Sostratos dipped his head. After a moment, so did Menedemos. He ran his fingers through his hair to try to make it a little less disheveled. “I'm ready,” he said, seeming anything but. By all the signs, the tramp through town did little to improve his spirits. He paused once to hike up his tunic and piss against a wall. City stinks—dung and unwashed bodies and tanneries and all the others—were nastier away from the breezes of the harbor. His squint got worse as the sun rose higher in the sky. When he came before Ptolemaios, he gave only a perfunctory bow, muttering, “My head wants to fall off.” “You should have thought of that last night,” Sostratos said out of the side of his mouth. Menedemos sent him a horrible look. “I hear you're thieves,” Ptolemaios said without preamble. “No, your Excellency,” Sostratos said. Menedemos said nothing, but cautiously dipped his head to show he agreed with Sostratos. I'm going to have to do this by myself, Sostratos thought, annoyed at his cousin for being useless here. But who would have thought Ptolemaios would want us? Be fair. “No, eh?” the Macedonian marshal rumbled. “That's not how Dionysios tells it, and I agree with him. Fifty drakhmai from Cape Sounion to here? That's piracy.” “Piracy? No, sir. By the dog of Egypt, no, sir!” Sostratos said. Ptolemaios raised a bushy eyebrow at his vehemence. “I tell you it is.” “And I tell you you're talking like a fool. . . sir,” Sostratos retorted. Both of Ptolemaios' eyebrows flew upwards. A couple of his bodyguards growled ominously. Sostratos didn't care. He was past caring. Rage almost choking him, he went on, “I'll tell you what piracy really is. Piracy's really a pack of howling whoresons swarming onto your ship and killing your men and stealing your goods, your . . . your most precious goods.” He'd thought some of the pain from the loss of the gryphon's skull had eased. Now it stabbed him again. “It happened to us between Andros and Euboia. So Furies take your precious Dionysios if he calls us pirates. Nobody held a knife to his throat and made him come along with us. He could have taken any other ship he chose.” Furies take you if you call us pirates. He didn't quite say that to Ptolemaios, but it hung in the air. A vast silence fell over the andron. Some of Ptolemaios' servitors stared at Sostratos. More eyed the lord of Egypt. How long has it been since anyone called him a fool to his face? Sostratos wondered. Years, probably. Something glinted in Ptolemaios' eyes. Amusement or anger? Sostratos couldn't tell. The marshal said, “If you think you can insult me as you please because you come from a free and autonomous polis, you're badly mistaken.” Sostratos made himself meet the older man's stare. “If you think you can insult us as you please because you rule Egypt—” “I'm right,” Ptolemaios broke in. “You may be right, sir, but are you just?” Sostratos asked. “The last time we were in Kos, you said you wished you'd gone to Athens and met Platon. Would he have called that just?”
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