Those screeches drew more people to the pier. With his usual eye for the main chance, Menedemos went up the gangplank and talked rapidly, fluently, and perhaps even truthfully about peafowl. His patter was plenty to send more curious Knidians down to the Aphrodite to take a look for themselves. He collected the khalkoi on the pier; nobody set foot on the galley without having paid. Sostratos remained by the peafowl to make sure nobody tried to poke them with a stick or yank out one of the peacock's tail feathers or do anything else he shouldn't have. He told what he knew about the birds and listened to the locals' news, not all of which he'd heard before.
Men and boys and even a few women kept coming aboard till the sun sank in the Aegean. By then, most of the sailors - everyone, in fact, except for six or eight guards Diokles chose - had gone into Knidos to sample the harborside taverns and brothels. Sostratos reluctantly resigned himself to spending the night on the Aphrodite: only a fool would wander through a strange town at night by himself with nothing but a torch to light his way.
Some of the akatos' crew brought back bread and oil and olives and wine for the men who stayed behind. It wasn't much of a supper, but better than nothing. Alexion happily counted the pile of small change Menedemos gave him. "Better than a drakhma here, sure enough," he said. "Thank you kindly, skipper."
"Thank you," Menedemos told him. "You earned it. The birds will make us money the rest of the trip."
"I heard a couple of interesting things," Sostratos said, dipping a chunk of bread into some oil as he sat on the timbers of the poop deck. "I think we can forget about the peace the four generals signed last summer."
"I don't suppose anyone expected it to last long." Menedemos spat an olive pit into the palm of his hand, then tossed it over the side. Sostratos heard the tiny splash as it went into the water. Colors faded out of the world as twilight deepened and more stars came out. Menedemos asked, "What happened?"
"They say here that Ptolemaios has sent an army up into Kilikia to attack Antigonos there," Sostratos answered. "The excuse he's using is that Antigonos broke the treaty by putting garrisons in free and independent Hellenic cities."
Menedemos snorted. Sostratos didn't blame him. Knidos, for instance, called itself a free and independent Hellenic city, but it did Antigonos' bidding, as did most Hellenic cities in Asia Minor - including those of Kilikia in the southeast. Rhodes, now, Rhodes truly was free and independent . . . since expelling Alexander's garrison. That didn't mean any of the squabbling Macedonian generals wouldn't be delighted to bring the city to heel again.
After another snort, Menedemos asked, "What else did you hear?"
"You know Polemaios, Antigonos' nephew?" Sostratos said.
"Not personally, no," his cousin answered, which made him snort in turn. Menedemos went on, "What about him?"
"A fisherman told me that a ship came into Knidos from Eretria on the island of Euboia," Sostratos said.
Menedemos impatiently dipped his head. "He's been holding the island - and Boiotia, too: all that country north of Athens - for Antigonos for the past couple of years."
"Not any more," Sostratos said. "He's gone over to Kassandros with his whole army."
"Has he?" Menedemos whistled softly. "I'll bet old One-Eye is fit to be tied. Why on earth would he do a thing like that?"
"Who can say?" Sostratos answered with a shrug. "But Antigonos' sons are grown men - Demetrios especially, though Philippos can't be more than a few years younger than we are. With two sons in the family, how much inheritance can a nephew hope for?"
"Something to that, I shouldn't wonder," Menedemos said. "If Antigonos gets his hands on Polemaios now, though, he'll give him his inheritance, all right: one funeral pyre's worth."
"I wouldn't want Antigonos holding that kind of grudge against me." Sostratos agreed. "And, of course, he'll be at war with Kassandros over this, because it really weakens him in Hellas. I wonder why the generals bothered making their treaty at all."
"It must have seemed like a good idea at the time," Menedemos said. "More often than not, that's why people do things."
There in the twilight - almost the dark, now - Sostratos eyed his cousin. Menedemos might well have been describing himself and his own reasons for doing this or that . . . which didn't mean he was wrong about the generals. Sostratos tried to take a longer view of things. He knew he often failed, but he did try.
"It shouldn't have anything to do with us, not directly," he said. "We won't be heading to the northern parts of Hellas or up to Macedonia, either."
