Maybe that was what his cousin had had in mind. Little by little, Athens receded behind the Aphrodite . Sostratos found things with which to busy himself about the ship instead of mooning over the city like a lover over his lost beloved. Eventually, he looked up and saw that it lay far astern. I will come back, he thought, even if it is without the gryphon's skull. For now, though, mundane business: he asked Menedemos, “Are you going to put in at Sounion again tonight?” “That's right. Why?” His cousin gave him a suspicious look. “Do you plan on jumping ship and heading back to Athens even without your precious toy?” “No, no, no.” Sostratos tossed his head. Having taken so many barbs, Sostratos gave one back: “I was just thinking how handy it was that there are still a few places around the Inner Sea where you haven't outraged any husbands.” “Heh,” Menedemos said: one syllable's worth of laughter. But he'd never been a man who could dish it out without taking it. After a moment, he lifted one hand from the steering-oar tillers and waved to Sostratos. “All right, my dear, you got me that time.” Sounion, as far as Sostratos was concerned, remained as unprepossessing as it had been the last time the Aphrodite put in there, a few days earlier. Now, at least, the ship didn't need to be cleansed of pollution (unless adultery counts, he thought), and they had no dead or dying aboard. The setting sun sent gold and orange and crimson ripples across the sea as the akatos' anchors splashed down into the water. A boat rowed out from the hamlet toward the merchant galley. Sostratos had seen the man at the oars before, but not his passenger, a dapper fellow who looked out of place in Sounion. The dapper man hailed the ship: “Ahoy, there! Who are you, and where are you bound?” “We're the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes, and we're heading home,” Sostratos replied. “Told you so,” said the man at the oars in the small boat. The dapper man ignored him. “Will you take a passenger to Kos?” he called. “That depends,” Sostratos said. “Ah, yes.” The dapper man dipped his head and grinned. “It always does, doesn't it? Well, what's your fare?” Sostratos considered. This fellow plainly didn't belong here, which meant that, for one reason or another, he had some urgent need to go east. And so the only question was, how much to charge him? Sostratos thought of Euxenides of Phaselis, and how much they'd squeezed out of him for a much shorter trip. Bracing himself for either a scream of fury or a furious haggle, he named the most outrageous price he could think of: “Fifty drakhmai.” But the dapper man in the boat didn't scream. He didn't even blink. He just dipped his head and said, “Done. You sail in the morning, don't you?” Behind Sostratos, Menedemos muttered, “By the dog of Egypt!” Sostratos couldn't tell whether that was praise for him or astonishment that the dapper fellow—the new passenger, he was now— hadn't screamed blue murder. Some of both, maybe. As for Sostratos himself, he had the feeling he could have asked for a whole mina, not just a half, and he would have got the same instant agreement. He had to make himself remember the man's question. “That's right,” he said. “You pay half then, half when we
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