that.' 'I suppose so,' Sostratos said. 'We'd have a hard time getting along worse than the two of you, wouldn't we?' 'You're as comfortable together as a foot and an old sandal, and you know it,' Menedemos said. 'The two of you fit like that. Do you have any idea how jealous it makes me?' 'No, I didn't, not till you just mentioned it.' Sostratos studied his cousin with an avid curiosity of a small boy seeing an unexpected lizard emerge from under a chunk of bark. 'I'm usually the one who holds things inside, but you've kept that secret for years. Forever, really.' By Menedemos' expression, he wished he hadn't told it now. He said, 'I'm not sorry to get away from Rhodes for months at a time, I'll tell you that.' 'I can see as much,' Sostratos said judiciously. He set a hand on Menedemos' shoulder. 'We won't be back for a little while yet. Nothing happens in a hurry on the sea. Even when we were fighting that Roman trireme, we seemed to be moving as slowly as if we were in a dream.' 'Not to me,' Menedemos said. 'It all happened very fast, as far as I was concerned. I needed to gauge just the right moment to tug at the steering oars, and it all felt like it happened in a heartbeat. That's the sweetest sound I ever heard - our hull riding up and over that polluted whoreson's oars.' 'If you think I'll argue, you're mad,' Sostratos said. 'That sound meant we stayed free men, and what could be sweeter than that?' He pointed ahead. 'There's Cape Leukopetra, with Cape Herakleion just off to the east.' 'I know, my dear. I saw them quite a while ago.' Now Menedemos sounded acidulous, perhaps because he'd shown more of himself to Sostratos a little while before than he'd wanted to. 'I don't have to change the way the ship is heading this very instant, you know.' 'So you don't,' Sostratos agreed. 'Proves my point - nothing happens in a hurry on the sea.' Menedemos stuck out his tongue. They both laughed. Laughter came easy when they'd made a profit, when they were sailing away from danger and not into it, and - for Sostratos, at least - when they were homeward bound. 'That should just about do it,' Menedemos said as the Aphrodite eased into place alongside a quay in Kroton's harbor. 'I think so, too, skipper,' Diokles said. 'Oop!' he called in a louder voice, and the rowers rested at their oars. A couple of sailors tossed lines to men on the quay, who made the merchant galley fast. 'You were here earlier this summer, weren't you?' one of the roustabouts called. 'That's right,' Menedemos answered. 'We went up the west coast of Italy, and then down to Syracuse with the grain fleet from Rhegion. You've heard how Agathokles landed not far from Carthage?'
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