and I’ll start shouting about how wonderful it is. Some of the better hetairai are bound to have slaves out shopping for them. Once a slave girl gets a sniff, she’ll take word back to her mistress. Then I’ll see if I can do business with her.”

The Rhodian proxenos laughed. “What sort of business do you aim to do?” He gestured lewdly.

“Don’t you start, if you please,” Menedemos said. “Sostratos was giving me a hard time about taking it out in trade, too.”

“I don’t want you giving the hetairai a hard time,” Sostratos said, “at least not in exchange for the firm’s merchandise. If you’re going to be firm, do it on your own time and pay for it.”

Protomakhos winced, though he was the one who’d started the puns. I won’t have to pay for it if I do it with a wife and not a hetaira, Menedemos thought. But, with Xenokleia the wife in question, that was much better left unspoken.

Turning to Sostratos, Protomakhos asked, “And what will you be doing while your cousin’s out having a good time?”

“I’ve still got truffles to sell, and I’ve got the Byblian and Lesbian,” Sostratos answered. “I think the first thing to do is try to sell the wine to some of Kassandros’ Macedonian officers. Everybody knows how thirsty Macedonians are, and everybody knows how much money they’ve got, too.”

The proxenos chuckled. “That’s a good combination, all right. I wish you both good fortune, and you”-he pointed to Menedemos- “can take that any way you please.”

“I know I can sell perfume,” Menedemos said. “Whether I get to do any buying…” He shrugged. “I’ll find out.”

“You two won’t need the scales any more, will you?” As Protomakhos had a moment before, he used the dual number in referring to Menedemos and Sostratos. That grammatical form was common in Homer’s Greek, much less so in modern Attic. By using it, Protomakhos implied the Rhodians were a natural pair. Menedemos’ eyes flicked toward Sostratos. Sostratos was looking his way, too. Both of them, evidently, were trying to decide whether they wanted to be part of such a pair.

Distracted, Menedemos had to make himself remember the question. “No, O best one. We do thank you for the use of them, though.”