'We don't need that much,' Menedemos said, 'for we'll be putting in to real ports most nights.' 'I know, but we do need some, and we haven't got it yet,' Sostratos replied. 'There will be nights when we just haul the ship up onto the beach wherever we happen to end up, and there may be storms.' Menedemos spat into the bosom of his tunic. Diokles had on only a loincloth, so he couldn't turn aside the omen that way. But he wore a ring with the image of Herakles Alexikakos, the Averter of Evil. He rubbed it and muttered a charm under his breath. 'On land, I'm not particularly superstitious,' Menedemos remarked. 'When I'm about to go to sea . . . That's a different business.' 'You'd best believe it,' Diokles agreed. 'You never can tell with the sea. You can't trust it.' He stopped - and started. 'What's that dreadful noise?' 'Oh, good.' Menedemos spoke with considerable relief. 'Here come the peafowl.' Slaves from his father and uncle's houses carried the caged birds down to the Aphrodite. They'd managed to attract a fair-sized crowd of curious onlookers; men didn't carry half a dozen big, raucous birds through the streets of Rhodes every day. And a good thing, too, Menedemos thought. The peacock wasn't the only one screaming its head off. The peahens were squawking, too, though less often and not quite so loud. 'Where are you going to want these miserable things stowed, sir?' one of the slaves asked Menedemos. He looked to Sostratos. Menedemos was captain; his cousin didn't tell him how to command the akatos. As toikharkhos, Sostratos had charge of the cargo. Since Sostratos was good at what he did, Menedemos didn't want to joggle his elbow. 'We have to keep them as safe as we can,' Sostratos said. 'They're the most delicate cargo we've got, and the most valuable, too. I want them as far away from the water in the bilges as I can get them. We'd better put them up on the little stretch of foredeck we've got.' That made Menedemos frown, regardless of whether he wanted to joggle his cousin's elbow or not. 'Can we stow them there and still have room for the lookout to get up to the bow and do his job?' he asked. 'If he can't see rocks ahead or a pirate pentekonter, a whole shipload of peafowl won't do us any good. If you could stack the cages . . .' 'I don't want to do that,' Sostratos said unhappily. 'The birds above would befoul the ones below, and they could peck at one another, too.' 'Will you make up your mind?' asked the slave at the head of the procession. 'This stinking cage is heavy.' 'Take them up and put them on the foredeck,' Sostratos said, speaking with more decision than he usually showed. 'We'll just have to find out whether there's room up there for them and the lookout, too.' Down the gangplank and into the Aphrodite trudged the slaves. The peafowl screamed bloody murder; they
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