"You ask me, any fox that tried to catch a peafowl would be sorry a heartbeat later." Sostratos kicked at the golden sand. Now he was annoyed at himself. Theophrastos would have had something sharp to say about irrelevance. Of course, Theophrastos had something sharp to say about almost everything. Sostratos went on, "I don't mean here, especially not at night. But they ought to have the chance to get some exercise while we're at sea, where they couldn't possibly escape."
"No, they can't escape at sea, that's true - not unless they jump into the drink," Menedemos allowed. "But they're pretty stupid, so they might do just that. And I'll tell you something else they'd do: they'd drive the rowers mad. Or do you think I'm wrong; O best one?"
His withering sarcasm failed to wither Sostratos, who answered, "Most of the time, we haven't got a full crew on the oars, nor anything close to one. The men who aren't at the benches could fend them off the ones who are."
"Maybe." But Menedemos sounded anything but convinced.
Sostratos shrugged. "You're the captain. It's up to you. But if the birds do come down sick, that's in your lap, too."
"No. That's in the lap of the gods." Menedemos gulped his wine and glowered at Sostratos. "Are you sure about all this?"
"No, of course I'm not sure," Sostratos answered, more than a little exasperated. "Unless you break your leg or something, a proper physician isn't sure what's wrong with you nine times out of ten. But I'm telling you what I've noticed."
If Menedemos was drunk enough or cruel enough to tell him where to head in, he could walk across Syme to the little town at the north end of the island and hire a fishing boat to take him back to Rhodes. He could . . . but he couldn't. The Aphrodite carried his family's wealth no less than Menedemos'. If he abandoned that investment while fearing Menedemos would make a hash of things with it, neither his own father nor Uncle Philodemos would ever forgive him. And how could he blame them for that? He couldn't.
But how could he stand Menedemos' berating him for doing what he was supposed to be doing and doing it as well as he could? He was every bit as much a free Hellene as his cousin. Slaves had to take abuse; that was one of the reasons no man wanted to be a slave. He waited, grinding his teeth from nerves.
By the look on Menedemos' face, he was about to let fly. But then, eyeing Sostratos, he choked back whatever he'd been on the point of saying. He took another swig of wine from his mug instead. When he did speak, he had himself under control again: "All right. I suppose we can try it, at least when the weather's good and we're in waters where we don't have to worry about pirates. But the birds go back in their cages the instant anything even starts to smell like trouble."
"A bargain," Sostratos said - a great gust of relief. "Thank you."
His cousin shrugged. "Every now and then, I'm tempted to forget why you come along when I take a ship out." His grin was on the nasty side. He'd given Sostratos what he wanted; now he would try to make Sostratos pay for it. And Sostratos, having won the point he had to win, was willing to put up with more than he would have otherwise. Then Menedemos surprised him by adding, "Even if I am tempted, I'd make a mistake if I did it."
Sostratos stared, Menedemos usually amused himself by giving him a hard time, not by paying him compliments. He did that so seldom, in fact, that Sostratos concluded he had to mean this one. He bowed. "Thank you, cousin."
"You're welcome." Menedemos' eyes glinted. Maybe it was just the firelight, but Sostratos didn't think so. And, sure enough, his cousin went on, "See how much you thank me when you're trying to round up the peafowl in a hurry because it's starting to blow a gale."
That didn't sound like anything Sostratos much wanted to do. Still . . . "I'd sooner chase them than throw them over the side with rocks tied to their feet so they'll sink."
"Oh, you're right, no doubt about it." But that glint remained in Menedemos' eyes. "Remember what you just said. It's the sort of thing the gods like to listen for."
Several sailors dipped their heads in agreement. Sostratos thought of himself as a modern, well-educated man. Unlike the sailors - even unlike his own cousin - he didn't get most of his ideas about the gods from the Iliad and the Odyssey. But what Menedemos said had a horrid feeling of probability to him, too. He spat in the bosom of his tunic to turn aside the omen.
"You don't do that very often," Menedemos remarked.
Sostratos answered with a shrug: "We're on the sea now. Diokles said it - things are different here."
"I know that," Menedemos said. "I'm surprised you're willing to admit it."
