took the Syracusan soldiers across the narrow channel to the merchant galley's berth in the Little Harbor, their stroke suggested that this was the first time they'd ever handled oars in their lives. Sostratos was embarrassed. Menedemos, plainly, was mortified. He couldn't even yell at the men without making them all look even worse to the Syracusans than they did already. Menedemos cursed in a low voice as he boarded the Aphrodite. But Sostratos' exasperation melted away as sailors loaded the peafowl chicks and their cages into the boat. He even tossed the two Syracusans a drakhma each, more in sympathy with them for having to deal with the birds than as a tip for getting him and Menedemos back to the akatos unrobbed. 'Thank you kindly, O best one,' one soldier said. The other waved and grinned. The boat's crew took them back to Ortygia. The channel between mainland and island was narrow enough to let them escape misfortune. As the crew returned - still rowing most erratically - Sostratos said, 'It's a good thing they didn't have to do anything difficult.' 'What's so good about it?' Menedemos growled. He screamed at the men in the boat: 'You idiots! If you're on your own polluted time, I don't care what you do, you whipworthy rogues. I'll do it right alongside you, as a matter of fact. But you've got no business - none, not a dust speck's worth - getting drunk when you know you're going to have to do something important in a little while. Suppose Sostratos and I had been running for our lives. Could you have got us away safe? Not likely!' The rowers wore wide, wine-filled, placating smiles, like so many dogs that had somehow angered the leader of their pack. One of them said, 'Sorry, skipper. That eclipse knocked us for a loop, it did. And everything worked out all right.' His grin got wider and more foolish. Sostratos thought that a fair excuse, but not his cousin: 'No, it didn't, the gods curse you.' Menedemos' voice rose in both volume and pitch. It got so shrill, in fact, that Sostratos dug a finger in his ear. 'You wide-arsed simpleton, you made the ship look bad. Nobody makes my ship look bad - nobody, do you hear me?' Half of Syracuse heard him. By the way he was shrieking, Sostratos wouldn't have been surprised if Agathokles, somewhere off the north coast of Sicily, heard him. He tried to remember the last time he'd seen Menedemos so furious, tried and failed. It's been a long time since anyone embarrassed him in public, he thought. If the sodden rowers had had tails, they would have wagged them. 'Yes, skipper,' said the one who felt like talking. 'We are sorry, skipper - aren't we, lads?' All of them solemnly dipped their heads. But Menedemos, like a Fury, remained unappeased. 'Sorry? You aren't sorry yet!' He spun toward Sostratos. 'Dock every one of those bastards three days' pay!' 'Three days?' Sostratos said - quietly. 'Isn't that a bit much?' 'By the gods, no!' Menedemos didn't bother lowering his voice. 'One day because they've wasted a day's work with their antics. And two more to remind them not to be such drunken donkeys again.' Instead of getting angry themselves, as they might have done, the men in the Aphrodite's boat looked contrite, as if they were sacrificing their silver in place of a goat in expiation for their sins. That too was the wine working in them, Sostratos judged. 'It'll never happen again, skipper,' their spokesman said. 'Never!' A tear rolled down his cheek.
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