“I haven't heard anything stirring except for that jackdaw.” Menedemos reached down and felt around under the bed till he found the chamber pot. He stood up to use it, then passed it to Sostratos—Kissidas' hospitality hadn't extended to one for each guest. “Miserable noisy bird,” Sostratos said. “If I could see it instead of just listening to it, I'd try to drown it in here.” He set down the pot. Menedemos shrugged on his tunic. “Let's find the kitchen and seen if we can get some bread and oil and olives, or maybe an onion. Kissidas' slaves will be up, whether he is himself or not. Then we can go back to the Aphrodite , get some sailors to haul things for us, and see what kind of luck we have in the agora.” “And what the Kaunians are selling,” Sostratos said. “And what the Kaunians are selling,” Menedemos agreed. “Never can tell what you'll find in a place like this: things from the town, things from the rest of Karia—and, no matter what Kissidas says, things from the other end of the world. Ever since Alexander kicked the Persian Empire open for us Hellenes, we've come across all sorts of strange things we'd hardly known about before. Peafowl, for instance.” “They were nothing but trouble,” Sostratos said. “Not quite nothing—we turned 'em into silver.” Menedemos waited to see what sort of argument his cousin would give him about that. When Sostratos didn't argue, Menedemos concluded he'd made his point. He went off toward Kissidas' kitchen in a good mood; he didn't win arguments from Sostratos every day. Kissidas himself came into the kitchen just as Menedemos and Sostratos were finishing their breakfasts. “You boys are up early,” he said as he tore a chunk from a loaf of last night's bread. “We've got a lot to do today,” Menedemos said. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we'll get it done.” He was always full of driving energy on the sea, less often on land—when he wasn't chasing some woman or other. But this morning he wished he could do everything at once. “Haven't you finished yet, Sostratos?” Sostratos spat a last olive pit onto the rammed-earth floor. “I have now. I thought you were just my cousin and my captain, not my master.” “Shows what you know. Come on, let's get moving.” He swept Sostratos along in his wake, as the Aphrodite brought her boat along in her wake with the tow rope. Over his shoulder, he called back to Kissidas: “We'll see you in the evening, best one. Wish us luck.” “I do, not that I think you'll need too much,” the olive merchant answered. “Men who push as hard as you do make their own luck.” Menedemos hardly heard him; he was hustling Sostratos out the front door to Kissidas house. Only then did he hesitate. “Now—to find the harbor.” Kaunos' streets did not run on a neat grid. In fact, they ran on no pattern known to geometry. This was an old town, unlike modern Rhodes, which had gone up only a century before, and whose streets went at right angles to one another. “As long as we go east, we're fine,” Sostratos said. “The shadows will tell us which way that is.” “Good enough.” Menedemos laughed. “I usually steer by the sun out on the sea, not here on land. But you're right—it should work.”
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