'I thought so then,' Menedemos answered, shrugging. 'A little too late to worry about it now, wouldn't you say?' 'A lot too late.' But Sostratos didn't sound amused or indulgent. 'When will you grow up?' Menedemos grinned at him. 'Not soon, I hope.' 11 Menedemos sat in a tavern not far from the little Harbor, drinking wine of the best sort: wine he hadn't bought. Even now, half a month after the grain fleet came into Syracuse, its sailors had trouble buying their own drinks. The polis had been hungry; now it had sitos and to spare. Menedemos wondered how long the gratitude would last. He was a little surprised it had lasted this long. He might have been able to get his wine free even if he hadn't brought grain into Syracuse. Like a lot of wineshops, this one gave sailors and merchants cups of the local vintage if they told what news they'd heard and so drew customers into the place. His tales of the wars of Alexander's generals could well have kept him as drunk as he wanted for as long as he wanted. He was going on about Polemaios' defection from his uncle, Antigonos, when a panting Syracusan dashed into the tavern and gasped, 'They've landed! They've burned their ships!' He looked around. 'Am I the first?' he asked anxiously. 'That you are,' the tavernkeeper said, and handed him a large cup of neat wine as the tavern exploded in excited chatter. 'Who's landed?' Menedemos asked. 'Why, Agathokles has, of course, not far from Carthage,' the Syracusan replied. Menedemos started to ask, How do you know that? It was, he realized, the kind of question likelier to come from his cousin. Before it could pass his lips, the new arrival answered it: 'My uncle's cousin is a clerk on Ortygia, and he was bringing Antandros some tax records when the messenger came in.' 'Ahhh,' went through the tavern. Men dipped their heads, accepting the authority of this source. Menedemos wondered what Sostratos would have thought of it. Less than most people here did, he suspected. Another question occurred to him. Again, someone else anticipated him, asking, 'Burned the ships, you say?' 'That's right.' The fellow with news dipped his head. 'It was six days from here to Africa, a long, slow trip around the north coast of our island, made slower by bad winds. Our ships were getting close to land when they spied the Carthaginian fleet right behind them - and the Carthaginians spied them, too.' He could tell a story. Menedemos found himself leaning toward him. So did half the other people in the tavern. 'What happened then?' somebody breathed. 'Well, the Carthaginians came on with a great sprint, rowing as if their hearts would burst,' the Syracusan said. He held out his cup to the tavernkeeper, who filled it to the brim without a word of protest. After a sip, the fellow went on, 'They got so close, their lead ships were shooting at Agathokles' rearmost just before our fleet beached itself.'
Вы читаете Over the Wine Dark Sea
